Welcome to Theories of the Third Kind. Welcome to Theories of the Third Kind. My name is Aaron. The other host joining me is Daniel Sun. Yo, what's up? Now, before we start today's episode, we do have a quick announcement to make. If you would like to support the show, you can do so by joining our Patreon. For just $5 a month, enjoy weekly Patreon-exclusive episodes and access to our extensive back catalog of over 188 Patreon episodes that are all ad-free.
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And that is the end of the announcements. So today's episode is a Theories Thursday. And if this is your first time listening to a Theories Thursday, it's pretty much where Dan and I have both selected our favorite topics of the week. We have not told one another about them. We have independently researched them. And then we present the topics to one another.
And that is how A Theory's Thursday goes. So it's pretty much two episodes combined into one. Yeah. All right. So the hardest thing about A Theory's Thursday is figuring out who goes first. Do we roll a dice? Do we flip a coin? How should we do this? Do you have a preference or does it not really matter? Does it matter to me? Okay. Odds are evens then.
I'll go odds. Okay. Best two out of three. Best two out of three. First roll is 17. Second roll, eight. Ooh. Whoever gets it next wins. Next roll is 18. That's you. I'm up first, and then Dan, you're going to wrap things up from behind. Oh, yeah. All right. So my Theory's Thursday topic this week is over psychic spies.
And I know we have discussed this a little bit in previous episodes. For example, back in January of 2021, in the remote viewing episode, we briefly discussed psychic spies. Also, back in April of 2022, in the Declassified Documents number two episode, we talked about them in that episode as well.
Now, I will brush up on some of that information again as a refresher. However, my topic this week is not going to be the history of psychic spies, but instead, it's going to be about a rabbit hole that I fell down while listening to some music and it involves psychic spies. Now, before we get into that, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. All right, welcome back.
So to understand my topic today, I need to tell all of you about a band called the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Dan, please tell us. If you ask me if I know who they are. Do you know who they are? No, I don't know. Yes, I know who they are. Okay, good. All right. So of course, the Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band that was formed in Los Angeles in 1982.
They are extremely popular. They have sold over 120 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. They have won six Grammy Awards, and in 2012, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Also, last year, they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Okay. Some of their most popular songs include Other Side, Give It Away, Scar Tissue, and Californication. So this Californication song, the last one I mentioned, was released in 1999 on the album titled Californication.
And it would be this song that would lead me down the rabbit hole and eventually turn into my theories Thursday topic today, which I know I initially said psychic spies, which it is about psychic spies. But this song is what led me down that rabbit hole. And I'll explain why. Okay.
So the other day I was driving down the road, listening to music on the radio and Californication came on. I started listening to it and I've heard this song easily probably over a hundred times. And every time I hear it, it gets stuck in my head. However, I never really paid attention to the lyrics of it. And the very first line of the song goes, psychic spies from China try to steal your mind's elation.
Now, if you're dumb like me and you don't know what elation means, it pretty much means happiness. So they said psychic spies from China are trying to steal your mind's happiness.
which if you haven't heard that part of the song, we'll play a quick snippet of it. Copy strike. Yeah, I know. By the way, if this next part is blank or silent for the next few seconds and nothing plays, it means that we've been hit with a copyright strike and we had to remove that section. So just a heads up. But anyway, I'll go ahead and play that snippet of that song right now. Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind's elation.
I hate to say that. I never really knew what that said until you said it. Yeah, it's kind of hard to understand. Psychic spies. Psychic spies from China try to steal your mind's elation. So there you go. Like I said, I'm sure everyone has heard that song before. And I've heard that line probably over a hundred times while listening to it. But I never really paid attention to it until the other day. So that got me thinking. This song was released in 1999.
Back then, this type of thinking that there are like psychic spies out there, it wasn't really accepted like it is nowadays. Not many people viewed remote viewing or psychic spying as legitimate. It wasn't until 2017 when thousands of declassified documents about top secret projects involving remote viewing and psychic spies were made public that it even started to become mainstream and people sort of accepted it.
So I began looking into the band members at that point of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And I wanted to see how did they know this back then? Like, how did they know this was going on? I learned that the lead singer released an autobiography in 2004 titled Scar Tissue. And guess what I did all last night? You read Scar Tissue. I read Scar Tissue.
I found the chapter that he mentions this line in. And it's chapter 14. I had to get all the way to chapter 14. How many pages is this book? 400 plus. Yeah. So in that autobiography, the lead singer actually talks about the psychic spies line from that song Californication. And like I said, it was in chapter 14 of the book. He states, and I quote, when I was in New Zealand one time, I ran into a crazy lady on the street.
And she was ranting about the fact that there were psychic spies in China. That phrase stuck in my mind. So I was like, OK, not that big of a deal, I guess. But I still decided to look into it a little more to see if China, if they had released any information regarding psychic spies and if they've ever had a program similar to what the United States had.
But before we jump into what I found out about China's programs, I figured I could give you a little refresher about the United States' psychic spying programs. I'm going to give you a quick history class, okay? So we go all the way back to the 1960s. The Soviet Union at this time was looking for a way to use psychics to spy on other countries.
The CIA heard about this and they sort of laughed it off. They thought it was a waste of time and money and that, hey, psychics don't really exist. Fast forward a few years later to 1970. At this time, the CIA was secretly monitoring the Soviet Union and tracking what they were spending their money on. The CIA discovered that the Soviets were spending around 60 million rubles per year on psychic research.
By the way, that $60 million back then in 1970 was around $800,000 United States dollars. And due to inflation, that's around $6 million today. So it was at this point that the CIA was like, maybe we should keep an eye on this program that they're spending money on. So for the next five years, the CIA continued to secretly monitor the Soviet Union spending.
They noticed that the Soviets had increased their spending on psychic research by five times the original amount. They went from 60 million rubles to spending over 300 million per year. It was at this point that the CIA realized that the Soviets must have had a breakthrough in the psychic research, and it was probably worth looking into.
The CIA funded a research project located in Stanford Research Institute in California called Scan by Coordinate. And this Scan by Coordinate project was pretty much a study into remote viewing. If you don't know what remote viewing is, it's pretty much where they take a person and see if that person can use their mind to see what is happening somewhere else in the world in real time.
For an example, this research team would sit a person in a room, give them random coordinates, and then that person would concentrate on those coordinates and tell the research team what they saw. So yeah, at the time the term remote viewing didn't exist, so they called it scan by coordinates. All right, so fast forward to 1977. There was the Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence System Exploitation Detachment.
Yeah, what a f***ing name. They decided to branch off and start a program called Gondola Wish. And we've talked about this before. This program was to evaluate potential adversary applications of remote viewing. Basically, a defense system for psychic spies. One year later, this Gondola Wish was retitled to Project Grill Flame.
And then over the next few years, the project would shift focus and funding, and it would later become Project Centerlane. And then finally, Project Sunstreak. And there's a lot of different projects that have to do with remote viewing and psychics. However, all these various projects are given a parent title of Project Stargate. So you have Project Stargate and all these other remote viewing ones underneath that.
I got a little story about this project Sunstreak real quick. The entire guy over this project in the late 70s was a guy named Major General Albert Stubblebine. This dude was pretty weird. He was known to gather his staff and soldiers together, sit them down in a room, hand out spoons to everyone,
And then tell them all to be very, very quiet and to stare at the spoons and try to bend them by just using your mind. This just didn't happen once. Apparently, this happened so much that people called them his spoon bending sessions. Like they would sit there for hours just staring at spoons.
Another thing that he would do, this Major Albert, is that he would gather up his generals. He would take them to a small fire that he had built outside. He would tell them to take their socks off and their shoes and that they were going to walk through fire and that by them walking through fire, it would allow them to tap into their inner wisdom and overall help them in the battlefield.
So this Major Albert was the one that was leading the Project Sunstreak, like I previously said. And this project was concentrated on remote viewing, and it was pretty successful during its time. During some of the tests, these psychics were asked various questions about what information was inside classified envelopes in which these psychics were able to describe accurately what was written down on them.
They were asked to describe locations they weren't familiar with in which they described them accurately by just using remote viewing. They were able to find hostages around the world by just remote viewing. And this is actually in classified documents that were declassified. So as these experiments continued with other psychics, two of them stood out above the rest. And these two were women.
And they got the nickname of the witches. Now these women preferred not to call what they were doing remote viewing, but instead they called it channeling. The two women not only did remote viewing, but they'd also give various military officials like tarot card readings and predictions about their personal life in which they were extremely popular. And not only that, but the remote viewing program was pretty successful.
And it makes you question if it was so successful, why was it shut down? Because it was. It was shut down, this program, by the United States. Well, it's all because of the CIA appointing a guy named Ray Hyman. He came in and he evaluated certain projects that the CIA was working on.
He looked at Project Sunstreak, aka Project Stargate, and he said, this project, this remote viewing, does nothing to help the government, intelligence agencies, or military operations. So in 1995, the project was terminated and declassified. And that right there is a refresher in the United States and its role in remote viewing and psychic spies.
So now that we understand the United States' role, let's talk about China's role. And I don't have near as much information about them as I do the United States. So I started digging around to see if China had done something similar. You know, if their military had any special projects like this. And this is all due to one of the lines from the Red Hot Chili Pepper song, Californication.
So what I learned during my research is that China did indeed have a similar program, and it lasted for over 16 years. They used psychics for intelligence operations and other various things. Now, before we get into that, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Crime Door TV is now a podcast. I'm your host, Sydney Schofield. Join us as we dive deeper into the world of true crime and go one-on-one with legal analysts. There is a presumption of innocence. There really does have to be some factual evidence. Your exclusive interviews with families of victims. When my daughter was kidnapped and we found out the truth, I couldn't imagine that anybody could feel as awful.
And get an inside perspective from the experts closest to the cases. I really appreciate platforms like this that are there for the victims and to give them a voice. Listen now to the Crime Door TV podcast, your home for true crime analysis. All right. Welcome back. What had happened is that China learned about the CIA researching psychics and using them as spies via remote viewing.
And they all got together, all the head people in China, and they had a meeting to discuss the possibility of them starting their own program. And it was like half of them were for it and the other half wasn't. And eventually they were like, look, let's go ahead and approve it, have a little bitty group started, and then we'll grow it from there if there's any, you know, merit to this.
So in 1982, it was approved and General Zhang Zuhang, who was the vice chairman of the Commission for Science Technology and the National Defense of China, along with Major General Wu Shazhou, them two guys went around and started recruiting people who were reported to possess paranormal powers. They had a program where if you lived in China,
And you suspected someone of possessing paranormal powers. You reported them. And these people that supposedly had that were taken by the government and taken to PLA Space Research Center in Beijing and studied.
So they just pretty much went off of speculation of somebody saying, oh, they have paranormal powers. Yeah. So they went, detained them, took them and studied them to see if they actually truly had powers. Yeah. And during these studies, they claimed that certain individuals could project psychokinetic powers over 1,200 miles away.
manipulating not only molecular structures of substances in sealed test tubes, like they took sealed test tubes and these individuals that China had, these psychic spies, were able to use their powers and manipulate the molecular structures of those substances in those sealed test tubes that were over 1,200 miles away. Not only that, but they could also manipulate the emotions of individuals
They're affecting me right now. China number one. Isn't that crazy? That shows you right there that the lady on the street in New Zealand was right. Yeah. So it gets better. One of the most famous psychics in China was an individual named Zhang Baoxing, and he was labeled as China's Superman. In the early 90s, Baoxing, aka China's Superman,
He carried out many performances displaying his psychic abilities. Following that, in 1997, the Chinese government supposedly held a scientific trial to collect data. They wanted to see if like, hey, after pouring all this money and time and research, is this really helping us out?
After the trial, they stated that all the participants had failed and were shutting down the program. It does not benefit China at all. Pretty much the same exact thing what the CIA had said. But the interesting thing that I found out about this is that I came across a CIA document from China that says the complete opposite. This document was from January 12th, 1989.
And it is from the China Institute of Atomic Energy in Beijing. Now this document's long. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I will read one small paragraph and then I will read the findings. The small paragraph states, the experiment demonstrated that Mr. Baoxing possesses paranormal abilities, aka China Superman. He can make small objects penetrate obstacles.
After such penetrations, the microscopic structure and properties of the objects do not show any changes, meaning that he can make small objects go through other objects, and even after those objects get penetrated, doesn't show. Hmm.
Like I said, this document's long. It goes into super detail about every single experiment that he did. And I'll post a link to this document up on our website for anyone that wants to take a look at it. But one of the experiments is that this China superman, this Bao Xing, was able to burn cloth with just his hand. He didn't do like no Mr. Miyagi thing, rub his hands together, you just put his hand on it. Just put it on it, yeah.
So there was a conclusion that they wrote out. They stated that in the conclusions at the very end, that the experiments demonstrated that Mr. Baosheng possesses paranormal abilities. He can make objects penetrate walls of sealed containers. All of these experiments were prepared by researchers from China's Institute of Atomic Energy. They had no contact with Mr. Baosheng before the experiment.
And it also states that his clairvoyance enables him to recognize characters in the envelopes without opening them. He can also transfer the characters he wrote on an envelope to objects inside of the envelope. He has the ability to burn cloth instantly upon the touch of his hand. The experiment demonstrated that he has the ability to make the hands of a watch penetrate another person's hand without inflicting pain or other sensation.
Basically make a watch pass through the person's hand without them noticing. He would have made a great thief then. Yeah, absolutely. Since there were no traces detectable under the microscope after particles penetrated nuclear trace detector foils, the mechanism of such penetrations still remains an open question.
20 senior researchers observed this experiment. Among them were physicists and chemists from the China Institute of Atomic Energy. And there is no explanation as to how he is able to do these things. So that's just part of the CIA document. It goes into super detail about, you know, the experiments themselves. But I thought that was very weird. And I had to mention it. And if they were able to do that in the 80s, are they still doing it now?
Are we being manipulated emotionally by maybe a group of individuals? I know it's crazy to think. Maybe the government employs these psychics to penetrate the mind of individuals and make them feel certain ways. You know, that reminds me of a study that I was reading on when I was trying to pick my theories Thursday. Coors Light tried to do a study about doing ads in your dreams.
Ads in your dreams? It's like a dream incubation thing. Jesus Christ, we'll never be able to escape them. Yeah, so they wanted to test it during one of the Super Bowls. So they had like 15 participants, I guess, like watch waterfalls, show Coors Light, beers and all that stuff the night before the Super Bowl. And supposedly out of the 15, like five of them wanted to drink Coors Light during the Super Bowl. That's all they wanted was Coors Light.
Because that night they would dream, of course, light only. I don't know. It's like that just reminded me of that. It's not really psychic. That was more of manipulation. But psychic spies, they would manipulate your emotions to go with the, I guess, the narrative. Yeah. However they want you to feel. Makes me think of social media. It's social media, man. That shit's dangerous. It's crazy you mentioned social media because I have a little bonus, a one paragraph bonus. Ooh.
One of the other lines in this song of Californication is a teenage bride with a baby inside getting high on information. This was written in 1999. And I mean, it's kind of like they were predicting social media. You think about the people who just roll TikTok or go on Instagram or Facebook and you get those dopamine drips from the likes or whatever, you know, that unlimited dopamine. Social media is a freaking drug.
Oh, it is. I think there's a study right now saying that, you know, with social media, taking selfies and such like that, it's no longer just like a hobby. It's evolved into a disease. It is. I mean, I'm not gonna lie. I was scrolling TikTok. I scroll that shit. I do too. I think I sent you like two or three in like the past day or so. Yeah, I send you them all the time. I mean, when you brought up the band, I literally thought you were gonna bring up Creed. Creed? Oh, no. Because the one TikTok I sent you, Creedmas.
Oh my God. Creedmas. Creed Christmas. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my theories Thursday. That's what it's about. Protect your mind. Maybe that's why they wore the tinfoil over their head to stop the psychics from reading their mind. Yeah, it's not about the extraterrestrials. It's about the people on Earth. Hey, isn't that why Magneto in X-Men wore the helmet so that Professor X or whatever his name is. Couldn't get into his mind. Yeah, couldn't get into his mind and read his thoughts. Mm-hmm.
Damn. Well, not even that. Just control him because he could actually control. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know too much about it, but I guess that would be psychic spy because he would get into your mind and kind of manipulate you, talk to you through your mind and shit. Yeah, he did that with Wolverine. Wolverine, Phoenix. Pretty much every X-Man slash woman.
Anyway, well, if you or a loved one have been a psychic spy or have been a victim of a psychic spy, send us an email. We'd love to hear from you. But with that being said, that is the end of my Theories Thursday topic. And I hand the stage over to you, Dan. Yay. So what is your Theories Thursday topic this week?
I wanted something mysterious, something that made me stop and just think like, what the hell am I reading? What's going to happen next? So definitely wasn't going to Cryptid, even though I had one picked out. I was like, oh, I could go with Cryptid, my favorites. And I was just like, nope, going to Mystery. So the Mystery that I picked is called the Eight Day Bride. Even though I listed something else on our document. Yeah. We're not going to repeat that. Eight Day Bride.
Have you ever heard of that? No, never. So I stumbled upon it. And when I first found it, I'm just like, oh, this is going to be like some weird romance thing. I don't know. I just think of like those romance novels my oldest sister used to read all the time. Danielle Steele. Yes, those. Yeah. My grandmother bought every single Danielle Steele book ever written. And it's like, damn, how many books can Danielle Steele write? She wrote a shit ton because my sister had a lot of those.
Never knew what they were about because I didn't read them. I just saw the pic. It always had Fabio on the front of it. Was it Fabio? I don't know if it was Fabio, but it was a guy with long hair and the shirt off. He's got abs and he's like blown in the wind. Yep. That's pretty much it. Usually there's like a rose or something, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Romance, you know? Oh, God. Well, I started reading into this and I'm thinking still, you know, weird romance thing. Yeah.
Started reading into it more and I'm just like, oh, okay, I'm invested. This seems a little mysterious and involves death, money, love, affairs. So I was just like, oh, it's pretty much a Hallmark movie. Aaron's favorites. Nah, it's not my favorite. Aaron loves Hallmark Christmas movies. I do not. So if you have any suggestions for him, send him an email. Don't send me an email about that. All right. So...
It involves, you know, the death, mysteries, money, love affairs. And I just figured I'm just going to jump right into it. All right. Just go right into the story and just get it out there. Then I'll go into some strange facts that I found, which pretty much are just like right in the story of it. And then at the end, I have some theories that people came up with. But I have a totally different theory on it. Oh, all right. Now, before we get into that, we're going to take a quick break. It's our last one. So don't go anywhere. All right. Welcome back.
So this all happened back in 1947 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where we have 22-year-old Christina Cecilia Mokin. Now, Christina had fallen in love with her boyfriend of three years, 26-year-old John Ray Kettlewell. But he went by the name Jack, which I don't know how you get Jack from John, Ray, or Kettlewell. Okay. Now, even though they had been seeing each other for three years, you know, and finally talks of marriage had come into the picture,
Christina's family was not for it. They were against it. In fact, they did not like Jack from the very beginning, so they were opposed to the whole damn relationship. Christina and Jack tried to change her parents' mind, but they were not having it, so Christina and Jack just pretty much just said, F it, like left it alone. She ended up not talking to them for about a week, her parents. That is when Christina's sister decided to go over to Christina and Jack's place to try to talk her out of it again.
Obviously, that didn't go so well. They pretty much told her sister to go get, you know, go pound sand, you could say. And the two of them, Christina and Jack, they got tired of Christina's family opposing their marriage. So they both decided, screw it, we're going to go elope. So on May 12th, 1947, they ended up eloping. They became John and Christina Kettlewell. And it was time for their honeymoon and get out of this area. Because, you know, once her family finds out, probably all hell is going to break loose.
Usually when you get married, like even doing like a court marriage, you have to have witnesses. You have to have one or two people there. Certain states allow one person or need two people. Witness me. Yeah, witness me getting married. Mistake of my life. Don't do it. Don't do it. Well, Jack had his best friend, 28-year-old Ronald Berry there to witness the ceremony. But that's the thing. Ronald was always around.
Now, when I say always around, anything that Jack and Christina did, Ronald was there. You talking everything? You know, probably. Ugh, goddamn. Before I get into that, you know, get into that type of stuff. Oh, boy. Ronald worked with Jack doing construction, but the year before, Ronald decided to get out of construction and go into insurance selling. Now, when I say that Ronald was around all the time,
And this was another reason why Christina's family was just like, we don't want you marrying Jack. Because you'd be marrying Ronald too. You'll be marrying Ronald too because he is always around. He never leaves Jack alone. So they were against it, but yet they still got married. And I do have an image of Jack and Christina. Looks like, you know, normal couple. What's her last name? So her last name was Moken. M-O-C-O-N. What's his last name? Kettlewell.
So they were married May 12, 1947. Five days after they were married, they finally picked out where they were going to go for their honeymoon. And they didn't travel too far. May 17, 1947, they decided to go to Severn Falls, Ontario, which is about 100 miles north of where they were. There, they would be staying at a cottage Ronald owned. As long as he's not there, then that's okay.
He's f***ing there, isn't he? Of course, they packed their bags and so did Ronald. God damn it, Ronald. He decided to accompany them on their special honeymoon trip that they decided to take, which I'll throw this in there. He said that the only reason he went was because it was convenient because he was helping them with their bags and he's just like, all right, I'll just go with y'all. That's what he said. Jesus, Ronald. So yeah, Ronald was with them.
Now, this cottage was on a remote little island on the river, and the only way to really get there is by boat. So they would drive there, get to the marina, then they had to take a boat across part of the river onto this little island, which for a honeymoon getaway, that sounds very romantic. Yeah, as long as you don't have anybody else with you. Yeah, so that kind of ruined it because Ronald was there.
Which he said, I stayed out of the cabin most of the time. I was off doing my own thing. Okay. Now, this is where things start to get weirder. Even though it was already weird with Ronald being there for their honeymoon, being the third wheel. When they arrived at the cottage on Severn Falls, Christina started acting very strangely. Not herself. At times, it was like she was in a dazed state or at other times, going into fits of hysterics and started crying for no reason. Showing her true self.
Guess you could actually say that. Not to be mean, this continued on for three days, May 17th to May 20th. And that's when things got especially weird. Now, the morning of May 20th, Ronald decided that he would throw in some swim trunks and head toward the riverside to go and tear his butthole, you know,
Get that vitamin D. Really? Not really his butthole, but you know. Oh, we'd like to envision that he tanned his butthole. Or you'd like to envision that. He was at the nice 80 degree angle pointing up at the sun, absorbing that vitamin D. My God. So he left Christina and Jack at the cottage. They were perfectly fine at this moment. The loving couple that, you know, got married. They weren't fighting. She wasn't crying. You know, nothing like that.
So, as he was sunbathing after a while, he decided like, all right, I got enough vitamin D. I'm going to head back to the cottage now. I guess I gave them enough time alone. It's my time now. Yeah, I gave him two to three minutes. Yeah. He should be good now. I broke a little sweat, you know. I got to go shower now. So, as he got back, he said that he started seeing some smoke coming from the cottage.
You know, and I think if it's a cottage... Starting a little fire. Get a little romantic time, you know? Yeah, they probably have like a fireplace in there. Yeah. That still worried him. So he rushed back, opened the door, and he saw Jack sitting in the living room, kind of like spaced out. And he's like, what the hell? So he goes up to Jack and then he notices, when he was walking up to Jack, that the kitchen was on fire. What the hell are you doing, Jack? Yeah, and he was just like, what the hell?
And he's trying to talk to Jack, but Jack's not responding. Jack was like in a, what did it say? Stupor? Stupor? Stupor. Yeah. And that's when Ronald noticed that Jack was bleeding from his head as well. But no matter what Ronald said to Jack, Jack was not responding. He was trying to ask like, hey, where's Christina at? Where's everyone at? Like, what's going on? Why is the kitchen on fire? No response.
So Ronald ran around the cottage looking for Christina while the place was catching fire. No Christina. She's nowhere to be found. So Ronald was just like, all right, screw it. Guess I'm just saving Jack. Supposedly he throws Jack onto a mattress and pulls his ass out of the cottage. And that's when he was supposedly trying to revive him from his dazed state, which when I say revive him. Mouth to mouth. Probably mouth to mouth. Pervert. He got Jack out of the house.
He ran around trying to find Christina some more. Couldn't find her. That's when he's just like, Jack's in a daze. He's bleeding from his head. I got to get him to the hospital. So pretty much threw him on a boat, drove him over to shore, rushed him to the hospital. There they realized that
Something had hit Jack in the head, which caused the gash on his head to make him bleed. That's another reason why he was in daze. But also, when they did blood tests on him, they found that he had codeine in his system. Purple drank, baby. Yeah. Yeah. Purple drank. He's like, shit, I'm married now. I can sip some lean. I'm going to catch the kitchen on fire and sip some lean. I just imagine them sitting there drinking purple drank. So now they had to report what happened.
The authorities was like, oh shit, there's a fire. They sent the police and firefighters out to the cottage. And by the time they got there, most of it was already burned down. So of course, you know, they had to run back and forth to the riverside to get water to, you know, put the fire out. But it was already too late. Shit was burned down, which I have an image of it. Oh, you got a picture of the...
Yeah, there was pretty much just a stone bottom. That's it. There's nothing left of it. Okay, that sucks. Yeah, it's like a starting on arc survival. It's like a foundation. That's it. That's literally it. Now, while they were putting the fire out, the police were scouring the area trying to find Christina. Scouring the areas and the remains in the ash or the areas in the forest? The area around. Okay. Now, just like the little island area. They could not find her whatsoever. She had just up and vanished. Hmm.
So they were just like, well, shit. We looked the area. We didn't find her. Then once the fire was out, they looked through the fire, the ashes, didn't find no human remains. So they were just like, we don't know where the hell she went. So that was kind of it for three days. You know, they were trying to investigate what happened to Jack, trying to get the story right from Ronald. And that's when three days later, on May 23rd, 1947, that's when Christina's fate would be discovered. That's not good. Nope.
Someone else that lived on the river had discovered Christina's body laying face down in a shallow pool of water by the river. Christina was about 200 yards from the cottage, dressed in her floral patterned pajamas still. Her body was found to be in good condition. They say pristine, which is kind of weird to say, but I guess what they were trying to say was there were no burn marks, no violent injuries or anything on her.
She just was found dead. Pristine makes it sound like they're selling her body. That's what it is. Body's in pristine condition. It was in pristine condition, but she drowned. That's what they thought at first. Christina was brought in and her autopsy was immediately done.
They didn't find any wounds, but she did have some traces of codeine in her system, just like Jack did. Let me make sure I'm getting this story right. This story that you're telling right now is from the perspective of Ronald. This is the story Ronald's giving right now of what's happening. For the most part, yes. Okay. All right. That makes sense now because a f***ery's a foot. Oh, there's a lot of f***ery a foot. Oh, I like that.
That's what got me like super intrigued with it. I'm just like, the story kind of seems straightforward until it got to the cottage part. Then everything just went to hell. Now, like we said, this is mostly from Ronald's perspective. Jack wasn't able to give his perspective for a while because of his head injury and the fact that he was pretty much drugged. So with that being said, though, Christina's body, pristine condition, but they found codeine in her system. Now, when they found her, she was in nine inches of water in this shallow pool,
And they found water in her lungs. Nine inches, that's it? Nine inches, that's it. So they're just like, well, the official death is that she drowned. What? They ruled it as a drowning? Did they rule it as an accidental drowning? Yeah, they had to have at the beginning. They put it as an accidental drowning because of what they found in her system and then the fact that they found water in her lungs. Oh, she took some codeine and then went for a swim and drowned.
And there's nine inches of water. Makes zero sense, but okay. Yeah. So this led to many questions being asked. What happened between the time Ronald left the cottage and came back? How did Jack get wounded and drugged? When and how did Christina drown? What's even weirder, though, is where Christina's body was found. One of the firefighters said, like, this was the area that he was running back to and from to get water. Who's he? The firefighter.
Okay, so her body must have been dumped and then floated ashore. That's what they're thinking because he's just like, I was in that area multiple times. I did not see no body there. Nothing, you know, suspicious. But I do question that though because her body was found 200 yards away. That's like two football fields. Yeah. So this firefighter was running two football fields away to get water. You think you'd have a better system, dumbass? They were on a little island. I'm pretty sure there was a shorter way to the water.
So I questioned that, but that's what he was saying. Okay. With the firefighters saying that, they're just like, okay, that's really weird. So now we have to do a full investigation because this could be foul play. The fact, if her body wasn't there when you went by there, you know, possibly someone dumped her body. So they decided to do a full investigation and this just led to more confusion. And it got a lot of media attention for it, which there's a ton of newspaper articles about the
drowning and all that stuff. Police probing bride's death. Could have used a better word. Police investigating bride's death rather than probing. If you go and read some of these articles, the wording they use, the names they get wrong, it's terrible. His Ronald name goes, changes from Ronald to Ron to Donald. Like all these names are so wrong.
But like I said, they tried to question Jack, but he had no recollection at all what occurred because of his little brain injury. And Ronald, when he was questioned, he gave multiple statements of the events that occurred. But for some reason, they all seemed different. There was always something changing in his story. So authorities decided, you know, Ronald seems pretty suspicious here. One, he's the third wheel of a honeymoon couple. And then his story keeps changing about the events that occurred.
So they ended up looking more into him. And this kind of leads into more of the story, but more of like strange facts about it. Okay. So the first thing that they found with Ronald was that he was the beneficiary of two life insurance policies for both Christina and Jack worth $5,000 each, equaling $10,000. Who initiated those? He did. What the f**k? Right? This is weird. Now, to make it even weirder,
He had it set up, if they died of an accident, the payout would be doubled. Ooh, okay. So $5,000 each would be $10,000 each. So that would be $20,000 for both of them dying in an accident. This was actually discovered to be initiated right before their honeymoon. Mm-hmm.
Now, Ronald would question about it and he said, oh, another insurance agent advised me to do that while I got a better insurance policy on my cottage in case something happened to it. That makes no sense. You shouldn't be able to take out an insurance policy on someone else unless that person is your spouse or your child. That's what I think, but...
Obviously, it's not the case back then. Now, after finding out about the insurance policies, it gets even more confusing from here. They looked into Jack's will. Guess who was the main beneficiary of his will? Ron. Ron. He figured it'd be his wife, but they did just get married. But it was Ronald. He was the main beneficiary.
This led to many speculations so far that Ronald had something to do with the events that occurred, considering he would get into a whole lot of money if things played out right for him. That would mean the cottage burning down, then Jack and Christina dying in an accident. All that money would have been about $25,000 back then, which if you put it into the
Inflation calculator? Inflation calculator would be about $345,000. That's a lot of money. That is really. But still, I mean. You figure it'd be more. Yeah, it'd be like $3.4 million is what I was thinking. Nope, just $345,000. Hmm. Okay. Another strange fact that I found was that Christina's body, when it was found, they had just gotten married. She had a wedding ring on. When they found her body, no ring at all. Hmm.
They searched where they found her body. Then they searched through the ashes of the cottage. Still, no ring was found. Ron was saying, oh, I bought her a wedding ring for her. This is weird shit. Jag didn't seem to pay for anything. Ron bought the wedding ring for her? He bought the wedding ring for Christina to have one for the wedding.
Now, the ring itself back then was worth quite a bunch. But with the inflation calculator, they said that it would be worth around $13,000 just for the ring alone. That's a hefty price for a ring. Yeah. They're kind of just like, where the hell did this ring go then? No one knows. Never been found. But reading into it, I found out the ring didn't belong to Christina or Jack because Jack said that he got it from like a family member at first. Then Ron said that he bought it for him.
But then reading more into articles, come to find out none of them bought it. During the wedding ceremony, one of her friends, a Miss Thomas, I don't know her first name. She just goes by Miss Thomas's. And she actually let Christina borrow her wedding ring. So obviously Miss Thomas's wedding ring is now lost, which is weird. I don't know. I wouldn't let someone borrow my wedding ring.
I mean, if it's for the ceremony, okay. I mean, even then you're supposed to have your own, your own. Like if you can't afford a wedding ring and you probably shouldn't be getting married. But then again, who am I to tell you what to do? Do whatever you want. Yeah. It's your own life. You want to get married, get married. If you don't, don't. I mean, I guess if it was for the ceremony, then afterwards gives the ring back. But obviously the ring wasn't given back. There's no benefits in getting married. No, none at all. At least in the United States.
But yeah, so they found out that the ring didn't belong to any of them other than Christina's friend, Miss Thomas. Okay. But she never got the ring back. It was lost forever. That just leaves another question that they started asking. Why was Ronald the main beneficiary of Jack's will? And why would he have policies on the newlyweds? Well, this is where it gets interesting.
It's already been interesting. I think it's even more interesting. Okay, let's hear it. So Jack had to give a statement once he came to. He didn't have any recollection of what happened that day, but everything else he clearly remembers. The statement he gave, he admitted to having a long-term affair with Ronald. I knew it. This was partially verified by Ronald as he said that they had experimented some
But that had all stopped some years ago. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then Jack was just like, no, no, no, no, no. None of that actually happened. The police manipulated me into saying that I had a, you know, thing with Ronald just so they could have a motive for Christina's death. Okay. So he was coerced into saying that, oh, yeah, me and Ron had a, you know, relationship and
And pretty much that's what happened. It was an affair. She found out. And that's why she was pissed for those three days. And then they murdered her. Yep. So that's what they were trying to go with. But Jack was just like, no, no, no. That never happened. And then you got right over there. Oh, we experimented, you know. But we stopped all that. You suck my ding dong, Ronald. He met me at the gas station. He touched my wiener. That came to light and more evidence that arrived in an article about that a month later. In the article by the Star newspaper...
Wayne Turner, the present co-owner of Severn Falls Marina, stated that the men's close relationship and frequent trips up north was talked about by the locals. What was the guy's name? Wayne Turner. He's the present co-owner of the marina that they had to use to go to the cottage. Okay. He said that when this all happened, his uncle was 10 years old and he saw them there. The locals would always talk about
Oh, it's those two guys again going to the cottage by themselves. Makes sense. Yeah. They were already the talk of the town there. And supposedly the uncle was just like, or actually the whole Turner family was just like, nobody in the family could figure out why the guy wanted to get married. He was always taking up random trips with this other guy up to the cottage. They said that. But yeah, so moving on to the next strange fact I'm finding.
Which, this part, it gets a little depressing. Oh, God. So, Christina had been writing a bunch of letters to Ron. She had written multiple letters to Ron, most of which involved Christina talking about suicide if Jack did not propose to her. God, way to pressure him into it. In one part of the letter, Christina had wrote, and I quote, this will be the best way out as I cannot bear to see another girl have him.
Then in another letter, she was quoted saying, when you love someone, you really love him. And I know there is no one for me but Jack. And if I cannot have him, I do not intend anyone else to. I waited, as you might say, in the hope that Jack would ask me to marry him. But I now realize I am just a passing fancy. Oh, dang. So it went from just her talking about suicide, which means not something you should be talking about.
So pretty much she thought about killing herself. Pretty much a suicide murder. A murder-suicide. Yeah. It got to the point I'm just thinking, did she really write these letters? Or was it a cover-up? Well, the authorities got a hold of those letters because Ron actually kept those letters with him. And supposedly, get this, when the cottage was burning down, he got Jack out of there and then Ron ran back inside, not only looking for Christina,
But he grabbed, I guess, this little box that had these letters inside of it. So Ron had kept these letters. He was protecting Jack for some odd reason. He never told Jack about these letters. This was just between him and Christina. Come to find out, Ronald stated that she actually did attempt to take Jack and her life by poisoning them. Ronald had gone to their house and had found both of them unconscious.
And he spent the whole day taking care of them, reviving them, and they were okay. When I guess poisoning, I guess he meant she probably did codeine again. Because, I mean, if it was rat poison or something like that, they'd be dead. Yeah. Never reported it, though. Ron said that the only reason he did not report it was because he was trying to protect their reputation. I can kind of see that as being like a close friend to both of them, maybe, you know? I get it. All that happened, the suicide letters, the...
attempted murder-suicide. All that happened. Ronald never told Jack. Jack always thought something was weird that day. He just figured they got, like, bad food poisoning or something. But somehow, they stayed together. They ended up getting married. So it's like, why would she still want to try to take her life and try to take Jack's life? Remember when I said that she was acting, like, hysterical and throwing fits, crying and all that such? Yeah.
Ron said that during that time, Christina had come to him multiple times during their stay at the cottage saying that Jack did not love her anymore. He wanted to leave her. He was looking for someone else. A little too late now. You done got married, dude. I mean, I guess that's what he told her. But like I said, this has been going on for, I guess, two, three years. You know, her complaining that he didn't love her, that he was going to find someone else.
But yet now they're married and she's still thinking that. Christina was in some sort of bad mental state. Something happened to her to where she was afraid that Jack was going to leave her. So looked into it more. That's when I found out that there was a lot of money being moved around. So the day of the fire, day that Christina went missing, Ronald had received, it was either $13,000 or $15,000 from Christina.
She had written a letter that she wanted Ronald to deliver to Miss Thomas, but she also paid Ronald back the money. But Ronald gave the money back to her. He's like, you know what? You hold on to the money. When we get back to the back home, you can deposit the money into the bank. She worked at a bank. Well, come to find out, Ron had loaned her $15,000 back then. Guess what for though? Plastic surgery. No. Brazilian butt lift. No. Sex change. No.
I don't know. Supposedly, she was being blackmailed. What? Back in 1945 again, she ended up having an incident with four to five other, I guess, guys. Either they knew that she was suicidal or that they sexually assaulted her. And they decided to blackmail her saying, if you don't pay us this money, we're going to let everyone know.
If they let her family know that she was suicidal, she'd probably be put in a mental hospital. Lobotomy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I forgot they did that shit back then. Yeah. But if they went and told her family or just let everyone know that she was sexually assaulted, she was a ruined woman. She wasn't pure. Jack would leave her. She told Ron all this. And Ron lent her the money. He borrowed money from the bank. He borrowed money from relatives to help her pay these blackmailers.
Which, somehow, this is what Ron said. She gave the money to the blackmailers, but for some reason the blackmailers felt bad and gave her the money back. What? It's like, what? So weird. So weird. And that's when he told her, like, hey, just put it back in the bank, whatever. You know, it's fine. That's when the police were just like, you didn't take the money from her. You gave the money back to her. Where's the money now? Where's the money, Lebowski? No one knew where the money went.
What? It disappeared with Christina. And when they found her body, she didn't have no money on her. So now with that amount of money being moved around, the police were just like, something definitely sketchy is going on. Why are y'all moving around that much money so easily? I mean, back then, that was a lot of money. Still is a lot of money. It still is a lot of money.
That's when the police were just like, you know, we bet that they're involved in some drug smuggling. God. Because at the time, supposedly there was drugs being smuggled from the United States into Canada. And they're just like, they don't live too far from the border, I guess. And supposedly they had dealings. They went over to the United States a bunch of times. With that much money involved, they have to be dealing drugs, which the police looked into it. They never really found anything on it.
The case was pretty much at a standstill now. Still at a standstill? Still at a standstill, yeah. Damn. It went to court. Jack and Ronald, they were suspects. After the deliberation, for an hour and a half, after hearing all the evidence and everything, the jury came out and said, the jury finds that Christina Kettlewell came to her death May 20th at Dinnertime Rapids in Severn River in a small cove near the cottage owned by Ronald Berry by drowning.
Due to the fact that the post-mortem examination disclosed coding in the stomach of the deceased, and due to the suspicious fact that she was found drowned in nine inches of water, this jury is unable to decide on the evidence given whether or not foul means were employed in her death. They couldn't prove anything. They couldn't prove anything. So...
June 19th, 1947, both Jack and Ronald were found not guilty due to lack of incriminating evidence. Wow. Yeah. And one thing that blows my mind is that Jack and Ronald, they actually became like celebrities for a little bit after this. Actually, even during the f***ing court case. There's images, if you look it up, of Jack outside the courthouse signing autographs for women. They were coming up wanting his autograph. It made no sense. Oh my God. Yeah. But, uh...
Jack and Ronald, they pretty much moved on with their lives. Not together. Did they actually get together? No. Jack actually remarried three years later and had kids with his current wife in the same house that he lived with Christina. Oh, God. He never spoke of Christina or the incident to his current wife or kids. It wasn't until decades later when his kids were at the f***ing library, they read up on the incident involving their father. And they questioned him. He's like, oh, yeah, that happened.
Wow. Ronald, he actually ended up moving to New York in 1956. He left his pet dog behind for Jack's son as a gift. And Ronald never made contact with Jack again after that. Falling out lovers. Yep. So that's pretty much the story of the eight day bride. The three main theories though. Tell me the three main theories and then I want to know what your theory is. All right. So first one, you got the murder suicide attempt.
This whole thing was planned by Christina to pretty much kill Jack and take her life so no one else would have him. The second one, foul play, which the police actually kind of thought because of the insurance policies that Jack and Ronald, they still had a thing for each other. Ronald knowing of Christina's mental situation because he knew of all the times that she wanted to commit suicide and then the time she did try to commit suicide, this was a perfect opportunity to get some quick cash. They were on a remote island.
Not really too far out there, but, you know, remote. If she wanted to do it, it could be looked as an accident. He got insurance policy on his cottage. So when that burned down, he got money from that as well. It would have been a perfect setup. Yeah. So that was one of them. This one, someone suggested, since the cops brought it up, drug deal gone wrong. When they went through this remote island, the drug dealers or whoever had sent some people to take care of them. Now, Christina and Jack were left in the cottage.
Ron had to went down by the Riverside. Whoever was taking care of business only found Christina and Jack in there, took care of them, bopped Jack on the head, gave them codeine. Christina, they probably threw out in the water. Didn't know that Ron was there still. That doesn't make sense. No. Those were the three main theories though. Okay. Mine, definitely think it was Ron, for sure. He had set everything up and I think it was mostly him was like what Christina was thinking. If I can't have him, nobody else will.
Seeing some of the statements that Christina's family's made, they're just like, Ronald was the one pushing for the marriage. He was pushing for their relationship together and everything. He moved everything along for them to get married. He paid for everything. It was very weird. And then he went and got the insurance policies on him. He sells insurance. So he could have got that shit done easily. He got insurance on his cottage.
And honestly, I think that he was trying to kill Jack, but still felt a little something for Jack there. You know? That's why he pulled him out. After bopping him on the head, giving him codeine and such, he felt bad for Jack. So he's just like, you know what? Come on. So he saved him. But Christina, he threw out in the water.
Yeah. Okay. So that's what you think happened. That's what I think happened. All right. I can dig that. What do you think? This is how I think it played out. I think Ron and Jack were lovers. Okay. I think they were hiding it from Christina. You know what? You're right.
Rod never told Christina and Jack never told her either that they used to be a thing. Yeah, I think they still were a thing. And I think that Jack had planned this with Ronald because he knew that he couldn't leave Christina because she would kill herself. Regardless of what Ronald said about...
about, hey, I didn't tell Jack anything about these letters that Christina was writing me. I think that's bullshit. I think he was telling them everything. Jack was like, I can't leave Christina. I can't get away from her. She's crazy. I just want to be with you, but she's going to cause havoc and spread rumors about us being together, which we are, but I don't want anyone to know. And back then. It was frowned upon. Very frowned upon.
So they decided, let's get married. You get an insurance policy out on her. We'll take her out to the cottage. We will get me and her codeined up and then we'll take her out, dump her in the river, and then we'll come back. And then Jack was in such a state of almost shock because he had a connection with Christine still. And doing what he did to her
put him in that kind of shock state. So that's why Ronald was like, I don't know. I came in and he's just in this like weird state.
He was bopped upside the head, though. Yeah, maybe it was like when him tussling with Christine or something, he gets bopped. But that's not what caused him to act the way he did. What caused him to act the way he did is his emotions towards what he had just done and realizing I just murdered somebody. And then they caught the cabin on fire, collecting money on Christine's death and the cabin. They get rid of her. No rumors spread.
They secretly continued their love affair. They got money. Bada bing, bada boom. End of story. But it didn't work out that way. They went their separate ways. They grew apart due to Jack's inability to separate his emotions from his actions and what he did. And the fact that he became kind of famous afterwards. He had a lot of women throwing themselves at him. Yeah. I think that's what happened. They codeined her up. She got drugged up. Pretty much went unconscious and they threw her body out there. Usually what?
I know we looked this up before. When you throw a body out in the water, it usually sinks, but after a while, it fills up with air. Air, yep. Then it comes back to the surface. Mm-hmm. I think that's what happened with her body. It sank, but I don't know if she really drowned right then. I'm wondering if... What do you think? She's an aqua woman? I think what happened was they threw her in there, and she came to... And started swinging. Well, not swinging, but like started swimming. Because, you know, you start panicking. You find yourself in water.
She started swimming and by the time she actually made it to shore, she was in that little shallow thing. She ended up drowning. Probably tired herself out maybe. I think she had codeine in her system and she just was, just was out of it. Almost in a drunk like state and just drowned that way out in the river. Wasn't able to swim well. Sunk to the bottom and then eventually floated up to the shore. Yeah. I mean, what, three days after is when they found her body. So. It makes sense because the gases release over two to three days.
That's what happened. Case solved. Then I also started to thank the person that found her body. Maybe they kidnapped her. Oh, Jesus. I don't know. I mean, reading through the articles, it was a lot of different variations of shit. Not just because of Ronald telling different stories every time, but the newspapers...
Just messing up the names, what happened. If you read through the newspaper articles as it goes on, the story changes so much. Yeah. The amount of money that was moved around. It was very hard to like keep it in line on what was really going on. It's sensationalizing headlines to get more newspaper purchases. Oh, it was all over the newspapers. Like I wasn't expecting as many articles as there were.
So they were definitely playing on this eight day bride mystery. Well, I enjoyed your theories Thursday topic, Dan. Thank you. If you or a loved one out there are in a secret relationship and you plan on offing another person, please do not do that. Reach out for help. Yeah. It is not the weak thing to do. It is a strong thing to do. Exactly.
Also, if you are related to Cuddlewell, if you're one of his kids or grandkids and he told you a different story, email us, let us know. Yeah. Or if you know Ronald Berry, he moved to New York somewhere. So he's in the United States. I mean, pretty sure probably passed away by now, but I don't know if he had kids, got married or anything.
Send us an email to Aaron, A-A-R-O-N at theoriesofthethirdkind.com or Dan, D-A-N at theoriesofthethirdkind.com. We would love to hear from you. That's right. Well, with that being said, that is the end of our Theories Thursday episode.
But before we roll this out, I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Feliz Navidad. Feliz Navidad. And I hope you all have a good time and Santa brings you lots of gifts. And if not, just remember that we still love you and it's okay. And we're proud of you. Exactly. Do you have any announcements or anything you want to say? Uh...
No, not really. No announcements. I have a few emails, but I'm going to go over them on our Patreon episode today. So we'll talk about those emails during that time. And I'll also talk about my debacle with Michael's, the store. Oh, Michael's. Never order same day delivery from Michael's.
I'm just going to say that. Okay. The store that has the crafts and stuff. I'll explain it all on Patreon. Yeah. So if you want to hear more about the story with Michaels, the store with Aaron, tune into our Patreon episode. $5 a month just to hear that story. We also talk about other stuff on today's episode. Which our Patreon is another Theories Thursday. Yeah. We're doubling up on Theories Thursday, baby. That's right. All right. Well,
With that being said, I want to thank you for joining us today. And again, thank you for your support. You are all amazing. Every single one of you. So with that being said, Dan, you want to roll us out? Sure will. It's okay to be out of this world with your thoughts. Because you are not alone. Boom. He met me at the gas station. He touched my wiener.