DARK WEB: Blank Room Soup (A So SOUPernatural Bonus)

Shortly after the launch of YouTube in 2005, a mysterious and unsettling video was uploaded to the site. It featured a man eating soup in what appeared to be a form of torture carried out by people in masks. The video became a series that sparked a lot of controversy. In this episode Rasha and Yvette are joined by Brit Prawat to ask, was Blank Room Soup a hoax or the precursor to something very real and very sinister?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  We don't just alert, we help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time.

• 0:24Speaker 02

  Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 0:32Yvette Gentile?

  It's wild to think how much YouTube has become a part of our lives over the last two decades. Now, it's where we go for our workout videos, our how-to videos, our podcasts. I know I go there for all my recipe videos.

• 0:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  And then you send them to me.

• 0:49Yvette Gentile?

  And then I definitely send them to you. It's how so many people exclusively stream all of their content. But YouTube also has a very dark side, and it has since the very beginning. There's a lot of content that is incredibly disturbing. It's weird, even supernatural. It's one place on the internet where we can go to question the boundaries of our reality, where we can watch videos that challenge our beliefs, what we, you know, truly know about the world. It's also one of the few corners of the internet where anything is possible.

• 1:32Yvette Gentile?

  Take a series of clips collectively known as Blank Room Soup. The first video was posted on YouTube in the year 2005. I didn't even know that YouTube existed in 2005. But anyway, shortly after YouTube launched is when Blank Room Soup was posted, and several follow-up videos went viral online afterwards. They're mostly famous because nobody's entirely sure what the heck is going on. They might be a snuff film depicting a person's final moments before they're killed.

• 2:11Rasha Pecoraro?

  They might be aliens performing some kind of murderous ritual, which of course, aliens, we have to talk about aliens, right? Or they might be something even darker, like a glimpse of hell itself. The most fascinating part is, the questions are still unanswered to this day, over 20 years later. I'm Rasha Pecoraro. And I'm Yvette Gentile. And I'm Britt. I'm sorry, I just, I'm just fanning girl out right now. Oh my God, oh my God. And welcome back to So Supernatural.

• 3:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm like, oh my God. I just heard, "And I'm Britt" in person, and I'm like freaking out.

• 3:24Speaker 05

  It's funnier when me and Ashley have to introduce ourselves to new people. And she's like, "I'm Ashley Flowers." And I say, "And I'm Britt," like in real life.

• 3:30Rasha Pecoraro?

  Oh my God. Do you do it?

• 3:32Speaker 05

  It's her name. It's really hard to not do it. Yeah.

• 3:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  I love you so much. Oh my God. Well, needless to say, we are so excited to be here for this episode of So Supernatural, because we are diving into one of the oldest mysteries on the internet, an elusive video dubbed Blank Room Soup. But before we get into that, Yvette and I have another surprise this week. If you haven't figured it out, we are doing today, third host, we've officially stolen her from Crime Junkie. That's right. So she's now ours.

• 4:13Speaker 05

  I'm so excited to be here.

• 4:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yes, the one and only Britt Preywitz.

• 4:18Speaker 05

  Hi, guys. This is, I'm so excited about this episode. I can't wait to hear the story. I remember this time of YouTube, so like, I can't wait to dive in.

• 4:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  Oh, well, I'm happy that you're the expert, because yes, we knew nothing about it in 2005, but we know now. We are relying on you. Okay. No pressure, Britt.

• 4:38Yvette Gentile?

  So today, we are turning back the clock to the early days of YouTube, which first went live in February of 2005. And at that time, there were no influencers, there were no ads. The whole YouTube culture that exists today, it hadn't been developed yet. But this launch was still a pretty big deal. And there weren't any other websites that let people easily upload and share their own videos online, even though YouTube's interface was still pretty simple and pretty basic. People couldn't subscribe to a feed or even watch videos fullscreen. I mean, I just have to say, I didn't know anything about YouTube until this one over here turned me on to it because

• 5:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  I created my own YouTube channel.

• 5:25Yvette Gentile?

  That's right.

• 5:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  Excuse me. Thank you very much. So sweet. Yeah, but it's the only reason I did it, honestly, it was, and this was in 2013. So it wasn't even in the beginning of YouTube. I didn't even, like I said, I didn't even know YouTube existed in 2005. But I had been on the reality TV show The Biggest Loser. Yeah. And the majority of us, if you haven't seen the Netflix documentary, I'll tell you. There's a lot of things going on. A lot of things going on, and the majority of us gained our weight back. And a lot of us had weight loss surgery. And none of us were talking about it. So I'm like, I'm gonna talk about it. Yeah. You know, I had weight loss surgery in 2013, and here we are all these years later, and I've kept the weight off. And YouTube was a platform for you to tell that story. Yeah, and it was for amateurs too, you know, anybody could go on there and tell their story.

• 6:10Rasha Pecoraro?

  I did it with my iPhone. Right. But anyway, it takes about 10 months for YouTube to become, you know, what it looks like today. Yeah. Yeah, starts to be. And it gets a little help on November 26, 2005, when a shocking new video gets posted. It's uploaded by a user named Renaissance Men. The title of the clip is Freaky Soup Guy. It's one minute and 6 seconds long, but don't be fooled by that short runtime. They still managed to cover a lot in that minute and 6 seconds. This video opens with a man- Man in a white tank top, eating a bowl of soup.

• 6:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  And it's in a very stark, white room, no decor. He's sitting at this wooden table, under fluorescent lighting, almost like he's in an office building of some kind, you can't really tell. But there's something off about the way he's eating. It's not like it's a mukbang where you're like, okay, I'm watching every movie he makes. First of all, he's not using a normal spoon. He's trying to slurp out of an oversized ladle or some kind of serving utensil. And you can't see the guy's face because there's a big, black sensor bar over it. It's very disturbing. He's sort of panting as he's eating, almost like he's out of breath.

• 7:36Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, and it's almost like, obviously, he doesn't want to be there.

• 7:40Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right. So he's exciting it.

• 7:41Yvette Gentile?

  Like, he's almost like he's forced.

• 7:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, it's really creepy. All you can see behind him is a doorway, but it's completely dark. So you can't tell what's through that door. Okay. However, as soon as the video starts playing, someone walks in through the doorway. They're in a costume, black clothes with bulky, white gloves. And this is where it gets weird. They're in an oversized cartoonish mask, is the best way I can describe it. It makes them look like they have a huge doll-like bobble head with dark, black circles for eyes and no nose or a mouth. The doll walks toward the man and pats his back,

• 8:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  almost like he's trying to comfort him. But then, the man who was eating the soup just starts uncontrollably sobbing and crying. Even though he's clearly in distress, he still keeps eating the soup, almost like he can't stop.

• 8:47Yvette Gentile?

  Then at about the 45 second mark or so, a second life-sized doll creature appears just out of frame. They're dressed exactly the same as the first doll, and they are also patting the guys back. Then, another 20 seconds or so after that, the video just ends. There's no caption, no explanation of what we just watched. Nothing.

• 9:15Speaker 05

  Which is like, a shocking situation. And again, with no context. It's a minute and 6 seconds.

• 9:21Yvette Gentile?

  Yep.

• 9:22Speaker 05

  All this happens, but nothing happens? But there really is so much there to unpack. It's just, what is it?

• 9:29Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 9:30Rasha Pecoraro?

  And why are we watching it?

• 9:31Yvette Gentile?

  And why are we obsessively watching it, right?

• 9:34Speaker 05

  Why upload it? To be watched.

• 9:36Yvette Gentile?

  To be watched, right. To be clear, Freaky Soup Guy doesn't include any physical violence or anything, right? So he's not being beaten, but he's obviously...

• 9:46Speaker 05

  But it's still off-putting.

• 9:47Yvette Gentile?

  Yes, it's very off-putting. Again, nobody gets hurt, there's no blood, there's no gore, and yet, like you just said, it's off-putting. In spite of that, I mean, the video itself, as we all have just said, is very disturbing, right? Mostly because nobody can explain why the man is that upset in the first place, and why is he eating that much soup? And it almost seems like someone is forcing him to choke it all down. Because of that, some people watch the clip, and they immediately think, "This man is being tortured." Right? I mean, I just have to ask you, like,

• 10:32Yvette Gentile?

  what would your gut reaction be? Do you think...

• 10:36Speaker 05

  The way he's like, choking it down, and like, then he starts uncontrollably weeping. The fact that his face is covered, it feels, yeah, kind of torturous. Like, someone, even the kind of pats on the back feel condescending.

• 10:52Yvette Gentile?

  Hundred percent.

• 10:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, it definitely doesn't feel like he's there willingly.

• 10:57Yvette Gentile?

  Because he wants to be.

• 10:58Speaker 05

  Right.

• 10:59Yvette Gentile?

  Or, or does it feel like performance art?

• 11:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right, that could be another theory. Yeah, but despite it being disturbing, upsetting, and so confusing...

• 11:09Rasha Pecoraro?

  People can't seem to look away. And before long, that video goes viral.

• 11:16Speaker 05

  Which, we were talking about this a little bit before when we were talking about this video or this video series. There weren't a lot of videos out there. I mean, YouTube is 10 months old.

• 11:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 05

  So viral is kind of relative in theory, but also, I just remember like, seeing a funny video or seeing a weird video even in that sort of like baby YouTube time. And sharing it, and that being the video that me and my friends watched exclusively for a month. Because guess what? There was nothing else. There was nothing else to watch. It was a video on the internet and like, we were internet babies. And so like, of course it got shared because we were sharing anything. And everything that was provoking a conversation, maybe not a good one.

• 12:02Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 12:02Speaker 05

  But something, because there was just, it was so new and exciting to be able to even do something like that.

• 12:07Yvette Gentile?

  Right, and you just nailed it right there. This is something that's new and fresh. So obviously, people are gonna be obsessed with it and trying to figure it out, right?

• 12:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  But rumors started to spread that it didn't originate on YouTube.

• 12:21Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 12:22Rasha Pecoraro?

  It originated on the dark web.

• 12:26Speaker 05

  We've had the dark web that long?

• 12:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  That was our question. And like, in all honesty.

• 12:33Yvette Gentile?

  I didn't know what the dark web was.

• 12:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  I didn't either, because I thought it was just something that was used in like TV shows. I didn't know it was an actual thing. So tell me what the dark web actually is. Because like, I need an actual definition.

• 12:44Yvette Gentile?

  Let me break it down in layman terms, okay? The dark web refers to a bunch of websites that can only be accessed using special computer programs. And they're hidden and they're very hard to find. Mostly because people who use the dark web are sharing illegal content. So, there is that. So imagine the internet is a city block. You have websites like YouTube, Facebook, or Amazon. And these are like stores or businesses, right? And anyone can go in and you're pretty, you're pretty safe, right? But the dark web is the seedy back alley that you can only enter if you're up to some shady stuff. Right?

• 13:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  I didn't even know it was a real thing.

• 13:32Speaker 05

  I mean, we, I know about it because we've talked about it before. It's been in cases that we've covered on Crime Junkie. But it is always, for me, it's shocking to hear that this was something that, if it predicates YouTube at YouTube's infancy, and it came from somewhere else first, how long has that been around? Like, that is even wilder to consider for me.

• 13:55Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 13:56Yvette Gentile?

  Now, there's no reason to think Freaky Soup Guy appeared on the dark web before it was posted on YouTube. But it's not surprising people believe that. But the contents feel a little too creepy to have originated on an easily accessible site like YouTube.

• 14:12Speaker 05

  Right.

• 14:13Yvette Gentile?

  Right?

• 14:13Speaker 05

  That, like, discomfort in the video, it feels icky.

• 14:17Rasha Pecoraro?

  As odd and icky as Freaky Soup Guy is, the mystery is about to get weirder. Because soon after the clip hits the internet, there's more. At least three follow-up videos end up getting posted, and they hint that something even more violent is going on inside the Blank Room.

• 14:47Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen. Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing. Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions. And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts. So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 15:32Speaker 06

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 15:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  It's safe to say follow-up videos were created by whoever made Freaky Soup Guy, the first video, right? Because of how similar they appeared. For example, the second video is 42 seconds long, very close to that 66 seconds. It starts out the same as the first one with the same Freaky Soup Guy, the same man dressed in the same outfit, eating with the same oversized spoon or ladle. This time, he's gagging and choking, like it's difficult for him to even take another bite, but he keeps shoveling it down his throat anyway.

• 16:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  But this time, you can see what looks like a napkin and a can of soda on the table, too. Then, our two doll characters are back. They come into the blank room from the hallway. They stand by the doorway, watching Freaky Soup Guy struggle for a while. One with their arms crossed, another with their arms by their side. Then, out of nowhere, one of them charges straight for the man. And then, of course, the video ends a millisecond before they get to him.

• 17:01Speaker 05

  And just cuts out.

• 17:02Rasha Pecoraro?

  But right before it cuts out, you hear someone start to scream.

• 17:07Speaker 05

  And then it just cuts to black.

• 17:09Rasha Pecoraro?

  Fade to black, yep.

• 17:10Speaker 05

  Whoa.

• 17:11Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 05

  Creepy, right? Yeah, I mean, these characters are already intimidating. And to just be looming in the background and then charging at the guy, a scream and then nothing.

• 17:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, so we don't know what happened.

• 17:25Speaker 05

  And he's in the same outfit. The table is a little different because there's more stuff on it.

• 17:30Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yes.

• 17:31Speaker 05

  But we don't know if it's the same. Day, the same video.

• 17:36Yvette Gentile?

  We have no idea.

• 17:38Speaker 05

  Like a different day, but the exact same setup.

• 17:40Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 17:41Speaker 05

  We know nothing.

• 17:41Rasha Pecoraro?

  Nothing.

• 17:42Yvette Gentile?

  You know, I just have to say, like, I've watched the video and when I look at things, I start to analyze everything.

• 17:48Speaker 05

  Even like where, even how it's framed, like everything.

• 17:50Yvette Gentile?

  Yes, and I was looking at his hair. His hair looks a little bit longer to me in the second video. Now, I don't know if that's just me.

• 17:58Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, I couldn't tell.

• 17:59Yvette Gentile?

  Like for every little detail.

• 18:01Speaker 05

  Right.

• 18:01Yvette Gentile?

  Right? And so, but it's hard to say if it's done all at one time, or if it's done over days.

• 18:08Speaker 05

  If it's done, if it's recreated to look exactly like it.

• 18:11Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 05

  For that creep effect, or if it actually is just 42 seconds in the same day.

• 18:19Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 18:19Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah. All right, y'all, hold on, because things are starting to get weird. Even weirder, I should say, okay? So the third video is even more disturbing than the first and the second. Even though this one is just 11 seconds now. So now we've gone down in time, all right? And it's shot somewhere very dark, and you can't even tell if it's inside or outside. And the clip shows one of the dolls walking with the man in a white shirt and a red jacket. This time, he's tied up, he's gagged, and he's wearing sunglasses and a hat, so he's.

• 18:53Speaker 05

  So there's no.

• 18:54Yvette Gentile?

  He's physically disguised right now.

• 18:55Speaker 05

  But there's no censor bar, because we can see all that.

• 18:57Yvette Gentile?

  Right, exactly, but you still can't see his face, right? Because of that, a lot of people think that it's not the same man in the earlier videos. But we don't know. But we don't know for sure.

• 19:10Speaker 05

  Because we don't know who the first guy was, and we don't know who this guy is.

• 19:13Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 19:13Speaker 05

  But the change in the censor bar makes it feel like they could get away with it being a different person.

• 19:20Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, but we just have to say, though, in the first and the second, it is the same guy.

• 19:24Speaker 05

  Right.

• 19:24Yvette Gentile?

  It is the same guy, yes, but in the third.

• 19:27Speaker 05

  We don't know.

• 19:28Yvette Gentile?

  We don't know.

• 19:28Speaker 05

  Okay, so there could be an additional guy, but maybe not.

• 19:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  But wait, now there's a fourth video that comes out. Okay, this one is 31 seconds, so it's backed up a little bit in time. It's blurry and the camera pans quickly, so honestly, it's kinda hard to see anything at all. But it seems like this one, the video is taken at night. The footage captures streetlights and storefronts that are all lit up. And then the camera settles and zooms in on one of our creepy doll characters. Who's across the street, standing perfectly still, again, with its arms crossed, staring right ahead.

• 20:10Rasha Pecoraro?

  The whole thing is super disturbing and apparently, no one really knows what to make of it at all. Especially back, we're talking, you know, early 2000s. When the internet wasn't littered, like you were saying, Britt.

• 20:28Speaker 05

  Right, there were like seven videos.

• 20:30Rasha Pecoraro?

  With all these videos. Yeah, I mean, so like, what do we think would this made up for shock factor? For show? Or is it real?

• 20:40Speaker 05

  And if it's real, what is it?

• 20:41Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right, and why? And why are they doing it?

• 20:44Speaker 05

  Because this last video doesn't have soup guy in it, it just has the doll.

• 20:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:48Speaker 05

  Like, or one of them. And he's just looming across the street, hanging out.

• 20:55Rasha Pecoraro?

  Arms crossed.

• 20:56Speaker 05

  Which, even without the first three videos, that's a terrifying video. Like, even without all of the weird soup stuff, just a video of this bobblehead doll, arms crossed in a dark street with like, the glow of storefronts illuminating him, is already unsettling.

• 21:17Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yes.

• 21:17Speaker 05

  But if you put it in this series of like, three other videos where this character, or a character like this character, are popping up and harassing a man eating soup?

• 21:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  Poor little freaky soup guy.

• 21:31Yvette Gentile?

  So bizarre, my gosh. But again, I go back to, is this theater? Are they trying to?

• 21:38Speaker 05

  Is it just, are they trying to just elicit something?

• 21:41Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 21:41Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right, a feeling.

• 21:42Yvette Gentile?

  But what is it?

• 21:43Rasha Pecoraro?

  It almost reminds me, you're, I know you're too young to know this, but the Blair Witch Project.

• 21:48Speaker 05

  I was young, but I remember it.

• 21:50Rasha Pecoraro?

  Okay.

• 21:51Speaker 05

  I'm not a scary movie girly, so.

• 21:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, no, I'm not either, but I remember going to it and people were, all of us thought it was real.

• 21:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. No, I remember hearing.

• 21:59Yvette Gentile?

  Because there were handheld cameras too, walking and everywhere.

• 22:01Speaker 05

  It was all like found footage style handheld camera.

• 22:04Rasha Pecoraro?

  And then later they're like, haha, just kidding, it was art, so.

• 22:07Yvette Gentile?

  So that's what I'm saying.

• 22:08Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, so let's get into this other theory.

• 22:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, let's.

• 22:11Yvette Gentile?

  Let's dive into the rumors and the theories.

• 22:12Rasha Pecoraro?

  That's one of them.

• 22:13Yvette Gentile?

  Well, by the time the fourth video surfaces around 2010, everybody and their mother, father, sister has a theory about what they're seeing in the series. And some believe that Freaky Soup Guy and the follow-ups are all, we talked about this in the beginning, all part of a snuff film. I just have to say, in fairness, we don't actually see the man get physically harmed or killed during the Blank Room Soup, right?

• 22:39Speaker 05

  Which, to be frank, is like the feature of a snuff film. It just almost doesn't qualify.

• 22:45Yvette Gentile?

  Right.

• 22:45Speaker 05

  As one because none of that stuff happens.

• 22:47Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 22:48Yvette Gentile?

  But we do see someone being force-fed soup in what might be a form of torture, right? Because we all, it all makes us feel very uncomfortable when we're watching it, right?

• 22:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, true.

• 22:59Yvette Gentile?

  And in another video, someone else who looks different from the guy eating soup is bound and led somewhere dark and we know that he's all alone while he struggles to get himself free, correct?

• 23:11Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 23:11Yvette Gentile?

  So there is that. That feels like he's possibly being led off to some type of execution, right? The theory goes that the people in these life-sized doll suits must have taken at least one man hostage, possibly tortured him, murdered him, and even filmed it all. So this is all, again, rumors and speculation, right? And if the man in the third video really is someone different, that must have been. Done multiple times.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  Right, like that's another person.

• 23:47Yvette Gentile?

  Right.

• 23:47Speaker 05

  And if there's more than one, how many are there?

• 23:49Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, yeah. So the clips that made it online could be bits and pieces of the longer, more disturbing and graphic movie of this scenario, right?

• 24:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  Snuff film, yeah.

• 24:01Yvette Gentile?

  But there are also theories that are much more outlandish. Some people believe the people with the doll-like heads weren't in costume at all.

• 24:13Speaker 05

  Okay. What does that mean?

• 24:16Yvette Gentile?

  What is happening right now? Wait for it.

• 24:19Speaker 05

  I'm forgetting that I am on So Supernatural right now.

• 24:23Yvette Gentile?

  Well, hello.

• 24:24Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, you're gonna find out why right now.

• 24:27Speaker 05

  I forgot that there are only questions on this show.

• 24:31Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, so some people believe maybe this is what they actually look like because they're not actually human at all. I am of a huge, you know, alien believer, but this is very far-fetched. Like, I can't get behind that.

• 24:52Speaker 05

  They feel so humanoid, right? Like, if they're actually aliens, they really have that many human-like attributes? It feels unbelievable, like, to me at least. And I'm not necessarily an alien girlie, so...

• 25:06Yvette Gentile?

  What, Brit?

• 25:08Speaker 05

  I know.

• 25:08Rasha Pecoraro?

  That is why when we did our... Remember, we had to do the, are you an Ashley or a Brit?

• 25:13Yvette Gentile?

  You were Ashley. I was split.

• 25:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  And I was Brit.

• 25:16Yvette Gentile?

  I was split, but yes.

• 25:17Speaker 05

  I think every good pairing has like a girlie who's like, aliens are real, and one who's like, I could use some more proof. So this tracks.

• 25:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  She's made me more of a believer, to be honest.

• 25:31Speaker 05

  I could see that.

• 25:32Rasha Pecoraro?

  In all fairness.

• 25:34Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, well, if you don't believe in the alien theory, which I can... I think we can all agree that the three of us don't. And I just have to say, these costumes are very cartoonish.

• 25:47Speaker 05

  It wouldn't make sense for this to be an alien. Like, it doesn't look like a creature.

• 25:50Yvette Gentile?

  Exactly.

• 25:51Rasha Pecoraro?

  So I think we all three can agree that it's probably not the alien theory.

• 25:56Speaker 05

  Right, yes.

• 25:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right. But some people have put an even different spin on this, saying these entities are actually demons.

• 26:06Rasha Pecoraro?

  So if that is correct, Blank Room Soup might have been filmed in literal hell. And the video could show the eternal torment that awaits you. Especially if you've committed a crime or some serious sins like gluttony. Hmm. Meaning if you were a gluttonous overeater in life, the devil might torture you by forcing you to eat until you're sick. And keep up with that torment for all of eternity. Maybe that's exactly what we're seeing in Freaky Soup Guy and its follow ups.

• 26:47Rasha Pecoraro?

  But I have to say right now, then I will be in hell myself. Because I was morbidly obese until 13 years ago.

• 26:56Speaker 05

  Here's, here's my issue with this theory. Is my version of hell is having to upload a video on the internet in 2005. That is like its own circle to me. On like dial up.

• 27:14Rasha Pecoraro?

  Oh, my God, yeah, on MySpace? Oh, my gosh.

• 27:19Speaker 05

  No demon is waiting for that upload. This is more incredulous than aliens, you guys. It is not demons. Demons are off the list.

• 27:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  Demon out.

• 27:29Speaker 05

  Demon out.

• 27:30Rasha Pecoraro?

  No aliens.

• 27:31Speaker 05

  No aliens, no demons. I realize I'm like bashing all of the supernatural things on this episode, but I'm not buying it.

• 27:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  Let's get to the clues, okay? Okay. So listen up. If you're not buying any of these theories, maybe we should go to the root of the problem, right? The original creator. So sometime after Blank Room Soup goes viral, although it's hard to nail down an exact date, online sleuths uncover a major clue. And it leads to the person who may be behind the whole thing.

• 28:05Yvette Gentile?

  The YouTube profile Renaissanceman belongs to an animator, a director, a voiceover artist, and a puppeteer named Raymond Percy. If you're a big film or TV buff, you might recognize that name. Because today Raymond is very successful in Hollywood, right? He worked on movies and television shows like The Simpsons, Frozen, and one of my favorite and my husband's favorite.

• 28:36Speaker 05

  And my favorite.

• 28:37Yvette Gentile?

  Zootopia.

• 28:38Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 28:38Yvette Gentile?

  He's Flash.

• 28:40Speaker 05

  This is like a person.

• 28:41Yvette Gentile?

  He's the sloth.

• 28:42Speaker 05

  He's the sloth in Zootopia 1 and 2.

• 28:45Yvette Gentile?

  The best one.

• 28:45Speaker 05

  The best character. Okay, so he's like a person person.

• 28:47Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah. But in the late 90s and early 2000s, his professional life, it hadn't taken off yet. He was trying to build a name for himself and he did it by joining an experimental performance art group called The Mutator. They put on edgy, experimental shows that toured all across the country. And they did this for like two decades. And they're still occasionally active today. So that's what I was saying in the beginning, right? Performance art.

• 29:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:18Yvette Gentile?

  So that's a huge clue.

• 29:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, it doesn't explain anything.

• 29:26Yvette Gentile?

  Ish.

• 29:27Speaker 05

  But like, it seems possible.

• 29:30Yvette Gentile?

  Yes.

• 29:30Speaker 05

  I'm like, I want to hear this one out.

• 29:33Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, okay. All right, so there's more to it. With The Mutator, Raymond puts his puppetry skills to good use. Working with special effects artists, he designed these huge costumes that performers could wear at the shows. And get this, they featured big bulky heads with black hair, those same eyes, and no other features.

• 29:59Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 29:59Yvette Gentile?

  They also had the black suits and the puffy white hands.

• 30:06Speaker 05

  So he was in charge of like creating these costumes, these puppetry features.

• 30:14Yvette Gentile?

  Yes.

• 30:15Speaker 05

  That just so happened to look just like the like looming characters in the Blank Soup Room.

• 30:23Yvette Gentile?

  Yes, the cartoon. The cartoon, yeah.

• 30:25Speaker 05

  The cartoon doll, bobble head, puffy hands. Okay.

• 30:30Yvette Gentile?

  Right.

• 30:30Speaker 05

  And he's into experimental art.

• 30:32Yvette Gentile?

  Right, and where these dolls would come to life.

• 30:35Speaker 05

  Right.

• 30:35Yvette Gentile?

  Right? Okay, so he called his creations Ray Rays. And if you take one look at the Ray Rays, you'll realize that these are the exact same suits that the doll figures were wearing in Blank Room Soup.

• 30:49Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 30:50Yvette Gentile?

  And once the people online put this all together, they figure, okay, the mystery's solved, right? Raymond must have filmed Blank Room Soup for, I don't know, some reason.

• 31:03Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:04Yvette Gentile?

  And repurposed the Ray Ray suit during production.

• 31:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. Right, they're his, they're these Ray Ray, they're his.

• 31:11Yvette Gentile?

  Right. They're Ray Rays. It's his. Raymond's Ray Rays.

• 31:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. Exactly.

• 31:15Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah. So in 2015, one online sleuth messages Raymond on Tumblr. Is Tumblr still around? I don't know. Is Tumblr? I have no idea. I was never on Tumblr to begin with.

• 31:26Speaker 05

  Oh, I was.

• 31:28Yvette Gentile?

  You're a sly girl. Okay, it is, all right. Oh, it is. She puts out a message to Raymond and she asks if it's true that he created the Blank Room Soup. And if so, why did he do it?

• 31:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:41Yvette Gentile?

  And what did he have to gain by making such disturbing content? And Raymond actually replies to her message. In the exchange that follows, Raymond says that yes, he did create the costumes the tormentors were wearing in the video.

• 31:57Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 31:57Yvette Gentile?

  Meaning.

• 31:58Speaker 05

  They're Ray Rays.

• 31:59Yvette Gentile?

  Meaning, like we said earlier, they're not aliens and they're not demons from hell. They're just Ray Rays. Right?

• 32:07Speaker 05

  Great, that's a, that's actually a huge answer.

• 32:09Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, yeah. Right, and he confirmed also that they're just ordinary people in these suits.

• 32:13Speaker 05

  In costumes.

• 32:14Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah. They're not aliens. They're not demons.

• 32:17Speaker 05

  Again, this is a huge stride in this mystery.

• 32:19Yvette Gentile?

  Yes, okay, but listen up. Raymond is also very adamant that he didn't create Blank Room Soup.

• 32:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, then that's another question.

• 32:30Yvette Gentile?

  He had nothing to do with the videos at all. In fact, he says that sometime in 2005, the Ray Ray suits went missing after a Mutator show. And he assumes that they were stolen. But of course, he doesn't know who took them or what they planned to do with them. So he has no clue about Blank Room Soup.

• 32:53Rasha Pecoraro?

  Until 2015, when they reached out.

• 32:57Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 05

  So he's like, yes, those are my Ray Rays, but I haven't had those for years.

• 33:02Yvette Gentile?

  Right.

• 33:02Speaker 05

  And I don't know.

• 33:04Yvette Gentile?

  Conveniently got stolen in 2005.

• 33:07Speaker 05

  We still have no answers.

• 33:10Speaker 05

  There's still.

• 33:10Yvette Gentile?

  Basically.

• 33:11Speaker 05

  We like know where the, we know, again, not aliens, not demons. And definitely 1,000% puppetry costumes. Made by this man.

• 33:22Yvette Gentile?

  Yes.

• 33:22Speaker 05

  But he hasn't had, like, he hasn't had them physically in his hands for a very long time. And has no idea who took them, who used them for this video.

• 33:30Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah. But they were made by him.

• 33:31Speaker 05

  But they were made by him.

• 33:32Rasha Pecoraro?

  So he does admit that.

• 33:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:34Yvette Gentile?

  Yes.

• 33:34Rasha Pecoraro?

  But I have to say, Disney or whoever his handlers are, have scrubbed the internet with the exception of Reddit. Because if you like Google Raymond Percy, you know, Blank Room Soup, like.

• 33:47Speaker 05

  It doesn't connect at all.

• 33:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  No.

• 33:49Yvette Gentile?

  Not to him.

• 33:50Speaker 05

  Interesting.

• 33:51Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah. The only things that we could find were like on Reddit or different, like, nothing.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  Nothing official, nothing in his history, nothing in like his, like, experience or resume.

• 34:02Rasha Pecoraro?

  No, I went down the hole.

• 34:03Speaker 05

  As like someone in sort of like the entertainment industry, he has this history with some sort of theater. Even if it is.

• 34:10Rasha Pecoraro?

  The puppetry in it, yeah.

• 34:11Speaker 05

  Experimental, like that probably helped to get him to where he is today. You'd think that would show up somewhere in his like Wikipedia page, even if it's not like. And also these costumes were used in Blank Room Soup. Like, even if that isn't in there, something about his, his time with this group.

• 34:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  Would have shown up, right?

• 34:29Speaker 05

  You'd think would have shown up, especially again, like. There's kind of a through line from his work in this experimental space to what he's doing now.

• 34:37Yvette Gentile?

  Right. And I did go down the Reddit deep dive.

• 34:41Rasha Pecoraro?

  I know, I don't know how to do Reddit.

• 34:42Yvette Gentile?

  It did mention his sister got ahold of these suits, so.

• 34:45Speaker 05

  I like need a headcount on these comments.

• 34:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  Okay, but I do have more information about what Raymond says about all of this.

• 34:54Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 34:54Rasha Pecoraro?

  His explanation, this, we're just referring to the very first video.

• 34:59Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 34:59Rasha Pecoraro?

  So Raymond says that a few weeks after the theft in 2005, he received an email from an account he didn't recognize. It had a video file attached and when Raymond watched it, he saw the footage that we now know as Blank Room Soup or who we call Freaky Soup Guy. So it was almost like the thieves, whoever stole the Ray Ray suits, were taunting him by showing him what kind of violent activities they were doing with his costumes. According to Raymond, he was puzzled by what he saw. Still, he wanted to figure out if this was a tasteless prank or some horrible actual prank.

• 35:43Rasha Pecoraro?

  So he ended up, like the generation you come from, sharing that video with his friends. He hopes someone could help him figure out who was behind the video and what they were up to. So he's saying that's why he first uploaded Blank Room Soup to YouTube, so he could just easily share the link with friends. He's claiming that he didn't know that it was public. Because you know, you can, you have that option to upload privately or publicly.

• 36:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, but he's, that's a stretch too, I think. This look, explain this look.

• 36:20Speaker 05

  So is he Renaissance man?

• 36:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  He's not saying that he's Renaissance man.

• 36:25Speaker 05

  But he's saying that at some point in time, he did upload this.

• 36:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  Upload it to YouTube.

• 36:29Speaker 05

  Just maybe not this upload that's connected to the other videos TBD.

• 36:35Rasha Pecoraro?

  TBD. But he says he did it in 2005 and basically he was trying to just share it with his friends. That's what he's saying.

• 36:43Speaker 05

  I will, I'm willing to give him a little bit of a benefit of the doubt. Oh, okay. Because I would like to do more research on if private videos were an option in 2005 on YouTube. Right. Because YouTube is less than a year old when this video gets posted. This is true. And again, there were like 15 videos on there. Right, right. When you're putting it on, like, when you have that access, you're just like, oh, I just want to put my video online. Right. And I don't know if YouTube at that age would have had the forethought of like, having that protected video. Private or public. At that time. Maybe they did, but like, without a little Google.

• 37:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, but is there a click where you? There is now. Yeah, in 2013, that that was an option. Yeah. I know that from my video channel. But, did he even have that option when he put it up there? And again, like, it is so new, like, the idea of like, you know, like a reply all even was. Right, right, right. The idea that you were just like, oh, I can just make a link out of this video that I have on my computer and send it to my friends without realizing how public it was or wasn't. I kind of believe him for 2005, but. I'm a little torn, like, I'm, I don't know. But, I'm thinking of it differently because of what Brid just said. That's a great point. But I feel like he's already in the industry.

• 38:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was saying, there is like a little bit of, okay, but shouldn't you have known better? You know what I'm saying? Like, that's my, yeah. Did he know it went viral in 2005? Supposedly, he says he didn't even notice that it went viral. I say that in air quotes.

• 38:28Speaker 05

  I mean, if he's not, if he's only using the video to like, share with his friends to be like, hey, did you do this? And he's not necessarily going back to check the view counts, which he knows. And it's not, like we said at the beginning, it's not the YouTube that we know and love slash hate today.

• 38:46Rasha Pecoraro?

  YouTube, we love you. Pretend like we never seen you.

• 38:48Speaker 05

  We do love you. But like, no, like, but with like influencer culture, where there like, where there's view counts that matter, that count for people's careers, that like, you're like banking on, if you aren't posting something for that reason, you may never think to go back to look at those view counts.

• 39:04Rasha Pecoraro?

  No, I, I have.

• 39:05Speaker 05

  So you may not, you may not know it goes viral if you're just like, I just needed a link to send to my friends.

• 39:11Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 39:11Speaker 05

  I never expected to even watch this video on YouTube ever again.

• 39:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 39:16Speaker 05

  I mean, again, as someone in like the experimental art world at the time, it feels like if it had gone viral, he would have been part of that, like, scope of virality. Hmm. Like, it would have been sent to him in one of those awful chain emails that went around, right? Like, maybe not by any of the friends that he originally sent it to, but like, it would have come back around to him, especially if he was in that sort of culture or community.

• 39:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 39:45Speaker 05

  It seems odd that it wouldn't have like circled back and been like, how did this even get to you? This was my video.

• 39:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 39:53Yvette Gentile?

  Very good point. Well, the internet disagreed with you, Britt. Raymond got a lot of criticism for his explanation, which I'm, I'm actually one of those people.

• 40:04Rasha Pecoraro?

  But I'm with Britt.

• 40:05Yvette Gentile?

  I mean, I.

• 40:06Rasha Pecoraro?

  Now I am.

• 40:07Yvette Gentile?

  Well, I.

• 40:07Rasha Pecoraro?

  I can see it.

• 40:08Yvette Gentile?

  Anyhow, a lot of people wondered, why would he put something like this on the internet rather than go to the police, right? Let's just consider the timeline here. Supposedly Raymond received the Blank Room Soup clip in 2005. He then uploaded it right away, never learned who was behind the video, and failed to mention it to law enforcement or anyone else for, wait, 10 years.

• 40:36Speaker 05

  So what would he tell law, like, about the theft?

• 40:41Rasha Pecoraro?

  I know, hey, my Ray Ray's are gone.

• 40:42Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, my Ray Ray's were stolen.

• 40:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, like, why would he talk to law enforcement?

• 40:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, I guess, like, the video is disturbing.

• 40:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yes.

• 40:49Speaker 05

  And it feels like something bad is happening.

• 40:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  But it's disturbing because he made these costumes, and now these costumes are in this video, right?

• 40:59Speaker 05

  My costumes were stolen. I don't know where they are. Someone is taunting me with this video, using my stuff, and it feels like something bad is happening. I guess, but it also, this is maybe my crime junkie cynicism, but like, I don't know how any law enforcement agency would react. Like, how do you write that report?

• 41:19Rasha Pecoraro?

  They'd laugh, you think.

• 41:20Speaker 05

  Right. I'm not saying that they should or shouldn't do that. Like, maybe they probably should take it seriously, but I kind of get his hesitation.

• 41:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  To do anything about it.

• 41:29Speaker 05

  To do anything about it, because what is there to do?

• 41:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  There's more, and this comes in the year 2017, okay? That's when a content creator reveals new information that wasn't available at the time of Raymond's statement in 2015.

• 41:45Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 41:46Rasha Pecoraro?

  So, and these new facts suggest that Blank Room Soup might really be footage from a real-life murder after all. One that also featured cannibalism.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  We don't just alert. We help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/truecrime. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.

• 42:37Speaker 06

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen. Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing. Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions. And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts. So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 43:21Speaker 06

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 43:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  So in 2017, a creator with the username SuperHorrorBro posts a new video on YouTube about the Blank Room Soup mystery.

• 43:44Yvette Gentile?

  That's right, and the user claims he's investigated the videos with the help of an anonymous source known only as Enigma. And Enigma, in turn, knows another person of interest, an unidentified hacker, who we'll call Evan for simplicity.

• 44:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  Okay.

• 44:02Yvette Gentile?

  It's no wonder Evan doesn't want to reveal their real name, because, get this. They said they stole the Ray Ray costumes from Raymond. And they created the Blank Room Soup videos. They also share some disturbing details that... I'm just warning you, it's very unsettling, okay? Evan says that he and some other collaborators kidnapped a man and his wife. It's still unclear who the couple was, when they were taken, or why Evan and the others tormented them. All we know is that for a while,

• 44:43Yvette Gentile?

  the man and the woman were held hostage and supposedly tortured. Then Evan and their associates murdered his wife, butchered her, and made soup of her remains.

• 44:59Speaker 06

  So she was the soup?

• 45:02Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah. And that's why the man in the original video was supposedly, I mean, which we all watched, was so upset.

• 45:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:13Yvette Gentile?

  You know, eating the soup.

• 45:14Speaker 05

  Yeah. Oh, my God. This, I'm still stuck a little bit on like the trail of people that we had to get to to get to the story.

• 45:22Yvette Gentile?

  I know.

• 45:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, I know.

• 45:23Speaker 05

  Because that's a little bit of a journey, for sure. But like, why is my only question? Why, and why film it? Why the Ray Ray's? Why any of it?

• 45:33Yvette Gentile?

  Right.

• 45:33Speaker 05

  But like, there's also so many weird elements to this.

• 45:38Yvette Gentile?

  Agreed, agreed.

• 45:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  And claim it all those years later.

• 45:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:42Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 45:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 45:43Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah. He also says that when the Ray Ray's approached him, you know, to pat his back, that they weren't really comforting him. They were just mocking him.

• 45:52Rasha Pecoraro?

  Ugh.

• 45:53Yvette Gentile?

  And it's hard to understand why Evan would have shared all of this with Enigma. Like this, like, we just said all this.

• 46:02Speaker 05

  Like, yeah, like, why?

• 46:03Yvette Gentile?

  What is the purpose behind all of this? And I just have to wonder what details might have gotten changed or, you know, misreported during that long game of telephone between Evan to Enigma to Super Horror Bro.

• 46:19Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah. So naturally, people have some doubts about Super Horror Bro's claims. And in terms of proof, uh, Super Horror Bro has nada, nothing, no proof.

• 46:33Speaker 05

  So we don't even know if these conversations happen.

• 46:35Yvette Gentile?

  Right. We don't know if it's real or not.

• 46:37Speaker 05

  If Enigma is real, if Evan, or Evan's story.

• 46:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, no idea, no idea. With all of that being said, though, we can verify Enigma does seem to be real. So at least one person with that exact username, it's E, the letter E, and then Enigma, posted on a forum discussing their alleged conversation with Evan. And this post was from before Super Horror Bro's video ever came out. So that's one.

• 47:13Speaker 05

  Kind of valid piece of proof that Enigma exists. That they exist, but we still don't have proof of like Evan or these conversation like.

• 47:25Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 47:26Speaker 05

  It's an element of the story existing, just like it's as much proof as like, okay. And also the Ray Rays are Ray Rays, not aliens.

• 47:35Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right.

• 47:35Speaker 05

  It's kind of like the same amount of an answer.

• 47:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  Validity, yeah. I mean, Enigma, obviously, like, so if someone does this, right? They're probably doing it for clicks or for the attention. So that's a possibility. I think that's a given either way. For sure, for sure. Actually, though, in their forum post, Enigma makes even more wild claims about Evan that don't make much sense. For example, they say that Evan didn't only steal the Ray Rays and send Raymond the Freaky Soup Guy video, but they also allegedly hacked Raymond's Tumblr, his YouTube and his email accounts and posed as him for years.

• 48:22Rasha Pecoraro?

  So all these times that we've been saying, oh, Raymond said this, Raymond said that, that is probably why I couldn't find anything on the internet about him.

• 48:29Speaker 05

  It wasn't necessarily Raymond at all.

• 48:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  But Raymond is a public figure.

• 48:34Speaker 05

  Right.

• 48:35Rasha Pecoraro?

  And if he'd lost control of all of his accounts, he probably would have said something. Or made a public statement of some kind. Yes, for sure.

• 48:43Speaker 05

  Especially when there's like, I think you've been able to set up Google Alerts for a while.

• 48:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yes.

• 48:50Speaker 05

  If your name is like floating around there with like connected to this video, you would like find out and be like, oh, that was around the same time. My accounts were hacked or whatever.

• 49:02Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 49:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's.

• 49:05Speaker 05

  It's getting really hard to like, separate him from all this still.

• 49:08Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, it totally is, but since he hasn't come forward, we have to take Enigma's claims with a huge grain of salt. And they might be nothing more than just a hoax, or a sick attempt to get some online attention, or, again, for the clicks.

• 49:28Speaker 05

  Right.

• 49:29Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, I mean, you know, there are those people who do it just for the attention.

• 49:34Speaker 05

  And the shock value.

• 49:36Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 49:38Yvette Gentile?

  So let's just talk about if it's a hoax or not. As a matter of fact, some people think Blank Room Soup might, all of it, just might be fake, right? A way for Raymond Percy to, I don't know, maybe build a brand and get some attention? There is that. I mean, the thinking is that back in 2005, before his career actually took off, Raymond decided to make some creepy videos. And Raymond knew that if he could get under people's skin, he was more likely to go viral. So.

• 50:12Rasha Pecoraro?

  I don't want to believe that about Flash from Zootopia.

• 50:15Yvette Gentile?

  That's kind of where my thought process was in the beginning, that his forethought was thinking this from the get.

• 50:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, and especially knowing how unsettling the Ray Rays look.

• 50:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 50:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. Regardless, like.

• 50:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  And Freaky Soup Guy.

• 50:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, but like, we know that Raymond made the Ray Rays.

• 50:36Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yes.

• 50:37Speaker 05

  So something in him.

• 50:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  That's a fact.

• 50:39Speaker 05

  Yes. We like, we know for sure that he made them, and they were involved with that experimental art girl.

• 50:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 50:45Yvette Gentile?

  Yes.

• 50:46Speaker 05

  So he had, like, I hate to say like, something in him, but like, he was compelled to make these creepy characters.

• 50:54Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 50:54Speaker 05

  In general.

• 50:55Rasha Pecoraro?

  Okay.

• 50:56Speaker 05

  And so like, that alone, to me, makes it totally possible.

• 51:02Rasha Pecoraro?

  Now you're coming to my side.

• 51:04Speaker 05

  He like, that he was potentially capable or interested in making this sort of experimental art. And like, to be completely clear, growing up in this era, like, I remember one of my best friends. Nathan, his little brother, wanted to be a filmmaker. He was 13. He wanted to make like funny, weird videos and he did all the time. At one point in time, he took his parents' camcorder in a Ziploc and tried to film underwater.

• 51:38Speaker 05

  Very innovative. It did not work. Oh, he was ahead of his time in the thinking. He got in so much trouble. But he did make like these weird little scripted vignettes and post them on YouTube in like 2007. And so that was a kid doing that, just for fun. Yeah. But if you're trying to make a name for yourself in the art world and you already have these creepy characters.

• 52:03Speaker 05

  I mean, what was, we talked about this earlier, what was viral in 2005 and what did it take to get there? Wasn't much. Right. But like if you thought you could maybe do it with this character you already created. Right. I don't, like, on top of that, he's admitted to putting it on YouTube. Right. Like, whether or not he meant to blast it out there or not. But we're not sure if he admitted it because they're saying that they took over. Potentially he got hacked, but he hadn't said anything about it, so yeah. I mean. The connection of him making them at all is like so strong for me, though. Yeah, very strong. It's so hard to ignore. And it's weird that it's all scrubbed on the internet. It's scrubbed, like, there's no connection to him in the Ray Ray's.

• 52:48Speaker 05

  Especially because if you think about like, if it wasn't him, maybe they still scrub it, but he addresses it somewhere, right? Right, yeah, he talks about it, yeah. This like wild thing happened and now I'm really careful about how my, like, creations are used or whatever. I'm really sensitive to what my, how my creations are represented in the world. And for him to not address it, not speak on it, like, have it scrubbed. So Raymond Percy, if you want to come on So Supernatural.

• 53:18Yvette Gentile?

  And talk to us all about it.

• 53:20Speaker 05

  Clear the record for once and for all. Because you're our favorite on Zootopia. I mean, if that's not, if that's not enough. I know. But yeah, like, again, I'm kind of, I feel bad because I'm on So Supernatural, but like, I'm kind of ruling out all of the supernatural options. I think it is creepy.

• 53:43Yvette Gentile?

  Maybe he intentionally made the clips as unsettling as possible.

• 53:49Yvette Gentile?

  Right?

• 53:50Rasha Pecoraro?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:50Yvette Gentile?

  Just to say that.

• 53:51Rasha Pecoraro?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 53:52Yvette Gentile?

  But then, Reiman got jobs on The Simpsons. So he probably needed to keep his new bosses happy by building this new public brand

• 54:03Rasha Pecoraro?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:03Yvette Gentile?

  that was more kinder, more friendly, right?

• 54:07Rasha Pecoraro?

  Softer, yeah.

• 54:08Yvette Gentile?

  Exactly, to get away from

• 54:10Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 54:10Yvette Gentile?

  the mutator side of things, right? So, he denied having anything to do with the Blank Room Soup when people asked him about it. And then, when the videos went viral, other creators like Super Horror Bro and Enigma may have started to pretend that they were involved. Again, copycats, right?

• 54:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  Inserting themselves into the narrative.

• 54:32Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah.

• 54:32Rasha Pecoraro?

  So they could get some fame.

• 54:34Yvette Gentile?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 54:35Rasha Pecoraro?

  Connect themselves to it.

• 54:36Yvette Gentile?

  And we know a lot about that in different cases, right?

• 54:39Rasha Pecoraro?

  Right. And there is a reason we decided to cover this particular topic on April Fool's Day. In part, because when else would we get to talk about a creepy video? That's very likely a hoax. But also, because this is a day when a lot of pranks and a lot of misinformation are flooding the internet. And while it's important to be skeptical about what you see, what you read, what you intake, especially on April 1st, it's also good to keep an open mind. While nothing can be confirmed about this story, and we mean nothing.

• 55:17Yvette Gentile?

  Nothing at all, but...

• 55:18Rasha Pecoraro?

  We also can't completely debunk it, either.

• 55:21Yvette Gentile?

  Right. Yeah, but that's, that is the nature of the cases that we cover.

• 55:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  This is true.

• 55:27Yvette Gentile?

  And there's usually an official explanation, right? The very safe and the grounded solution that we've all heard in many different cases. The allegation of pranks and hoaxes. And then, there's the supernatural theory. That's why stories like these are so friggin' exciting. Because as long as they have elements that cannot be explained, there's just so much possibility.

• 55:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah.

• 55:57Yvette Gentile?

  And frankly, if we were to prove tomorrow that ghosts, aliens, or other dimensions were real...

• 56:07Yvette Gentile?

  That would take a little bit of the fun out of it, right?

• 56:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, the unknown is the best part.

• 56:11Yvette Gentile?

  It's the best part.

• 56:12Rasha Pecoraro?

  But I still want our mom to haunt us.

• 56:15Yvette Gentile?

  I know, I know.

• 56:16Rasha Pecoraro?

  I want to know that there's really ghosts. But yes, it is, the unknown is.

• 56:20Yvette Gentile?

  It's the best part, you know?

• 56:21Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 56:22Rasha Pecoraro?

  With all of that being said, if you know me, you know that I'm a terrible, terrible liar. And I have all of these lines on my face because I am very expressive and I cannot hide anything. So I can no longer hide that we have to share that this episode has been an episode for April Fools. As much as we would love our beautiful Britt to stay with us as a permanent co-host on So Supernatural. We do have to give her back to her BFF, Ashley.

• 57:02Yvette Gentile?

  We don't want you to go, Britt.

• 57:05Speaker 05

  It has been so much fun to hang out with you, ladies. I've wanted to do this for a really long time. I'm so glad we could make it happen. I loved this episode, like I love all your episodes, but being on it was even more exciting.

• 57:16Rasha Pecoraro?

  Oh, well, you can come back anytime.

• 57:18Yvette Gentile?

  You are welcome.

• 57:19Rasha Pecoraro?

  And that is not an April Fools joke. You're welcome back anytime, I promise. And we love and adore you, and you know that.

• 57:25Yvette Gentile?

  We do. Mahalenua Loa. Thank you, Britt.

• 57:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  Thank you, Britt, for being here. Yvette and I will be back this Friday with another all-new episode of So Supernatural. And that, my friends, is not a hoax.

• 57:47Yvette Gentile?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original, produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at SoSupernaturalPodcast.com. Join Rasha and me next Friday for an all-new episode.

• 58:08Yvette Gentile?

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 58:13Speaker 07

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.