Ain't It Scary? with Sean & Carrie

This week we take a long, hard look at one of the most publicized hauntings in British history - and the inspiration for the 2016 hit The Conjuring 2 - the Enfield poltergeist.  As a single mother with four kids in 1977, Peggy Hodgson had her hands full even before something started throwing things around her house and pulling her kids out of their beds at night. Eleven year old Janet, rumored to...

We're checking out some witch trials this Halloween season, just like we did last year - only this time, we're investigating the story of the Connecticut Witch Trials, the first and longest span of witch trials in New England and America. From the 1640s all the way to the 1690s, 11 people were executed and 34 were arrested on charges of witchcraft and "familiarity with the devil". But how did this...

In August of 1962 the once bright light of "candle in the wind" Marilyn Monroe - Hollywood bombshell, actress, and most famous woman in the world - was snuffed out forever when the 36-year-old superstar was found dead in her Los Angeles home, possibly of suicide or misadventure due to barbiturate overdose. Or was it? What really happened to Marilyn Monroe? Was she suicidal, did she accidentally OD...

After four bloody weeks in Whitechapel with Jack the Ripper, your intrepid hosts are taking the week off - and leaving you with a very special clip show comprising some of the best of our first 100 episodes! From Count Von Cosel’s slippery tomb robbery to Andrew Basiago’s footless schoolfriend, we revisit some of the silliest moments of our grave & gruesome first hundred episodes!  CLIPS: 3:31 - E...

It's the thrilling conclusion to our monthlong Jack The Ripper series! Last week, Carrie presented some of the likeliest and best-known suspects put forth for the Ripper crimes, from Mary Kelly's jilted ex-lover to a parade of shabby, misogynist psychotics. This week, Sean makes the case for some of the more... colorful theories, from "Jill the Ripper" to a vast royal conspiracy to...H.H. Holmes?...

In this third episode of our Jack the Ripper series, we move past the events of the case and review selected main suspects to see if any can fit into the role of Saucy Jack. We discuss multiple serial poisoners, doctors and quacks, famous authors and artists and even an ex-lover of one of the victims. Are any of these men the possible real Jack the Ripper?? Next week, Sean will be diving in to tak...

In the second episode of our Jack the Ripper series, we continue and finish the story of the initial 1888 killing spree with the final 3 of the "Canonical Five" victims: Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. Stride and Eddowes would, shockingly, be murdered the same night in September 1888...and the Ripper would seem to end his spree with the shocking, horrific murder of Mary K...

IT'S THE BIG 100! That's right, we've hit 100 episodes and 2 years of the show...so, in celebration, we're heading back to 1888 London to investigate one of the biggest true crime cases of all time: the grisly murder spree of Jack the Ripper. In the Whitechapel district of London, England in the fall of 1888, a series of 5 gory murders shocked the lower and upper classes alike. The victims were se...

From 1962 to 1972, the U.S. government ran a top-secret program that teleported child spies through space and time. At least, that's the claim of Andrew Basiago, former time traveler and holder of the hotly contested title of "Strangest 2016 Presidential Candidate." Join us for a tour through Basiago's meeting with George Washington, his failed presidential bid, his childhood teleportation experim...

Father of the Pod Paul Ferrante returns to the show this week to talk blood - the bloody history of the Tower of London, of course! First built up way back in 1066 after William the Conqueror's invasion of England, the Tower of London has risen from being known as just another British castle to being regarded as the country's greatest symbol of monarchical cruelty, thanks to its conversion into a...

This week we take our first blazing steps into the dark, yet sorta wacky, world of millennial death cults with the tragic tale of the Order of the Solar Temple and its power-mad leaders, Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret. Ostensibly a fraternal secret society like the Freemasons, the OST escalated from goofy chants with robes and swords all the way to ritual murder and suicide by the time of the fie...

The American region of Appalachia, much like our native New England, is a land of folklore and high strangeness, and this is perfectly exemplified in the story of the Flatwoods Monster - a maybe-alien, maybe-cryptid that burst onto the scene 70 years ago to completely throw locals for a loop and enchant an entire nation. On September 12th, 1952 in Flatwoods, West Virginia, brothers Eddie and Fredd...

This week we hit the foreign districts and seedy neighborhoods of pre-war Beijing with a look at the unsolved murder of Pamela Werner. The 19-year-old was found beaten to death and gruesomely mutilated one January morning in 1937, as Beijing found itself awash in refugees and expatriates and Japanese Army units camped closer and closer to the city.  Pamela’s death would fascinate the media, but an...

On July 17th, 1996 TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747 jet carrying 230 passengers and crew, exploded over the Center Moriches New York bay, setting fire to a peaceful summer night. Hundreds of witnesses along the Long Island coast watched as a strange flare-like object seemed to rise from the horizon, turn in the air, and impact on or near the plane, causing it to breakup midair and plunge into the ocea...

On November 5, 1975, a crew of loggers driving home after a long day of work saw a strange light through the trees. They decided to follow it, and found themselves face to face with a flying saucer. For Travis Walton, nothing would be the same. This week, Sean takes us through the facts(?) of one of the most famous alien abduction cases in American history. Travis Walton went missing for 5 days in...

Since the days of antiquity, the human race has been searching for cures for what ails us. From disease to mental illness to sexual dysfunction and more, we've always tried to find the solutions to the things that plague our health. And, sometimes, those solutions end up being even worse - and could very well even kill us. This week, we explore stories of quack doctors and snake oil salesman in hi...

In the second of our two-part series on the best-known, most widely dramatized haunting case in American History, we finally get to the ghosts! On December 18, 1975, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house at 112 Ocean Avenue. Twenty-eight days later, they fled the house, leaving most of their belongings behind. This week, Sean takes us through the amazing “true” story, as told to us by the Lut...

The Amityville Horror is one of the most publicized hauntings in American history. But 13 months before the Lutz family's short and spooky stay in the famous house on Ocean Avenue, the real horror came - in the form of six grisly murders, in one night, under one roof. In the first of a two-part series, Sean gives us a primer on the horror behind the horror - the tragic deaths of the DeFeo family,...

On part two of our two-part Slender Man series, we dive into the very real consequences of this modern legend of a monster with the infamous "Slender Man Stabbing" case. In May 2014, 12-year old Payton Leutner was discovered, injured and bleeding, on the outside of the woods in her native Waukesha, Wisconsin. Payton had an unbelievable story to tell law enforcement: she had been attacked and stabb...

Is it possible for an online meme-turned-urban legend to become...real? That's the question we ask this week as we investigate the origins of Slender Man, an eerie, faceless monster known to have been created on the Something Awful forums in June 2009. While Slender Man's origins are traceable, his reach has extended much further than even his long limbs and tentacles could have possibly ever expe...

Between 1967 and 1971, the small city of Stamford, Connecticut was terrorized by a little-known serial killer. A total of five Black women were strangled - most with their own brassieres - and dumped within a 750-yard stretch of the Merritt Parkway. While a colorful local character was eventually arrested and prosecuted for the crimes (sound familiar?), doubts linger to this day about who was behi...

Among the legends of allegedly cursed objects, stories of cursed jewelry and gemstones reign supreme. There's something mystical about these items, which often fall into the hands of the extremely wealthy, famous, and powerful - from bone-fide royalty to your run-of-the-mill tycoons and socialites. But can these gaudy possessions really be cursed? We cover the stories of 4 of the most possessed po...

Even among all the creative execution methods mankind has dreamed up over the years, the Guillotine stands out, raising nightmares of show trials and cutting (ahem) an imposing silhouette. Originally created as a more “humane” capital punishment, the head-chopping machine soon became synonymous with the bloodthirsty excesses of the French Revolution. This week, Sean takes us through the history of...

In March 1998, the Bradley family - dad Ron, mom Iva, son Brad, and daughter Amy - embarked on a "trip of a lifetime": a luxurious cruise on the Rhapsody of the Seas, sailing between Puerto Rico, Aruba, and Curacao on a whirlwind vacation of carefree fun and family time. Three days into the trip, 23-year-old Amy vanished from the cruise, never to be seen again. ...Or was she? We discuss all the cl...

This week we dive into one of the most persistent legends of secret U.S. military experimentation - the famed Philadelphia Experiment. In the fall of 1943 - so the story goes - highly classified government tech made the destroyer escort USS Eldridge completely invisible - and, as an unexpected side effect, displaced it in time and space and left it sitting 200 miles away in Norfolk, Virginia for s...