THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES #15 - Lost Johns’ Cave

MAG015 - Case #0140911 - Laura Popham
Statement regarding their experience exploring the Three Counties system of caves with their sister, Alena Sanderson.
The Magnus Archives tells the tale of a caving trip that takes a turn for the worse in the darkness and waters below.
Starring: The Archivist - Jonathan Sims
Writer: Jonathan Sims
Director: Alexander J Newall
Editors: Alexander J Newall, Murray Porter
MERCH:
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EMAIL: [e-mail]
The Magnus Archives is distributed by RustyQuill.com and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence.

[@redcanaryunderground]

i have never been more disturbed by the word *clunk*

[@alilweeb7684]

Berserk fans be like

[@headofathousandsheepswool]

YOUR PFP-

[@thegorlnextdoorhere]

C L U N K

[@Youeverthinkthat]

HELP THIS COMMENT MADE ME GIGGLE

[@martian743]

I saw a warning on tumblr that said if you have a fear, the magnus archives have an episode about it and I didn't think it would extend to my niche fear of cave diving

[@gigleorex]

I think this is a pretty common fear. It's not something we encounter every day, but it's something most people would be wary of I'd say. Definitely an effective episode! :0

[@Quick-Silver206]

Cave diving is a hard nope from me. Caves are creepy. Water is creepy. Suffocation and drowning are creepy. Now add PITCH blackness to it all. My god the fact that real people really do this gives me anxiety.

[@jormungandrworldserpent6437]

Thank goodness I have an irrational fear of getting nuked, I highly doubt the Magnus Archives would make a whole episode about that

[@KateCantDraw]

Yeah, when the inevitable episode of imortal but alone forever comes, I don't care how much lore is in it, I'm skipping it

[@HearthFlow]

@@jormungandrworldserpent6437 Ha!

[@RubyDianArts]

This is still the scariest one for me of S1, that "Take her not me" really gets you.

[@mrsbasia122]

All my hair started standing on end when I heard her whisper that.

[@jaepoindexter1068]

Oh that makes much more sense, I thought she was saying "They candled me"

[@anotherworldhopper5344]

Lmao I thought she said ‘that cannot be’

[@kale4442]

i thought she said 'may god help me'?

[@RubyDianArts]

@@kale4442 Nope, further down in the comment section here Rusty Quill confirmed it's "Take her, not me." If you google for the official Magnus Archives Transcripts, it also has that.

[@dannyb9992]

Claustrophobia, drowning, and getting lost in unfamiliar places?? My three biggest fears! Cool!

[@unicornilluminati9019]

RIP

[@duckfilms3662]

The buried...

[@nateds7326]

That's the buried for you. Mine is the Vast, heights horrify me.

[@arianewinter4266]

@@nateds7326 I have a weird relationship with the vast, it drawes me in, its sphere facinates me enormesly and in most cases, I have little to no problem with hights, but I get problems when I go up for a while. It is weird, I do not feel afraid, it starts when i still feel calm and if there is, enjoy the view that I slowly start to get dizzy, nausiated and weak it it grows worse when I try to eccend further. Only after the symphoms get bad the fear comes . . . If I just am somewhere high, in the mountains, on the tip of a tower I took an elivater to or a plane, there is nothing. The problem only arises when I go up myself. My personal horror probably would be the Hunt as most of my nightmares are about being chased and no matter what I can not escape, or the Lonely, which rationaly would make morse sense.

[@SunroseStudios]

uh oh

[@thatonepunkguy]

The most unsettling part of this is definitely the recording... at least for me. Nearly every episode so far has made me unsettled, but that recording made my heart skip a beat or two. I bet she didn't include the recording because she felt guilty, that is, if she remembered what she said at all. Truly disturbing to me.

[@domrat1550]

She was repeating it for almost 3 hours... I don't think she remambers it.

[@laquasiacherry-mack2542]

My heart dropped listening to the recording..

[@epsyblue7714]

What did she say? The area I'm in has a bit of noise and the captions didn't come up.

[@pablodonner5213]

@@epsyblue7714 take her not me. That's what she is saying

[@epsyblue7714]

@@pablodonner5213 Woah 😰

[@lauren-ko7mr]

the recording at the end scares me more than anything else in this episode -- not because of the unreality of it, or bc she doesnt remember it, or bc its such an evil, selfish thing to say. its literally just how animalistically scared she is. reduced to a tiny whimpering thing thats so scared that she is operating on pure base survival instinct and might not even be aware of what shes saying. shes so scared that her love for caving, her love for her sister, and even her conscious control of her thoughts, feelings, words, and actions, just VANISH. im literally just afraid of her fear. i honestly hope im never that scared of anything in my life.

[@kaitlynmorgan4613]

honestly im thinking the sister was the whimpering one. u cant whimper like that while speaking normally, and that honestly makes it worse. imagine being stuck in a cave with your sister in a trance-like state whispering "take her not me.. take her not me.. take her not me.." while watching a creature creep closer and closer to you (that is to say if the creature had a physical state of being, or at least a visible form)

[@coletteb.8889]

​@@kaitlynmorgan4613thank you for writing what she was saying. I have auditory processing issues and I could not hear what she was saying (nor could the auto captions). I could only hear "They got no pea" and I was 100% sure that wasn't what she was saying and was really curious.

[@Reinbow-rh6hn]

@@coletteb.8889Hey, There’s A Website With A Transcript Of Every Episode, Just So You Know :)) I Use It To Follow Along While I Listen.

[@aemidaniels]

@@coletteb.8889 I kept hearing "They can't know me" and was scanning the comments to see if anyone transcribed it too XD same issue on my end!

[@17thstellation]

Stuff like that always gets me. When people are confronted with such blinding terror they start to throw their companions under the bus and I can't even be mad at them for it. It's a card you can't play too often and I think they saved it specially for this episode; it goes so well with being trapped and unable to do anything but wait hopelessly... The worst (best) part for me is that she was saying it for almost THREE HOURS. Can you imagine being drowned in that kind of fear for that long? That is not something that should ever happen. I don't want to think about how that would affect a human.

[@tenkesh_9429]

"A perfect fit"... Junji Ito flashback intensifies.

[@chimedemon]

Holy shit, I know... this definitely gave me vibes from that, but when the sister said “you’re lost aren’t you?” I immediately became super... unnerved... and a little frightened... the recording got to me too

[@domrat1550]

@@chimedemon How lost are you? * and I don't think Elena was the one who said it base on her reaction (looking back at her sister as if she didn't understand) when Laura said they aren't lost at all. As if Laura answered a question Elena never asked or even heard.

[@hyobro8392]

I thougt of the same thing

[@nanahuatli2144]

@@domrat1550 It was a different voice too.

[@nanahuatli2144]

Right?! When she said that, I immediately thought about it. "It was made for me". And then I expected the narrowing tunnel would compel her forward.

[@henatatorplays]

I know the end recording was what really got people, but for me it was just her sister saying, "how lost are you?" That one sentence messed me up even before everything went wrong, what a good episode

[@kiro8720]

same. i just imagine this voice behind me. it's always messes me up when characters suddenly switch intonations like that

[@ot7biasedmashups]

Nah fr I was just chilling (trying to calm down my fear of drowning that was not so nicely triggered by the CLUNK) and when she said that I was just like 😨 aw hell nah

[@meels13]

I don't think it was her sister who said it tbh. I think it was whatever she was begging to at the end

[@alejandrobello7005]

​@@meels13yeah something tells me that shapeshifters are part of this story, fucking terrifying

[@djphoenix279]

@@meels13I agree - considering how her sister looked confused at her response, I don’t think she was the one who had asked “How lost are you?” at all…

[@dakotameredith1736]

Me: *likes caves* Johnny Sims: I can fix that

[@ot7biasedmashups]

Real

[@Scarshadow666]

What's creepiest to me is the implication that Laura is an unreliable narrator, and that she was involved in something horrible happening to her own sister... 0_0

[@midnights2631]

I agree, especially which how she seems to be annoyed with her

[@elizabethpemberton8445]

Oh yeah, I feel Laura sacrificed her sister to The Buried - but that she didn’t really understand what she was dealing with, just meant to scare Elena and enjoy the power she had over her, and the subsequent direct experience of The Buried embracing HER scared her too much for her to become an avatar. As cruel as Laura sounds toward Elena, and as much as she is directly responsible for her death, when it came down to it she was too human to transition. She didn’t enjoy it enough.

[@felixsfriendthatgavehimthe2108]

This episode felt sketchier the more she slandered her d e a d sister. If she was still alive it wouldn’t have been as bad. But like, “take her not me” was the final kicker.

[@kiro8720]

yeah, it felt like like she didn't even like her sister in the first place. more like used her as a company.

[@Homesicktraveler]

​@Mewmew hell no, I'd never be like that about my sister- despite our bad relationship, I could never speak I'll of her in death...idk, seems sketchy.

[@felixsfriendthatgavehimthe2108]

@Mewmew yeah but if my brother was dead I’d be in shambles.

[@ryguy3741]

I felt exactly the same. You could tell she didn’t like her deep down

[@Primus011]

Chief we're not on tiktok you can say dead

[@gretablackwell495]

Almost every episode has a different comment, by a different person, saying what basically sums up to “this is the one that _really_ unsettled me.” This podcast follows such a wide range of fears that it can affect anyone and I think that’s really neat. That being said, this episode has me utterly fucked up

[@benvoliofairbain6779]

When I read this I thought "Oh no please don't have spiders" and then I look at the next episode and it's literally called " arachnophobia" I hate it here

[@kinqham4215]

Good thing my fears are only concepts. Like what are going to do Scare me with a story about a physical representation of being betrayed by my loved ones

[@kinqham4215]

@@sabrinasutter115 Öh nø

[@HearthFlow]

@@kinqham4215 Oh no indeed

[@kinqham4215]

@@HearthFlowI hope they don’t do one on scopophobia

[@waitingwarrior4203]

Ok laugh if you want. I was listening to this while playing minecraft... and it messed me up.

[@tvbugss]

dude same

[@Gooberpotomous]

That's funny in a good way, though. Laughing with, not at

[@cyndrillis1605]

Bruh sameee

[@cloudydays5761]

SAME AND I WAS MINING

[@amupng]

I was playing it while deeeeep in a cave, not fun

[@korikoran]

Laura: "caving has always been one of my hobbies" Me (having watched tons of strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format): Oh no....

[@avaharris7814]

yesss especially when they got to the cave diving part…

[@user-cb5jp5gt8e]

Underrated comment. Just be NICE to that like button!

[@user-ku9xx1gw3v]

Oh no, I'm just out of one of the creepiest episodes of season one and you're reminding me of strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format?

[@love30STM1997]

My guess is that they already fucked up at the entrance and went through Big Meanie or something because that entrance is more narrow and actually has "a few unexpected twists in the pothole" whereas the Death's Head Hole is a wide straight drop. I think that is the reason Laura was a bit confused with the map as she said "I find it hard sometimes to match the irregular lines and angles of the underground passages to the often abstract shapes written into the map." because their actual position and where Laura thought they were on the map didn't match. That is probably also the reason Sasha said the route Laura described was " borderline nonsensical". It's because it was, they were reading the map wrong from the start and probably wound up god knows where. This was a great episode though! I've been doing some caving myself recently and I swear I could feel everything that was described and it filled me with dread. Needed to get a hug from my mom to calm myself down a bit after listening to this.

[@tylerasw5103]

God, the fact that there’s actually an explanation for at least part of the craziness of this episode makes it even scarier to me. What if they went through Big Meanie, she left the lens cap on, her sister drowned, and she had an absolute mental breakdown after watching her drown? God, sometimes the possibility of something unexplained like this being explained by mundane reasons makes these tales even creepier.

[@kimvu7610]

That could probably be the reason why they saw no one at the entry point even it was the perfect time of day to go cave diving. Not excluding the fact that the entrance must have been unused since the entry way show no signs of use considering the plant and wild life covering the entry way.

[@theartistswings9810]

but then how was she found inside the proper cave?

[@jaderush4141]

But it wasn't just the entry point that was empty. There was no one in the parking lot either.

[@Flarezap]

IDK I think they descended to the bottom of Death's Head Hole and didn't progress at all. From the sounds of it they were hypnotised (maybe with the candles?) and the cave took Alena. Still doesn't explain the lack of permits though.

[@babieofchat8667]

The “take her not me” part was definitely the most unsettling, but I’m confused when it comes to who’s saying it. It sounds like it’s off in the distance somewhere in the cave and you can hear a whimper or a whine that sounds like it’s right next to the camera which is more likely to be Laura and the “take her not me” never stops. Laura also says in her statement that when the candle light was coming towards her she could hear what sounded like elenas voice off in the distance but she couldn’t make out what she was saying and just assumed she was calling out for help? So in my mind it was most likely the sister that didn’t make it out pleading for her life to whatever entity was in the caves.

[@silverftn6105]

yeah, I think so too! I didn't quiet get clear what the voice said first time heard the podcast, and based on the voice sounds pretty far & it sounds like "please help me" I just assume it's the sister calling for help all the way, never stop. Even though I get it wrong it's still quiet scary the wrong way lol

[@nkechi4635]

No, according to the transcript, it's definitely Laura saying take her not me. Plus it's much less fucked up if it was the sister, fits more for it to be Laura

[@Evergreen_Trees_are_cool]

I think you're totally right! I can't help but think how (I can't remember where I know it from, I think later in the series) people giving statements can't help but be honest and tell the full story to the best of their ability, which I think lends credence to your theory

[@SmokeyMountainSuccubus]

​@julietmcquain9746 This is a really good point i never thought about. Knowing what we know at the end of the series it's extremely unlikely Laura would be able to leave out these details if she had known them.

[@marylii04]

​@555Rainstar counterpoint: what if she told what she *thought* was true?

[@venusi7550]

10:53"Two men, both named John.." *Istanbul not Constantinople starts to play*

[@Sapphirebulletsofpurelove]

TMBG, my fav cave divers 🥴

[@TheMegaOne1000]

Isolation! Darkness! Claustrophobia! With your powers combined! I'm Captain AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

[@djphoenix279]

OMFG I almost choked on my bagel reading this 🤣

[@msp654]

23:50 If anyone can't make out what the sound is, I believe its someone saying "Take her not me" repeatedly. Though for a moment I thought it also might have been "they can't help me". It definitely starts with a t- sound, and ends in the word 'me'

[@TheCrystalStyx]

Yea its "Take her not me". The creator confirmed this in the comments. I actually came to the comments to verify myself what it said lol.

[@channelwhatchamacallit2614]

I wasn't able to tell what it was saying, I kept hearing "they got the feet"

[@haruuri5464]

@@channelwhatchamacallit2614 lolol xDD

[@GiubileiFernando]

@@channelwhatchamacallit2614 I thought I heard something similar "they have no feet" which makes even less sense.

[@hotel.califcornia]

i kept hearing "they found me" :

[@ElForrest-Okey]

"It wasn't on the map" was about where I got incredibly worried.

[@roianamustang7008]

I started getting worried since the uneasiness started

[@ot7biasedmashups]

When she said "how lost are you" it was over for me

[@typervoxilations2311]

it was the "unexpected twists and turns" at the opening drop that gripped my spine with intense fear bc i knew immediately they were in the wrong place

[@toastghost9145]

Squirm squicked me out, but this was the first one to make me go "Nope nope nope nope." So, nicely done.

[@sleepjoy8221]

I was going "Nope nope nope nope" during first aid and a fathers love

[@zuzannatasarz3756]

Same, especially the bit with the voice recording (from the cave) at the end.

[@cezar3169]

what happened in squirm again?

[@milliewhite9042]

@@cezar3169 the girl turns into worms and the guy burns his apartment down

[@hannahdavis5725]

You know in all honesty, throughout the story Laura expressed loving her sister but at the same time there does seem to be a bit of animosity when talking about her too.

[@meleileen2960]

If you listen to the end bit, with the "take her not me," you might notice that right at the very end, there's what sounds like a whimper from whoever is holding the camera. The chanting does not stop when that happens, and moreover, it sounds like it's further in the distance, as opposed to right next to it. Since Laura would have to be the one holding the camera, it was probably Elaine that was chanting, which would, honestly, be a pretty good reason to dislike her afterwards.

[@ginkgomoth]

@@meleileen2960 oh whoa that's interesting

[@QweAsd-nr8xg]

Jon be like Statement begins 🗿Caving has always been one of my hobbies 🥰

[@koromoro6682]

Counting 5 Johns so far including Jonathan

[@Hannah-gh4by]

I'm glad someone else has noticed the copious amounts of Johns in this podcast 😂

[@coffeewolfproductions9113]

"There does seem to be a rather disturbing trend of people named 'John' finding their way into these statements. I have considered the possibility of changing my name but I quickly decided against it."

[@17thstellation]

​@@coffeewolfproductions9113 I can hear this SO CLEARLY in his voice

[@mmmbopgangsta7329]

I wish more people knew of this podcast. It's so good. So well written and narrated. It's the best horror podcast I've ever heard and I hope it gets the attention it deserves.

[@coffeewolfproductions9113]

Boy do I have some good news

[@mmmbopgangsta7329]

@@coffeewolfproductions9113 oh? Do tell

[@vera-whatsurdiscord]

For me i wish it could stay in a bubble of peolle that are cool enough to like it cause if it spreads out and everyone gets to know about it, then i will cry as i see the fandom and content being ruined

[@Tshefeua]

The “take her not me” filled me with such a fear that tears stung at my eyes. The panic in the voice was terrifying

[@seyurienaidoo1324]

This has been by far the scariest episode for me so far. I just don't understand who was saying "take her not me" 😭

[@toastghost9145]

My guess is that it was Laura saying that (the camera containing the message was found apparently with her) while whatever entity with the candle was approaching her. If that's true, that's probably why she was found, and not Alena.

[@Darkrose517]

@@toastghost9145 That could kind of be taken two ways if you think about it. If, like in her statement, she really believed that she was being pulled out instead of down into the place with the candles, she could have been telling the entity to save her sister instead of her. Like 'Take her out of here, not me'.

[@babieofchat8667]

I’m also unsure bc she says that with the candle light coming towards her she could hear Elena speaking but she couldn’t understand what she was actually saying and the recording itself had a sound like sounded almost like a whimper? Or a whine that was much closer to the camera and the “take her not me” never stopped so I think it was Elena off in the distance but that wouldn’t explain why Laura survived

[@Seelenschwert088]

@@Darkrose517 "Like 'Take her out of here, not me'." unlikely i would say. As far as we can assume, they checked the whole Footage, so if anything as this was recorded, they would have added it.

[@Seelenschwert088]

@@babieofchat8667 i think Elena was definetely near her Sister, when the recording was made. The Question is, what caused her to wimper. Was it her realization (or disappointment) that her Sister was "solding her out" to some kind of God and left of on her own? Or was she just deeply worried about her condition? Maybe she saw the Entity in its horrific form.

[@ssundiall2]

the moment i heard "cave diving" i immediately said aloud "oh no" and im only 14 minutes in but scrolling down to the comments gives me the feeling that this one is gonna be bad in a good way, bad as in scary and sad which is good for my personal enjoyment but not good for the characters, y'know? anyways im fairly certain im going to cry cus im a bit of a baby

[@samschmidt8772]

I went caving once with the paleontology club from my school. It was a well-known local cave and we were going to look at fossils and other cave formations. It was an educational trip. I quite enjoyed it and brought along my camera to take pictures of the formations and fossils. I was the group photographer. There were two parts of that trip however which scared me. One was having to climb up a metal ladder, the kind that had a bend in the middle so it could either be an a-frame ladder or unfolded to reach up higher. It was unfolded, one end sitting in a muddy hump on the ground with some stalagmites around it. The ground all around was slick with mud. And the ladder stretched 10 or 20 feet up to rest about 5 feet below some ammonites. The ladder flexed as you went up it, shaking with every step so you thought you could fall at any moment, even if someone was standing at the bottom holding the ladder steady. I climbed up the ladder, camera in hand. I didn't want it to bum on the ladder especially with the long lens I had on it, so I held the camera in one hand and climbed with the other. As I got further up the cave got narrower, which ended up being a blessing in disguise. When I got too scared to climb any higher I then had the terrifying job of taking a picture of the ammonites. This involved using both hands, which is where the narrowed cave became useful. I stood up on that rickety ladder and pressed my back against the high cave wall as I took my pictures. It was over within a minute and I climbed back down. I didn't go back up the ladder to take a closer look at those fossils. The other terrifying part is a bit more connected to this story. It was when we were properly spelunking. We have crawled through the narrowest part of the cave. It wasn't too small really, but small enough that you couldn't move your arms past your sides once you were in and hat to wriggle on your hands and knees. It was a couple feet long with some variations and a bend towards the end that led into a small room-like cavern. The little room was quite nice. Relaxing. Enjoyable. We were in there for some time just hanging out and being excited about rock formations as geologists do. Going out however was another story. I was in the middle of the group due to having to bring my camera bag along with me. It filled up most of the small passage and I had to push it in front of me to get it through. This meant that I was even more blind as most of my vision was taken up by the black camera bag wrapped in an old, dark coat to keep out the mud. At first it was alright, I proceeded out as I had in with little difficulty other than slow going due to the bag. But towards the end I started to have some trouble. For whatever reason, I found myself unable to proceed with the bag. I couldn't go backward and couldn't go forwards. I could see that the cave widened in front of me, that I was almost at the end. I think the problem I was having was that I couldn't get enough traction with my legs to push me out and needed my arms free to get through that final stretch. But I couldn't do that with the bag. I couldn't push the bag far enough ahead to get the space I needed and the tunnel wasn't wide enough to move my arms much further than shoulder with apart. I needed the space the bag was taking up to move my arms. I started to panic a bit. I called for the person ahead of me to take the bag, please just take the bag. I couldn't get out would someone please just come take the bag. It felt like minutes but was probably less than one minute before someone from the group came back and took the bag. There was enough room there for him to grab it and then turn around and make his way out with the bag, though I realized a moment later that the area still had a rather low ceiling meaning you still needed to crawl for a bit. But once he took the bag I could use my arms and after a moment I was free and, after a few more moments of crawling, was able to stand. All in all the whole experience was probably under 5 minutes, but time isn't the same in a cave. It's hard to judge. It stretches on and on, minutes feeling like an eternity. And if given the chance I would do it again, no questions asked. That being said, I wouldn't want to do it for a living. And not without someone who knows the cave.

[@RustyQuill]

Wow, that sounds harrowing. Thank you for sharing such an interesting experience with us!

[@missseaweed2462]

Two years late, but... I share my name with the main character mentioned here, and after reading this particular comment, I was reminded of an incident where I, too, had experienced a sheer terror. I had driven home to my sister from work because she had called in a bit of a panic regarding the pikachu robot toy that was suddenly making noise and the carbon monoxide detector going off shortly afterward. On their own, they would have been written off as a short battery, but because they had gone off in such quick succession while she was home alone that night was, frightening, to say the least. When I got home, we talked downstairs with the doll sitting n her table, but I went with her and the doll in hand to see if pikachu was only crying in her room--it made no noise. I looked around, although I didn't look into the closet, then retreated downstairs with her again. We closed the door behind us as we left, but we left the room and upstairs hall light on. We were discussing the "haunted" pikachu and reasonably concluded that the battery had died, but I'm an imaginative fellow, and was silently pondering if we had a home invader (or, maybe even a rat) which may have activated the doll while she was outside her room. I only brought this up when our parents returned home. Dad was doing something with the car, but mom agreed to look upstairs with us. I took our kitchen knife and went up first. As I rounded the top steps and peered behind the half wall to look under my sister's door, I saw that the light was out. *Terror.* I turned around and shuffled my way downstairs calling quietly for mom in case the home invader or whoever could hear, and handed her the knife while saying that the light was off. I swore up and down that my sister and I had left it on earlier. Mom put the knife away and checked my sister's window from outside to see if it was truly off or not, and it was actually on. She still took a hammer, and I a--knife sharpener? A super scary stick? Something like that, I can't remember; but I had my phone in my other hand, 911 dialled in, with my thumb readily hovering over the call button. Just in case. There was no home intruder that night, and both the pikachu and the carbon monoxide detector going off were due to eerily timed battery deaths. The light thing was probably because we have a carpet flooring, and brighter hall lights than those in the room making it appear as if the room light was off. But, that split second of looking at a lightless room and feeling a surge of, "PANIC PANIC THERE IS SOMEONE INSIDE THE HOUSE PANIC" will stay with me forever.

[@alessiapalma8823]

“You have to squirm like a worm”.. episode 6 vibes

[@MarktheCrawler]

When she says, "I couldnt wait to get back above ground in a way I'd never felt before," I thought, "like a normal person!"

[@rochelleramirez6363]

I'm not all that claustrophobic, but geez, these descriptions are just so vivid that I felt like I was trapped and something was pressing against my chest the whole time they were in that cave. I had to take several deep breaths in and stretch to remind myself that I wasn't in any danger. God, this podcast is just so brilliantly immersive. That last recording is so chilling.

[@mrmastaofdesasta6994]

This probably sounds silly, but I just played Minecraft while listening to this, and plowing through the mines and caves really... added to the suspense, to say the least

[@mingmingandmikki]

Oh no I totally get you, I once got stuck underground in minecraft with no light nor ladders. And I resorted to dig up a path to the surface in the pitch black. Eventually I died before reaching the surface...hasn't played in that world since

[@Verte7]

Take a shot for each piece of ominous foreshadowing

[@KingOfGayBisciuts]

Oh god im a first time listener how many shots do i take

[@riversrieds5247]

@@KingOfGayBisciuts I little over 1 mil this of course is exaggerated

[@ainayyakalyani3678]

hopital

[@futurefastapproaches3318]

Okay well that settles it I am never ever going caving then.

[@reneenoriega4524]

Honestly it's kind of depressing how Laura repeating over and over she never forced her sister to go with her felt like she was trying to convince herself

[@Haerodiel]

I just started listening recently, and I've loved every episode... but I had a hard time enjoying this one because it was TOO good. I once went caving with my brother's boyscout troop, and there was one tight squeeze they had us practice for before hand so A.) We were prepared, and B.) They made sure everyone fit (99% of everyone who ever tried it did). They had us crawl on our belly through a wooden box the size of the hole. It was no big deal at all, and I thought nothing of it. But then we came to the hole. We had been crawling for some time on our hands and knees. My younger siblings went through it ahead of me without an ounce of trouble. Then my turn. But... I wasn't expecting the stone to be smooth and slick with the number of tour groups that had all squeezed through it. After 2 or 3 seconds of being squeezed in that hole without being able to make progress forward, without so much as being able to pick my head up enough to see ahead of me... well, those 2-3 seconds is all it took for me to panic. The following all went through my head in half a second of me being stuck: This hole was different than the box. The box with enough adrenaline and strength could be splintered apart. There had been people around me to help me out and up. Here, everyone that could have helped me was ahead or behind on their hands and knees, unable to turn around. It was up to me to get through that. And I couldn't see, couldn't move... I felt the entire weight of the stone and earth above me. It felt like the sole purpose of all that mass was to pin me there beneath the ground. And these weren't walls that could be taken down. These couldn't be broken, splintered, or removed top help me get out. If I couldn't move, I was stuck there forever. FOREVER. Unable even to pick up my head. For one split second I was overcome with so much panic and adrenaline I wanted to flail and scream at the top of my lungs. All that within half a second. Instead I forced myself to hold down that panic for just 2 seconds more, and I was able to move myself through, just like everybody else. I loved the rest of that caving trip. It was a blast, and I even kept a rock to remember it by (don't tell the tour guides). But I have found myself unable to properly describe to people the enormity of that panic that I felt in that one second. I haven't felt sheer panic and terror like that again in my life. I had to push that feeling down this whole episode. I know exactly the fear that the main character felt. I had to hold back tears, and it made it kind of hard to enjoy the episode, honestly. But as an amateur writer, I think that's great. The best horror plays to the fears of those consuming the story, and this did so excellently! So I have to say: Bravo, I'll probably never listen to it again! :'D Can't wait to see how this show scares the pants off me in the future!

[@yeetusdeletus84]

Aaaaaaa I've felt like this before Getting stuck and freaking the fuck out I don't think I've ever been so scared in my entire life, I don't even remember what happened, I just remember the pure panic that I felt I can't go in tight spaces anymore

[@spanishDoll1]

Omg your story scared me, I know I would have just bawled my lungs out.

[@duck-friend]

damn the way you wrote about your experience was so enthralling, it felt like i was right down there with you (if i could even fit in there of course). i don't even know how people can do stuff like that, i get nervous even thinking about it

[@Labinzel]

I've never been in a proper cave squeeze but there is a place my family goes in the summer that has rockyshores/cliffs. In that area is the "olive" squeeze, it's an enormous boulder that's cradled by a small chasm. You basically have to wriggle up a slight incline, no leg/arm aid. I have no idea why I thought it was fun as a kid😳

[@17thstellation]

Recounted like a proper horror story, wow. The line "It felt like the sole purpose of all that mass was to pin me there beneath the ground" in particular made me start to panic and tear up a bit just reading it. Keep writing, please

[@petraivan6778]

ARCHIVIST Statement of Laura Popham, regarding her experience exploring the Three Counties System of caves with her sister Alena Sanderson. Original statement given November the 9th, 2014. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins. ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT) Caving has always been one of my hobbies. My main hobby really - all the equipment can get quite costly after a while, and I don’t earn enough to have more than one expensive activity like that in my life. Alena, my sister, came along with me on a trip a few years back. She’d lost her job and her house in quick succession, and was staying with me. I thought it would cheer her up. It did, and we’ve been doing it ever since. Stupid idea, really. I wish I’d left her crying on the sofa. At least then she’d still be alive. We didn’t really have the money to actually go potholing all that often, so I spent a lot of time reading and planning and just looking at stuff online. We averaged maybe a cave a year. Alena was never quite as into it as I was, though. Don’t get me wrong, she was no claustrophobe and I wasn’t forcing her to follow me into the darkness on threat of a family rift, but she mainly enjoyed the climbing, and I always ended up going a little bit deeper than she wanted. I think, to be honest, she would have preferred to get her exercise under the open sky or, failing that, in an above-ground gym. Maybe we should have tried cliffs or a climbing wall, but caving was our thing. It had helped her when she was in a bad place, and she knew how much I loved it. She also wasn’t too keen on the scrapes and bruises you always get on expeditions. She used to joke that it felt like the earth itself was trying to kick her ass. If only she had known. We did have fun, though, and she always chose to come along. I never forced her to be there. I never did that. We’d done some of the Three Counties cave system before - a short trip of only a couple of hours into the Rift Pot caves. The whole system is huge, though - I mean, there’s a reason it’s called the Three Counties System - so there was plenty more to explore, and we’d had so much fun the first time that I wanted to try it from a different angle. We were going to go in through the Death’s Head Hole, then travelling through Lost John’s Cave as far as Gavel Pot before heading back. The prospect of this excited me, as in order to travel between Lost John’s Cave and the Gavel Pot system we were going to have to do some cave diving. I had never done cave diving before, and neither had Alena, although she told me that the prospect spooked her less than some of the squeezes we’d had to do to get there. We made all the arrangements, got our permits in order with the CNCC and had my husband Alistair note down all the details in case anything went wrong. You never go caving unless someone knows where you’re headed and what your plan is. I had also done as much research into our route as possible, as I had no intention of straying from the well-explored, thoroughly-charted caves. I was never much of a pioneer, if I’m being honest, and I was happy to stay to the main routes. No, what I used to love about caving was the feeling of being deep inside the earth; the cold, solid walls folding in around me. It always used to feel like they were keeping me safe, though it doesn’t feel like that anymore. It was Saturday, June 14th we went. I had taken the Friday before off work to prepare, and was planning to spend Sunday nursing well-earned bruises. Alena and I drove up to Lancashire, towards Death’s Head Hole. I live in Manchester so it wasn’t too long a trip. We parked up at Leck Fell, the closest you could legally park. I was surprised to see that we were the only ones there when we arrived. It was a sunny day in late spring and the weather was meant to be clear for days, with no chance of rain making the caves too dangerous. It was a perfect day for caving but it seemed we were the only ones taking advantage of it. Death’s Head Hole is not nearly as impressive or intimidating as its name suggests. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, you might end up missing it entirely. When we went, much of it was covered in wild plants and bracken. It was barely larger than we were, and I remember at the time the phrase “a perfect fit” came into my head unbidden. Still, the resin anchors were in good condition, and we hooked up and descended our ropes without incident, despite a few unexpected twists in the pothole. It was a bright day; it was almost noon when we went down, so the light filtered a lot further in than I would have expected. It was some time before we had to turn on our headlamps, but eventually we did so. By the time we hit the bottom, there was none of that sunshine left to be seen and the silent darkness of the cave swallowed us. Beneath our feet, the gentle waters of the underground stream ran their course, as they had for thousands of years, undisturbed by the rough tread of humanity, and we followed them. It was a much gentler descent than that which we had come in with, but it was very slippery, and I was glad I had invested in a waterproof map case, although it made it slightly harder to read at times. Alena stood back to let me have my ritual. There was something I always did when I first entered a cave, and that was to take a moment to turn off all the lights, and place both my hands upon the cold, earthen walls. I remember once, when I was a child, we went on a school trip to White Scar Cave up in Yorkshire. It was a lovely, safe, accessible cave and was absolutely beautiful, which I suppose is why it was popular for such trips. After we’d been down there for a few minutes, the guide led us much deeper, and told us to stand very quietly. She turned off the lights, to show us children what true darkness is like. I’d never seen anything like it. It was such a pure black, so encompassing, and in the warmth of the underground I found myself full of a joy I’ve never forgotten. Even among a class of thirty schoolchildren, I felt like the only presence that mattered was the cave. Ever since then, I would always take a moment on any potholing trip to do the same, and feel again that utter darkness, with no sound but the gently flowing river and my own breathing. I don’t think it’s an uncommon practice, actually, but I rarely went caving with anyone other than Alena, and, while she indulged me, I don’t think she really got anything out of it. We turned our lights back on, and began to head deeper into the cave. I had a map, which we began to follow as closely as we could. I’m quite experienced in these things, but even I find it hard sometimes to match the irregular lines and angles of the underground passages to the often abstract shapes written into the map. There were several junctions that were significantly smaller than the map would seem to show, and the point of entry into Lost John’s Cave was what we would call a squeeze. It wasn’t on the map, but it seemed to be the only way through. Now, most passages you find yourself travelling through when caving are much smaller than would normally be comfortable for people to move through. After all, they were eroded by often tiny streams of water and minor tectonic events, so accommodating humans was never high on their list of priorities. A squeeze is something different, though. A squeeze can be a hole less than a foot wide, sometimes going on for a long way, the rock pressing in on all sides of you, and your helmet banging whenever you try to turn your head. In a particularly bad squeeze, there are parts where the walls and ceiling are so close that you can’t move your arms or bend your legs to push forward, and you just have to squirm your way to the other side like a worm. This was a particularly bad squeeze. Near the end, it got so bad that, if Alena hadn’t gone in first, I would have told her to go back and forget Lost John’s Cave.

[@petraivan6778]

About half way through, I realised that it was far tighter than I had imagined. I called ahead, to make sure Alena had made it out okay. She called back, told me it was a hard one, but she was fine. I wanted to answer her, but by that point the rock was so close around me it was stopping me from doing anything but holding my breath and willing myself forward. A hand grasped me firmly on the shoulder and pulled me through. Just like that, I was out. Alena gave me a smirk, as if to comment on the fact that she had made it through unassisted, and I, the true cave aficionado, had needed a hand. I wanted to shoot back some pointed comment about her being more slender than me, but by the time I had got my breathing under control again, the anger had died down and I managed a weak smile. We made our way through the cave until we came to the Cathedral. It’s a large, arching cave - quite breathtaking, though it requires a couple of sheer drops to access, one of about 40 feet. We had experience and equipment enough to make quite light work of it, though, and soon we were beneath the Cathedral, in what is imaginatively called the Crypt. We stopped here for a rest and a bite to eat, and Alena told me an interesting thing about Lost John’s Cave. While I had been concerned with finding maps and as much information as I could on getting through, she told me she had been looking into a history of the place. She said everyone puts the apostrophe in the wrong place, when talking about Lost John’s Cave. As the stories go, it was two men, both named John, who were the first to delve deep into the cave. They went too far, though, and their candles had gone out. They lost their way together in the sprawling labyrinth of tunnels, and never emerged. Alena said she thought it was quite sweet, in a strange sort of way, and joked that if she ever got trapped underground, she’d want it to be with me. I smiled and nodded, though secretly, the thought appalled me. It wasn’t at the thought of being entombed down there - at the time, it didn’t seem like such an awful fate - but the thought of having to spend my last days with Alena was a bit too much. I’m sorry, that’s a horrible thing to say about the dead. I loved my sister, and I loved spending time with her, but to be lost beneath the earth is such an intensely private thing. Maybe she realised that, at the end. After our brief stop we made our way down through the Dome. It was beautiful, and this was the part that I had been dreading, as all the experienced cavers I had talked to had said that this was the hardest descent. It went easily. Very easily, actually, and at the time I remember getting a weird feeling, like I was being swallowed. Finally, we made it through the shale cavern and into the master cave. As we stood there, I felt anticipation and trepidation in equal measure. Before us lay the passage, filled with the still water of the sump. We were about to have our first cave dive. I had always been told by experienced cave divers that you never judge the distance correctly. The first few times you try to surface, you will always hit your head on the stone above, so it’s best to try and not be too alarmed by it. I reminded Alena of this as we got our equipment ready, and she told me she remembered, and then surprised me by asking to be the first one to go through, saying something or other about conquering fears. I said yes, why not, and let her go through. As I stood there alone, waiting, I began to feel something I had never before felt this far underground. I began to feel uneasy. It was as silent as it had ever been, but there was something else there, beneath the silence. Almost like a whisper. I shook the feeling off when it came time to follow Alena, and dived into the pool. It wasn’t far to the junction which would lead us on to the Gavel Pot. I pressed myself through the narrow space, half swimming, half climbing, until I thought I had gone far enough, and attempted to surface. Clunk. My helmet hit lightly against the roof of the tunnel. Fine, that was as expected. I kept swimming another few meters and tried again. Clunk. That gave me a nasty shock, as I should have been well past the end of this first tunnel. I kept going, until I reached the end of the subterranean waterway, and went towards the surface. Clunk. I started to panic. Was this a dead end? There was no further I could go. Where was Alena? She couldn’t have come back past me; the tunnel was far too narrow. In desperation I tried to come up one more time. I broke the surface to see Alena laughing to herself, and holding a rock over the part of the water where I had been trying to emerge. I swore at her violently, not sure whether to hit her or join in her laughing. She apologised, but said she had seen the rock and couldn’t resist, as I was always going on about the helmet banging on the roof. I sat there, suddenly drained. The adrenaline of my panic seemed to have sapped much of my energy, and I think my sister could see that, as she didn’t press me to go on. We both knew that the passage through from this junction to the Gavel Pot itself was a much longer dive, and neither of us was really up to it. We just sat there for a while in silence. It had taken longer to get this far than we had planned, so I suggested going back the way we came, rather than continuing to go deeper into the cave. Alena agreed but, as I turned away, she asked me how lost I was in a low, grating voice. I snapped back that we weren’t lost at all, that I’d followed the map exactly, and she just gave me this look, like she didn’t understand what I was talking about. I shrugged, and told her that I would go first on the way back, and she agreed. I was eager to get back and be above ground in a way that I had never been before. I got my equipment ready and dived back into the water, heading back towards Death’s Head Hole. That’s when everything started to go really, really wrong. To begin with, the water didn’t end. I tried to surface, as I had on my first time through, and again there was that clunk as my helmet hit the roof of the tunnel. I moved on and tried again, but still no luck. I began to fight down the rising alarm, told myself that the tunnel had a definite end and I just had to reach it, but it just kept going. No light, no surface, nothing but this cramped waterway, pressing on every side waiting to claim me. I don’t know how long I was desperately swimming forward, but I almost screamed with relief when I reached my hand and felt it break the surface of the water. It wasn’t the cave I expected. What stretched before me was a tunnel even smaller than the waterlogged one I had left. I scrambled forward into it, not because I wanted to go on into that unknown passage, but because I was worried about Alena being able to get out of the water behind me. I must have taken a wrong turn, except that didn’t make sense. I hadn’t turned at all, and more than that, there weren’t any turns or junctions in this part of the cave. I had checked all the maps of this area over and over, and they all put it as a straight line. I waited, wanting to talk to my sister when she surfaced, and discuss where to go from here. She didn’t emerge. I don’t know how long I lay there; it was too cramped to check the time, but it felt like hours. I wanted to go back and check, but I couldn’t even turn around to see. I just waited for a splash that never came.

[@petraivan6778]

I decided to go on, press forward until I at least found somewhere wide enough that I could turn. As crawled on, I scraped against the jagged rocks until I felt them pressing into my bare skin where my clothes had ripped. I can deal with it when I’m out, I kept thinking, but the passage just got smaller and smaller, until at last I couldn’t move any further. I finally accepted that I was going to have to try and squeeze back the way I had come without even turning round. I started to shuffle backwards, and my feet touched against solid rock. The tunnel was gone. It was then that I screamed. And my light went out. I said earlier that I enjoyed the pure dark of the cave. I was wrong. I had never truly known a darkness like this. Unable to move, barely with breathing space enough to cry for help. Even as I lay there it felt as though the walls pressed me further, and I knew that the stone I had always believed to be my friend and protector was going to entomb me here. In the distance, I saw the faintest point of light. It looked like a candle flame, far down the tunnel, so weak that it lit nothing but itself. It grew closer, but any hope it might have given me quickly died as it grew. It was coming towards me so slowly, and deep down I knew that it was… of this place. It meant me harm. As it got closer, I saw the pale hand that held it, and I heard something. It was Alena. It sounded far off and muffled, but I was sure she was calling for help. I shut my eyes, for all the good it did in that place, and tried desperately to will it all away. When I opened my eyes again, the light was still there, but it had changed somehow. It seemed brighter and, as I looked, I realised it was no longer coming from a candle. I could hardly believe it, but it looked like daylight. With every last ounce of strength I possessed, I pushed myself forward. Had I been climbing this whole time? My clothes were ragged and torn, my skin scraped and bloody, but after nearly an hour I broke onto the surface through a small opening not on any of the maps. I breathed in fresh, cool air, and I screamed as long and loud as I could. That was how Alistair and the cave rescue team found me. Apparently I’d been underground for almost twenty-four hours, and he had called in the cave rescue service. I was well cared for, as I waited for news of Alena. My wounds were treated and I was given food and water. It took another day before the rescue team told me what I think I already knew: there was no sign of her anywhere. I never saw her again, and she was added to the list of fatalities, so I suppose that’s an end of it. I haven’t been underground since, and I don’t intend to. ARCHIVIST Statement ends. This is a strange one. I have rarely come across a statement written with such conviction, yet where so many of the details are provably false. The CNCC have no record of Ms. Popham getting a permit for this expedition, and the number of other permits they issued for June 14th would indicate that they certainly weren’t the only ones in the cave that day. Beyond that, Death’s Head Hole and Lost John’s Cave are, as Ms. Popham pointed out, well-documented in layout, and according to Sasha’s reckoning, the route she described is borderline nonsensical. What is true is that on 15th of June, the Yorkshire Dales Cave Rescue Organisation was contacted by Mr. Alistair Popham, who told them his wife and sister-in-law had gone caving the day before, and had not returned. I sent Tim to check the details - Martin declined to help with this investigation as he’s “a bit claustrophobic” - and he found some more bizarre discrepancies. Ms. Popham was not found aboveground, as she claimed. She was found a few yards from the bottom of Death’s Head Hole, unresponsive and kneeling next to a small pile of burned out candles. Alistair Popham claims not to have seen any such things being packed. She only came out of this stupor when brought above ground, at which point she started shouting about her sister Alena, demanding they go and “save her”. There is also the matter of the recording. She does not mention it in her statement at all, but Ms. Popham took a camera with her into the cave system. It was never claimed back from the CRO after her rescue, and Tim managed to gain enough access to copy the footage. Best not to ask how, I think. Most of it is mundane footage of Ms. Popham and her sister cave climbing, which seemed to match her statement, but the last recording is… somewhat alarming. The timestamp puts it at just past two o’clock in the morning of June 15th. It is completely black, though whether this is because it was in a pitch dark cave or simply because the lens cap was still on is unclear. The audio is what concerns me, and here I will play a sample: [CLICK] [SOUND OF UNDERGROUND WATERY MOVEMENT AND THE INCREASINGLY PANICKED VOICE OF LAURA POPHAM SAYING “TAKE HER, NOT ME.”] [CLICK] The video is 2 hours and 43 minutes long, and the audio remains consistent throughout. No sign of Alena Sanderson has been found in the two years since her disappearance, and I have made the decision not to follow up our findings with Ms. Popham. Recording ends.

[@bonniecornelius3836]

i appreciate you thank you

[@petraivan6778]

Glad that I could help!

[@solluxcaptorirl8735]

thank u ~

[@cloudy5555]

This was the first episode that went from unsettling to scary

[@TwitchyMoth]

"Take her not me" Bruh I screamed in confusion

[@npcgenerico934]

i was reading the comments saying that the magnus archives will surely have a chapter with your own fear, and was like "as soon as there aren't any spiders im okay", good to see the next chapter is called arachnophobia, really calming, thank you it felt like a bitch slap

[@whomstisthis]

Mag 16 is by far the most unsettling for me, especially due to my severe fear of spiders

[@Irregulyze]

"I started to shuffle backwards, and my feet touched against solid rock." The best line in season 1.

[@tawnyevergreen4169]

fun fact: Sasha was not lying when she said the route made no sense. Death's Head Hole is not a "perfect fit" in the slightest (very large, easy to find, no "unexpected twists"), it's not an easy entrance into the Lost Johns system (where the cathedral, crypt, and dome are), and no one goes to Gavel Pot from either place. Their plan was wrong from the start, and there should not have been any diving involved. I wonder if their research was manipulated somehow, leading them to plan a bad route, or if her memory was.

[@baszko6152]

I am gota be honest what's really scary for me is fact that this experience took something she loved and shared with her sister and made her hate it. And also how discounted are her memories with a reality.

[@CytheriaXylia]

The "How lost are you?" And the "take her not me" are probably the first two things since starting this series that have given me a genuine chill and sense of dread.

[@hateful8bit]

Wow, its taken me 15 episodes to write a comment but... this is the best horror I get outside of video games. Movies are **** compared to these stories. I think what gets me the most is the feeling of connectivity to all the other accounts that are archived. From the moment I listened to Anglerfish, I was... ummm.... hooked. But i cant stop. As an veteran, The Piper kept me up at night. Across the Street made me paranoid. And now Lost Johns' cave makes me feel like I'm being crushed. The narratives are compelling and every episode I listen to pulls me into a world that honestly, if I could get a TV show out of these stories, just for the visual retelling of these eye witness accounts, I would sit and watch them constantly. But that shouldnt suggest I would remotely give up this podcast. I'm subscribed and now a fan! Oh by the way, I tell everyone I can about this podcast. Simply amazing. Keep up the fantastic work. End statement.

[@midnightstatic9437]

You got a heart

[@hateful8bit]

@@midnightstatic9437 lol queue the Zelda Heart Container theme.

[@lilaboxx]

Not gonna lie, I usually don't like horror, especially movies, but I found out that I can deal much better with books and podcasts and I love this podcast so much, it's just so well written and everything

[@urfavemushroom]

8:43 the mention of "a squeeze" should've been the first red flag. It reminded me of the Nutty Putty Cave incident.

[@yakketyyak6414]

Seeing some debate here on who exactly is saying "Take her, not me." in the recording at the end and I think it's pretty conclusively Laura, and not Alena. The reasons are as follows: 1. Laura came back. Alena did not. 2. Laura was found in a safe spot surrounded by candles--she was approached by some sort of entity holding a candle, but not taken. 3. Laura, I'm fairly certain, was marked by either the dark, the buried, or both, as a child during that cave trip. She also seems to have a bit of animosity towards her sister, and so it makes more sense for her to be the one abandoning her sister, whether she was aware of it at the time or not. 4. Some people think the voice speaking is too quiet if Laura is holding the camera--it really isn't. Caves make things sound strange, and she's not necessarily holding the camera right next to her mouth, if she's even holding it at all and it's not just sitting near her. (Also, you can hear the entity approaching at that point.) 5. Some people have also pointed out it sounds like there's a whimper happening at the same time as the person is speaking, and the only thing I can think of that they mean by that is the high pitch the voice takes on for a split second at around 24:01 which...pretty clearly is just the same person speaking, and her voice is just cracking/getting shaky with fear. 6. Laura is pretty clearly either deliberately leaving information out of her statement to make herself look better in some way, or her supernatural experience genuinely caused some sort of break with reality (in a more literal sense, I'm not saying she imagined it), since she claims to have experienced events which are completely contradictory to what *could* have happened. If Laura is lying she wouldn't want to disclose that she was speaking, but she would have no reason to leave out that Alena DID say it, especially since Laura isn't being the nicest when talking about Alena during this--but if she's not lying, and she described her experience as it happened, she is clearly able to hear Alena (though she sounds very far off) calling for help, but notably, does NOT hear Alena saying "take her, not me"...because Alena didn't say that. Laura did, and she's either leaving that out of her statement or genuinely unaware of what she did. And finally, 7. From a horror writing standpoint, Alena being the one speaking and not Laura is, to put it bluntly, really fucking lame and is an awful idea lol. It's simply not scary to have the unreliable narrator be the one who ends up just sitting there quietly while her sister is god knows where in another cave, where she definitely would be WAYY less audible to the camera, telling the monster to take her sister and not her--because the scary part of that audio is that the monster *listened*. Laura told whatever she encountered down there, whether she was fully aware of it or just in a panicked state, to take her sister. And it did.

[@Badficwriter]

Its possible that Laura may have played a prank on her sister thats why there are no permits and got lost, but I think Laura's own desire led her into the creepy parallel verse, where the permits were filed and no cars were in the parking lot and a well known path took wrong turns. The ghost Johns may have gotten involved and had Laura cleaved to her sister like the Johns stayed together, she might have died with her. Laura subconsciously rejected her sister's wellbeing, sacrificing her.

[@Excelsior1937]

“It is rare that we get a statement with such conviction yet where so many of the details are provably false.” SPOILERS BELOW (152, A Gravediggers Envy) So I was just thinking about the difference between those who suffer at the hands of the entities and those who become avatars of them, how some find what others would consider terrifying to be comforting instead. Laura talks about how she found the weight of the world around her comforting in a way that reminds me much more of Hezekiah Wakely, someone who became an AVATAR for The Buried, than of someone the Buried would choose to feed on the fear of. That along with the fact that she’s established pretty clearly as an unreliable narrator makes me wonder if she has started to become an avatar of The Buried after this little incident. The bit with her kneeling in front of the candles which we know to be true is awfully prayer-like, and the “take her not me” line demonstrates a willingness to condemn someone else to The Buried, even a family member. I’m pretty sold on this theory, but what does anyone else think?

[@PatTheHyruler]

I'm back for a relisten as well and I thought the same thing.

[@meleileen2960]

I'm very late on this one, but I actually don't think the "take her not me" was Laura speaking. Right near the end, there's what sounds like a loud whimper, though the chanting continues. As Laura was the one holding the camera, and chanting sounds far more distant than the whimper does, I posit that the voice speaking was actually Elaine.

[@IvySonnet]

You know, I would just perish, I believe. I'm not claustrophobic but I don't like the idea of being trapped underground.

[@camrolls3144]

My first thought when I saw the video title was, "Oh my god, are they going to hell?"

[@domyboji]

This is the creepiest one thus far although granted I'm only halfway through S1. And I'm someone who thought they weren't the slightest bit claustrophobic

[@SpaceAce13]

I'm listening to this at 2:30 in the morning alone in my office at work and I had to pause it to turn on all the lights because I got so nervous!! It's been a very long time since something made me feel this uneasy and I love it.

[@pollux_the_insufferable.]

I am high on caffine , and im going to crash and burn soon , and im alone , this is what i call peak self pranking cuz damn i pulled an allnighter bc of schoolwork , my mind is ready to understand and permanently remember stuff and im up here listening to horror stuff , when i sleep tonight ( unlikely) i would have a horrendous nightmare , which will keep me awke for um next 4 days , idk why im rambling but bye

[@TIGGYQUE]

I think the best places to listen to that episode would be in a subway or really in a cave xD

[@roseclearwater9904]

This was so good! When her sister was telling her the story of how the two Johns got lost in the cave together but then Elaine, I’m guessing, basically sold her sister out instead of choosing to die together in the cave so she was able to leave. Just like in the beginning she thought it’d be horrible to live her last suffocating moments with her sister because it should be personal, but her sister was like that’s actually sweet how they got lost together & if I had to get lost/ die in a cave I’d want it to be with you. And I’m guessing that’s how the 2 Johns felt but Elaine had the option (I’m assuming) of either staying with her sister or getting out free (such as from the “take her not me”) I’d also guess she feels guilty about it due to her not mentioning the recording, but perhaps she didn’t remember taking it 🙃 I love the unresolved aspect to this podcast it makes your mind stay unsettled & keep trying to grasp onto different & more creative unclear explanations!

[@infjelphabasupporter8416]

This is the best explanation yet! I was so scared I forgot about the story and their conversation about it. It must be relevant.

[@benruniko]

“I had never done cave diving before” WELL THERE IS THE HINT THAT MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T

[@Aura_DastlerTv]

I was thinking the same thing! Cave diving is NOT something you do alone for the first time!

[@Maria-fz8km]

I listen to this podcast when I play Don't Starve, and my favorite moments are when I'm exploring the caves, low on sanity, and I can't tell whether the ominous music or the voices whispering at me are from the podcast or the game

[@chimedemon]

When she was describing when she went into a cave as a child, it felt very personal to me. Like she said, the guid asked us all to turn off any phones or electrical devices and I saw..... just how dark everything can become... you couldn’t tell the difference of when you closed your eyes, only the feeling of your eye lids... this was a really great episode, so thank you for this! (Also, later on the exposition, I had to pee REALLY BADLY, but we were so far in the cave that I couldn’t go back, and we had a long way to go. I asked “can’t I just pee somewhere over here?” And my dad told me absolutely not... soooo my dad sighed, chugged all of the remaining water in his water bottle and handed it to me. I remember that I asked a lot of questions on that trip, so they gave me a little sticker badge at the end and I felt so happy)

[@chbend8220]

Thats adorable.

[@Tanaka_Kenshin]

Reminds me of the legends of the White Speleologist, popular among cavers across ex-USSR. Legend I heard talks about a strange spirit of the underworld, somwtimes seen in the cave systems. Seeing him is a very bad omen, especially for those, who are disrespectful towards the cave and it's laws,but sometimes he comes to the rescue of those, who are desperate, if they are innocent or repenting. I heard this legend first when I was trying caving in Bashkiria cave systems, actually, telling this legend to first-timers is kind of tradition among cavers and speleologists in ex-USSR... However, I can tell for fact - time feels totally different underground. Back then we spent nearly 12 hours deep down in Kinderle cave, but it felt like 3-4 hours. And it was gorgeous!

[@morgenwalsh594]

I have a brother that I love and I would like to believe neither of us would sell the other out to an evil cave entity. But who knows. A really chilling episode especially at the end.

[@mackenziedillon295]

I've never had any story manage to get any amount of genuine fear out of me until listening to this.

[@turnipper4370]

Okay whoa, this is a terrifying one and made me feel all kinds of distress. Nice

[@sandymcneish7820]

I have no reason to find this terrifying and I actually like small spaces but for some reason this one was more scary than any of the other ones I listened to

[@infjelphabasupporter8416]

Literally none of these podcasts were scary to me. They were fun, creative stories I listened to while I drawed. Until this one that is. Holy shit.

[@mikewinans5091]

Is it weird that this episode made me want to go spelunking? Cave diving actually sounds kinda fun.

[@jordant.g.4337]

I just started listening to this podcast, and I don't know if it's just because I'm listening later at night now, or if I have a particular fear of closed spaces I didn't know about, but this one spooked me *way* more than any previous episodes.

[@scripturemelody1914]

I feel seen by this comment

[@jblask2]

This made me google cave cathedrals which look awesome. Also I'm never going caving.

[@beholdthegriffin5488]

Mmm, can’t wait until my fear of either total rejection or such insignificance that everyone I care about forgets about me gets explicitly called out by a bitter librarian

[@net_spider]

Only problem with this format is we'll never know what the sister experienced. Some people will say its scarier / more intriguing not to know and I would have to agree, but my brain just won't let it be that.

[@carlamcgath7528]

Elena; if we were to die in a cave I’m just glad that I’ll spend my last moments with you Laura; take her not me!!

[@thestranger4894]

It’s so sad how much Elena loved her sister but in the statement, Laura just insults her again and again

[@racoon_in_ankhmorpork]

I sincerely don’t understand how any sane soul can enjoy cave diving, but alright. This was absolutely terrifying, a really compelling setting for such a story. So fitting for horror, in fact, that I fail to understand how anyone actually does that kind of thing in real life.

[@mayormarshmallow]

Buried

[@espinacasable]

Really interesting. I was following a theme in my head about Laura being almost jealous of her sister for having been taken by the cave. She constantly talks about how comforted she is by it and like it's where she wants to be. Especially when she talks about how being entombed would be such a personal thing and how her sister must know it now (sounding almost envious, like the cave let her go but kept her sister). The audio at the end I couldn't make out the words, thought it just said "please help me". Seeing what it actually said I think the theme is more about the hubris of humans, thinking we're comforted/comfortable (Laura thinking she likes the dark / her sister making jokes about the real danger and fear of not being able to surface) in the unknown, but when the real deal comes, when things are serious, we're just scared animals, begging for our life in a daze. Also really enjoyed the two fakeouts. I usually don't but they were very well implemented here and kept the tension in an interesting flow. My favorite so far both in horror and craftsmanship.

[@espinacasable]

I also really like the tension between the sisters. You immediately feel there's something off about how roughly Laura talks about her dead sister ("should've left her crying in the couch" and she even realizes, "that's an awful thing to say about the dead", I'm probably misquoting). And then how her sister makes jokes that Laura feels uncomfortable with but her feelings pass quickly, telling me she's used to it and feels like addressing them wouldn't accomplish anything (in the context of them being sisters it says a lot about their relationship through their lifetimes). Adding that they started their hobby to help her sister be distracted from a rough time in her life after Laura letting her move in which Laura might be a little bitter about. I think all of that really informs Laura's plead to the cave at the end. It might be why people think Laura did it on purpose too but I disagree with that. I do believe she didn't know what all happened.

[@shyannevasquez5257]

Me and my wife were listening to this while walking around the park. It was a wide, open space with lots of people around. I still felt claustrophobic, like the walls were closing in, even though there were no walls to speak of. This is great!

[@beans_of_jelly]

As soon as I heard "cave diving" I was OUT. Cave diving is plenty terrifying enough without the need for horrific recordings thank you very much

[@ellag3265]

Part of the thing that's scary about this, in my opinion, is that the account really does come across as a account of someone who went down through the wrong mouth of the cave. The "well, this doesn't seem like it's on the map, but the only way to go is forward..." is really unsettling when you view it from that lens. Somehow the fact it could be real makes it scarier than the supernatural.

[@poxrael]

For some reason the hand mentioned in this episode reminds me of the hand at the end of episode 1. Maybe she ended up giving her sister to the angler fish.

[@Darkrose517]

I'm not exactly claustrophobic, but you couldn't pay me to do anything like this. Small spaces don't exactly bother me, but the idea of being trapped terrifies me. I used to do cheerleading as a kid and I remember one time we had these like fake tunnels that I think were made of practice mat-like material. I remember going through one and panicking because I thought I was gonna get stuck. I can't even imagine doing something like that underground and not being able to find a way out.

[@tenacityxl]

I’d like to point out that this is the only time that we’ve heard Jon genuinely disturbed. He’s been unsettled, sure, but he genuinely sounded…exceptionally uneasy here.

[@lucindajennings148]

I've been caving so this one caught the atmosphere really well, and I could imagine it even better. *shudder*

[@wind-flower]

I'm binging the whole series on my daily commute right now and this is one of my favourites so far. Probably because I can relate to the fears its playing with. I wouldn't exactly call myself claustrophobic, but being trapped underground is still a terrifying thought. Also, from a writing standpoint I found the recording at the end to be a really neat addition.

[@yeetusdeletus84]

This one is really getting me Just the thought of being stuck in a tight space makes me freak out

[@hamnahmashood9094]

that recording in the end scared the shit outta me

[@beardlessdragon]

Of the episodes up til this point, this one has freaked me out the most. Most comments mention the recording, which, don't get me wrong, is freaky. But what did it for me is the moment she runs into a dead end, tries to back up, and she's closed in from the other side too. Nope. I don't even have claustrophobia, but the unexplainable yet horrifying nature of being in that situation messed with my head

[@mxxnlight111]

If the cave was supposed to just be a straight line, and there were "unexpected twists" then they screwed it all up at the very beginning.

[@a.b.7469]

I've been binge-listening to this series for the last week or two, and I have to say, this is probably one of the scariest episodes. Although most of them are pretty scary. Well done.

[@Cactus_Cafe942]

God damn this episode was a good one. Genuinely terrifying concepts executed perfectly. It’s nice hearing voices other than Jon in these last few episodes

[@marinao4412]

(mild spoilers for later on) the thing that gets me most about this episode is that, in theory, you could explain most of this by saying laura popham was an emerging dark avatar who wanted to kill her sister, planned a trip to a cave she lied about, and fed her to the buried, but canonically people cannot lie giving these statements. they can tell it from their biased perspectives, but they can't lie. laura thought she told everything as it happened. so like. the fuck happened here.

[@reneenoriega4524]

I know this is 5 m old but I had to ask. From my understanding (first time listening the podcast tho I've eaten spoilers like a madman) Jon is just reading an old statement, so it could've been possible for Laura to lie? Or the old archivist could force the truth out of people too? I haven't find anything concrete on that. Tho I love the idea that Laura's so far gone that she really doesn't seem to understand what happened on that cave, it's hilarious in a very f*cked up way

[@marinao4412]

@@reneenoriega4524 not being able to lie in statements given to the archivist is a general archivist trait, it applies to anyone who's held the title. I don't remember if that's ever explicitly addressed in an episode itself, but the writer said in a q&a that it's not fair to listeners who like to theorize and predict to throw in fake statements along with real ones, so every episode is someone telling the truth as best they know it.

[@clovercard22]

Oooh that slight static in the recording at 15:11, chills

[@Xenozfan2]

Apparently static is used to indicate when someone's using their powers.

[@midnights2631]

I had to go back and relisten to it

[@Shinji_Dai]

I watch a lot of "caving gone wrong" videos, this particular story fit so neatly with them that I almost forgot I was listening to TMA. Probably the most believable of them so far.

[@charlieb2700]

A recommend because i heart Nightvale, i decided to fall asleep to this. The first few episodes were good, unsettling but in that fun tingly sort of way, but slowly, my eyes have widened 😱thanks, its 3 in the morning and nothing I heard so far prepared me for this you hit nearly every trigger I have *looks ahead* arachnophobia. . . Oh F@#$&%$!!!

[@F4GBOY]

Man I love this episode there’s something about spooky tunnels that is incredibly appealing like when you look down an old well or cave or mineshaft and it feels like it’ll drag you in or that if you get too close you won’t be able to stop yourself from going in

[@GiubileiFernando]

I think this one was the most effective for me because it really feels standalone

[@kairoikki6981]

Good god I'm barely six minutes in and I'm not sure I can finish listening to this one. Even the thought of cave diving sends me into a blind panic so i might just find a summary somewhere lol. Props to the writing and acting though, I wouldn't be having this kind of a reaction otherwise lmao.

[@audacioustabby2774]

When Elena pulled the rock prank and said, "You kept going on about the helmet", I remembered just a few lines before that the narrator heard something like a whisper. We also only heard about the Helmet thing twice before, in reference to their class and when the narrator says it. So I'm thinking, the cave was whispering to Elena and she thought it was her sister. The sister can't dispute this at the time because she was drained from her panicking.

[@audacioustabby2774]

Or it was a John talking to a John.

[@SuperShoomer]

Man, I was at work when listening to this and the power went out in the middle of it for a couple seconds. My poor heart almost jumped out of my chest

[@Vabulous1]

The description of the "squeeze" nope. I'm good. I would have been like, "well, better luck next time, would you like to go grab a bite to eat somewhere?"

[@hermajestythewhat2533]

As someone with really bad cleithrophobia and mild mazeophobia, any story about cave diving or something of the sort sets me off. This episode has always gotten to me, out of all the times I've listened to it. Why do I do this to myself? lol

[@Tegres1]

I have been on a binge for the past few days. I love every single episode, but this one is absolutely my favorite thus far. The image of being trapped within the rock is terrifying, and frighteningly real. But the audio clip at the end seals it. Morbidly outstanding. The decision to leave the case as-is just adds to the mysterious unease. Magnificent.

[@meganknapp3027]

I've listened to all of TMA up through season 4 now (relistening while waiting for Season 5), and even now this has got to be my favorite in terms of creepiness. Maybe it's just because I definitely find the idea of being trapped underground terrifying and can relate to the horror a lot on a personal level, but I think this is one of only 2 or 3 episodes that really stuck with me in terms of horror and just troubles me (in the way that good horror should!). The statement itself is properly creepy and really builds on that claustrophobia anxiety, but it also does a really good job building the uneasiness of whatever it going on between Laura and her sister. I think that the reveal afterward that several details from her statement were outright false really makes certain moments between her and her sister stand out, and I know that the recording at the end always leaves me feeling chilled, and just kind of saddened. No spoilers, but I feel like this is one of those statements that both makes more sense and becomes more sad and creepy for it after catching up with the show.

[@megancordova3918]

I feel like listening to this again with the knowledge that she was lying. I always find myself trusting the speaker completely but I need to keep in mind that they are unreliable narrators. She probably felt so guilty and details changed because of that.

[@BenjCano2020]

Not possible under the influence of the Eye.

[@moonbunnygw8342]

​@@BenjCano2020 I forgot about that omg So she's not an unreliable narrator then