In today’s mini episode, Chyaz covers a breaking news story relating to the previously unsolved mystery of the ‘Pinnacle Man’, shares one of the most fascinating listener ghost stories to date and explores an old-school photography fact involving prunes…welcome to Weird Fix!
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The strange but true stories featured on this podcast contain details some people may find unsettling. Listener discretion is advised. I'm Chaya Samuel and things are about to get weird. Hello there, thank you for clicking on this brand new weird fix episode. I am so happy to have you here today. As of a few days ago, we have officially passed the two-year anniversary of Things are About to Get Weird, which is beyond incredible. And I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart for tuning in. I always say this but it's true. This podcast is the most joyful creative endeavour of my life. I love putting our episodes together more than I can say and the reason I'm able to do so is all because of you. Thank you for taking a chance on the show. It's my genuine pleasure to keep you company as I tell you these stories and long may it continue. I could go on forever but I'm going to leave the intro with one last thank you. Now let's get into our first segment. As regular listeners will know, we cover many unsolved mysteries here on the podcast and the ones that really tend to stick with me is when there's a person who was sadly passed away yet remains unidentified. Sometimes the circumstances are incredibly suspicious. Like in the Angel of the Meadow case, which to this day is constantly on my mind. And occasionally the situation is likely not linked to a crime as we saw with the Peter Bergman mystery. But regardless, any death in which the deceased person has to be buried without a name on their headstone feels terribly sad to me. And in the US state of Pennsylvania, there had been a case of an unidentified John Doe that had gone without answers for almost half a century. And the poor soul came to be known as the pinnacle man. But just a few days ago, all of that finally changed. Allow me to explain. Back in 1977, a group of hikers were exploring a cave near to the pinnacle mountain peak located along the famous Appalachian Trail. As they traversed through the dimly lit space, they made an awful discovery, the frozen body of a man. He was found with no identification. And despite a sketch of him being produced, the police at the time were unable to determine who he had been. A postmortem examination took place, which then determined that he had passed away as the result of a drug overdose. And the authorities officially ruled out foul play. His fingerprints and dental information were able to be taken before he was buried. But after no matches were found, this looked like yet another failed line of investigation. Five years ago, the pinnacle man's body was actually exhumed in order to try and gather DNA from his remains. After all, in the almost five decades since his death, the techniques used for identification have evolved massively. And the police hoped that they may be of use in this case. Sadly though, it wasn't meant to be. Nothing came of the 2019 DNA extraction. And although over the past 15 years, the pinnacle man's profile has been compared against 10 known missing people, once more, no match was found. That was until last month, August of 2024. At some point over the years, the fingerprints that had originally been taken for the John Doe were misplaced. But during a routine case review, they were found once more by state police trooper Ian Keck. He sent them to NamUs, which is a national missing persons database in the states. And within the hour, the FBI were able to find a match. After almost 50 years, the pinnacle man had a name, Nicholas Grub, known as Nikki to his family and friends, who had been 27 when he went missing back in 1977. Ian Keck told the media, quote, "It took some digging, looking in our archives. Luckily, going through the archives, along with photos, there happened to be a fingerprint card. It's bittersweet. The family has been looking for their loved one for over 40 years, not knowing whatever happened to them. For me to have this tiny part in it, I'm glad I was able to help out." How incredible is this? According to the BBC, Nikki had served with the Pennsylvania National Guard and had been honorably discharged in 1971. It's now said that the authorities will take another look at his cause of death, which makes me wonder whether the initial ruling of a drug overdose is now considered to be inaccurate. So I'll be sure to keep an eye out for updates on this story. This has really given me fresh hope that the mysteries I mentioned at the start, and many, many others too of course, could still be solved. I hope that Nikki's family have taken some small comforts in finally having answers. My heart really goes out to them, and I hope Nikki can now finally rest in peace. Okay, next up I have a listener email to share with you, and I'm just going to get straight into it because, well, you'll see. It is fascinating. Here we go. "Hi Chayas, my name is Ailsa, and I have just discovered your podcast. I don't know how it took me so long to discover, but I'm glad because now I have so many to binge on before I'm caught up. I had to write to you after hearing episode 10, because your paranormal experience was so similar to my own. When I was 8 years old, I too saw a white figure pass by the door of my bedroom when I was up late reading a book. My room was darkened, and I was looking out into the hallway which was lit. The female figure walked past my bedroom door, turned her head to look at me before turning back and continuing down to the half landing on the stairs. I somehow found the courage to leave my room and run down to see my dad at risk of passing this woman on the way. My dad who was watching TV in the living room reassured me and said the time must be tired and my mind could be playing tricks on me. As an adult, I asked my dad about that night, and he said I was covered in a cold sweat when I came downstairs. Maybe I had a fever or some thing which might explain my seeing things, but I remember being well and I remember seeing her clearly. A couple of years later, my school was having a Halloween themed assembly for the older pupils, and our head teacher was telling some spooky stories, which he probably thought were friendly enough for an audience of young kids. He told a story about a haunted house that his friend used to live in, where a ghostly woman would walk the halls and the dogs would start barking on the stroke of 11 o'clock at night. He ended his story by saying, "And this haunted house isn't too far from here, the waterworks cottage at the golf course. When I heard those words, I went into an absolute frenzy and could not be calmed by my teacher when we went back to class." Little did our head teacher know, but one of the pupils in that audience lived in that very house. Me. Our dog did sometimes act strangely in that house at night too. He would wake up from his snooze and sit up alert. His eyes would track across the ceiling and one corner of the room, as though he could see something moving. Then he just settled back down and went to sleep. Very strange. My family found the school assembly story to be a funny coincidence, but to little me and present day me, this was confirmation that what I'd seen in the hall was real. I loved the other stories you shared in the episode and those from the Halloween special. Whether you believe in these weird tales or not, there is so much fun in wondering. Thanks for the podcast. I'm absolutely loving it and can't wait to hear more. All the best? Ailsa. Well, firstly, thank you so much Ailsa for sending your story in and for allowing me to read it out. When I got this email, I genuinely had goosebumps. I love nothing more than hearing about other people's ghostly encounters, but to find out about the similarities between Ailsa's experience and mine was something else. Plus the twist about the headteacher's story, oh my goodness, incredible. I hope you all found this one as interesting as I did and don't forget, if you have a story of your own and would be happy for me to include it in a future weird fix, just pop me an email at thingsgetweirdpodcast@gmail.com and you may just hear it read out in a future mini episode. Last but not least for today, I have a weird little photography fact for you. Have you ever noticed that in old photographs the people in them are rarely smiling? Although some of this is likely down to that famous Victorian stoicism and some down to the very long exposure times of cameras that would make holding a smile for several minutes quite tricky, there is another reason. I'm sure at one point or another we've all been told to say cheese and smile for the camera, but the instruction that was often given during the earlier days of photography was very different, though sitting for photos was sometimes asked to say the word prunes. This gave them a kind of subtle pout that was considered very poised and proper, and also helped to avoid those who may not have had the best teeth from showing them off in their final image. Additionally, smiling widely and flashing your nashes for the camera was considered flirty and inappropriate for the big event that was having your photograph captured back then. If you're anything like me, Albert, you've just said prunes out loud, or at least mowed the words silently. And having done it myself when I was researching this fact and feeling that I was venturing into early 2010s duck pout territory, I think I'll be sticking with cheese instead of prunes for the foreseeable. There's a sentence I never thought I'd say on the podcast. I really hope you've enjoyed today's installment of Weird Fix. Thank you again for joining me. Just a couple of quicks or shout outs. For the Pinnacle Man story, there was a BBC article by Nadine Youssef and another from The Guardian by Victoria Becky Empis. Both were from this month September of 2024. Of course, we had Ailsa's brilliant email, and finally an article from Getty.com all about the history of smiling in photographs. That was by Antares Wells from October 2023. I would love to hear your thoughts on all of today's stories, so here's how you can get in touch. We are @thingsgetweirdpodcast on Instagram and threads. And over on Facebook, you can find our page and private discussion group by searching for things are about to get weird. Plus, as I mentioned, our email address is Things Get Weird Podcast at gmail.com. Finally, on TikTok, you can find us by searching for the podcast name. Thank you again for joining me today for Weird Fix, and I'll be back with a brand new full episode very soon. So until next time, take care of yourself and others, and keep it weird, but the good kind of weird.
