Chris & Adam vs The Unknown
Longtime friends Chris and Adam discuss spooks, spectres, monsters, aliens and all sorts of cryptids that stem from eyewitness accounts and folklore. How much of it is true? They take it all head on and give their opinions!
Email us at ChrisandAdamPodcast@gmail.com
Chris & Adam vs The Unknown
Red Ghost
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In this episode, Chris & Adam dive into the bizarre legend of the Red Ghost, a mysterious camel that terrorized the Arizona desert while reportedly carrying the remains of a human on its back. We’ll separate the history from the folklore, examine the strange witness accounts, and explore how a very real Army experiment became one of the Old West’s strangest legends. But first, we take a quick detour into a couple of Fringe Headlines involving celebrity exorcisms and a warning from a man that claims to be a time traveler.
Near the end of the show, Chris also mentioned his book "Wood Ape". If you're interested in reading it, you can find it clicking here.
Email us at chrisandadampodcast@gmail.com
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The theme music for the show was provided by Fesliyan Studios.
All right, welcome to I guess we'd call it episode one of Chris and Adam versus the Unknown. We formerly uh Ghostcasters, correct? Correct. How long has it been since we we did Ghostcasters? It's been a while.
SPEAKER_00It's been at least four or five months, uh, maybe even six months.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say, I think it's longer than that.
SPEAKER_00I can't remember if we did one in March. I know we did one in February, but I can't remember if we did one in March or not. Uh we went out and tried some other different things, and we just came back to this idea because this was the most fun that we had when we did it. So came back to this idea. But we're changing it up a little bit. So if you want to explain that to the people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we used to just talk about ghosts. And and of course, there may be a lot of people listening to this that never heard ghost casters, and that's fine too. But uh in the previous uh show that we did, and we did it for a few years. I mean, we talked uh I don't even remember how many hauntings we talked about and how many and we went places and we you know we did our own little I hate to call them investigations, but I guess that's what they were. Um but uh honestly we would go to them uh honestly just trying to prove that there was nothing there. But as time went on, it got harder and harder to find new hauntings, new information, because what we used to do, you would do a history segment, I'd talk about the haunting, and it was just getting harder and harder to find um good content. So we still like that kind of stuff. We're just opening it up some more, more paranormal stuff. So now we can talk about aliens, we can talk about damn leprechauns, you can talk about you can talk about sewer um alligators in the sewer. I mean, we can talk about whatever we want to talk about now, if it's in that uh that paranormal or unusual realm, uh Bigfoot. Uh we the the door's wide open now. There's so much more uh that we can do that we couldn't do uh last time. So with that in mind, the format is very, very similar. Um, I don't think Adam's gonna be talking so much about history every time. He will sometimes, if if it if it's applicable and there's something history related, Adam will most likely cover it. But uh Adam will have a segment, I'll have a segment, and then basically at the end we're just gonna talk about our thoughts on it, whether or not we believe it's real or or just a bunch of hogwash. Um as if you had listened to ghostcasters before, then you probably remember we also would cover uh we what we would call ghost news. Uh we'd go over news uh related to to ghosts and demons and things like that. And and now again that this new format opens that up as well. And we're gonna continue with that. And I think that's a good place for us to kind of shift gears and change now. We've got two news stories. Uh we'll call these uh fren headlines uh what can we call them? Fringe headlines, maybe. Uh in that uh in the in the paranormal world. So you go first. What do you have? And and usually these news stories we try to find just really ridiculous stuff. Um so what do you have?
SPEAKER_00Well, this one is pretty ridiculous for the most part there. Um this comes to us from Us Weekly, and it the title of the article is Stars Who Claim They've Had Exorcisms. Kaya Gerber, Kesha, and more supernatural, uh more share supernatural experiences. Now, I've never heard of Kaya Gerber. Have you heard of her?
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's Cindy Crawford's daughter.
SPEAKER_00I knew it was Cindy Crawford's daughter, and I really didn't realize that because of her, but I knew she married Randy Gerber, so I and then I saw this picture of her. I've never heard of her. It says that she started in the shards, and I was.
SPEAKER_01Well, she was also on a season of American Horror Story, if I'm remembering correctly.
SPEAKER_00I have never watched a season of American Horror Story.
SPEAKER_01Well, some seasons are good, some are are pretty lame. I thought the one that she was in was decent, but I've certainly heard of her. You can definitely tell uh I think she favors her mother. Uh she does when she looks a lot like her mother. Now, Kesha, Kesha kind of uh Kesha's I've I've always suspected she was possessed by something.
SPEAKER_00Well she's had you know she's had a long past and she's had a history uh I think she's been sexually abused several times.
SPEAKER_01Well damn, way to make me feel like way to make me feel like shit about it. Well, I mean I I I do think she's got some other stuff going on there, but I don't want to diminish that, you know, sometimes she seems anytime we've done stories like this where and I make fun of a celebrity, you almost always come back with some kind of sob story and trying to make me feel like hell about it.
SPEAKER_00Um Well, I I apologize for that, but I I know I it it is a sense of topic because I do think that she I know she made several accusations. I think some of them stood up, some of them haven't. I mean, I think she made accusations against Diddy. Uh, and uh I think she made accusations against a couple other people too. But like I said, um the story just talks about their experiences with exorcisms. Um Kaya, I think's how you say it is Kaya, correct?
SPEAKER_01Uh you're talking about Cindy Crawford's daughter? Hell I guess. I I just know I remember her last name is Gerber. I don't remember much else about her.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think her first name is Kaya, because it's K-A-I-A. Um, and it goes on to say who she is. And um she was on a show in Australia, and she said that she was possessed, she was told she was possessed as a child, she was haunted her whole life. She endured an exorcism in the midst of an alleged demonic possession in order to cleanse her ailing spirit. Um she goes on to say, Do you know how they did the exorcism? They played a didgeridoo all over me, which if you're unfamiliar with a didgeridoo is, it's the Are you saying it right?
SPEAKER_01Because you know, you have a history of saying shit wrong.
SPEAKER_00I think it is didgeridoo. Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_01I'll take your word for it. Isn't that some Australian instrument or something?
SPEAKER_00It is. If you've ever seen like um uh the Aborigines that put this thing goes.
SPEAKER_01No, that's a great impression of it, by the way.
SPEAKER_00Anyway.
SPEAKER_01I thought you had one in the room and was playing it.
SPEAKER_00No. Anyway, she said she never talked about it, but it actually did happen. So I'm I'm assuming that this, you know, since it was in Australia, they did it in Australia and this interview is happening in Australia. I don't know if Randy Gerbin's Australia. No, Cindy Crawford's not, so I don't know if that has something to do with it. All I remember is like I wondered how he got her, and then it was always about how um, you know, he was like, I think he owned nightclubs and things like that. So but anyway, so that's that's Kai's part. Then Kesha says, This is a little more um to me, a little more unbelievable, but to, you know, other people there.
SPEAKER_01Not with Kesha, surely not.
SPEAKER_00For her part, she once claimed she underwent a vaginal exorcism after allegedly having sex with a ghost.
SPEAKER_01Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00I think CD finds these stories and sends them to me just after we have.
SPEAKER_01Hang on, I swear to you, I had no idea that that was in the story. I just saw it was two celebrities talking about uh demonic or uh exorcisms, and I had no idea she had a uh a demon in her vagina.
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't know if she had a demon in her vagina, well, I guess she did because she had sex with a ghost.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so at one point there was a demon in her vagina.
SPEAKER_00So I'm gonna go through some uh double entendres here to see if you pick them up. Uh it seemed to be accurate though, because and this is what Kesha said. She's talking to Jimmy Kimmel. Uh she said this in 2013. It seemed to be accurate because I've been going through a dry spell. Uh she said that a hypothetist has used a so-called a so-called ghost meter to cleanse her soul. So I was like beeping around. Now it all makes sense. So um those are the two stories there. She goes on to say, I know it sounds like the most ridiculous story, but I went to my healer and she told me because of my job, I exude injury. Uh, and then they performed the industry. Um she eventually goes on to say, now this happened nine l years later after she had uh uh uh initially said this, she wasn't actually intimate with the supernatural inner uh entity. I was in Texas, Fort Worth, and I had something wake me up while I was in bed with my boyfriend at the time as a touchdown the body. I woke up and looked at the end of the bed, and there was an apparition of a woman. So, full disclosure, I never actually slept with a ghost, but she did wake me up in a very sensual way.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so this wasn't even a male demon.
SPEAKER_00No, and she, like she said, she goes on to say, but this happened nine years after the original interview where she kind of says she had the vaginal exorcism and everything like that. Um, so other famous stars who have said that they've experienced this, David Bowie. Uh he said that he sought an exorcism after he claimed he encountered Satan in an indoor swimming pool.
SPEAKER_01Um In an indoor swimming pool. Satan was going for a swim, had the pool all to himself, and Bowie shows up uh and is like, get the hell out of the pool. I was here first.
SPEAKER_00Well, he says he walks in other worlds and he realized that this time it was time to get out of his terrible lifestyle, uh, and then it was time to pull myself together. And uh so they go on to talk about some other famous exorcisms. Um they talk about Destination America. Uh it's a television show, and it actually aired a live exorcism in October 2015 at a real life uh the real life St. Louis home that inspired the exorcism. Um so they just talk about some of those famous exorcisms there, and uh they but I really think Cesh is standing out for us. Um I know, man, it's been so long since we've talked about her, but I know you're gonna remember her name. What is it Bronte? Is it Bronte?
SPEAKER_01No, you're talking about the one that gives married the ghost? Yes. What was her name? I I I don't remember. We'll have to look that up. But yeah, I know exactly who the hell you're talking about. I'm sure she'll come up at some point. We used to do news stories. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And you know, I guess I should this is a good time for me to say this. We have this catalog of all these shows that we did for Ghostcasters, and we'll probably occasionally sprinkle them in throughout uh this this new format that we have. If we want to have a ghost episode, we'll probably just throw one of those in. So you'll probably hear uh about her at some point. But keep going. I'm gonna see if I can look up what her name was.
SPEAKER_00Well, that was really the most part there, but they do talk about the the uh the exorcism that was filmed. Uh they say that that truth is the the truth is stranger than fiction. Uh there's never been more true in the case of the exorcist house. Uh the real story was so much more horrifying than the book or movie depicted, making it one of the most terrifying places in America. So exorcisms, and like I said, I I'm assuming if you're listening to this podcast, you probably know what exorcism is. It is a uh is a um, I think it's mainly Catholic, but Christian religion uh or Christian um Christian Christianity-based religions where they try to expel demons, bad spirits from a human body. Um and so, you know, of course, the exorcism has been a very popular movie throughout the years. So most people probably know about it, uh, but like I said, that that's just talking about there. But um, hi Gerber, like I said, um go watch her new show, The Shards. I don't know anything about it. I've just seen a lot of preview for it on uh Disney Plus. Uh and then Cash, I don't know what she's up to. Uh like I said, she's probably recovering from her years of mental abuse. I mean, I CG went off and said, you know, you try to make her feel bad, but I think she did have a lot of problems, so I don't want to make it make light of it, but um I think, you know, like she said I think she tried to roll back that image. She was always that crazy party girl, but I think she tried to roll that image back her last few years.
SPEAKER_01Well, I what I said was you were making me feel bad. Anyway, her name was Bricard. Bricard, and remember she married this Victorian soldier named Eduardo. Eduardo, she caught him flirting with someone else and divorced him. Yeah. Um that's the last we heard of her. But I'm sure she's gonna come up. All right, so now to my my story. Um, so I've got one that uh, well, I'll just read the headline. It's from AOL News, by the way. Um the the headline uh is humanity given catastrophic news from time traveler from the year 6491. So the the masked man, he would he wouldn't show his face, uh, but he says uh his name is James Oliver, and he claims to come from a far-off galaxy and says that he is now marooned on Earth. Now, this supposed time traveler warns that climate change's catastrophic effects are pushing humanity toward total disaster. He maintained that rising temperatures will spark fairly large problems and environmental issues in the years ahead. Uh speaking from an undisclosed location to paranormal investigators at YouTube channel panorama elite, James blamed the emergency on a mix of natural forces in mankind's actions. He said, Quote, I'm not particularly well learned in this area, but knowing the outcome, I will say that it seems to me it is a combination of both. So to a degree, there is a part of it that you cannot control. Time is a river, you know. You cannot change the direction of a river by throwing pebbles into it. But you can get closer, right? I would say that being wary of environmental concerns is a big deal of what's going on in the immediate future. So uh this time traveler guy, he's very philosophical. Uh he also criticized modern politics, contending that that uh partisan divisions are blocking real answers from taking shape. He urged nations across the globe to come together in tackling the climate emergency. He said, quote, politics, good lord, it's like the politics of the world has taken a nosedive off of the idiot tree and smacked every branch on the way down. You know, for a time traveler from another galaxy, he does seem very well versed in a lot of our uh metaphors and things. Uh, don't you think? I mean, what are the odds that in 6491 they're still using uh metaphors like uh you know uh falling out of the idiot tree and smacking every branch on the way down? What are the odds?
SPEAKER_00You would think slim to none, but you never know. I mean, by that time we're even using language as we're using it now, and so I mean, just think about uh how quickly language changes with us.
SPEAKER_01So you you so you think it's possible that this dude travels?
SPEAKER_00Certain things are, but you know, like when we grew up, I would say radical, you know, and people today would think, well, that's a math term, or that's uh uh that's uh what you call um Islamic terrorists or radicals. So, you know, but when we were kids, we said that's totally radical.
SPEAKER_01And people thought that was, you know, so I think that was not that long ago when you compare it to 6491.
SPEAKER_00I understand it's been the thousands of years into the future. So like I said, they might not even be in using language, it may be all telepathic communication by that time.
SPEAKER_01Well, James had previously appeared on the YouTube channel Apex TV, attempting to can convince audiences that he's a a genuine time traveler. Yet there's precious little scientific proof supporting the notion that humans can actually travel through time. Uh William Hiscock, uh William Hiscock, okay, uh, a physics professor at Montana State University, told Scientific American that we haven't cracked the code on this technology just yet. Uh he explained that time travel into the past, which is what people usually mean by time travel, is a much more uncertain proposition. There are many solutions to Einstein's equation of general relativity that allow a person to follow a timeline that was would result in hit in her or him encountering himself or her grandmother at an earlier time. The problem is deciding whether these solutions represent situations that could occur in the real universe or whether they are mathematical oddities incompatible with known physics. And I don't know what the hell that just that what that meant. Um, but enough about that. So the time traveler says, hey, we better start taking care of the environment, or uh there could be some severe consequences. Uh I don't believe that at all. What what is what's the noise going on in the background when you're in?
SPEAKER_00I think it's like an alert on my phone. There's been bad weather rolling in this way.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, well, why don't you mute that shit?
SPEAKER_00I turned it off. But um, you know, I one of the things I was looking at, you know, he said like time is like a river, and I was trying to think. I thought that was a Garth Brook song when you were saying that.
SPEAKER_01It probably is but again, what there that that's a that's a a present day.
SPEAKER_00Current day metaphor. I get you.
SPEAKER_01This guy's from 6491 from another galaxy, and he's coming over here using them like that like it's just part of his uh you know, part of his daily routine or something. Um anyway, enough about that. That's our fringe headlines for the week. Uh so this week, uh I I said that we used to do a podcast on Ghosts called Ghostcasters. So how fitting is it that our very first episode of Chris and Adam versus the unknown is called The Red Ghost. Or it's about the Red Ghost. Have you ever heard of this before I sent you this?
SPEAKER_00I had never heard of this before you sent this, but I I the the some of the stuff in it is not that unknown to me in terms of like uh people trying to bring animals over here and trying to do some of the stuff with them that are mentioned, but this specific story I had never heard.
SPEAKER_01All right, well, get us started on it. Tell us uh where where does the story of the Red Ghost begin?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so it actually begins with one of the strangest experiments in American military history. Um, the United States Army attempt to use camels in the American Southwest. Now, if you're unfamiliar with the American Bonkers. Well, um it really not though. So what do you know about the American Southwest?
SPEAKER_01Well, I know where it's located on a map. Okay, what's the case? It's a lot of desert. It's a lot of desert. Is that what you're trying to say?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so those camels, you know, they're they're specifically designed to be able to survive in harsh desert climates. Right. And I believe that that was the thought process here. We'd bring these camels over here. Uh, they would be uh better suited than horses for traveling through the desert. Now, when you sent me this story, the thing that stuck out to me is that this happened in the 1850s, which if you know your history, the 1850s or before 1865, actually probably know math, you probably know that. But the 1850s was the time before the Civil War. And the person at this time who was the Secretary of War was Jefferson Davis. Uh now, me and you probably know who he was, some of our listeners may not. He ends up becoming the president of the Confederacy. Yeah. Um, and and me and CG, we're not going to talk about this too much, but the state we live in was actually uh part of his home. Uh, he has a home uh on the coast here in Mississippi called Beauvoir. And uh is that that's how you say it? You just laughing. But what did you say? I can't ever say it correctly, but it's a French name for beautiful something, and it's a real big tourist attraction uh down there. But anyway, so Jefferson Davis came up with this. So they imported dozens of camels from the Middle East and established U.S. Camel Corps at Camp Verde, Texas.
SPEAKER_01The Camel Corps.
SPEAKER_00The Camel Corps. Um the experiment actually worked surprisingly well. Like I said, they could carry handle loads, they could travel long different distances, survive with less water, and eat vegetation that horses and mules often would not touch. They were used on expeditions to the southwest, including surveying trips led by Edward Beal. The problem really wasn't the camels, it was the Civil War. Once the war began, the Army abandoned the experiment, and the remaining camels were sold, released, or otherwise dispersed. Some disappeared into the southwest, and reports of feral camels continued for years. See, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01I had no idea that at one point in this nation's history we had damn camels running around out there in the West.
SPEAKER_00Well, going back to what I was talking about there, um being I I don't do this much anymore. I I still enjoyed to do it, but I just don't have the time to do it, like hunting and things like that. Uh, a lot of people have brought in species from other countries here uh for them to hunt and things like that, like red stag and uh different types of deer and stuff, like especially out like in Texas and places like that. And people go out there and they pay to hunt these animals that are not native to America. Um, and then you I'm sure most people are probably familiar with the animals in the Everglades down there, like uh uh pythons and uh boa constrictors and things like that that have gotten loose throughout the years in the Florida and have iguanas? Iguanas, that's right, that's another one, and they have thrived in that climate down there. So, um, like I said, it's not uncommon for animals to become loose and things like that, but you usually think of like camels, that would be they're so big, they're it's like you know um you know that there's places now that still have wild horses and stuff but that's pretty uncommon most places you go um I watched this guy he hunts a lot um his name is his his name of his YouTube channel is Deer Meat for Dinner and actually he went to a place in the um I can't remember it's like the Philippines squam over there I can't remember what they're called but there's a set of islands up there they actually have wild cows and stuff and he hunted a cow killed it cooked it and everything like that it's real interesting but anyway getting back to the story they they let these camels free and they go through uh that's this is where the story of the red ghost comes in sometime in the late 19th century people in Arizona territory began reporting sightings of a large reddish colored camel roaming through the desert the animal was described as wild difficult to approach and almost impossible to catch. Since everyone knew the army had previously used camel in the region the existence of feral camel wasn't particularly impossible. What made this particular camel legendary was what people claimed have seen on its back. According to the most famous version of the story the camel was once seen carrying the remains of a human being strapped to its back. Exactly what happened and whether the story occurred exactly as later accounts described it is difficult to establish. The story was repeated as embellished over the year and eventually invenable became became known as the Red Ghost.
SPEAKER_01Wow so it had a so a dead body is strapped to the back of the camel and it's just wandering through the desert with the with the decomposing human being strapped to it is what you're saying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah and and so the way that the myth goes as far as I could tell is that it was a skeleton. Let me ask you this now I tried to look it up and I did not see if if you had to make a comparison to a superhero what superhero do you think this might be? Because this was my immediate thought what Ghost Rider? Ghost Rider but he's on a damn camel Adam well I understand but you if you remember the ghost rider movie there was an old ghost rider that rode a horse so um do you know what a camel sounds like the noise they make no I do not so this is what a camel sounds like and I want you to think about a superhero riding this it does sound scary it sounds scary as hell yeah um and so imagine that coming at you with a skeleton you know and I think this goes along you know I think the time there that was you know that's part of the story when it goes along with this because think about like the headless horseman and stories like that. I think a lot of people uh use that kind of as you know how how they related uh in our old show Ghostcasters we would talk about like haunted cars and how people would see that I think that that myth has kind of grown up and gone along with other things as it's gotten older. But the most important thing is separating history from legend. We know the army really brought camels to America we know they were used in the Southwest we know how the experiment ended and that camels were subsequently found wandering in the region. What becomes much harder to prove is the exact identity of where it goes and especially the story about the human body. It's possible that one particular camel became famous after Bizarre encounter it's also possible that several sidings of feral camels eventually became one story and it's possible that a real incident involving a body was exaggerated as a story that's passed from person to person eventually in a newspaper. But that's really where the historical records end and legend begins. We now uh we have a very real historical explanation for why a camel could have been wandering around the Arizona desert what we can't completely exact uh explain is how a camel became the terrifying creature known as the red ghost so uh Chris now is going to tell us a little bit about um well about the red ghost let's just get much deeper into the legend of of the uh red ghost so just to to recap what you just said the un the U.S.
SPEAKER_01government really did did bring camels to America that happened there's no debate about that as wild as that is uh they really did try to train them and use them in the southwest and to Adam's point the the the climate over there kind of um they fit uh and it made a lot of sense uh but after it ended uh there really were camels that continued to wander around the desert so the basic premise of the Red Ghost isn't some completely impossible creature sighting um there really could have been a camel out there but here's where the story gets really interesting there are some witness accounts uh one of the earliest and most disturbing incidents supposedly happened at Eagle Creek in 1883 according to the account a ranch woman went outside to get water while another woman remained inside with the children the woman inside heard screaming and she looked out the window what she reportedly saw was this enormous reddish colored animal with something that looked like a human or or devilish feature uh or figure I mean riding on its back. Now when the men returned home to these screaming women oh I'm sorry they weren't screaming anymore they were dead apparently trampled there were enormous hoof prints around the scene and reddish hair caught on nearby vegetation. I'm married to a redheaded woman I would have thought something completely different happened if they found red hair on the bush and uh dead women. Uh now that's already a pretty horrifying story but here's the thing that makes it more interesting this wasn't necessarily just one person uh seeing something strange in the distance about a month later another rancher named Cyrus Hamblin uh reportedly encountered the animal near the Salt River and he described or I'm sorry he did something very important uh he identified what he was looking at he said it was specifically a camel now that's pretty significant because camels uh were very unusual in Arizona but they weren't completely unheard of because of the army's earlier earlier camel corps experiment but Hammond uh also reported seeing something strapped to the camel's back he couldn't get close enough to examine it but he believed that it looked like a dead man. And according to later accounts Hamlin was considered uh a fairly credible matter of fact witness he wasn't claiming he'd seen a demon or ghost or anything like that he was essentially saying that's a camel and there's a damn dead guy strapped to it is pretty much what he was saying. Now here comes the part that really makes you stop and think a group of miners reportedly encountered the creature near the Verde River. They fired at it and as the camel ran away something fell from its back and when the men went to investigate they reportedly found a human skull with some hair and bits of decomposed flesh still attached to it. Now if that account is accurate that's a pretty significant piece of evidence supporting Hamlin's story. He had said that he had saw a camel with what appeared to be a dead person on its back then you've got another group of people who supposedly encountered uh the same animal and something fell from its back that was later identified as a human skull so the pieces fit together here that's where uh I have trouble just simply dismissing the whole thing as just a you know folklore uh does that prove every part of the red ghost legend of course not and we're gonna discuss that in a minute uh but it does suggest that there may have been a real extremely bizarre event underneath the legend and there are other stories aside from the ones I just told you some witnesses claim the creature was enormous. Some accounts eventually exaggerated its size to almost unbelievable proportions. A cowboy reportedly tried to rope it and was dragged or nearly killed when the animal charged at him other stories claim the creature could disappear from sight almost instantaneously or even that it had attacked other animals. Now those are the kind of details that make me think the legend was growing with every single retelling and that's where I think the red ghost becomes really fascinating. We have to separate witness accounts really into two categories there's the stuff that sounds pretty consistent you know the large reddish animal strange sightings around Arizona people seeing something on its back and eventually the identification of the animal as a camel and then there's the stuff that sounds like the folklore the 30 foot monster the supernatural powers disappearing into thin air killing everything in its path the more outrageous the story gets the harder it is to take it literally but the consistent part is still pretty strange. People are seeing something and at least some of them were describing a camel carrying what appeared to be human remains. So ten years later a rancher named Mazoo Hastings uh he reportedly shot and killed a red camel that was eating in his garden poor camel has been carrying around a dead guy on his back all these damn years and he just stops get bite to eat and this dude shoots him and kills him. So he goes over and he examines the animal and he found a complicated network of old raw hide straps around its body and some of those straps had cut deeply into the camel's flesh and had left these deep scars. That's a detail that honestly really it kind of creeps me out because by that point the corpse was gone uh but the camel was still carrying the evidence that something had once been tied to it. So now we have this bizarre sequence people report seeing a red camel something resembling a dead man on his back witnesses finding a human skull and years later a rancher kills a red camel and finds old rawhide straps embedded into its flesh the big me missing piece of this puzzle is we have no clue who this dead guy could have been we don't know exactly how he ended up on the camel we talked about a cowboy earlier that was trying to rope it maybe there was some other redneck that made his way over there that thought he's gonna ride the camel and got stuck probably some guy from Florida we don't even know with absolute certainty whether every one of these accounts involved the same animal either but that's what makes a red ghost so much more interesting than a simple run-of-the-mill ghost story there appears to have been a real camel and there was real witnesses uh there was apparently something uh attached to the animal and at least one account says that uh what was attached was human remains um so there maybe there was nothing supernatural about this story at all uh maybe the supernatural part was simply things that people thought they were seeing or misinterpreting things that they were seeing because imagine this Adam you're standing in the Arizona desert in 1883 with your cowboy hat on and your chaps and your spurs uh and whatever else the the stereotypical cowboy would be wearing at the time uh you don't know about the Army's camel experiment experiment you don't know anything about that you don't know that there are abandoned camels just wandering around the territory and then you see this huge reddish animal just out of nowhere come running at you with what looks like a dead man uh sitting on its back you don't sit there and think well well I'll be damned there's a an escaped military camel no you think what in the hell is that and that is where I think uh the red ghost legend was was really born um so what do you think about this? Do you think there's any possibility I'm not gonna say any possibility do you think it's more likely than not that this actually happened that there was a camel with a dead man strapped to it for years and years and years wandering around out there and people were seeing it.
SPEAKER_00Yes I do I do believe that this you believe this has got teeth to it this is real yes I do believe there were probably there was a camel that walked around Arizona that had a dead body strapped to his back and um I I say that based on review of evidence I mean you've got the reasons there you got why they were released you you spoke about a couple of things I wanted to go back and specifically mention.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00One of them was that they said the camel was 30 feet tall uh at one time um and uh do you I looked up the tallest reported camels are like seven and almost eight foot tall like seven nine seven ten uh foot tall and so thirty foot tall is un un unimaginable it couldn't be real.
SPEAKER_01Well the only way that the only way I could s say maybe there's truth to that is maybe if it was a depth perception thing.
SPEAKER_00If uh but what we I don't think it's depth perception. I think a lot of times people just embellish stuff you know that too we always talk we we talk about the people for people that are aren't watching this it's hard for me to say but people go hey I caught a fish this big um I've got this picture in my classroom I'm a teacher for people that are new uh of me holding a fish and I've got it holding out in front of me and the fish looks absolutely huge. It was a big fish but it's like 10 pounds but the way that that depth perception there kind of makes it look like a 20 pound fish. That's what I said I don't understand but I'm I'm I'm I'm saying that people it's not only that people see things and go, oh that's bigger than what I think it is but I also think people have the the the will to embellish things like like you know I for people that don't know um uh Chris is a certified killer of uh pests and uh my wife will call me and go Adam there's a spider is as big as a dog in here well that spider's not big as a dog but that's what she says because she sees a big spider and she thinks that so I think people tend to embellish that not only depth perception wise but they just embellish the size of things and I could see you got here's another thing being the late 1800s people had seen camels but had everybody seen camels did everybody know that camels were out running around no so I could see somebody uh you're talking about old Joe Blow let's just say Joe Blow sees a camel running around he's like oh my god that's a huge thing that's a big old horse that looks completely you know whatever that's a mishaping horse or whatever so I think some of that stuff they um the lack of I can I see what you're saying they see something that is completely foreign to them and that that adds to the embellishment when they're telling what they saw. But like I said I do think this happened and I do to your point there I do think the person probably did um mount the camel rode the camel and probably die doing something uh while he was riding the camel it could have been heart attack uh it could have been you know the camel you know maybe the camel was because it's a little bit taller than a horse maybe went through and he hit his head on something or he you know and then you know so there's lots of different things I think it could be uh but I do believe this story I do think this is true and I do believe that there were human remains. You talked about having the rawhad still stuck to the camel I I think that goes back to the point of camels were able to do a lot of things that other animals were not. So when they would go out in the desert they could eat things that other animals could not so I think he was probably uh getting a lot of nourishment and probably having growth and that's probably the reason the rawhide was cutting into him because he was growing from having that so I could see a lot of explanations to the story. The other thing there I wanted to mention before we go on is the person that you mentioned killed the camel Mizzou Hastings what a name oh yeah I know I I kind of expected you to interject and you didn't well I I I I held off just to make sure but like I said I I you know I I do believe the story I do believe there's a lot of truth to it and I believe that um like I said who knows uh they don't talk about it now I didn't see anything there but there's a chance that there's still a small population of camels uh uh running around the American Southwest to this day that would be really cool if that was true so my my thoughts I and you're gonna hear me say that a lot on this podcast that or what I'm about to say you're gonna hear me say this phrase a lot I want to believe this is true.
SPEAKER_01You know I was a big X-Files fan. That's what Fox Mulder would say I want to believe there's the poster on his wall I want to believe and honestly X-Files probably inspired a lot of what we're gonna do on this podcast but I want to believe this is true so badly and I do. I I think that I think this happened. Now I don't know if it went on for the length of time that that that was talked about. Maybe it did I I don't know but it um it's it's very very possible that this could have happened and I lean but there's no way to know for sure at this point but I certainly lean toward it being true. So I'm gonna go with yes that this this happened there was a camel out there with a dead body strapped to it for a few years and freaked people in the Southwest out.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna say it happened so with that I think we're done with the Red Ghost unless you've got anything else to add I think you covered it pretty well no same to you I like I said this is an interesting story is one I never really heard before uh but like I said um one of the that's that's one of the interesting things uh uh you were talking about and we're not gonna give away things we'll cover in the future and stuff but there's lots of stories like this um when I was looking up other myths in Arizona there's lots of interesting myths in Arizona that people have gone through you know uh um you know one of the things there um uh we'll we will talk about at some point I'm almost sure Chris has already mentioned it today is Bigfoot. Uh the different versions of Bigfoot around the plate you know because uh for people don't know uh and I don't see if you know what what would it what do we call Bigfoot in this area?
SPEAKER_01What would a lot of people call it in this area oh God I've heard so many I've heard skunk ape I've heard wood ape I've heard did already Swamp ape is what I've heard. Yeah I mean there's so many different things that I've heard Sasquatch I mean remember for the I wrote I'm a writer I'm an author and I wrote a Bigfoot book called Wood Ape. I mean there it it has lots of different names and of course the the the one in the uh uh overseas or or in Asia is the the Yeti um there's so many different names and so I mean like I said those things like um I I am not a 100% Bigfoot believer but I'm also not a discreditor either because I do think that there could be a potential for some type of animal out there that has that.
SPEAKER_00Now the stuff that they put in it my favorite thing is it's is it finding Bigfoot where the guy does the Bigfoot call and everything like that. I I don't believe in that stuff per se but um the I I'm one of these people who say you can't say never because as soon as you say never and it happens you look stupid. So um and like I said I I can't discredit it. I can't say it's true or not true or whatever. So I'll look back at that kind of say there's a chance it could be true. And the red ghost there I think there is a 100% chance that this is true just based on Damn you went 100% so you're 100% sure oh absolutely I think this is true. I mean I I think that there was a uh camel riding around Arizona that had a human skeleton or decomposing body on it. I I believe that 100% okay all right well we'll leave it right there.
SPEAKER_01So obviously as I said earlier this is episode one and Adam kind of alluded to it a minute ago there are so many stories out there that we can jump into and cover on this podcast. So with that I'm going to tell you if you have one uh that you would like for us to cover uh email us at chris and adam podcast at gmail dot com and that's all spelled out chris and adam podcast at gmail dot com uh aside from that uh hope everyone has a good week uh and we'll we'll try to do this as consistently as we can on a weekly basis uh but uh we'll see you next time on Chris and Adam versus the unknown
