Podcast
Astonishing Legends
Hosted by Astonishing Legends Productions · EN
The world is more mysterious than most people are comfortable imagining. We cross paths with the mystical from time to time and may not even notice it. If we do, we quickly return to our usually mundane daily existence. But what if we not only acknowledged the unknown, we investigated it and spoke with those in the know? That's what co-hosts Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess, and co-executive producer Tess Pfeifle do at Astonishing Legends. Over 100 million downloads and hundreds of thousands of listeners have discovered the thrill of exploring the mysteries of our world, showing that the unknown can be both captivating and intriguing. Welcome to Astonishing Legends!
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Episodes
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Chris McKinnell and the Warren Legacy
5d ago02:35:16Tap to summarizeChris McKinnell grew up as the grandson of Ed and Lorraine Warren, surrounded by haunted objects and terrifying investigations that left him afraid of the dark until one unforgettable night changed everything. In this special interview, he shares firsthand stories from inside the Warren family, including the infamous Lee, Massachusetts haunting, and why, after a lifetime chasing the paranormal, he's convinced the answers are far stranger than demons.Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.
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S2 Ep25: Old Man Dayton
1w ago00:37:54Tap to summarizeIn tonight's dead letter… three families lived in the same old house across the years, none of them knowing each other, and each one wound up sharing the place with the same two ghostly visitors. As kids, our listener Heather and her sister kept seeing a little boy who was never actually there when they looked closer. The adults saw someone different — an old man, solid enough that Heather's stepmother screamed for her father, certain a stranger had walked in. The corroboration of everything shows up in the form of a psychic.REFERENCE LINKSRelated Astonishing Legends EpisodesAstonishing Legends — The Sallie House: Ghost in the Machine, Part 1 (Spotify)Astonishing Legends — The True Story Behind the Conjuring, Part 1 (Spotify)Astonishing Legends — Sam the Sandown Clown, Ep 183 (Spotify)Astonishing Legends — The Fermi Paradox, Ep 022 (Spotify)Astonishing Legends — Battle at Cisco Grove, Ep 246 (Spotify)Astonishing Legends — Mantis Men, Ep 258 (episode page)Topic & Background ReferencesPareidolia: why we see faces and figures in random shapes (Britannica)The doppelgänger, the living double of folklore (Britannica)Vic Tandy and the 19 Hz "haunted" frequency of infrasound (Wikipedia)The Sallie House of Atchison, Kansas (Wikipedia)The Perron family haunting, the true story behind "The Conjuring" (All That's Interesting)Sam the Sandown Clown: the 1973 Isle of Wight encounter (OnTheWight)The Cisco Grove alien encounter of 1964 (UFO Casebook)John Keel and the "ultraterrestrials" (Wikipedia)The Fermi paradox: "Where is everybody?" (Britannica)Wormholes and the Einstein–Rosen bridge (Wikipedia)Natalie and Tara, "doers of things" on YouTube (Natalie and Tara)We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!This week's episode is sponsored by Mint Mobile — get premium wireless for $15 a month at mintmobile.com/dlo.
Transcribe →S2 Ep24: Pitched in Blue
2w ago00:42:04Tap to summarizeIn tonight's dead letter… our listener Daniel moves into a freshly built ranch house in the Salt Lake Valley back in 2011 — a house barely five years old, no tragic past, nothing "old and storied" about it. The first odd thing he notices is that every doorknob in the basement is on backwards, rigged to lock someone in from the outside. He's sixteen, he's got the whole basement to himself, and from the very first night down there he can't shake the feeling that he's being watched. Then one night around eleven, three sharp knocks land on the wall right behind his head — and that's only the start. REFERENCE LINKSLake Bonneville – WikipediaKanashibari (Japanese sleep paralysis) – Yokai.comSleep Paralysis and the Hag Phenomenon – NeurolaunchSudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome – The Order of the Good DeathBell Witch – WikipediaSkinwalker Ranch – WikipediaSkinwalker Ranch of Uintah County, Utah (the locks the Shermans found) – Legends of AmericaBaba Yaga – WikipediaAstonishing Legends: Skinwalker Ranch Part 1We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!
Transcribe →S2 Ep23: Pop's Cat
3w ago00:33:50Tap to summarizeIn tonight's dead letter, we head about as far from the Office as you can get — the Hutt Valley near Wellington, New Zealand — for a story from Billy, a working artist who'd call himself a cautious skeptic. His wife was deep into a spiritualist church and her own psychic abilities, and he mostly kept his distance from all of it. Then something started visiting their bed at night, something that felt exactly like a cat walking up the covers, even though their actual cat was nowhere near the room. Weeks later, a message about it came back to the family through his wife that no one was expecting.Windy Wellington — Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/13182/windy-wellingtonCook Strait — Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand: https://www.linz.govt.nz/our-work/new-zealand-geographic-board/place-name-stories/place-names-cooks-voyages/cook-straitKupe — Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: https://teara.govt.nz/en/first-peoples-in-maori-tradition/page-6Hutt Valley — Wellington places — Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: https://teara.govt.nz/en/wellington-places/page-8Capital city: Wellington since 1865 — Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: https://teara.govt.nz/en/capital-cityCan Our Dead Pets Come Back to Visit Us? — Rupert Sheldrake: https://www.sheldrake.org/essays/can-our-dead-pets-come-back-to-visit-usKaitiaki — guardians — Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand: https://teara.govt.nz/en/kaitiakitanga-guardianship-and-conservation/page-4Sleep Paralysis, the "Bedroom Intruder," and the Sensed Presence — NIH / NCBI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5329044/Wellington Paranormal — Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_ParanormalWe're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!Thanks to Mint Mobile for sponsoring tonight's episode. Ditch the overpriced wireless bill, bring your own phone and number, and get premium coverage on the nation's largest 5G network for $15 a month — three months at that price at mintmobile.com/dlo.
Transcribe →S2 Ep22: The Mechanic and Mr. Machine
4w ago00:51:54Tap to summarizeIn tonight's dead letter, listener Dean takes us to his grandmother's old Victorian house in a region of Scott’s home state of North Carolina known as the Sandhills. His family has traded strange stories about the family home for generations, from slamming doors in an empty house to a lady in white under the apple tree. He spent years as the family skeptic, right up until he started helping his aunt sort through the massive Americana collection left behind by her late husband we’ll simply call ‘D’, a mechanic with a passion for old gas pumps, slot cars, and vintage toys. A series of events that were too strange to chalk up to coincidence finally convinced Dean that something unexplained was going on, and frankly…we agree.Reference LinksMr. Machine from Ideal (1960) — Toy TalesMr. Machine — WikipediaHorikawa Robots and the Space Explorer "TV Robot" — Fab Tin ToysHouse in the Horseshoe — NC Historic SitesThe Coastal Plain and Sandhills — NCpedia"Haint Blue" — Historic New EnglandBlack Shuck — WikipediaThe Beast of Bladenboro — North Carolina GhostsWhat a Hospice Physician Can Tell Us About End-of-Life Visions — Discover MagazineEp 209: The Phantom Horse of Greensboro — Astonishing LegendsWe're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!This episode is sponsored by Firstleaf. Take a quick quiz, and Firstleaf matches premium, award-winning wines to your taste and delivers them right to your door — with tasting notes and pairing tips in every box. You control the schedule, skip shipments anytime, and every bottle is backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Go to TryFirstleaf.com/dlo for 50% off your first box PLUS free shipping for a whole year.
Transcribe →The Uninvited: The Ripperston Farm Invasion
Jun 1402:23:11Tap to summarizeIn 1977, a remote dairy farm on the cliffs of southwest Wales became the center of one of the strangest and most enduring UFO cases in British history. What began with a glowing object hovering over Ripperston Farm escalated into months of unexplained phenomena: failing electronics, mysterious figures at the windows, silent visitors in a silver car, missing cattle that appeared miles away, and an encounter Pauline Coombs believed took place aboard an otherworldly craft. As sightings spread across the region — including the famous Broad Haven school incident witnessed by fourteen children — the area became known as the Welsh Triangle. With declassified government investigations, admitted hoaxes, and a mystery that remains unresolved nearly fifty years later, we ask: what really happened over St Brides Bay?Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.
Transcribe →S2 Ep21: The Emerald Valley
Jun 900:45:20Tap to summarizeIn tonight's dead letter, Daniel, a self-described skeptic writes in about the one thing he's never been able to explain away. He was a third-grader in northeast Washington in 1985, riding home one evening, when an intense green light blinded him and his mom in their car. For years he figured he'd made it up, or pulled it from some movie. Then it came up years later over lunch with his sister, and he found out he wasn't the only one in the car who never forgot it.REFERENCE LINKSWhen Mysterious Green Fireballs Worried the U.S. Government — HISTORYProject Twinkle and the Green Fireball InvestigationThe Green Flash: What Causes the Rare Sunset Phenomenon — EarthSkyFairchild Air Force Base History — HistoryLink.orgFaded Giant by Robert Salas and James KlotzThe 1967 Malmstrom Missile Shutdown — CUFON ArchiveRobert Hastings — UFOs and NukesAstonishing Legends Ep. 155: Abduction at Devil's Den (Terry Lovelace)We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!
Transcribe →S2 Ep20: What Does a House Remember?
Jun 200:46:07Tap to summarizeIn tonight's dead letter, our listener’s family trades a rented place for an old Victorian villa tucked into the quiet border country between England and Wales. The previous owner had loved the house for more than half a century, and the neighbors were quick to say she'd have approved of the new arrivals. But the littlest member of the family keeps mentioning an old woman with white hair. We’ll get into faceless figures, formidable women who hold a home together, and an old plaque that quietly says exactly what this whole story is about.REFERENCE LINKSWilliam Morris's Bed and the Kelmscott Manor Poem — Society of Antiquaries of LondonLucy M. Boston, the Green Knowe Books, and Memory in a House — BritannicaThe Manor at Hemingford Grey (the real Green Knowe)Folklore of the Stiperstones and the Devil's ChairThe Devil's Chair: The Story Behind the Shropshire Landmark — Shropshire StarThe White Lady of Ludlow Castle (Marion de la Bruyère) — Shropshire StarThe Phantom Funeral of Ratlinghope and Shropshire Ghost Stories — The History PressShropshire Folklore, Wild Edric, and the Long Mynd Black Dog — Shropshire StarWe're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!
Transcribe →S2 Ep19: The House on 109
May 2600:44:24Tap to summarizeIn tonight's dead letter, we head into Grafton, West Virginia — a small railroad town built on a B&O junction, Civil War supply lines, and two national cemeteries. The house at the center of this story sat right in the middle of all that history. When a listener named Jonathan moved in with his family as a kid, it was, as he puts it, just off — and the footsteps upstairs were the easy part. Small things kept stacking up, the kind you could maybe almost explain away one at a time but never all together. Decades later he's still working through what happened in that house, and what stayed there.REFERENCE LINKSGrafton, West Virginia — e-WV EncyclopediaB&O Railroad Historical Marker in GraftonGrafton Civil War Supply Depot Historical MarkerGrafton National Cemetery — National Cemetery AdministrationThornsbury Bailey Brown — First Union Soldier Killed in the Civil WarInternational Mother's Day ShrineAnna Jarvis, Founder of Mother's DayThe Grafton Monster — e-WV EncyclopediaThe Grafton Monster FestivalThe Grafton Monster in Fallout 76George Washington's Surveying of Grafton — City of GraftonRuth Ann Musick, West Virginia FolkloristThe Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost TalesAstonishing Legends Ep 85: The Bell Witch Part 1Astonishing Legends Archived Episodes — The Bell Witch SeriesThe Enfield Poltergeist (1977)The Smurl Haunting (West Pittston, PA)Skinwalkers at the Pentagon — Lacatski, Kelleher, KnappHypnopompic Hallucinations — Sleep FoundationThe Old Hag Phenomenon and Sleep ParalysisThe Blemmyes — Headless Men with Faces in Their ChestsWest Virginia Paranormal InvestigationsPaper Moon (1973)We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!
Transcribe →The Ghost Bomber of the Monongahela
May 2302:23:08Tap to summarizeIn January 1956, rush-hour drivers crossing Pittsburgh’s icy Homestead High Level Bridge watched a nightmare descend from the sky: a silent B-25 bomber gliding just feet above the roadway with both engines dead. Veteran Air Force pilot Major William Dotson pulled off a flawless emergency landing on the freezing Monongahela River, saving all six men from the crash itself. But within minutes, two crew members vanished into the current, and the bomber sank beneath only 25 feet of water… never to be seen again. How does an entire military aircraft disappear in shallow water, in front of hundreds of witnesses, and stay missing for nearly seventy years?Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.
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