Episode 169 - The Absurd Search for the Lost City of Timbuktu

Alexander Gordon Laing had that confident swagger of every European colonialist who went stomping into some new land to civilize and bleed it. So why shouldn’t he cross the entire Sahara Desert to find a lost city in the middle of Africa?

Sources:

The Mammoth Book of Losers by Karl Shaw
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Alexander_Gordon_Laing

http://greatbritishnutters.blogspot.com/2008/08/alexander-gordon-laing-mission-to.html
https://www.thenational.scot/news/17316509.a-scottish-explorer-who-made-his-mark-on-history/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Timbuktu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Gordon_Laing

Stupid Questions Coming Soon

Coming soon to a podcast app near you, Stupid Questions, brought to you by the people behind the Weird World podcast (us). This is just a little announcement and some info about the new podcast. We hope you'll listen to it and keep listening to us on Weird World.

Episode 168 - The Patterson-Gimlin Film: 60 Seconds of Swinging Sasquatch Part 2

In Part 2 of the Patterson-Gimlin bigfoot film we explore what may have been the origin and intent of the film. It may have been a n idea so crazy it actually worked.

Weird Bit 24 - The Wayfair Conspiracy

Was Wayfair selling young girls in high priced, ugly cabinets? Or young boys stuffed into $9,999 Zodiac pillows? Doesn’t sound possible, yet many people came across the products listed on the website and leapt to those logical conclusions, and found all the evidence online they needed to back it up.

Sources:

Kids Shipped in Armoires? The Person Who Started the Wayfair Conspiracy Speaks
By Andrew Whalen On 7/10/20 at 12:37 PM ED
https://www.newsweek.com/wayfair-child-trafficking-conspiracy-theory-cabinets-scandal-1517013

Wayfair: The false conspiracy about a furniture firm and child trafficking
By Marianna Spring Specialist disinformation reporter, BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53416247

Is Wayfair Trafficking Children Via Overpriced Items? By Dan Evon Published 10 July 2020 Updated 15 July 2020
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wayfair-trafficking-children/

Episode 167 - The Patterson-Gimlin Film: 60 Seconds of Swinging Sasquatch Part 1

It is at least the second most famous amateur film ever taken. That iconic look back from a massive hairy bi-ped in the California forest. Was it incontrovertible proof of a living Bigfoot? Or was it a man in a monkey suit? Let’s decide.

Episode 166 - The Weird World About A Weird World

Ruth kept her kids in suspense all their lives. There were the sudden moves across the country, the surprise camping trips, the strange demands. Then one day she told them the truth. The very weird truth.

Sources:

“The Story of a Weird World I Was Warned Never To Tell,” by Sarah McDermott, BBC World Service https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42951788

“Childhood on the Run”, by Tim Lewis

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/may/13/my-childhood-on-the-run-memoir-run-hide-repeat

Run, Hide, Repeat by Pauline Dakin

Episode 165 - The Swamp Sisters

It was Grey Gardens meets Crocodile Dundee. It was two aging sisters enduing an increasingly awful existence amid decaying splendor - until one of them died and the other disappeared.

Sources:

The Peculiar World of Margaret Clement, by Annie O'Riley, April 28, 2014

https://www.oddhistory.com.au/gippsland/the-peculiar-world-of-margaret-clement/

https://www.historicmysteries.com/lady-of-the-swamp/

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/from-riches-to-rags-then-death-the-mystery-of-gippslands-lady-of-the-swamp-margaret-clement-and-the-footballer-suspected-of-her-murder/news-story/1f5a96486e3834124dc65187984da2d1

Episode 164 - The Alien Autopsy Film

There may be more recent pretenders, but there is only one real alien autopsy film, and when Fox TV aired it in 1995 it caused a sensation. We bring you the wild ride of how the film came to be, what people thought about it, and why Fox kept blurring out those alien naughty bits.

Episode 163 - Phineas Gage: The Man With Too Many Holes In His Head

Three feet seven inches. That’s 1.09 meters. That was the size of the iron rod that pierced Phineas Gage’s head. But why take our word for it? Take his. Because, massive hole in his head or not, Phineas lived to tell.

Episode 162 - What Happened to Brittany?

Brittany Murphy was the bright young star of Hollywood - until she met Simon Monjack. A few years later Brittany was dead at 32 of… pneumonia and anemia? That was odd. But when Simon died a few months later - of pneumonia and anemia - that was weird.

Episode 161 - COVID Conspiracies, Part 2

We continue our quest to find the best / worst Coronavirus conspiracy theories. If Covid-19 is a deep state big pharma bioweapon, wouldn’t you want to know?

Episode 160 - COVID Conspiracies, Part 1

You have your Plandemic, sure, but there is a rich array of conspiracy theories spiraling through the world as fast as the virus. Here are some of the best / worst. Warning to Bill Gates and Verizon - you are not going to like this.

Sources (Plandemic debunking):

livescience
buzzfeed science
New York Times
Factcheck.org

Episode 159 - The 22 Faces of Eve: Multiple Personality Disorder

It has a new name now, but multiple personality disorder took the world by storm after Sally Field played Sybil on the small screen in 1977. But how real is it? How does it actually work in the human mind? And should you be worried?

Sources:
Chicagomag.com, Dangerous Therapy: The Story of Patricia Burgus and Multiple Personality Disorder, By Cynthia Hanson, June 1, 1998
https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/The_Three_Faces_of_Eve
https://people.com/archive/eve-had-not-three-but-22-faces-now-chris-sizemore-is-happily-just-herself-vol-8-no-11/
https://www.theravive.com/today/post/rip-chris-sizemore-a-look-at-dissociative-identity-disorder-0003067.aspx

Episode 158 - Ambrose Gwinnett, The Half-Hanged Man

Falsely accused, Ambrose Gwinnett was hung in 1710 in England. But the hanging didn’t take and that was the start of the unbelievable adventure of Half-Hanged Ambrose Gwinnett.

Episode 157 - Lori Vallow, Cult Mom - Part 2

In Part 2 of the Lori Vallow story, other people close to her start getting shot at. Then even after Lori is arrested, the police cannot get Lori to tell them what happened to her children.

Weird Bit 23 - Murder Hornets Are Coming!

They are an inch and a half of biting, stinging killing machine. They are bloodthirsty monsters that… Okay, that’s an oversell, but they are scary and dangerous - and now they’re in America. They are Murder Hornets.

Episode 156 - Lori Vallow, Cult Mom - Part 1

It’s dangerous to be in Lori Vallow’s orbit. In Part 1, we tell the story of the murder of Lori’s husbands and her move to Idaho to be part of a Doomsday cult. But then she seems to have lost track of her kids…

Sources:

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/3/6/21166418/lori-vallow-chad-daybell-jj-vallow-tylee-ryan-alex-cox-tammy-daybell-charles-vallow

“Everything We Know About the Deeply Suspicious ‘Doomsday Couple’” by Amanda Arnold, Feb 26, 2020, The Cut

Dr Phil Podcast - A Mother’s Secret: The Lory Vallow Story, Dr. Phil McGraw

Episode 155 - The Alien Abduction of Travis Walton - Part 2

Maybe Travis Walton should have stayed with the aliens, because after he got back to earth, things got nasty.

Sources:

https://debunker.com/texts/walton.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Walton_UFO_incident

"Fire in the Sky" -- The Walton Travesty by Anson Kennedy, March/April, 1993 issue of The Georgia Skeptic, the newsletter of the Georgia Skeptics

https://debunker.com/historical/KlassContraWalton.pdf

https://debunker.com/historical/WaltonMisc.pdf

“Ground Saucer Watch" Memo on the Walton Incident, Conclusions (undated: probably December, 1975)

Profitable Nightmare of a Very Unreal Kind"by Jeff Wells, (from The Age, Melbourne, Australia, 6 January 1979)

Skeptical Information on the Travis Walton "UFO Abduction" Story, Revised Aug. 5, 2016, Robert Sheaffer

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/03/controversial-ufo-movie-turns-25/

https://www.gaia.com/article/travis-walton-ufo-incident

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4094

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/travis-walton-still-haunted-by-ufo_n_7119910

https://www.mufon.com/travis-walton-abduction---1975.html

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/770774/Travis-Walton-killed-alien-abduction-brought-back-life

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Walton_UFO_incident

Episode 154 - The Alien Abduction of Travis Walton - Part 1

Was Travis Walton zapped by a blue beam from a UFO and abducted for five days? Inquiring minds want to know.

Episode 153 - The Denver Spiderman, aka The Ghost Slayer, aka There Otto Be a Law Against People Living in Your Attic

He was little, he was quiet, and he lived in an attic. No, he was not Otto. He was worse, because this attic dweller didn’t ask permission. And he also played the mandolin. Oh, and he killed a man.

Sources:

https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/tale-denver-spider-man

http://www.historicalcrimedetective.com/msm-theodore-coneys-the-spiderman-of-denver-1941/

https://www.ranker.com/list/theodore-coneys-facts/jacob-shelton

www.darkhistories.com/the-spider-man-of-denver-theodore-edward-coneys/