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,…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Between 1967 and 1971, the small city of Stamford, Connecticut was terrorized by a little-known serial killer. A total of five Black women were strangled - most with their own brassieres - and dumped within a 750-yard stretch of the Merritt Parkway. While a colorful local character was eventually arrested…
Among the legends of allegedly cursed objects, stories of cursed jewelry and gemstones reign supreme. There's something mystical about these items, which often fall into the hands of the extremely wealthy, famous, and powerful - from bone-fide royalty to your run-of-the-mill tycoons and socialites. But can these gaudy possessions really…
Even among all the creative execution methods mankind has dreamed up over the years, the Guillotine stands out, raising nightmares of show trials and cutting (ahem) an imposing silhouette. Originally created as a more “humane” capital punishment, the head-chopping machine soon became synonymous with the bloodthirsty excesses of the French…
In March 1998, the Bradley family - dad Ron, mom Iva, son Brad, and daughter Amy - embarked on a "trip of a lifetime": a luxurious cruise on the Rhapsody of the Seas, sailing between Puerto Rico, Aruba, and Curacao on a whirlwind vacation of carefree fun and family time.…
This week we dive into one of the most persistent legends of secret U.S. military experimentation - the famed Philadelphia Experiment. In the fall of 1943 - so the story goes - highly classified government tech made the destroyer escort USS Eldridge completely invisible - and, as an unexpected side…
In November 1987, one of the weirdest moments of TV history happened right underneath the noses of the Chicago viewing public. That night a mysterious figure wearing a full-head "Max Headroom" mask invaded the broadcasts of local Chicago TV stations WGN and WTTW. Initially, on WGN, the masked marauder was…
Inspired by the new hit show "Our Flag Means Death", we're covering the most famous pirate in history: Blackbeard! At the dawn of the 18th century, the Caribbean was ruled by roving bands of seaborne criminals who robbed and murdered with impunity. The British colony of the Bahamas even lost…