Astonishing Legends

In tonight's dead letter, our listener named Mark is driving through western Michigan at two in the morning in 1978, working off a paper map and handwritten directions to a house he's never been to. He comes up a hill and into a curve on US 131, and there are four people standing in his lane. Two of them are waving him over to the right, and the other two have their arms raised above their heads in an X. Had they not been there he may have had a fatal collision, and when he went to find them shortly after, they had vanished. Relevant Prior Episodes Ep 102: Resurrection Mary Part 1 Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 116: Small Town Monsters Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Links and Further Reading Lydia: The Ghost of Jamestown Bridge, NCpedia A History of the Vanishing Hitchhiker, Beardsley and Hankey, 1943 The Bray Road Beast, Small Town Monsters Jim Harold's Campfire: True Ghost Stories, Books 1 through 6 Note: We call it the National Highway Transportation Safety Association in the episode. The ‘A’ is actually for Administration. We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

In tonight's dead letter, listener Mothmaiden remembers a time when she was four years old and an only child in a neighborhood with no other kids, and she had an imaginary friend named Cindy Cora who looked exactly like Betty Rubble from The Flintstones. Then on a sunny afternoon, in her own bedroom with the light coming through the window, she saw an elderly woman with white and gray hair piled high on her head, sitting in a rocking chair, calm and gentle and completely solid. Were these things connected? Relevant Prior Episodes Abduction at Devil's Den Devil's Den: The Reckoning Part 1 Chris McKinnell and the Warren Legacy Dan, Susan, Micah Hanks and Missing Time Links and Further Reading Two-thirds of school-age children have an imaginary companion by age 7, University of Washington Note: We say about one in three for the invisible-only friends. In the study, about two thirds of kids have had an imaginary companion by age seven, and about one in three have one at the time they are asked. The psychological significance of play with imaginary companions in early childhood, Learning & Behavior Childhood amnesia, Wikipedia Ghosts and Apparitions in Psi Research, the Society for Psychical Research's Psi Encyclopedia Phantasms of the Living (1886) by Gurney, Myers and Podmore, Internet Archive Strange Intruders by David Weatherly Devils Den: The Reckoning by Terry Lovelace Contact (1997), Wikipedia Note: We say David Morse was one of the doctors on ER. He played Dr. Jack Morrison on St. Elsewhere. Sesame Street debuts, November 10, 1969, HISTORY Wall Street crash of 1929, Wikipedia The History of Bettys in Pop Culture, Refinery29 Natalie and Tara on YouTube We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

Scott sits down with screenwriter and Paranormal Bookshelf host Richard Hatem to talk about his Light in the Dark Tour 2026, a six-city run of live shows September 13 through 19, ending at the Mothman Festival. A crossover from Richard Hatem's Paranormal Bookshelf.

In tonight's dead letter, listener Chris takes us back to the early 2000s, when he was the head brewer at a restaurant on the east side of Cumberland, Maryland, in a building so old it served as a Civil War field hospital. One night after close, he and three coworkers were having a beer in the basement bar when the loudest sound he'd ever heard slammed into the floorboards right above their heads, shaking dust from the ceiling and rattling every bottle behind the bar. Relevant Prior Episodes Nightmarchers of Hawaii Links and Further Reading The Battle of Folck's Mill: Maryland Historical Trust Battlefield Documentation (PDF) Battle of Folck's Mill, Wikipedia Folck's Mill (National Register of Historic Places site), Wikipedia The Battle of Folck's Mill, Western Maryland's Historical Library The Invasion, Aug 1864: The Cumberland Alleganian's Original Account, Western Maryland's Historical Library Folck's Mill Marker, Historical Marker Database The History of Puccini Restaurant, Cumberland, Maryland The Phantom Battle of Edgehill, Historic UK The Spectral Army of Souther Fell, Mysterious Britain and Ireland The Dieppe Raid Case, Mysterious Britain and Ireland The Drummer of Tedworth, Wikipedia Phantom Armies of the Night by Claude Lecouteux The Rosenheim Poltergeist, by Tess Pfeifle at Astonishing Legends We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

Our friend Richard Hatem is taking his Paranormal Bookshelf on the road! The Light in the Dark Tour 2026 is an all new live show playing six cities in seven days, September 13th through 19th, and it winds up at the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Richard and Susan Lambert will be at the festival both days selling Mothman and podcast merch, and on Saturday night, September 19th, he's performing an episode of the podcast picked especially for Point Pleasant. Hear Scott and Rich talk about the tour in his most recent post on the RHPB feed: Spotify Apple Podcasts Tour Dates and Tickets Sunday, September 13: Storm Crow Manor, Toronto, ON Monday, September 14: Padraigs Brewing, Minneapolis, MN Tuesday, September 15: The Red Lion Pub, Chicago, IL Wednesday, September 16: B Side Lounge, Cleveland Heights, OH Thursday, September 17: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA (FREE SHOW!) Saturday, September 19: Trinity UMC Community Center, Point Pleasant, WV (The Mothman Festival) More from Richard All Tour Dates and Tickets Richard Hatem's Paranormal Bookshelf on Apple Podcasts Richard Hatem's Paranormal Bookshelf on Spotify Paranormal Bookshelf Merch The Mothman Festival Tickets for every show but Carnegie Mellon (which MAY not require them, TBD) are at richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/events, or search Richard Hatem on Eventbrite. Come out and see Richard do his thing!