Everyone knows Men in Black. Tommy Lee. Will. Chris and Tessa. But did you know who invented MIBs? Did you know just how nuts the original story was? Well now you will.
Episode 180 - Birds Aren't Real
“The Man” wants you to believe those are birds flying through the air, watching you from the telephone line, and pooping on your car window. They’re not. They are something far more insidious than even pigeons.
Sources:
https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/who-are-we
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xg8p4n/birds-arent-real-they-are-government-spy-drones
Episode 179 - Lizzie Borden, Axe Murderer? Part 2
When another Fall Riverite is axe murdered just before the start of Lizzie’s trial, the town starts to wonder if the killings are connected. Did this help Lizzie get away with murder?
Weird Bit 30 - Utah Monolith Update
The latest on the Utah monolith - we might know who took it and Monolith-mania begins, starting in Romania.
Weird Bit 29 - Space Artistry?: The Utah Monolith
What is that ten-foot high metal monolith in the middle of the rugged Utah desert? A beacon? An art piece? An ode to 2001: Space Odyssey? Or something left by people from a place far, far away?
Episode 178 - Lizzie Borden, Axe Murderer?
The Borden house in Fall River, Mass in 1892 was a tense place. When Andrew and Abby Borden are axed to death in August of 1892, one of the most infamous murders in American history begins. And daughter Lizzie has some explaining to do.
Episode 177 - Weird World Review: The Haunting of Bly Manor
We take our first stab at a review - The Haunting of Bly Manor. Join us as we dissect and distill this spooky but imperfect nine-part Netflix original. Warning: Pretty much everything is spoiled.
Weird World Fiction - The Baby Next Door
Our first Weird World fictional foray tells the story of a man lurching toward his end, a woman hiding from shame, and a baby that won’t stop crying.
Weird Bit 27 - Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Do you believe in ghosts? How about demons? Join us to learn how many believe and who they are.
Episode 176 - The Great Amherst Haunting
Canada’s most famous ghost story centers on a traumatized teen and the malevolent spirits that haunted her. For Esther Cox, strange noises would escalate to burning skin, a swollen body, mysterious fires, thunderous booming sounds, and the occasional flying knife.
Episode 175 - Slender Man
He is tall, he is slender, he is dark, and, for two teenage girls in Wisconsin, he was an inspiration for evil. He is Slender Man.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/us/milwaukee-suburb-tries-to-cope-with-slender-man-stabbing.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/movies/slender-man-timeline.html
A documentary film on the incident called Beware the Slenderman, directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky, HBO Films 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_Man
Weird Bit 26 - The Island of Lost Dolls
In the urban jungle of Mexico City is a quiet lake with an unspoiled island. There a man found a girl drowned on the shore. When he found her doll in the lake days later, he honored her in the spookiest way imaginable.
Episode 174 - Beware the Bunny Man
If you see a dim light in the forest near the bridge over Colchester Road, it’s already too late. The Bunny Man Killer, axe in hand, has been dispatching the curious since 1904 and he almost never leaves survivors. Almost…
Episode 173 - Mowgli's Palace - The Scariest Place on Earth
Spooky 2020 Halloween Episode #1
Mowgli’s Palace was going to be the next great Disney theme park - until they abandoned it at the last minute. Years later, an intrepid urban explorer who didn’t think to bring a flashlight, cell phone or common sense found out why…
Weird Bit 25 - Cry Baby Bridges
They dot the landscape of America - lonely bridges where unspeakable things happened and the only reminder of them is the cry of a ghostly child.
Sources:
www.wikipedia.org/wiki/crybaby bridge
www.theoccultmuseum.com
www.ranker.com/list/crybabybridgebackstory/christopherschultz
www.blairwitch.fandom.com/crybaby bridge
Episode 172 - Mokele-Mbembe: The Dinosaur That Won't Die
Is there a living dinosaur hidden in the wilds of Central Africa? One that stops rivers and kills unwary canoeists for sport? Meet the mokele-mbembe, sole exhibit of a real life Jurassic Park.
Episode 171 - Lost in Knoxville: The Blair Adams Murder Mystery
Blair Adams fled Canada with a ticket to Germany, rerouted to Washington, D.C. and drove to Knoxville, Tennessee, a city he had never seen. He said someone was chasing him. His friends and family thought he was having a breakdown. Then they found Blair in a parking lot, murdered.
Sources:
Episode 170 - Satanic Panic - When the Devil Made You Do It and You Didn't Even Know It
The Devil made Paul Ingram do it and he didn’t even know it. Terrible things, wicked things, and he took the rap and went to prison on his own confession. But did Paul Ingram really do any of those terrible things?
DISCLAIMER for descriptions of sexual and satanic ritual abuse. This episode is not for young listeners.
Sources:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_ingra.htm
https://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/2015/05/24/an-historic-exaggeration-in-the-new-yorker/
https://www.newsweek.com/speaking-devil-186852
http://justicedenied.org/paul.htm
https://peoplepill.com/people/paul-ingram-1/
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-debate-over-recovered-memories-2330516
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/cd/12_1/mcnally.cfm
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/23/inside-case-of-repressed-memory-nicole-kluemper
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.