It’s just the 2SchemeQueens today.
2SQ.
2SQ versus 3SQ, because our third SQ is deep in Neverland, diving in the Epstein File.
That’s kidding. Our third SQ, her brother’s getting married.
Congratulations, Christian. And I hope she’s up there. She sees some moose?
Yeah, she does.
She always talks about the moose.
Yeah, and I’m Laece. Conspiracy theory, they don’t exist.
I disagree because I’ve been to Alaska and I’ve seen moose.
But I don’t-
I’ve been to a lot of cool places like you have, Megan, but I have been to Alaska.
Anything else going on? Kids are back in school.
On two hour delays all week. So this is fun.
Have you watched any Olympics?
We watched the opening ceremony and the person who announced, I don’t know if you saw her, but the person who announced every single country during the opening ceremony, she wore the coolest parka, sunglasses combo, and I was like, how do I get this
job? This is like the runway. So that’s what I want to be when I grow up now.
I watched a little bit of curling and a little ice dancing.
Oh, I read a book about ice dancing.
And by watched, I mean I went to a patient’s room and it was on and I got sucked in.
Yeah.
What book did you read about ice dancing?
I read a book called The Favorites. And I think everyone should read it. It’s a pretty good book.
It reminds me of Daisy Jones and the Six.
Okay.
Have you liked that book? It’s like documentary style drama. That’s what I would describe the book as.
And I think the cover kind of sells romance. And I think that’s what the author was trying to do because romance is trending on TikTok, but it’s not romance. I would not call it romance.
But we’re actually coming to you recording after our book club.
Yes.
We loved it too.
Which is going to take us into our drink check.
Drink check.
So what was our book club book tonight?
It’s called Lessons in Chemistry. And I loved the book. I don’t know about you, Megan.
I know it’s been trending for like over three years, I think, on the Instagrams, the TikToks, the Book Talks, the Bookstagrams. I read it in this past month and it was really good. It was a really good book.
It’s like feminism and women in STEM and like 1950s, like women in STEM of the dog.
Yeah, 630.
630.
Our host had a fun experiment. Right now, we’re really drinking some hot toddies.
Yeah.
But the real drink check that we had right before we recorded.
It was so fun. It was a little chemistry experiment.
Yeah. Lessons in chemistry, if you know.
Yes.
What did we do?
Well, we each got our little beaker, and we each poured a little vodka plus our mixer of choice.
She had a whole tray of mixers.
Yes, she did. My mixer of choice was cranberry.
Lame.
It was lame, but it was safe.
I go, that’s all you did? There’s like 10 choices here, and she said, this is what I liked in college.
I was like, this is what I drank in the club.
I did vodka with a little bit of pomegranate juice and a little bit of lemonade.
Yeah. Actually, yours is much better than mine.
I think so, and I didn’t drink all of mine, but it was fun to do because after we added our mixers, we added a piece of dry ice, which is frozen nitrogen for all those people out there who don’t know, and it just was a fun little bubble.
Except we all make our drinks, and then our host is like, disclaimer.
We can’t drink it because if you drink it while the nitrogen’s in there, then we could all die. It could perforate our bowels. Yeah.
And so she’s like, but you could drink it with the straw, and then we all just waited until it stopped bubbling.
Yeah. So I guess our drink check is our science experiment.
Yeah. It was fun.
And then right now, we’ve already had this in the podcast, though. I went to Starbucks earlier, I got a venti medicine ball, and we made a little toddy because we had to hike through the snow back from book club.
Yeah.
So now we’re having a toddy and we’re talking.
Right.
The pod has had sort of a hot week. It has.
And we think it’s because of the Epstein, probably.
I mean, it’s 100 percent because of the Epstein.
Yeah.
People are commenting, I think Kate and I are going to combo attack this next week.
Yeah.
A big Epstein episode.
Yeah, we are.
We’re working on that.
We’re working on it, and I’m consuming the content. It is.
We’re coming. It’s giving me JFK flashbacks. It’s so much information.
Yes.
I think it’s going to be a good one.
But I think that the release, the January 30th release of The Epstein Files led many people back to our Gabriella Rico Jimenez episode and then some of the other episodes as well. I don’t know. We got a lot of keyboard warriors out there, Kate.
We did.
And you know what? I’m going to be honest, we have haters, Megan, and I’m happy with it. It feels like we’ve arrived.
When we started this podcast, I said, we will know we’ve arrived when people hate us.
Yeah.
I just want to clarify in case maybe you’re just joining us two years into this podcast.
I mean, even if you take COVID out.
I mean, exactly. Before COVID, we’d see some shit. Yes.
We really saw some shit during COVID.
Yeah.
I’ve been in a war.
Yeah.
The only way that you really continue to live and keep your sanity is by.
Gala’s humor.
Yeah.
Anyway, I think one or two people had some thoughts on Spotify about our humor. That we’re a little too jovial to talk about conspiracy theories.
Right.
Which again, to be clear, this is our hobby so that we can survive day to day.
Yes. I’m not going to apologize for laughing because it is the way that we cope.
So if you’re like, these girls are not taking things seriously enough, then maybe we’re not for you.
Right. Our literal intro is, if you have a sense of humor, then come take this journey with us. So if that is not you, then kindly scroll past.
If you found us because you’ve just been like an Epstein rabbit hole, then welcome and definitely come back next week.
Right.
Because we are doing the Epstein final.
A deep dive. Kait has been wanting to do it and I couldn’t commit because I was like, it’s so overwhelming. And I kind of wish we had because now it’s very overwhelming.
Yes.
Now we have decades of information to talk about.
7:56
Yellow Echo Mystery
Before we do that next week, we’re going to be a little more lighthearted today.
Yeah.
There is a viral social media tail circulating that claims that Mr. Whatsit from Stranger Things was inspired by the real life tale of a shared imaginary friend in small town Wyoming.
Netfllix Updates posted on Facebook, The Duffer Brothers were reportedly inspired by a strange real life school incident from 1962 when creating Mr. Whatsit.
That year, reports claimed that 37 children who had never met or spoken to each other all drew the same imaginary friend, a tall, faceless man with a top hat.
Whoa.
Psychologists later suggested it may have been a rare case of shared imagery where children exposed to similar stress or environments unknowingly created the same disturbing mental figure.
Oddly horrifying posted the following, In spring 1962, teachers at a small school in Wyoming made a chilling discovery. Over 30 children from different grades who barely spoke to each other had drawn the exact same figure during art class.
A tall man, no mouth, just hollow eyes and something in his hand, a cord made of hair. They called him Yellow Echo.
Whoa, this is creepy.
The kid said he only came when it rained, that he whispered through TVs, that he told them things they shouldn’t know, like where one teacher kept his gun. Two weeks later, that teacher vanished. Whoa, so did every drawing.
The only thing left behind, a tape recorder still running. It captured a child’s voice whispering, We didn’t draw him, we remembered him.
Whoa, that’s so creepy.
Today we’re going to get to the bottom of the facts and rumors surrounding the alleged Yellow Echo and discuss the true inspiration for Mr. Whatsit.
Okay.
So you’ve been seeing this circulating.
I have.
Do you have thoughts?
Um, I have, I’ve been interested in it. I definitely want to know about it. So anyone who watched Stranger Things Season 5 knows that Mr.
Whatsit was a character that Holly saw, who was actually Vecna, aka Henry, aka One. So the kids are calling him VH-One. Yeah, so Mr.
Whatsit is the person on Stranger Things who kidnapped Holly, but not only Holly, but 12 of her classmates, or I guess 11 of her classmates.
12 total.
Yeah, 12 total. Each of these kids were seeing like what was being described as somebody who was like an imaginary friend. So I’m interested because Mr.
Yellow Echo sounds very scary.
Again, this is like a very, this is sort of like one of these like viral memes that we’re getting to the bottom of today. So it’s definitely been circulating. And I’m going to say some of these stories even give names to the characters.
Like Midnight Signals declared the school was Riverdale Elementary School. And they provided names. And I’m going to talk about that.
But these circulating stories claim that in spring of 1962, three separate classrooms within the same Wyoming school were given the assignment to draw a picture of an imaginary friend. All 37 drawings showed the same figure.
A tall man with no face, hollow eye sockets, an elongated hand holding what looked like a cord or rope, and in some versions, this cord is made out of hair.
Whoa.
The papers were taken to the principal, who interviewed the students separately. Each child used the same name, Yellow Echo.
Oh my gosh.
The principal’s transcripts indicate that the students all had similar stories about Yellow Echo. He only comes out when it rains, and in some versions, he whispered to the children through TV screens when it was raining.
In some versions, the teacher is a male, and Yellow Echo has knowledge of him that the other kids shouldn’t, like where he stored his gun.
Like allegedly in the story, the teacher’s like, this is weird, we have 37 of the same photo, takes it to the principal, principal’s interviewing students, he calls the psychologist. This team of psychologists come out to investigate.
They initially just were like, yes, they must have been exposed to something, maybe the same cartoon, the same book, something like that.
But these kids all came from different backgrounds, they didn’t seem to have any overlap in which they could have been exposed to similar stories or media. Psychological evaluation showed no signs of coaching or coordination.
The psychologist determined that post-war anxiety and Cold War fears had just like filtered down through worried parents.
So the kids were probably just around parents who were talking about their anxiety, and the students might have unconsciously created a shared protective figure. Remember I told you, Yellow Echo only appears when it rains.
Right.
So the psychologist thought, well, the rain and the storms, these maybe are metaphors for like shared anxiety and isolation. Two weeks after this whole incident, it’s May 15th, 1962.
The teacher who initially made this assignment failed to show up to work. Whoa. Okay.
So the coworkers, they all go to the teacher’s home.
Yeah.
See, this is very abnormal for her to not show up to work.
Right.
And they found her wallet, her purse, her car keys, all present. And her car was in the front drive. So the same day, but she was gone.
But she just didn’t show up to work. They’re like, this girl just vanished.
Wait, and she’s not even in her house.
No. But it looks, it doesn’t look like she like packed up and moved.
Right.
She just disappeared.
Yeah. Okay.
Okay. The same day that she disappears, the 37 drawings, which were in a locked cabin in the principal’s office, they also disappear.
That’s creepy.
The psychologist who they called in to help?
Yeah.
Who’s recording notes? They disappear. The principal, all he had left was his notes.
Uh-huh. He spent the rest of his life trying to figure out this mystery before dying in 1989.
Oh my gosh.
As I said, in some versions, the only evidence that remains is the principal’s notes. In other versions, there’s a recorded child’s voice saying, We didn’t draw him. We remembered him.
Whoa.
That is so creepy.
Watch the Rabbit Hole presented a theory that MK often showed up within 48 hours and labeled Yellow Echo a, quote, frequency-attached cognitive imprint.
Some tellings claim the incident wasn’t isolated to one school, but happened to 37 children in different locations who never met. So point is, there is all these different stories, like versions.
It’s a very similar story, but lots of different versions.
14:40
MKUltra Projects
What is MK often?
Yeah, I want to know that.
Thank you. So we have talked about MK. Ultra multiple times.
Right.
The Montauk episode, episodes, episode, our Memorial Day military episode.
Yep.
JFK.
JFK.
Yep.
RFK.
Yep.
We’ve definitely referenced it a bunch, but MK. Ultra is like a, we got proof proof, it was real. It ran from 1953 to 1973.
We have memos about MK. Ultra indicating that the study started back in the 1940s, but our official records start in 1952. And again, we know the project officially started in 1953.
So this project was a CIA project that experimented on people with a goal of mind control, behavioral modification and chemical interrogation. In 1963, the Inspector General of the CIA released a report.
It indicated the program also looked at, quote, radiation, electroshock, various fields of psychology, psychiatry, sociology and anthropology, graphology, substances and paramilitary devices and materials.
The report did not paint the program in a positive light, though it was honestly more concerned with blowback exposure. So it sounds like pretty much it’s like, in 1963, people are like, oh my god, people know about this.
And like, we don’t want them to know it’s happening. So it wasn’t so much like we’re being unethical. It was like, we don’t want people to know we’re being unethical.
The report recommended ending the covert mind control experiments or move them to an operation setting overseas.
We also talked in our Memorial Day episode about the Edgewood Arsenal, which from 1940 to 1975, the US Army Chemical Corps conducted classified research which involved researching chemical warfare on human subjects.
In 1974, the New York Times exposed the project leading to public hearings and alleged policy changes. So government never came out and revealed, they never were like, we did these experiments.
It was like the New York Times came out and said, your government is doing these experiments. So maybe the government might have lost a little bit of trust at that point.
Well, do we trust the government?
Well, this is like 1974. We definitely don’t know. So by the time that this program was discovered, it had allegedly already shut down.
The theory is though, again, going back to Yellow Echo, that MKUltra never really shut down. It just rebranded, if you will, as MKSearch.
This is a 1964 project, which would have been around the time of that IG report, and it aimed to continue the work of the MKUltra by fighting methods to control the mind. So they collaborated with the US. Army Chemical Corps.
So we had the Edgewood Arsenal, and we had the CIA do an MKUltra, and now they’re like, let’s just combine one study.
It makes sense, yes.
So the Edgewood Arsenal and the CIA joined forces, and according to Senate hearings, their research focused on the biological, chemical, and radioactive material systems and techniques that produce a predictable human behavioral and or psychological
changes in support of highly sensitive operational requirements. What made it different from KUltra was again, that collaboration.
Also, MK Search is sort of like this parent study, and it kind of was the umbrella, and then the two sub-studies, sub-projects were MK Often and MK Chickwit.
Chickwit.
Also, who names these?
Yeah. I think if I were going to be a part of a study, I would want it to be MK Chickwit over MK Often.
MK Often. It’s lame.
Boring. Chickwit.
Sounds fun. I’d be like MK Sourdough.
Yeah. Well, MK Girlhood.
The Memorial Day episode is where I would go if I wanted an MK Ultra background, but it really focused on using LSD, electroshock, hypnosis and sensory deprivation to try to manipulate behavior.
We talked about how the sensory deprivation was really very similar to 11. Yeah.
She gets put into the tub of water. That’s how Papa put her in the tub, and that’s how she found the demigorgon to begin with, because it was sensory deprivation. Then she got into the pool with salt water.
It had to be salt water, by the way, because salt has a charge, it’s an ion. Yeah, so she needed that, okay?
Okay.
It created an electromagnetic field.
Okay. The point is, we’ve talked also in our Montauk episodes, right, about how Eleven’s mother in the story was an MKUltra experience, and how similar this, like, sensory deprivation is from what was happening in the MKUltra studies.
Right.
So experiments were mostly on unsuspecting civilians or psychiatric patients, but then when it changed to, like, MKOften, this is when we got more into the experimentation on military, and prisoners, so, super ethical.
Right.
MKOften went further into fringe territory. They had astrologers, clairvoyants, and demonologists, all on the research team.
Oh, that’s very interesting.
To explore if the paranormal could be weaponized. They also focused on the toxological and behavioral effects of various drugs on animals and humans.
Focused on finding incapacity in agents for offensive use, creating a massive database of over 26,000 potential chemical agents by 1971. And then MKChikwit, which is what you want to be a part of.
Right. Chickwit over OFTEN.
Focused on the acquisition of information and samples. So its goal was to identify new drug developments in Europe and Asia for potential use in behavioral modification. So not as interesting.
They just were like looking at the research.
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, you’re right.
So the MK OFTEN connection, again, if you go back to this initial story that claims that MK OFTEN, you know, hold in within 48 hours.
Yeah.
Conspiracy theorists suggest that Yellow Echo wasn’t a ghost, but a specific visual archetype implanted into the children’s minds through chemical testing or subliminal television broadcasts.
Okay, I’m interested.
Which are techniques that we know were actually studied.
Right. Do you think about what kind of subliminal television broadcasts are your kids watching?
Oh, I think about this all the time.
Of course you do.
Yeah.
No YouTube in your house. No YouTube. Declassified files show that these programs explored psych driving and drugs to see if they could implant ideas or trigger specific behaviors in groups.
So since Yellow Echo involves a mouthless man and a cord made of hair, some people believe that this matches the occult rituals that the CIA allegedly studied and that the CIA was attempting to summon or project a thought form into a civilian
Okay.
How did they produce that in all of these children if this is like part of the study?
So in this story that I told you that’s circulating, right? Like all those the 37 drawings, yes, they disappear.
Yeah.
Well, what if this is all just like a metaphor? It’s just a representation of the actual MKOFDN records that were destroyed under the order, under the direction of CIA Director Richard Helms in 1973.
Whoa, that is wild. Hold on, I can believe this. All right.
Keep going. Let her cook. More Grats is a podcast hosted by two sisters who grew up in a funeral home.
Dominique and Heidi talk about death, whether it comes from crime, disease or disaster. They also share stories based on their experience in the funeral home. It’s a fun waste of time.
22:58
Yellow Echo Debunked
Are you buying this story?
Well, I could be persuaded, I think.
I’m not persuaded.
Okay, well.
Because here’s what I think.
Okay, there’s like a dozen versions of the same story.
Right.
We have different names. I just feel like there’s so many stories that are circulating, and they’re like not all exactly the same though, which makes it very similar. But like, why is this Sally Smith here, and then it’s like Joe Blow over here?
Exactly, why?
Because it’s not a real person.
They can just like sub in one person for another to make it like a scary story. Okay, so for example, this story allegedly takes place at Riverside Elementary School in Wyoming, 1962. I did a Google deep dive.
There is no Riverside Elementary School, and there was not one in 1962. But you know what, high schoolers are not drawing a picture of imaginary friends.
No, they aren’t. This is becoming even… Did you ever read that book series when you were a kid?
Sideway Tales from Thirteen Stories or something like that? Sideway Stories from Thirteen…
That is like Goosebumps-y?
It’s like there wasn’t a 13th floor, but all these weird things would happen on the 13th floor of the school.
There’s no Riverside Elementary, but weird things happen at Riverside Elementary?
Yes. What if there isn’t? Because the government destroyed it.
You know what I mean? We’ve all been gaslit.
No, but I think it’s one thing for a school to exist and a government to say, let’s erase them. But not one student who went there can remember going there. Not someone’s sibling, not someone’s…
When it’s a secret that would have to be this big, I find it harder to believe.
I then went down the rabbit hole on because in these various stories, like the teacher had different names, the principal had different names, and the psychologist who came in had different names. The teacher allegedly died in all the versions.
So I’m like, okay, well, if this were the teacher’s names and they died in Wyoming, we should have an obituary. Couldn’t find one. I’m like, oh, you hired a psychologist from the local university?
I should be able to find proof they existed. Couldn’t find proof. So I could find nothing, which again, the conspiracy theorist would say, the government has covered this up.
The government covered it up.
And I would say, I cannot believe that it’s not one or two people who know this.
It would be many people. Like these parents who had to have known their kids were all getting investigated and were drawing these creepy photos.
In 1962, people would still be like 68 years old. Yeah. They would be-
Alive.
Alive, exactly.
Or even if no one knew, except the 37 students, we don’t have 37 students from Wyoming being like-
Are they all taken out?
We don’t know.
I don’t know.
The mob could have done it. We don’t know.
That’s like the leap to another-
Listen, the mob and the government work together to kill JFK.
I would also argue this whole thing about like these 37 students had never had contact. I’m like-
Well, I was confused when you were like- They’ve never been exposed to similar things. It was the same media?
Are you kidding? There was television in the 1960s.
This is the allegation of the memes. Even if you’re like, okay, these were the one version, sorry, three separate classes. So maybe we have 12, 12, and 13.
You’re still all in the same grade. Don’t you recess together?
Yeah, exactly.
Aren’t you like in church together? Right. At a minimum, 12 of you spend all day together, but I also can’t believe that you really don’t know people in these other classes.
Right.
So then you’d be like, they had no contact and that’s what makes us so mysterious.
I don’t buy that, and there are no news reports, no police reports, and no proof proof. I don’t really believe this Yellow Echo story.
No.
Why, I guess, yes, you said why would they create this Yellow Echo story?
It’s sort of supposed to be like a metaphor for the secret, just like all the secret research that was getting destroyed, but it really parallels the D class of a super secret government mystery.
We’ve talked about this in so many episodes, and this is just a parallel of that. So maybe that’s where the story comes from.
I could believe it happened if I understood A, who is the teacher, because apparently, we don’t know the name, right?
There’s a handful of names out there and I looked into all of them, but I’m like, sometimes it’s a female, sometimes it’s a bale.
Yeah. So I would actually love if this happened, and it was documented, and this was a real thing, and this is just a phenomenon that we just cannot explain.
But also, I have questions in the framework, because again, you’re telling me these 30 children never over overlapped with things that they consume.
37.
Right.
And that’s what the gram is telling us.
Yeah. See, I’m not quite sure I understand that, because at that time, there definitely was television in the family room, and everyone was sort of consuming the same media, because there were like three channels.
So, I don’t know if I believe the framework of this hypothesis, if you will.
I mean, it sounds like some of the… You want to believe it, because it sounds intriguing, but you’re not there.
Right.
28:49
Whatsit Inspiration
Okay.
So, then, if we were to believe… If we were to say, this didn’t happen, and there was no yellow echo, then who was the true inspiration for Mr. Whatsit?
Well, you know what, Megan?
I’m so happy you asked, because I don’t know if you know this, but I was obsessed with A Wrinkle in Time as a child.
Well, I only know this because…
Should you…
Do you want to tell the story?
Yeah. I said, Oh my gosh, I loved A Wrinkle in Time as a kid. And Megan said, I am never a DNFer.
I’m like, a book has to be real bad for me to not finish it.
Yeah.
Because even if it’s like a one or two out of five, I mean, I still just want to know.
There’s going to be some big reveal. But I remember trying to read A Wrinkle in Time and being like, this is the most boring book ever. So I said to Kait, yeah, I tried to read that.
I don’t think I finished it.
I said, immediately, it’s because you just didn’t get it, Megan, right?
Immediately, it was that you must be too stupid to understand A Wrinkle in Time. Then I would say 30 seconds pass and you go, I just realized how condescending that sounded and I didn’t mean to call you stupid.
Obviously, I would have turned to you and been like, that was itchy. You obviously processed about as quickly as I did, because you were pretty quickly like, no, I didn’t mean that like that.
The thing is, we always laugh because I love fantasy and Megan’s like, I love the water rings and she’s like, I’ve never seen the movies and I’m like, that’s not true. That checks out.
I had a cardboard cutout of Legolas. Legolas? Legolas.
Legolas.
You had a cardboard cutout? Can you tell me that?
In my bedroom, it’s currently my parents’ old house. Clearly, this is not my taste now.
Yeah. But he was like… He could have been in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Honestly.
I would say closer.
Yeah.
Anywho, we digress. So as someone who read and understood Wrinkle in Time, what were your thoughts? You think that’s the inspo?
Yeah, okay.
So the Wrinkle in Time was like one of my favorite books in my whole, I reread it last year or two years ago or something like that, because I was like, oh my gosh, I need to read, I cannot believe I haven’t read this book in so long.
So I just don’t know if you know this Megan, but there is a very prominent character in that book called Mrs. Whatset. Mrs.
Mrs. Whatset, who is a female.
And Wrinkle in Time though is like, that’s like from the 1960s, right?
Yes, it was from the 1960s. Yeah.
And Mrs. Whatset was a main character?
Mrs. Whatset was a main character.
That goes cutting edge, right?
Yeah, it’s kind of weird because Mrs. Whatset is also imaginary. Yeah.
So Meg, who is the main character of A Wrinkle in Time, is this nerdy, not very insecure female character who is down in the kitchen one day. First of all, I always loved this about Meg, but she lived on the third floor by herself in the attic.
And that was where her bedroom was, and I always thought, oh my gosh, how cool would it be to be on a floor by yourself, in your parents’ house?
Oh, that was you?
Okay.
We all had our own level at my parents’ house.
I, my brother, this is when Colleen and I are like, we’re not the same as Meg and I was upstairs, and they were on the main floor, and my brother was in the basement. Yeah.
Anyway, so she lives in this old house too, and it’s like on the lot of land, and she’s living out in the country, and this thunderstorm wakes her up in the middle of the night, and she’s very upset because her dad has been missing for a year, and
she goes down to the kitchen, and I remember her making cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches. Yeah.
Sounds delicious.
Yeah. So she was making these sandwiches, and I remember reading the book and being like, interesting. I’ve never had the sandwich before.
You know what snack I used to make rain up?
Everybody write this down. Take a Triscuit, put the little cream cheese on it. Put a little garlic powder, onion salt.
Oh.
Then put a slice of cucumber.
Then put some dill on top. Eat it.
That actually sounds delicious. But like, why not put the dill in with the cream cheese?
Because it’s an appearance thing.
Oh, okay.
I sprinkle the dill as I can garnish on top.
Oh, okay.
And if you really want to take it up a notch, you peel your cucumber and you fork the sides. So it looks like a real open-face tea sandwich.
Oh, okay.
So your girl, Meg goes down to make herself a cucumber and…
Cream cheese sandwich… . cream cheese sandwich.
And Charles Wallace, who is her younger brother, he’s not very good in social situations. He’s very smart. He comes down in the kitchen at the same time.
And Mrs. Whatsit comes in through the back door. And she supposedly lives down the street with Mrs.
Who and Mrs. Witch. And Megan and Charles Wallace go and visit them.
They go and they try and go and find her dad because her dad’s missing. So anyway, Mrs. Whatsit is part of that.
Though Mrs.
Whatsit is like an imaginary friend who helps guide her on her quest.
Yeah, she seems like creepy. Yeah.
Okay.
She shows her the tesseract. And really, I’m not quite sure if we’re supposed to believe that Mrs. Whatsit is an imaginary friend so much as Mrs.
Whatsit didn’t exist in that time or space as Meg, but was sent to her to help her find her dad who was in a fifth dimension. Again, this is why, Megan, I’m like, you just didn’t get it.
I wrote, Mrs. Whatsit, so Mrs. Whatsit is a weird, awkward little, awkward person who seems kind of silly at first.
Yes.
But you eventually learn she’s actually a powerful being from another dimension.
Exactly.
Basically. That’s what I just said.
Basically, a former being of light helping kids fight a huge unseen darkness, which is the whole plot of A Wrinkle in Time. I don’t know, I didn’t get it.
Yeah, you didn’t get it. You just don’t get it, Megan.
So anyway, the Stranger Things, what I heard is that the Duffer Brothers were big fans of the book. And so they pulled from that. And I think, honestly, they’re clearly not trying to conceal it.
If you’re telling me that this main character’s name is Mrs. Whatsit, and on Stranger Things, there’s a Mr. Whatsit, who’s an imaginary friend.
Well, I mean, literally one of the episodes of the last season is called Escape from Kamazots.
And Kamazots is where they take Mrs. Whatsit takes Mag to find her dad. It’s Kamazots.
Gotcha.
I mean, they straight up talk about reading Wrinkle in Time about the series. Yes. So I guess, I guess my takeaway is that it is not, I’m not really sure why there’s this whole viral story that the Duffer Brothers based Mr.
Whatsit on Yellow Echo when they’ve not even tried to hide their inspiration.
Right.
They’ve leaned into it. They’ve made it very obvious. They’ve used the same name.
Right.
And let’s change the same premise.
And they have over and over and over again referenced.
It’s not even that. The more I think about it, the more I’m like, wait a second, Stranger Things is a wrinkle in time. And maybe that’s why I loved it so much.
I mean, literally has to do with different dimensions, a missing person that’s part of your family.
You guys can see Kait’s eyes right now. Nerd alert.
Yeah. She’s excited. Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, I think, I think this is a very obvious tribute. So I think I kind of can’t believe we all fell into this. Oh my God, that’s so fascinating.
Yeah.
The Duffer Brothers just based this off.
I don’t believe Yellow Echo is real. I don’t believe that 37 students drew the same imaginary friend.
Yeah. Sounds like fake news to me. Yeah.
And I don’t believe that the Duffer Brothers even heard the fake story and said, that’s our inspo.
They clearly read A Wrinkle in Time. They were nerds like Kait. Yeah.
They loved it. Yeah. Neither one of us believes this.
Yeah.
Yeah. Which is really kind of sad because I was really on board. I was like, oh my gosh, this is such a cool story.
And it’s just fake news, Megan.
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As always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, and the listens, the likes. Wrapping up this episode, Kait, what should the people do?
Yeah. You know what? I want you to take out your phone right now and I want you to text three people who like A Wrinkle in Time or have heard the book A Wrinkle in Time.
Maybe they get it, maybe they don’t get it. I don’t know.
I think the second might be easier to do than the first. I think everyone’s heard the book. Did you enjoy it?
We might not find three people.
We all love to wrinkle in time, okay? And then I want you to interact with us on our social media platforms. Share us with your friends and family.
Like us. Leave us a comment. And yeah.
Okay.
Sounds good. All right. See you next Tuesday.
Next Tuesday?