Episode 14 - Echoes of the Unknown: A Journey into Supernatural Terror
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This podcast episode delves into the unsettling narratives of the extraordinary, presenting two compelling stories that blur the lines between myth and reality. The first tale, "The Guardian," recounts the harrowing journey of Ethan Cain, a once-respected cryptozoologist, as he ventures into the depths of Cameron Lake, drawn by the elusive legend of a creature that resides beneath its surface. In his quest for validation and redemption, he encounters an ancient truth that suggests some mysteries are best left undisturbed. The second story, "The Lake House," unravels the chilling circumstances surrounding the enigmatic death of Henry Raskin, whose demise amidst an inexplicable fire raises questions about the very fabric of reality. Through these narratives, we explore the themes of obsession, the pursuit of truth, and the haunting consequences of confronting the unknown.
Transcript
Imagine a world teetering on the edge of the familiar, a place where the fabric of the everyday begins to unravel, revealing glimpses of the extraordinary lurking beneath.
Speaker A:You're about to embark on a journey into the enigmatic, where the peculiar and the perplexing intertwine, where every tale twists the mind and tugs at the spirit.
Speaker A:It's a descent into the strange, the mysterious, and the unexplained.
Speaker A:This is when Reality Phrase new episodes are published every Monday and Thursday.
Speaker A:And when Reality Phrase is available everywhere, fine podcasts are found.
Speaker A:Before we move on, please hit that Follow or Subscribe button and turn on all reminders so you're alerted when new episodes are released.
Speaker A:Today's episode contains two stories.
Speaker A:First up is the Guardian, the tragic tale of a scientist seeking answers about a creature of myth and legend.
Speaker A:And the second story of the day is the Lake House, about an impossible event and the resulting government cover up.
Speaker A:Now let's get to the stories.
Speaker A:Ethan Cain, a man of science driven by the need to prove what others dismiss.
Speaker A:His destination Cameron Lake, a quiet stretch of water on Canada's Vancouver island, where whispers of a creature ancient and unseen stir the imagination.
Speaker A:Armed with reason and a fragile hope, he rose into the fog, seeking answers.
Speaker A:But in the depths of this lake, where shadows move with purpose, Ethan Cain is about to discover that some truths are better left submerged.
Speaker A:This is the story of the Guardian.
Speaker A:The mist over Cameron Lake was a predator slinking across the water, coiling around the gnarled pines that guarded its shores and swallowing the jagged peaks of Vancouver island in a suffocating gray veil.
Speaker A: in the biting October air of: Speaker A:Once a respected cryptozoologist, his name now lingered in academic halls as a warning.
Speaker A:Chasing shadows had cost him his career, his credibility, and his marriage.
Speaker A: But a sonar image from: Speaker A:Whatever it was was too large to be otter's and too fluid for sturgeon.
Speaker A:The locals whispered of the Guardian, a creature woven into native stories, older than the lake, older than memory.
Speaker A:Ethan scorned myths, but the sonar was evidence, a lifeline to redemption.
Speaker A:This was his last chance to prove he wasn't broken.
Speaker A:He loaded a skiff with obsessive precision, each item a shield against the unknown.
Speaker A:A waterproof camera with a high intensity flash, a portable sonar unit, a battered notebook filled with coordinates Sketches and half formed theories and a speargun, its steel tip a cold, futile gesture against something the size of a freight car.
Speaker A:He had bought it in Port Alberni, the shopkeeper's raised eyebrows ignored as he paid in cash.
Speaker A:The skiff rocked as he shoved off, oars slicing into the glassy water, each stroke pulling him deeper into the fog's embrace.
Speaker A:The shore quickly faded, then vanished, leaving him adrift in a world of muted grays where sound drowned before it could travel.
Speaker A:The lake was silent, its stillness.
Speaker A:A blade pressed against his chest, sharp with warning.
Speaker A:He had pored over accounts of the Guardian.
Speaker A:Fishermen swore they'd seen a sinuous shape breach, its eyes pale as moonstone, gone before a camera could catch it.
Speaker A:Tribal elders spoke of offerings cast into the depths, of respect owed to the Guardian, of.
Speaker A:Of fates twisted for those who dared disturb it.
Speaker A:Ethan buried the stories beneath his need for proof, but their weight clung.
Speaker A:The sonar flickered to life, its screen glowing a sickly green in the fog.
Speaker A:Ethan adjusted the dials, eyes darting between the water and the display, searching for anomalies.
Speaker A:Cameron Lake was a labyrinth in its depths.
Speaker A:Plunging past 100 meters, it was riddled with unmapped caves and trenches that swallowed light and logic.
Speaker A: The: Speaker A:His pulse thrummed, a faint tremor in his hands.
Speaker A:As he rode deeper into the fog, the sonar pinged, a blip appearing at the screen's edge, small, fleeting, but circling beneath with a precision that felt sentient.
Speaker A:His stomach knotted with excitement.
Speaker A:He leaned over the skiff's side, peering into the black water, seeing only his reflection, distorted, eyes wide with anticipation.
Speaker A:But the blip vanished.
Speaker A:A low vibration shuddered through the hull, something primal, like the pulse of a buried leviathan.
Speaker A:Ethan froze, fingers hovering over the sonar controls, his breath shallow.
Speaker A:The screen flickered, then erupted with a shape, long, undulating, at least 10 meters, rising from the abyss with deliberate grace.
Speaker A:His heart slammed against his ribs, a frantic rhythm drowning the lake's silence.
Speaker A:He fumbled for the camera, its strap catching on the speargun.
Speaker A:Adrenaline made his movements clumsy, and his hands were slick with mist.
Speaker A:20 meters out, the water churned, a slow boil of bubbles.
Speaker A:The skiff rocked, forcing him to grip the sides, wood creaking.
Speaker A:The vibration deepened, a thrumming that rattled his teeth.
Speaker A:He switched on the camera, aiming at the disturbance, but the winds fogged instantly, beads of moisture forming, as if the lake itself spat in defiance.
Speaker A:The sonar screamed, the shape now directly below, its edges blurring as it loomed closer.
Speaker A:Too close, Ethan's mind raced, too vast for anything native, too purposeful for a fluke of nature.
Speaker A:The guardian, the thing the elders feared, was here, and he was a speck in its domain.
Speaker A:He reached for the speargun, hands trembling, knowing it was less than a toy.
Speaker A:Against this, the water surged, a wave lifting the skiff and tilting it until the lake sloshed over the sides, soaking his legs with water as cold as ice.
Speaker A:He scrambled to secure his gear, but the camera slammed into the hull, his lens cracking against the wood.
Speaker A:A hint of a shadow passed beneath the skiff, a fleeting glimpse in the dim, filtered light.
Speaker A:It was gone before he could blink, but its wake violently rocked the skiff.
Speaker A:His breath came in sharp, ragged gasps, the cold clawing at his lungs, his vision narrowing to the water, the fog, the thing he couldn't see.
Speaker A:He scanned the lake, the mist, a suffocating wall hiding whatever it was that stalked him.
Speaker A:The sonar fell silent, its screen blank, as if the creature had chosen to vanish or to hunt unseen.
Speaker A:Ethan rode frantically, aiming for where he thought the shore lay.
Speaker A:But the lake seemed to stretch into infinity, the fog warping distance, direction, and reality itself.
Speaker A:Something brushed the skiff's underside, a deliberate scrape.
Speaker A:He gripped the oars so hard his hands ached as his mind flashed an image of sinuous coils wrapping tight and dragging him into the black.
Speaker A:The elder's warnings clawed at him.
Speaker A:Those who sought the Guardian lost more than they found in body, mind, and soul.
Speaker A:Another scrape, harder, splintering the hull's edge.
Speaker A:Water began to seep in, pooling at his feet.
Speaker A:He abandoned the oars, lunging for the speargun, aiming it blindly into the fog.
Speaker A:The skiff lurched again, a jolt that nearly threw him into the water.
Speaker A:He dropped the speargun and grabbed the sides of the skiff an instant before a shape broke the surface.
Speaker A:It wasn't fully visible, just a curve of glistening flesh before it sank, leaving ripples that raced across the surface.
Speaker A:The water stilled quickly, and the thrumming ceased, but silence, a void pregnant with menace, was worse.
Speaker A:Ethan crouched, waiting, his body coiled, his eyes stinging from sweat despite the chilly air.
Speaker A:The fog parted, a fleeting window, revealing the shore impossibly close, as if the lake had relented.
Speaker A:He seized the oars, rowing with a strength born of terror.
Speaker A:The skiff scraped the shallows, and he stumbled onto land, collapsing in the mud, his chest heaving, his throat raw.
Speaker A:The lake was calm, its surface a mirror once more, the fog lifting as if the world had snapped back to normal.
Speaker A:His gear was ruined, camera shattered, sonar dead, notebook a sodden pulp and pages, bleeding ink.
Speaker A:The speargun lay tangled in the skiff, a relic of his hubris.
Speaker A:No proof, no evidence.
Speaker A:Just the memory of that shadow, that scrape, the weight of something ancient and untouchable.
Speaker A:He looked back at the water, half expecting eyes to rise, pale and unblinking, but there were only ripples, faint and fading, like whispers of a secret kept.
Speaker A:The lake had spared him.
Speaker A:Ethan staggered to his truck, parked a half mile up a rutted dirt footpath.
Speaker A:His legs were unsteady, his clothes heavy with lake water and mud.
Speaker A:The drive to Port Alberni was a blur, the road twisting through forests that felt older than time itself.
Speaker A:He stopped at a gas station, the fluorescent lights searing his raw nerves, and bought a coffee.
Speaker A:The clerk glanced at his soaked clothes, his trembling fingers, and said nothing, but his gaze held a knowing weight, as if he had seen others return from the lake.
Speaker A:Ethan drove on, the truck's heater roaring, but the cold wingered, rooted deeper than his skin.
Speaker A:In his motel room, a cramped space smelling of mildew and stale smoke, Ethan sat on the sagging bed, staring at the peeling wallpaper, the events replaying in jagged, relentless fragments.
Speaker A:He tried to write, to sketch the shape he'd glimpsed, but his hands betrayed him, the pencil shaking until it snapped, graphite dust smearing his fingers.
Speaker A: The sonar image from: Speaker A:He'd come for proof, for vindication, to silence the skeptics and his own doubts.
Speaker A:But the wake had given him something else, a glimpse of a world that didn't want to be known, a truth that clung like damp rot.
Speaker A:That night he couldn't sleep.
Speaker A:The room was too quiet and the darkness too deep.
Speaker A:When he closed his eyes, he saw the lake, relived the scrape on the bottom of the skiff, heard the thrumming.
Speaker A:Shortly after midnight, he sat up in bed, bathed in a cold sweat, staring into the darkness.
Speaker A:His resolve hardened, and he threw off the covers and dressed quickly.
Speaker A:Grabbing a Nikon film camera out of his luggage, he headed out into the night.
Speaker A:Ethan parked where he had the previous day, hiking through the darkness to the lake.
Speaker A:The temperature was cold enough to bite, and when he reached the lake, a dense fog blanketed it and stretched tendrils of mist well into the surrounding forest.
Speaker A:Approaching the edge of the water, he took a few minutes to listen quietly.
Speaker A:Silence reigned, the fog muting any nocturnal sounds.
Speaker A:On a whim, Ethan bent and scooped a handful of small stones off the ground.
Speaker A:Winding up, he threw One as far as he could toward the middle of the lake.
Speaker A:A few seconds later, he heard the splash, unnaturally loud.
Speaker A:A moment passed and he threw another.
Speaker A:And another.
Speaker A:Frustration fueled him and he began throwing rocks into the lake as fast as he could, creating a rhythmic splash.
Speaker A:Splash.
Speaker A:Splash.
Speaker A:Growing angry, he fumbled about until finding a softball sized stone.
Speaker A:He raised it high in the air, prepared to put every ounce of his strength into launching it as far as possible, but froze when he heard a loud splash followed by something slapped the surface so hard he initially thought the sound was a gunshot.
Speaker A:Ethan's breath caught in his throat and he had to resist the impulse to flee.
Speaker A:Time crawled, but the sound didn't repeat.
Speaker A:Slowly, frustration mounted until he angrily flung the stone.
Speaker A:With all his might, he counted the seconds.
Speaker A:One Mississippi to Mississippi Splash.
Speaker A:The stone's impact on the water's surface was heavy and hard, the report sharp despite the enveloping fog.
Speaker A:And it was answered almost immediately with a tremendous splash that was hidden in the mist, but sounded like it was only a few yards offshore.
Speaker A:Heart pounding, Ethan raised the camera and held his ground, one trembling finger resting on the Nikon's shutter.
Speaker A:The wait was interminable, torturous, but he held on.
Speaker A:This was his shot at redemption, his final opportunity.
Speaker A:He realized, as terrified as he was, he wasn't going to allow fear to dictate his future.
Speaker A:A soft sound reached his ears.
Speaker A:The sound of something smooth being rubbed across stone with the darkness of night and the dense fog.
Speaker A:He could see nothing more than an arm length away, but that sound, reminiscent of the slither of a serpent, was close.
Speaker A:Very close.
Speaker A:Ethan pressed and held the shutter button.
Speaker A:The camera clicked rapidly, the flash firing in concert with the shutter opening.
Speaker A:The fog around him strobed, blinding him, and the cycling of the shutter masked all other sounds in his ears.
Speaker A:Ethan's camera was found three days later by a park service employee lying on the rocky shoreline of the lake.
Speaker A:It was logged into, lost and found, and promptly forgotten until the police showed up a couple of weeks later.
Speaker A:They were there in response to a missing persons report filed by a friend of Ethan who had known he was coming to Vancouver Island.
Speaker A:The police had the film developed, every frame nothing but a whited out blur of camera flash bouncing off the fog until the next to last shot, which seemed to reveal a massive sinuous form half on the rocks and half in the water.
Speaker A:Then the final pick.
Speaker A:Something in the fog that conjured thoughts of an eel close enough to fill the frame, mouth agape, revealing multiple rows of dagger sharp teeth.
Speaker A:The camera and photos were eventually returned to Ethan's family, who passed the images on to one of his former colleagues at the university who was also a Cripp cryptozoologist.
Speaker A:She carefully examined the final two photos and, intrigued, visited the lake where Ethan vanished.
Speaker A:It was an arduous process, but with the help of park rangers, she was able to identify the spot where Ethan had taken the pics and set about reconstructing the scene.
Speaker A:Her conclusion startled her and created some buzz in the cryptozoology community.
Speaker A:Whatever it was that Ethan had captured on film was estimated to be at least 25ft in length, with a body diameter of 18 to 22 inches.
Speaker A:There was an initial flurry of breathless reporting in the Western Canadian and Washington state media, but before the sensational news could go wide, Ethan's reputation came to the press's attention and the story vanished as quickly as its subject.
Speaker A:Ethan Cain, a man who sought to conquer the unknown with the tools of science, only to find that some mysteries bite back.
Speaker A:Cameron Lake, a quiet corner of Vancouver island, became his final frontier, where the line between myth and reality blurred into a fog as thick as the one that swallowed him whole.
Speaker A:In his pursuit of proof and redemption, Ethan discovered a truth older than the lake itself.
Speaker A:There are guardians in the deep, watching, waiting and unforgiving, a lesson learned too late in that place where reality frays.
Speaker A:If you're enjoying the stories, please support the podcast by buying me a coffee.
Speaker A:The link is in the episode Show Notes and I would greatly appreciate your support.
Speaker A:Now onto today's second story, which is the Lake House, a remote lake house on the tranquil, pine fringed shores of Lake Brainerd, Minnesota.
Speaker A:On a sweltering summer night.
Speaker A:That peace will be shattered by a mysterious death so confounding it will unravel the fabric of reality and its echoes will haunt a small town long after the last cinders drift into the night.
Speaker A:The house, a creaking two story cedar relic, stood half hidden among towering pines, its weathered shingles sagging under decades of snow and neglect.
Speaker A:It was the solitary refuge of Henry Raskin, a 60 year old widower whose world had shrunk to the lake's quiet rhythm since his wife Elizabeth succumbed to cancer 10 years prior.
Speaker A:Robert Raskin was an innocuous figure in Brainerd, known only for his dawn fishing trips, his silhouette at dusk with a glass of whiskey, and his refusal to engage in the town's chatter.
Speaker A:The night of August 12 began unremarkably, the lake house cloaked in darkness under a moonless sky, its Windows caught the faint shimmer of starlight on the water's surface, but nothing more.
Speaker A:Raskin was alone, seated at his kitchen table with a worn copy of Moby Dick open before him.
Speaker A:The silence was broken only by the groan of settling beams and the soft lap of waves against his splintered dock.
Speaker A:His routine was predictable.
Speaker A:A supper of canned soup, a single pour of whiskey, and a moment of stillness by the window, gazing at the lake that had become both companion and and captor.
Speaker A:At 2am a glow lit the night, swelling into a blaze that tore through the darkness.
Speaker A:A camper bivouacked three miles away spotted the inferno's orange halo and called the volunteer fire brigade.
Speaker A:But the dirt road to Raskin's property was a winding, rutted path, and by the time the firefighters trucks rattled into the clearing, the house was a roaring furnace.
Speaker A:Flames clawed skyward, their heat bending the air, melting steel appliances into glistening pools and reducing oak timbers to ash so fine it floated like mist.
Speaker A:The firefighters, their faces glistening with sweat, fought the blaze for hours.
Speaker A:The water from their hoses hissed futilely against flames that seemed to pulse with a wind will of their own.
Speaker A:Defying all efforts to extinguish them, the fire eventually guttered out dawn, revealing a scene of apocalyptic devastation.
Speaker A:The house was obliterated, its foundation a blackened crater.
Speaker A:The surrounding pines were scorched from heat but remained eerily upright, as if there had been a precise line the fire would not cross.
Speaker A:The air reeked of charred wood and something unplaceable like burnt metal.
Speaker A:Amid the rubble, the firefighters stumbled upon a sight that stopped them cold.
Speaker A:Raskin's body seated upright in a wooden chair at the kitchen table, untouched by the inferno.
Speaker A:His shirt was crisp, its buttons gleaming, his skin unmarred by soot or blister, and his hands were folded as if in prayer.
Speaker A:His chair and table, their structures intact, sat in a knee deep pile of ash.
Speaker A:Raskin's eyes were wide open, fixed on the lake beyond the vanished window.
Speaker A:His face was a frozen mask of shock and something deeper.
Speaker A:Resignation perhaps, or recognition.
Speaker A:The firefighters, men accustomed to barn fires and car wrecks, felt a cold night thrill of fear as they summoned the coroner.
Speaker A:The scene before them was a violation of nature, a paradox that lodged in their minds like a splinter, chilling them more than the morning's damp breeze.
Speaker A:Sheriff Tom Carlson, a pragmatic man with 25 years in the force, walked the scene.
Speaker A:The rubble and ash radiated an unnatural heat that threatened to blister his feet through his boots.
Speaker A:With his deputies and the fire chief, he began the investigation.
Speaker A:The fire's intensity was the first thing noted.
Speaker A:It was beyond their experience and comprehension, but the sheriff set that aside for the moment.
Speaker A:Tests were conducted, but no traces of gasoline, kerosene, or chemical catalysts were detected.
Speaker A:The blaze had consumed the interior with a precision that marked fire science, leaving no smoke patterns and no char gradients, only a uniform devastation that defied thermodynamics.
Speaker A:A cast iron wood burning stove had been melted into a puddle of slag.
Speaker A: e fire burns at approximately: Speaker A: ly a temperature greater than: Speaker A:The grass surrounding the home remained green.
Speaker A:The dock's planks, only 60ft from the house, were untouched.
Speaker A:Recognizing he was out of his depth, the sheriff called the FBI.
Speaker A:But when he explained the situation, they seemed to lose interest, telling him an agent would call back when available.
Speaker A:Neighbors scattered across the lake's shore were interviewed, their stories converging on a haunting detail.
Speaker A:Three of them described a glowing figure, humanoid but blurred, moving near Raskin's property hours before the fire.
Speaker A:A retired schoolteacher saw it gliding through the pines, its form flickering like a torch.
Speaker A:A farmer tending his animals watched the figure pause by the water next to Raskin's dock.
Speaker A:A teenage girl sneaking outside for a cigarette swore.
Speaker A:The figure turned toward her, its face a void before vanishing when her dog began barking.
Speaker A:Later interviews revealed even darker accounts.
Speaker A:A fisherman on the opposite bank described what he called burning creatures, beings wreathed in flame, their forms indistinct but human like.
Speaker A:As they stalked the treeline near the lakehouse, he claimed they moved in slow, deliberate patterns, their glow dimming and brightening as if feeding on something unseen.
Speaker A:Another witness, a hunter camping in the woods, reported seeing living embers, fiery shapes darting between the trees, their motion accompanied by a crackling sound that echoed through the forest like dry branches snapping.
Speaker A:No tracks marked the soil, no branches were snapped.
Speaker A:And the accounts, too consistent for collusion, were filed as stress induced visions.
Speaker A:Yet Carlson, a man who trusted facts over feelings, couldn't dismiss them, their weight compounding the case's unease.
Speaker A:Other locals reported a low buzz, like a distant airplane.
Speaker A:In the hours before the blaze, a kayaker enjoying the serenity of the empty lake at night claimed to have seen lights flickering underwater, though divers found no explanation.
Speaker A:Raskin's life was devoid of clues.
Speaker A:He had no enemies, no debts and no grudges.
Speaker A:His bank account held $4,000, enough for his spartan Needs.
Speaker A:His mail was a stack of fishing catalogs and a subscription to National Geographic.
Speaker A:In Brainerd, he was a fixture without presents.
Speaker A:Folks nodded to him in the bait shop, but none knew his heart.
Speaker A:Elizabeth's death had hallowed him, stripping the warmth from a man who once coached Little League and sang in the church choir.
Speaker A:His only indulgence was a nightly whiskey poured from a bottle in a kitchen drawer.
Speaker A:And his only company.
Speaker A:The lake, its depths a mirror for.
Speaker A:For his grief.
Speaker A:The coroner's report deepened the mystery.
Speaker A:Raskin had died of cardiac arrest before the fire.
Speaker A:As there was no evidence of smoke in his lungs, no toxins, drugs or recent injuries were found.
Speaker A:His heart had simply stopped, as if gripped by an unseen force.
Speaker A:His blood showed no anomalies, and his organs were healthy for his age.
Speaker A:The investigation took another twist when a firefighter probing the rubble with a rake unearthed a small weather bound diary.
Speaker A:It was buried in the ash beneath the chair Raskin had been found in.
Speaker A:Its cover was scorched, but its pages pristine.
Speaker A:It was a diary, Raskin's private confession, chronicling his final weeks in a neat, slanting script that grew shakier with each entry.
Speaker A:Early pages were mundane.
Speaker A:Caught a 12 inch trout.
Speaker A:Finished reading a novel, a storm's wind rattling the shutters.
Speaker A:But in the last two weeks, the tone turned.
Speaker A:Raskin wrote of sleepless nights, of a buzz that vibrated his bones as shadows moved beyond his porch light too fluid for animals and too silent for men.
Speaker A:He described viv visitors, figures that came through the walls, formless yet oppressive.
Speaker A:They watched him from the lake's edge, their eyes like pinpricks of white, burning without warmth.
Speaker A:He felt them in the house, he wrote, their steps soundless but their gaze a violation.
Speaker A:The final entry, dated 1:30am on the night of the fire, was a single trembling line.
Speaker A:They're here.
Speaker A:The diary's survival was inexplicable, its paper untouched by a blaze that had vaporized metal, its ink vivid as if freshly written.
Speaker A:Chemists at the state forensic lab tested it, finding nothing abnormal.
Speaker A:Experts analyzed and confirmed the handwriting.
Speaker A:As his Carlson pored over the diary, he.
Speaker A:He re interviewed neighbors, pressing for details of the glowing figure and the burning creatures.
Speaker A:The schoolteacher recalled a metallic scent before the fire.
Speaker A:The farmer noted his livestock had refused to approach the lake for at least a week.
Speaker A:The teenage smoker, now reluctant to speak, admitted to nightmares of a faceless figure since that night.
Speaker A:The fisherman and hunter both affected their accounts, their fear palpable, as if speaking of the creatures might draw them closer.
Speaker A:But the most unsettling twist came with the arrival of FBI agents.
Speaker A:They appeared unannounced at the sheriff's office, their credentials showing generic names.
Speaker A:Smith, Jones and Black.
Speaker A:Their demeanor was cold and calculating.
Speaker A:As they introduced themselves as part of a federal task force without any further elaboration.
Speaker A:Their questions were sharp, their manners intent.
Speaker A:The diary was confiscated without explanation.
Speaker A:The witnesses re interviewed the agents exuded an air of calculated control.
Speaker A:They dismantled the investigation piece by piece, labeling the accounts of glowing figures and burning creatures as mass hysteria exacerbated by small town paranoia.
Speaker A:After less than 24 hours, they concluded the source of the fire was an electrical fault.
Speaker A:Sheriff Carlson objected, citing the fact that the fire burned so hot the house's electrical system had melted completely into oblivion.
Speaker A:Despite no evidence to support their claim, the agent's presence silenced the sheriff and the town.
Speaker A:That night, a convoy of unmarked trucks arrived at the lakehouse, accompanied by heavy equipment.
Speaker A:The next morning, the only indication that Henry Raskin's house had ever existed.
Speaker A:Was a neatly raked patch of bare earth where it had once sat.
Speaker A:The dock had vanished.
Speaker A:The trees that had been scorched by the fire had been removed, their stumps ground to sawdust, which was also missing.
Speaker A:The scene had been sterilized.
Speaker A:The lead, Agent Smith, visited Sheriff Carlson at the crack of dawn, rousting him out of bed and sternly instructing him to close the case by order of national security.
Speaker A:When the coroner arrived at work that morning, Henry Raskin's body was gone, as were all records of the autopsy that had been performed.
Speaker A:Evidence and witness statements that had been collected by the sheriff's office were missing.
Speaker A:Removed from the evidence room and deleted from servers.
Speaker A:In one night, the federal agents had disappeared.
Speaker A:The entire event.
Speaker A:The lake house lot remained vacant, eventually seized by the county for unpaid taxes.
Speaker A:No one has bought it, despite being able to acquire the land for only the amount of taxes owed in Lake Brainerd.
Speaker A:Rumors persist of the government covering up the truth of Henry Raskin's death.
Speaker A:Some believe aliens were responsible.
Speaker A:Others blame an unknown government project that got out of hand.
Speaker A:Still more people, mostly those older who have lived in the area their entire lives, whisper of a Chippewa curse on the land.
Speaker A:Whatever the truth may be, it is doubtful we will ever know what came through the walls of the lake house to claim Henry Raskin.
Speaker A:The stories presented are inspired by true events.
Speaker A:Names and locations may have been changed for privacy reasons.
Speaker A:New episodes are uploaded every Monday and Thursday.
Speaker A:If you're enjoying the journey into the strange, the mysterious and the unexplained, be sure to press that Follow or Subscribe button and turn on all reminders so you're alerted whenever an episode drops.
Speaker A:Until next time, thank you for listening to When Reality Frays.
