Crater Lake: The Haunting Beauty and Mysteries of America's Deepest Lake

0:00 So he is thinking, you guys. Rough times. Leaving people concerned about what's going to happen when the last of the old man finally sinks below the deep blue surface of greater lake. Yeah, we should probably be checking on that. Listen, OK, keep your eye on that old man wood. Yes, everyone, keep your eye on all of the old man wood. Make sure it doesn't catch you off guard. Hi, Caitlyn.

0:42 Hi, Cassie. Hi, creepy people. Hello. Well, that was weird. I know. Did you see where I went this way? Like, maybe someone is lurking in the corner watching us. We literally put her in the corner too. Nobody puts baby in a corner. Is that what we're calling, Taylyn? Now her nickname is Baby. Well, she does have like the fresh, faced skin of a fetus. She does. She does. She's trying so hard not to make any noise. You can make noise. It's OK. So we have our editor in the room today. She's coming to visit and watch us perform and be theatrical.

1:24 And even though Co-star told some people not to-- Fuck that. I will never not be theatrical. Yeah. I do feel better about going against just strictly contradicting Co-star's advice. Now that I know it's AI, just righted. I feel like now that I know that a lot of things make more sense, I feel kind of silly for not realizing that sooner. But like we said earlier, it's very synchronistic. Yeah. The day actually I dyed my hair, it said, change your hair. Isn't that weird?

2:05 I feel like it is. And I was like, God, you got this. God. Co-star. Well, anyway, we will do another episode later with Taylyn and so you guys can get to know her. Now that I've said it on the record, she has to do it and she can't get out of it. Right. But in case you didn't know, if you're new here, this is PNW Haunts and Homicides, where we chat about True Crime, the Paranormal, and all things spooky in the Pacific Northwest. Because we live here. That's correct. Also, sometimes we call it the PNW, because we're nasty. We're so nasty. We also do a tarot reading at the end of every episode, just for a little deeper insight into our topic that we do.

2:50 OK, well, let's get started. So I want to talk a little bit about this cool thing that we have on Facebook. But I didn't know that we had until very recently. We have an episode topic suggestion chat on Facebook. OK, yeah. So I didn't know about it. And then I was looking around on there because I don't go on Facebook a lot. So I was like, I probably should look and just make sure no one's hacked me or something. Just in case. Just in case. It's happened before. Yeah. Yeah. So I go on there and I see that there's this little chat. So I joined it. And then one of our moderators, Natalia, she messaged a picture of the Ghosts of Oregon book, which we happened to have behind me on the shelf.

3:39 So I was like, oh, OK, maybe I'll go peek around in that and try to find my next episode topics I did. And just for like, shits and gigs, I was like, hey, what's your favorite story from the book? Oh, just to see maybe get future ideas. And wouldn't you know it? She mentioned the very topic I had already planned on doing. Oh, she gave a couple others too. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That chat is totally brand new and not something that I've told you about before at all. You sure didn't? If you did, I didn't remember. So it could have gone either way. You could have totally said, I told you about that.

4:19 You dumb bitch. And I would have believed you. Yeah, I feel like that's what I'm saying. Oh, you did? Oh, so you did tell me about it. Yes. I don't remember. Yeah. God, I don't bitch. I can't even pick up on sarcasm. Sometimes it just sailed straight overhead to like crash lands, like a San Juan plane. Caitlyn, what? It's really creepy like you just said that. Well, I was just thinking about Colton Harris Moore because that's like recent. But it's still creepy. Why? You only will find out at the end of this episode. OK, great.

5:00 OK, how far up into my chair should my feet be at this point? You're fine for a little while. OK, great. I'm pretty comfortable right now. I'd really rather not move. Yeah, it doesn't get really, really spooky until the end. But I guess our definitions of really spooky are different. So we'll see. Yeah. So trust no one. OK, so let's get into this topic that was so meant to be. Alrighty. The legend of how the magnificent Mount Mazama fell was passed down through generations of the Klamath tribes. Their story tells of a mighty battle between the spirit of the mountain, aka the chief of the below world.

5:47 Oh. And the spirit of the sky, aka chief of the above world. Oh, of course. And like any good story, it involves a beautiful woman, woman, unrequited love, a shouty angry boy with too much power. Red pill. Yes, exactly. And the ultimate sacrifice to put an end to the destruction. Oh no. So basically they came up with a story about how these gods were fighting to kind of explain this eruption collapse of this mountain. OK. I really don't like that. I don't like Greek mythology where the gods are sort of-- like they're far more human.

6:29 And they're like kind of amongst us. And they have feelings and emotions. Yeah. Like they do shit. That's like sometimes really fucked up. And you're like, that doesn't seem super gaudy. They're a bunch of shouty angry boys. They don't get their way. And they fuck shit up. I don't like that at all. I really-- I prefer my new testament, super chill, Jesus vibe. I want-- that's the Judeo Christian. I'm comfortable with that. I mean, they still fuck shit up. I mean, that's true. There's a lot of-- yeah, shouting angry boys involved in that, too. I mean, that's fair.

7:10 I just don't like it when they're like, I'm just going to be a dick today. And I'm here right next to you. So-- But they have to come up with something to explain all these natural disasters that are completely devastating to their people, too. Can you imagine like this giant eruption just faking up your whole life? And then like, how do you explain that, you know? I feel like the problem is exactly that I can imagine it. And I would like not to. Yeah. I can't believe I'm talking about another volcano. I know. I don't know why this-- that's a-- Kind of one of your bugaboos. I don't like it. But this one's cool. So roughly 8,000 years ago, Mount Mazama erupted and collapsed, leaving behind a caldera, that eventually filled with rain and melted snow.

7:59 The ghost of this once magnificent mountain is now called Crater Lake. Oh. Have you been there? I don't think so. No? It's one of the only truly classic Oregon experiences that I don't think I've ever had. It's just really far. It really-- I don't know how far it is because I was a kid when I went. But it is-- Oh, my. So classic that it's on our freaking license plates, right? Like, if you get a Crater Lake license plate-- Sure can. I'm not going to. But you can. I want one. I've always wanted one. But then I was like, wait, no, because I like the tree. I like the trees. Here's no how I feel about trees. Yeah. She's going to-- Tree hugger.

8:41 Yeah, don't call me a treefucker again. I mean-- I'm not going to say that I wasn't thinking it, but-- My camera's being weird. What's it doing? It's slow. Should we stop and restart? I don't know. OK, stop your thing. OK, well, lesson learned. Don't piss off the gods, Caitlyn. Oh, yeah, totally my fault. You might see some technical difficulties in Cassie's video. We had this thing. Switch laptops. It's been a whole thing. Apparently, I can't touch my laptop because it's haunted as fuck.

9:21 Yeah. But you're totally right. It was me. You pissed off the gods. You said you didn't like them, and this is why this is happening. And it picks on you in exchange. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. OK. It knew the soft spot, and it just-- It goes pretty underbelly. Yes. Yeah. I am the underbelly of this equation. So anyway, we're using Chris' laptop, and it's not at all connected to mine. But if I touch my laptop, that's behind it. The video fucks up. Explain this to me. Technology people. OK, so we're going to-- We're going to-- Everyone pray for us. That's embrace.

10:01 That's embrace. Pray to the nice gods for us. OK, so where was I? So this is located in the Cascades in Southwest Oregon. For those of you who have never seen the lake and haven't seen pictures on our social media before listening to this, it is ba-lue. Baloo. It is so blue. Like, the blue is blue that ever blued. You know? Yeah. OK. So I'm sensing a theme with the lights. Yeah, it makes the blue lights. OK. OK. Even some of the first proposed names for the lake were mystery lake, deep blue lake, and lake majesty.

10:44 Oh. So it's very like otherworldly-- The old majesty. And I have some very fun photos that I'm going to text to you guys. They're really old. They're photos from-- [LAUGHTER] Cassie was a little kid with her little baby brother. Just a baby. At crater lake with her family. Oh. Wow. Yeah, it is. Baloo. So blue. These are like scanned actual photos that were developed from film, you guys. OK. I'm just like laughing at my outfit, because I'm wearing like blue camo pants and like a blue shirt that I'm pretty sure was my mom's.

11:26 Oh, yeah. That's a classic look. And I think these are like zip off pants. I think they zip off into capris. But we'll definitely have to share those pictures with you guys, because they're funny. I think so. So why is this lake so blue? Well, I'll tell you, because I Google it. Oh, OK. Well, for starters, she's real deep, like real deep. The caldera depression is about 4,000 feet deep. That's too many. And the maximum depth of the lake recorded in 2000 is 1,949 feet. So that's still like really, really deep for a lake. I'm actually-- I'm comfortable with both of those numbers, actually.

12:09 Actually. It's actually the deepest lake in the United States. OK, that tracks. Yeah. And it's like one of the deepest in the world, too. So she's a pretty big deal. It's just not that deep, you know? Crater Lake would disagree with you. I don't want to stir if I with her. The water is also incredibly clean and clear, since it's like rain and snow melt. It's very clear water. And there's very little pollution up there. And I'm going to read a quote from the Oregon Explorer. Ooh. That will kind of explain the situation better than I could in my own words. OK. Quote.

12:50 Sunlight is able to penetrate deep into the water. The depth absorbs many of the longer rays and reflecting the shorter rays of the white light spectrum. Red light is the longest wavelength, thus gets absorbed. Violet and blue light are the shortest wavelengths, thus gets scattered and reflected back to us. Oh, OK. Scienced. Scienced. Yeah, so that kind of is why it's so blue, because it's so deep that all of the other colors just get absorbed into the water and don't reflect back. Before our technology was so advanced that we could actually measure like with the-- what's it?

13:31 Sonar? Oh, OK. Yeah, yeah. The lake was thought to be bottomless, because no one-- Oh, of course. --if we find the bottom of it. You could dig your way to China. Exactly. Does it go through the other side of the world? That's the vibe. Just keep going. It's just going-- it's like Mel's Hole. Yeah. Haste. Oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Last from the past. The Klamath people even thought of it as like a gateway to the underworld because the whole, you know, the god fighting situation where the chief of the mountain was like the god of the underworld, or the chief of the underworld. I said that backwards but you guys know what I mean.

14:11 And they treated it as a sacred space. Okay. And some believe you shouldn't even gaze upon the water's hypnotic surface. She says after she texts us like multiple pictures of it. They're pictures though. They're not you're not in person. It's different. Okay. Well, suddenly I'm feeling super okay about never having been. But like the water is it's hypnotic, but it's kind of a darker blue than Hpnotiq though. Yeah. I mean Hpnotiq blue. Yeah. It's like a much lighter blue. It's more of like a tropical like white sand beach kind of a blue. I think the blue color can kind of change depending on. Yeah.

14:54 It can go a little lighter, a little darker, but I don't think it would go that light. Yeah. Anyway, back to our story. Right. It was thought that if you gaze too long at the lake, you eventually wouldn't be able to look away. Oh, great. Kind of like when you look at my face. And then I wrote in parentheses in like dark blue. The sentence is going to be really hard to say but make a traumatic. I don't know. Not supposed to be theatrical. You got I'm fucking dead. How did my horoscope know? I can't see if I can get this out on the first try. The stunningly beautiful, but equally deadly depths would lure you to your death.

15:34 Oh, wow. I actually got it though. I said it the first time you did. And that I feel like right now like my body needs to burp and it made me so nervous. I'm like grasping myself like, yeah, we're going to come back to this topic a little later on. Oh, okay. So this is super unfortunately on theme for Thanksgiving. What? So when we came and you know, we did that thing where we kind of took all of the land from the people that that already lived here. Yeah. You remember when that happened. Yeah. So there was a treaty that was signed that was supposed to allow the Klamath tribes to keep the land where Crater Lake was.

16:25 Oh, no. Yeah. And then I guess the lake was too alluring. And we're just like, nah, we got to have it. You guys can't have it. We know we signed a treaty but we're going to take it anyway. You have enough land. You know, we gave you we gave you some you're fine. Yeah. Great. So they took this sacred space. Oh, no. People who really respected it. But you know, at least we turn it into a national park. So that kind of I think that came a lot later. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, a lot after yeah, after they found it. But at least we made it one. So we have like some sort of respect for the land.

17:07 Yeah. Yeah. Great. That's why we call it Turkey day now. Yeah. No, you think well, your land didn't get stolen from you day. Oh, boy. Wait, I'm sorry. What land? I know. Okay. I guess. Yeah. We don't really have any other makes you feel better. Generations later. We also have no land. Not the same. Not going to equate those but, uh, wow. And I guess they can take it from you. If you owe money of some sort. I can still just get your land taken away from you. Also eminent domain. So just like nothing is safe or secure ever.

17:48 And we're just entering a period of time when the conservatives have taken over everything that holds our country together. And I'm sure that will be fine in 1853. John Hillman, along with two other men, we're searching for the last cabin gold mine, which sounds like really cool. I don't know why. I want to go searching for the lost cabin gold mine. It's always a john. You know, yeah. Those very common name is still this. Yeah. Hillman or John, if you're nice. And of course we are. So, so John with the help of his donkey became the first white man to discover crater lake. Don't get donkey. Don't get.

18:39 I can just imagine like their whole journey up there was like track. It was like tracking. Yeah. Yeah. And then all of a sudden he gets to the top and he is like, wow. This must be what Christopher Columbus felt like I discovered something. Yeah. Let me just stuff. Boy, so he's to be clear, the first white man to discover it. Not the first person to discover at all by a long shot. Not by like a lot. No. One source said that he saw a snow white deer with pink eyes on his way there. And I'm like, really care for that. Was that a good omen or a warning?

19:20 I feel like that's a valid question. Like I would need to be there and like feel the vibe. Yeah. Cause a pink deer or not a pink deer, a white deer with pink eyes would be like, could feel like kind of cute. And I think it would be cute. We're going to need a vibe check on aisle three. Let's go back to 8253 and find john and his donkey and go get the vibe check. Yeah. I feel like if I'm time traveling. I just may have other pressing things to do. Yeah. Currently, but that's true. Yeah. Well, I'll be a crater like you can go do whatever you want. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. We just get like a pass and then we both can go and do the things we need. Yeah. And then we'll meet up four years from now. Yeah. Okay.

20:08 That sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh goodness. In the 90s, there were some earthquakes that emanated from the previously thought to be dormant volcano. So like in the late. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was afraid you were going to say that. And I had a feeling that I put my left foot down a little too soon. And you know, you love it and you hate it when you're right. Yeah. So I don't know. It's not very clear if it's dormant or not because there's been like activity. I don't have any for you. I'm so keen. We'll just have to go visit and see if the ground shakes. You know, wow. You're just really living on the edge today. I know I don't like volcanoes. But for some reason, if it's filled with water, I feel okay about it. Yeah. That's totally fine.

21:06 You know what would make this volcano super chill is if it was at the bottom of like a super deep lake with a lot of water that it could just like. It would be like a volcano tsunami. But the water will stop a lot of from coming out, right? Sharknado. Like it is. It's sharknado. It's the sharknado. There's the sharknado of natural disasters. And I for one will not be here for it. Sir, no sharks in the lake, you guys. I'm not saying actual sharks. I'm just saying it's this crazy hybrid that like I don't I don't need that. Well, do you want to move on to something that's kind of more interesting and sciencey real quick before we get into some other stuff?

21:49 I'm tempted to say yes. Crater Lake has no inner out. So it doesn't have like rivers going into it. Nothing is flowing out of it. Yet there's always rainfall like new rainfall and snow melt. But it never overflows despite having twice as much precipitation as evaporation. Suspicious. Yeah. I thought that was like kind of interesting because this was like never really a thought for me. I was just like, oh yeah, it evaporates and it falls back down like that's how it happens. But then I read like the twice. It's like surrounded by trees though. Like is it just the trees like sucking up their like rogue greedy? No, I don't know. That's not it. I have an answer for you. Okay.

22:36 It's because volcanic rock is quite porous. And so it lets enough water through all of the volcanic rock that surrounds the lake to kind of maintain the water level. Interesting. So that's like its own. I can't think of the words like a built-in like filter. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of has its own filter. Just slowly like corroding the volcanic rock, making its way to China. Totally. That's how science works. I mean, except, yeah, I don't know. I was going to make a joke about tariffs, but So crater lake is open all year round. You can go visit it.

23:16 And I imagine in the winter, you'll want to plan accordingly. Have the necessary like winter mountain hiking stuff with you. Chains, chains, make sure you're warm enough. You have enough water. Stuff like that. Don't get don't get stuck in the snow because, um, spoiler alert that has happened. And you can drive around the lake to or take a trolley tour. And there's of course hiking and glorious viewpoints all around. There are some unique islands and crater lake. A love it. On the west side of the lake is wizard island. A door, a double. And no, it's not a Harry Potter theme park.

23:59 Well, that's okay. I feel like at this point, we've all decided as a society that we're just not really wanting to send any more money. JK's way. Oh no, I will send. I'm sorry. I'm not giving up my Harry Potter. You can cancel me if you want to. I don't like her as a person, but you're not taking Harry Potter from me. Oh no. No one's it's in the ether. So it exists. I will go to wizard island and make sure it's not a Harry Potter theme park for everyone. Okay, just to be just to be sure. I haven't checked. That's your crossbar now. But it is a volcanic cinder cone that looks like a wizard hat.

24:41 Oh, and I did send you a picture of it. It is in one of my pictures. I feel like that looks more like a, like a little miniature mountain or volcano. I wouldn't have pictured a wizard's hat wizard hat. I know. Right? Like this was named so long ago and they thought of a wizard's hat, but okay. What I want to know is like how far that is from the bank. Because as you know, I have an overriding desire to climb the islands when I'm near a body of water. It is not attached. You do have to take a boat there.

25:21 Okay, so it's pretty far. So it's not like that other picture that I have where I'm like, I climbed it. And you're not you're not allowed to swim in there like you're without like permits. So I think I maybe talk about this later. I'm not sure. Yeah, you don't want to go swim in there because it's like a very fragile ecosystem. It's very clean. They don't want. They don't want. It's a national heart. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And some people think that wizard island is haunted. People say they see campfires and or smoke on the island. But when ranger search the island for trespassers because you're definitely not supposed to go there at night. They don't find anyone there when they go to search for these campfires that they're seeing.

26:07 Okay. And more importantly, they don't find any like fires left behind. They don't find any extinguish. They find no evidence of any fires or anyone being there. Cause no one's just like chilling out right island. Yeah. That would be kind of weird if they were. It's very remote. Is it weird or is it like a thing that we all want to do? I mean, it might be. So they do both for us to the island. So you can go to the island on a boat. So you can actually go and like set foot on the island. Yeah. Okay. I don't think you're supposed to take your own boat out there. I think you have to know that makes sense. Take their tour or you have to get a permit or something to dive there.

26:50 It's a national park. They don't have like a boat launch. They're like, there is our boat. And that's the boat that you can go on. Yeah. Thank you. And you're welcome. And you definitely can't stay there. You can't camp overnight or anything like that. So there should literally be nobody out there. Yeah. So scene fires is weird. I'm like, are they fires though? Or are they like? Are they lights? Because they say sometimes they see smoke with no fire. Or like, what is that? Like the monster from last. Yeah. That's kind of what I was thinking. It's a smoke monster. Okay. You saw one of those recently. Yeah. And it was totally fine.

27:31 And everybody just moved on and talked about it. Talked about it again. What? There's another island on the southeast side of the lake called Phantom ship Island. That doesn't sound like probably the island I would pick. That's like fun. You don't want to go on a ship. Phantom ship. A phantom ship that you have to get on a ship to go out to Phantom ship. You're not seeing a problem with that. So this was volcanic cone that formed in the shape of a ship. And they call it Phantom because it can appear to disappear at certain angles, depending on the weather.

28:18 Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So it is not like land really. It's kind of just like pointed up like rocks just like in like abtruision. Yeah. Like this. You know, that feels like a word. All right. There's something else about the lake. That does sound truly spooky in all of the ways. Hmm. The old man of the lake. Okay. But it's not really how it sounds. So this old man is actually a log from a hemlock tree that floats upright around the lake. Okay. There is three feet sticking out of the water, leaving the rest of its 30 feet below water.

29:04 So he just literally bobs around like this in the lake all day. Okay. I mean, the whole time you were talking about this and I just want you to picture this because it wasn't a very long sentence, but I'm just like, get off my lawn the entire time in my head on a loop. Honestly, that's kind of the old man's vibe. Oh, great. Okay. You see you picked up on it. Okay. But I wrote this is a real iceberg situation because it's got like three feet sticking out and like 27 feet down below. Down below. Yeah. Was it just chill in there? Dude, nobody knows. We'll talk about it. So the first recorded sighting of the old man was in 1896, but tests of the log show that he is at least 450 years old.

29:53 So he could be older. Super chill. I'm fine with that. And that doesn't necessarily mean he's been floating for 450 years. They just, they almost test it. Worst, just like the log is that old. So they don't actually know how long he's been floating for. Nobody knows why or how the old man stays afloat. There's no roots weighing it down like they see. They see in other places as like there's these trees that will float, but they have like large root systems holding them in place. This one doesn't have that. Okay. So I don't like that. There's nothing else weighing it down. They think that it's possibly because it's been submerged in the cold water so long that it like changes the density and like helps it stay up right.

30:39 A bunch of scientists should I like was glazing over. I didn't really understand. Yeah. But the point is that they don't really know why. That's super chill. It's so creepy. I don't. Okay. Some people think he's the spirit of the lake or a protector of the lake. I feel like that would explain a lot. Once they tried to tie up the old man to the shore so that he wouldn't cause damage to boats because they were doing like submarine searches under the water and they didn't want to like bump into the old man. Okay. So they tried to tie him up. It didn't go well. I was going to say doesn't seem like this is going to end well.

31:20 The calm weather rapidly turned dangerous. And when they release the log, because they're like, well, we can't die now anyway. We might as well like release the log. The weather went back to normal. I don't think they've ever tried it again. Because like don't don't fuck with the gods, you guys. I think he's like one of like definitely a spirit watching over the lake. For sure. Yeah. He's like, actually, I'm in charge here. So I'll thank you to what's that phrase again? Get off my lock. Yes. See? You were picking up the energy. Wow. Obviously floating around in the lake isn't the most gentle of lives, as you can imagine.

32:07 The old man's wood used to protrude like four feet above the surface. But his type appears to be shrinking. Oh no. You hate to see it. So he's gone down like a foot. So he is sinking you guys rough times, leaving people concerned about what's going to happen when the last of the old man finally sinks below the deep blue surface of crater lake. Yeah. We should probably be checking on that. Yeah. They're keeping an eye on it. Obviously it took. It's been there for a long time and it's it's a chunk of foot. So it's got three to go.

32:48 Yeah. So let's do the math on that. Let's figure out how long he's been floating around there. Uh-huh. We don't know for sure. Yeah. Listen. Okay. Keep your eye on that old man wood. Yes. Everyone keep your eye on all of the old man wood. Make sure it doesn't catch you off guard. I'm wondering if the old man ever sinks if like that's when it's going to explode again. Oh. Yeah. Activation. Seriously. I don't know. Okay. So seriously though, like we say this jokingly, but then also with all seriousness, someone keeping eye on the old man's wood.

33:30 Yes. Keep an eye on the activity. I'm like, I'm curious to see if as it gets lower if like the, yeah, the earthquake activity will pick up or are there just like changes to the ecosystem? Or I don't know. Wow. I'm really happy that no one has like snuck on and like trust passed and like done anything bad to him. I don't like, like, stolen him or something, you know? Yeah. That would be such a typical, but very dickish move. But I don't know. Maybe maybe people have tried and like, and they've failed. They've failed. Yeah. Oh, no. Well, this, this whole thing kind of made me think because there's like wood above the surface and there's wood below the surface.

34:17 In the beginning, we talked about the chief of the above world, the chief of the below world. It kind of made me think of as above so below, like that whole relating back to that old, old, old story too for me. I kind of picture a sea saw. It's like almost a battle between the above and the below. I wonder if, if maybe he'll go back up to four feet or something. Yeah. Like, or if he'll just keep sinking. I don't know. There's a little bit more of a traditional haunting at crater lake lodge. Okay. A family stayed there and ended up leaving after the first night, even though they planned to stay two nights.

34:59 Okay. They said that there was a quote overwhelming feeling of doom and dread. I mean, and they put that in like a yelp review or no. This was a comment, I think, on one of the stories about cron like, but yeah. So they made a comment on it about how they just felt this really bad vibe there. And they had to get out immediately, even though they planned to stay another night. They were just like, no, we got to go. Trust your gut. And other people say that there is a ghostly little girl hanging out in the halls there. You know how I feel about this? I do. And I know how you feel about this too. There is a male spirit that frequents the elevator.

35:43 No kids, no men. Everyone. I feel like at a certain point in my just saying like, it's too people. Although a man on an elevator, come on. Tell me that's not creepy. Yeah. I dare you. That's like, okay, still it's an elevator, but like I picked the bear. At least he's not a man that's like hanging out by like the escalator or the stairs, like trying to look up skirts and shit, you know? No. Yeah. God, sometimes I forget about the things we talk about. And then you like, pair it back to me stuff from my episode.

36:24 And I'm like, oh no. Them up skirt. But us. Whoa. Boy. Uh, go. Go, go, go. That was it. Oh, go. Okay. Because of the remoteness of crater lake, there have, of course been big foot sighting. Uh, hey. There's a story of Rangers spotting something large and foul smelling. That's right. I forget he's famously stinky. So stinky. Yeah. Very smelly. No, thank you. You need some ax body spray. Oh, I don't know that that's what we want. Yeah. If you're really stinky, you just cook.

37:04 You can cover it up with the ax body spray. That's how that works. I feel like there's an entire generation of men that have documented that's simply not the case. Means God be better than just his natural scent. I don't know. Okay. Listen, not a sponsor. Maybe, I don't know, maybe try the breeze for breeze. Yeah. Because it does have all that fur. So that the for breeze can like sink into that. Yeah, you're gonna get like the pet one. Yeah. We should go big foot hunting and just be armed with pet for breeze. That's our big, that's how we get the big sponsorship.

37:46 Well, let's get back to the big foot story. Right. So the Rangers that spotted the large foul smelling creature roaming through the woods. They followed it and they had pine cones thrown at them as they got closer, which is like a huge theme through big foot stories. Okay. Yeah. The kind of report. Yeah. It was like he throws stuff at you. Okay. So let's keep going down the cryptid path. Shall we? All right. And talk about the crater lake serpent. Shut the fuck up. Of course, there's a body of water. There's a fucking serpent in it.

38:27 Okay. There's some sort of cryptid creature living in the lake, especially if it's this deep. Do you know what's down there, man? Yeah. It's him and Adele. Rolling. So a woman named Mattie Hatcher was on a boat tour on the lake. When she saw something huge and dragon like swim underneath them, I feel like it's probably fine. I would just ignore that. A huge dragon like serpent was swimming under your boat. Unfortunately, no one else saw it and she tried to tell people about it and they didn't believe her, which is rude. Crazy.

39:07 Yeah. She's just a woman. Why didn't she eat that day? Was she hungry? Honestly, she's hysterical. She's not in a funny way. She's so hungry. She could eat that dragon. [laughter] Okay. What haven't we touched on yet? Oh yeah. UFOs. Oh! So people tend to see UFOs or UAPs as disc-shaped lights flying at incredible speeds and even submerging into the lake. Okay. I was like, well, what does that have to do with the lake? They see them flying around the lake and even like going down into the lake. I wonder if they live in the lake.

39:48 Perfect. Do they come from space or do they come from the lake? That's why it's so deep. Aliens. Man. [laughter] This is starting to sound like the other show. No. We are not like them. I promise. Let's move on to like some sad stuff, unfortunately. I'm so sorry. Cool. As with any other large wilderness area, there are a number of deaths and missing persons cases. In national parties. Yeah. I mean, it happens. We all know. We all know. It's treacherous out there, you guys. That's why I'm like, if you go, make sure you're prepared. Even if you just think you're going hiking for a day, just be prepared for all of the possibilities.

40:34 Yeah. Food, water, blankets, watch your step, you know, those kinds of things. I'm sure there's other things. Oh my god, there was such a sad story. It didn't include it. But some a woman was sitting down on a ledge and fainted and fell off because I think she was like too hungry. She didn't eat enough or something, or she got like too hot or didn't have a water or something. But where she fainted. She fainted. So eat, drink water. I get all of those. I get two, all of those things all the time. And I would literally fall. Don't sit on any ledges. Make sure to sit. I would never. Not close to any cliffs anywhere you could fall off.

41:14 Just sit on the ground. It's so sad and scary. So be careful, everyone. But we're going to talk about something that happened in 1975. 19-year-old photographer Charles McCullar went missing while visiting crater lake to take some stunning winter landscapes. Okay. They searched, but they found no sign of Charles. Charles! I mean, oh no. Until a year later, when two hikers found his remains. A year later. I mean, it was winter. We've talked about it. It's really hard to search for people in the winter. I mean, it feels like it shouldn't be.

41:56 If there's snow on the ground, you should be able to track his movement very easily. I mean, I would keep snowing like, I don't know. It just like covers up your tracks. Maybe. There was a lot of snow. We'll talk about it. Okay. I mean, this is like your territory I'm getting into here. So you should be excited. I mean, is it? Kind of. All right. His remains consisted of only foot bones, broken shin bones, and the crown of his skull, which was found 12 feet away from the rest of him. Excuse me? Which is like animals get to it. That sort of makes sense, but I'm going to talk about some other stuff. Authorities think that he just got lost in the snow, possibly fell down and succumbed to the elements.

42:40 And then animals decided that they needed to eat, you know, it happens. As they do, there was like seven feet of snow on the ground at the time that he went. It's not great to be out there in that deep of snow unless you're like fully prepared. If you've done it a lot, even if you have done a lot before, I feel like people still shit happens. Yes. Oh my god. So many things can happen. Yeah. Watch the Revenant and they'll show you all of the things that can happen. There's so bears that crater lake. There's not? No. There's not. Oh, okay. So we're going with that. No report of bear sightings, just big foot. Totally.

43:21 But Charles's family thinks that the remains point to something more sinister. He was found 12 miles from the trail head that he was planning to take. Remember that seven feet of snow? Yeah. I wrote inches, I pretty sure it's feet. Seven feet of snow and how do you get 12 miles in that? That's a lot of snow. It is a lot of snow. It's a lot of snow. His jeans were on top of the log as if he'd been sitting on it. And inside his jeans is actually where they found the broken shin bones. Yeah, it's fucking weird, dude.

44:01 Okay. Well, here. So I was going to say like there are a lot of famous cases where people may have succumbed to essentially hypothermia and find them naked. Yeah, that's one of the things because his jeans were, his jeans were unbuttoned and his belt was undone as well. Okay. Right. But what they don't find inside the clothes is their bones. Right. So he had, he either was like undressing or because there's more. Trust me. There's more. Okay. But wait. There's more. So I said his jeans were unbuttoned. His belt was undone. His jacket, shirt and boots were never recovered. So those were all missing. I don't know if maybe he like stripped along the way or if the animals like take your clothes.

44:49 I don't know. Okay, but animals don't take your clothes and then delicately place bones back inside of the clothes. Well, I don't know. I feel like he was like on the log and then he was, I don't know if he was just sitting there when he passed away and then all that was left were like his shin bones, but they were also broken. So I don't know if the animals do that. That don't look like a fall. Yeah. But like how did he get on top of the stump? I don't know. It's very weird. Yeah. And his toe or his feet bones were still in his socks, which that kind of makes sense.

45:33 It makes me think of like the feet that are found that wash up on the shore. And they've said that, you know, the bones will stay in there and they will kind of stay intact because they're protected by the -- And we all believe that. For sure. Like your shin bone doesn't stay in the pit. Like that's not the only -- if you were sitting on the log when you died and then animals ravage your carcass, they're not just going to find a singular shin bone in the pit. I'm sorry. No. Yeah. I don't know. I was like thinking that if maybe it was broken enough to where it broke off and then if they drug the rest of like the legs away, if those just stayed in.

46:21 But like I don't know. I'm not trying to think about it that hard either. I don't like it. I don't know. I'm going to be honest. I don't like it at all. But I agree. We do need to know how tight the pants were. I don't know how tight the pants were. I don't have those answers for you. But there is another weird thing that his camera equipment and money were never found either. So he obviously had camera equipment with him. He was traveling. So I'm sure he had money on him. His family kind of think that maybe someone else was involved. Maybe robbed him and that feels like a fair assessment based on the information that I have.

47:04 Yeah. And his brother actually wrote one of the articles I got a bunch of this information from. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. It's so sad. He was like 19 years old just trying to go. It takes some beautiful photos of crater lake. Yeah. He didn't make it. This is so weird though because as you know, I am currently watching six feet under. Yes. And I'm just now at the episode where Ted Mosby in like a pretty sure 1975 drives his slug bug off the road. And his skeleton is then found like whatever point in the show this is like 40 years later.

47:49 Spoiler alert. I'm assuming that I'm the last person on earth to pick up six feet under. Don't know how I miss that boat but. Yeah, it's about a while. Yeah. Here we are. I'm glad you're on the boat. Yeah. Don't get off the boat because the lake is steep. And there's dragons in it. Okay, well now my foot hurts too bad to put it back up. So if you are curious though, there is like a whole. His brother got like all of the police documents. You can like read through them. It's kind of just a lot of back and forth. Like we can't find them.

48:30 That we didn't. Yeah. We found this. But it was the 70s. If you're interested. That link is in the source. I need a drink for this one. This one's a terrifying. A man known as Mr. Cornelius was sight seeing with his wife at Crater Lake. And no one knows why. But out of the blue. Get it out of the blue. That's my last joke because his story is really sad. Out of the blue, he hands his wife his wallet and purposefully slides down the snowy caldera wall down toward the lake. He was presumably trying to unalive himself.

49:13 But he didn't make it to the lake and he just broke his leg. But that one stopped Mr. Cornelius. He continued to the water's edge and tragically proceeded to drown himself. He was very determined. I would say so. And literally nobody knows why. Like you're just having a day with your wife walking in nature and all the sun. You just give her your wallet and then like try to jump. But he didn't really jump. He just like slid down and then just you just go drown yourself. What? Oh wow.

49:55 So I don't know. No, me neither when I read it. I was like, what is this? This isn't something. So there was a lot of stories. I had to I was kind of like trying to Google to make sure I could find other records of the stories because there was one story that I was like that. That doesn't sound right. And I looked and it was like totally not even substantial. Something that happened. Yeah. But this this is in like the records of the lake. Like the Rangers keep like documents. And the story is in those records. So like this happened. Yeah. Yeah. There was witnesses besides the wife.

50:36 There was someone else that witnessed it. It's just it's so weird. Wow. Because I was thinking like, well, maybe if the wife is the only witness, like did she just like push him? You know, like yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't actually happen. But yeah, there was other witnesses and it just it goes back to like that thing where if you stare at the lake too long, it might lure you to your death. Yeah. You know what would be perfect right now. What? If we're not going to, but if we were to cut to a better hell bad. Yeah. Yes. Like this feels like it has to be some sort of like a psychotic episode or a mental break.

51:22 Yeah. That was so sad. And things just get sadder kind of from here. Great. So we're almost done. I promise. Okay. Several planes and even a helicopter have crashed into the lake. Remember what you said at the beginning of this before we started? Something about crashing planes. I don't. I don't know. You're just picking up all the vibes today. That's fine. They think that most likely the pilots that are crashing are seeing the like the mirror like reflection and getting confused on like what's up, what's down. Oh, I hate that.

52:02 It's very scary. That's like flying terrifies me because I always hear about these things where like they lose the horizon. They don't know like what's up and what's down. It's too foggy to see. I don't like it. I mean, but I feel like now in modern aircraft, unless you're flying in a certain type of jet that it likes. They have navigation. Yeah. I don't know. These are recent. Okay. That's that was going to be my follow up question. Okay. So that makes sense. In one of these instances, pilot Dave Nunn was involved in a fatal plane crash.

52:44 His plane vanished from radar near crater lake National Park and was not found until seven years later. 90 miles north of crater lake near Huckleberry Mountain. Do you know Huckleberry Mountain? I mean, I know of it. Yeah. I never heard of it. It sounds so cute. Adorable. His wife, Jean later wrote a book about her experience that night. She had randomly woken up at 9:30 pm with a chill and the feeling of someone touching her leg. She says that she just knew that the plane had gone down and she'd lost her husband. So apparently it wasn't like, I don't think she got creepy vibe from the touch.

53:30 I think it was more just like a, hey, like I'm here. I'm letting you know. Yeah. I am the messenger. And when she called the airport, they did confirm her worst fears. The plane fell off the radar at 9:20 pm. I was like, maybe it's just a dead zone, you know. Yeah, so so crazy that she woke up at the pretty much probably the exact time he was passing away. I just was sad. This is why I never sleep. Well, should we do some tarot? Some crater lake tarot?

54:11 We'll figure out what deck we want to use. That deck. Okay. Okay, we're at the tarot. I'm going to do some shuffling. Shuffling. Ooh. Oh yeah. That was crazy. So we had Taylyn put in some of her energy since she was here for the story. Yeah. Obviously, Caitlyn did. And I did it. That's what I'm doing. [typing] She's fucking showing off over here. She's like, I don't know what this is.

54:52 Okay, like vibrated when my finger touched it. Ooh. So I thought like, okay, that's a pretty good sign, right? Yeah. Seems like it. It is the six of cups. Is what this looks like? Cups? Yeah. We're using my crow deck. It does look like snowy, like kind of like a snowy landscape with trees, but there's also sunflowers. But it does look snowy. Yeah, that's definitely snowy. But then there's sunflowers. Interesting. Upright? Yes. Okay. Keywords are nostalgia, emotional renewal, happiness, and harmony.

55:34 Well, that's great because I was really worried about the stories that were sad. Yeah. This joyful card sometimes shows two children in a garden. It represents reflecting on a time of innocence, contentment, and beauty. Okay. Reflecting. The reflective surface of the lake. Oh, it wasn't last on me. When it shows up, it indicates your revisiting pleasant memories and good times. Knowing that you have been happy in the past can enhance your ability to be happy in the future. Especially if you've undergone a painful experience recently.

56:17 Oh. I don't know how I feel about that yet. So I'm going to keep going. I think it was telling us that we don't need a dwell on the sad stories of the lake. Yeah. I certainly don't need to know how a bone ended up in an empty pair of pants. Yeah. Oh, nothing to see here. A card of emotional renewal, perhaps after a time of unhappiness. The six of cups represents a willingness to share joy with others. You eagerly give up yourself and receive the good things life offers. Through your actions, you express love and caring to people you know. And to the things you value.

57:00 In a reading about money, this card suggests an upswing in your finances. Perhaps after a time of loss or limitation. Is this card about me? Right? This would be such a great card to draw right now for I feel like probably more than a few of us. Well, I was thinking it immediately reminded me of me because I like shared those pictures of like going to crater lake and my childhood and you said there was like something about two kids on it. And definitely nostalgia. Just nostalgia. Yeah. It can represent a joint venture in which you share expenses and profits with others. Sometimes it indicates a debt repaid.

57:43 Oh, okay. I'd love to pay my debt. No, I'm taking it to the grave. Come at me, Sally. That's true. If the reading is about your job, the six upright shows renewed enthusiasm for your work. Perhaps a change offers you more creativity or an improved work environment. So it's definitely picking up energy from you guys. So I'll have to say about that. Developing new skills can benefit you now. In a reading about love, this card shows your overcoming problems in a relationship and renewing positive feelings for one another.

58:28 Sometimes the six of cups can mean reconnecting with a past lover. I mean, I don't think they're going to be reconnecting any of the lovers that we talked about. Seems pretty tragic, like the unrequited love and then the woman who lost her husband and oh, and the other woman who's husband went down to the water, you know. Yeah. Well, that's sad. Maybe in the afterlife. Maybe. I hope so. Yeah. What do you got in that little baby? I don't know. Was there any extra excerpts? Yes. There is.

59:08 Symbol of a kiss. The six of cups in the Rider Weight Smith deck shows a large cup resting on a pillar decorated with an X. X is the Norse rune for love and a symbol we use for a kiss. Aww. I mean, it could kind of just like represent that really strong connection with that woman who just like knew her husband had passed away. Yeah. That's a really good point. I didn't make that connection. I feel like I put too much of my energy in this, you guys. I don't know. Do you want to read this? It's pretty short. Yeah. So the crow returns to the place of his youth in search of finding his inner fledgling.

59:55 Oh. Am I searching for my inner fledgling? I don't know. He stands in a field of cups filling his heart with healing memories of a time that was less complicated. Yeah. All right. If, oh, okay, I just had this thought just now. It's like we got cups, which is water. Yeah. That was fitting. Yeah. Definitely. If you have been feeling overburdened with the day-to-day responsibilities, the six of cups brings a message to take a break and remember a moment in time when you felt free just to enjoy life. Whether it's a trip to your hometown or maybe your favorite vacation spot, it's time to recharge your spirit.

1:00:37 My spirit is recharged. We definitely talked a lot about the spirits of the lake and we should probably recharge your laptop. I mean, my laptop is charged. It's over there fully charged doing a thing. We're leaving it alone because it's not happy with me right now. I wouldn't touch her. Don't touch it. Well, should I point out some of the cute little things I put on the altar? Yeah. So it's kind of hard to see. Or, obviously, I got my little alien candle here. Hello. Obviously, I put the woodblock out because the old man, hello. Clearly.

1:01:18 What else? Oh, this is petrified wood. Ew. This is my little toothless dragon made of obsidian because of the serpent like dragon. I was like, well, I'll bring my... The symbolism is rich obsidian and that's like from volcanoes, right? Yeah, huh? I think this is like lava rock. It's pretty pointless. Yeah. You know? lava rock. Chris has actually a whole bracelet that I made out of lava rock. Those are where you put like the oils, the essential oils on them. Yeah, he was like, I don't want that. But he did want the lava rock.

1:01:58 He just want to smell like a hippie. No. Turns out no. I tried. This just looks like a lake. I thought it was cool. It does. It reminds me of all of your photos from the lake. Yeah, that's beautiful. I'm glad that we talked about this pretty lake that has good memories for me at least. And even though we didn't talk about a lot of like really good things, I hope it made everyone else feel good. I think crater lake by and large for most people is a happy place. Yeah. It is very nostalgic. I feel like it makes sense that it picked up on... I feel like maybe it's more of a general vibe than it is necessarily specific to any...

1:02:41 I mean, there are elements that apply to a couple of the different stories that we talked about. But I feel like it's the energy of the lake overall. Yeah. And that is deep. So deep. 1949 feet deep. At least. At least. Well, I think we should get out of here. Yeah. I'm super hungry. Yeah. It's Thanksgiving week. Y'all and Thanksgiving is all about food. Yeah. So we talked about the other things. We don't need to talk about it again. I know. Yeah. No, thank you. Yeah. No.

1:03:22 No. We ate a salad. We did. And that was delicious. And... Now we need to go have real food. Yeah. Now we need some more food. Yeah. Garlic bread though. Yeah. Have a creepy ass day. See you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. Or, you know, maybe we'll... I was going to say maybe we'll hop back on with our garlic bread boats. No. Boats! Boats! You take garlic bread boats to the lake. Boats and hoes. That's how we should get to the island to Wizard Island. We should take our garlic bread boat and then we'll be safe. I have bad news about that.

1:04:02 They are very small. We'll build a bigger boat out of the garlic bread boats. Okay. Yeah, I think we can do this. We should go because it's going to take a minute. Okay, old man, we're coming for you and we're going to bring you an offering of garlic bread. I mean, who doesn't like that? Caitlyn. I can't to see the video where you go ���boats!" I'm on a boat! (laughs) pnwhauntsandhomicides.com