The Ancient and Esoteric Order of the Jackalope

Everyone makes mistakes. Here are some (more) of ours. Featuring corrections and updates for the following episodes: Hurricane Coming Through He Whooped to See Them Burn The Icelander The Prophet of the Pacific Suffer Little Children You Are Who You Eat Westward Huss Tales from the Cryptid Wonder Marvelously Your Heart's Sorrow A Warning to Future Man Air Crash Museum Worse Than Frankenstein Seven...

Mormons believe that Jesus once lived in the Americas. Some of them once believed he lived on the outskirts of Walla Walla, Washington from 1868-1880. This is their story. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/unto-us-a-child-is-born Key sources for this episode include C. LeRoy Anderson's For Christ Will Come Tomorrow: The Saga of the Morrisites ; Russell Blank...

The mind-boggling tale of how two world-famous zoologists were fooled by a shifty carnival worker, a rubber dummy, a three ton block of ice, and their own biases. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/the-ape-man-creature-of-whiteface-customized-my-van/ Key sources for this episode include Ivan T. Sanderson's "Preliminary Description of the External Morphology o...

William F. Miller's Franklin Syndicate promised a 520% return on your investment... and for many Brooklynites, it was too good an offer to pass up. Too bad it was all a scam. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/520-percent/ Key sources include for this episode include Arthur Train's True Stories of Crime from the District Attorney's Office ; V.G. Oltmann's The...

One man's horrifying journey from toilet paper salesman to famous author to spiritual guru to American Hitler to space brother. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/seven-minutes-in-heaven/ Key sources for this episode include Bradley W. Hart's Hitler's American Friends: The Third Reich's Supporters in the United States ; Gustavus Myers's History of Bigotry in...

On September 12, 1952 a housewife and six kids in Flatwoods, West Virginia ascended a foggy mountain and had an encounter with the unknown at the top. Ever since, scientists have debated what they actually saw that night... Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/worse-than-frankenstein/ Key sources for this episode include Gray Barker's They Knew Too Much About F...

In October 1846, the world discovered the miracle of surgical anesthesia... and then four men spent the next two decades fighting over which one of them deserved all of the credit. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/kings-of-pain/ Key sources for this episode include Julie Fenster's ETHER DAY: THE STRANGE TALE OF AMERICA'S GREATEST MEDICAL DISCOVERY AND THE H...

Rowena Morrill spent two decades building a career as one of America's top fantasy artists... and then in 2003 two of her paintings were found hanging in Saddam Hussein's "love nest." Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/saddams-favorite-artist/ Key sources for this episode include The Art of Rowena by Rowena Morrill; Aaron Santesso's "Fascism and Science Ficti...

For fifteen years the United States Navy invested heavily in rigid airships... only to lose the majority of their fleet in tragic accidents. This week join us for the sad tales of the ZR-2, the USS Shenandoah , the USS Akron , and the USS Macon  and learn why we can't have nice things. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/air-crash-museum/ Key sources for this...

In 1864 the Confederate States of America commissioned a privateer to destroy the American whaling industry. It succeeded beyond their wildest dreams... but not until after the war was over. Whoops. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/the-sea-king/ Key sources for this episode include Chester G. Hearn's GRAY RAIDERS OF THE SEA: HOW EIGHT CONFEDERATE WARSHIPS D...

What's the difference between jam and jelly? And just what the heck is marmalade? This week, take a quick break and let #7 sit down and explain the wild world of preserves to you! Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/jelly-time/ Presented by #7 (Dorothy White) Voluptuary. Raconteur. Artist wannabe. Travel junkie. Photographer of Pearl. In thrall to Vampire Andy...

"I myself cannot explain it. I know only that I remember Lemuria! Remember it with a faithfulness that I accept with the absolute conviction of a fanatic..." The world is ruled by evil dwarves who live beneath the surface and control your life with devious ray guns. This is the Shaver Mystery... either the most astonishing revelation in history, or its greatest hoax. Only you can decide. Transcrip...

For two decades George Jacob Schweinfurth was public enemy #1 in Rockford, IL: a smooth-talking charlatan who made a mockery of religion, despoiled innocent women, and stole money with his hypnotic powers. Tune in this week for the amazing tale of the man they called "ten times worse than Brigham Young." Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/holy-ghost-babies/ K...

It started out as a mistake in the Treaty of Paris (1814), and quickly turned into a neutral libertarian haven for tax cheats, gamblers, smugglers, zinc miners, and (worst of all) Esperantists. This week, Alex Baumans recounts the century-long history of Neutral Moresnet. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/independent-by-accident/ Key sources for this episode...

In 1939, Gustave Blair convinced an Arizona court that he was the missing Charley Ross. He was never able to convince the Ross family or the public, though, and if he really was Charley  he took that secret to his grave... Or did he? Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/i-am-not-charley-ross/ Presented by #16 (Rod Miller). Rod is a descendant of the Miller fami...

On July 1st, 1874 four-year-old Charley Brewster Ross was kidnapped from the street in front of his family's Germantown home, and became America's first case of kidnapping for ransom. The Philadelphia police sprang into action... but their investigation would prove to be a tragic comedy of errors. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/your-hearts-sorrow/ Key sou...

Thirty five years before Major League Baseball played its first game under electric lights, the 1900 Philadelphia Phillies were using electricity at the Baker Bowl... to steal signs. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/the-buzzer-brigade/ Key sources for this episode include Ron Schuler's biography of Pearce Chiles for the Society for American Baseball Researc...

On Anzac Day 1935, a shark in a Sydney aquarium vomited up a severed human arm. The police investigation that followed went to some truly strange places. This story has everything: insurance fraud, blackmail, attempted suicide, a high speed boat chase, and murder. Plus sharks. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/an-arm-is-not-enough/ Key sources for this episo...

This week we're talking with Michael Finney of the Chicago 1893 Project about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and Columbian Exposition, what it meant to the city and the nation, and resurrecting it with augmented reality. You can learn more about Michael and the Chicago 1893 Project at his website, or from his book and documentary film about the Exposition. https://michael-finney.com https://www.ama...

For one messiah, this is just the beginning of an exotic adventure. Where did Jesus get his ideas? Some people think he learned them from  Buddhists in India. And some of those people have even ginned up fake evidence for that theory... Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/the-best-exotic-marigold-gospel/ Key sources for this episode include Louis Fader's The I...

Everyone always talks about Nazi megaweapons, but nobody talks about Allied megaweapons. This episode, we talk about the strangest war machine the British ever conceived: an aircraft carrier made from ice. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/wonder-marvelously/ Key sources for this episode include Henry Hemming's The Ingenious Mr. Pyke: Inventor, Fugitive, Spy...

While researching the latest episode I came across a satirical account of the fall of Fort Christina in Washington Irving's Knickerbocker's History of New York . It was too good not to share, so enjoy. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/brimful-of-wrath-and-cabbage/ Discord: https://discord.gg/Mbap3UQyCB Instagram: https://instagram.com/orderjackalope Reddit:...

What would happen if you started a colony in the New World and then just kind of forgot about it for a few decades? This episode we look at the short, strange history of New Sweden. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/nya-sverige/ Key sources for this episode include Terry G. Jordan and Matti Kapus's The American Backwoods Frontier: An Ethnic and Ecological In...

Baseball, black magic, corruption, drugs, murder and poop jokes in the Florida Keys. Join us as we cover the mysterious 1976 disappearance of Key West fire chief Joseph Anthony "Bum" Farto. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/with-both-hands/ Key sources for this episode include contemporary reporting by Rick Ratliff in the Miami Herald and later retrospective...

We know all the coolest Ancient Egypgian gods have animal heads, but ask yourself: what kind of animal is Set? Finding out the answer may be harder than you think. Transcript, sources, links and more at https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/tales-from-the-cryptid . Key sources for this episode include Geraldine Pinch's Handbook of Egyptian Mythology , P.E. Newberry's "The Pig and the Cult-Animal of S...