Castles & Cryptids

Social media has been a huge part of our lives for the last 20 years, with its ability to connect people from all around the world to brightening someones day with a viral video or meme. Todays ep features 2 cases when social media platforms were used for a far more sinister reason. Kelsey covers a series of Death Lists that appeared on Facebook in early 2010, targeting almost 100 young people in...

What is the occult? It's the supernatural, the spiritual and mystical beliefs and practices. So it can be so many things, really. Which we love!  Kelsey covers an early tarot-researcher and occultist named Etteilla, from 18th-century France. He made significant strides in tarot card reading in his time. And then for something completely different!  Scent, memory and the spiritual side of...

This week we have two very different survival stories for you, featuring a lot of trigger warnings, so take care of yourselves as you listen.  Kelsey shares the story of Jennifer Holiday and her cousin Ana Franklin, who are on a late night drive when a vehicle begins following them. What happens next is something anyone would struggle to keep their cool during. Alanna covers the Teka Adams ca...

Hey cryptic crew, happy Friday and Happy New Episode!! to bookend our haunted spaces episode, let's head to some far-off spots with spooks and stuff! Alanna has a short list  of haunted suspects, so let's explore some creepy places together! From so-called Ghost Churches, to sunken burial lagoons, it's a whole new world for us in this episode! Just not a happy one....

Welcome cryptic cuties, this week we take another dive into our haunted places series, this time with a very old and very creepy island. Poveglia Island, located in the Venice lagoon, dates back to the 5th century and has a troubling past that has earned it the title of the island of no return.  With everything from sickness, quarantines, death and mass graves, to psychiatric hospitals and lo...

Where there's smoke, there's fire...even on the water. We do keep coming back to this well (pun very much intended), of watery cases, as so many strange cases happen when one loses their life on the water. Or around the water, or in a flaming boat like a little too-early of a Viking funeral. Woof, sorry, this one is very dark indeed, with 2 cold cases of murder offshore. Kelsey takes us to Alaska,...

Welcome back cryptic crew, we are ringing in the New Year with some New Age Cryptids! Some are classic-inspired cryptids, others more “fakelore”, as Kelsey will tell us where that term came from, and about some of the creepiest of the creepy-pasta creatures. Slenderman, also the AI-created cryptid, Momo, we rounded up the best Internet horror-shows in her segment! To cap off the piles of creeps, A...

Hey cryptic cuties, we have a much lighter ep this week! Revisiting something disscussed all the way back in our 1st ep about Death Omens, we have Doppelgängers.  The idea of doublewalkers, evil twins, fetch, ka, or spirit doubles, has been around for centuries from all around the world. While some stories of their appearance seem to bring illness, bad luck or even death, others seem to be mo...

Hope this finds you well, and also before we begin:  Massive Trigger Warning For Sexual Assault So, this week's focus is true crime in Egypt. Kelsey talks us through the murders of a complicated predator, Karim Salim. which is rough enough. Then, Alanna walks us through some hard truths about the safety of simply  being women protesters in Egypt. Just fighting for their rights puts many...

(Sorry the description didn't save the first go!)  Happy Friday and Happy December Cryptic Crew! So happy you could join us for another adventure, we hope you love conspiracies as much as we do. This week we bring you an oldie but a goody as it’s Government Secret Projects! And sometimes they turn out to be truth that’s stranger than fiction. It’s an early Patreon bonus ep., so be patient if...

Hope you enjoyed the last episode, and now for something completely different! Sort of, since this psychic has been known to have some spot-on visions, never took to a stage like some brothers, ahem, and may have made some other, very outlandish predictions! Meet seer, mystic, and healer Baba Vanga, the star of this story. Point-of-view, its the early 1900's, you lost your mother and went blind, b...

We've covered the Fox sisters, but have you heard of the Davenport brothers? In the days of the rise of spiritualism, people flocked to see anyone claiming to see beyond the grave. Or better yet, to interact with the spirit world.  So when Ira Erastus and William Henry Davenport came on the scene with their cabinet of curiosity, many were curious themselves. Names big and small set out to see...

We have a mega-sized episode for you that coincided nicely with Remembrance Day being this week! Hope you have some long drive or big pile of dishes, we guess?? Or maybe you listen at work, like Alanna. So sorry, but this one is NOT Safe For Work. Earbuds in, in presence of kiddos.  And as we discuss, you're never safe, not even at work, not even if you work as a trained soldier, not if someo...

We hear dead people! Haha, we promised a local hometown haunt and here it is. Alanna reads to us of the haunting encounters that happen at the McKay Avenue School, an institution established in Edmonton in 1881. You know the big old buildings that look like they could be old-timey jails or schoolhouses? That's the vibe, only now it's a museum where the spirits tease the workers like they may have...

We are sorry, but this week we get super spooky, so come along on the  spectral wild ride!  Gather round the campfire, a bevy of tales await you! First Kelsey graces us with several ghost encounters of the worst kind-knocks, sounds and sights of a poltergeist. Several tales like  The Haunted Ventriloquist make us scared to know more. Chuckie, are you listening? Next, Alanna Takes us...

Horror season is in full swing, and we have some scary stories for you, my cryptic cuties! We are so excited to be joined by special guest Lindsay Valenty of the Ye Olde Crime Podcast for some true or false tales of creeps! If you are on Patreon, you know we have done our version of 2 Truths, 1 Lie scary stories and had so much fun , so here's some more you can play along with at home! So listen i...

This week we conclude the Gainesville Student Murders, sometimes known as the Gainesville Ripper Murders.  They do make for a scary movie, targeting a young, defenseless, student population. From a triple-murder to the killing of the  Gainesvillle victims, this killer was vicious, yet cautiaus. Who's lying? But however terrifying, there were some details that the movies got wrong. We can...

Art and Life, movies and madness, do they always go hand in hand? We take a look at two cases that sit on different sides of the "inspired by"  storyline.  Kelsey covers Allan Menzies, a story that involves mental illness, an obsession with the Queen of the Damned, and a very sad loss of innocent life. Movies often get blamed for inciting violent tendencies, but how much culpability can...

Welcome to spooky season cryptic cuties, we hope you enjoyed the darkcast takeover ep last week. Join us as we take a dive into the vast world of vampire lore, for what is sure to be the first part of a series.  Kelsey has the down low on how to avoid becoming a vampire, from different things to avoid, to anti-vampire burial methods. We discuss rules from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (we are both...

Hey happy Friday and Happy Spooky Season!! This week we are taking time to bank some episodes, watch some Horror movies for our special Patreon Halloween Movie Mash-up (Is that a good name? lol) and catch up so we can come back next week and be ready to do that Monster Mash!! So here's a sister show from the hella good Darkcast Network, Hands Off My Podcast, a true crime podcast hosted by Jasmine...

This week we dove into two cases that bed the question, Why? and also How? whether its the classic dead body-in-a-locked-room style murder mystery, or a horrific multiple-murder with no apparent  motive, some murders are a true mystery.  Or maybe, not murders at all, in some cases.  So Kelsey hits us with the Keddie cabin murders, a malicious crime that remains mysterious to this da...

Hey, Cryptic Cuties, let's take a trip together to some abandoned places of the world. Tales of wealthy towns that prospered and grew but were ultimately left or destroyed. Sometimes we don't even really know, leaving more of an air of mystery.  Kelsey takes us to India, and the ruins of Hampi, including impressive structures like the Hemakuta Hill Temple and the Lotus Mahal. Sounds as good a...

This week we cover cases involving post-secondary education, places where young people should be able to study and live safely. Sadly, we know that's not always the case. There's always a chance for a crime to occur, accidentally, or in these cases, not.  Kelsey told us Cheri Jo Bates story, which tragically ended in the 1960s at Riverside City College. A couple of cryptic letters lend it an...

Hey cryptic cuties, thanks for sticking with us through all the wild tech problems lol, we love you all. We hope things run a little smoother from here on out.  This week we come in peace; bringing tales of alien abductions, weird encounters and murder mysteries, with a tangent or 2 along the way. Kelsey covers the Pascagoula Incident, where 2 men on a fishing trip experience more than just a...

Yo ho ho, we need a bottle of rum after these last few episodes, besties!! From recording to posting, the issues kept cropping up, so we split the Pirates theme into two episodes, and here is Part 2! Alanna dove into the history of some girl buccaneers, mainly the story of mysterious Anne Bonny, but her bestie too. That was Mary, or should we say Mark? Read. One went as a man, you see, but they we...