Astonishing Legends

As we often say on the show, if you haven't had a strange, paranormal experience, it's likely someone you know has.  This happens to be the case with two college friends of Forrest, Dan Povenmire and Susan Lambert.  In the mid-1980s, Susan was working as a reporter for the student newspaper of The University of Southern California, The Daily Trojan .  She had asked Dan if he wanted to accompany he...

We love to hate our villains as much as we love to love our heroes.  And many of us have a morbid fascination with some of history's most sinister characters, perhaps as a means of understanding the darkest aspects of human behavior.  But as is regularly the case, the truth behind the real nature and actions of historical figures we can only glean from the reporting of others in that age and often...

Countess Elizabeth Báthory was a Hungarian noblewoman and one of the most wealthy and powerful aristocrats in eastern Europe during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.  Together with her husband Ferenc Nádasdy, a military hero known as the Black Knight of Hungary, Báthory held numerous estates, lands, and villages.  She also currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the most prolific...

To really study the paranormal, any good researcher will tell you one must get out in the field to investigate the sightings, and that is especially true when it comes to cryptozoology.  This is precisely what our interview guest has done.  Lyle Blackburn is a full-time author, musician, and cryptid researcher from Texas, whose life-long fascination with legendary creatures has led him to write se...

Does some element of us exist after we die?  Is it possible that a message in a dire time of need could reach a loved one across vast distances without the aid of electronic or mechanical means, with a form of psychic energy either just before or after death?  Could our emotional spirit be so intense in a moment of crisis that it leaves an imprint or echo that can reverberate in the ether and be h...

Whether you believe in Bigfoot or not, the story of the Patterson-Gimlin film remains a superb example of the scientific investigation of an anomalous event that falls within the realm of the paranormal.  Other documentation of things like UFOs, ghosts, and other cryptids have come under close examination throughout the years, but little has been of such relative quality and few examples if any ha...

There are a few researchers for whom the Patterson-Gimlin Film has sparked a life-long quest to analyze its mystery and the possibility of Sasquatch. Concerning the preservation of the actual film itself, no one has done more to secure its integrity than William “Bill” Munns. While the original 16mm Kodachrome Color-Reversal film shot by Roger Patterson has since gone missing, Munns built a mobile...

It's easy for the uninformed, casual observer to make a declaration on a website's Comments Section, but what do the experts think about the Patterson-Gimlin Film? If we look to science to provide answers about the subject in the PGF, then we should consider the evaluations of physical anthropologists who specialize in primate morphology and authorities in biomechanics and bipedal locomotion. Fort...

Tonight, we have a special bonus episode for you, a commercial-free interview with a very talented writer, director, and performer who has actually worn a sophisticated ape-like costume for a Hollywood feature film and lived to tell about it. You may know Jorma Taccone from the wildly popular comedy trio, “The Lonely Island.” Along with Andy Samberg and Akiva Shaffer, the three have gone on to pro...

When indirect evidence of an extraordinary event defies conclusive debunking, then the easier route for some critics is to attack the presenter of the evidence. Naturally and unfortunately, Roger Patterson's integrity and thus his credibility came under scrutiny and assault as a means of discrediting the film itself. Another common tendency in dealing with an incredible incident is to accept outri...

What if you had spent years searching for something elusive, something you believe existed that most didn't, and then one day you finally happened to capture it on film? What would be your immediate next steps if you wanted to present it to the world? In the days before instant media uploads to the internet, where would you take the film and who would you show it to first if you wanted to be taken...

Skeptics and believers alike will always demand proof of paranormal claims. But what happens when extraordinary and therefore controversial evidence is offered? When it comes to one of the most popular and enduring legends of a cryptid, that of North America's Bigfoot or Sasquatch, we have an answer. On October 20, 1967, Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin were about ten days into a horseback trip near...

As it is said with legends, when you separate the wheat from the chaff, there is often a kernel of truth in them. So what is the truth about Loftus Hall? Whether the Devil himself came to visit this prominent family who can say with certainty, but it seems accurate that the real Anne Tottenham suffered so great an instance of emotional trauma that it left her to wither in a catatonic state for the...

Loftus Hall is considered one of the most haunted residences in Ireland. But what made it that way? If you believe the local legend, it started when a mysterious stranger visited the Hall one dark and stormy night. During a game of cards, he would enchant the young mistress of the house. But with his true nature discovered, he would flee most violently and mystically, leaving the woman scarred for...

Most everyone familiar with the tragedy of Dyatlov Pass believes that whatever mysterious and strange event occurred, not all of the details have been shared by the Russian government. Tonight, we speak with Keith McCloskey, author of two books about the subject, "Mountain of the Dead: The Dyatlov Pass Incident" and "Journey to Dyatlov Pass: An Explanation of the Mystery" who has also traveled to...

When people see horrific apparitions of a supernatural nature, what are they really seeing and what could be causing these images to appear? Could it be that the demons and terrors some people have witnessed sometimes come from a strange symptom of a rare medical condition? This seems to have been the case with tonight's guest, Sarah, who was seeing beings and elements more associated with demonic...

Our legends and folklore must begin somewhere, and if not from the creative imagination of a single individual then perhaps they are born from the collective experiences of a particular group. While it is difficult to trace the exact nascency of certain legends, we may be able to get a clearer idea of where a specific mystical being came to be known, the gremlin. The British pilots and aircrew of...

As we close this final chapter on the story of the Betz Sphere, we've all been given a rare and exclusive glimpse into what happens when an impossible object becomes known to the world. We've seen what can happen to a regular family that only sought to find answers about its purpose. We've seen how authorities and officials behave when they too are mystified about an item that most are satisfied t...

82 years ago Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan vanished. Since then millions of dollars have been spent at the behest of countless researchers in an attempt to find her. In all of that time, only one of those researchers has found an aircraft. Our audience knows that researcher as Bill Snavely. He was a guest on our show back in May of 2018 and now he's back to report on what the team h...

For something that many would claim was just a misplaced piece of industrial equipment, the Betz Sphere attracted a lot of serious attention, some official, some dubious and some a bit of both. Despite the initial vague or dismissive statements from the US Navy and noted scientists such as Dr. J. Allen Hynek that were reported by the news media, they were determined to continue seeking answers fro...

With every paranormal event or object, there are the questions of how did this happen or what was this thing? But the equally important issue is, how would this affect me? Because when something seemingly impossible happens, we have no context unless it had interaction with somebody. It becomes meaningful when we ponder the implications to our own human experience. As much as the Betz Sphere creat...

Sometimes people come into our lives that change everything. Sometimes that change can come from an object. In March of 1974, the Betz family of Fort George Island, Florida found such an object, while investigating their property for wildfire damage. It appeared to be a shiny steel ball, measuring 7.96 inches in diameter and weighing 21.34 pounds. Being a simple, yet so out-of-place item in the mi...

Researchers have now documented thousands of personal accounts from Near-Death Experiencers. Logic would suggest that it's unlikely that all NDE stories are fabrications and that at least some of these experiences are real and accurately described. And if so, then examining the commonly experienced features of the NDE seem to indicate that these defining perceptions are universal, while remaining...

The question that every one of us has at least wondered about at some point in our lives, is not if UFOs and aliens exist, or where's Bigfoot, or even if ghosts are real (although that question is connected) but a question about the biggest mystery of all: "What happens to us after we die?" You may not care about the other unknowns, but death comes for us all, and whether or not there's an afterli...

The Horror Movie genre, like any other genre of cinema, has its classics and its forgotten, its masterpieces, and its failures. But while the highbrow, serious films enjoy praise or at least critical analysis from the intellectual set, lowbrow horror offerings are often ignored by the academic-minded critics and in many cases even despised. Not so from our guest tonight, pop-culture icon, author,...