New to the case? We recommend starting with Episode 141 – Solving the Somerton Man Mystery first, before listening to this episode.
See more family photos of Charles Webb - the Somerton Man.
For over 70 years, investigators have sought to identify the unknown man found dead on an Australian beach in 1948. There were no signs of foul play and an examination of the victim’s stylish clothing strangely revealed that all of the labels had been removed. In his pocket was found a passage from a rare book that eerily translates to: It is ended. Was this a suicide or something much more complicated? We are joined by Dr. Lars Petersen to discuss how newly collected DNA evidence may finally reveal the identity of the Somerton Man.
Ready to learn the identity of the Somerton Man? Join us for Episode 142 – The Somerton Man Mystery: SOLVED!
Shortly after 4am, on July 6th, 2022, an explosion rocked the hilltop pasture on which “America’s Stonehenge” stood for over 40 years. One of the monument’s mysterious columns was destroyed and the capstone on top was badly cracked. The blast caused the remaining columns to become unstable and the entire monument was brought down by county officials later the same day. Who would want to destroy the roadside curiosity that had brought tens of thousands of tourists (and their money) to the rural community each year? We examine the strange history of the monument and explore who may be responsible for the crime.
View the surveillance footage from the site on the night of the explosion.
See the tweets by Kandiss Taylor calling for the Guidestones to be demolished and then celebrating afterwards.
Be sure to get your Haunted Holiday Cards before they sell out!
This October, Jim had an opportunity to do a guest spot on an engineering podcast. The show, called Engineering Legends, is produced by Brown and Caldwell, an engineering consulting firm that works throughout North America and Guam in the environmental sector. Each year around Halloween they do a special episode about haunted infrastructure. Jim was able to share with them the story of Toronto’s Cabbagetown Monster, which lurks in the forgotten tunnels that run beneath the city. The second guest on the show, Nicole Jones, owns a haunted and potentially cursed former dam site in Tennessee. She shares some chilling stories, including the ghost of a young girl who has spiky teeth and an entity that would take on Nicole’s appearance and regularly interact with her staff – a ghostly doppelganger!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 🎃 We celebrate the spookiest day of the year by sharing a story recently published by one of our listeners. Caitlin Mulroney reads “Blood Harvest” from her new book Not That Scary: A Little Collection of Creepy Stories. It touches on many of our favourite topics and themes. Sit back, relax, turn the lights down low and enjoy a chilling tale on Halloween!
Like many old Canadian hotels, the Fort Garry was a railroad hotel built by the Grand Trunk Railroad just before the outbreak of the First World War. While spirits have been spotted throughout the property, the second floor has the highest concentration of activity and is usually the site of the most famous encounters. In fact, there is a specific room that paranormal investigators always wish to book. With ghosts that get in bed with the guests, spirits that cause blood to run down the walls, and a phantom woman in a long white gown, the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba is undoubtedly one of Canada’s most haunted spots. We explore the history and hauntings of this paranormal landmark.
Ghost Tours: https://hauntedwalk.com/ghost-tours/
Virtual Haunted Campfires: https://hauntedwalk.com/virtual-haunted-campfires/
Haunting at Home: https://hauntedwalk.com/experience/the-haunting-at-home/
The epic conclusion of our 3-part Haunted Talks special event! Brittney Bos (Historian & Series Writer) and Margo MacDonald (Haunted Walk Tour Guide and Lead Investigator), join us for a haunted roundtable discussion about the four cases we have shared. It is a fun and thought-provoking conversation that explores the nature of poltergeists, why these cases might be so similar despite decades and great geographical distances between them, as well as additional unsettling details about the cases we have not shared in the first two episodes.
The second episode in a 3-part Haunted Talks special event! We continue our exploration of Canada’s most documented and frightening Poltergeist cases. For this episode, we travel to the Maritimes and explore two stories in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Although nearly 50 years and 200 km separate them, these stories share too many details to ignore. They have all of the hallmarks of the poltergeist stories that we’ve already come to know: the strange noises and aggressive behaviours.
In Amherst, a young woman named Esther Cox became the target of suspicion after her family’s home was tormented by an entity that would start fires, leave writings on the walls, and directly communicate with witnesses by using knocks or a disembodied voice.
In Caledonia Mills, a family was besieged by a relentless series of fires. It seemed anything could catch fire at any moment: wallpaper, wet towels, and the grass in the yard. Nothing was safe from the flames. The family was so worried about the spread of fire that they all took turns keeping watch, worried that there could be an arsonist lurking in their midst.
Join us for the final episode of Canadian Poltergeists on Friday, October 21st, 2022!
The first episode in a 3-part Haunted Talks special event! Over the next few episodes, we’ll explore four poltergeist stories that took place in Canada in the 19th and early 20th centuries, all of which seem to share some striking and terrifying similarities.
We start off with one of the greatest Canadian mysteries of all time and what might be the most famous historic poltergeist story in the country: the Baldoon mystery. Rocks and bullets were propelled at the exterior of their house by unseen attackers. Family members would often collect the bullets and rocks and sometimes leave unique markings on the items. They were then brought off the property and even deposited in nearby creeks. Only a few days later, the same bullets and rocks with the unique markings would appear back at their house.
Our second poltergeist story takes us to Clarendon, Quebec, where the Dagg Family were subjected to objects flying around and heavy furniture moving by itself. Despite the suspicions placed on a recently adopted daughter who seemed a lightning rod for the activity, there was agreement that no one person could start so many random fires without help.
Join us for the next two parts of Canadian Poltergeists! New episodes every day from Oct 19 – 21, 2022!
We start the show with TWO major announcements! In a Haunted Talks first, we will have three-part mini-series on classic Canadian poltergeist cases that we will release over three consecutive days. The series kicks-off on Wednesday, October 19th, 2022.
In other big news, our Virtual Haunted Campfires will return for two big live shows at the end October. They will feature two of most popular campfire guest storytellers ever.
The Pickman family thought they had found the perfect new home for their growing family. Within days they began to notice strange happenings. Playful at first, they became sinister and terrifying. Forcing the family to flee for their safety, leaving an incredible ghost story and countless questions in their wake. Join us as we explore the extremely disturbing Sallie House Haunting.
The Beast of Gévaudan is a true story about a vicious monster that terrorized the French countryside in the 18th century. It was a creature that was so difficult to describe that most of the eyewitnesses could not agree about what had attacked them. A wolf? A man? Or was it something else entirely? Despite many theories over the last 250 years, no satisfactory explanation has ever been found. We attempt to separate the fact from the fiction and ponder if this fanciful-sounding beast was humanity’s most terrible nightmare come true.
For more details about our new ghost tours: Ghosts of Queen’s University (Kingston), Tales from the Mausoleum at Beechwood Cemetery (Ottawa), and Toronto’s Haunted Harbour.
Alcatraz is a place that uniquely captures the imagination, with stories of the civil war, harden criminals, daring escape attempts and lingering legends. We will be exploring “the Rock” through the eyes of Historian, Haunted Talks contributor and former Haunted Walk tour guide, Brittney Bos, Ph.D, as she visits the infamous island for the first time. While wandering the cellblocks and hallways she will share her thoughts and impressions about this one-of-a-kind site and why it is essential to preserve and visit places of tragedy, loss and suffering.
For more about Alcatraz, hear from a Park Ranger in Haunted Talks Episode 19 – The Fate of the Kingston Pen.
Sometimes even the most cheerful and happy places can be spooky. We share the stories of several locations that you never would guess are haunted, including children’s playgrounds, amusement parks and sports stadiums. There is something about the unexpected nature of these encounters that makes them especially eerie. You may never look at the monkey bars the same way again.
Over 700 people were hanged in Canada before capital punishment was abolished in 1976. Of those, less than 2% were women. We examine the rare occasions when women were executed and the circumstances surrounding those cases. The stories range from acts of senseless violence to domestic disputes to gross miscarriages of justice to botched executions. We delve into this dark and often overlooked aspect of Canadian history.
In the episode, we mention Canada’s Official Executioner Arthur Ellis. To read more about his story and tragic downfall, check out our blog post – “Canada’s Hangman“.
While a minor outlaw during his lifetime, the story of Elmer J. McCurdy really begins after his death in 1911. For 60 years, his mortal remains were intentionally, and at times accidentally, displayed for public amusement and profit. Events culminated in 1976 when a TV show thought they had found the perfect prop in an old carnival dark ride. Only to realize what they had discovered was not a recreation of a mummified body – but a corpse! What was it doing there, and how was the mystery solved? We share the shocking and at times almost unbelievable tale of the afterlife of Elmer J. McCurdy in the latest episode of Haunted Talks!
It has been called the most haunted object in the world, but is it really one of the biggest paranormal hoaxes in recent memory? The Dybbuk Box has terrified people for nearly two decades, but last year the original spreader of the tale (and a few accomplices) admitted that the entire thing was made up. We dig into the facts, the fiction, and the bizarre stories of those who continue to come into contact with it.
Be sure to check out our new Haunted Talks Tees & Haunted Hoodies – look spooky and help support the show!
Be sure to check out our new Haunted Talks Tees & Haunted Hoodies!
See all of our episodes at: https://hauntedwalk.com/podcasts/
For the first time ever, scientists have recorded the brain activity of a patient in the moments right before and immediately following death. The results may be the first scientific evidence of the often reported “seeing your life flashing before your eyes” during a near-death experience. We are joined by Dr. Kate Einarson, a behavioural scientist and knowledge translator, to discuss the findings, the answers they provide, and the new questions they raise. Join us for a mind-blowing episode of Haunted Talks!
Robert Service’s The Cremation of Sam McGee is a beloved Canadian ghost story set in the unforgiving North. Many can identify it with just the first few lines. Themes of survival, obligation and brutal relentless cold, unexpectedly culminate in a surprise twist ending. We share a reading of the iconic poem and explore its strange history and the urban legends that surround this masterpiece.
Can we be haunted by our own thoughts? Or use them to haunt others? Few ideas produce the fear and existential dread that Roko’s Basilisk provides. This unique thought experiment was considered so potentially disturbing, that the original website to which it was published quickly banned the topic. We break down this strange collision of urban legend, artificial intelligence and philosophy.
Listener Warning: If you are struggling right now, or don’t want to deal with existential questions about reality, we would suggest listening to a different episode. But, if you love a good metaphysical mystery that challenges our perceptions, and provides a good chill, join us as we head down the rabbit hole and explore the philosophical head-trip that is Roko’s Basilisk.
We are going to be talking about death, but not in the usual ways we do on this podcast. There will be little discussion of the paranormal, and no mention of grizzly murders, unsolved or otherwise. Instead, we will be looking into the lives and businesses of those who spend the most time with the dead – Undertakers. Joining us will be a historical researcher and author, Marion Roes, to talk about her new book, Death as Life’s Work, which focuses on Undertakers and Funeral Businesses in the Waterloo, Ontario region from 1850-2020. Marion will be sharing with us some of the practices that have changed in the industry over the years, surprising artifacts she unearthed during her research, and her family’s unique experience of operating a funeral home for over 100 years.
Follow Marion Roes on Twitter and her Facebook Page “Undertakers and Their Businesses in Waterloo Region“.