Today's True Weird Stuff - Rest In Peace London in the early 1800s had a graveyard problem. A lack of space led to unsanitary burial practices as the smell of rotting corpses and overflowing sewers consumed the city. One such place was Enon Chapel, a church in which the pastor was getting paid to allow bodies to be buried in the chapel's basement. But a man nicknamed "Graveyard Walker" made it his mission to put an end to these filthy practices. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informatio...
Oct 18, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 84
Today True Weird Stuff - The Rightest Stuff Astronaut Gordon Cooper had to manually control his spacecraft after a series of equipment failures. Edgar Mitchell avoided disaster by deactivating spaceship abort commands caused by a faulty switch. Becoming an astronaut has been the dream of generations of children, but it's more than exploring strange new worlds. The job of an astronaut is stressful, demanding and requires quick life-or-death decision making. This episode looks at a few tales in sp...
Oct 11, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 83
Today's True Weird Stuff - Beavers on the Moon Claims that the Apollo 11 moon landing was a hoax have existed for decades. Meet the grandaddy of moon landing conspiracy theories, Bill Kaysing. He believed the Apollo Moon landings between 1969 and 1972 were faked. However, this isn't the only lunar conspiracy...The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 went as far as to trick people into believing that animals lived on the moon. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Oct 04, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 82
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Pineys The Pine Barrens of New Jersey may be a forbidding wilderness, but people have called the place home for hundreds of years. It's also where folks have reported sightings of a terrifying beast, capable of a blood-curdling scream that can send chills down the sturdiest spines. It's the legend of the Jersey Devil that haunts the Pineys. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Sep 20, 2024•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 81
Today's True Weird Stuff - Legend of the Pines Joe Mulliner was known as the “Robin Hood of the Pines.” Forced to flee his home in 1779, Mulliner went on a crime spree through the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey...never killing anyone, but robbing and kidnapping his way into the history books. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sep 13, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 80
Today's True Weird Stuff - King Of Quacks Curtis Howe Springer was a radio evangelist, self-proclaimed medical doctor and minister. In 1944, he laid claim to 12,000 acres of land in California's Mohave Desert and created his own town. The only problem? The land wasn't his. He was also a medical fraud who used his radio show to sell fake miracle potions. Springer was the ultimate con man known as the "King of Quacks." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Sep 08, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 79
Today's True Weird Stuff - Big Muddy Monster Summer, 1973. Police in Murphysboro, Illinois started receiving phone calls about the presence of a large creature. Some saw a tall, muddy beast with glowing red eyes lurking around wooded areas. Others heard a shrieking noise that terrified even the police officers who were investigating. It's a cold case that's never been solved...the mystery of the Big Muddy Monster. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Aug 17, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 78
Today's True Weird Stuff - Adios, Yda! Yda Addis was a brilliant and famous writer in California in the late 1800s. She was also someone whose personal life was full of turmoil. Constant legal battles, a nasty divorce, charges of defamation and attempted murder took their toll on Yda. Then one day, out of nowhere, she disappeared...never to be heard from again. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aug 09, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 77
Today's True Weird Stuff - Here Be Sea Monsters Cultures all around the world have myths and legends about the terrifying creatures that inhabit the ocean - from massive sea serpents, to sirens and merfolk. We take a look at the history of folks who encountered or dedicated their lives to searching for monsters in the deep blue sea. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aug 02, 2024•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 76
Today's True Weird Stuff - Shock Doc In the 1950's, the CIA launched a program aimed at developing methods for interrogating and controlling human behavior; part of the program involved funding tests on children. Dr. Lauretta Bender at Bellevue Hospital would conduct electroshock therapy on kids as young as three years old to treat childhood schizophrenia. The CIA called it "Project Artichoke." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Jul 26, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 75
Today's True Weird Stuff - Prize Prison It's the wildest reality show in TV history. Susunu! Denpa Shōnen was known for placing contestants in extreme situations for entertainment purposes. This is the story of Nasubi, a comedian who spent 15 months naked and alone in an apartment. Cut off from the world, he was forced to enter magazine sweeptakes until he won $8,000 in prizes. He did this completely unaware that his challenge was being livestreamed 24/7. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy ...
Jul 19, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 74
Today's True Weird Stuff - Pay Phone Bandit He didn't rob banks. He wasn't a serial killer. However, James Clark left the FBI dazed and confused for years as he stole $500,000 in quarters right under everyone's nose. He was known as the Pay Phone Bandit. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jul 12, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 73
Today's True Weird Stuff - Deadly Circus Gypsy the elephant had a temper. She was part of the W.H. Harris Nickle Plate Circus, and in 1902, Gypsy killed her trainer and went on a rampage through the streets of Valdosta, Georgia. Animals have long been used in circus performances, but no amount of training changes the fact they're still wild animals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jul 05, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 72
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Camel Girl Ella Harper was born with a rare orthopedic condition that caused her knees to bend backward. During a time when sideshows and oddities were extremely popular, Ella joined W. H. Harris's Nickel Plate Circus, becoming a featured act in the show. Because she walked on her hands and feet, she became known as The Camel Girl. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jun 28, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 71
Today's True Weird Stuff - Footsie Elvis Presley. Quentin Tarantino. Jack Black. They're just a few of many people who admittedly have a foot fetish. But serial killer Dayton Leroy Rogers' love of feet took a gruesome turn. He murdered at least eight women in Oregon in the 1980s; some of the bodies were found with their feet severed because Rogers had a kink for killing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Jun 21, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 70
Today's True Weird Stuff - Baby Broker Georgia Tann was a social worker who ran a child kidnapping and adoption scheme starting in 1924. Georgia ran the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, and for over 20 years she would take children from poor families and sell them to wealthy families for a hefty profit. She would even steal newborns from mothers in prisons and mental wards. Georgia Tann stole over 5,000 children during the course of her black-market baby ring. See omnystudio.com/listener for p...
Jun 14, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 69
Today's True Weird Stuff - Secret City Sarov is a town in Russia that no longer exists...officially, that is. In the 1940s, Sarov was removed from all unclassified maps, and the entire town was transformed into a center for research and development of nuclear weapons. Dozens of cities like these popped up in the Soviet Union at the time, as Stalin led the charge to bolster their nuclear weapons program. But strict rules and harsh conditions meant...sometimes mistakes were made. See omnystudio.co...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 68
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Mad Scientist Jack Parsons was one of the fathers of the American space age who helped put man on the moon. He invented solid rocket fuel, co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and he was also an occultist. He was written out of a lot of NASA's history because of his antics: he was the leader of a black-magic sex mansion, ate menstrual cakes, and was frenemies with L. Ron Hubbard. Jack Parsons was the definition of a mad scientist. See omnystudio.com/listener f...
May 31, 2024•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 67
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Devil Went Down To Georgia The Georgia Guidestones were a monument that stood in Elbert County, Georgia for 42 years. Often called the "American Stonehenge," the creators believed society would eventually collapse, and built the monument as a guide for humanity after the apocalypse. However, conspiracy theorists believed the Georgia Guidestones were tied to Satanism, and in 2022, the monument was destroyed by an explosive device...and the person or persons involved...
May 24, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 66
Today's True Weird Stuff - Teenage Nazi Hunters Meet Freddie and Truus Oversteegen. Freddie was a wife and mother. Truus was a sculptor and painter. But long before that, these two sisters spent their teenage years as part of the anti-Nazi Dutch resistance during WWII. They used their lethal skills and innocent charm to eliminate Nazi soldiers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
May 17, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 65
Today's True Weird Stuff - Human Product 12 Society has a long history of conducting terrible experiments on humans, often without their knowledge or consent. In 1945, Ebenezer Cade was in a car accident and needed medical attention, but doctors injected an unknown substance into him just to see what would happen. It turns out he was a guinea pig for their tests on the effects of radiation; he was the first of 18 men, women, and children who were secretly injected with plutonium. See omnystudio....
May 10, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 64
Today's True Weird Stuff - Glass Closet Liberace was one of the great performers of his time. His flamboyant style on and off the stage are what made fans love him, and made the gossip magazines love to hate him. Despite the tabloids relentless insults and rumors about his sexuality, Liberace found himself crying all the way to the bank. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
May 04, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 63
The Enema King Once upon a time in a faraway land, there lived a very powerful king. He was quite good at being a king, and ruled for longer than any other monarch in the history of the whole world. But even a king chosen by God is still just a human being. Beset by all the troubles and mischief a human body can get up to. Yet his heart was glad because his people called him The Sun King, and not the other nickname he’d so richly earned: The Enema King. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy in...
Apr 26, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 62
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Baroness In 1929, Friedrich Ritter and his mistress took off to an uninhabited island in the Galapagos to start their new life together. But their peaceful paradise was interrupted by other inhabitants, including a woman and her two German lovers. With tensions rising and questions lingering around her sudden disappearance, this is a story about the mystery of the Baroness. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 05, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 61
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Ghost Of Ed Neal Omaha, 1890. Allen and Dorothy Jones were brutally murdered at their farm. The culprit? A man named Ed Neal...or so they say. Little is known about who he was or where he came from, but the actions of this ruthless killer sparked bloodlust in a town hellbent on revenge. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mar 29, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 60
Today's True Weird Stuff - The Devil Himself It was a beautiful, 22-bedroom mansion that was built in 1350. But the sprawling country home in County Wexford called Loftus Hall is also known as the most haunted mansion in Ireland. Stories have been passed down of a spirit that wanders the halls, but even darker than that, Loftus Hall has been haunted by the devil himself. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Mar 22, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 59
Today's True Weird Stuff - Turning The Bones You know the story of President Abraham Lincoln and his assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth. But did you know Honest Abe's body was sent on a two-week funeral procession? 1,600 miles and over 400 stops across 7 states. Things were smooth at first, but once the decay started to set in, his corpse "was not a pleasant sight." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Mar 15, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 58
Today's True Weird Stuff - On Her Nerves She was known as the Giggling Granny...but behind the warm smile of Nannie Doss was the heart of a cold-blooded murderer. In 1954 she confessed that over the course of nearly 30 years she'd killed 11 people: four husbands, two children, one of her sisters, her own mother, two grandsons, and a mother-in-law. The casual killing of her own family members made Nannie Doss one of history's most notorious female serial killers. See omnystudio.com/listener for p...
Mar 09, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 57
Today's True Weird Stuff - Shhh, It's Mars Humanity dreams of the day when we can inhabit Mars. However, it wasn't long ago that even great thinkers and inventors were convinced Martians were there first..so much so that the U.S. government instituted a "National Radio Silence Day" to listen for signs of extraterrestrial life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mar 02, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 56
Today's True Weird Stuff - I Do, I Do, I Do She had it all. Money. Eight different husbands. Her name in the headlines. Was she a free spirit? An impulsive woman in love with love? The life of Monaei Lindley ended in the same way she lived it...in a blaze of glory. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Feb 24, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 55
