This Week On Another Brother:
In episode #002, The Sinister Slenderman Saga, the brothers delve into the video games that made them. From Sam Fisher’s iconic nightvision goggles, to the sandstorms of Desert Storm, ending up on the ice duking it out with some overly sized craniums. But wait, don’t relax too far into that video game nostalgia. What was that bump in the night? Did 10-year-old-Josh discover the original Slenderman…?
Find our website on Podbean!
And don’t miss this episode’s Alternate Reality…
Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):
- Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (video game) by Ubisoft (get it on Steam!)
- Conflict: Desert Storm by Pivotal Games (get it on Steam!)
- NHL Hitz 2002 by Black Box Games
- Power On: The Story of Xbox “Xbox almost didn’t happen. Find out why in this behind-the-scenes, six-part series that takes you back to the scrappy beginnings of Microsoft’s video game console. It’s the untold story of the people behind the box, glitches and all.”
- Bird’s eye view of where it all happened…
- The Marble Hornets YouTube channel, documenting the discovery of Slenderman. **WARNING: For the brave-at-heart only. And for the much-have-spare-time only.**
Transcript:
The following transcript was in part created using the Deepgram API:
[00:00:00] This Week on Another Brother
[00:00:32] Another Brother Theme Song
[00:00:51] Stewnerds Segment
Alex: So let’s talk video games. Before anybody tunes out though-
Josh: It’s it’s too late.
Jacob: They’re gone. Already.
Alex: We’re not just gonna talk about video games. We have a unique perspective. Like, a lot of people think a lot of bad stuff about video games and some of it’s true, obviously. But, you know, video games were a part of what cemented the relationship that we have as siblings, and that’s what we wanna talk about at least this time. Pretty much every other time we’re just gonna be nerding out about video games, probably. So I know what I wanna talk about It’s a it may not be a series of games that you guys would consider-
Josh: You’re not gonna say Pikmin, are you?
Alex: No. You guys probably won’t consider it like 1 of the most formative series of games for any of us.
Jacob: It surprised me, I will say.
Josh: Oh, you know already?
Jacob: Yeah, he told me.
Alex: But I will say it’s in the upper tier, maybe even the upper echelon. The third echelon?
Josh: Oh, Perfect Dark?
Alex: No.
Jacob: Good one.
Josh: Do I get a guess? Do I get to keep guessing?
Alex: Sure. Yeah.
Josh: Echelon…
Alex: Third echelon.
Josh: Third echelon…
Jacob: I feel like I wanna start miming.
Josh: Gosh.
Alex: Ubisoft…
Josh: Oh, yes. Tom Clancy.
Jacob: Uh-huh.
Josh: Shoot! What’s it called? Yeah. Sam Fisher.
Jacob: Oh, I was working on some wood yesterday and oh, man-
Josh: Splinter cell!
Alex: Yes. Splinter cell.
Josh: Yes. Epic gameplay.
Alex: Yeah. For dad, Ubisoft is a French producer of video games that has studios in other places in the world too. Usually, places that speak French. But they produced a series of video games called Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell. And they actually have quite a few Tom Clancy series of games based on his books. But, yeah, twentieth anniversary, apparently they’re remaking the original game right now.
Josh: Oh, sweet. Remaking not just, like, updating the graphics, but doing, like, a full-
Alex: Full remake. Yeah. Not just you know, crappy little things. They’re redoing the engine entirely. They’re adding ray traced global illumination to get that realistic lighting.
Josh: But also, Splinter Cell, I think that was like revolutionary for me. Because of- So there’s a specific munition type for his rifle. I can’t- The aerofoil, is that what it’s called? Do you remember?
Alex: I don’t remember.
Josh: It’s like a disc-
Jacob: That sounds familiar.
Josh: Yeah. And it knocks them out.
Alex: A Lima Lima. Less than Lethal.
Jacob: Yeah. So it’s just completely silent.
Josh: So silent, so less than lethal, and you just nail guys in their face with it. Yeah. I thought that was so cool.
Alex: Yeah. It was just such like, I hadn’t played anything like it before, like the world was so interactive. Like, you wanna be in the dark but you can’t find a light switch, just shoot the light. Then you’re in the dark, and now you’re hiding. And you can flip on your night vision, and you can see and the bad guys can’t.
Josh: Just crawling along the pipes under the ceiling line, and you’re just crawling, crawling, crawling, and snap someone’s neck, and keep going.
Alex: And my understanding is that they didn’t really invent stealth gameplay. Like, there was an older series of games called Thief —
Josh: Mhmm.
Alex: — that kind of invented all of that. But I had never heard of Thief until a few years ago, and I’ve certainly never played those games.
Josh: You’re probably talking, like, first person shooter stealth?
Alex: Right. Yeah. And just the whole idea that the game can be based on not killing everybody, not going in guns blazing.
Jacob: Not being seen.
Alex: Having to be clever and tricky and skilled and not just good at putting your crosshairs at the right place at the right time was, yeah, Super fun
Jacob: It completely flips the idea of an FPS upside down on its head.
Alex: Yeah. Which you do do sometimes literally. You just, like, pick those guys up and choke them out while you’re hanging upside down from the pipes.
Josh: Yeah. So good. All with those 3 green lenses just glowing in the dark.
Jacob: It’s so emblematic.
Alex: It’s so iconic.
Jacob: Yes. So good.
Alex: I mean, ridiculous. It would totally give away your position.
Josh: I still have the sound effect in my mind when you’ve- yeah. When you flip it on, just-
Alex: It’s kind of like Ironman powering up one of his repulsors. Yeah.
Josh: So good.
Jacob: I was telling Alex, didn’t we have it on 3DS?
Josh: I think so.
Alex: I think you guys had Chaos Theory.
Jacob: Oh that’s right. That’s what you were saying.
Alex: On the DS.
Jacob: DS. Yeah. It was DS.
Josh: Not the 3DS. Yeah.
Jacob: And it was multiplayer though.
Josh: Yeah.
Jacob: So we would stay up, like, late at night. We probably got it for Christmas and, like, those 2, 3 weeks immediately following, just stayed up every night playing it.
Josh: Yeah. I can’t remember what they called it TeamLink, or whatever Nintendo’s System to system multiplayer thing was called.
Alex: Yeah. Apparently, according to this Ubisoft video on YouTube, Xbox Live was launched on the back of the multiplayer in chaos theory, because it was originally an Xbox game that they somehow ported to the DS.
Josh: Wait. What?
Jacob: What, hold on-
Alex: The Xbox live service- This is what they made it sound like- I may have misunderstood. But-
Jacob: Sorry. You said Ubisoft made it sound like this?
Alex: Yes. Correct.
Jacob: Okay. Go on.
Alex: I wasn’t super paying attention to the lower-thirds when people- new people came and said things. So this guy may have worked for Xbox. I I wasn’t paying attention to who this person was who was saying this. But the the video, whoever it was in the video, the video made it sound like Yeah. Xbox Live was advertised as like an awesome service using this game. Chaos Theory- Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and the multiplayer. As like, this is why this is cool, this is why you need it. This is like the future of video games. Which I had no idea.
Jacob: And we were we were obviously late to the whole Xbox party.
Alex: Yeah. We were.
Josh: But Still, they weren’t like Bungie. Microsoft purchased Bungie to sell the Xbox.
Alex: Right.
Josh: And, like, on Xbox release, they were bundling it with Halo, weren’t they?
Alex: Yeah. But Xbox Live wasn’t a thing yet.
Josh: True.
Alex: It was all about the LAN party.
Jacob: Oh, okay. Yeah. You’re right. There ya go.
Alex: How can that bring your systems in person to play.
Jacob: Yeah. Good good call.
Alex: Or or co-op not co-op, but, like, split screen on the same couch.
Josh: Mhmm. That’s that’s a whole ‘nother-
Alex: Man, that was so cool. Those were good times.
Josh: That’s a whole ‘nother episode.
Alex: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Like, Halo- Halo, Bungie was making Galo for Apple. It was gonna be a Macintosh game until Microsoft bought them.
Jacob: Oh, thank goodness.
Alex: Isn’t that crazy?
Jacob: Thank goodness.
Josh: That’s- that would- oh, man.
Alex: I don’t know that they were making it for Apple, but it was meant to be on Macintosh.
Josh: Can you imagine if Apple had gotten into the video game space. I mean, even selling the idea to Bill Gates was apparently like super risky. And it only worked because Xbox stands for Direct X.
Alex: Direct X.
Josh: So they wanted to make a separate hardware box for Direct X processing. And then they just built it from there into a gaming system.
Alex: We’re getting real nerdy now.
Josh: Okay. Great game. Alright. I’m up?
Alex: Yeah.
Jacob: Do it.
Josh: My- what- what’s the- what’s the- the games that made us? Is that what this is?
Alex: Yeah. I’m done for that.
Jacob: Yeah.
Josh: The games that made us. K. The game that I wanted to highlight that had a big impact on me. You guys are already know what I’m gonna say.
Jacob: Are we gonna guess it?
Josh: You already know it.
Jacob: Oh, I forgot.
Josh: You got it?
Jacob: I already forgot you told us.
Josh: But now do you remember that I told you? Do you know what it is?
Jacob: Okay. Iris has had RSV for a couple days.
Alex: Oh, really?
Jacob: I am exhausted. I’ve gotten terrible sleep. I have forgotten what it is.
Josh: Okay. Well, go ahead. Not really a series. There’s 2 games. 2 games.
Alex: Unfortunately, not a series.
Josh: Yeah.
Alex: Because they were good. A military shooter…
Jacob: That’s right. Okay.
Josh: Remember it?
Jacob: Yeah. Yeah.
Josh: Okay. My game is Conflict: Desert Storm. By Pivotal Games.
Alex: That’s what it’s called? Oh, man.
Josh: Yeah.
Alex: I thought it was Operation Desert Storm, like, the actual Not not that I think you’re wrong, but yeah.
Josh: Yeah. I know. Does that look familiar to you? I just remembered operation I just remembered operation Desert Storm. Right.
Alex: Yeah.
Josh: And I couldn’t find it. I’m like, what the heck, yeah, Conflict: Desert Storm?
Alex: It’s Conflict: Desert Storm. Good to know.
Josh: This game was so great, and it came at like, just the right time where we had our Xbox. Yeah. We were already used to these Halo LAN parties we were doing. And I don’t remember when we got it or why we got it, but I remember being interested in something a little more realistic, less sci-fi shooter.
Alex: Right.
Josh: It’s still, like, military tactical type thing, and we found this game on a whim. Probably down at our local-
Jacob: Oh, it was absolutely Game Crazy.
Josh: Game Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was sweet. I think it worked for us the best because it was 4 player co-op. That was the best part. Yeah. And and the game’s designed to have 4 dedicated personality types, weapons, or, I should say, specialists.
Alex: Yeah.
Josh: And so we each kind of I think I think it was very organic.
Alex: Yeah yeah.
Josh: We just kinda, like, picked a guy, and then we just stuck with it.
Jacob: Naturally fell in.
Josh: Yeah. So there was- so I was the rifleman. The-
Alex: yeah. The Ranger? I think is what it might have been called? Yeah. Because you also had, like, the the laser rangefinder for lasing targets.
Jacob: Oh, yeah.
Josh: Yeah. Yep. So I was him rifleman, assault man.
Alex: I don’t remember.
Josh: Alex, you were the sniper-
Alex: Sniper and demo- and demo guy. 2 guys. It was a little disorienting sometimes.
Josh: But you’re providing your own sniper overwatch
Alex: Yeah
Josh: For your own other guy.
Alex: It was pretty sweet.
Josh: Yeah. And then Jacob was our heavy weapons specialist.
Alex: He was our heavy.
Jacob: Big guns. Big guns.
Alex: Well, mini-guns technically, I think?
Jacob: Yeah. I feel like I had a rocket launcher or something as well.
Alex: Oh, yeah?
Josh: Yes.
Jacob: A boom-boom stick.
Josh: Yeah. Heavy weaponry. You were like the the large- machine gunner- heavy- heavy machine gunner anti-tank guy.
Jacob: Oh, I just love it.
Alex: I think the demo guy that I played on occasion when necessary, I think he had like a pistol and then a bunch of remote-
Josh: Claymore mines, I think.
Alex: -yeah. Remote detonated explosives. C-4. A Lotta C-4.
Jacob: So one of you said the second iteration is on Steam. Josh said that?
Josh: Yeah.
Jacob: We’re we’re gonna have to buy it.
Alex: Absolutely.
Jacob: It’s it’s a done deal.
Josh: It might it might even be like an update. I don’t know.
Alex: We’ll have to do a let’s play —
Josh: Yes.
Alex: — of that game.
Jacob: I’m already getting excited.
Josh: I mean, it was so sweet because you’re just going through Desert Storm as a British SAS team, specialized And, like, I remember, like, we’d be entering like a cut down into the rocks, which now after having been to Iraq multiple times, I have no idea where these guys are supposed to be. This doesn’t look like anything familiar to me. But and then we start, you know, you know you’re approaching where enemy positions are and you’re getting, like, nervous and you’re, like, okay, time to send the sniper out. And if I remember right, Alex would always push out ahead of us, stealth, sneak, get into some sort of high ground overwatch position.
Jacob: Spot people. Let us know what’s going on.
Josh: Yeah. So we knew the best routes of approach and then and then-
Alex: Do a little bit of recce.
Josh: Yeah. Some recce. But this game- so the reason I chose this game was predominantly because those roles we chose kind of continued into other activities we did. Predominantly or mostly, like, paintball later.
Alex: Right. Yeah. Same with Splinter Cell. For me. Like, that stealth gameplay is just like it’s probably what made me wanna be the sniper.
Josh: Yeah. I see that.
Alex: Oh, that’s another- that’s a story for another time. This amazing shot, I hit Greg in. Not in the head, I think.
Jacob: Somewhat unrelated, but we’re gonna have to talk we’re gonna have to talk about Camp Rilea at some time as well.
Josh: Yeah.
Jacob: Did you never get to go, Alex?
Alex: I never got to go. I’m still a little bitter about it.
Jacob: Oh nooo.
Josh: It was great.
Jacob: I would be bitter too.
Alex: It sounded amazing.
Jacob: Yeah. It was at blast. Yeah. I don’t know- I wasn’t- I was never a great paintballer. I was always the youngest out there anyway. I I don’t think would have considered myself the the tank or heavy gun while we were paintballing.
Josh: Maybe not, yeah.
Jacob: But in all other, like-
Alex: That was Eric *. Eric * was the heavy in the paintball scene.
Jacob: All other video games and even, like, playable top games were applicable. Yeah. Definitely. We, like, kind of carried on and just naturally continued these roles. Even when we’ve done, like, D&D.
Alex: Mhmm.
Jacob: We we’ve kind of just built characters around that way as well.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Strange because it does kinda feel natural. At this point.
Alex: Yeah. We just know our roles now, apparently.
Josh: And, also, probably, a story for another time, you know who the tank was, beyond Eric, dad. Remember dad? You’re just going ahhhhhhhh!
Jacob: Yes.
Alex: You guys got to play with Dad a lot more than I did.
Josh: Oh, man. He was crazy. He’d like, assault the barn.
Alex: Right. Yeah.
Josh: No cover in sight.
Alex: He shot me in the hand. It hurt so bad. I had a scar for so long. It’s gone now, but… K, Jacob.
Jacob: Okay.
Josh: I don’t know. So Alex and I don’t know yours.
Alex: That’s right.
Jacob: So last week, when we were just chatting I had mentioned 2 games. They’re pretty obvious, like, in your face. One was already alluded to.
Alex: Today? Okay.
Jacob: Bungie.
Alex: Oh, Yeah. Totally.
Jacob: I’m gonna drop these 2 though. So I’ll just put it on record. My top 2 are no particular order, Smash Bros, and Halo. Those have to be my top 2. Yeah. But since you guys chose, you know, further down the list, I will too. EA Sports…
Alex: NHL hits.
Josh: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Jacob: Yeah. Yep. I thought that’s all it would take. That was really the only sports game we probably played together anyway. Okay. So this game-
Alex: I think we played a little NFL Blitz too. But mostly NHL Hits.
Josh: And what about SSX Tricky?
Jacob: Oh, yes. Yeah. You’re right. Oh, that one was fun. But NHL Hits… This was, like, 2002. I think it was NHL Hits ’02. I can’t remember.
Alex: That sounds familiar.
Jacob: Oh, first off, before I really jump in, the soundtrack was amazing. Like, probably the best video game soundtrack out there. Limp Bizkit, Puddle of Mud. I mean, just great music. Korn.
Josh: I think that was, like, being the first game we got in that generation of video gaming that we actually had, like, a soundtrack that you could set up and play and skip tracks.
Alex: Tony Hawk- I think maybe started it. That was that was sweet soundtrack too.
Josh: Yeah. And a good game.
Alex: And a good game.
Jacob: So NHL Hits was still in the area of sports games where Not that it was cartoony, but it was over the top, bigger than life.
Alex: Mhmm. Very arcadey.
Jacob: Yes. Yeah. Kind of like the early Madden Games were, NFL Blitz was. So it was it was 4 on 4 hockey. Oh, boy. 4 v 4 hockey. Including the goalie. So really 3 v 3. So again, it just worked perfectly. Sorry, Liz. Lizzie was still a little a little younger.
Alex: She was pretty little.
Jacob: So the 3 of us would just play together team up against the, you know, CPU team. And, actually, ironically enough the 3 main archetypes kind of fell into this too. Right? You’ve got the defender who’s in the back. He’s the big guy who you would want to get into the fist fights.
Alex: Yep.
Josh: Oh, I forgot about the fist fights.
Jacob: How could you- That’s why it was- so the- you would do these like, hip checks and stick checks that were just huge, like just flooring people.
Josh: Break the glass.
Jacob: Break- Pop them through the glass. Bring the 2 guys in the center of the ring and yeah. It it was basically like rock paper scissors where you’d have 3 buttons that you could choose-
Alex: Oh, yeah.
Jacob: -to you know, the different hit you did would interact differently with the hit the player- the computer does. So all kinds of fist fights. The one-timers were so good. Going on fire as a team.
Alex: Oh, yeah. Cool. Yeah.
Jacob: It was just so good. It was just a blast. All around so fun. Oh, and then there’s just so much to it. You can make your own teams. It’s like these weird character things, like Anubis, Snowmen. Just all kinds of ridiculous things. You develop your characters, you gain points, increase their stats, you know.
Alex: Back when video games where still just about fun.
Josh: Yeah. I totally forgot all of those things. The only thing I remembered was the big heads.
Jacob: Oh, yeah.
Josh: Remember that you’d just make your head like 3 times as large as your body.
Jacob: Yeah! It was on the load screen going into the match. You could button smash to try to hit a certain combo of buttons, and that would give you different traits or characteristics or power ups in game.
Alex: That’s right.
Josh: I just love I thought it was so goofy. And then you’re, yeah, checking people with this massive cranium.
Jacob: I have another honorable mention. Rock Band?
Alex: Oh, of course.
Josh: Yeah.
Alex: I mean, we played that into college. Mhmm. Good times.
[00:20:47] Stewnerds!
[00:20:55] Storytime Segment
Soundbite: Hey, kids, do you know what time it is? Storytime!
Josh: To tell my story, first, I wanna give you an idea of what it was like to grow up in Keizer, Oregon. And I need your guys’ help because we all had slightly different lenses and perspective on the city. If you can call it a city. So Keizer, as a kid, and I’ll I’ll preface with this. This story happened around when I was about 10 years old, maybe 11, so around the year, ’97, ’98. So as a 10 year old, there’s only a few landmarks that really stood out to me. So we lived in this home that was our parents’, but our our father bought it from his dad. So our dad actually grew up partially-
Alex: A little bit. A little bit, I think for middle school and high school.
Jacob: What about D Street in Salem.
Josh: What was that?1
Jacob: They were in Salem. When dad was in middle school I think.
Josh: On D Street?
Alex: Oh, really? But he went to Whiteaker.
Josh: He did. Yep.
Jacob: He did. Okay.
Josh: So they moved.
Jacob: Yeah. And he was at McNary, never mind.
Josh: Yeah. So in fact, one of his teachers from from Whiteaker Middle School lived in the cul de sac, right next to our house. So anyway so so you’ve got our home, our street that we live on, then you have Lockhaven. And basically as a 10 year old, the only other real landmarks are the Albertsons. Because- go there shopping with mom and dad. The Game Crazy, which is right there next to Albertsons. You’ve got the big open field.
Jacob: Mhmm. Right.
Josh: Where that barn was.
Alex: Yeah. The church.
Josh: Yep. Then you got the church. And then you’ve got, I guess, Gubser, if you keep going, up 14th Street. You’ve got Whiteaker Middle School, and then you’ve got Day Spring church on the other side of Whiteaker Middle School. And then, you know, some because some of our family friends lived back past Day Spring on McCloud, some landmarks down the cloud. Mostly, the group of friends that we had that lived up in that part of the of the town.
Jacob: I’d like to add 7-11. But that was right around by Albertsons.
Alex: Dairy Queen.
Josh: Yes. Yeah. Of course.
Jacob: All the same area.
Josh: Yes. Fair. And for the other direction towards the high school Taco Bell. Because we would ride our bikes to Taco Bell and fill up the unlimited soda into our bike water bottles before driving on. So I had a friend, one of my good friends, Brandon. So Brandon was my my good buddy. I think you guys both knew him. Right?
Alex: Mhmm.
Josh: Yeah. So he lived on Jentif Court.
Alex: The one I drummed with?
Josh: Yes.
Alex: Yeah. Totally know him.
Jacob: Oh, he was a drummer?
Alex: Yeah.
Jacob: Okay. He lived where?
Josh: So he lived on Jentif Court. Which was just south of Zachris Court, which is where Chris and Sean, Meghan, and Erin grew up.
Jacob: Oh, yeah. Okay.
Josh: So Jentif and Zachary’s Court both butt up against Whiteaker Middle School’s field.
Jacob: Mhmm.
Josh: And just south of Jentif, was an open field that butted up against Day Spring Fellowship Church. So between Whiteaker Middle School and the field behind Day Spring was just a lot of field. And particularly the one behind Day Spring was, like, really tall weedy grass. Like, it would grow up to maybe 3 and a half, 4 feet tall. For as long as I remember, when I was younger. I don’t know if they actually grew crop there or not. So Jentif connects directly to Zachris Court. And then Zachris is your only outlet from Jentif to McCloud. And if you keep taking McCloud north, you get towards some of our other friends’ houses, particularly in particular to this story, Max’s house is a few roads down and then to the left. So I was kind of I don’t know how to describe myself at that age kind of interested in… a lot of things… just adventure and and pushing boundaries —
Alex: Mayhem?
Josh: Mayhem. Maybe a little bit of mayhem. Just excitement. I just want, you know, we liked excitement. And I was- this particular night in the summer-
Jacob: Remember this, because Caeden just turned 10. Right?
Josh: Oh my gosh.
Jacob: Prepare yourself.
Josh: Yeah. My son, my oldest. Is the age I was when I started doing all these things. That’s eye opening. Wow. That really puts it in perspective for me when I tell a story. That’s ridiculous. Well, this particular summer night. I was about 10 or 11. I was having a sleepover at Brandon’s house, just the 2 of us. 26:14 And they had this big room that had a sliding door, so like the back of the home, and we’d just sleep there on the floor in in sleeping bags. And no 1 would bother us like the whole night. We’re basically in it would feel like we’re in the home by ourselves, and we might have been, I don’t actually know. But I’m getting the feeling that we were. We had noticed that someone was trying to develop the field between Day Spring Fellowship Church and Jentif Court. And we’d go back through his backyard. We’d hop his fence and there would be little surveyor stakes out in the field. It had been mowed down. Although there were surveyor stakes, different color-coded flags on them: blue, yellow, green, red. We assumed blue was like for water pipes, but they were very clearly marking out infrastructure to put in place to build something. And when I consult my maps, I haven’t been there been back there. There’s a full residential neighborhood there now.
Alex: Oh, snap.
Josh: Yeah. So it’s basically just Whiteaker’s field and and then homes and then the church. So we were kind of vigilantes and we viewed ourselves as vigilantes. We did not want them to put houses in there. So that night, we went out and we pulled up every single stake. And this wasn’t the first time. So we had we had another sleepover earlier that summer-
Jacob: Hold up. Have mom or dad ever heard about this story?
Josh: I don’t- I feel like that part maybe yeah. Yeah.
Alex: So there’s more then?
Josh: Oh, yeah.
Alex: Okay.
Josh: No. That was just what got us out at night. That’s what got us into the situation.
Jacob: Oh, what got you into trouble.
Josh: So this was the second time we had done this. We literally pulled up every single one of these stakes. And then, to make it even harder for these guys, like, I can’t remember where we hid them, but we hid them somewhere that these guys wouldn’t be able to find. So this night, we finished our goodly deeds to preserve the fields in Keizer, and we hopped back over his fence again to his home, and somehow the door’s locked.
Alex: Oh…
Josh: And we couldn’t get back in through the back. And it’s like crud. We have to go around to the front, but the the only way to get around to the front of the house was to we couldn’t, like, we were afraid to wake up his parents and some other things. There were still hours left in the in the evening. So, like, we’ll just go walk. We’ll walk around the field-
Jacob: Wait so what time of night is this?
Josh: This is probably 1 in the morning.
Jacob: What time of the year?
Josh: Summer.
Jacob: Summer.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah. So we head back into- over this fence into the field and we head out to McCloud. We turn left to make our way back to Zachris so we can do our button hook and then hit Jentif and hopefully find a way to get into the front of the house. As we are going, We’re walking down the sidewalk. It’s really dark, but we have pretty full moon illumination. And on the left hand side of the of the sidewalk, you have these really tall arbovitae stands. Super tall. Full shadows beneath these arbovitaes. We’re going. And, all of the sudden, at the same time- we’re on the McCloud still- Brandon and I get the exact same, terrible, creepy, spine-tingling feeling. And we both without even, like, looking at each other or saying anything, we both just stop in our tracks. And we both look across McCloud. At this street, the house that we’re directly standing across. And I don’t know why, there’s just this extremely powerful compulsion to look at this front door of this house. And without coordinating, we’re both looking at this house. When all of a sudden the door- there’s no lights on in any of these homes. Like, everything is just dark. The front door opens. It’s pitch black in the house. And then all of a sudden, no kidding. There I was. The Slenderman materialized from the doorway. This is 1998. We’re talking, like, 6 years- 5 or 6 years before Marble Hornets.
Alex: Before YouTube.
Josh: Yes.
Alex: YouTube’s not even a thing yet.
Jacob: Creepy Pasta isn’t a thing. Like, tracking urban legends like this isn’t-
Josh: The only difference was he didn’t have a white mask for a head. He was all black. This guy comes out of the doorway and his head is, like, scraping the bottom of the doorway. When he comes out, he stands up straight. And he’s taller by, like, a foot than the door. And just thin, super long thin arms, super long thin legs, and just moving in straight motions, like no bend in the arms, no bend in the knees, and he follows the path way from the door straight to the sidewalk. He turns and starts going north up McCloud, like, 1 or 2 steps, like, super long like, gosh. Probably, like, 8 foot long strides. It was, like, so crazy looking. He takes 1 or 2 strides and he stops. And Brandon and I are just standing in the middle of the sidewalk with, like, moon illumination on us. And he turns and looks at us. And we’re not moving. We’re not breathing. We’re just trying to figure out what the heck is this thing. And then he starts crossing McCloud right at us. It’s like 1 in the morning. We freak out. We run. We get to Zachris, we turn left. We’re running down Zachris till we get to Jentif. We turn on to Jentif. We get to Brandon’s house, The front door is locked. We’re ringing the doorbell. We’re knocking on the doors as loud as we can. We’re screaming for his parents to wake up. They are not coming to the door. We cannot get into the house. We don’t know, like, we don’t know what to do. We’re pretty sure this thing’s following us. We turn around. Alright. Okay. Like, what do we do? We determine to go to Max’s house.
Alex: So, you have to go back-
Josh: Yeah. Past it.
Jacob: And multiple blocks. That’s, like, 3, 4 blocks that you’re trying to book it.
Josh: We had- we so we turned around and looked behind us and there’s no one there. But but we can’t get into the Brandon’s house and his parents aren’t responding for whatever reason. So we get in the shadows, and we’re going from bush to bush, from shadow to shadow, shadow to shadow. We head over to the far side of Zachris, shadow to shadow, we still can’t see this guy. Keep going. We turn up on McCloud, sticking in the arbovitae shadows, and we see him again. He’s just a little bit down the road, back on the other side of the McCloud, just standing there under a under a streetlight. That’s not on. And he’s just standing there. And so we pause, we wait, we breathe, we look, he’s not doing anything. So we just keep making our way down McCloud as slowly and quietly as we can. And as soon as we get even with him, He crosses the street again at us.
Alex: What?
Josh: And, like, I mean, I’m 10 or 11. I probably don’t know- I don’t know much of anything. I swear we were- it was pitch black in those shadows. I- we were- we were in full black. Like, when I pack for these sleepovers, I pack all black. This is an M.O. that we do. Because we know we’re gonna go hang out at night. So we’re all in black head to toe. I think make this might have been even one of those nights that we did black face paint. You know, we used to do that.
Jacob: Yeah. You did.
Josh: We were crazy about it. This guy comes across and he’s, you know, pretty slow, but he’s he’s gaining pretty fast. So we hit- we jump out of the shadows, get to the sidewalk, and just start sprinting. And this guy’s gaining on us. No bend in his legs just like straight scissoring.
Alex: Like minecraft?
Josh: Minecraft Enderman. Scissoring fast. And we’re like, we can’t get away from this guy. We run to Max’s window. We finally get to to their street, start banging on Max’s window, he opens it. He’s like, what the heck’s going on? And we jump. And we’re climbing in, and we’re, like, pulling ourselves up and- because we’re short little guys. And we’re like, we’re like, “Close the window! Close the window!” Slams it shut. We’re like, you know, close the blinds, he closes it, and we just cower in the corner of the room. And, like, just freaked out. Max’s mom comes in the room. And she’s like, what, you know? Like, what is going on? May be his dad I can’t remember who it was. But Max is like, “oh, yeah. Josh and Brandon were having a sleepover and they thought they’d come over” sort of a thing. Like, totally covering
Alex: At 1:30 in the morning.
Josh: Yeah. I mean, we- again, these things aren’t, like, unheard of for us. So it’s just kinda, like, ugh, okay. And then we just sat there. Told everything to Max, explained it all. He’s like, “What the heck? You guys should stay here.” And we’re like, well, now we’re kinda worried. Like like, we cannot explain what we saw and what this guy was. It was so absurdly out of anything we’d ever experienced. And we were worried about his parents. We’re like, Well, why is it that all of a sudden we can’t get into his house? how did the backdoor lock? Like, we couldn’t explain any of it. So we were like, there’s some supernatural thing going on with Brandon’s family and his house. And so, we were like, we have to get back to Brandon’s house. And we did. Like, we did you know, we- it’s probably 2:30, maybe 3, in the morning. It might have been later. I think I remember the sun. It was get- the sky was getting a little bit brighter, but we did the same. We backtracked. And never saw the thing again. We got to his front door, it was still locked. Parents still weren’t responding. Went around to the back door, sliding door opened this time.
Jacob: What?
Josh: Yeah.
Alex: I’m uncomfortable.
Josh: Dude, I’m telling you, like, to this day, when I remember this, it still freaks me out because I have no explanation for it, but I absolutely know what I saw and experienced. It was crazy.
Jacob: Okay. So we all love the paranormal. In general. I’m a huge skeptic. I love thinking about it, listening to stuff. I don’t generally really heavily buy into things. Even though I believe people generally tell real stories. You’re like the first person I know who’s had, like, a legitimate, unexplainable, paranormal experience, and I don’t know how to react to this right now. I genuinely I don’t even know what to think about this.
Josh: You know, I could chalk it up to being a kid.
Jacob: Can you though?
Josh: If I wanted to if I wanted to be super critical. I could say, well, I was a 10 year old.
Jacob: Have you talked with Brandon about this ever since that time?
Alex: Yeah, we gotta get Brandon on the show. To corroborate this.
Josh: We could get Brandon.
Jacob: Yeah. It- Exactly. If there’s corroboration, Right? It it’s different when it’s well, and it’s not like he wouldn’t have been going along with this whole thing having not seen it as well.
Josh: Oh, yeah.
Alex: What if he’s blocked the memory?
Jacob: That happens. People do. It’s traumatic.
Josh: I think he’d remember. I mean, I- this has been like a vivid thing for me since that happened.
Jacob: What the heck.
Alex: I can’t believe I’ve never heard this.
Jacob: I know. I know.
Josh: Well yeah. I don’t I don’t it was Max and A- Not Adam. Max and Brandon and I.
Jacob: You’ve got to ask Brandon about it. I mean, you probably didn’t have the vocabulary to talk about it until the Slenderman came.
Josh: Yeah. Well, that’s right. Yeah. Afterwards when I would think back to it, I’d be like, I have a way to understand what this was.
Jacob: What it was now. Okay. I wanna back you up to the initial sighting of it. “Materialize”?
Josh: Because it’s just so black. Everything’s so black. The doorway was so dark.
Alex: So he was black, it was dark inside the house. It’s, like, black coming out of black into the light, and now you can see a slight silhouette.
Jacob: Oh that just gave me shivers.
Alex: And I had chills the first time he described it.
Josh: Dude, no explanation. And the thing-
Jacob: Did the door shut behind him?
Josh: I don’t think so.
Alex: Oh, you should have run into his house. Shut him out.
Josh: Now that I think about I think I remember him having a bag. Because I remember thinking, like, did this guy just rob this house? Is this guy like a burglar- a purple burglar- Purple burglar.
Alex: “Purple burglar alarm”
Josh: Purple burglar alarm? I remember thinking, like, is this guy a burglar? And I can’t remember if that’s because I saw something with him or just because everything else was already black already.
Jacob: And what other explanation would there be?
Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Then no lights in the house even before he came out of the house. Who does that? I don’t know. And and the thing that’s so that I’m so heavily reminded of was just like the very strong, powerful feelings that something’s wrong, and it’s over- and it’s over there.
[00:39:45] Another Brother Outro