What happened to Elisa Lam?

In 2013, Canadian college student Elisa Lam disappeared while on a solo trip through California. For weeks law enforcement was at a loss to explain the disappearance -- until, that is, a maintenance worker at the Cecil Hotel discovered her body in a water tank. And with that, what should have been the end of a tragic tale instead became the prologue to a mystery that, according to many, remains unsolved in the present day: What happened to Elisa Lam?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,

(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is known, and Ben you are you that makes
this stuff they don't want you to know? I want
to check in with everybody. We're We're at the end
of the week today, it's Friday. We need big plans
for the weekend. It's almost end of the month. To
already almost into February. I feel like this month has

(00:47):
achieved some weird form of time control, Like it's extended
out in my mind to feel like a much longer
period of time, and it's actually been Yeah, we've been
here a very long time. Big as at the beginning
of the month. Of course, I like millions of other
Americans play Bone Thugs and Harmony first of the month

(01:08):
just to get motivated. And it feels like it's been
years since I've done that. January has been very long.
I was gonna say, it feels like it just started.
I miss my Michael, Charles y'all. One day, one day,
maybe we can we can finally finish that Chick fil
A based parody song we wrote about using the melody

(01:31):
of Bone Thugs and Harmony. The reason we're talking about
time and plans for the weekend and stuff is because
you know, we've all been traveling more. We'll be traveling
more over this year, especially as a show. And today's
episode is about someone who went on their own journey,

(01:56):
person named Alisa Lamb. On February first, a twenty one
year old Canadian college student named Elisa Lamb vanished while
staying at the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Now,
this is in the skid Row area of Los Angeles,
which is has a reputation for being a bit dangerous

(02:19):
um CD if you will, lots of drugs crime in
this area. UM that's just something to take note of.
She was traveling alone via amtrack and she was taking
the bus a lot and she called this her quote
West Coast tour. And unfortunately, when this young woman went missing,

(02:42):
the cops, the police officers had no leads. The people
who were investigating, that is, with the exception of a
small video, a short snippet of video that they released
to the public. And this is a video of Elisa
Lamb in an elevator? May I describe it? Yes? Please?
In this video released by the l A p D,
which at this point the most popular posting, possibly the

(03:06):
only one on YouTube, has a whopping seventeen million, four
thousand and nineteen views. The videos a little under four minutes,
and it shows this young woman wearing a red hoodie
and a black skirt walking into an elevator and proceeding
to press all of the buttons for the floors in

(03:27):
the middle of the dial of the panel and the elevator,
and then sort of standing back against the back of
the elevator and waiting for something. We don't quite know what,
but the doors to the elevator never closed, and this
seems to disturb Miss Lamb, and she kind of acts
as though she's hiding in a corner, but it's it's

(03:48):
not a real sense of imminent fear of something that
she sees. It's more of preparing for something to come
on this she huddles back against the back corner of
the elevator and then proceeds to kind of peek out
of the elevator doors, which are still not closing. It's
been about thirty seconds at this point, she makes several
very wide steps from inside the elevator out into the

(04:09):
hall and then back, repeating these movements almost as if
doing some sort of ritual. It's very very unsettling video
to watch, honestly, and I recommend you guys start it
out and check it out for yourself even now before
proceeding with the episode exactly. And we'll have more information
about the about the elevator video a little later in
the show. Right now, we're still in several weeks later,

(04:34):
the public has seen the video. It's out there in
the world, and after some complaints about water pressure. On February,
hotel maintenance employee named Santiago Lopez hiked a set of
stairs to the roof and then climbed the ladder to
reach one of four ten foot tall water tanks. He
noticed that the hatch on one of these tanks was open,

(04:55):
and that is where he discovered a Lisa Lamb, or
at least her corpse, floating inside the tank, face up.
She was nude, but authorities for the record ruled out
evidence of sexual assault, and this should be the closure
for a tragic but all too common death by drowning.

(05:17):
These occur every every year. In the US and abroad,
instead of became the beginning of a mystery. And here
we are, almost four years after the incident with almost
no solid answers. So what happened to Alisa Lamb? We're
going to explore the numerous theories surrounding surrounding the night

(05:38):
of her disappearance and what happened after the discovery of
her remains. So let's take a minute to explore the
life of Alisa Lamb. Here's what we know. Here are
the facts. UM. Her parents immigrated from Hong Kong to
open a restaurant in Burnaby, near Vancouver, British Columbia, and
she was a student at the University of British Columbia.

(06:01):
And in January she went on a solo trip to California,
which as we meant when she referred to as her
West Coast tour UM and planned stops in San Diego,
Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco. UM Interviews and
posts from Elisa's tumbler blog confirmed that she had difficulties

(06:22):
struggling with serious depression that may well have escalated into
a bipolar disorder. So, as we mentioned UH just a
few minutes ago, earlier, the local law enforcement released a
video of Alissa Lamb the hotel elevator on the night
of her disappearance, which also seems to be around the

(06:43):
time of her uh you know, the night of her
death or within several hours. In the video, as Noel
pointed out, she appears to be hiding from an unknown entity.
One thing that you'll notice are these wild erratic movements
body language experts this is an important note. Body language

(07:03):
experts believe this may be a manic period and maybe
manifesting in very strong, but very fleeting and temporary emotions.
There are times in the video where she's smiling, there
are times when she's hiding. And one thing that we

(07:23):
also noticed, I think when we watched it is that
the door doesn't seem to close, at least not while
she's anywhere near the elevator right right. And the fact
that she pushes that whole row of buttons, which is
not like, I mean, the whole thing. The reason it
gave me the creeps is the fact that the elevator
doors don't open and she appears to be you know,

(07:47):
I could see it being described as manic moves, but
they don't. It's not like she's having some sort of
fit or an attack or some sort. She feels very
in control. It feels very deliberate, the things that she's doing,
the way she's steps out of the elevator and then
back end, and then out of the elevator again and
back end, and then she kind of huddles against the
back wall of the elevator, sort of standing very still

(08:09):
and upright in the corner by the buttons, in the
corner by the buttons, and like it's as though she's
expecting someone or as though she senses something, you know, there,
and it really I'm not one to go for that
kind of stuff A lot. I was watching the video
gave me a bit of a shiver. Yeah, especially for me,
the body language with the hands. There's a part of

(08:31):
the video where she exits and she's standing directly outside
into the left at the door, so she's still visible
in profile, and she just does a strange thing pivoting
her wrist and moving her hands and some sort of
it's a very strange motion, almost like a tut. They

(08:53):
call that. I don't know if you watch that show, Yeah,
that's that really, I'm not joking. It has that almost
like sense of trying to complete the motions of a
ritual of some sort. Yes, it's very interesting. It looks
calculated and purposeful, and it's intricate. That's a very good point,
and that is one of the lynchpins of the various

(09:16):
theories surrounding the death of Alisa Lamb. Before we get
into those, I do think it is necessary for us
to have one disclaimer, which is that we're we're pursuing
this and exploring this in the utmost respectful manner, right,
in a manner of extreme respect, because we know that

(09:37):
sometimes when things like this get out on the internet,
people can be very dehumanizing about it, you know, and
people have had their lives ruined when they become memes
because they have a dumb picture from their high school yearbook. Right,
hopefully not none of us are speaking from experience or
actually experienced that. But this is this is a very

(10:01):
serious thing. This is a human beings life, and we
can't forget that this is a person that had family
and loved ones. And if you follow her social media
presence and look, you know at some of the stuff
that is out there, there is a lot of outpouring
of love for her family, and from her friends, and
we want to keep all of that in mind in
how we explore the various theories behind this tragic death.

(10:24):
And we will explore those theories in just a moment
after a word from our sponsors. Now. In the days
and years after Lisa Lamb's death, numerous theories have sprung
up from all corners of the Internet. Usually these are

(10:48):
um fascinating Noel, right, Um, but you own your words,
my friends. I respect and appreciate everything about you. Sometimes
a relatively mundane. Others are a bit out there. Let's
let's call them extraordinary. Um, but let's start off with
the least unusual. What if Alice lam in the grip

(11:10):
of a bipolar episode climb the water tower self accessed,
uh the roof and the stairs and open the hatch
and disrobed and dropped inside. Okay, so this is a possibility.
This would probably be Occam's razor. May perhaps this would

(11:31):
be where you'd start with. Um, yeah, this is the
one that I would probably start with if I was
an investigator. M hm. And if only just to rule
it out, so we know that it's possible to access
the roof as who is it? Mr Lopez mentioned by

(11:52):
getting up to the top floor, then climbing the stairs,
opening a door that has an alarm on it, and
then you're on the roof and you can get access
to the water tanks. It's a little convoluted to get there.
We have some pictures here where you can look at
it UM and you can find them online too if
you wish look at the Cecil Hotel roof. UM. But

(12:14):
we also know from a video that was posted by
someone online who tried to retrace the steps of Elisa Lamb,
and this person went through the hotel room at the
Cecil Hotel got to one of the top floors, not
the very top one where you can access the roof
through the stairs, but you can access a fire escape

(12:37):
by climbing a ladder and then you can get to
the roof that way, and then from there you can
climb another ladder that gets you up to this smaller
tower that's above where the water tanks are. And it
is very much possible that that is one way Elisa
Lamb did access these water tanks. The hatch itself, the

(12:59):
way you get into one of these water tanks is
about sixteen inches large and UM, I have not seen anyone.
I don't know if you guys have seen anyone like
actually opening one of these things. I haven't seen video
of it, at least I'm not aware of it. Now.
All four tanks are four by eight feet that's one
point to by two point four meters. These cylinders are

(13:23):
propped up on these fairly large concrete blocks, which is
why Lopez describes as a ten foot tank exactly. And
there's no fixed access to them. You can't just climb
up a ladder that's attached to one of these tanks
to get into it. That's why it's thought that perhaps
she went up around the ladder on the other side.
Um and again they're protected by those heavy lids. There

(13:46):
is a Reddit post on Unresolved Mysteries Ben that you
and I definitely looked at, and on here someone goes
through and starts looking at the physics of what this
hatch would be, because it's this is something you can't
find online anywhere through the official sources, and it appears
that would be around thirty pounds to fifty pounds heavy,

(14:09):
depending on what gauge of steel what's made out of,
which is fairly heavy if you think about that, trying
to lift that up, but not impossible to lift certainly
not impossible, and while Lamb was a diminutive person, it's
not automatic proof that she couldn't lift the hatch. The
big question is whether the hatch was locked that night right,

(14:31):
and whether there was some way to access the roof
as a customer guest of the hotel. And that leads
us to the second theory, which is a bit darker.
What if a Lisa Lamb was abducted and murdered. This

(14:52):
would explain why she seemed to be behaving erratically in
the video. Maybe there was someone actually following her that
she was trying to get away from. I find that
a little difficult given you know that she didn't run
that she was just kind of hanging out in this elevator,
looking around, but not really making any efforts to escape

(15:13):
anything immediately threatening her. But let's continue. Um, So there's
no proof that she wasn't murdered. Let's get that out
of the way. For sure, she made blog posts while
she was staying at this hotel, UM talking about having
trouble with quote unquote creepers. UM. I guess you know
you can interpret that any number of ways, whether or

(15:35):
not that was someone that was actually following her around,
a single individual that she identified, or whether it was
just like you said, it was in a bad yeah,
that kind of stuff, more general and pleasantness. Um. The
blog was updated several times after her death, which is
very unusual. One of the images that's on there is

(15:58):
a like a graphic image of a of a light
bulb hanging from a string against a kind of a
drab wall backdrop, and inside the light bulb is um
kind of snowy scene with a with a little shack
and a tree. I found that a little unsettling myself. Um.
But Ben you mentioned you feel like this could have

(16:21):
been a series of scheduled posts perhaps, and people can
do you know, the internet has a weird approach to time.
You can write uh blog post and schedule it for
years in the future technically, but still if you look
at what was it, Noal, you did the legwork on
this too. You you saw the most recent post was

(16:45):
a definitely like the same year, but months later. So
it's then it becomes a question of when when that
post was actually written or scheduled to publish, or if
there was someone else maybe a friend or a relative

(17:05):
or another unknown person who had access to it. The
biggest signpost to to this, like if she had a
murderer who was were an employee at the hotel, then
that would explain why they were able to get up there.
The doors and the stairs that access the hotel's roof

(17:28):
are locked, with only staff having the past code and keys,
and any attempt to force them would have, in theory,
triggered an alarm. For the record, in later legal dealings
between the hotel staff and Lamb's parents lawsuits, the staff
stated that they did not hear any alarm on the
night of Lamb's disappearance and probable death. And something to

(17:53):
think about here is if she did access the roof
through some other means, through a fire escape or something,
it would in my mind, if she was attacked by
someone not on the roof and then taken to the roof,
that would be extremely difficult to do without having access
to the door that has an alarm on it. Yes. Yeah,

(18:14):
that's a very good point, and the lack of evidence
of sexual assault makes some of that a bit difficult
to believe for me. I mean, if you're going to
take a young lady, you know, up to the roof
like that. It seems like you would have nefarious intent
unless it was some sort of serial killer that who'se

(18:34):
m o did not include any kind of sexual assault?
Right right? And if it was a male serial killer,
male serial killers are typically typically have some sort of
aspect of that with them, right. Uh. And you know
a serial killer wouldn't be too out of the ordinary.
At the Cecil Hotel, that's true, it has a history

(18:57):
of uh what was it Ramirez? Richard Ramirez stayed there
for a little while. The not the original night Stalker,
but the night Stalker. Yes, Richard Ramirez, the more mainstream
night Stalker, along with his copycat Jack Unterwager, lived at
the at the Cecil Hotel while they committed their crimes.
This goes into one of the Stranger theories the idea

(19:20):
and this is for people who believe in things like
ghosts or possession and sorts. The Cecil Hotel has a
very troubling history, similar to the Overlook Hotel in the Shining.
It seems to be the by some dark lottery of coincidence.
It is a place where a lot of bad things

(19:42):
have happened. Elizabeth Short, also known as the Black Dahlia
was supposedly staying at the Cecil before she was murdered
in Goldy Ozgood, known as the Pigeon Lady of Persian Square,
was raped and murdered in her hotel room there in
sixty four, and as we said, serial killers stayed there

(20:03):
while they were active. The hotel has also been the
location of multiple many suicides, including and this is a
very strange one, one woman who committed suicide by jumping
out of a window off the ledge and then killed

(20:24):
a completely innocent person who just happened to be walking by.
That is the This is a family show, so I'll
say that is the crappiest day ever. It's almost as
though if there were some sort of malignant energy seeping
out from this place. This is almost an example of
it reaching out into the greater world around it and

(20:47):
you know, having an effect. You know that's true, It's possible.
Or you take the other side and if I embodied
Jonathan Strickland for a moment, you just say, well, maybe
it could just be an area where this hotel is located.
That's in Jonathan Strickland is a is a friend of
the show, host of podcast tech Stuff, and also will

(21:08):
make occasional appearances here. Oh he's also our complaint department,
so if you have any complaints, please send them directly
to Jonathan dot Strickland how stuff works dot com. But yeah,
that is a good point. Is it just simply that
it is a budget hotel in a bad area? I mean,
it's possible, But do you believe that there can be

(21:30):
places with bad or good energy? It's an interesting question
because many times people would dismiss that as some sort
of quote unquote hippy dippy thing. However, we do have
we we did find in an earlier episode on ghosts
that there's compelling evidence that human beings are sensitive to

(21:53):
certain frequencies and energies that we do not consciously interpret.
You know, if someone there there are frequencies that can
make you hallucinate, frequencies of noise, frequencies of electromagnetic radiation,
and the vast majority of people throughout civilization, right because

(22:13):
we only only really recently started understanding magnetism, and uh,
if I could quote I c p, uh don't do
a lot of people still aren't clear on what's going
on with magnets. So most people, such a good way
to put it, most people will just say, you know,
if you hear something spooky, you're at this you're at

(22:35):
this graveyard, or you're at this place where people are
repeatedly citing strange phenomenon and you experience it yourself. A
lot of people aren't going to instantly turn into some
sort of vulcan and go well, logically, a lot of
people are gonna link either run or take out their
camera or freak out. And I wonder if there's a

(22:57):
wonder if there's such things as good places. You know,
there are a couple here in the Atlanta area that
are rumored to be like that. Uh, there's a spot
in Arabia Mountain, which is fun fact also the location
part of the filming location Pet Cemetery too. Really Yeah,
Arabia Mountains an interesting place that you go and it

(23:17):
feels like you're almost on the moon, like if they're
these bizarre craters that support it's some kind of you know,
the specifics of the type of that stem lichen is
it's like red. It makes the water red. So there
are all these pools of blood red water with mossy,
kind of fuzzy little ecosystems within them. Um and it's

(23:41):
and it looks like nothing nowhere else I've ever been
in my life. If you are and little cairns, little
stacks of rocks, is it? Is it cursed the area there?
Or is it a good place? Uh? Well, it seems
to be usually a bad place, because the reports we
would always always hear were that it had a higher

(24:05):
than average incidents of violent crime, which again could just
be the location. It's a very old, old place. It's
part of the fourth largest basaltic extrusion, which it's it's
also as part of the same gigantic chunk of basaltic
rock that formed Stone Mountain, which is another fairly odd

(24:27):
Atlanta attraction. And yeah, like Noll said, the plants there
seemed completely, almost completely alien, you know, and it does
feel like you're in the moon. Uh. There were some
very dodgy murders there in the seventies. You can see
where at the sight of one death, someone wrote the

(24:48):
Lord's Prayer and white paint. And I remember going there
many years ago to have seen somebody scrawling it out
in black paint and writing he can't hear you. And
I don't know who stacks those rocks, but anyway, it's
it's a strange place, and it's easy. It's surprisingly easy
to get lost there too. But for people who believe

(25:11):
in very good places are very bad places are very
spiritual places. We would like to hear what you think,
if you think that's real, and if you think there's
a reason behind it, whether that reason is scientific or spiritual. Uh,
you know, we have you know, we've heard stuff before
about lay lines or the geomagnetic theories. We've also heard

(25:35):
arguments about things like altitude affecting someone's perception or sea level.
It's very fascinating thing. I got a couple additional details
about the Alsa Lamb case that are quite troubling. You
may want to cut this out, guys, but um, apparently

(25:59):
she was in the tank long enough that her remains
contaminated the drinking water and bathing water for the hotel,
and some guests reported, you know, having drank drinking something
wrong was what the taste was off. Yeah, that's one

(26:20):
of the big back and forth that people have had
in the years since, because we know there was definitely
water pressure. But if there's a decomposing it was what
they call more moderately decomposed bodies, So that means it's
bloated screenish, it's you know, it is contamination. So yeah,

(26:43):
those people in those in this place with hundreds of
rooms you're right now, probably drink it. And we didn't
have I couldn't find any reports that confirmed any illness
from that. But statistically it's very very likely that that

(27:05):
happened because these are this was a matter of weeks,
you know. Uh. And and finally, um, the parents Lisa
Lamb's parents actually filed a lawsuit, a negligence lawsuit against
the hotel, but a judge in Los Angeles threw it out,
claiming that the death could in no way have been
considered foreseeable. Um entirely because of the conditions that we described.

(27:30):
In order to get into that tank, she would have
had to scale quite a few treacherous uh situations, including
a ladder to get up to the ledge above it
because there were no accessible ladders on the tanks themselves,
and then would have had to scale down a partial
wall that was above the tank, or just jumped off
of the roof onto the top of the tank. And um,

(27:52):
there was nothing, according to the judge's ruling, that would
have made it inviting in any way or made it
seem like it was okay to be there. Everything pointed
to this person having done this themselves, which I think
is what makes this case so very, very creepy to me.
And also, you know, I'm glad you brought that up,

(28:13):
because one of the most painful things about something like
this is when someone is gone, you know, and if
your child is gone, then that's the beginning of something
that is going to continue for years and maybe never ends.
And they have to go to the to this courtroom,

(28:36):
to stand in front of these strangers to say, you know,
people shouldn't die when they go to your hotel. Our
daughter shouldn't die. And it's and it's tough. You know,
I do not envy. Well, there's always a need to
find answers, and sometimes that leads to a sense for

(28:56):
retaliation against a perceived enemy, you know, and antagonists. Um.
But we should also mention that, you know, bipolar disorder
manifests itself across a very large spectrum. I mean, I've
known people that were considered bipolar, and these behaviors, these
manic episodes followed by these depressive episodes there really mild

(29:19):
and it's very manageable. But given a further trip down
that spectrum, you could find yourself in a place where
you would be driven to do something like this. Well,
your perception of your environment reality UH takes takes a
hard left. It's it's a it's a very serious thing
and it does have a spectrum, and it does have

(29:42):
degrees and especially if you depending on what cocktail you
have running through your body of drugs, right, And so
that's that's a good point to There is an autopsy
report that you can find in PDF form online and
this this thing has some good news. There was a

(30:03):
hair and feurniale kit done, no evidence of physical trauma
nor of sexual assault. They also found no evidence this
is interesting that she would suggest Lamb had committed suicide.
So that's why it's ruled as an accidental drowning, and
they do site bipolar disorder as a significant factor. They

(30:23):
also found her clothes that she's wearing in the elevator
video floating in the water beside her UH, coated with
a quoting here sand like particulate. I'm not sure where
it came from, and her watching room key were there too.
Toxicology tests were done on her blood and they found

(30:46):
traces of her prescription medication. She was on a long
list she had she had a long history of taking medication.
She's probably a better way to say it. Uh. She
also had non prescription drugs, excited tab Ivy profen. She
had point zero two percent alcohol in her blood, but

(31:08):
there were no recreational drugs in her system. And I
mean point zero two percent is like a beer. Yeah,
you know, it's the body is also breaking down at
this point, that's true. And so how long was it
before that she was she was discovered, Just to make
that clear one more time, Yes, so from February one
to February so two weeks, well between two and three weeks. Yeah,

(31:33):
And the full autopsy report was released four months later
in June. But on February one, the coroner's office ruled
it an accidental drowning. There are so many unexplained things
that that occurred that night and then from that date
up until she was found and even now today, and

(31:56):
there are so many ideas about what this could be,
of what could have happened. Some of them even veer
into this spooky maybe I mean almost a sense that
there were some occult activity going on some of the
message boards and various postings and sort of more conspiracy
conspiracy oriented forums and groups that I've seen, um, you know,
talk about this case in the same breath as Alistair Crowley,

(32:20):
the kinds of summoning rituals that he would have done
with these hand movements, the touts that we were talking
about earlier, or um with the possession, the demon possession,
kind of versions of the story with this being a
bad place, very much like the movie pet Cemetery, which
came up unrelated to this, actually talking about locations of

(32:41):
the filming, but you know that had to do with
a location that was built on the soul, the saw
tainted ground ground. Richard Ramirez also was a practicing occultist.
He practiced what he considered to be left hand pas
magical rituals, and this is something that I think is

(33:03):
thrown around far too often. But another thing that I
seems to pop up a lot about this case is
that this is an example of some sort of Illuminati
ritual exposed to the public um in a way that
perhaps the ones perpetrating it wouldn't have wanted to happen.
So let's continue down this path, this rabbit hole. Let's

(33:24):
look at some more extraordinary theories regarding this incident. After
a quick word from our sponsors, one of the strangest
accounts that we read. One of the strangest theories we

(33:47):
found regarding the events on the night of February first
was an urban legend that originated in Korea, and it
is called the Elevator Game. This is completely speculative. We

(34:11):
have not played this game. I don't know if we
would want to. I cannot wait to do this. The
idea I would rank this in the old dare Daring
your friends to do stuff games that so many people
play growing up, turning off the lights, saying bloody Mary

(34:31):
several times in a mirror things right, candy Man. So
the ideas that by performing a certain ritual in an
elevator very specific when you will arrive at a slightly
off kilter plane of existence. And I'll read some stuff
from just the account of the Elevator game. According to

(34:55):
people that have completed the game successfully, it looks the
same as the town and building the you're from when
you emerge, but all the lights are off. You can
only see a red cross in the distance. You're the
only living thing in this plane, and for the most part,
electronics don't work. If you manage to get to this
strange place, returning to the real world is more difficult.

(35:18):
You will grow disordented. The elevator door will seem to
grow further and further away as you walk toward it.
Only one person can play the game at a time.
It can only be performed in a building at least
ten stories high with at least one elevator in it.
Otherwise you cannot proceed. And they have the instructions for traveling,
and we don't have to go through all of this,

(35:40):
but one of the ideas would be you enter the
well the basic steps. You enter the elevator from the
first floor by yourself. If anyone else gets on, you
cannot continue the ritual and you have to wait until
you can take the elevator alone. You press the button
for the fourth floor. When it reaches the fourth floor,
you stay inside the elevator and press the button for
the second floor. Don't get out. When you reach the

(36:03):
second floor, stay in and press the button for the
sixth floor, and then after that don't get out. Remain
in the elevator, go back to the second floor, and
once you reach the second floor, press the button for
the tenth floor. And if you hear anything calling to
you on the second floor, do not reply. Don't answer.

(36:26):
And then once you're so it's very intricate, right, this
pattern of buttons. Right, So, once you reach the tenth floor,
stay on and press the button for the fifth floor.
This is the creepy part. They say that when you
enter the when you when you get to the fifth floor,
after you've done this series of buttons, a woman will

(36:49):
enter a stranger. Uh. A strange woman will enter the elevator,
and she'll try to talk to you, and you can't
acknowledge them. She might this person might even appear as
someone you are familiar with, according to the legend, the
old high school friend, co worker. UH. And then you
press the It's important that you don't look at this

(37:12):
person all. And if you press the button to head
to the first floor. This is when you know the
ritual worked correctly, because you'll push the button for the
first floor and instead of going to the first floor,
you go to the tenth You start going up, and
then if you reach the tenth floor, you can stay

(37:34):
on our exit the elevator. UH. Some have said that
when they are trying to leave, the woman will try
one last time to engage with you. She may raise
your voice, she may shriek at you. There's only one
way to know. Whether you travel to the other world,
for sure, you will be the only living thing there.

(37:54):
And then they have instructions to get back to the
get back to the actual world, our world. Uh, and
they're they're they're pretty detailed. So this has all the
makings of an urban legend, right. It has all the tropes.
It has a it has the fear of strangers, It

(38:17):
has the importance of ritual and rule following. It has
anonymity and authors. It has no specific examples of times
that this occurred. So, uh, the best way for you
and I and everyone else to find out whether this
works would be to attempt it here. We cannot attempt

(38:41):
it in our office because our office is not ten stories,
so that would be a different ritual really fast. Along
with these things that you're listening off about, what makes
it an urban legend. One issue here is that electronics,
most electronics don't seem to work or for the most part,

(39:03):
or which you know, you try and film this so
you can put it on YouTube and show yourself going
to an alternate plane. It's probably not gonna happen because
electronics don't work. Also, you need to be alone, And
would that violate one of the rules by having a
camera which is in some way an infinite number of viewers. Yeah,
but how about this fellas. Another thing about urban legends

(39:26):
is that they're you know, cobbled together from bits of
things that may or may not be true. The thing
you end up with is sort of the product of
a game of telephone played over generations. Sometimes, you know,
what if a story like this, What if there was
some truth to it? What if the procedure outlined here
is not exactly right. What if someone really had the
right way of doing this and did involve an elevator.

(39:47):
Maybe it involves some strange hand gestures. Maybe it involved,
you know, pressing a certain row of buttons all the way.
And maybe there's an apparition of some sort in that
elevator footage that is being communicated with in some way.
I mean, I don't usually go for this kind of stuff,

(40:08):
but this story really got my imagination going. And I
can't help but think of that tumbler image that was
posted after Melissa Lamb's death so long after of a
single lightbulb with another world contained inside, hanging from a
string against a drab backdrop. It just kind of represents

(40:29):
to me this idea of a different world going to
a different place. Yeah, that you know, that's a very
good point. And only also it also calls to mind
our discussion about rituals and grim wise, you know, the
idea that maybe there is a real ritual and it
it just isn't specifically explained correctly. And we do know

(40:51):
the one thing that escapes a lot of people about
folk tales and fairy tales. It's easy to dismiss them.
But like no said with the game of telephone for generations,
these are cobbled from very very old old stories. All
so many of those urban legends that you may hear

(41:11):
about UFOs began as stories of gods and mountains and
evil spirits or fairies or faye. And so this likely
does have the DNA might say, of of something else.
And the way that the way that they associate the

(41:33):
people who believe that this elevator game through the way
they associated is with exactly as you pointed out, the
button pushing and the deliberate seeming motions that this person takes.
But I wonder if anybody has thought about the point
that you made, which I don't think I've heard. I

(41:55):
think this is the first time I've thought about it.
The lightbulb image. Uh, not to poke holes in the
theory too much, but Alisa Lamb, at least according to
the video, never travels on the elevator, stays on one floor.
And I'm glad you brought that up because people who
claim to be video editor experts have controversial views about that.

(42:20):
And this is where I wanted to defer to you guys,
to your expertise. Do you think the video is edited?
I know the time stamp is obscured in the original
because several people watched it and said that it was
edited for people who are not, you know, pursuing some
kind of uh, supernatural or extraordinary explanation. The people who

(42:44):
think there is a conspiracy, perhaps on the part of
the hotel or perhaps even on the l A p D.
On the l A p D s end Uh, they
say that there was someone else visible on the camera,
but time had and cut out or spliced, and and
I wanted to know what what you guys think of that.

(43:05):
The biggest thing for me in watching it is I
cannot find a good enough rip of the original one.
The the video that's posted under what is it Dennis Romero,
that's the one with seventeen million views that we were
talking about, and then that's obviously the most commonly viewed

(43:28):
one just from the numbers, but it is so pixelated
and everything, like the numbers at the bottom with the
time code or what I'm assuming is time code on
the bottom left hand corner. It's just it looks strange
to me, and it's so little quality that it would
be very hard to determine whether or not this thing

(43:51):
was affected in post somehow to look in a certain way,
because you could manipulate the contents of this imagery fairly easily. Okay,
So in that case, it's sort of inconclusive. That's what
I would say. Okay, what do you think? It wasn't
anything that would have been easy to edit that actually

(44:12):
hit me about it. It was just more the way
she moved, you know, it was like the way she
the things that she did. So you are you saying
that like it may have been there may have been
parts of it that were edited out, perhaps where the
elevator was in motion, where she did get on and
took the elevator to another floor, or someone else did
at some point get on the elevator with her. And

(44:33):
then the numbers down here that it appears to be
a time code that's in white as the primary color,
and then there's either a drop shadow or a black
background on top of the numbers, and that's generally not
what you see in time code. Perhaps it is for
this system that's used in the hotel, but it looks

(44:54):
strange to me as someone who works with video on
a daily basis. Why does it matter whether it moved
or not. Um, I guess for more information on her travels,
like whether she was truly alone, and you know, if that,
if it was available to the police, then they would
know and that would be part of the investigation hopefully.

(45:14):
And I'll put on my I'll put I'll put on
my Johnathan cap here for a second to and say
that the one of one of the people who believed
that the video was edited as some sort of conspiracy
maybe if there was a if there was a murder
and was someone at the hotel or something. The their
idea is that it was edited to cut that person

(45:36):
off from appearing on camera. However, we should also point
out that even unto the idea of door locks and stuff,
this is kind of a CD hotel or a budget hotel, right,
and it's got a lot of history. But also it's
not as likely to follow procedures to a t, including

(45:58):
stuff like elevator maintenance. So if it's an older elevator,
it could just be malfunctioning. I don't know if that's
the case. I haven't talked to the elevator maintenance guy,
I haven't checked their paperwork from but that does seem
to be a possibility. If someone were to be murdered
in a hotel, is the hotel libel to the family

(46:19):
of the victim. That's a really good question. I guess
it would only be through if it were through negligence,
So if we were, I don't want to use us
for example, who are other coworkers Jonathan? Okay, sure, he's
gonna love this episode, all right, So if Jonathan, we're
in uh, we're in a hotel room, and he invited

(46:43):
guests over and one of let's keep his hands clean.
One of his friends murdered another one of his friends
in an argument over the Renaissance Festival clue style. Clues style, yes, yeah, okay,
clue style. Uh it was Aberil von Battenborough in unit

(47:05):
with the chopsticks, with the chopsticks. Okay, yeah, I knew
you were there. That's brutal. Von Battenborough is a very
brutal man, even when he's out of character. Well, what
would happen then? As I think the who, and I'm
not a lawyer, I think the hotel would not be
responsible because they, on their part, did nothing wrong to

(47:28):
assist that if you are at a hotel, you can
usually bring guests, and if the hotel's rooms and units
are up to code in terms of safety and everything,
then there's nothing wrong if they if it could be
proven that the person at the counter, let's say our

(47:54):
coworker Lauren was at the counter there as the as
the clerk, and this Admiral von Batberg guy said I'm
going up to you know, I'm going to murder one
of Jonathan Strickland's friends, and she didn't call the cops,
then she would be liable as an individual. But what

(48:16):
about even if like an employee of the hotel gave
someone information that finding someone that didn't want to be found,
For example, Yeah, Like, I just wonder that's a really
good point, because that happens on both sides of the law.
That happens when police are hunting down a missing person
or someone who committed a crime and is on the run.

(48:38):
But that also would happen, you know, with an abusive
spouse or a hit man. That's a very good question.
I'm interested. We should throw this to the listeners. Ladies
and gentlemen, if you have a history in the hospitality business,
we would like to know, uh, purely for informational purposes, right,

(49:00):
no plans, right, Okay, So we would like to know
how how that legally works, because a lot of hotels,
by the by the mirror, by their mere existence as
temporary housing, could plausibly have any of the crimes that

(49:20):
occur in in a permanent house occur there murder, assault, theft, kidnapping,
and so at what point is the hotel liable? This
is really making me rethink hotels. Man. I never ever
say at some place that you don't control. Really fast

(49:42):
this video, I just I was looking back through it
again as you guys are having that discussion, and at
two fifty six in the time code of the Dennish
Romero version. There is clearly, clearly a stop in the
time code, pausing the video in the doors begins closing.
That's one of the places that people I went through
the comments, that's one of the places that people have
noticed something is off. And you'll see a few instances

(50:06):
of that where you can clearly tell that whatever time
code is generated at the bottom skips a bit and
or stops. So is it possible then that it could
be just a cut for time? Is it possible that
the law enforcement just dispersed the most relevant part of

(50:28):
absolutely possibility for our footage. But we won't know unless
we were told that directly by someone who was on
the case. And there is one other theory, one final
theory that we found that is a very strange coincidence.
That's what I'm gonna call this one, a very strange coincidence,

(50:50):
and it ultimately ties into or implicitly ties into the
concept of human experimentation. When Eliza Lamb was in California
at this time, there was a tuberculosis tests occurring, a
large scale one, and the goals of this were too

(51:16):
combat the rise of drug resistant TB Noble aspiration. It
is a one that is important to the species as
a whole. The official name of this test of this
project was Lamb Elisa l A N E L I
S A, the same spelling of Eliza's Aliza Lamb's name

(51:38):
Eliza Lamb the person. Because of this very strange coincidence,
many people have speculated that the disappearance and death are
somehow related. And because of this I, as well as

(52:00):
some other problems with the autopsy reporter or cited controversies
with the autopsy report, UH, people believe that maybe this
was the tip of an iceberg of another mass human experimentation.
And as much as um, as much as we would
the three of us would like to say, no, that's crazy,

(52:21):
that would never happen. We've looked at cases where the
US government conducted widespread and dangerous experiments on its own
population in St. Louis in southern California, and uh, they
gave people syphilis or or excuse me, the official story

(52:43):
is they just didn't treat syphilis. They looked at the effect.
They looked at the effects. So we knew know that
human experimentation occurs. However, what we also know is that
the public tends to find out about this decades decades later,
and it's the old weisia board argument, right, like, if

(53:04):
there is a real, if there really is a way
to contact the afterlife, is it in a mass produced
game by Parker Brothers and still no proof? If there
is a if there is a vast nefarious citywide or
you know, large scale secret human experimentation project, are they

(53:27):
going to name it after one of the people involved?
You know what I mean? That's like calling it That's
like Matt Frederick having a human Sacrifice ring operating in
Arabia Mountain and the seventies and then having putting out
a public notice about Matt Frederick's hop secret human sacrifice

(53:49):
ring the sacrifice dash Human Right or Yeah right dot org.
It's a nonprofit, so that coincidence while string with the
information we have now, it's tough to call it anything else.
And at this point, it seems like the majority of

(54:09):
people believed that this was a very unfortunate, tragic, heartbreaking
incident that happened completely involving Eliza Lamb. On our own, however,
we would like to know what you think are the
questions that people opposing um Are they utter bunk or

(54:33):
they malarkey? Is there something more to the story. And
while you're at it, Uh, what other unexplained disappearances or
deaths would you like us to explore in the future.
Let us know what you think. And speaking of hearing
from you, what do you say, guys, should we do?

(54:54):
Shut at Konna? Our first shout out goes to Jacob
also known as Hancho Hancho underscore one. Is it all
right that I said that, Jacob? I hope so, because
I did. Have you guys ever looked into un Agenda
twenty one? Oh, yes, we have, sir, supposedly quote the

(55:17):
naked communist ties in with it. I had a human
growth and development professor that made us watch the documentary
Agenda Grinding America Down. Well, we have covered Agenda twenty
one in video form. You can find that on our
YouTube channel or at stuff they don't want you to
know dot com. The best U r L in the

(55:39):
history of the internets. And this is this has to
do with food production and well, there's a lot of
stuff that goes into Agenda twenty one. It's characterized as
a sustainable as a voluntary action plan for sustainable development,

(56:00):
which means that, uh, they're hoping to combat poverty. They're
hoping to create more more legal protection for environmental concerns
the forestation, bio diversity, control, pollution, et cetera. Opponents of
it say typically say that this is removing severenity UH

(56:25):
and agency from individual countries. And this is a huge
this is a huge documents, three fifty pages. It's forty
chapters long. I have I I am always surprised when
someone has read the entire thing. UH. And it's not

(56:46):
too popular in the US. Well, here's the best way
to say it, Hancho. June two twelve poll of US
voters found that nine percent of the people supported it,
six percent of it, six percent opposed it, and said

(57:07):
they didn't have an opinion because they didn't know what
it is, because it didn't have enough information. And I'm
going to check out the documentary you recommended, Grinding America Down.
I have not seen that yet, have you guys seen that?
I have not, but you know, just from the research
I had done previously with you guys on this, I

(57:27):
don't look at Agenda twenty one kindly too much because
it does feel like there's maybe something to it that
gets in I don't want to say gets into eugenics
too much. It's the population control. It feels that way
to me, even though that's not stated anywhere right any
in any of the documents that they're official. It just

(57:49):
has that feeling. That's uh the way I view it currently.
The main the main criticism I've heard in the West
against UH Agenda one is the idea that it is
creating a global order and or a global dictatorship. So
you'll hear a lot of a lot of people say
that it is um eroding American severenity. Yeah, it's like

(58:16):
twenty four years old, now five years old. How time flies?
How time flies when you have big plans? Right, thank
you for writing in Hancho. We have another shout out.
Our second shout out of the day comes from riker
Ce Dear Conspiracy, Hey, how's it going guys. I'm a

(58:36):
truck driver, so for around eleven hours a day, I
pretty much do anything I can to fight off the boredom.
Um you guys, along with the stuff you should no team,
really make my day a lot easier. And I've been
binge listening a lot of your stuff lately. I've been
skipping around a lot, but today I listened to your
episode on the Fermi Paradox. And I know I'm incredibly
late on this, but I wanted to add something that
I thought would surprise you that you guys did not

(58:57):
discuss in our solar system. This takes up about ninety
nine point nine percent of the matter here. Of the
remaining point one percent, Jupiter takes up about seventy of that. Uh.
In our own solar system, we're basically nothing. Imagine how
hard that minuscule amount of matter would be to pick
up on various equipment. Um. Yeah, if it even showed
up at all, it could be attributed to a rounding error. Uh.

(59:21):
It's entirely likely that an intelligent life form visited our
solar system in a search for life but just looked
us over as a computing error. Just wanted to offer
up another explanation on the subject. It was one of
my favorite episodes. You guys are great, and for my
sanity sake, please keep up the awesome work. Also, do
you guys ever plan on doing any kind of work
with Aaron from the Lower Podcast? Your cryptid stuff is

(59:42):
really interesting and it would be a dream come true
to hear that you guys are guest starring or he's
guest starring. Well, that's cool. We're actually going to be
on a bill with Lore at the New York City
pod Fest April nine at the Bell House in Brooklyn,
so maybe we can make make friends there and yeah,
technically we can say that we are in a show.

(01:00:03):
Yeah technically. Uh, that's a that's that's a pretty pretty
great idea. Maybe we should maybe we should write to him,
see if you wants to hang out, and not to
mention the computing error stuff. I mean, I think that
is interesting if you're looking, if you're monitoring, you know,
big picture stuff from far, far, far far away. It's
true that we are a bit of a spec. We're
a blue, tiny bluespec. We are not near as important

(01:00:25):
as we think we are. That is pretty much the
story of human history, right, but the the I really
appreciate that, and uh, don't feel bad. Don't don't feel
bad about being quote unquote late wriker. That's that's awesome.
That's a point that I personally didn't consider at all,

(01:00:45):
you know, and it probably works both ways, right, because
if there's another planet around the same size, right, even
if it's very advanced advanced civilization our odds of finding
it with our comparatively rudimentary equipment are even more infantessimal.

(01:01:07):
It's a big world, It's a big universe. It makes
you think. Also, big shout out to your parents Riker
for naming you that, or you if you changed your
name however got there. And maybe it's just a moniker
the cool name. Yeah, these are these are all great names. Hancho, Jacob,
it's Jacob. I like Hancho alright, Sorry, sorry, Jacob. I

(01:01:30):
think both of your names are awesome. It's just Hancho
seems like such a cool like street name. You know
what I mean? You know I'd roll with Hancho. Yeah,
I'd roll with Hancho too. We've got another shout out
for today from somebody else who has an awesome name
and is Miranda s. Hey, guys, absolutely love the show.

(01:01:53):
Been a fan for years and so happy you guys
do audio podcasts now as well. I was wondering if
maybe you guys could do an episode about the Deep Web.
Maybe did already? Not sure. Also, vile magic slash satanic
sects would be an interesting subject, as with the science
behind chaos, magic and sigils, or their relation to sosionic
manifestation as a whole. Anyway, keep up the great work

(01:02:15):
you guys. Help me breathe through my work day, Miranda.
We uh we do. We're we're in luck. We do,
in fact have an episode on the Deep Web on
the on the basics of it um and you can
also check out some I feel like we have to
we have to play nice with our coworker Johnathan at
the end of this episode. You can also check out

(01:02:37):
some of the episodes he has about the Deep Web,
which are great and uh my favorite one personally that
we've done is the interview with Alex Winter, who made
a documentary called the Deep Web or Deep Web. Yeah,
we uh we did have an interview with him, very
very cool guy, very knowledgeable as well. Uh well, the

(01:03:00):
on the subject of magic, satanic sex or chaos, magic
and sigils. And to be clear s E. C. T. S. Yes, yes, yes,
thank you matt On on that point, there are we
We've done some work on magic in the past, and
we we really I think we have a wealth of

(01:03:23):
strange opportunities when it comes to examining specific uh specific
occult sects like you know nol earlier mentioned Alistair Crowley
and uh and we were talking about occult theories in
this episode, and I love to delve into the Great Beast,

(01:03:45):
at least conversationally. Yeah, and so we'd like to follow
up on that for now. This concludes Gosh and it
also concludes today's episode of The Stuff I Want You
to Know a podcast. One more thing though, my god,
I know, come on, I'm not a coffee. If you

(01:04:06):
guys are interested in that elevator ritual that we were
discussing earlier, there is an Oculus rift experience called the
elevator ritual where in you get into an elevator and
you do the steps where you go up to the
second floor, or no, you go up to the fourth floor.
Then second six second, eight seconds, you do the whole thing,

(01:04:26):
and there may or may not be an ethereal woman involved,
but it sounds exciting. No thanks, y'all can have that.
I don't have an access to an oculus, so I
can't really do it. I think the thing is nolan.
I are not the guys in horror movies who go,
what was that noise? I'm gonna check it out, see
that's me though I don't I don't even want to

(01:04:47):
go to like haunted houses and stuff like, you know,
the produced ones, not've never been to one. Don't plan
on change in that anytime soon. I prefer to be
the thing hiding in the dark waiting. Yeah that thing, Matt. Yeah,
believe in yourself. Man, we have you know, it's it's
soon as a haunted houses thing. It's just never been
my cup of tea. I would, I would, Uh, I

(01:05:09):
like control. I'm a control freak. Well, I just you know,
I'm glad that people are having fun. And on a
technical level, I'm sure to makeup is impressive. But I
live in Atlanta. If I want to run through a
sketchy area and have people jump out and try to
grab me, then I can just walk there you go.

(01:05:33):
So what do you say, Matt? Can we end the
show now? I think we can? Said, okay, I give
you permission, thanks buddy, even though I have no permission
to give you my favorite and I am painfully aware
of that. No, we're we're mostly kidding. We are all
actually friends who hang out outside of the show, and
that reminds us. If you happen to be in New York,

(01:05:53):
we're going to put together some kind of hangout thing
there in April, so let us let us know if
you're in town. Will at more details coming soon. You
can find them, as long as many other stories that
don't make it to air on our Facebook and Twitter,
where we're conspiracy stuff on our Instagram with that has
some really cool pictures up presently from DC courtesy of Noel,

(01:06:14):
where conspiracy stuff show on that. And if none of
that pushes your buttons, you can write to us directly remembered,
let us know about mysterious disappearances we should investigate in
the future, let us know your thoughts on some of
the theories you heard today, and if you want to
write something completely random, we'd love to read that too.

(01:06:35):
We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.