Episode 103

Synopsis
Nic brings in Alex as an objective, outside source to ask questions about Tanis and his search, in order to help him figure out where he might need to go next in the project. He describes the mysteries surrounding Tanis that first drew him in, and since he hasn’t encountered any signs suggesting he stop his quest, he’ll continue on. Both Nic and Alex wonder how his podcast is allowed to continue if there’s been a massive conspiracy to keep everything Tanis-related off the internet. Alex asks Nic if things can’t be totally wiped off the online world, how is it that the myth of Tanis is nowhere to be found? Nic posits that articles of events related to Tanis ARE out there, they just don’t know how to find them.

Nic mentions the suicide of Rory Anderson, a young man who jumped off a bridge in Vancouver, B.C., who displayed no suicidal tendencies or had a history of mental illness. Nic says in order to try to explain Rory’s death, we need to look to the mysterious death of a young woman whose body was found at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles in 2013 (the producers censored the woman’s name after the episode aired; the current version of the podcast available online has the woman’s name beeped out). Her remains were found in the water tower after guests complained about the black water running through their faucets, and management went to the roof to investigate the cause. Interestingly, Aleister Crowley (who was mentioned in Episode 101) stayed in the same hotel, where he penned a poem about an Israelite judge who sacrificed his daughter, the name of whom is an anagram for the woman whose body was found in the water tower. Crowley also drew a picture of an alien, whose name was the surname of the deceased.

Footage of the woman before her death shows her in the elevator of the hotel, apparently hiding from someone off-camera, but Nic points out her movements actually mirror a game called The Elevator Ritual. Supposedly the most dangerous game in the world, a sequence of pushing particular buttons--and the arrival of a mysterious woman that you must not speak to or look at--can take the player to another dimension, where she’s in danger of being lost forever.

Nic connects with Meerkatnip, and he asks her to read the message that someone managed to send her from his computer in the previous episode. She notes that “Nic” refers to her as “MK”, and he says he never knew she went by that handle. Before they can solve the mystery of the sender, MK tells Nic she found a comment on the deceased woman’s Tumblr account from “Tigernuts” right after the body was discovered, saying the woman was here in “Xanu”, the Haida name for Tanis.

Nic mentions that an anonymous source contacted him to let him know the young woman found at the Cecil Hotel had stayed with Rory Anderson a couple of days before she left for California, in a cabin in Olympic National Park, Washington. MK tells Nic the owner of the cabin, Jeffery Anderson--Rory’s uncle--posted Xanu theories on a deep web board called “Fish and Tackle”, but he disappeared ten years ago and was declared legally dead in 2013. Interestingly, Karl van Sant also posted on the same board.

MK delivers information on Xanu to Nic, though he notes there’s not much to go on since the Haida are protective of their strong oral tradition. What she did find were a series of articles written by a grad student at the University of Washington, Bethany Collins, who wrote about the Puget Sound War. In 1855 an armed conflict erupted that involved the U.S. military, and the Native American tribes Nisqually, Muckleshoot, Puyallup and Klickitat. The Haida were also there but were seen as interlopers, arriving in the area in the early 19th century and claiming to protect what they called Xanu. Nic plays a recording of Bethany delivering a lecture a few years prior, where she outlines how the relationship between the Nisqually and Haida became increasingly strained as members of both of their tribes went missing; some were never found, some were found violently murdered, and others came back “different”, some of them committing suicide or killing their families. The Nisqually blamed Xanu or, as they called it, The Dark Spirit Which Moves, and eventually left the area.

Nic plays the audio of a video MK forwarded him featuring English author Daniel Gallagher, whose book, Killing in the Rain, explores the correlation between the Pacific Northwest and the disproportionately high rate of serial killers reported in the area over the years. Gallagher talks about how Willie Pickton’s killing spree actually started near Seattle, that it’s believed Robert Lee Yates killed over 30 people, and that the Green River Killer murdered 49.

Nic reveals that all of Karl van Sant’s cassettes that his brother, Jeff, lent him in Episode 102, had been mysteriously erased by an electromagnetic pulse. When he contacts Jeff to apologize and see if he would be willing to lend him more from the collection, Jeff tells him someone called him out of the blue, and offered him a large sum of money for the tapes (in addition to having Karl’s suite professionally cleaned). Disappointed, Nic contacts MK, and she tells him that she backed up the one tape he played for her, so she sends it back to him, noting that Morse code was embedded into the message.

MK also tells Nic that two other participants were associated with the Fish and Tackle bulletin board that Jeffery Anderson posted on: Kevin Murray and Miranda Hayes. An online article names Kevin Murray as the gunman who killed three people before shooting himself. According to witnesses, he entered the diner in DuPont, Washington, shooting patrons as he repeated the words, “I found it, now it sees us.” Nic points out that DuPont is geographically the same location as the site where the fur trapper in 1834 murdered nine people (outlined in Episode 101).

Nic says he was able to schedule a meeting with Tara Reynolds’ brother, Sam, and ends the episode with a recording of an exchange between himself and the reported author of “Pacifica”, Avery Ellis: at first reluctant, once Nic mentions he wants to talk about the book, Avery agrees to speak with him.

Characters
Rory Anderson (mentioned), unexplained suicide

Jeffery Anderson (mentioned), Rory's uncle

Bethany Collins, graduate student at U of W, wrote thesis on Puget Sound War

Kevin Murray (mentioned), gunman

Miranda Hayes (mentioned), online board contributor

Daniel Gallagher, author, "Killing in the Rain"