Southern Gothic

Tell Me Your Ghost Story is a podcast where real people share their real-life encounters with the paranormal. Host Kassie Askin invites guests to share their unexplainable encounters in their own words. Some stories are terrifying, some are heartwarming, and some just might change the way you see the world. Kassie isn’t looking for answers or theories, just stories that are sure to haunt you. Lear...

Chimney Rock towers above Hickory Nut Gorge as one of the most distinctive landmarks in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. But in the summer of 1806, a family living in its shadow looked toward the mountain and witnessed something they could hardly explain—thousands of strange figures, dressed in brilliant white, seemingly moving through the air above them. News of the strange spe...

In the heart of Old Louisville stands a grand Victorian mansion where guests have long reported seeing the apparition of a woman dressed in black descending its sweeping staircase. According to legend, her name was Annie Whipple, a widowed governess whose desperate attempt to save a dying child led her beyond the medicine of the nineteenth century—and into the growing world of Spiritualism. When t...

On the bluffs above the James River, Richmond’s historic Hollywood Cemetery is the final resting place of presidents, governors, generals, and thousands of Civil War soldiers. But tucked into a hillside on the eastern side of the cemetery is a far less imposing mausoleum that has become the center of one of the city’s strangest legends. For generations, locals have claimed that the tomb marked wit...

Join us for another episode featuring listener-submitted stories! Send us your story now at SouthernGothicMedia.com/submissions This episode is made possible through the support of our sponsors: Elevate your summer bedding with Quince. Go to ⁠⁠quince.com/sogo⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. Want to Listen to Southern Gothic Ad-Free? ⁠⁠...

For nearly two centuries, folks in Battletown, Kentucky, have passed down the story of Leah Smock, a young woman who legend claims was accused of witchcraft and burned alive by her neighbors in 1840. Stories say Leah could predict the future, communicate with wild animals, and even place curses on those who crossed her. After her death, some claimed her spirit remained in the woods surrounding her...

In our recent episode on Bloody Harlan, we explored the legend of Headless Annie, but she isn’t the only ghost said to haunt the mountains of Harlan County. Just outside the town of Harlan, locals have long reported strange lights moving through the woods along Red Dog Road, a rugged mountain route where legend claims the spirit of a murdered coal miner still wanders after dark. But there is anoth...

Harlan County was once the center of a bitter and bloody struggle between coal miners and the powerful companies that controlled much of life in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky. But today, high above those old mining towns up on Black Mountain, locals claim something from that violent past may still be wandering the winding roads after dark. They call her Headless Annie—a gruesome apparitio...

On July 26, 1911, Major Archibald Butt, the military aide to President William Howard Taft, wrote to his sister-in-law about something rather odd that had been happening inside the walls of the White House for months: “My dear Clara, It seems that the White House is haunted." The Major then continues on to describe some of the interesting and eerie claims made members of the White House staff, fol...

If you enjoyed our episode on Agnes of Glasgow, then you won't want to miss this interview with Amy Schofield, the creator of the Southern Gothic Festival in Camden, South Carolina. We talk about everything from the definition of southern gothic itself, to the many fascinating writers who will be diving into related topics at the festival, and even a little bit of conjecture about who Agnes really...

For generations, visitors to Camden, South Carolina’s historic Quaker Cemetery have stopped at the unusual grave of a young woman known only as Agnes of Glasgow. According to local legend, the twenty-year-old crossed the Atlantic during the American Revolution in search of the British officer she loved, following him deep into the Carolina backcountry only to die before they could ever be reunited...

On the morning of January 31, 1921, Surfman C.P. Brady of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Cape Hatteras Station No. 183 stood watch over the treacherous waters of the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." His early morning shift, had been uneventful until the mist began to lift around 6:30. What appeared before him was chilling: a massive, five-masted schooner, sails still raised, had run aground on the Outer Diamo...

Along the quiet shoreline of Pass Christian, Mississippi, an old legend claims that on certain nights the delicate music of a harp can be heard drifting in from somewhere over the Gulf. There is no musician on the beach, no vessel visible offshore, and seemingly nothing out on the dark water that could explain it. Yet the story behind that strange melody begins thousands of miles away, with a weal...

There's been some pretty big changes to a classic story! Join us as we explore a classic Alabama ghost story that claims an old dormitory on the campus of Huntingdon College is haunted by the spirit of a former student. ...but that ain't all! We also had a chance to chat with ⁠Dr. Anthony Leigh⁠, the current president of ⁠Huntingdon College⁠. Dr. Leigh discusses a little bit of the college's histo...

In 1931, Robert Johnson walked into a juke joint in Banks, Mississippi with a guitar strapped to his back. Only a little less than a year before he mysteriously disappeared from the Delta after being teased for his lack of musicianship. But now Robert Johnson was back and he was ready to take the stage and show everyone in that juke what he could do, displaying a musical mastery that left everyone...

This special encore episode originally aired on June 9, 2020. The Myrtles Plantation has long been called the most haunted house in America. Tucked beneath towering live oaks in the heart of Louisiana's plantation country, the grand Creole estate has become famous for its ghostly legends—phantom children, mysterious mirrors, unexplained footsteps, and the apparition of a woman in a green turban sa...

⁠You Can See Me in the Dark⁠ is a podcast about true ghost stories, told by the people who survived them. Co-hosted by Melissa Sweazy and Nathan Reisman. On this episode, North Carolina based Storyteller Liz Pardue walks us through some of the most famous hauntings in a town overflowing with the spirits of the departed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hidden away in a quiet Middle Tennessee cemetery is a simple headstone bearing just two words: Sadie Baker. For generations, locals have whispered that the woman buried beneath it wasn't simply laid to rest—she was accused of witchcraft, buried alive by an angry mob, and with her dying breath unleashed a curse that would haunt the family responsible for her fate. But how much of that story is actu...

On December 7, 1815, Marshal Michel Ney—one of Napoleon Bonaparte's most celebrated military commanders—was reportedly executed before a French firing squad in Paris. Yet in the rolling countryside of North Carolina, generations have insisted that history got it wrong. Instead, they claim Ney escaped his execution, crossed the Atlantic, and spent the rest of his life living under the name Peter St...

Join us for another episode featuring listener-submitted stories! This episode is made possible through the support of our sponsors: Elevate your summer bedding with Quince. Go to ⁠quince.com/sogo⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. Want to Listen to Southern Gothic Ad-Free? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon: Ad-Free Episodes, Premium Releases, Bonus Content &...

For almost two centuries, the Pensacola lighthouse has stood overlooking the entrance to Pensacola Bay guiding generations of mariners safely through the treacherous waters of the Gulf of Mexico; but over the last few decades, this historic maritime landmark has become notorious for the purported spirits believed to call it home. This episode is made possible through the support of our sponsor: El...

This encore episode originally aired on May 6, 2022! Travel about 85 miles south of Little Rock, Arkansas along Interstate 30 and you come to the town of Gurdon. In a remote area, several miles outside Gurdon sit railroad tracks for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. It is along a four-mile stretch of track that sightings of a floating, glowing orb have been reported for the last ninety years, no...

Just west of Chattanooga, Tennessee is the Nickajack Cave, a historic natural wonder flooded in 1967 due to the construction of the Nickajack Dam. Carved by the Tennessee River over millennia, the cave has a rich history filled with tales of the Chickamauga, Confederate soldiers, and even the notorious Man in Black, Johnny Cash. Today the cave is a wildlife refuge for a colony of endangered bats,...

Josie Arlington, one of the most infamous Madams in New Orleans’ red-light district, Storyville was born Mary Anna Deubler to impoverished German immigrants in 1864. Theories abound as to exactly why or when Josie entered the world of sex work, but by at least the age of seventeen she was working in the brothels of New Orleans. Entrepreneurial in spirit, Josie worked to create a life greater...

In our last episode, we explored Gallatin Street—the notorious waterfront district where Bridget Fury and some of nineteenth-century New Orleans' most dangerous criminals made their names. But Gallatin wasn't the city's first den of vice. Decades before the steamboat transformed the riverfront, there was another place where gamblers, thieves, prostitutes, and rivermen gathered on the ragged edge o...