Today's True Weird Stuff - Hammersmith Ghost (Airdate 11/15/2024) In 1803, residents of the Hammersmith district of London reported being terrorized by a ghost. The hysteria was so intense that a man named Francis Smith did the unthinkable: he shot and killed a man wearing white clothing, having mistaken the man for the Hammersmith Ghost. Can a man be found guilty of trying to kill a ghost? It's a decision that would take English courts 180 years to figure out.

Today's True Werid Stuff - Cokey & Lucky His name is Lucky Luciano. An Italian-born gangster, Luciano was credited as the Godfather of American organized crime. From extortion, to bootlegging, and prostitution, Luciano was on top of the world as he rose to power beyond his wildest dreams. That is, until a woman named "Cokey Flo" helped expose his prostitution ring in front of a jury, causing Luciano's luck to finally run out.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Welcome to the Multiverse Do you remember as a kid it being called the Berenstein Bears with an "e?" It was actually spelled with an "A". How about the Monopoly man's monocle? Turns out he never actually had one. Oh, and Ed McMahon never showed up on anyone's doorstep during the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. These collective false memories we share with others are called the "Mandela Effect." Is this a coincidental phenomenon, or part of something bigger in a multiverse reality?

Today's True Weird Stuff - The DUNE Project Neutrinos are tiny, fundamental particles that may contain a key to better understanding the universe. Roughly a thousand trillion of these mysterious particles harmlessly pass through your body every second. In order to better understand them, scientists shoot an intense beam of neutrinos from a facility in Illinois to an underground detector 1,300 kilometers away in South Dakota. They call it The DUNE Project.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Rest In Peace London in the early 1800s had a graveyard problem. A lack of space led to unsanitary burial practices as the smell of rotting corpses and overflowing sewers consumed the city. One such place was Enon Chapel, a church in which the pastor was getting paid to allow bodies to be buried in the chapel's basement. But a man nicknamed "Graveyard Walker" made it his mission to put an end to these filthy practices.

Today True Weird Stuff - The Rightest Stuff Astronaut Gordon Cooper had to manually control his spacecraft after a series of equipment failures. Edgar Mitchell avoided disaster by deactivating spaceship abort commands caused by a faulty switch. Becoming an astronaut has been the dream of generations of children, but it's more than exploring strange new worlds. The job of an astronaut is stressful, demanding and requires quick life-or-death decision making. This episode looks at a few tales in space where astronauts rose to the occasion to avoid catastrophe.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Beavers on the Moon  Claims that the Apollo 11 moon landing was a hoax have existed for decades. Meet the grandaddy of moon landing conspiracy theories, Bill Kaysing. He believed the Apollo Moon landings between 1969 and 1972 were faked. However, this isn't the only lunar conspiracy...The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 went as far as to trick people into believing that animals lived on the moon.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Pineys The Pine Barrens of New Jersey may be a forbidding wilderness, but people have called the place home for hundreds of years. It's also where folks have reported sightings of a terrifying beast, capable of a blood-curdling scream that can send chills down the sturdiest spines. It's the legend of the Jersey Devil that haunts the Pineys.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Legend of the Pines Joe Mulliner was known as the “Robin Hood of the Pines.” Forced to flee his home in 1779, Mulliner went on a crime spree through the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey...never killing anyone, but robbing and kidnapping his way into the history books.

Today's True Weird Stuff - King Of Quacks Curtis Howe Springer was a radio evangelist, self-proclaimed medical doctor and minister. In 1944, he laid claim to 12,000 acres of land in California's Mohave Desert and created his own town. The only problem? The land wasn't his. He was also a medical fraud who used his radio show to sell fake miracle potions. Springer was the ultimate con man known as the "King of Quacks."

Today's True Weird Stuff - Big Muddy Monster Summer, 1973. Police in Murphysboro, Illinois started receiving phone calls about the presence of a large creature. Some saw a tall, muddy beast with glowing red eyes lurking around wooded areas. Others heard a shrieking noise that terrified even the police officers who were investigating. It's a cold case that's never been solved...the mystery of the Big Muddy Monster.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Adios, Yda! Yda Addis was a brilliant and famous writer in California in the late 1800s. She was also someone whose personal life was full of turmoil. Constant legal battles, a nasty divorce, charges of defamation and attempted murder took their toll on Yda. Then one day, out of nowhere, she disappeared...never to be heard from again.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Here Be Sea Monsters Cultures all around the world have myths and legends about the terrifying creatures that inhabit the ocean - from massive sea serpents, to sirens and merfolk. We take a look at the history of folks who encountered or dedicated their lives to searching for monsters in the deep blue sea.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Shock Doc In the 1950's, the CIA launched a program aimed at developing methods for interrogating and controlling human behavior; part of the program involved funding tests on children. Dr. Lauretta Bender at Bellevue Hospital would conduct electroshock therapy on kids as young as three years old to treat childhood schizophrenia. The CIA called it "Project Artichoke."

Today's True Weird Stuff - Prize Prison It's the wildest reality show in TV history. Susunu! Denpa Shōnen was known for placing contestants in extreme situations for entertainment purposes. This is the story of Nasubi, a comedian who spent 15 months naked and alone in an apartment. Cut off from the world, he was forced to enter magazine sweeptakes until he won $8,000 in prizes. He did this completely unaware that his challenge was being livestreamed 24/7.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Pay Phone Bandit He didn't rob banks. He wasn't a serial killer. However, James Clark left the FBI dazed and confused for years as he stole $500,000 in quarters right under everyone's nose. He was known as the Pay Phone Bandit.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Deadly Circus Gypsy the elephant had a temper. She was part of the W.H. Harris Nickle Plate Circus, and in 1902, Gypsy killed her trainer and went on a rampage through the streets of Valdosta, Georgia. Animals have long been used in circus performances, but no amount of training changes the fact they're still wild animals.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Camel Girl Ella Harper was born with a rare orthopedic condition that caused her knees to bend backward. During a time when sideshows and oddities were extremely popular, Ella joined W. H. Harris's Nickel Plate Circus, becoming a featured act in the show. Because she walked on her hands and feet, she became known as The Camel Girl.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Footsie Elvis Presley. Quentin Tarantino. Jack Black. They're just a few of many people who admittedly have a foot fetish. But serial killer Dayton Leroy Rogers' love of feet took a gruesome turn. He murdered at least eight women in Oregon in the 1980s; some of the bodies were found with their feet severed because Rogers had a kink for killing.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Baby Broker Georgia Tann was a social worker who ran a child kidnapping and adoption scheme starting in 1924. Georgia ran the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, and for over 20 years she would take children from poor families and sell them to wealthy families for a hefty profit. She would even steal newborns from mothers in prisons and mental wards. Georgia Tann stole over 5,000 children during the course of her black-market baby ring.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Secret City Sarov is a town in Russia that no longer exists...officially, that is. In the 1940s, Sarov was removed from all unclassified maps, and the entire town was transformed into a center for research and development of nuclear weapons. Dozens of cities like these popped up in the Soviet Union at the time, as Stalin led the charge to bolster their nuclear weapons program. But strict rules and harsh conditions meant...sometimes mistakes were made.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Mad Scientist Jack Parsons was one of the fathers of the American space age who helped put man on the moon. He invented solid rocket fuel, co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and he was also an occultist. He was written out of a lot of NASA's history because of his antics: he was the leader of a black-magic sex mansion, ate menstrual cakes, and was frenemies with L. Ron Hubbard. Jack Parsons was the definition of a mad scientist.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Devil Went Down To Georgia The Georgia Guidestones were a monument that stood in Elbert County, Georgia for 42 years. Often called the "American Stonehenge," the creators believed society would eventually collapse, and built the monument as a guide for humanity after the apocalypse. However, conspiracy theorists believed the Georgia Guidestones were tied to Satanism, and in 2022, the monument was destroyed by an explosive device...and the person or persons involved remain a mystery.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Teenage Nazi Hunters Meet Freddie and Truus Oversteegen. Freddie was a wife and mother. Truus was a sculptor and painter. But long before that, these two sisters spent their teenage years as part of the anti-Nazi Dutch resistance during WWII. They used their lethal skills and innocent charm to eliminate Nazi soldiers.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Human Product 12 Society has a long history of conducting terrible experiments on humans, often without their knowledge or consent. In 1945, Ebenezer Cade was in a car accident and needed medical attention, but doctors injected an unknown substance into him just to see what would happen. It turns out he was a guinea pig for their tests on the effects of radiation; he was the first of 18 men, women, and children who were secretly injected with plutonium.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Glass Closet Liberace was one of the great performers of his time. His flamboyant style on and off the stage are what made fans love him, and made the gossip magazines love to hate him. Despite the tabloids relentless insults and rumors about his sexuality, Liberace found himself crying all the way to the bank.

The Enema King Once upon a time in a faraway land, there lived a very powerful king. He was quite good at being a king, and ruled for longer than any other monarch in the history of the whole world. But even a king chosen by God is still just a human being. Beset by all the troubles and mischief a human body can get up to. Yet his heart was glad because his people called him The Sun King, and not the other nickname he’d so richly earned: The Enema King.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Baroness  In 1929, Friedrich Ritter and his mistress took off to an uninhabited island in the Galapagos to start their new life together. But their peaceful paradise was interrupted by other inhabitants, including a woman and her two German lovers. With tensions rising and questions lingering around her sudden disappearance, this is a story about the mystery of the Baroness.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Ghost Of Ed Neal Omaha, 1890. Allen and Dorothy Jones were brutally murdered at their farm. The culprit? A man named Ed Neal...or so they say. Little is known about who he was or where he came from, but the actions of this ruthless killer sparked bloodlust in a town hellbent on revenge.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Devil Himself It was a beautiful, 22-bedroom mansion that was built in 1350. But the sprawling country home in County Wexford called Loftus Hall is also known as the most haunted mansion in Ireland. Stories have been passed down of a spirit that wanders the halls, but even darker than that, Loftus Hall has been haunted by the devil himself.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Turning The Bones You know the story of President Abraham Lincoln and his assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth. But did you know Honest Abe's body was sent on a two-week funeral procession? 1,600 miles and over 400 stops across 7 states. Things were smooth at first, but once the decay started to set in, his corpse "was not a pleasant sight."

Today's True Weird Stuff - On Her Nerves She was known as the Giggling Granny...but behind the warm smile of Nannie Doss was the heart of a cold-blooded murderer. In 1954 she confessed that over the course of nearly 30 years she'd killed 11 people: four husbands, two children, one of her sisters, her own mother, two grandsons, and a mother-in-law. The casual killing of her own family members made Nannie Doss one of history's most notorious female serial killers.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Shhh, It's Mars Humanity dreams of the day when we can inhabit Mars. However, it wasn't long ago that even great thinkers and inventors were convinced Martians were there first..so much so that the U.S. government instituted a "National Radio Silence Day" to listen for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Today's True Weird Stuff - I Do, I Do, I Do  She had it all. Money. Eight different husbands. Her name in the headlines. Was she a free spirit? An impulsive woman in love with love? The life of Monaei Lindley ended in the same way she lived it...in a blaze of glory.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Unholy City He called himself "The Comforter" and "The Emancipator." William E. Riker was a religious cult leader who preached what he called, "The Perfect Christian Divine Way," the belief in celibacy and racial and gendered segregation. In the 1920s and 30s, he purchased 200 acres of land to establish a town built on white supremacy. He called it...the Holy City.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Boy From Mars James Leininger said he used to be a Navy Pilot whose plane was shot down during WWII. Ryan Hammons remembered his life as former actor Marty Martyn.  Boriska Kipriyanovich claimed he was a Martian who was reborn as a human. Researchers have spent decades studying the one thing they have in common: all three believe their soul was reincarnated and could describe their past lives in great detail. 

Today's True Weird Stuff - Charlie No Face Raymond Robinson was only 8 years old when he was severely injured in an electrical accident. The incident left him so disfigured that he spent the rest of his life avoiding being out in public during the day...choosing only to go on long walks under the cover of darkness. Stories spread of an elusive, disfigured man wandering the streets late at night...and so began the legend of Charlie No-Face.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Ballsy Dr. Leo Stanley was the chief surgeon at San Quentin State Prison from 1913 to 1951. His horrific, pro-eugenics legacy included performing inhumane surgeries on inmates as a way to rehabilitate them...from thyroid removal to transplanting testicular glands from executed prisoners to living inmates. His belief in surgical cures for criminal minds made him a medical Frankenstein.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Hungry Puppet Ronald William Brown was a Christian TV puppeteer; he was also a pedophile, sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for the hundreds of lewd and disturbing images of children in his possession. But his desires were much darker than wanting to abuse children. Ronald William Brown discussed in detail his desire to torture, murder, and eat them.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Skinned  This is the story of a wallet made from human skin. The journey of Antoine LeBlanc to America in search of a better life. The rage of being screwed over by his bosses, the Sayres...and in return, murdering them in cold blood. And a town so outraged they executed LeBlanc, and used his remains to create keepsakes.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Flat Tire, Lonely Road In 1973, Dionisio Yanca arrived at a hospital in Bahia Blanca in a state of total amnesia. Days later, as he regained his memory, he retold his extraordinary experience: a bright light consumed the area around him as three humanoid beings approached him on the side of the road at night and took a sample of his blood. Dionisio even recounted his story multiple times while under hypnosis. Some people would kill for the chance to encounter alien life, but Dionisio only wished to forget the events of that fateful night.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The First War On Christmas Imagine living in a world where people hated Christmas...so much so that they banned people from celebrating it. We're not talking about some grumpy, green-colored mean one, or a cold-hearted miser. These were Puritans in Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th Century...people like Governor William Bradford and Reverend Increase Mather. Their hatred of Christmas showed no restraint, these folks made the Grinch look like a saint.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Cursed Christmas Ghost In the late 1800s, May Yohé had it all: a successful musical theatre career. A handsome, royal husband. A lavish, extravagant lifestyle. And then...it was all gone. If you're the superstitious type, you'd believe she was yet another victim of the most famous jewel in the world. Passed down to her husband, Lord Francis, those who've inherited it have suffered great misfortune. That's the power of the curse of the Hope Diamond.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Beamed Up In 1943, the USS Eldridge, a U.S. Navy ship, allegedly teleported from Philadelphia to the waters of Norfolk, Virginia. Some claim that during this experiment some men on the ship disappeared permanently…while others reappeared, with their bodies fused into the metal of the ship. Was this a real government cover-up, or does teleportation only exist in the minds of those who boldly go where no man has gone before?

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Red Crown You’ve heard of Bonnie and Clyde. But before one of the most infamous crime sprees in American history came to a bullet-riddled end, Bonnie, Clyde, and their cohorts foundthemselves cornered by the law in a motel in Parkville, Missouri. With no other choice but toshoot their way out, this is the tale of The Barrow Gang at The Red Crown.

Today's True Weird Stuff -  Sweet Baba When you think of serial killers, the most notorious ones come to mind: Ted Bundy. Jack The Ripper. Jeffrey Dahmer. But an accomplished chemist, a woman known as Baba Anujka, earned her reputation by concocting a “love potion” that was used to kill as many as 150 people. In the words of Bell Biv DeVoe…”That girl is poison.”

Today's True Weird Stuff - Mother & Ghost Decades before an old, rundown haunted house in Indiana was torn down, it was the beautiful home of Dr. and Mrs. Wilson, and their son, Aesop. In 1861, Aesop lost his life while serving in the Civil War. His grief-stricken mother had her son's casket returned home and kept it in the house for 12 years. Was the house haunted by Aesop's ghost? Or was it haunted by sorrow, because a mother's love never dies?

Today's True Weird Stuff - Room 1046 A man named Roland T. Owen checked into the Hotel President in Kansas City, Missouri on January 2, 1935. Days later, he was found in his hotel room, beaten and stabbed, blood all over the walls. Hotel staff had several strange encounters with Roland during his stay, but nothing that suggested he was in danger. With no clues, besides discovering that Roland T. Owen wasn't his real name, detectives embarked on solving the mystery of the terrible events...in Room 1046.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Swing That Axe In 1922, Andreas and Cäzilia Gruber, their daughter Viktoria Gabriel, Viktoria's children Cäzilia and Josef, and the family's maid Maria Baumgartner were all found brutally murdered at their farm known as Hinterkaifeck. There were no clues for a motive. No usable DNA evidence. Any leads investigators had over the years led only to dead ends. The killer has never been found. The Hinterkafeck murders are the definition of a cold case.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Unmarked Graves The Florida School for Boys, also known as the Dozier School, operated from the year 1900 until 2011. This reform school had notorious history of abuse: beatings..torture…even murder of students by staff. Many believe over 100 bodies were buried on school grounds. To this day, those who survived, and the loved ones of those lost, fight for justice for those unmarked graves.