Anxious and Afraid The Pod

In this week's episode, Abby takes a deep dive into the history of the haunted Anoka State Hospital, located in Anoka, Minnesota. Originally named the Anoka State Asylum upon opening in 1900, the hospital housed thousands of patients during its time, providing a place to live for the mentally ill. However, the public would soon come to know of the horrible living conditions and treatment the patie...

In this week's episode, Shawna and Abby hand over the hosting duties to their friend, Matt! Matt comes to us with previous podcasting experience as he is one of the hosts on the Dance Shark podcast! This week, Matt will share with the crew the very meaning and history behind Halloween as well as some dastardly crimes committed on All Hallows' Eve. The gang also talks about Halloween memories and f...

Welcome back for another spooky story during the bewitching month of October! This week it's Shawna's turn to quicken our hearts as she regales us with a chilling ghost story about the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall. Legend says that the identity of the ghost who haunts Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England is the Lady Dorothy Walpole who died tragically, locked away in one of the rooms. Tune in to hear th...

The gang is back this week for the conclusion to the two-part series on Belle Gunness, one of the most notorious female serial killers in America's history. In part two, Abby covers the tragic discovery of the desecrated Gunness family after a deadly house fire followed by the startling discovery of several dismembered bodies buried on Belle's farm in La Porte, Indiana. Tune in to hear the crew di...

The crew is back this week to kick off spooky October with a notorious Norwegian-American female serial killer. Gather 'round as Abby kicks off part one of this two-part series with the origin story of the infamous Belle Gunness. Listen in to hear the details of Belle's early life as well as the methods she used to claim unsuspecting victims at her large farm in La Porte, Indiana in the early 1900...

The crew is back this week with an eerie encounter from out of this world! Tune in as Shawna tells the gang all about the alleged 1975 alien abduction of Travis Walton in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest near Snowflake, Arizona. Learn about Travis' up-close encounter with the otherworldly creatures as well as accounts from witnesses to the abduction. Credits: Timesofindia.com Wikipedia.com Tr...

The crew is back this week with a spoooky ghost story! Join in as Abby tells the gang all about the haunted South Eugene High School auditorium located Eugene, Oregon! There have been many ghostly sightings and unexplained phenomena in the SE High school auditorium since the 1970s, many believing the entity to be a former student who sadly perished on school grounds. Tune in as the gang discusses...

The gang is back this week and more anxious than ever! Join Abby and Shawna as they discuss the craziness that is life inside Oregon fire apocalypse 2020 and what they've been up to on their time off. Then Shawna regales the crew with the mysterious tale...

In this week's episode, Abby and Shawna hand over the hosting reigns to a good friend and fan of the show, Abbie Wilson! Listen in as Abbie details the 1991 horrific kidnapping and imprisonment of Jaycee Lee Dugard, an 11-year-old girl living in Meyers, California. Learn about the many horrors this brave girl endured over the next 18 years spent with her captors and the inspiring courage it would...

In this week's episode, Abby tells Shawna about the 1990 murder of Donald Fish in the town of Roseburg, Oregon. Just before the Fourth of July, Donald Fish was brutally stoned to death and left near the Umpqua River. Listen in to learn the details of...

The crew is back this week with a mind bending mystery! Shawna tells the strange tale of the Georgia Guidestones, a granite monument erected in 1980 in Elbert county, Georgia with an origin story as strange as the stones themselves. Also known as the American Stonehenge, this monument has it's own commandments for "A New Age Of Reason" and a call for a "New World Order" which was designed by a sha...

In this week's episode, the gang gets real weird with the case of the Oakville blobs! The state of Washington is no stranger to rainy weather but one evening on August, 1994 in the town of Oakville, something stranger than water came from the sky. Tune in to hear all about the mysterious gelatinous blobs that rained down on the unassuming residents of Oakville and the strange illness that would fo...

In this week's episode, Shawna tells the gang all about the space shuttle Columbia disaster. The events of February 1st, 2003 would go down as one of the United State's most tragic and fatal disasters in spaceflight history. The impact of the tragic event would deeply effect the US's human Spaceflight program after the lost lives of 7 brave men and women. Tune in as the crew discusses how terrifyi...

In this week's episode, Shawna and Abby hand over the hosting duties to Chad! He is of course the podcast's talented web designer and husband of Shawna! Chad, being a literary buff, regales the crew with the equally dark and tragic life of Edgar Allan Poe. A poet, writer, literary critic, and editor, Poe was a prolific writer whose macabre works still haunt readers today. Join us in this episode t...

In today's episode, Abby will be telling the gang the story of the June and Jennifer Gibbons, AKA the silent twins, born in 1963. Join the crew as they discuss the strange and heartbreaking lives of the misunderstood sisters who spoke to almost no one but each other their entire lives. Only adding to the mystery were the secret lives they led which would ultimately end in tragedy.

In part two of our Andes Flight Disaster series, Shawna tells the gang all about the aftermath of the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 plane crash in the Andes and the impossible decisions the survivors were faced with if they wanted to make it out alive. You won't want to miss out on this incredible tale of survival in the face of extreme temperatures, weather, starvation, and whatever else Mother...

In part one of this two part series, Shawna tells the crew all about the 1972 Andes flight disaster.

In this week's baby bonus episode, Shawna details the Fresno Nightcrawler, also known as the Fresno alien. This cryptid has been spotted on video footage not once but twice in California and the content is eerie to say the least. Listen in as the crew attempts to dissect the video footage and decide for themselves if the Fresno Nightcrawler is the real deal or a crazy hoax.

In Episode 32, Abby takes a deep dive into the world of haunted objects and tells the crew all about the dibbuk box. Surfacing online in a long 2003 Ebay listing was an antique wine box which was allegedly inhabited by a dibbuk, referenced in Jewish folklore as a restless spirit looking to possess a living person. Kevin Mannis, the man who listed it on Ebay, described at length the ordeals he and...

Join the crew this week as Shawna takes on the tragic story of grunge rock legend, Kurt Cobain. After achieving international fame as the lead singer and guitarist of the band Nirvana, Kurt Cobain found the pressure of having countless fans and a touring band to be too much. He had struggled with depression and substance abuse as well as a rocky relationship with his wife, Courtney Love and on Apr...

The crew is back together this week to hear a special listener requested topic, the incredible story of Patty Hearst. Born an heiress to the vast Hearst family fortune in the 1950's, Patricia Hearst had lived a charmed and affluent life. She was fairly oblivious to the political strife happening around her in the 1970's until she was violently kidnapped by a group of violent revolutionaries. Liste...

In this week's episode, Shawna tells Abby and Michael about the extraordinary reincarnation case of Cristian Haupt. At the young age of two years old Christian began making statements to his mother, Cathy Byrd, about his former life as a baseball player. After initial disbelief, Cathy investigated her son's statements and came to the conclusion that Christian was the reincarnation of the star base...

It's our first bonus episode! While the crew is taking a little break they couldn't help but create a little bonus content for their listeners in these crazy times. In this week's episode, Abby does her best to explain what it means to be a sociopath or a...

The crew is back this week with a spine chilling Oregon true crime case. This week, Abby tells Shawna about the abduction and murder of Sherry Eyerly, an 18 year old Dominos pizza delivery driver who was living in Salem, Oregon. Eyerly was called out for a delivery order on the Fourth of July, 1982 and was never seen again. Tune in to hear all the crazy twists and turns including a dramatic vision...

The gang is back this week with a baffling true crime case. Listen in as Shawna details the disappearance of Kyron Horman, a 7 year old boy living in Portland, Oregon who mysteriously vanished from his elementary school June 4th, 2010. The result would be Oregon's largest search party effort in their history and yet they yielded no new clues. Suspicions would land on Kyron's step-mother after the...