When a group of drug-addled privileged rich kids decide they want to make movies, they know they need money. Their plan - kidnap a bus full of school children and hold them for ransom. Genius.
Episode 245 - Fear of Flying
Juliane Koepcke was just 17 when she saw lightning hit the wing of the plane soaring over the Peruvian rain forest. She felt the plane shudder. Then she could look down and see the tops of the rain forest canopy. 10,000 feet below.
Episode 244 - Weird News 2
More weird news brings us some gruesome discoveries from a drying lake, some old discoveries from a drying river, a vengeful elephant and the possible solution to one of the great Australian mysteries - who was the Somerton Man.
Episode 243 - The Best Restaurant Never
The Shed at Dulwich. Sounds like a trendy London restaurant, doesn’t it? It was. Kind of. Turns out it really was a shed. In Dulwich. But there were other things that made it different from every other restaurant ever.
Episode 242 - Bloody Benders, Part Three
The Benders always seem to be a step ahead of their pursuers. And some who track them into othe wilds of West Texas never return. Then authorities think they found Kate and Ma, but did they? Will we ever really know what happened to the Bloody Benders?
Episode 241 - Bloody Benders, Part Two - **Content Warning
Content Warning - Discussion of death, including child death and some description of violence
The search for one of the missing in Kansas finally finds its way to the Bender homestead. What is discovered in the apple orchard shocks the nation. The Benders are suddenly the monsters of the nation. Now if only someone could find them.
Episode 240 - Bloody Benders, Part One
Kansas of 1870 was the edge of civilization in the U.S. at the time. When an immigrant family from Germany named the Benders open a way station along the Osage Trail in southeastern Kansas in 1871, it wasn’t long before travelers started going missing. It would be tragically too long, though,before anyone began to suspect what happened to them.
Episode 239 - The World of Weird News
It’s tough keeping up with strange stuff happening every day all around us. So relax and let us tell you about crab-flavored whiskey, giant snails, people-swallowing whales and so much more.
Episode 238 - The Town That Dreaded Sasquatch
Something big, hairy and scary was out in the woods surrounding little Port Chatham on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula. Finally the town gave up and its residents fled en masse. What exactly made Port Chatham a ghost town?
Episode 237 - The Amazing McMillions Scam
McDonald’s Monopoly game gave customers tons of free Coke and french fries. But a select few could win serious cash money. That was supposed to be random. One man decided he didn’t like those odds. Like all crazy schemes, this one eventually collapsed, but it was a hell of a ride.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/arts/television/mcmillions-hbo-explained.html
https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/mcdonalds-monopoly-game-fraud-true-story.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/08/business/mcdonald-s-gives-millions-to-patrons-but-very-quietly.html
HBO documentary “McMillions”
Episode 236 - The Unexplainable Disappearance of Branson Perry
In April 2001 Branson Perry walked out his front door to put jumper cables back in the garage. He was talking to his friend at the window upstairs. Two men in front of the house never saw him leave. Yet somehow Branson Perry fell off the face of the earth, never to be seen again.
Weird Bit 47 - Bielefeld - The City That Doesn't Exist
Do you know anyone from Bielefeld? Have you ever been to Bielefeld? Do you know anyone who’s ever been to Bielefeld? No? Then, how do you know that Bielefeld, a German city of 340,000 really exists?
Episode 235 - Fake Friend
No friends? No problem. At least in 1987 when a genius made a tape of himself absorbed by your every word and just really getting you. He called the video Rent-A-Friend and at $49.95 for a new best friend it was a hell of a bargain.
Episode 234 - David Hahn, the Nuclear Boyscout
When David Hahn got a chemistry set age 10, it was only a matter of time before he got his Atomic Energy badge in the Boy Scouts. From there it was only a little more time before he built a workable nuclear reactor in his mom’s potting shed.
Weird Bit 46 - We're Here, We're Otherkins - Get Used To It!
Fairies and elves, furries and therians. Some of us aren’t just human. We are Otherkins.
Sources
https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Otherkin
https://www.dailydot.com/irl/otherkin/
2 Girls 1 Podcast – 178 Otherkin
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/people-politics-law/politics-policy-people/sociology/who-are-otherkin-and-how-should-we-view-them
Episode 233 - Gef the Talking Mongoose
First came the scratches in the wall of the farmhouse on the Isle of Man. Then growls and hisses and screeches. Then Gef the mongoose told the Irving family all about himself. Because he was a talking mongoose. And soon the world wanted to hear what Gef had to say.
Weird Bit 45 - Monsters of the Philippines
The Aswang of the Philippines can be a witch that curses, a shape-shifter, and a vampire-like creature that sucks your blood and viscera. And then there are the actual monsters…
Episode 232 - The (Possibly Zombie) Leatherman
Who was that mysterious leather-clad stranger who each month tramped through the same small towns in New York and Connecticut - for over 30 years? Was he an old French fur trader? A zombie? A lonely man who just— wait, did you say zombie? We vote for zombie.
Episode 231 - Fun With Animals, Part 2
Why shouldn’t we text each other by tapping on telepathic snails? Why shouldn’t we use bats to drop bombs and dolphins to do - well, all sorts of things? No one can say we haven’t tried, because we have, and this episode tells us how.
Episode 230 - Fun With Animals, Part 1
We’ve always had fun with animals. Playing frisbee with dogs. Chatting with parrots. Using canaries to tell us if a coal mine will kill us. Turning pigeons into bombs. Using leeches to predict the weather. The usual stuff.