What does it take to be declared dead… and then wake up in a morgue?

In this episode of The Box of Oddities, we uncover the astonishing true story of Vulcana, a Victorian-era strongwoman who shattered expectations, defied societal norms, and performed feats of strength that left audiences questioning reality. But it’s not her iron-bending or fire-defying heroics that haunt history—it’s the moment she was pronounced dead after a tragic accident… only to regain consciousness among the corpses.

Then, we shift from human resilience to something far more unsettling: a massive, ever-expanding scar in the Siberian wilderness known as the Batagaika Crater, ominously nicknamed the “Gateway to the Underworld.” What looks like a giant wound in the Earth is actually a rapidly growing collapse caused by thawing permafrost—one that’s revealing ancient ecosystems, long-extinct creatures, and even viable prehistoric DNA.

As scientists race to understand this phenomenon, the crater continues to widen—releasing greenhouse gases, exposing long-buried secrets, and raising unsettling questions about what else might emerge from the thaw.

Also in this episode:

A bizarre encounter involving a dog, a “hairball,” and an unexpected discovery

The strangest items you can buy from Japan’s infamous “horror vending machines.”

And a reminder that sometimes the line between the explainable and the unexplainable is thinner than we’d like to believe

From a woman who refused to stay dead… to a landscape that refuses to stay still—this episode explores strength, survival, and the eerie consequences of a world changing beneath our feet.

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