Astonishing Legends

In part 2 of our series on the Ghosts of Versailles, we’re looking into what transpired in the years following the initial incident. Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain conducted intense research to figure out who or what they may have been interacting with on August 10th, 1901. That research led them, among many other things, to discover there was an insurrection on that exact day in 1792, 71...

In the late summer of 1901, two women journeyed to the renowned Palace of Versailles, a few miles west of Paris. This breathtaking royal home, once the epitome of the French Monarchy during the reigns of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, was an unfamiliar territory to them. Yet, the palace grounds seemed eager to impart a history lesson they had not anticipated. While exploring the vast estate, Charlotte An...

Enjoy episode number 21 of the Patreon-exclusive Astonishing Junk Drawer! 

Would you look at that? It’s already the end of 2023, and our second favorite annual holiday is upon us. We’re now into our 4th annual tradition of the Astonishing Legends All-Star Holiday Special, and it indeed has taken on a life of its own. This year, we’re welcoming back all of our guests from last year and being joined by a few new ones as well. This show was recorded and broadcast live on vi...

In Part 2 of our examination of the strange and tragic case concerning the mysterious death of Zigmund Adamski, we dive into the coal pile of odd clues and loose ends discovered by Police Constable Alan Godfrey and debate the facts from a detective’s perspective.  Was Adamski’s fate a result of extraterrestrial meddling or an unintentional homicide by blundering inlaws?  Was the death somehow conn...

Zigmund Adamski, a Polish immigrant miner, left his house in Tingley, England, heading to the corner shop to buy some potatoes.  He would go missing for five days and turn up dead on a pile of coal over 25 miles away to the west in the village of Todmorden on June 11, 1980.  Police Constable Alan Godfrey was called to investigate and found puzzling clues at the scene.  No signs of foul play were d...

On July 3, 1975, the Ministry of Justice in Japan responded to an inquiry by Amelia Earhart researcher and investigator Major Joe Gervais. Gervais had sent a letter to the Department of Immigration and Naturalization in Tokyo, operating on the hunch that Earhart had been taken prisoner and held on Saipan during WWII but under an assumed identity. The Ministry of Justice responded, saying the woman...

Adam Livingston moved his family from Pennsylvania to a parcel of farmland near a village then known as Smithfield, West Virginia, sometime in the 1770s. The village’s name would evolve over the years to the more pragmatic name of Middleway. However, colloquially, it would also acquire the moniker of “Clip” or “Cliptown” for the bizarre events that would transpire there. A few years before 1790, t...

The Mogollon Rim in northcentral Arizona is a geological landform that spans around 200 miles east to west, demarking the southern boundary of the Colorado Plateau in the state.  This topographical feature is classified as an escarpment where wide and steeply sloping cliffs and rock masses delineate the high pine-covered plateau on the northern side, which receives cold winter temperatures and lig...

Join hosts Ed Voccola (Rick and Morty, Bless The Harts) and Chris Cullari (Blumhouse, The Aviary) for a wild trip through the world of what scares them.  In this episode, the boys discuss razor blade apples, the Man Who Killed Halloween, and the history of "Halloween Sadism." 

Enjoy episode number 5 of the Patreon-exclusive Astonishing Junk Drawer! 

We hope your sleep has recovered after last week's round of creepy and unsettling accounts. Now, we aim to disquiet your peace with another three! Our first story comes from Megan, whose family has a history of experiencing items showing up in unexpected places. But when a letter is delivered to a vulnerable location, we wonder if it came from someone still Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Note. Our nex...

Join hosts Ed Voccola (Rick and Morty, Bless The Harts) and Chris Cullari (Blumhouse, The Aviary) for a wild trip through the world of what scares them. In this first episode, the boys discuss shadow people, TikTok challenges, and the nightmarish being who ties them together: The Hat Man. Visit our  show notes for a lot more information on this episode.

Introducing Scared All The Time, the newest show on the Astonishing Legends Network.

Well well, dear friends, Spooky Season is upon us once again, so it's time to regale and chill you with true Halloween tales from within our ranks!  Our first story, which we're calling "She is Ours," comes from Andy, whose recurring nightmare leads to a standoff with higher powers.  Later, a study of palmistry plunges her into a shared vision with a stranger.  The following frightening account co...

Enjoy episode number 5 of the Patreon-exclusive Astonishing Junk Drawer! 

We took a survey a while back, and sweatpants were far and away the number one most requested new merch item, so here’s our first batch with a glow-in-the-dark Astonishing Al on the hip! They are available for pre-order as of right now! We will start printing them over the next few weeks for them to get to you by Halloween with any luck!

We need your scariest stories! Send them in! Like…now!

For whatever reason, 1952, the year of Truman Bethurum's encounters with saucer Captain Aura Rhanes and her crew, was a watershed year for UFO interactions and the Contactee movement.  The period is mainly known for marking an era of peaceable and friendly exchanges with aliens, deAL266: Bethurum Part 2 – UFOs and the Occult spite the predictable fears of the "other" depicted in 1950s Science Fict...

On Sunday night, July 27, 1952, Cement Batch Plant Operator Truman Bethurum took a little snooze during his break while working the swing shift on an Asphalt Mixing Plant project near Mormon Mesa, Nevada.  He awoke to hear unintelligible murmuring from eight to ten small-sized men who had surrounded his truck.  Initially startled by the diminutive beings who all seemed to be wearing uniforms, what...

In the second part of our series on the mysterious visitor to Van Meter, Iowa, it’s time to wonder how so many credible people could see a creature so incredible and what that creature could be.  An extant pterosaur, your run-of-the-mill cryptid, a Keel-like “uttraterrestrial,” something like a tulpa or an egregore, or simply a transdimensional interloper from the sacred and mystical bowels of the...

In the second part of our series on the mysterious visitor to Van Meter, Iowa, it’s time to wonder how so many credible people could see a creature so incredible and what that creature could be.  An extant pterosaur, your run-of-the-mill cryptid, a Keel-like “uttraterrestrial,” something like a tulpa or an egregore, or simply a transdimensional interloper from the sacred and mystical bowels of the...

When most folks hear about a fantastical cryptid sighting, they just assume it was a dubious, one-off, misinterpreted encounter by the town drunk, or overimaginative prankster kids, if they believe any of it at all.  But none of this applies to the incident where a mystical creature terrorized the small farming town of Van Meter, Iowa, in 1903.  For five nights starting September 29, an impossible...

There is a road in Warren County, New Jersey, that, according to many generations of locals, seems to be a vortex or at least a hotspot of all manner of paranormal and unsettling activity.  Tales of Native American spirits seen along the roadside, ghostly victims of vigilante justice dangling from “The Hanging Tree,” spectral deer running alongside cars, murder and highway robbery, UAPs and glowin...

In December 2017, the New York Times published a ground-breaking article titled “Glowing Auras and Black Money: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program.” The report was noteworthy not only for what it brought to light about the earnest government/military study of the UAP phenomenon but also that such a storied and seemingly no-nonsense newspaper like the New York Times finally took the subject seri...