In part two of our series on the Nazca lines, we examine some of the prevailing theories about their purpose. From astronomical earthwork markers, maps of aquifer sources, and a gargantuan textile & mummy manufactory to processional pathways for worshippers, a conclusive and comprehensive explanation continues to elude researchers and the public. Yet while most scholars and enthusiasts concentrate on the biomorphic geoglyphs of Nazca, perhaps the greater mystery lies in the older, more sophi...
Feb 13, 2023•1 hr 59 min
On a high desert plateau in southwestern Peru, only about 230 miles south of the capital Lima, hundreds of massive and mysterious artistic designs are scraped into the arid soil. Technically known as geoglyphs, these figures range from straight lines and geometric shapes to biomorphic caricatures of animals, plants, and a humanoid. Typically composed of single, continuous outlines, the earthworks can vary in size from 440 to 1200 yards across or between 400 and 1100 meters. The lines combined me...
Jan 29, 2023•2 hr
Like so many stories and people that come our way, this is another one that seemed to be put in our path by some grander force for a higher purpose. Recently, Scott and his wife Emily were out at dinner and struck up a conversation with the stranger sitting next to them, Lauren Hopper, who told them she worked as an end-of-life doula. While many of us have heard of a Birth Doula, someone who provides advice, emotional support, and physical comfort to mothers during childbirth, Lauren’s job takes...
Jan 14, 2023•1 hr 50 min
Well, it's our second favorite time of year again, after Halloween, but that’s no reason not to invite all of our spooky friends over for some eggnog, stories, fun, and good conversation. The Astonishing Legends All-Star Holiday Special has become something of a tradition, and we were excited to do it again in 2022 for the third time. This year we are thrilled to be able to present the audio from a Holiday Party that was actually originally broadcast live on our YouTube channel on December 12th....
Dec 22, 2022•2 hr 10 min
In Part Two of our series on the massacre at Duffy's Cut, we continue our discussion with investigating brothers, Drs. Frank and Bill Watson. We examine the historical circumstances and the likelihood of these 57 workers all dying of cholera or being murdered out of fear and prejudice. Also considered is the remarkable number of coincidences and hauntings connected to the paranormal nature of this tragedy's discovery. Whether they fell victim to the harsh conditions of past eras or the brutality...
Dec 10, 2022•1 hr 22 min
In September of 2000, history professor Dr. William "Bill" Watson of Immaculata University stopped by the campus for a break with friend and fellow bagpipe musician Tom Connor during a long drive back from a performance. While there, around 10:00 p.m. near the typically deserted faculty center lawn, both men witnessed a strange apparition that would later lead to a remarkable and meaningful coincidence. Two years after this experience, Bill's twin brother, Reverend Dr. Frank Watson, by chance, c...
Nov 27, 2022•1 hr 7 min
On Friday, September 4, 1964, Donald Shrum and two friends from his job at Aerojet made camp in a remote section of wilderness near the Loch Leven Lakes in an area called Cisco Grove, roughly 60 miles northeast of Sacramento, CA. The three men had planned a relaxing weekend of bow hunting for deer, but those plans would change later that evening as Shrum experienced an exhausting and terrifying UFO close encounter of the worst kind. As night approached, Shrum got lost and separated from his hunt...
Nov 13, 2022•2 hr 11 min
Tonight's episode concludes this series of our listeners' most terrifying true tales for Halloween. In the final Part Three of this anthology, we're proud to present five stories we believe were some of the most horrifying we've ever heard. The collection covers a curated compilation of creepy creatures. You may be tempted to classify them under the categories of a goblin, doppelgänger, genie, demon, and something that defies easy classification, but what are these things that people have encoun...
Oct 29, 2022•2 hr 36 min
As we continue with Part Two of our Halloween series featuring our listeners' true accounts, tonight's episode presents another three eerie tales of the supernatural. The first story tells of a haunted college rooming house with a spirit fond of movie catchphrases. And it may have the power to compel humans to deliver poignant messages. Our second interview details a forceful presence with the ability to invade your dreams and physically send you to a dark portal of a waking nightmare. Our final...
Oct 24, 2022•1 hr 45 min
Astonishing Legends is all about fascinating and mysterious topics. And within that category, the details we cover can be unsettling or downright terrifying. But you may not realize that some of the most chilling and creepy accounts we've ever encountered have come from our listeners! We've received thousands of emails over our eight years of podcasting, and we appreciate and value every one of them. We realize that it takes no small amount of courage to send such personal anecdotes to strangers...
Oct 15, 2022•2 hr 27 min
In Part Two of our series on the Missing 411 phenomenon, we'll first examine a study conducted to determine which National Parks are the most dangerous in the United States. The numbers and causes may surprise you. We then take a closer look at a few more puzzling cases and, with a critical eye, examine the data presented by David Paulides and the CanAm Project vs. what's been reported by the news media. Discrepancies raise questions when ascertaining the objective facts and judging if the evide...
Sep 26, 2022•3 hr 38 min
A former police officer turned writer David Paulides was taken aside by a National Park Ranger and told about a disturbing trend he'd realized. This Ranger asserted that some people were going missing in the woods under mysterious circumstances leaving only puzzling evidence of their fate. Of course, people often go missing in the wilderness in tragic yet explainable events but what was troubling to these Rangers in the field was the apparent pattern of the occurrences and the subsequent investi...
Sep 11, 2022•1 hr 47 min
Since antiquity, espionage and deceit have always been crucial weapons of warfare. As technology and strategy have advanced over the centuries, methods for governments to deliver information and orders to their secret agents in the field have become more sophisticated. Yet, one form of cryptic communication implemented in the early 20th century has proven ever effective and relatively simple. With the advent of wireless telegraphy combined with a cipher technique called a "One-time Pad," militar...
Aug 28, 2022•2 hr 45 min
On December 1, 1948, an unknown man was found lying dead on the sand on Somerton Beach next to the neighborhood of Glenelg, about 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Adelaide, South Australia. He had no money or identification on him, the labels in his clothing were cut off, and his minimal possessions yielded no clues. Further adding to the mystery, a rolled-up scrap of paper with the Persian phrase " tamám shud ," translating to "is over" or "is finished," was found in the man's watch pocket around t...
Aug 14, 2022•1 hr 58 min
Did we hear about the Somerton Man case being solved? Yes. And now you will, too, on August 13th, 2022.
Jul 29, 2022•2 min
As we continue our discussion based on Blake Lemoine’s assertion that the Large Language Model chatbot LaMDA had become sentient, we relay the rest of his conversation with the program and then some questions and answers with Lemoine himself. But as Lemoine has said, machine sentience and personhood are just some of many questions to be considered. His greater issue is how an omnipresent AI, trained on an insufficient data set, will affect how different people and cultures interact and who will ...
Jul 25, 2022•2 hr 42 min
On June 11, 2022, The Washington Post published an article by their San Francisco-based tech culture reporter Nitasha Tiku titled, "The Google engineer who thinks the company's AI has come to life." The piece focused on the claims of a Google software engineer named Blake Lemoine, who said he believed the company's artificially intelligent chatbot generator LaMDA had shown him signs that it had become sentient. In addition to identifying itself as an AI-powered dialogue agent, it also said it fe...
Jul 10, 2022•2 hr 6 min
We're marvelously fortunate and extraordinarily grateful that so many listeners have sent us their personal stories of mysterious experiences over the years. While it's not possible to respond to all of them, we can and should present some for the entertainment and edification of all. So as thanks to those who've shared, and a treat for us that love to hear them, we're featuring three stories from a recent call for submissions. Our first account comes from Terra Greenleaf, who managed to capture...
Jun 26, 2022•3 hr 17 min
As we dive further into the epic of Mel's Hole, we learn that in the third phone call to Art Bell on the Coast to Coast AM radio show on April 24, 2000, Mel reveals what had happened to him since his initial calls in 1997. After supposedly taking the deal from the US government to relocate to Australia and receive a compensation of $250,000 per month for the lease of the land he received in a divorce settlement from his wife, Mel was happy to continue his research with medicinal plants and effor...
Jun 12, 2022•3 hr 23 min
One of the most enduring and pervasive tropes to ever capture the human imagination is the concept of a "bottomless pit." On Friday, February 22, 1997, a man calling himself "Mel Waters" had faxed Art Bell, the much-beloved and sadly now-passed host of the highly-rated, paranormal-themed radio talk show, Coast to Coast AM, claiming to have one on his property. Mel said his property is about nine miles west of Ellensburg, Washington, adjacent to Manastash Ridge. He and his neighbors and the prope...
May 29, 2022•2 hr 9 min
Often when one hears about some group of people claiming to experience a highly strange event or similarly acting out in bizarre and irrational manners, it's easy and common to dismiss the episode as a case of "mass hysteria." Phenomena like the audience reaction to Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast, "The Dancing Plague of 1518," the "Windshield-Pitting Mystery of 1954," and "The Mad Gasser of Mattoon" are considered by much of the public to be examples of mass hysteria. In the lat...
May 16, 2022•2 hr 45 min
On the evening of April 15, 1973, Enfield, Illinois, resident Henry McDaniel heard a scratching noise outside his door he thought might be a bear. He opened it to find a hideous creature he described as having "... three legs on it, a short body, two little, short arms coming out of its breast area, and two pink eyes as big as flashlights. It stood four and a half feet tall and was grayish colored. It was trying to get into the house." McDaniel grabbed his pistol and a flashlight and fired four ...
Apr 24, 2022•1 hr 20 min
In the second part of our series on Charles Hoy Fort, we first return to the formative events of his adolescence that shaped his personality, career, and personal philosophies. Fort chronicled anecdotes from his youth in an unpublished manuscript titled Many Parts, written while in his 20s and of which only fragments remain. What can be gleaned from tales of his boisterous boyhood adventures, punctuated by harsh punishments from a strict father, is that it all instilled in Fort defiance of rules...
Apr 10, 2022•2 hr 3 min
Perhaps most everyone listening to this show is familiar with the term "Fortean," meaning something related to the paranormal, the supernatural, or just generally strange phenomena. But where did that term come from? How did "Forteana" come to describe many of the topics we cover on the podcast? We owe that cognomen and a good deal of our inspiration for our reportage to the work of one man, Charles Hoy Fort. Fort (b. August 6, 1874 - d. May 3, 1932) was a journalist, author, and researcher best...
Mar 27, 2022•2 hr 8 min
In tonight's Part Two of our series, we continue with the "Why?" of Tiwanaku and Pumapunku. As in, why was it all built? Why did Tiwanaku society spend so much effort and resources on it, and what did it mean to them? We then transition to the "How?" such a monumental architectural and cultural feat could be accomplished. What craftsmanship skills and construction technology did they possess to erect structures that continue to baffle present-day archaeologists and engineers? Could an organic te...
Mar 14, 2022•3 hr 43 min
We’ve all heard of the mystical and wondrous ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica and South America: The Maya, Olmecs, Aztecs, and the Inca. But one culture that developed on the southern end of Lake Titicaca in present-day western Bolivia near the border with Peru left behind ruins so monumental they continue to intrigue archaeologists and spark hypotheses of anachronistic, advanced technologies. The Inca referred to Lake Titicaca as their origin place. The culture that evolved in the region be...
Feb 28, 2022•2 hr 10 min
In part two of our conversation with Remote Viewing instructor Lori Lambert Williams, we'll discuss what is known about how the process works and what is still unknown. Including how the practice can get your non-local consciousness to work with your subconscious and how it can improve your daily life. We'll also explore the mechanics and procedure of a Controlled Remote Viewing session. Lori relays anecdotes and answers to frequently asked questions, such as about her successes and the types of...
Feb 13, 2022•2 hr 33 min
We're honored and excited to present a conversation with our good friend and Remote Viewing sensei Lori Lambert Williams. Lori first started studying Remote Viewing back in 1996, mentored by her now longtime friend, Lyn Buchanan. Lyn was one of the original members of the military unit of Viewers created in 1972 at the Standford Research Institute by physicists Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff and sanctioned as Project Stargate by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. With Lyn's tutelage and enthusi...
Jan 30, 2022•1 hr 42 min
One of the most baffling, disturbing, and popular subjects we've ever covered on the show is the mystery of Skinwalker Ranch. The groundbreaking book Hunt for the Skinwalker was the source for most of our research. And this is why we're honored and excited to discuss the follow-up book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program , with two of its authors, Colm A. Kelleher, Ph.D., and George Knapp. Colm Kelleher is a biochemist specializing in cell biolo...
Jan 16, 2022•2 hr 20 min
We at Astonishing Legends love… well... legends of course, and myths, and traditions. The first two often lead to the latter. But none of it, no story we've ever come across or covered, happens in a vacuum. The one constant connection between all of it, which matters most to us, is people. And so continuing on with a new tradition of our own, we'd like to present another Astonishing All-Star Holiday Special. It's time to congregate with great friends, share stories and ideas, and reflect on thin...
Dec 24, 2021•2 hr 52 min
