Shadowing Practice: Disturbing Things from Around the Internet [Vol. 13] - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Transcription by CastingWords
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I'll see you next time.
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What do you do when you find yourself staring into a space?
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Empty, yet terrifying.
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It's a phenomenon that's gained widespread attention in the past couple years, due to the nature of our ever -evolving world.
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Things are changing, closing, being forgotten,
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and in their wake are derelict spaces that evoke a nostalgic comfort, yet our brains seem to strangely reject them.
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We feel like we've been there.
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We associate memories with images that we've never before seen,
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and for some reason, we become stuck in this trance of eerie fascination.
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This sensation is caused by liminality, a term deriving from the word liminal, meaning something that's occupying a position at,
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or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.
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Something that is within transition.
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With widespread interest catalyzed by subreddits, forums, and social media, the internet has served as a vehicle for sharing pictures of liminal spaces with others.
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This has effectively paved the path for various forms of media and online storytelling to and capitalize on it, resulting in a myriad of personal stories,
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creepypastas, and indie games to play on the uncanniness that comes with them.
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Contrary to this relatively recent rise in online popularity though, liminal spaces are nothing new.
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In fact, the concept of liminality has always existed among us.
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We've just never really noticed it.
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What is it about source maps that unnerve us?
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Is it the feeling of loneliness?
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the emptiness that comes with the very purpose of a landscape?
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Or is it perhaps the fact that we can hear the sounds of other humans carrying out their lives in the distance,
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yet in our eyes, we're the only ones here?
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It's a funny feeling that, a feeling of confused anticipation as we await people that will never come.
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Contrary to the evidence around us, buildings, furniture within a cozy apartment, beer in the fridge, nobody ever will.
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Throughout the late 90s and into the 2000s, video games were playing on the trope of liminal spaces without even knowing it.
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Gary's Mod and Silent Hill are two that come to mind immediately, and while Gmod was more of an accidental case,
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Silent Hill was a bit more on the nose.
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Everything about it is interwoven with the very fabric of what makes liminal spaces so creepy to us.
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Isolation is always the forefront, with the player being left to explore a town that is years past its time.
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Hospitals, foggy streets, a theme park, a subway system, and even an apartment that you're unable to leave.
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Every single game is stuck in a bizarre state of transition.
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Nothing is bustling and alive anymore, but you sure as hell aren't in this place alone.
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No Players Online is a 2019 indie horror game that takes this notion and cranks it up to 10.
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Everything about it is liminal.
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We expect the game to be littered with other players.
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We have the overwhelming sentiment that the space we're currently exploring was, at one time, the home to thousands of multiplayer matches.
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Yet, we're alone.
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No players are online, but us.
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And I think this is where most of the lingering dread of a liminal space stems from.
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The anticipation, the expectation that someone else should be around, as is life.
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yet there isn't.
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It's the foundational rejection of loneliness that's hardwired into our brains, and when this loneliness is portrayed through art and even photos of reality,
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that is where the uncanniness sets in.
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You know, autophobia is something inexplicably and terrifyingly unique, and you never really know it until you're in it.
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at school after hours, at a hotel pool when no one's around, the very last one in a shopping mall.
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There are so many cases for situations like this,
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and the beauty of the internet is that we're able to share pictures and stories of spaces that terrify us, together.
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Whether it's through gaming or reality, liminal spaces and their play on our natural fear of loneliness are terrifying
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and regardless if we ever figure out why they're so eerie, it's irrefutable that they'll always persist in the dark depths of the internet.
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There's something of a reminder,
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a memento, a lens into a world that is and will always be nothing but a burning,
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fading, and ever so distant memory.
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It's late at night, and cozied up in your room watching creepy YouTube videos.
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There are seemingly endless, but there is one channel that I'd like to highlight tonight night.
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It's called Flora Seated Dreams, and at first glance of their channel, we can notice the absurdity with their thumbnails.
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Their content is just as cryptic and heavily resembles various ARGs that we've encountered in videos past.
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It's in Spanish, but that doesn't discount how strange it is.
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At the end of the day, though, you might be wondering, why are we talking about this tonight?
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night.
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In the midst of scouring for topics to cover, I was sent an email by a person named Joshua.
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A link to this channel and their explanation of it states the following.
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After Spanish cartoons broadcasted in Mexico, there used to be a PSA showing missing people with their pictures and info on their last known whereabouts.
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One girl that showed up consistently was named Celine Delgado, and her only picture was of very poor quality, eerie, and her features were very vague.
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The actual video's in Spanish, but from what I understand, they suggest that that she doesn't actually exist
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and was artificially made specifically to appear unsettling so people would better remember the broadcast.
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Interesting.
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The video in question was uploaded on September 2nd of this year and is titled, Cinética del Patron, Celine Delgado.
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Let's have a look.
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Evento, Celine Delgado.
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El N delgado, es un patrón de rostros artificiales.
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The rostros are built artificially and simulate human faces to generate emotions wanting to generate super normal stimuli.
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to assert the hypothesis that the face of a woman named Celine Delgado, quote, kinetically fits non -human AI -generated faces using the constant tau.
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They go forth to explain the uncanny valley and how facial reconstructions cause uneasiness in those that encounter them.
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Following this, they superimpose various faces with the resulting images off to the right.
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And among these, Celine's face is shown mashed up with various others.
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They display a few examples that are admittedly eerie and ultimately argue that the identity of this Celine Delgado is,
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as Joshua stated, artificial.
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Now, this is a lot to unpack, but considering that it's something that we haven't looked into prior, I found it worth considering.
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So who is Celine Delgado and how did she become wrapped up in this eerie shroud of urban legend?
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Throughout the 1990s, there was a TV segment run on Channel 5 in Mexico, named Servicio de la Comunidad, or Channel 5 Community Service.
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As Joshua stated, it was a TV spot that ran between children's cartoons in hopes of spreading the word about various missing persons.
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The segments, contrary to what we're gonna discuss later tonight, actually contain voiceovers giving various details and last locations of missing persons.
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And at first glance, these are mostly tame.
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When you really look into it though, the eerie nature of these TV spots stems from when you consider how
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Channel 5 handled the case of just one person, Celine Delgado.
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Over the years, her face would reportedly pop up in nearly every Servicio de la Comunidad segment, utilizing this exact same low -quality photo.
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There were times where they give a bit of background info about her,
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like the fact that she went missing on April 22nd and was just 18 years old.
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But what cemented her case into the minds of thousands of people came nearly 30 years later.
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It goes without saying that the videos you're currently viewing are very obviously works of fiction.
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They were part of a stunt pulled by Channel 5 on their official
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Twitter page throughout 2019 and 2020.
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During this time, they were known to upload obscure, eerie videos to their account, only to delete them just hours later.
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It was an antic that ultimately catalyzed their rise to the Twitter trending page on numerous occasions,
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and also drives home the point that this real -world TV channel is not above messing with you.
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In the midst of these posts, though, came one that involved a familiar name, this one.
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Posted after midnight on the 20th of February, 2020, we can clearly make out the name, Celine.
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Given that she was what many presumed to be an actual missing person
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that was constantly broadcasted on a kid's channel over the span of years
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and gave birth to a new sort of urban legend that the Floresita Dreams channel was entertaining.
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the hypothesis that this person is potentially not real.
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The major argument stems from her missing photo.
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Many have stated online that it appears common, basic, and fake.
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This, combined with the lack of any online record that has ever been found about her, has led to a breeding ground of online hearsay,
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creepypastas, and hoax videos to command the conversation about her.
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Now, when I stumbled upon this video in my research, I, among many others, had initially assumed that this footage was real.
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Keeping in mind the other hoaxes and pranks that
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Channel 5 has played on its viewers, combined with the unconventional nature of these broadcasts being played on a kid's channel,
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I didn't doubt that they'd pull a prank like this to make her name stick with you.
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Ultimately though, as is the case with many works of media online, this too was a hoax.
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but that doesn't discount the weirdness of this story.
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The way that
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Channel 5 has and is handling her name makes it seem like she's nothing
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but a tall tale and unfortunately given the nature of the internet many have run with this notion.
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Regarding the real case of Celine Delgado unfortunately nothing has ever come of it.
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She has as far as anyone knows never been found and and her case has sat that way for decades.
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Personally, I think Celine Delgado, contrary to the rumors online, is indeed a real person.
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The argument presented about her having a fake face just doesn't seem plausible.
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Her image is low quality because it was the 90s.
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Her record likely did exist, but was never digitized.
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The uncanniness of this image would be exponentially higher if this actually were fake,
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and it just doesn't make sense for a channel to slip a random,
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fake person in their broadcast that would most likely never have been noticed back then.
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To me, Celine Delgado was a real person, a real person with a story that likely never received any sort of closure,
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and a person that is now forever wrapped up in the realm of urban legend.
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But of course, that's just my conjecture.
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From the span of April 8th to April 9th, 2015, a devastating superstorm would wreak havoc on much of the central United States.
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27 tornadoes ranging from EF -0 to EF -4 would touch down within the span of just 36 hours, resulting in immense devastation throughout Kansas,
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Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, and Illinois.
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While most of them are rated as an EF -1 or lower, by far the most destructive would impact a small rural town named Fairdale.
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Reaching wind speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, this 41 -minute
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that storm surge would ultimately become infamous as one of the worst natural disasters to impact the region in nearly 25 years.
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On the evening of April 9th, an 85 -year -old man named Clarence Schultz had just wrapped up dinner with his wife, Geraldine.
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He was in the other room getting cleaned up when she suddenly called him back into the kitchen.
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Look out the window, she claims, and when he does, Clarence would come face to face with the scene straight out of a nightmare.
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Immediately, he heads upstairs to grab supplies while she stays behind, and while up there, he pulls out his cell phone to take a quick video.
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What he was unaware of though, was that while taking this footage, the tornado wasn't heading away,
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but rather straight towards them.
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We'll be right back.
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Clarence Schultz didn't make it back to his wife.
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But thankfully, he did make it out of this alive.
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Geraldine, however, wasn't quite so lucky.
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In the moments following the video, the storm destroyed the Schultz home, and Clarence resultingly found himself caught in a pile of rubble.
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All of a sudden, it kind of got quiet, he recalls.
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I asked myself, are you dead?
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No, you can't hurt when you're dead.
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And I hurt.
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Geraldine Schultz was one of two deaths and 11 injuries that were caused by the events from April 9th.
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The other, their neighbor and longtime friend named Jacqueline Closa.
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Closa reportedly had a massive fear of spiders, which her daughter claims is why she didn't seek refuge in her own basement.
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In total, over $19 million in damages were reported, and the aftermath footage embodies the devastation that was left behind.
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Thankfully, a storm of this magnitude hasn't struck the area since then.
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And after a grueling years -long recovery effort, life in Fairdale is mostly back to normal today.
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For the residents of this small town though, the scars from that night will remain everlasting.
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While the incident in Fairdale is just one of hundreds of natural disasters that have happened over the years,
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the resident stories and the media that accompany them paint a picture that is humbling.
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It takes you there in a way, conveying the tragedy that nobody could have predicted.
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Today, Fairdale stands strong.
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They are a community that banded together, and while a similar storm hasn't happened since then, they remain vigilant in case something like this ever happens.
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Again.
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9 -1 -1, what are you reporting?
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Yeah, my house is getting robbed right now.
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On December 1st, 2019 in Michigan, a man named Christopher Neal,
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his wife Haley Coe, and their two -year -old daughter Charlotte were watching TV at home.
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The family had just moved here from North Texas, so they were still getting settled in.
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All things considered, the night was going okay, and nothing was out of the ordinary.
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At around 10 p .m., the three hear a loud noise at the front of the house and sounds like an intruder.
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And so Chris heads to investigate while Haley stays behind to call 911.
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It was at this point when Chris would encounter an unknown man standing near his front door
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and immediately he too calls the authorities.
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The following audio takes place the moment the call center answered.
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house or an apartment?
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House at the end of the street.
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Why are you in my house, girl?
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Tell me when you talk to her.
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You don't get a speakerphone.
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Why are you in my house, though?
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Sir, how many other people are in your house?
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It's me, my wife, and our daughter.
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How old is your daughter?
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She's two.
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Two?
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Okay.
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Do you have any idea who he is?
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You don't know.
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Let my wife I'm not going to harm you guys.
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All right?
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I promise.
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Take my hand.
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Unimportant in Jones.
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You can go.
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I'm not going to harm you.
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Where is William at right now?
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He stayed up next to me in my hallway.
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Okay, are we still on speakerphone?
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We still are.
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He's right here.
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Okay.
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William.
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Yes, ma 'am.
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William, okay.
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Can Christopher and his wife and daughter step outside?
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No. What?
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They're safe.
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They're safe?
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They're safe.
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What are you doing in their house?
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I told you they're shots fired.
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Where were shots fired at?
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What's that?
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Stop right here with me, man.
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No, I ain't going anywhere with me.
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You're going there with me, man.
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Bro.
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Shut it right now, please.
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William.
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William.
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Yes, ma 'am.
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What are you trying to have them do?
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He's coming in the room with me.
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That's it.
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Why is he coming in the room with you?
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Why are you locking that door?
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Don't lock that door, bro.
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You're all right, man.
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I can tell you my word, man.
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You're straight.
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I get what you're saying, but you've got two guns, bro.
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You've got two guns?
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I'm trying to get crazy, man.
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I'm not doing anything.
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I'm not getting to my house, man.
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I'm sorry, man.
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William, listen to me.
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Why are you here in the first place?
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William, can you listen to me?
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Yes, ma 'am.
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I need you to put those guns down because I've got officers that want to help you.
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I have officers that want to help you and keep you safe, so I need you to put those guns down.
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Who are you, ma 'am?
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I'm 911.
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I've got help for you.
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I need you to put those guns down so that they can get you the help that you need.
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I want police here.
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The police are there, William.
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The police are there.
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They are there.
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They're there.
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I've got a lot of deputies there.
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Listen, I'm not harming you.
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I promise.
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My word.
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My wife just got threatened, man.
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I hear you, bro.
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You understand me?
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I hear you.
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It got threatened last night.
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Okay, I get you, bro.
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I'm not harming you, or your children, or your wife.
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William.
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Yes.
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Hey, this is Joe from the Sheriff's Department.
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How are you, man?
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slide your bad st underneath the door.
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Don't come through that door.
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Okay.
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We're not going to come through the door, ma 'am, but I just want to talk to you and find out what's going on.
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Don't come through that door.
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Slide your bad st underneath that door, ma 'am.
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Well, I'm not even up by the door, ma 'am.
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I'm outside the house.
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What else?
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Stop fighting against me, ma 'am.
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What's got y 'all worked up today, ma 'am?
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Hello?
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Hello?
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Hello?
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Is this Christopher?
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No, Christopher's dead.
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Contrary to the man's claim, Chris wasn't dead the moment he said it.
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Minutes later, though, he would be.
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After hearing the gunfire, police forced their way into the home.
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During their advancement, three officers were shot in what sustained non -life -threatening wounds.
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Hey, what's your name, man?
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Hey, this is Joel out here, okay?
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Man, we don't want anything bad to happen.
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We're not going to hurt you.
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Man, listen to me, please.
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No harm.
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Right in the back when you reach the door.
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Say that again, man.
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Once they charged towards the bedroom that Jones was hiding out in, they'd encounter Neil lying on the floor with the bedroom window ajar.
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Outside of it was Jones trying to flee.
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However, his efforts were in vain.
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William Jones ultimately faced 19 felony charges and was accused of killing Christopher Neal and wounding three officers.
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He was reportedly well known in surrounding counties as a thief and home invader, and astonishingly, just five days prior to the murder,
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he was released from jail after serving time for a previous offense.
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During his arraignment, his defense attorney maintained his innocence,
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claiming that Jones was running from an attacker that night and ultimately sought refuge in the Neal home.
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I think the 911 audio speaks for itself.
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However, it'll ultimately be up to a jury in his eventual trial.
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Since the incident, Haley Ko has given birth to the couple's second child and is now raising them alone.
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With this, their oldest daughter will be forever scarred by the loss of her dad that night, and their youngest will never know him.
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Christopher Neal died protecting his family, protecting his family from a lifelong criminal.
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And no matter if Jones is sentenced to life in prison with justice served,
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the Neal family will forever have to live on without a husband and without a father.
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Average of a missing persons investigation is not a whole lot to go on
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and that is why we need Saturday evening 1989.
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Central and North America are recovering from a recent category 5 hurricane.
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United States President -elect George H .W.
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Bush is preparing to swear in as the 41st president with just under a week to go.
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And on Channel 5 up in Chicago, Illinois, an NBC -affiliated news station by the name of WMAQ is wrapping up its nightly programming.
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In relation to the other two, a news station broadcast keeping up the status quo doesn't seem all that notable or interesting.
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And to be honest with you, it isn't.
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Rather, it's what transpired afterwards that's piqued my interest.
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It's extremely subtle, but after being discovered relatively recently, the footage you're about to watch has opened the door to a mystery that's perplexed a small
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but growing corner of the internet. Have a look.
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This is WMAQ -TV, Channel 5, NBC Television in Chicago.
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We now leave the air and wish you a pleasant good morning.
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It's a rarity that something as simple as a missing notice can fill me with such uneasiness.
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And I think it's because this TV spot is so obscure.
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This image is incredibly low quality and there's effectively nothing to compliment it.
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No height, weight or age, no information about where they were last seen, no family contacts, no investigative progress reports,
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no voiceover to fill you in, absolutely nothing.
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This just exists as a late night post -broadcast info screen shown at a time
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when most viewers likely directed their attention elsewhere.
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All we're left with is the name Joanna Lopez, a poorly lit photo of her face,
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and a now defunct phone number that's been found to lead to the youth division of the Chicago Police Department.
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Something about the way this was presented just seems off, and considering the current online discourse about it, I'm not alone in feeling this way.
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Two years later, in 1991, WMAQ would once again wrap up their nightly broadcast.
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In a strikingly similar and almost random fashion, Joanna's missing notice would be played once more.
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Considering the blink -and -you'll -miss -it nature of the notice this time, it too fell on deaf ears.
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There was, again, no supporting info about her, no updates that might have cropped up in the prior two years, still no age, height, weight, nothing.
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Just this obscure photo with the word missing plastered on top of it.
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Given how long it was since the last update, combined with the implied lack of any progress in the search,
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it was beginning to seem that the chances of finding Joanna were dwindling as the days went by.
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and to date not a single other update had ever come of this Joanna Lopez has presumably never been found.
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In late 2020 and into 2021, Joanna's mysterious missing notice would finally be shared to Reddit.
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Two posts are known to have spearheaded the conversation, one by a Luke Inspire and another by a Chris Polygon.
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While Luke Inspires came first, I wanted to focus on Chris's as the this one prompted the most discussion.
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Simply titled, The Very Obscure Disappearance of Joanna Lopez.
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Their post in Unresolved Mysteries outlines most of what we've already touched on so far.
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They go forth to claim that they have looked through various missing persons resources, however have found absolutely no information about her.
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Considering this is a subreddit devoted to discussing the unsolved, others quickly chimed in with theories on what they think might have happened.
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I think she was a runaway and was found pretty quick.
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Maybe she ran away again in 1991 and they used the same picture.
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1989 and 1991 are not that far apart and if she was in foster care, I doubt they had up -to -date pictures of her.
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Such a strange case.
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Wow, this one is strange.
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I found the number listed here as the youth division of the Chicago Police Department.
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legit.
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I don't have the guts to call it, but it's there.
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Sounds like she escaped some kind of juvenile detention or probation.
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If it weren't for the reappearance of the photo two years later, I'd be inclined to believe that's exactly what happened.
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But then she was found and returned with her case never having a chance to escalate to federal involvement.
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The fact that it aired again in 1991, however, makes me think she was never found.
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And in the pre -internet days, her case simply slipped through the cracks.
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I hope I'm wrong.
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Throughout all of these though, one comment stood out among the others.
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Posted by a proud evening star, they claimed the following.
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Came across this post late last night and it creeped me out so much that I couldn't sleep for a while.
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It really is so sad to think that a person can slip through the cracks like that and seemingly vanish altogether.
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I've been scouring the Doe Network for unidentified
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Jane Doe's in and around the Chicago area all morning, and the only possible case I could find is from 1994, here.
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I really hope we can find closure on this.
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My heart breaks for her.
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Interesting.
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Heading to that link presents us with a Jane Doe, 276 UFIL.
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She was found deceased in an alleyway, naked from the waist down.
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It goes without saying that our working evidence is tenuous.
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However, lining up this photo with that of Joanna Lopez, while considering the time and location in which she was found,
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postulating that this woman is Joanna isn't out of the realm of possibility.
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I've done some digging on various missing persons from around the time period and have also come up short with results.
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There are quite a few from around Illinois.
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However, their dates of discovery don't quite line up with the two missing broadcasts.
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It seems to me that proud evening star has found the most plausible visual match out of nearly all the 1990s
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Jane does from the area.
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But even this leaves us with much to be desired.
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At the end of the day, the case of Joanna Lopez is one that is undoubtedly haunting.
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Barring how obscure the photo itself is, the lack of information, the visuals that accompanied the broadcast,
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and the fact that there is virtually no discussion or record about her ever existing aside from this brief video archive online,
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this case is enveloped an absolute mystery.
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I implore you to join the discussion in finding this girl, and if you know or remember anything about her,
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myself and countless others are all ears about it.
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In the worst case scenario, we won't get anywhere, and this mystery will remain. But...
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The best case, reaching any sort of closure.
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That is what I'm aiming for.
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The internet harbors a vast abyss of content that is perplexing, intriguing, and immensely haunting.
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A community thriving off sharing derelict areas around the world.
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An internet urban legend that engulfed the name of someone who has never been found.
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An unforeseen natural disaster that wreaked havoc on a community.
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A 911 call in the midst of a home invasion.
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And a missing persons broadcast that never found a resolution.
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Thank you so much for tuning in to this special Halloween edition of Disturbing Things from Around the Internet.
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I hope you all enjoyed this, and if you have any eerie discoveries that you'd like to share for a future installment,
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feel free to fill out my new tip line or shoot me an email at dtfaisubmissions at gmail .com.
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Once again, thanks so much for watching.
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I'll see you in the next one.
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I love you all, and happy Halloween.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Amen.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Disturbing Things from Around the Internet”. This video has 315 sentences and 4657 words to shadow. The speech runs for 41:14. The speaker talks at a steady 113 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| broadcast noun | /ˈbɹɔːd(ˌ)kɑːst/ | A transmission of a radio or television programme intended to be received by anyone with a receiver. |
| contrary adjective | /ˈkɑntɹɛɹi/ | Opposite; in an opposite direction; in opposition; adverse. |
| obscure adjective | /əbˈskjʊɹ/ | Dark, faint or indistinct. |
| legend noun | /ˈlɛd͡ʒ.ənd/ | The life story of a saint (such stories are often embellished, but any kind is called a legend). |
| footage noun | /ˈfʊtɪd͡ʒ/ | An amount of film or tape that has been used to record something, or the content of the recording. |
| slide noun | /ˈslaɪ̯d/ | An item of play equipment that children can climb up and then slide down again. |
| encounter verb | /ɪnˈkaʊntɚ/ | To meet (someone) or find (something), especially unexpectedly. |
| wrap verb | /ɹæp/ | To enclose (an object) completely in any flexible, thin material such as fabric or paper. |
| underneath adverb | /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/ | Below; in a place beneath. |
| badge noun | /bæd͡ʒ/ | A distinctive mark, token, sign, emblem or cognizance, worn on one’s clothing, as an insignia of some rank, or of the membership of an organization. |
| loneliness noun | /ˈloʊnlinəs/ | A feeling of depression resulting from being alone or from having no companions. |
| harm noun | /hɑːm/ | Physical injury; hurt; damage. |
| mystery noun | /ˈmɪs.t(ə.)ɹi/ | Something secret or unexplainable; an unknown. |
| disaster noun | /dɪˈzɑːs.təː/ | An unexpected natural or man-made catastrophe of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life or sometimes permanent… |
| spin verb | /spɪn/ | To rotate, revolve, gyrate (usually quickly); to partially or completely rotate to face another direction. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come through verb | To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway. | |
| wrap up verb | To cover or enclose (something) by folding and securing a covering entirely around it. | |
| carry out verb | /ˈkæ.ɹi aʊt/ | To hold while moving it out. |
| clean up verb | To make an area or a thing clean; to pick up a mess; to tidy. | |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. | |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| fill out verb | /fɪl ˈaʊt/ | To complete a form or questionnaire with requested information. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What is it about source maps that unnerve us?
- Why are you in my house, bro?
- Why are you in my house, though?
- Do you have any idea who he is?
- What are you trying to have them do?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've been · has served · has always existed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being forgotten · is caused · being left |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 105 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/, hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, altogether /ɔl.tuˈɡɛð.ɚ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: closure /ˈkloʊ.ʒɚ/, transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/, notion /ˈnoʊʃən/, anticipation /ænˌtɪs.əˈpeɪ.ʃən/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: reportedly /ɹɪˈpɔːtɪdli/, hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, anticipation /ænˌtɪs.əˈpeɪ.ʃən/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, ordinary /ˈɔɹdɪnɛɹi/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like broadcast, contrary, obscure.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.