Astonishing Legends

In tonight's dead letter, Corey takes us back to Omaha, Nebraska in the year 2000, when he was the overnight host on a Top 40 station and a call-in topic about haunted places kept circling back to one private family cemetery. He sent a carload of listeners out there on a Friday night to report back live on the air. A few days later his boss got a phone call from the cemetery's caretakers. And, to paraphrase a Dateline episode…things got weirder from there. We mentioned a TON of old eps in this one! Relevant Prior Episodes Ep 48: Choose Your Own Adventure Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 71: Pere Cheney: The Town that Disappeared Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 87: Black Eyed Kids Part 1 Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 50: Mothman Part 1 Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 14: What's Gotten Into You? Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 209: The Phantom Horse of Greensboro Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 120: The Grim Reaper Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 154: Lockdown at the Waverly Hills Sanatorium Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 156: The Ax Murder House in Villisca Part 1 Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 49: Monsters Among Us Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 310: The Rhine Research Center: Extraordinary Evidence Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Links and Further Reading Church Grims, by Tess Pfeifle (Astonishing Legends blog) Strange Intruders, by David Weatherly G.N.M. Tyrrell (Psi Encyclopedia, Society for Psychical Research) Ghosts and Apparitions in Psi Research (Psi Encyclopedia) Phantasms of the Living, Volume 1 (1886), free at the Internet Archive Phantasms of the Living, Volume 2 (1886), free at the Internet Archive Jim Harold's Campfire The Mothman of Point Pleasant (Small Town Monsters, 2017) The Ankou The Case Against Reality, by Donald Hoffman A Game of Pool, The Twilight Zone (1961) On a Pale Horse, by Piers Anthony The Villisca Axe Murder House Live and Let Die (1973) Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

In 1933, a Scottish botanist watched a seemingly abandoned steamship drift past the Alaskan coast on an ice floe. It appeared upside down in a strange mirage, with no crew and no one at the wheel. This ship was the Baychimo, which was abandoned two years earlier, but refused to disappear. Having repeatedly resurfaced across the Arctic, it earning a reputation as one of history’s great ghost ships. In this episode, we explore the strange history of ghost ships from the the Baychimo, to the frozen Octavius, and the Ourang Medan, whose crew was reportedly found mysteriously dead shortly before the ship itself exploded and sank. Three ships, three enduring legends, and at least one vessel whose final resting place remains unknown. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

In tonight's dead letter, our listener Ed and his wife are newlyweds, sharing the apartment he's lived in for about two years in Clay Center, Nebraska. One morning in early 2020, he hits snooze on his alarm and sees a figure walking out of their bedroom, silhouetted by the living room lights he'd set on a timer, and it looks just like his wife, but it’s not. Relevant Prior Episodes Ep 26: Shadow People Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 64: Electronic Fog Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Ep 226: Boundless Remote Viewing with Lori Williams Part 1 Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts Links and Further Reading Ed's Floor Plan of the Apartment Clay Center, Nebraska, Wikipedia World's Largest Ball of Twine, Kansas Tourism Note: We call it the world's biggest ball of yarn in the episode. It's actually a ball of sisal twine. I always mess that up! (Scott) Doppelganger, Britannica Hypnagogic Hallucinations, Cleveland Clinic A-Yokai-A-Day: Ikiryo, Matthew Meyer Alexander Cannon (psychiatrist), Wikipedia STAR GATE [Controlled Remote Viewing], Federation of American Scientists Astral Projection Hypnosis by Dr. Steve G. Jones Journeys Out of the Body by Robert A. Monroe Richard Hatem's Paranormal Bookshelf Beyond the Bermuda Triangle by Bruce Gernon and Rob MacGregor We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

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]!