Hello, hello. Welcome to today's livestream. It's very exciting to be here. We're going to let some people filter in here over the next couple of minutes. So while we're waiting, let me know where you're from, where you're watching this from. Put it in the chat. I want to see where people are tuning in from here. And don't pay any attention to the merch all around me quite yet. We'll get into that in a few minutes here. So let's see. All right, here we go. Here we go. Lots of people putting in where they're from. Almost. A little bit of a delay. California. Okay, first one. Nice. I'm in Texas. I'm in Austin, Texas, where it's beginning to become excruciatingly hot. So I remember last summer, it was like, consistently 110 degrees. And so today, it's like 90 degrees, and it feels somewhat mild. So that's what it's like living in Texas. Dang. How many people are in here? Like 5,000 now? 4,000? Jeez. Louisiana, Alberta, Canada. Oh, my My goodness. Estonia? Wow. All over the place. Who here is in this livestream just for Lunge? Because that's what I really want to know. In addition to where you're from, I want to know if Lunge's got you by his claws.

I think they have claws. I think Lunge's got some claws. Who's here for Lunge? Old seagull lung. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but the origin of Seagal Lunge is... So back when I was eight, I I think I was, eight or nine, I was on a car ride with my sisters, and we were driving up to go camping or something in Western Massachusetts. And my sister and I, my older sister and I, we were coming up with the worst possible names for a cat, and we came up with things like cardboard box. Let's see, there was a few other pretty bad ones. But as soon as I think my sister said, Seagalung, it stuck. And that name has always been in my brain. That needs to be used for something. And of course, when my old side kick, the frog hopped along. We knew we had to name him Seagalung. So that's Seagalung. All right, so we got a ton of people here from all over the world, South Africa, Kentucky, Netherlands. Oh, my goodness. That's wild. Look, today we got a ton of stuff going on. I'm going to talk you through the run of show.

So we did a poll on YouTube about which story you wanted me to tell during this livestream. And overwhelmingly, people wanted me to tell a story about the forest that is so evil It's actually illegal to enter it. That's not a turn of phrase. You'll see when I get into the story that there is literally a forest. Anyways, we'll get into the story, but it's the story about Dudleytown. So we're going to do that today. I've never told it live, so it's only on YouTube. We'll We're going to do that today. Also, we're going to get into tier lists, which if you're not familiar, basically, I'm going to do some ranking of some stuff. It seems gimmicky, but trust me, it's cool. It'll be fun. It'll be cool. We also have a giveaway. It's a good giveaway. So If you stick around until the end, there's going to be an excellent giveaway. Also, there's a Q&A at the end. But first, for all the people that are here for Old Seagull Lung, if you didn't see in the last YouTube video, we did a midroll. And if you didn't know this, Old Seagull Lung, he got a package in the mail.

And when he opened it up, he saw it was this beautiful brand new lily pad for him to take a nap on. But as soon as he got on that lily pad, he realized it was riddled in poison ivy and strapped to the brim with explosives. And fireworks. And before long, he was blown across the yard. And he knew there's only one person who could do such a thing. The like button. Now, I tried to grab Old Seagull Lung and calm him down, but it was too late. He had gone rogue and stood up some bandeliers of ammunition and some M60s, and he had taken off into the wild to seek his revenge on the like button. And so, of course, what can a guy do when your pet frog named Seagalung goes rogue? Well, So you start by creating a limited edition merch drop. As you could see, we created some rogue Lunge merch. This is quite possibly the best merch we've ever created. It's literally Seagal Lunge going rogue. That's the back of the shirt. We got a Lunge on the front, so you can wrap Seagal Lunge with pride here. In addition to the shirts, we have Lunge pins.

Not sure which camera to point at, so I'll We got both. Boom. We got the limited edition pins. And in fact, before I even start rattling off the merch, so in order to get this merch, you go to ballinstudios. Com, which I think you can see on the screen right now. Is it on the screen? Yeah, it's on the screen. Boom. So you go to ballinstudios. Com, and actually, we're going to do this live. Boom. Now you can see there is a new... It's called a Hero banner or something, where you can actually see the Lungey merch right there. So we're going to click on there. And here we go. Let's scroll down and see what we got here. We got the old Lungey shirt of him going rogue right there. We got the pin. There's also, of course, the muscle shirt of Seagull Lunge to look real tough, just like old Lunge. Let's see what else we got. If you go to Accessories, we have the pins again. There's stickers. Just cover the whole back of your car with those. That's the best way to use those stickers. What else? No, the coaster's not there.

Go to the Home and Office, and then this. This is just glorious. We have basically a movie poster for Seagal Lunge. This is ridiculous. But hey, so this poster, these posters, we're going to be giving away 20 of these bad boys at the end, not literally on stream, but very shortly after. And in order to learn how to enter this giveaway, you got to wait till the end. So 20 of these posters on screen right now will be given away, I think, one hour after the stream ends. To learn how to actually register for this giveaway, you got to stick around till the end. So we have a lot What's going on today, and I think that it makes the most sense here. Actually, real quick, in the chat, of all the stuff I just showed you, all the new merch, all the new rogue Lunge merch, which stands out to you as the must have, the absolute creme de la creme, you got to have it. Okay, is it the graphic T? Is it the cut off version of the T? Is it the pin? Is it the stickers? Is it the posters? What is it?

Let me know in the chat. Let's see what we got. I need Lung poster. Things you don't think you'd ever say. God, I need that lung poster. That's something we all need. I need that lung shirt. I think the shirt's the way. Then again, the pins. Honestly, we did the pins for Ballantines Day, and they were a huge hit. These pins are amazing. Anyhow. So let's get into the story. So the story I'm going to tell you, this is a for real disclaimer, okay? It's not intended to be click bait, although So I'm sure it will serve as click bait, but it's really not meant to be. And I'm going to give you a really specific reason why this is not click bait. So there is this place called... There's a forest in Connecticut that is called the Dark Entry Forest, and it is literally illegal to go to this place, not only because it is private property, but also there's a reason why, as you'll see in this story, that basically anybody who's ever gone in this forest basically leaves. I'm going to leave it at that, okay? And to give you my specific reason why this is not some gimmick to make you want to go check out the Dark Entry Forest, after we posted this story that I'm going to tell you here in a second to YouTube, we got a letter, a really long letter from the Dark Entry Forest Historical Society, I think it was them, from their lawyer, demanding we take the video down, because all these people, all you fans of the Strange, dark, and mysterious out there, I suppose, or maybe it wasn't you, they went to the Dark Entry Forest, and there's all these people going

to the forest. So don't do it, okay? No matter how compelling, no matter how amazing this story is, don't do it. Here we go. So in the summer of 1906, there was this couple, Dr. William Clark and his wife, Harriet, and they were up in Northwestern, Connecticut, and they're driving along this winding country road in a place called Litchfield County. And as they're driving along, it's so scenic and beautiful with rolling hills and green everywhere. And what they were What they were doing is they were looking for a location in this area that could serve as a location for their second home. Dr. Clark was an oncologist, and they lived back in New York City, where he and his wife lived a fabulous life. He was super successful. He was not only an oncologist, a practicing oncologist, but he was also a professor of surgery and medicine. I forget the name of the college, but he was a big-time professor as well. They lived this amazing life in New York, but their lives were really hectic. New York City is a hectic place. Add in the fact that they were very social people, always going out and going to functions and this and that.

They had some extra money, and they wanted to buy or build a second home that would serve as their retreat away from the city. And after, I guess, looking all around the country, they found Litchfield County was the opposite of New York City. I mean, very few people were living there at the time. And again, it's this beautiful scenic place. And so it just seemed like the perfect spot. So again, Dr. Clark and Harriet, they're just driving along, beautiful day. And in Litchfield County, they eventually reach this beautiful red wood-covered bridge, and they go over it. And when they get to the other side, it opened up, their field of view opened up because there weren't as many trees right on the other side of this bridge. And they suddenly had this view up into the right, maybe half a mile away or something, of this weirdly shaded forest. Now, you And you got to remember that basically everywhere they're looking, there's trees everywhere. I mean, it's very densely forested everywhere. But there was just this one rise of a pretty big hill, a prominent hill that was really dark, totally shaded. It was because there's two mountains or two hills on either side of it, almost creating a valley.

And so it just looked like, wow, that's a very shaded forest. And as you'll see, it's actually called the Dark Entry Forest, in part because of how shaded it is. And so they've just come out of this bridge, and they're seeing this There's no area up on this hill. There's no buildings, nothing. It's just trees. And there was just something immediately about it that really stood out to Dr. Clark and his wife. And they noticed that the road they were on, there appeared to be an access road that splintered off the road they were on that appeared to go up into that forest, the dark Henry forest. And so they look at each other and they're like, Hey, let's go up there. Maybe that's the place where we can find our spot for our second home. And so Dr. Clark pulls off the main road, goes on the access road, and he begins making his way up towards this darkened forest area. And really quickly, the road itself was very overgrown. At first, it seemed like it was relatively well-maintained, but the farther up they went towards this dark forest, the rougher it got to the point where Dr.

Clark couldn't even drive on it. There was too many potholes and everything. So they end up pulling the car over in parking. And at this point, they're actually in a bit of a clearing, and And they can actually see up ahead of them where they parked. It looks almost like an entry point to the forest. The tree line is right in front of them, and there's a gap in the trees where this rugged road continues into the forest, and they continue walking on foot towards the entry of this forest. And as they're walking, you got a picture where they are. Again, it's beautiful, scenic, very sunny, beautiful day. They're super excited, and they walk into the shade of the forest. Right away, it's like all the sunlight basically vanishes, but not in a spooky way. They lowered the brightness slightly, and it's very quiet. And the canopy in dark entry forest is known for being really, really thick. And so not much light was pushing through, but it created almost like... It was like they were walking into a bubble It's just pure unadulterated silence and peace. And as they're walking on this road, which quickly becomes mostly like a little path.

It doesn't even look like a road at some point. It's just grass that's been pushed down. Clearly, not many people or anything is coming into this forest, at least not from this direction. And as they're walking along, they're looking around and they're like, This place is so beautiful. I mean, it was already beautiful, but this is especially beautiful. They walked maybe a couple of hundred feet into the forest, and off to their right is this apple orchard untouched. No one's taking these apples. It's just a wild apple orchard. And there's deer that are just eating the apples off the tree. And they're looking over at Dr. Clark and his wife, and they're completely unafraid. They don't see people. So this is not terrifying for them. Deer just eating their apples. And then on the other side of the road, there's these huge fields full of flowers that are... Again, trees are everywhere, but there's all these flowers at the bases of the trees, lilies and roses and yellow bitter tansies, or I think that's what they're called. So all these beautiful flowers. And then at some point, as they walked a little bit farther into this dark entry forest, the sunlight that was poking through, it was hitting the ground in such a way that it was actually sparkling because this forest was actually on a hillside, and there was this mineral called mica.

If you're familiar, it's this little translucent. It almost looks like clouded glass. That's actually a mineral that comes from the ground. And when the sunlight hits it, it looks like it sparkles. And so they're And they're walking around at these wild animals that are unafraid of them and flowers, and there's babbling brooks and streams. I mean, it's like out of a Disney movie. This is a perfect place. And so by the time the couple came out of Dark Entry Forest, this is only like they walked around for maybe an hour or so. By the time they were coming out, they were completely sold that that was going to be where they went ahead and bought their land to build a second home. And so they go They went to New York City, and they put in the paperwork to buy the land. They put in the paperwork to buy the land, and they buy 1,000 acres in this forest, which it's ridiculous to imagine just casually buying 1,000 acres anywhere. But That's what they did. They bought their 1,000 acres. As soon as they had it, as soon as it was finalized, Dr. Clark began calling around to all these builders, local builders in Connecticut, that could help him build his home.

He had no intention of building some humongous home. They bought a huge amount of land, but they only wanted to build a small cabin. But despite the job being relatively simple, and despite Dr. Clark offering quite a bit of money to anybody who was willing to go out there and build this for him, none of the builders would do it. They never really gave a straight answer to Dr. Clark about why they would not go into Dark Entry Forest, but universally, no one would do it. Dr. Clark, he definitely was discouraged by that, but he just chalked it up to, okay, so obviously, it's an isolated place. It's relatively hard to get into Dark Entry Forest and where they had bought this land, it was pretty far into the forest. He just decided He said, Okay, it just might not be worth it for them. It's logistically a nightmare. They don't want to do it. And so Dr. Clark is undeterred, and he decides he will just build the house himself. Dr. Clark, he grew up on a farm in New Jersey. He was a very handy guy. He had built buildings before, so this was something he could do.

And so over the next several months, every weekend, Dr. Clark would make his way on his own to Darkendry Forest, and he would go in. And one critical thing I failed to mention at the beginning, which I'll mention now, is in addition to the beautiful picturesque nature of Darkentry Forest, it also was full of owls that were hooting all the time. So there's this audio side of being in this forest, which is really intense. There's owls hooting constantly. Actually, Dr. Clark and Harriet thought it was really cute that these owls, it seemed like they were almost personally greeting them as they came into the forest. And so Dr. Clark, every weekend for several months, he would go into dark entry forest and be greeted by the owls, and he would go to the land where the thousand acre land. Actually, he had identified this one flat spot in the thousand acres that was good for building a home. The first thing he did over these several weekends he was out there is he just cut down this massive swath of hemlock trees, just clearing out that flat area. Then he chopped up the trees he cut down into lumber, and he used that to build a rustic, simple two-story cabin.

And then after this cabin was built up on this hill, there happened to be another hill not too far away from the cabin where there was a freshwater spring right at the top. Dr. Clark, he went up and laid piping from the freshwater spring down to his cabin, so they had fresh water in the cabin. And then down the hill from where the cabin was constructed was a small brook, and And Dr. Clark, he found himself always going down and just staring into this beautiful brook because there were all these drought, because nobody fished out here. This is like an abandoned place, basically. There's all these drought just swimming around unencumbered, just leaping out of the water. If they even do that, I don't know if drought do that. I think they do. And so he ended up actually building a swimming pool right next to the brook, specifically so he could sit in the swimming pool and watch the drought. And so by Thanksgiving of that year, so 1906, by Thanksgiving, the property was done. The cabin had been built, everything was done. That holiday season, Dr. Clark and Harriet and their whole family would come out, and they would spend the holidays sitting in their pool, watching the drought, and just having a wonderful time.

Really, for Jeez, for many years, every summer and every major holiday, the Clark family would come out to their beautiful dark entry cabin, and they would stay there. It was really perfect. It is until 1918. In 1918, in the summer, Dr. Clark and Harriet were at their cabin, and they were having a nice time when Dr. Clark got word that he was actually being called back to New York City for an emergency. Remember, he's an oncologist, so these things happen, and he was called back. For whatever reason, Harriet, who normally likely would have joined him and just gone back to New York with him, she decided to stay. They've been coming here for years by this point, so she probably felt somewhat comfortable, although Admittedly, she was very unhappy about this. She didn't want to be there alone, but again, she decides to stay. But she tells Dr. Clarke because she didn't know how long he would actually be in New York, and he didn't really know either. But she said, You got to promise me you'll be back here as soon as you possibly can. And Dr. Clarke would tell her that, I'll do my best.

I should be back here in maybe a couple of days from now. And I promise you I will come home as soon as I possibly can. And so Dr. Clarke packs up his things, and he and his wife, they leave their cabin, they walk their way down the trail listening to the owls and looking at the mic, sparkling on the ground. And they leave the forest, and they make their way to a nearby train station, which actually was not that far away from the entry to the forest. And Harriet dropped off her husband, and She watched as he boarded, and it began taking off, and he disappeared to go to New York. Dr. Clarke, as he's vanishing, traveling on this train, he's thinking to himself that, Okay, I'll be in New York just for a couple of days. I'll be back in no time. Little did he know, over the course of time he was going to be in New York, his wife would endure something that is just truly horrifying. Before I explain to you what happened after Dr. Clarke left, you need to understand some history about this forest, history that Dr. Clarke and Harriet did not look into before deciding to purchase these 1,000 acres, because had they done the research into this area, they likely would not have bought the land.

So there actually used to be a town that was settled in the dark entry forest. It was called Dudleytown, and it was settled in the 1740s. And at first, it was just a couple of families just getting by. But pretty quickly, it grew to about 30 families, and several structures, and houses, and the whole nine yards. It's a small community inside of this beautiful forest, and things were great. For a small town in the 1700s, things were stable. But starting in At the end of the 1700s, in the 1790s, up till about the 1800s, things started to go really, really badly in Dudleytown. And in fact, because of how badly it went, it earned this... The The conclusion was that Dudleytown had to be cursed, and that lure had stuck around, which is actually why those builders refused to do the work for Dr. Clark, because they believed it was a cursed place. So this is what led to it being believed to be cursed. I'll tell you, it's pretty creepy. It started with the Carter family. The Carter family was a big family inside of Dudley town. It was in 1790, 1792, there was this cholera epidemic that broke out in this small town, and six members of the Carter family died really suddenly from cholera.

The remaining members of the Carter family, which was significant, I think there was a dozen people still left, might have been a few less than that, but a pretty good chunk of people, they were so grief-stricken from the loss that they decided to just abandon, literally abandon, their houses in Dudleytown and go back to New York City, where they happened to be from as well, same as Dr. Clarke. But as soon as they got to New York, they were massacred by natives that lived in the area. The only people that survived this massacre were three children, and the three children were kidnapped and never seen again. And so that was the start of bad things happening to people in Dudleytown. The next thing that happened is there was a guy named Hollister. We don't know his last name, but he either fell off a roof or he was pushed. We don't really know, but either way, he died. But he died on or near another person's home whose his name was Tanner. Okay, so Hollister dies, and he dies on or near Tanner's home. And after Hollister died, which, again, it was shrouded in mystery, Tanner, the owner of the home where this guy died, he began talking obsessively, and it's documented, obsessively, about strange creatures lurking around the tree line inside of dark entry forest right around Dudley town every night.

That's all he saw. So guy dies, and all of a sudden, Tanner He wasn't noticing all these strange creatures. He's telling everybody in town that there's something going on here. Nobody believed him. And so slowly, Taylor, every night, he would see whatever he was seeing, and it drove him insane, completely insane, to the point where he couldn't even function, and His daughter had to take care of him until he passed away. As Tanner was losing his mind, his next door neighbor, whose name was Abel, began to talk as well about these creatures that were coming to the edge of the tree line surrounding Dudleytown most nights. And just like Tanner, Abel as well slowly lost his mind over these creatures because nobody believed him. And then all the way up until just past the 1800s, so many people just randomly died in Dudleytown, some from disease, for sure, but others, they'd just be found dead. And then many people as well began sighting these strange creatures that were lurking all around. So by 1900, the only family that was still alive in Dudleytown was this family called the Brofies. It was a fairly big family.

The mother, she suddenly died of cholera. The two sons, they were accused of theft in another town, and then fled and vanished. And so, literally, it's down to John Brophy, the actual last person who's living in Dudleytown. One night, apparently, he didn't know why, but his cabin burned to the ground. While his cabin was burning, people were called out. They saw the smoke. They came out to put out this fire. And the last anyone saw of John, who's lost his whole family, he's lost everything, is he just turned and walked deeper into the forest and was never seen again. And no one could find him. That was it. And that was the last person who lived in Dudleytown. And that marked the moment that Dudleytown went from still being occupied to being a literal ghost town. And you can actually look up the newspaper article that documented the moment when Dudleytown became a ghost town. No one lives there. And so that was about 1900. And you got to remember that only a few years later is when Dr. Clark and Harriet were taking their stroll through Litchfield County and up into Darkentry Forest and saying, Wow, this is the place for us.

And they saw the ruins of Dudleytown. They walked past these old What's the name? The basement of these homes, the foundations, the crumbling foundations of these old homes. And there was all these remnants of this town that was still there, but much the way they viewed the Owls as being charming, they also viewed this run down an old town that was gone as cute, and it made them want to stay there more. So they were aware of the town, but didn't do the research. Apparently, Dudleytown was cursed, and that is where they bought their land. So fast forward to 1918. So Dr. Clarke, he's left for this emergency trip to New York, and it would turn out he was only needed in New York for 36 hours. It was as short as he could have expected it to be. So less than two days later, keeping his word to his His wife, he's back on a train, and he's heading back to that stop where Harriet had dropped him off, near the dark entry forest. Although this was rare that Dr. Clarke would leave his wife in the cabin, he expected her to be waiting for him at the train station.

They didn't have an exact time that he was going to be there because it wasn't not entirely planned. But he had said, I'll be here in one or two days max. And so he just expected his wife to check the schedule and be at the train platform. But as he's pulling into the station, he sees his wife is not there. Now, this was not some huge cause for concern, but it was enough of a red flag that as he's pulling into the station, Dr. Clarke is thinking something feels off. And so he ends up going from the train station, and he actually walked the rest of the way. He didn't take a car or anything. He walked to that access road and made his way up to the entry of dark entry forest. As soon as he walked into the forest, so daylight out here, he steps into the canopy and it's dark again. Remember, it It used to feel so welcoming and wonderful going into that forest. It was so peaceful. But now it has a different feel. He steps into the forest and suddenly it feels threatening. It feels ominous. The owls that are hooting the whole time he steps in, it didn't feel like they were greeting him.

It felt like they were telling him to leave. But he had to find his wife, and he's thinking she's up at the cabin. That's where we need to go. And so he begins jogging, fast walking. He's getting a little nervous through the forest. And as he's moving through, the sounds of these owls are getting louder and louder and louder and more threatening until finally, when he gets to the clearing, when he can actually look up and see where he built his cabin up on this hill, it's like a cacophony of noise. It's just constant hooting, almost like it doesn't even sound like hooting. It's just a loud sound that's constant. And so Dr. Clark is starting to panic, but he gets even more panicked when he looks up at the cabin. He doesn't see his wife, but he sees the front door to this cabin is slightly ajar. And so Dr. Clark, he runs the rest of the way up the hill, owl's hooting the whole time. He gets to the door, and he's terrified. He knows there's something wrong here. But still, he gets the courage. He opens up the front door, and the second he steps into this home, which he has loved and spent years and years in with his family, he steps in and everything is different.

Instead of it being peaceful, he now feels this almost high pitch sound inside of his head for a second, and he's confused. And then he hears what sounds like maniacal laughter coming from the second floor. He doesn't see anybody on the first floor. He thinks it's his wife, and so he charges upstairs. He gets to the landing, and he sees the door to his bedroom where he would expect his wife to be, is slightly open. And he can hear this laughter coming from inside of this room, this maniacal, crazy, loud, high pitch laughter. He's totally panicked. He goes to the door, and he opens it up, and there in the back corner of the bedroom is his wife, and she's in the fetal position, and her mouth has been opened as wide as it can go. The laughter that he's hearing is coming out of her body But her jaw isn't moving. Her chest is heaving, and this maniacal laughter is just coming out of her as she stares him dead in the eyes. Dr. Clarke, he was so terrified of what he was seeing and all the hooting and all this craziness going on that he just turned and ran away.

We don't know what happened to Harriet Clarke over those 36 hours that her husband was gone, but something happened to her. When she was taken away from this cabin, the only thing she would say is the strange creatures kept coming back. I kept seeing strange creatures. Same thing that all the people in Dudleytown had said that caused them to flee the town. We don't know exactly what became of Harriet. There is one account that says she was forever... She went to a mental hospital and stayed there until she passed. Another account says she went back to New York with Dr. Clarke, where she took her life. But either way, the final thing was she claimed to have seen the strange creatures and lost her mind as well. Following this, so following the story, Dudleytown, obviously, took on, or Dark Country Forest, really took on this unbelievable legend. People knew about this story. They knew about the legend of the 1700s and 1800s, but this felt recent. This was a documented case of this doctor's wife. And so it spawned a lot of people going into Dark Country Forest to see what's out there. And lots of people who go into that forest before it became illegal reported feeling phantom hands, slapping them on the back and feeling really intense pockets of cold air.

Actually, the very famous Paranormal couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren, in the 1970s, they went out and ran the special series about what happened in the Dark Country forest. And they came out and said, Absolutely, that forest is demonically possessed. And so I just want to say that as appealing as it is to go to this forest, I'm not kidding when I say it is totally illegal, and we've been put on notice by the historical society that basically encouraging people to go is grounds for a lawsuit, so please don't go. But you can totally Google it yourself. And that is the story of Dudleytown and the Clark family. So now, I would love to just see what people are saying about this forest here. What do you guys think? What do you think is going on out there? Let's get some theories here. I'm going to read the theories. Man, I will say, as you guys are writing some stuff in the chat here, this is quite possibly one of the most intriguing stories we've done. I mean, we've covered a whole bunch of stuff ranging from missing people and paranormal and all that stuff. This one feels like there's something else.

There's something going on in this forest. And if you actually look at some of the photos people have posted, illegally, these illicit photos, they go in and they'll take photos inside of this forest. There's absolutely some weird stuff people have captured on film that cannot be seen with the naked eye. So it's spooky, man. It gives me chills every time I think about that scene of Dr. Clarke who's running through the forest. The owls are hooting like mad, and he's seeing the doors open, and he finds his wife, like, maniacly laughing in the bedroom. What a totally crazy scene that is. So crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. So here we go. I'm reading through here. Fungal, spore, bloom. Maybe that's it. Skinwalkers, that's a theme. Great speaker, John. Thank you. Someone just joined and said, I'm literally 40 minutes late. Yeah, this is a terrible time to join. You missed the main thing. I don't know. Maybe this is a good time to say this. So lots of people ask me, I would say in comments and DMs, what is my stance on the paranormal, let's say? Because certainly, Dudleytown, and this whole story, and the whole lore around it, it certainly elicits the idea that something paranormal could be going on.

And my stance on that is not... I'm not a hardliner, like, Oh, paranormal is real. But what I am a hardliner about is, as a species, our understanding of everything, of everything, is like this. There's people in the chat that are going to eviscerate me for saying this, but I think we've only explored... If you look at a map of the Earth, a map. If you look at the Earth from outer space, our biggest space exploration is a millimeter. If you're looking at it from a camera or from them do a horrible job. Here's all space. We've only gone that far off of Earth, with our best spaceships and our best people. We don't even know what's in our own galaxy. So the idea that we can just immediately dismiss anything paranormal because how could that be true? Why? How is that any more or less likely than anything else? We don't understand anything. So my stance is be curious and don't just shoot things down because socially, that's what you're supposed to do. Believe what you want to believe, because frankly, it's just as believable as not believing it. That's my two cents. Please shout out Stacey Sommer.

Well, there you go. I accidentally shouted you out. Boom. Nice work with that comment. That worked. Cool. All righty. So was that a good story? You have to say yes, because it'll hurt my feelings if you say no. Now, let's jump into some tears here. All right, so I mentioned at the beginning, I'm half reading the comments here. Hold on. I want lots of positive reinforcement that that was a great story. Good. Sweet. Nice. It's always interesting telling a story for the first time, live. Anyhow, let's do a tier list, and please stick around because there's stuff going on here. There's a giveaway that's very easy, very easy to There's lots of stuff, lots of stuff going on, so stick around. All right, as you can see on the screen here, we have a tier list. So if you're not familiar with how this works, we, together, are going to rank the movies you see at the bottom there as the best being top tier, and then so good, and nice try, right? Really good, medium, not so good. Okay, I'll start. Paranormal Activity. My God, did this movie scare me? Even though it felt like it wasn't real, it felt real.

And I remember being I'm absolutely horrified of Paranormal Activity. If you haven't seen this, actually, this came out a while ago. It feels somewhat recent, but it's really good. I would highly recommend. This is the found footage style. It's so good. So Paranormal Activity, top tier all day. Got to be top tier for me. The next one, the Shining. This is the one that I need you all in the comments to give me your take. Should the Shining be top tier, so good, or nice try? Or is it so terrible? We're just going to leave it below. It doesn't even get ranked, okay? So top tier, so good, nice try, or leave it. Okay, let's hear it. And while you're doing that, I'm going to go into the next one, which is Cloverfield, which is another one of the ones I liked quite a bit. As you'll see, I'm a fan when it comes to horror movies, scary movies. I like the found footage stuff, even though it's fake or whatever, but it feels real. It makes you feel like it's real. Cloverfield definitely had that. So I like Cloverfield. Not as much as top tier.

I'm going to put that in so good. So Cloverfield is so good. Let's check out the Shining. How are people How are you feeling about this? The Shining, top tier, top tier, top tier. No, no. Top tier, top tier. So good. Medium, top tier. You know what? I'm seeing a lot of top tiers. It's so iconic that even if it's not as good as it once was when it first came out because other stuff's come out, I think it's top tier as well. Scream, I don't know. No, no. I'm going to give it maybe a so... I got to be brutal here. I don't really like Scream. I think it's cheesy. If we're talking about things that actually make you scared, or are actually like, this is an attempt at scary stuff, I'm going to throw that a nice try. I'm close to saying, you go in the garbage pail down below. I got to put in the garbage pail. Put in the garbage pail. See you. Get it out of here. Yeah, leave the M. That's all you get. The Exorcist. Here's another one for you all. I'd like you all to weigh in on The Exorcist, okay?

I've seen it in pieces. That's horrible. I definitely have seen it in pieces because it's so famous. I've definitely seen it. It's a little dated. I got to be honest. But that's yours to decide, The Exorcist. And then the Conjuring. I'll do Conjuring. I like The Conjuring. Not top tier, though. I'm going to go so good. I'm going to go so good. All right, so last is The Exorcist. I see a So Good top, top, top, so good. I'm seeing a lot of So Goods throwing in so good. We're sticking with so good. Thanks. And then just get that scream off. Get it out of here. Get it out of here. There we go. Paranormal activity, the Shining, That's the top tier. And then I would say Cloverfield is definitely the so good A. I'm going to put the Exorcist, then the Conjuring in the so good. I'm going to reverse those two. That's where I think we're at. How are we feeling about this tier list? Pretty good? Good. Well, even if you said you don't like it, this is what we're doing. So there we go. Nice work, team. Nice work, fans of the Strange, dark, mysterious teamwork here.

Very cool. All right, so that was the tier list. And now the reason we did this is because now we're on to the next tier list, which is going to be painful for me because I need to rank things that are near and dear to my heart. I'm going to be brutally honest. We are going to just be really transparent and honest about what we think is the best of Ballin' merch. We're going to rank some Ballin' merch. Here's the merch we're going to be looking at. There's four pieces of merch. We have the top, which is going to be confusing because we've now reversed top tier. It's now the middle. But Must Have is the new top tier. Top tier is the new middle. The good stuff And then the Trashcan. That doesn't even exist. So I'm going to do these because I think I owe it to you to be really honest. So I'm going to judge these. The classic hoodie that I wear all the time, especially to the gym. This is like my gym hoodie. That's in a must have. That's must have. I got to be real. It's like the original cool piece of merch we came up with.

So I'm putting that top tier, or I'm sorry, must have, not to Can you not be confused with top tier? Pretty good. Pretty good. Yeah. All right. Next is the Ballantines Day merch. Must have. Immediately must have. Got to be real. It's a must have. Valley of the Headless Men. Probably the story, and if you haven't seen it, I think it's called... I think it's literally called the Valley of the Headless. Anyway, the Valley of the Headless Men is probably the story that I'm most proud of the way we put it together, because there was so much information spread We had to cross a hundred years. We had to aggregate and create all these anecdotes to make the story make sense. And we had to commemorate it with merch, much the way we commemorated Old Lung going rogue. That's a must-have. Like I said, I'm being real with you guys. It's a must have. This is not biased at all, okay? Last but not least, make it even bigger. That's not big enough. Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, Keep going. Keep going. He gets his own category. It's above must have. It's the lung tier.

In fact, they all go the lung tier. All merch must have and seagull lung tier. So that's my unbiased, honest assessment of our merch. And I'm sure it's identical to all of your tier lists for that. So good work on the tier lists. So now, moving right along here. We got a little bit of time left. We have the Q&A. So go ahead and fire off some questions in the comments here, and we'll do it live here, and I'll make sure that I'm only answering really incendiaire scary and inappropriate questions. That'll be really good for the stream. All right, let's see. I'm going to give it a second. Here we go. I'm glad that you all agree that that was not biased, because that was what I was going for. All right, let's hear some questions, guys. Put them in the chat. I'm reading it right now. Can I tell you a joke, Mr. Ballen? You can, but candidly, I don't know if I'll see it. You had your moment. You should have just sent it. All right, here we go. This is from Fox King, The Fox King of Serials. That's a cool name.

Would you rather read a book or watch a movie, and why? Yeah, I don't know. I have I have periods where I'm a big voracious reader, and then I have other periods where I refuse to read it all. Currently, I'm in a little bit of a reading phase because my wonderful wife, Amanda, who actually might be watching this right now. Love you. Love you, Amanda. If you're out there with the kiddos next door here. She has become just the most intense reader ever. She's read, I want to say, 25 books over the past 40 days, maybe. Always reading, and it's starting to rub off on me. And she recommended a book. It's called The The Last One Left by Riley Sager. Just started it a couple of days ago. It's a horror, scary story. It's really good. I'm only about 90 pages in, so don't spoil it. Very good. So if you're looking into it, I haven't finished it yet, but The Last One Left by Riley Sager. Very cool. Thanks, Amanda. Love you. Great recommendation. So right now, I'm going to go book over movie. Actually, I'm going to throw it back to you all.

What do you think? Book or movie, and why? Book or movie and why? Put in the chat, and I'll come back and read some. All All right, next up. The question is coming in from Skele, S-K-E-L-L-E. What would you want your tombstone to read? Cool dude. He died. Yeah, that's it. That's what I wanted to read. Or, right now, that's it. Cool dude, but he died. But, but he died. Cool dude, but he died. Maybe. We don't know. Where do we go? Where do you go after So you die? We don't know. So cool dude, but he died. Or did he? Because we don't know where we go when we die. The end. Or is it? Is what my tombstone is going to say. All right. Next. I'm seeing lots of books. That's cool. I wonder how many people are claiming books but don't really mean it, because candidly, I'm like 80 % movie over book, if I'm being real. It's just right now I'm in a book over movie state. Okay, next question. Here we go. This is from Scoops. My daughter, Allison, would like to know how many languages does Sega Lung know?

Well, O Lung speaks Finnish, French, Italian, English, Portuguese, I think. He's close to half a dozen, and he's probably out there right now going rogue, looking for the like button, learning languages as goes. As he encounters different villages in the forest, he has to learn their culture and learn their language in order to identify clues of where the like button has gone. So he's a quick learner, that old lung. So I'm going to say he's at least past twelve at this point. Great question. Huge question. Great question. All right. Next one is a good question, and actually, this is a question that's pretty real, pretty real. This is from Tater Tot. Cool name. Have you personally noticed that You might have changed how you do routines or daily tasks or activities because of stories you've covered. If so, could you give examples? And I think that what I'm taking from this is, as some of you may have noticed from the dark, the strange, dark, mysterious content that I cover, a lot of times it's touching on these horrible things that happen to people that oftentimes you can avoid. Not always, but a lot of times they're avoidable if you understood how to avoid them.

And so I think people do. I'm guessing here. I don't know if this is true. They sometimes watch a lot of our content or listen to our content, almost to learn what not to do or to learn what to look out for. And I will say, and this is not necessarily something that is good in my life, but it's the truth, I have become completely paranoid that someone's going to break into my house every single night because the amount of times I have covered a story where somebody breaks into somebody's house is so frequent, even the stories that don't even make it to being produced. We research so many stories that don't actually make it, and we learn all the time about people getting into other people's homes. And in fact, there was this one story that I never covered because it was too dark, but you can look it up. There was this guy who... He was a serial killer. I want to say in the '80s or '90s, and this was in the United States. I don't know the guy's name. I'm sure you can look it up. But I think he was obsessed with trees, leaves and trees.

And he began hoarding all these bags of leaves in his house, stuffing them in his basement for no reason. And then, and I might be combining two stories, so I'm sorry if this is actually two, but either way, I think it's the same one. After his obsession with trees began to wane, he began just going to random houses in his neighborhood, or maybe not his neighborhood, but in his town, and He was checking the doors, broad daylight sometimes. And if it was open, he would go inside, and he would kill whoever was inside. And he did it long enough that he managed to take down quite a few people. He killed a lot of people. And then he began stuffing, I think, leaves in their houses as well. But the only reason And the reason he targeted those people is because their door was unlocked. Now, you can't leave your house locked all the time, but I would say that I am hyper-aware of doors locked all the time. My house is always locked, and I'm on edge, ready for somebody to come in my house. I'd say it's fortunate I have Navy SEAL training that hopefully will protect me if somebody comes in the house.

But yeah, high paranoia from these stories about break-ins. And someone just threw out, What's your biggest fear? Maddie? I'm sorry, I didn't see your name. That's probably it, candidly, somebody breaking into the house and me not being prepared for it. So there you go. That has changed my life for sure. Next is from Shanne's Fishy World. When did you know you wanted to be a Navy SEAL? Yeah, honestly, I botched a lot of my early adulthood and my teenagerhood. I just blew off school. And if you've seen some of the interviews I've done recently on the Sean Ryan podcast and also on Chris Williamson's Modern Wisdom podcast, I talk about it at length, but I had a lot of opportunity to do great stuff with my life, but didn't, and just was an idiot, and got in fights, and partied, and was just a jerk. It was at the moment when I had dropped out of college after one semester, and I'm in my mom's basement, just realizing the gravity of my situation, that I've blown it. I'm now home, unemployed, not in college. My parents hate me. What am I going to do? That was when I had my moment, my epiphany that I wanted to turn my life around.

And I had been thinking about the military. I had some family friends who actually were Navy Seals. I went up talking to them about it. And before long, I just felt like, man, if I could just become a seal and go through the pipeline and become a Navy Seal, no one's going to remember that I was this complete idiot that botched my life. They'll think that, wow, he really got his act together, and I'd be doing something that I really wanted to do. Being a Navy SEAL was a really hard... I wanted to join the military and serve, but I saw the SEAL teams as being this great challenge within the thing I wanted to do. I wanted to serve. The SEALs were the big challenge. I could reinvent myself if I succeeded, and I did. So 19 years old in my mom's basement, fresh out of being dropped out of college, practically flunked out of college, just a complete problem child. That was the moment that I was like, Wait a minute. I should take some ownership of my life. And that's when I did. So there you go. That was a big moment for me.

And I will say, when you have moments like that, you actually are aware they're life-changing, at least in my experience. I knew that, okay, that's the end of my crappy behavior. I'm going to get myself together. And I did. And I kept on the course as much as I could. Thankfully, my wife, Amanda, has also kept me on the straight and narrow for the last 10 plus years. So it's definitely thanks to her, too, that I've continued that path. Okay, here we go. What's the latest/greatest... We have to wrap this up here in a few minutes here. What's the latest/greatest shenanigans your cats have gotten into by GVin? Thank you for the question, GVin. So I have three cats. Actually, while we're at it, are you team cats or team dogs? Put that in the chat. Team cats, team dogs. I got to say, I'm team cats. It's true. I have three cats of my own. I've always had cats. I love dogs, but I'm team cats. And lately, the shenanigans my youngest cat, Chuy, has gotten into is he projectile vomits. It's great. Just before here, I was wiping some vomit off the walls.

That's great. It's a nice new feature for Chuy. So that's the shenanigans he's gotten into lately. Yeah, so Team Both. I see a lot of both. I didn't say both was an option, okay? Because I do both. That's not cool. You got to do team cats or team dogs in the chat. I'm team cats, like 55 %, 60 % team cats, 40 % team dogs. All righty, here we go. We got to move along here. So the giveaway for these incredible... Is it on the screen? For the incredible Lunge posters that we're giving away 20 of, which, by the way, it's so easy to register for these. All All you have to do is right now in the description of this live stream, there is a link to our Discord server, which is free. It's free. It's legitimately free. Pinned comment. Pinned comment. Not in the description. It could be in the description, but it's definitely a pinned comment right now. Click on that if you're not already signed up for our Discord server. That'll prompt you to join our Discord server. Again, it's free, really free. Then once you're in the Discord server, and don't worry if you've never been in one, just click that link.

It'll prompt you through everything. It's very easy. On the left-hand side, there's literally a tab that says giveaways, which you can see right here. You click on that, and then where it says free merch, sign up for a chance, blah, blah, blah, where the mouse is right now, that little symbol, you click on it. The end. That is all you have to do. It costs you nothing other than about 30 seconds of your time, and you are automatically entered to win one of 20 of these amazing one-of-a-kind Seagalung movie posters, and they will be given away in the next hour. So go to it right now if you haven't already. Get yourself signed up And hopefully, you get one of these sweet Seagull Lung posters. Also, again, guys, if you want to go back to camera two, remember, the merch right now is live on ballinstudios. Com. All you got to do is go click and go get the stuff you want. I got to be honest, I'm pretty confident this stuff is going to sell out really quickly. Not a gimmick. I really think it's going to sell out fast. So go get it done.

Ballinstudios. Com to get your new Seagull Lung merch, the rogue Seagull Lung merch. Also, last, last, last thing. We have an amazing newsletter newsletter that just went out. I know people are like, Oh, what's a newsletter? This one's amazing. Our team created a beautiful newsletter where we give away information way earlier than other people get. You will get early access to all this cool stuff. Go to ballinstudios. Com. This is how you sign up for the newsletter, and you just scroll down to the bottom, slap your email into the box that's right there. There it is. Do you want more Mr. Ballon in your life? Throw in your email, hit send, boom, you sign up for the newsletter. And if you hate it, just unsubscribe. We are putting real effort into making that newsletter worth your time. It's simple. It's minimal writing. It's a lot of graphics, and it's easy stuff to click. If you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and mysterious, sign up for the newsletter, get yourself signed up for the giveaway for the 20 Lungy posters, and just continue tuning in week over week. I love you guys so much. This was so much fun.

I hope you enjoyed it. The video for today is also going out literally in a minute, two minutes. The new video, the sick new Sunday release, it's going out in about two minutes, so tune in for that as well. It's one minute from now. So go enjoy the video. Thank you all so much. See you.