Astonishing Legends – Details, episodes & analysis

Once more unto the breach of Halloween, dear friends, once more, as we drift dreamily into some of our listeners’ most eerie encounters!  We begin tonight’s fearsome festivities with an account from Kamal, who discovered some ghostly confirmation in “Grandma’s Photo Album.”  Listener Holly and her nephew are visited both day and night by a little girl they could consider “Our Imaginary Friend.”  Next, while on deployment in East Africa with the Army National Guard, Zac and his fellow soldiers make “Contact in the Desert” with an otherworldly being.  While giving a tour at the historic and haunted Belleview-Biltmore Hotel in Florida, Joseph gets spectrally tackled, giving him the “Groundskeeper Willies.”  Damon’s story shows that even when you unwittingly stare into the void, “The Void Stares Back.” And finally, when listener Alison is supernaturally harassed and goaded to “Wake up, Ali!” she learns that we thankfully have champions in the spiritual warfare between good and evil.  Please join us for our spooky season tradition, where the most astonishing thing is our listeners and their actual experiences.  

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In part 2 of our series on The Entity, we delve deeper into the story of The Entity and the horrific experiences of Doris Bither. We’ll explore previously undisclosed details of her life and the paranormal phenomena witnessed in her home by a large team of researchers from UCLA, as told by the only person in the world who’s been in touch with Bither’s family, Javier Ortega. We’ll examine the aftermath of the haunting, its profound effects on the Bither family, and the challenges they faced long after the initial investigation concluded. Going beyond the well-known narrative, we’ll explore Doris's later years and the enduring psychological impact on her family. Astonishing Legends has always strived to be the ‘Podcast of Record’ on the topics we cover, and this one is no different. Join us as we unravel the untold continuation of The Entity Haunting, seeking not just the truth of what happened but a deeper understanding of how the investigation into it may have done more harm than good.

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On the night of September 19, 1961, around 10:30 p.m., Betty and Barney Hill drove back to their home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, after a vacation in Niagara Falls and Montreal.  As they passed the town of Lancaster along U.S. Route 3, Betty saw a bright light in the sky just below the Moon that she initially thought was a falling star, except this light was moving upward and erratically, growing larger and more brilliant.  The Hills pulled over for a closer look through binoculars.  Betty said she saw an oddly shaped craft with multicolored lights that flashed as it traveled across the face of the Moon.  Barney saw what he first reasoned was a commercial jetliner, but when the craft silently descended rapidly in their direction without turning, he realized it was not a plane.  They resumed driving as the object continued its quick descent toward their car until it hovered above the highway about 80 to 100 feet off the ground, causing Barney to stop in the middle of the road.  Using the binoculars again, Barney could now see what he described as eight to eleven humanoid beings staring at him through one of the craft's windows.  Then they all turned away from the window except for one that continued to glare and seemingly sent a telepathic message to Barney, commanding him to "stay where you are and keep looking."  After making further observations about the craft and its occupants, whom Barney described as "somehow not human," the only thing the Hills could recall next from that moment was hearing a buzzing sound, then continuing on their drive.  The Hills arrived home in the early morning the following day, and somehow, the trip took about two hours longer than it should have.  Initially feeling at ease upon arrival, Betty and Barney would soon be troubled by puzzling evidence and unexplainable feelings and urges.  Their watches were permanently stopped.  Betty's dress was ripped around the zipper and lining and dusted with traces of a pinkish powder.  The leather strap for the binoculars was torn, and the tops of the toes of Barney's shoes were scuffed as if he was dragged.  He also developed inexplicable growths.  They felt compelled to take long showers to remove any contamination without fully knowing what had happened to them.  They noticed concentric circular marks on the trunk of their car that had strange magnetic properties.  All of these baffling clues were traces of the extraordinarily terrifying and traumatic experience they endured that night, which scarred them for years, pieced together from their conscious memories, hypnotic regression sessions, and Betty's vividly recurring dreams.  Taken all together, the story of Betty and Barney Hill became one of the most classic and seminal in ufology and is considered the first widely publicized case of alien abduction in the United States.

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We often wonder when was the first time a now well-known phenomenon first occurred or was recorded. In the instance of spiritual possession, at least in the United States, we may have an answer in the case known as “The Watseka Wonder.” Indeed, if such a condition exists, it’s likely people have been claiming or appearing to be possessed by a supernatural force since human beings existed. However, many cite the Watseka story as the first well-documented example of a person appearing to have been taken over by a deceased human spirit. This historical incident also benefits from the thorough documentation from a credible source. At the time, a physician and Spiritist, Dr. E. Winchester Stevens, treated his patient experiencing the possession and wrote about the bizarre events soon after they occurred in a book he titled, The Watseka Wonder. Stevens’ report details the story of Mary Lurancy Vennum, who began to suffer from cataleptic-like seizures at the age between thirteen and fourteen years old. On July 11, 1877, the first attack happened where Lurancy passed out on the floor and remained unconscious for five hours. The “fit,” as it was called back then, happened the next day as well, except that this time while in something of a trance, she spoke of being in heaven and in the company of various spirits. She described some of these spirits as angels and claimed to talk to a departed sister and a brother who died when Lurancy was just 3. Her episodes occurred in greater frequency by January of the following year, some lasting from an hour to eight hours and as many as twelve times per day. Her religiously orthodox parents and the numerous doctors that examined her feared she had become insane, and the only option left was to have her committed to an asylum. However, a respected, casual acquaintance of the Vennum family, Asa B. Roff, became intrigued by Lurancy’s condition and instead convinced her parents to let Dr. E. W. Stevens treat the girl using Spiritist methods. To everyone’s astonishment, Lurancy then started to behave like she was inhabited by the soul of Roff’s daughter Mary. Mary Roff had passed away more than a decade before Lurancy was born. Join us tonight for Part 1 of our series, where we cover the circumstances of perhaps America’s first acknowledged case of “spirit infestation,” known as “The Watseka Wonder.”

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One question we often receive is, do we think the US Government will ever disclose the existence of UFOs? We believe the answer is, they've already begun. Since the groundbreaking, front-page article appeared in the December 17, 2017 edition of the New York Times with a title exclaiming "Real UFOs," the world has seen drips and drops of Pentagon-authenticated video clips and statements publically disseminated and officially validated. Add to this the testimonies of some of the most credible sources willing to come forward, such as Luis "Lue" Elizondo, former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program or AATIP at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Pentagon, Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and retired veteran US Navy fighter pilot Commander David Fravor. The claims become hard to dismiss as goofball flights of fancy. On June 25, 2021, the release of a report titled Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena by the Office of the Director Of National Intelligence was considered anemic by many who wanted FULL disclosure of what the government knows. However, it was another official admission that these encounters are certified and remain a mystery to our military. At least on the surface. And what is known currently by the general public above this surface owes a great deal to the efforts of our guest tonight, a field researcher and documentarian Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell. Jeremy's pursuit and publication of unclassified video from Naval electronic warfare targeting systems like the now-famous "Tic Tac" clip have stirred public imagination and debate. They may have even spurred congressional inquiry resulting in that preliminary report and future disclosures. But we owe our access to Jeremy to the facilitation from a long-time listener and now friend Adam. Adam and Jeremy became friends while investigating a cattle mutilation near Adam's storage property in the Texas panhandle region. Tonight, we'll discuss Jeremy's journey to becoming a clearinghouse for genuine UFO footage, his documentary work on the subjects of Bob Lazar and Skinwalker Ranch, and he and Adam's findings from their cattle mutilation case, and all the implications thereof. One curious and ironic conclusion when trying to connect all the dots is that the specific governmental disclosure on alien life, their motivations, abductions, and cattle mutilations seem like it could be another matter altogether.

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Here's a question: What makes a haunted house spooky if you've never been there?  How scary can a haunted house be if no one has repeatedly investigated it?  In other words, what is more frightening, the honest anecdotes about experienced paranormal activity in a haunted location or the unverified legends and lore of a place that send the frights of our imagination into overdrive?  And what makes a house haunted?  Is it the house or land itself, the activities and energy of its inhabitants, or a reciprocal combination of both?  These are questions that would be apropos for tonight's subject, a house known as the Wilbur-Hahn manor in Spokane, Washington.  The craftsman-style mansion came to life in September of 1916, when the heiress to the Hecla Silver Mine fortune, Sarah Smith, married playboy Ralston T. "Jack" Wilbur.  Jack Wilbur had used Sarah's money to hire an eminent architect to build a three-story, seventeen-room house in Spokane's historied and tony South Hill neighborhood.  For the princely sum of $75,000, the estate, sitting on nearly four acres of land, flaunted imported marble, gold-leaf carvings, and mahogany paneling inlaid with mother of pearl brought from China.  However, the newly minted Mrs. Wilbur didn't fancy the home, and with this and other tumults in the marriage, Smith, and Wilbur divorced in 1918.  The following notorious couple to occupy the house was Rudolph A. Hahn and his second wife Sylvia, thirty-two years his junior.  Hahn purchased the manor in 1924 and spent $50,000 on additions, like a swimming pool and lavish gardens with fountains and statues, along with rumored secret panels and tunnels.  Obtaining a doctor's license through a correspondence course, Hahn made a fortune performing electroshock therapy and illegal medical procedures for Spokane's well-heeled.  The money, which some believe Hahn had stashed on the property, fueled his love of wild parties, fast cars, boats, and racehorses, much to the neighbors' dismay.  But the excess and extravagant lifestyle of this real-life "Great Gatsby" would eventually lead to his bizarre murder in a seedy hotel downtown known as The New Madison Hotel.  Perhaps it was the raucous, illicit activities and extreme emotions witnessed by the estate that imprinted somehow.  Reports of arguing phantom voices or boisterous laughter, vanishing bloodstains, shadow figures, the apparition of a woman at the top of the stairs, and even screams and mysterious noises heard by passersby are forever bound to the house.  The lesson of such an infamous place as the Wilbur-Hahn manor is that no matter how private any owners are, they cannot curb the spirits or the legend of a haunted mansion, and spooky is as spooky does.

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It's much more comfortable for most of us to think of paranormal subjects as having their origins beginning only in recent history – an amusing byproduct of mid-twentieth century foolishness or the internet age.  Much easier to dismiss then.  Many people, persuaded by an uninformed media, believe UFOs only started appearing to the public after pilot Kenneth Arnold's famous sighting while flying near Mt. Rainier on June 24, 1947, or the incident in Roswell, NM, just fourteen days later.  Similarly, many people believe the Bigfoot or Sasquatch phenomenon only began in 1958 in Bluff Creek, California, after the family of Ray Wallace claimed he started it all by leaving large, fake footprints made with wooden carvings as a prank.  It's uncomfortable to consider that these unnerving intrusions into our comfortable reality had occurred for maybe hundreds, if not thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years before our sophisticated logic matured.  However, researchers who study paranormal phenomena know that reports of these things, especially Bigfoot, go back far beyond written history.  Unfortunately, yet not surprisingly, there seems to be an air of ethnocentrism and hubris when it comes to western scientists giving credence to the indigenous oral traditions of encounters with these massive, hairy ape-like beasts.  Yet, it stands to reason that if any of these beings truly existed, their origins likely go back further than the birth of Rock and Roll.  So, how far back do the sightings of Bigfoot and Sasquatch go?  Here's a hint: it's a lot more ancient and global than you probably imagined.  To help us explore this enigma, we're fortunate to have our dear friend, researcher, science enthusiast, author, and fellow podcaster Micah Hanks join us for a roundtable discussion.  We'll hear about his latest research into the earliest known writings and oral histories of the cryptic cousin creature we've come to know and love.
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Our goal in covering the story of the Perron family's experience while living for a decade at the Arnold Estate, the inspiration for the motion picture, The Conjuring, was to uncover the real story behind the persistent hauntings. What we discovered once again was the actual truths at the heart of this, and other famous cases are as murky and nebulous as the spirits that do the haunting. The question that remains is, what is truth and what is real when it comes to supernatural activity? Skeptical researcher and writer Kenny Biddle investigated the historical people that the Perrons thought may have been the entities that lingered in their home. He found inconsistencies between the records of the lives and deaths of named locals and their claimed involvement with the farmhouse. But the attempt to cast doubt on the Perron story by focusing on historical inaccuracies is to go at the problem in an understandably linear, causal fashion, perhaps not one taken by a paranormal investigator. This leads us to the question, can the supernatural be analyzed with earthly rational thinking?  For example, does a person have to die in the same place that their ghost supposedly haunts (if one even believes in ghosts), or can they move about freely? Can spirits visit only some individuals or occupants, or would they have to haunt everyone in the same space equally? Can spirits identify as something they're not, or do they have to tell the truth about who or what they are? What are the rules for something so mysterious? While many of us would like to apply standard logic to understanding the numen world, those that have experienced it might tell you no ordinary rationale matters. Despite the "facts," what they have witnessed was real and true enough.

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Whether you're a fan of horror films or not, you've probably heard of the 2013 motion picture, "The Conjuring." This film, starring Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, struck such a chord with viewers that it spawned a franchise of related films like The Conjuring sequels, The Nun, Annabelle, and The Curse of La Llorona. But the initial movie was inspired by real-life events, the roughly decade-long hauntings of the Perron family that started the moment they moved into the Arnold Estate in 1970, now called "The Farm on Round Top Road" in Harrisville, Rhode Island. The colonial farmhouse, built circa 1736, would be home to 9 generations of families, including the Perrons. It seems some of the residents would never be able to leave, and some new and terrifying entities would make an unwelcome appearance during the Perron occupancy. While a few of the spirits were viciously malevolent, some were benevolent, and Andrea Perron, the eldest daughter, comprehensively chronicled the entire experience in a three-volume set of books titled House of Darkness House of Light: The True Story. While Andrea loved the cinematic adaptation of her family's story in the film, she also realizes that a movie has its own set of rules for narrative compression. Its purpose is to entertain efficiently, and therefore was only "one percent of one percent of what actually happened at the farm." Also, the famous paranormal investigative couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren were only a lesser element to the overall story. So what were some of the more frightening yet fascinating occurrences that happened to the Perrons at clearly one of the most active haunted houses still in existence that most of us have never heard? Join us tonight for part one of our examination of the true story behind "The Conjuring." 

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Many of us have taken an adventurous expedition to check out some local, notorious spot to see if we could witness or sense some evidence of a past famous or infamous incident. Most of the time, one only returns with a minor anecdote or pictures of an ordinary location bereft of anything noteworthy. The more realistic purpose is not so much to find a ghoulish memento but to imagine what it must've been like to have been there when it happened. But what if such an outing starts with strange coincidences and ends with the adventurers enduring a paranormal event seemingly unrelated to the original incident? This is the sort of tale we'll hear from our good friend, graphic designer, and illustrator Tommy Beaver about the time some friends went to check out the scene of a horrific crime that happened in Summerfield, North Carolina, almost 13 miles northwest of Greensboro. On June 3, 1985, the incident in question occurred when at the end of a murder spree and police pursuit, Fritz Klenner and his first cousin, lover, and accomplice, Susie Newsome Lynch, ended their standoff detonating a bomb in their Chevrolet Blazer. Klenner and Lynch had blown themselves up along with Lynch's already deceased two sons who were in the vehicle rather than face arrest. The site of this shocking finale was what the friends were hoping to explore, but their souvenir was an unsettling experience they'll never forget. Strangely, a mysterious white horse suddenly appeared to encounter the group, except that this creature may not have been a horse at all. Many people have claimed to see a spectral white horse, and the ancient Britons believed a sacred white horse was one's ride to the afterlife. Yet these friends may forever wonder, as will we, what was the connection of this beast to the tragedy if there is one? And if this wasn't a horse as we know it, what sort of monster haunts the location of one of North Carolina's most ghastly crimes?

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