Episodes

Can you imagine a hunger so deep it can never be filled, no matter how you try or what you eat? Cravings wracking your whole existence, pushing you past the limits of biology, decency and morality? That was the constant condition of Tarrare, the hungriest man who ever lived. This week, Sean tells the fascinating, morbid and entirely disgusting story of the eighteenth century French peasant, street performer, polyphage and unlikely spy who really would do anything for a meal...and we mean anythin...

Could America's most famous house also be its most haunted? That's what many think of the White House, the United States' office, residence, and seat of the Presidency. Inhabited by the most powerful men in the world since 1800, the White House boasts centuries of history, some of the biggest names of all time...and a whole cadre of ghosts. On Carrie's after-hours tour of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we'll meet: The two First Ladies that held séances in the White House...and may have opened the doo...

What would your last words be, if you knew you were about to die? Would you go out with a joke, a last "I love you"...or an expression of regret? This week, Sean takes us on a tour of his favorite last words throughout the ages, from Pythagoras to Groucho Marx. Assassins, revolutionaries, kings and criminals - everyone has to reach the finish line sometime, and some do with such grace, dignity and courage that their words bring comfort and inspiration down through the ages. Others... don't. And ...

We're all familiar with the trappings of Halloween that we know and love today: trick or treating, jack o' lantern carving, costume parades, witches and skeletons and ghosts and black cats...but why are those Halloween traditions? Why do we go from house to house asking for candy? Why do we dress up as ghouls and celebrities? Why do we believe the veil between our world and the afterlife is thinnest on the evening of October 31st? This week, Carrie takes us way back to the Ancient Celts to the o...

This week we take a long, hard look at one of the most publicized hauntings in British history - and the inspiration for the 2016 hit The Conjuring 2 - the Enfield poltergeist. As a single mother with four kids in 1977, Peggy Hodgson had her hands full even before something started throwing things around her house and pulling her kids out of their beds at night. Eleven year old Janet, rumored to be the center of the haunting, even seemed to channel the spirit of a dead (and quite grumpy) man nam...

We're checking out some witch trials this Halloween season, just like we did last year - only this time, we're investigating the story of the Connecticut Witch Trials, the first and longest span of witch trials in New England and America. From the 1640s all the way to the 1690s, 11 people were executed and 34 were arrested on charges of witchcraft and "familiarity with the devil". But how did this particular hysteria start? What finally brought it to an end? And why is it so forgotten compared t...

In August of 1962 the once bright light of "candle in the wind" Marilyn Monroe - Hollywood bombshell, actress, and most famous woman in the world - was snuffed out forever when the 36-year-old superstar was found dead in her Los Angeles home, possibly of suicide or misadventure due to barbiturate overdose. Or was it? What really happened to Marilyn Monroe? Was she suicidal, did she accidentally OD...or was she killed in a cold-blooded murder? And if so, why? Inspired by the release of the contro...

After four bloody weeks in Whitechapel with Jack the Ripper, your intrepid hosts are taking the week off - and leaving you with a very special clip show comprising some of the best of our first 100 episodes! From Count Von Cosel’s slippery tomb robbery to Andrew Basiago’s footless schoolfriend, we revisit some of the silliest moments of our grave & gruesome first hundred episodes! CLIPS: 3:31 - Episode 1, CT Legends and Lore; 9:35 - Episode 7, George Adamski & Orthon of Venus; 13:33 - Episode 19...

It's the thrilling conclusion to our monthlong Jack The Ripper series! Last week, Carrie presented some of the likeliest and best-known suspects put forth for the Ripper crimes, from Mary Kelly's jilted ex-lover to a parade of shabby, misogynist psychotics. This week, Sean makes the case for some of the more... colorful theories, from "Jill the Ripper" to a vast royal conspiracy to...H.H. Holmes? Hundreds of people have been implicated in the Ripper murders over the past 130-plus years, and it's...

In this third episode of our Jack the Ripper series, we move past the events of the case and review selected main suspects to see if any can fit into the role of Saucy Jack. We discuss multiple serial poisoners, doctors and quacks, famous authors and artists and even an ex-lover of one of the victims. Are any of these men the possible real Jack the Ripper?? Next week, Sean will be diving in to take us through the conspiracy theories related to the Ripper case, and the possibility of it being a m...

In the second episode of our Jack the Ripper series, we continue and finish the story of the initial 1888 killing spree with the final 3 of the "Canonical Five" victims: Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. Stride and Eddowes would, shockingly, be murdered the same night in September 1888...and the Ripper would seem to end his spree with the shocking, horrific murder of Mary Kelly in her own home in November. We also discuss the infamous "Jack the Ripper" letters, which rese...

IT'S THE BIG 100! That's right, we've hit 100 episodes and 2 years of the show...so, in celebration, we're heading back to 1888 London to investigate one of the biggest true crime cases of all time: the grisly murder spree of Jack the Ripper. In the Whitechapel district of London, England in the fall of 1888, a series of 5 gory murders shocked the lower and upper classes alike. The victims were sex workers, and all had been...well..."ripped", with several missing organs and being posed almost ar...

From 1962 to 1972, the U.S. government ran a top-secret program that teleported child spies through space and time. At least, that's the claim of Andrew Basiago, former time traveler and holder of the hotly contested title of "Strangest 2016 Presidential Candidate." Join us for a tour through Basiago's meeting with George Washington, his failed presidential bid, his childhood teleportation experiments, and his jaunts on Mars with a teenaged Barack Obama. ________________________________________ ...

Father of the Pod Paul Ferrante returns to the show this week to talk blood - the bloody history of the Tower of London, of course! First built up way back in 1066 after William the Conqueror's invasion of England, the Tower of London has risen from being known as just another British castle to being regarded as the country's greatest symbol of monarchical cruelty, thanks to its conversion into a prison for commoners and, also, some of the most famous people sentenced to death in history. From t...

This week we take our first blazing steps into the dark, yet sorta wacky, world of millennial death cults with the tragic tale of the Order of the Solar Temple and its power-mad leaders, Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret. Ostensibly a fraternal secret society like the Freemasons, the OST escalated from goofy chants with robes and swords all the way to ritual murder and suicide by the time of the fiery collapse in the mid-90s that would eventually kill more than 70 members. Why? How? Is my local El...

The American region of Appalachia, much like our native New England, is a land of folklore and high strangeness, and this is perfectly exemplified in the story of the Flatwoods Monster - a maybe-alien, maybe-cryptid that burst onto the scene 70 years ago to completely throw locals for a loop and enchant an entire nation. On September 12th, 1952 in Flatwoods, West Virginia, brothers Eddie and Freddie May were playing with friends when they witnessed a strange object in the sky seemingly land on a...

This week we hit the foreign districts and seedy neighborhoods of pre-war Beijing with a look at the unsolved murder of Pamela Werner. The 19-year-old was found beaten to death and gruesomely mutilated one January morning in 1937, as Beijing found itself awash in refugees and expatriates and Japanese Army units camped closer and closer to the city. Pamela’s death would fascinate the media, but an international police team was stymied until the outbreak of war permanently interrupted the investig...

On July 17th, 1996 TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747 jet carrying 230 passengers and crew, exploded over the Center Moriches, New York bay, setting fire to a peaceful summer night. Hundreds of witnesses along the Long Island coast watched as a strange flare-like object seemed to rise from the horizon, turn in the air, and impact on or near the plane, causing it to breakup midair and plunge into the ocean below. There were no survivors. The FBI and NTSB, however, came to the official conclusion that t...

On November 5, 1975, a crew of loggers driving home after a long day of work saw a strange light through the trees. They decided to follow it, and found themselves face to face with a flying saucer. For Travis Walton, nothing would be the same. This week, Sean takes us through the facts(?) of one of the most famous alien abduction cases in American history. Travis Walton went missing for 5 days in 1975, and six of his friends say they saw a UFO shoot him with a beam of light before he disappeare...

Since the days of antiquity, the human race has been searching for cures for what ails us. From disease to mental illness to sexual dysfunction and more, we've always tried to find the solutions to the things that plague our health. And, sometimes, those solutions end up being even worse - and could very well even kill us. This week, we explore stories of quack doctors and snake oil salesman in history, including a Founding Father of America, the creator of Kellogg's Corn Flakes, the inventor of...

In the second of our two-part series on the best-known, most widely dramatized haunting case in American History, we finally get to the ghosts! On December 18, 1975, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house at 112 Ocean Avenue. Twenty-eight days later, they fled the house, leaving most of their belongings behind. This week, Sean takes us through the amazing “true” story, as told to us by the Lutzes through author Jay Anson. Prepare for chills, thrills, and more pigs and flies than a dang Willi...

The Amityville Horror is one of the most publicized hauntings in American history. But 13 months before the Lutz family's short and spooky stay in the famous house on Ocean Avenue, the real horror came - in the form of six grisly murders, in one night, under one roof. In the first of a two-part series, Sean gives us a primer on the horror behind the horror - the tragic deaths of the DeFeo family, and the "comedy" of errors that followed. ________________________________________ Connect with us o...

On part two of our two-part Slender Man series, we dive into the very real consequences of this modern legend of a monster with the infamous "Slender Man Stabbing" case. In May 2014, 12-year old Payton Leutner was discovered, injured and bleeding, on the outside of the woods in her native Waukesha, Wisconsin. Payton had an unbelievable story to tell law enforcement: she had been attacked and stabbed by her two preteen friends, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, who had apparently believed that Payt...

Is it possible for an online meme-turned-urban legend to become...real? That's the question we ask this week as we investigate the origins of Slender Man, an eerie, faceless monster known to have been created on the Something Awful forums in June 2009. While Slender Man's origins are traceable, his reach has extended much further than even his long limbs and tentacles could have possibly ever expected. Do some people really believe in Slender Man? Have those beliefs been powerful enough to turn ...