Vast human conveyor belt is one of the strangest but accurate ways to describe a road

As I listen to this, my mind keeps going back to a silent Universal movie, The Cat and the Canary (1927,) which involves hairy hands. This movie came out just a year before the weird signs were posted on the road.

Even more interesting, the stage play, on which the movie was based, opened in 1922.

Imagine dying and getting stuck as a pair of ugly-ass hands for eternity.

Ben: On a scale of pumpkin pie  to  riding into battle on a rabbit, armed with fennel stalks , how difficult was it to repeatedly say the phrase "hairy hands" with a straight face?

My father used this as a tool at bed time. Go to sleep before the hairy hands get you

Hi Ben, love the podcasts, keep it up. I think I've listened to them all, so look forward to your uploads. Just wondering, I don't remember you doing the Mothman. I know it's a well trodden path, but would love to hear your thorough take on it.

Another great story, Ben. I wonder if you have heard of the Batavia? It was a Dutch ship that was wrecked off the coast of Australia and all sort of gruesome stuff happened after. It's right up your street... you should really look into it. It would make a brilliant episode!

I had heard about this somehow as a kid (I'm in NZ and we didn't even have a TV so I have no idea where I learned about it from!!). Anyway I believed it and was so scared of seeing hairy hands on a window after that!! I went and told the kids at school about it and they were all scared too, haha. I'd completely forgotten all that until I saw the title of your upload just now, but yeah totally mystified as to where I'd heard of this from. We lived in village in the middle of nowhere and I've never heard of it again since, hence how I forgot about it. It's crazy the way urban legends can travel so far though like a game of global telephone :D

The Hairy Hands of Dartmoor does not ONLY "operate" in Dartmoor. What follows is the story of my encounter with The Hairy Hands of Dartmoor, which happened during July of 1987, in New York State, in the USA...
Although I have never been to England, I had an encounter with The Hairy Hands of Dartmoor entity, during July of 1987, while driving at 1: 30am, northbound on Route 390 in New York State. The evening was hot, so I had my driver's side window rolled down, all the way. I was traveling at about 72 mph, when, with no warning, the disembodied HAIRY HANDS showed-up. They reached in through my open driver's side window, and grabbed onto the left upper-quarter of my steering wheel. The hands immediately tried to abruptly, and forcefully, steer my vehicle off the road, with the apparent intent to make the vehicle go flying over the right-side embankment. My car was a 1973 Plymouth Satellite, which had a 318 V8 engine. I quickly responded by grabbing, with both hands, the inner right "V"-strut of the steering wheel, holding it as if it were a lug wrench. I also propped my right elbow on top of my right knee, with my right foot providing bracing, directly beneath, against the floorboard. Since my right foot was now providing a "bracing" support (...via my right tibia and my right knee...) for my right elbow, my right foot was likewise OFF the gas pedal. As a result, slowly, and uniformly, my car was in the process of gradually slowing down. At no time did I attempt to hit the brake (at least not until THE HAIRY HANDS eventually disappeared!) For what seemed like the better part of a tense minute, the Hairy Hands and I conducted a weird form of two-handed "arm wrestling", using the steering wheel as our common point of contact. At first, the Hairy Hands were winning the "arm wrestle", in that they had me driving completely on the right shoulder of the highway, right at the precipice/threshold of flying over the embankment. At that moment, I decided to commit more effort into the "arm wrestle", by placing my face against my two, clenched hands. (Anyone who has ever struggled to turn a lug wrench can identify with the increase in power you get when you place your face against your two, clenched hands.) In this position, my face was beneath the dashboard, so I could no longer look out the front windshield, to see where I was going. I could, however, still see my speedometer. My speed was now about 57 mph, and gradually getting slower. For about 10 seconds, the Hairy Hands and I were at an "arm wrestling" version of a stalemate. Together, like a grudge match, we made the steering wheel turn sinusoidally, back 'n' forth, about 1 inch each way. It didn't take long for the Hairy Hands "dude" to figure out that he was being stalemated, "arm wrestling" -style. His response, to this predicament, was decisive. Along the upper-left quarter of the steering wheel, Hairy Hand over Hairy Hand, the Hairy Hands "dude" began to WALK his hands, one at a time, onto the furthest and leftmost part of the steering wheel. From this NEW position, the Hairy Hands had decidedly more "mechanical advantage", and immediately began to "break" the stalemate. Just as the Hairy Hands began a brand new "shove" on the steering wheel, I noticed that the speedometer now said 42 mph. On the moment when the speed reduced to 42 mph, the Hairy Hands suddenly released their grip upon the steering wheel. On that instant, the Hairy Hands turned into what looked like wind-driven STEAM vapor, with the watery vapor immediately blowing out my open, driver's side window. Not expecting the Hairy Hands to suddenly, and completely, release the steering wheel, I immediately found myself DANGEROUSLY OVERSTEERING my steering wheel, so as to "launch" my car from being on the right shoulder of the highway OVER TO the narrow left shoulder of the highway. I immediately "counter" steered, back towards the right, doing so NOT ALL AT ONCE (which would surely have FLIPPED the car), but in careful increments, making sure to STRAIGHTEN THE WHEEL, after each partial "turn right" increment. When I finally had the car traveling straight down the highway lane, and since there were no cars behind me, I stabbed the brakes. At the moment of "brake stabbing", I was going about 35 mph, and I figured, at that speed, the car wouldn't "flip" or "roll". Turned out I was right!

Ben... I think your massive rants are what keep me coming back for these wonderful stories! You are a brilliant researcher so of course you're chuffed when people do it half-arsed! Keep up the fun work! I've been a patron for a few years now and am just so proud of you!

The escalation of the story reminds me of the Mothman sightings in West Virginia. It started as sighting one thing and the three smaller things and so on and so on. The thing is, they are fun. Even though a lot of tragi ties are with both the Mothman and Hairy hands, it's a tale that people embellish.

Yet again another great episode, sir! By the way, I saw an advertisement for Dark Histories in the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS... I was embarrassingly happy, almost saying aloud (in the dentist's office) , "I listen that show!" I felt a little intellectual afterglow for bit, later numbed by the novocaine.  Thanks for all your work!!!

The Hairy Hands of Dartmoor is REAL!! I survived it.

Way to much advertising interruption.  I don't remember this being an issue before.

Thank you for debunking this legend.  It lends credible to your research and your reporting ethics.

I have hairy hands ... even my palms are lushly-hirsute... 🐺

Hairy Hands of Dartmoor...

The title had me laughing! 😀 Never mind me and my puerile sense of humour... Move along...

Edited to add: 'Scratching Fanny & the Cock Lane Haunting' didn't make laugh (in my defence!) 😀

Harry Palmer

Capt. M? Don't pannick captain mannering!