Discover which of our April Fool’s stories was real and which two were fake. Quasi-spoiler alert - we tricked most of you.
Episode 196 - The Phantom Slayer Murder Mystery Part 2
The Phantom Slayer commits his most horrific attack on a couple in their own home. Texarkana devolves into panic and paranoia. Will we ever know who this monster was?
Episode 195 - The Phantom Slayer Murder Mystery, Part 1
First you see a man walking toward your car in the dead of night in a deserted lovers’ lane. Then you see he is wearing some kind of hood over his head. Then you see he is holding a gun. The Phantom Slayer has begun his reign of terror in Texarkana.
Episode 194 - Hey Mr. Submarine Man
If you invented a working submarine, would you: A) Humble brag this in every conversation (“Oh, you started a yeast culture? Hm, that reminds me of when I made a working submarine in my garage.”), B) Go on Shark Tank and ask for a billion dollars to start Underwater Uber, or C) Use it to lure women into close confines to do something unspeakable? You can probably guess the answer.
Episode 193 - Of Ghost Grannies, Alien Bigfoots, and Shooting Up Peanut Butter and Mayo
It’s April Fool’s Day but no one is going to trick our listeners. Except us. Three strange stories. Two are made up, one is real. Your job is to figure out which one. Go to our Facebook page to vote on which story is real.
Weird Bit 31 - Betsy Aardsma and the Dangers of Libraries
Betsy wore a red dress to the library on the day after Thanksgiving in 1969. That way, no one could see the blood…
Sources:
Murder in the Stacks: 50 Years Later Still No Answers, by Erin Hogge in The Daily Collegian – Penn State https://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/campus/article_b6280ed6-1a18-11ea-a966-2b1ac6ebcdcb.html
https://www.zodiacciphers.com/betsy-aardsma-murder.html
https://pennstatermag.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/aardsma_so_09.pdf
Episode 192 - The Disappearance of the Martin Family
It is sadly common for one person to disappear, but an entire family? Ken and Barbara Martin and their three youngest children vanished on a Christmas outing. It took days to realize they were gone and months for the first solid clues to arise, but we still do not know what happened to the Martin Family.
Episode 191 - The Mad Gasser of Mattoon, Part 2
With surprising speed, the mood in Mattoon turns from vigilance to skepticism. Who and what was behind the mad gassings in Mattoon? Or, to some, did they even occur?
Episode 190 - The Mad Gasser of Mattoon, Part 1
The attacks started with a sickly sweet odor that paralyzed and sickened its victims. Soon a small town in World War Two-Era middle America was in a panic. Was there a mad gasser in their midst?
Episode 189 - Nick Lotz, the Biggest TV Star You've Never Heard Of
Nick Lotz led a normal college freshman life getting blackout drunk and high on opiates and Adderall. But then he realized he was different - he was the star of his own TV show. About him. Every day. All day. And when the producer who speaks directly into your head tells you to do something, you do it. Nick did.
Episode 188 - The Devil Went Down to Devon
When the people of Devon in the UK awoke to find single file trails of cloven or horseshoe footprints in the snow, they wondered what had caused them. But when they realized they went on for mile after mile, crossed rivers, danced atop roofs, and leapt high walls, they feared what might have caused them.
Episode 187 - The Mystery Guest
Who were those old women who had spent the last 24 years in a hotel, never seen, never spoken to? It would take a dead body to re-discover Ida Wood, millionaire socialite who had disappeared over two decades before.
Sources:
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/02/05/ida-wood-recluse/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/everything-was-fake-but-her-wealth-4621153/
Episode 186 - The Belmez Faces
When Maria Gomez Pereira saw a stain appear on her kitchen floor in Spain in 1971 she was annoyed. When the next morning that stain had morphed into a human face, she was scared. When more faces started appearing the world came to Belmez to see the miraculous faces on her kitchen floor.
Episode 185 - Keith Reinhard's Last Hike, Part 2
What happened to Tom Young, the man whose disappearance obsessed Keith Reinhard? Then what happened to Keith? What drove him up a treacherous mountain as darkness loomed, never to be seen again?
Episode 184 - Keith Reinhard's Last Hike, Part 1
Keith Reinhard fled his mundane life to a living ghost town in the Rocky Mountains. There he obsessed over the disappearance of Tom Young - the man who had rented his shop space before him. Then Keith followed Tom into oblivion.
Episode 183 - The Mystery of Room 1046
He was from out of town. He called himself Roland T. Owen. He was tortured and left to die in his hotel room in Kansas City. But who killed him, why and who was he? Because he was definitely not named Roland T. Owen.
Sources:
https://the-line-up.com/roland-t-owen
https://allthatsinteresting.com/room-1046-murder-roland-t-owen
http://www.truecrimeneversleeps.com/the-mysterious-murder-of-roland-t-owen-in-room-1046/
Episode 182 - The Warminster Thing: Weirdness on Christmas Morning
Christmas Day 1964 brought strange sounds to the English village of Warminster. Something raked and scratched their roofs and even knocked them to the ground. Then pigeons died. Then they found mice with holes in them. Then, obviously, came the UFOS…
Episode 181 - Albert Bender and the Birth of Men in Black
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?