The Vertical Plane (The Doddleston Messages)

What if the ghost in your house wasn’t a Victorian lady in white, but a Tudor farmer who thought you were the spirit? In 1984, Ken Webster brought a borrowed BBC Micro into his 16th-century cottage in Doddleston, Cheshire. He expected a bit of basic computing; he didn’t expect his kitchen table to become a doorway.

We explore the baffling case of the "Lucas" messages—sprawling, archaic English appearing on a closed-circuit computer with no modem, no network, and no explanation. From the terrifying realization that Lucas was "haunted" by Ken and Debbie in 1546, to the intervention of a mysterious group from the year 2109, we ask: is this a haunting, a sophisticated hoax, or a literal collision in the Vertical Plane?

In this episode, we discuss:

The Reversed Haunting: Why a Tudor farmer named Lucas believed Ken and Debbie were the "spirits" invading his home in the year 1546.

The Charm of Light: How a man from the 16th century described a 1980s computer—and how he seemingly "hacked" it from across the centuries.

The 2109 Group: Who are the shadowy figures from the 22nd century claiming to be the architects of this temporal experiment?

The Linguistic Baffle: A look at the archaic English and the experts who were left wondering how a 1980s hoaxer could master such complex, dead dialects.

The Latin Warning: The chilling moment the communication ended with chalk marks on the kitchen floor and a final message of death.

Who was Phone?: If the computer was a standalone machine with no internet, how did the messages arrive in real-time?

Whether it's a time-slip or a digital Ouija board, one thing is certain: in Doddleston, the past and the future were sharing the same space, if not the same century. Grab a brew, watch the blinking cursor, and join us for a deep dive into the most technical haunting in British history.

Stay Wyrd!

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Written by Craig Brooks and hosted by Craig Brooks and Andy Stevens

Edited by Craig Brooks

Intro music by Antipodean Writer: Full of Soul - Neon Waves Extended - Remix

Outro music by Colt Fingaz: Ding Ding Dong

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