S1 Ep10: Grimacing in the Woods

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Join us weekly in the vault beneath Blanket Fortiana, which we call The Astonishing Dead Letter Office. Tonight's episode, Grimacing in the Woods. Well, this story comes to us from Libby, and it connects back to our second show with Terry Lovelace, Devil's Den, The Reckoning. Ah, yes, indeed, Terry. One of our good friends. And what an amazing follow-up to his first bone-chilling account. And the second one has a lot of anecdotes from folks that had since sent them their stories. And, oh, man, it's good reading, and it will chill you to the bone about all the possible implications. So for the folks that hadn't heard of that episode of Astonishing Legends, Terry Lovelace had a horrifying UAP slash UFO abduction experience, which he initially shared on the show in 2019. And then we had him back on in 2021 to share experiences from his book, Devil's Den, The Reckoning. And I will just say what Terry told us. I said, why the second book, the follow-up? Like, didn't you get your whole story in? He said, you know what? And as outrageous as the first book sounded, I thought these details were just too outrageous for people to even buy. So I left them out of the first book. So it's really a follow-up with even more startling revelations about his experience. Yeah, that's some great stories in that book. Yeah, and how you can say the alien agenda works. So if you're interested in that, definitely check it out. Terry also revealed some previously undisclosed details about his own experiences in that second appearance. And apparently one of those resonated with Libby and then, well, somehow connected us to fast food. Oh, wait, wait, wait. What? Hi, thanks for such a wonderful show. When I listened to the new Devil's Den episode, I was struck by the monkey people and the description of the little Elmo figures. My entire life, I've remembered a strange incident. I was about four or five at most. So it was probably around 1985. It was sunset and I was standing on my back porch looking up our hill into the woods. At the top of the hill, behind the fence, I saw Grimace from the 80s McDonald's commercials. The big purple guy. He was standing just behind our fence. This was probably 25 yards away from me. He lifted his arm and waved at me. I definitely felt like he was encouraging me to come play. I remember just being confused. I stared at him for a minute. Then I went and told my mom. I saw a big purple Grimace in the woods. We went and looked, but it was gone. She was pretty confused and finally said, it must have been my imagination. I'm 40 years old and I've never forgotten this strange moment. I started giving it more thought after hearing some similar stories on Jim Harreld's campfire. Hearing the stories from Terry Lovelace made me want to reach out and send in my story for the collective knowledge. I experienced a number of paranormal things as a child, but nothing like that. I have continued to have ghost experiences and today I'm a professional tarot reader, so I've experienced some stuff, but I've never seen a promotional character live and in person out in the woods again. I should add that my mom did see a UFO on our farm in the early 80s as well. All right. To start, the 1980s. Yeah. Well, a beloved decade that I think a lot of people have been trying to, at least in TV shows, I won't mention the name of a series, enjoyable, but did they get everything right? Because we lived through those times and we know exactly what went on and the feel of it. McDonald's had a very specific vibe in the 80s. They certainly did. There was definitely a vibe that people have tried to imitate and probably the closest is to watch movies of that era. Of course, it's not totally accurate, but definitely the people that try to recreate that in current TV shows don't quite get it, I think. It's a little bit exaggerated, but definitely a period of time that maybe the 90s has a little more trouble trying to be evocative of or trying to express itself. You could definitely feel the 80s when you say the 80s as opposed to the 90s or the early 2000s, I'd say. Yeah, that's true. But grimace. Here's my question, though. Why is this grimace? What the hell is going on there? The first thing I thought about was the Pukwudgie, or Pukwudgie, as some people say. I've changed my pronunciation of that after I heard a Native American person say. They emphasize the middle syllable on that. Really? Pukwudgie. I can't even say it right, but that's the cute little thing that maybe lures you off into the woods to never return or off the edge of a cliff. Yeah, he's not little, though. He's big and blobby. Yeah, he's big and blobby. I mean, the first thing I thought was, you know, is this thing a pedo? Maybe he's trying to get the kid to come up and go. Oh, dear. No, I know. It's horrible. But, like, you would put a costume on and try to lure the kid into the woods for nefarious activities? Yeah, but I don't think that... It's not the most appealing. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, he's big and kind of lovable. Yeah, it's kind of scary. Grimace is scary. Like, if you saw Grimace in the woods, I think that would be scary, actually. Right. Not in the same... Like I said, if you saw something of that size, he's not as welcoming as Big Bird. You know what I'm saying? Like, the Snuffleupagus is... I liked him as a kid. He's one of my favorite Sesame Street characters. Yeah. But he could be a little frightening if he saw him in the woods. Now, maybe Big Bird would, too. I think I had recently this revelation where he was completely imaginary, wasn't he? Oh, boy. Yeah, you might be right. I should... I'm talking out of turn, but, like, I felt like I recently heard that, and I was like, well, what? Not important enough to do a little on-the-fly research here. No, I don't think so. I do believe that there was something to him, yes, that he had a complaint. Yeah, yeah. That he was not received by everyone. But in this case, though, with Grimace, yeah, he's kind of, I guess, welcoming in a sense, but... Oh, wait. No, just... I'm sorry, quickly. Oh, you found something. For many years, only Big Bird would see Snuffy. Well, there you go. Because he would always leave while Big Bird went to get the others, leading everyone else to believe he was an imaginary friend. That's right. But after Sesame... This is from Wikipedia, folks, I'm reading. But after Sesame Street presents, Follow That Bird, Big Bird finally succeeded in revealing Snuffy to his friends on Sesame Street. Okay. Well, there you go. There is... Big Bird's been having too much Benadryl. And he's saying things. But the idea, though, is that it's a image that is also tied in with popular culture and a very popular, at the time, image and character. Because, folks, they were on glasses that you could get from McDonald's. They're on... They really plastered the marketing mediums with these images. So the other one that would be kind of creepy to see in real life was the Hamburglar. Oh, yeah. He is more hat man. There's a cape and a mask. And just the way he kind of shuffles around is kind of creepy. But he's about to be welcoming. But it's like the Elmo's in that that's kind of a lovable furry creature. But when there's a bunch of them and they're in a field staring at you, as in Terry Lovelace's book's anecdote, it becomes something else where it's not so welcoming because they want you to come with them, do something. It's like the monkeys that showed up in Terry Lovelace's bedroom. Somehow something new, either tapping into his subconscious or his memories or just watching him watch TV from the 50s or 60s that humans seem to like. And they find them humorous and comforting and funny. They wear the monkey masks, but they don't get it totally right. It's close enough. I'm not going to get into a full monkey suit for this kid. Either you follow us with our paper cutout monkey masks and get into the spaceship or we're going to start to turn nasty. Well, all I know is this. Last year when McDonald's released the Grimace milkshake, my son was really into it and we went to go get it and they had it for, it seemed like three weeks. And then we went to this McDonald's and it was just gone. It just disappeared. So that was pretty scary. What? The Grimace milkshake. They stopped, they stopped making it. Oh, it didn't actually disappear in front of you. No, it's just a limited run thing. Yeah, no. And I thought it tasted not good. So I wasn't all that disappointed. What was the flavor? I guess grape perhaps? I can't describe it. Yeah. No, it was not something that occurs in nature. Also, I love, by the way, when Libby said, I've never seen a promotional character live and in person out in the woods again. It's like, okay, that's good. And once again, reminded of the Simpsons were the Halloween Treehouse of Horror episode where all the marketing mascots come to life. Yeah, right. The Lardland Donut Boy and which, yeah, again, all lovable characters until they come to life and beckon you into the woods. But are we seeing what's really out there or is it just tapping into our heads? And since that time though, she moved back to this farm, which is located in Southwest Ohio. Yeah, that's right. Ohio, we've often said is one of the creepiest states in the nation. So no shock there. She actually emailed us about this yesterday because I had reached out to her with a question. I was like, where is this farm? And she was like, not only did she tell me it was in Southwest Ohio, she's like, we are living on it right now. I moved back to it. So yeah. I'm sure nothing else will happen. And yeah, Scott does not mean to disparage the entire state. I'm not disparaging it. Hey, that's where Monster Fest is. We've been two years in a row. That's true. No, no. We love Ohio, not imputing it in any way. And also, you know, Libby is a professional tarot card reader. And you can check out her stuff at catandcrow, C-A-T-A-N-D-C-R-O-W.square.site, S-I-T-E. Or at tarotbylibby, L-I-B-B-Y, on Instagram. Well, Libby, we're going to need you to stop manifesting promotional characters. Although I guess they're still not as scary as the monkeys Terry Lovelace mentioned in Devil's Den, The Reckoning. Thank you for sending your story in to the Dead Letter Office. The Astonishing Dead Letter Office is hosted by Scott Philbrook and Forrest Burgess and is executive produced by Tess Feifel. The show is edited and mixed by Sarah Voorhees-Wendell at VW Sound. 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