Short Stuff: Bed Sheet Ghosts | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. hey and welcome to the short stuff I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. and we're all jacked up cuz Halloween's. coming we've been eating candy for six. weeks. straight things are getting spoopy in. here. spoopy spoopy it's a word it means not. quite spooky uh a light-hearted version. of Spooky is that like your own word no. it's a real thing you can look it up and.

wait okay hold on a. second yep your story checks out it's a. real word all right well let's talk. about bed sheet ghost then because uh I. picked this one out when I was looking. for something spoopy and I just I kind. of had had a bit of nostalgia for the. old school bed sheet ghost and I was. like well where in the world did that. come from who started doing that cuz. it's it's a thing uh you see people. still do it as a real costume. occasionally whether or not you uh uh. don't have the money to scrape up for. like some expensive costume or if you're.

just lazy either way it's great uh and. it's also been in a gazillion pieces of. Pop Culture uh like Beetlejuice and. Scooby-Doo and Charlie Brown and all. kinds of stuff our friend Toby produced. a movie that it featured in recently a. ghost story I still haven't seen that I. gotta see it it's it's interesting like. it is Art House is it's very art housee. like there's a lengthy scene where. Rooney Mara just sits there and eats pie. quietly in her.

the scene it's really interesting but. it's cool it's a cool concept but the. ghost is just wearing a a bed sheet the. whole time yeah it's iconic exactly I. think that's the point and I never. stopped to question that I think that. was a great question that you had in. your head um and it's really I love. things where you just stop and think. where did this come from and there's a. definitive answer that makes complete. sense and this happens to be one of. those things yeah I love love those uh.

so we dug into uh salon.com uh TFT and. needle.com in The Daily Beast and. everyone's story is the same so it has. to be true mhm but it comes from the. fact that back in olden days uh and. specifically I mean we can go back to. the time of Jesus if you'd like to but. specifically forward a bit to 17th. century Britain when people would wrap. their deceased loved ones in white. sheets burial.

shrouds uh to bury them they they used. to do that you know just routinely uh. back in ancient times but then as we got. a little more moderate and coffins came. around if you had money you could still. go with a coffin but if you didn't you. were still using that linen sheet. probably yeah and it's actually come. full circle again because one of the. Hallmarks of a green burial is using a. burial shroud instead of a coffin that's. right so a burial shroud is associated. with dead people and if a dead person. returned from the grave uh I.E a ghost.

mhm you would think that they're. probably still wearing their their uh. burial shroud or the bed sheet that they. were buried in and that that is how bed. sheets became synonymous with ghosts. yeah and we could stop there this could. be the shortest short stuff uh yeah but. it it gets even more interesting if you. ask me uh it does because all these. great websites found some pretty cool. stories um to tie into this and this is. something I never knew it was so.

synonymous with uh spooking people that. thieves in London and dare I say greater. England would wear this stuff sometimes. I read some sites that said they would. uh wear it just to scare people. sometimes and Rob them on the street and. I also saw sometimes they would scare. them from their home so they could then. just be like all right we got the place. to oursel Let's rob it either way I mean. don't you deserve to be robbed if a. ghost scared you maybe they were just.

like oh God a robber and that's really. why they were running out not that they. thought it was a ghost sure and he's. wearing a sheet so he must be dangerous. so clearly by this time sheets and and. ghosts were fully in the the mind of the. pop culture I guess right yeah the thing. is is at this time around this time in. the early 1800s I the I think 1805 maybe. there is a very famous case of a person. being mistaken for a bed sheet wearing.

ghost who who paid with their life. basically for walking around wearing a. white outfit and refusing to to wear. anything but that yeah because here's. what happens people thieves are wearing. these things they're going around and uh. robbing folks and scaring them out of. their house to Rob them and so of course. what's going to happen is uh. well-intended Angry citizens are going. to rise up and they're going to be like. street cop Ghost Hunters sure and. they're going to walk around trying to. to ghost bust yes but this particular.

case the guy who is responsible for the. death his whole defense was I thought. that was a ghost right oh okay okay. let's dig it but he but he was he was. ghost hunting uh criminals though at the. time he that was his defense he thought. it was a. ghost but I thought that he they knew. they were criminals that was the whole. point no not not in this particular case. no oh okay well let's talk about it so.

the guy we're talking about who died was. Thomas Milwood that's right and this is. in hammers Smith which is in a. neighborhood in West London and Francis. Smith is the guy that you're referring. to who was out um hunting ghosts and I. think what you're talking about is there. were a bunch of reports of ghosts. attacking people not necessarily killing. somebody but that the the word on the. street was there's ghosts out there that. are doing harmful things and that's what. brought Francis Smith out yeah I think. you're right and it's funny cuz I looked.

over this quite a few times and every. single time my read of it was he was a a. criminal vigilante and he knew that. ghost people were putting on these. sheets and doing it but I I think you're. dead right I think he's he was a Ghost. Hunter he was and so he ran across. Thomas Milwood who is I think a brick. layer and Thomas Milwood was well known. for wearing um white pants white shirt. white apron and his wife was even like. dude you know there's like a ghost Panic.

going on out there you probably should. wear something that's not white so. people know you know you're not a ghost. and he said after Labor Day exactly. right it's so go Francis yeah you got. you got to put away that sear sucker. suit and all your white stuff exactly so. um Thomas said no. nay stay out of my business I wear white. and I like it it's my signature color. and she's like it's not just a color. it's the presence of all colors and the. conversation just kept going on like but. we'll take our leave of it that's right.

and very sadly he was killed because of. that uh they were at the trial I believe. um they found out that Milwood had. supposedly scared this couple in a. carriage in wi out yeah yeah not like uh. I'm trying to rob you just like right. everyone thought he was I guess a ghost. even though it wasn't a sheet cuz he was. wearing all white yeah I'm kind of. worrying about uh wondering about 19th. century London all of a sudden yeah same.

here as a matter of fact I mean talk. about. superstitious uh so the long and the. short of it is though Milwood was sadly. killed and um Smith was sentenced to. hang initially and King George III. stepped in and said nope uh I I I like. the cut of this guy's jib let's just. give him a full pardon pretty nice. pretty nice shall we take a break let us. take a break yeah all right we'll be. right back with more bed sheet ghosting. [Music].

so um bed sheets with ghosts are have. been around for quite a while but there.

was like a there have been diversions. off of that straight path from then to. now um for example um ghosts were. synonymous with wearing suits of armor. yeah particularly Hamlet uh Hamlet's. father when he comes back he's wearing a. suit of armor or Jacob Marley was just. wearing his regular clothes that he died. in or was buried in but um with chains. or another one that lasted for a really. long time were just straight up. skeletons like animated skeletons that.

were moving around and talking and. scaring people they were essentially. ghosts um but that bed sheet or that. burial shot or whatever you want to call. it draped over a a dead person that. being a ghost that's that's the one. that's really kind of become Universal. yeah and it was the 19th century that. that really really finally was fully. embedded uh when uh well they didn't use. barrial shrouds by that point most.

people were in coffins at this point but. if you didn't have a lot of money you. were still in that same position but. instead of like a linen shroud they. would just wrap you in the sheet on the. bed that you died in basically yeah and. wrap you up tie knots on the ends and. thus ingrained the bed sheet ghost yeah. hope you like that Floral Pattern. because you're trapped with it for. eternity right or the Star Wars sheets. so um the the the bed sheet in the dead. person was so connected that by the the.

um late 19th century when spiritualism. and mediumship became really popular um. if you took a a double exposed photo. with a person wearing a bed sheet and. you you superimposed it next to the. living person you were taking a a ghost. photo of um they would see that and be. like oh my God there's a ghost right. behind me a person wearing a bed sheet. they would take to to believe as a ghost. yeah so of course uh psychics and. mediums and people that that did stuff. like that they would have all sorts of.

uh rigs uh to make it look like the the. ghost was in the room with you and it. seemed like it work I guess they were. making enough money doing it uh of. course some people got in trouble for. that kind of thing occasionally So. eventually it' moved to the stage and uh. they found some theater Scholars from. the time that said you know we did some. polling and we found that people are. more scared when we use the bed sheet. ghost on stage than just somebody in. like white makeup rattling chain. yeah that was Leslie the theater scholar.

who did the. polling from the candy company Leslie. gets around right I think the the time. when um it became not scary uh was when. children's cartoons kind of took over. the idea of a bed sheet ghost and made. them not scary because these were. children's cartoons there's a really. famous example of um a Mickey Mouse. cartoon from 1937 called Lonesome Ghosts. and the ghosts are. not clearly wearing bed sheets because.

what's interesting Chuck is if you look. at these ghosts or you look at Casper. the ghost or. whatever um they are white transparen is. and generally featureless they'll have. eyes or a nose or something but there's. no there's no General there's no General. shape to them and it's like the bed. sheet covered ghost has now morphed into. a ghost made out of something like a bed. sheet yeah like Casper isn't a a weird. kid wearing a bed sheet right Casper is.

made of bed sheet if you look closely. though I'm pretty sure it is Richie Rich. under there right oh man I never thought. about that that's I think you might be. right I am never made that connection so. um I think Chuck we've proven beyond a. shadow of a doubt that bed sheets are. associated with ghosts yes and you know. what I might I might do that this year. I'm kind of short on costumes that's. great well one of these sites that you. um that you came across suggests that if.

you're going to use it as a costume find. an old sheet that's frayed or thinning. because it'll be 10 times. scarier you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to get a brand new one and not. even iron it so it still has those. folded crease marks that's the scariest. of all yeah the laziest costume of all. uh you got anything else I got nothing. else I got one thing happy Halloween. everybody happy Halloween short stuff's. out. stuff you should know is a production of.

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