Mental institution, murder, and creepy rotting buildings being slowly reclaimed by the forest. We took a Weird World road trip to visit a possibly haunted abandoned hospital in Gold Rush Country California.
Episode 222 - The Mystery in Room 348
The coroner in Beaumont, Texas said Greg Fleniken has been beaten so badly on September 15, 2010 that his innards were a bloody, ruptured mess. But Room 348 was pristine. No one suspicious had gone in or out of the room the entire night. He had a thousand dollars in his wallet and a cigarette still in his hand. What really happened to Greg Fleniken?
Episode 221 - Ta-ra-ra-Bomb-de-ay: The Story of the Fabulous Cherry Sisters
They sang. They danced. They did comedy. They did tragedy. They read moralistic essays. They also dodged fruits and vegetables and pulled shotguns on their audience. They were The Fabulous Cherry Sisters and they were nothing if not entertaining, intentional or otherwise.
Episode 220 - The Dangers of Working for Horrible People: The McDonald's Strip Search Scam
In 2004, a high school student working at a McDonald’s in Kentucky was pulled into the manager’s office. There was a police officer on the phone. He said someone had accused her of theft. He asked her manager to detain her. She did. Then things got very out of hand.
Episode 219 - The Disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370, Part 2
Following some electronic bread crumbs, investigators were able to trace the last mysterious hours of Flight 370. But the biggest questions remained - what exactly happened, why, and perhaps most compelling, who?
Episode 218 - The Disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370, Part 1
At 1:19 am on March 8, 2014 the pilot of Malaysian Flight 370 said “Goodnight, Malaysian three-seven-zero” to air traffic control as the plane headed out of Malaysian air space. That was the last anyone ever heard from him and the other 238 people on board. In Part 1 we track exactly what happened that morning through the initial frantic searching for this lost plane.
Weird Bit 40 - End of Year Fish Fall
To ring out the old year we have a quick hit about falling fish in Texarkana. Now for more falling meat in Kentucky…
Episode 217 - Weird Christmas 2021
We went out and found you more strange, unusual and horrifying Christmas traditions and stories because tis the season. Merry Christmas everyone!
Episode 216 - Geoffrey Pyke, the Maddest Scientist Ever
Geoffrey Pyke’s colleagues called him “Professor Brainstorm” and during WWII he dreamed up some of the craziest weapons of war ever. Giant ice ships, sideways-jumping snow tanks, and shooting soldiers through pies into enemy territory. But when Pyke spoke, both Lord Mountbatten and Winston Churchill listened.
Episode 215 - The Cave Boys of Thailand
When 12 boys and their soccer coach went into a cave near their home in Thailand, they figured they would be inside an hour at most. It turned out to be more like 17 days. Water rising, no food, probably inbred subhuman cave monsters waiting to feast on human flesh, and the only way out was a torturous tunnel completely submerged.
Weird Bit 38 - Beavers in the Sky
Southwestern Idaho had too many beavers in 1948. They needed to go. But how? That’s easy - by parachute. Genius.
Episode 214 - The Mind Reader and the Mass Murderer
Someone slaughtered four people at the Booher farm in Alberta, Canada in 1928. The police were stumped. Lucky for them, they had one of the foremost psychologists in the world visiting from Austria at the time. Even more fortunate, Maximilian Langsner could not just heal minds, he could read them. Langsner would find their murderer.
Episode 213 - The Poison Squad
No, they didn’t poison us. They actually tried to prevent companies from poisoning us. But they did this by poisoning people. Confusing, yes, but fascinating.
Sources:
https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a23169/poison-squad/
The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, by Deborah Blum
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/books/review/poison-squad-deborah-blum.html
https://gastropod.com/keeping-it-fresh-preservatives-and-the-poison-squad/
Episode 212 - Manhattan Transfer: The Alien Abduction of Linda Cortile
Linda Cortile was sleeping soundly in her 12th floor Manhattan apartment when three aliens came and beamed her onto their spaceship at 3:15 in the morning. What made her story different was this: people had actually witnessed the event. And not just two government agents named Richard and Dan, but a whole bunch of freaked out people watching from the Brooklyn Bridge.
Weird Bit 37 - Hallow-Weird World Reveal
Was it the Jenglot? Or the Baby Cages? The Jersey Devil Tree? The Moroccan Moonstone? Or the Man-eating Tree of Madagascar? Finally, we’ll find out…
Episode 211 - The Werewolf of Bedburg
Something was terrorizing the countryside around Bedburg in Germany in the late 1500s. First cattle, then children, then women. Disappeared, dismembered, devoured. Was it wolves? Was it the devil? Or was it a little bit of both.
Disclaimer: There are descriptions of attacks / murder and of old-timey torture and execution methods in this episode.
Episode 210 - Was the Borley Rectory Really the Most Haunted House in England?
It started with a monk and nun executed for their illicit affair in 1362. The nun came back to haunt the scene of her demise. Then came a headless coachman. Then a poltergeist started tossing around candlesticks and scrawling messages on walls. Harry Price went ghost hunting. But only fire could expunge the evil from this place. Or did it?
Weird Bit 36 - El Cucuy, the Monster Under Your Bed
El Cucuy hides in your closet or under your bed. In the dark. And he does not just do mean things to you if you are bad. He eats you. Oh, and El Cucuy sometimes attacks grandmothers. He is just all around bad.
Episode 209 - The Poltergeist Girl of Romania
When 13-year old Eleonore Zugun found a coin on the ground and spent it, her grandmother told her Dracu the Devil would make sure bad things happened to her. Bad things did.
Episode 208 - Frightening Things: Fact or Fiction
Halloween is the perfect time for a fact or fiction episode. This one centers on strange things: tiny little vampires, moonstones, a demonic tree, man-eating trees and, worst of all, baby cages. Listen, then vote for the weird thing you think is B.S. We’ll reveal the fake strange thing on Halloween.