In tonight's dead letter, listener Chris takes us back to the early 2000s, when he was the head brewer at a restaurant on the east side of Cumberland, Maryland, in a building so old it served as a Civil War field hospital. One night after close, he and three coworkers were having a beer in the basement bar when the loudest sound he'd ever heard slammed into the floorboards right above their heads, shaking dust from the ceiling and rattling every bottle behind the bar.Relevant Prior EpisodesNightmarchers of HawaiiLinks and Further ReadingThe Battle of Folck's Mill: Maryland Historical Trust Battlefield Documentation (PDF)Battle of Folck's Mill, WikipediaFolck's Mill (National Register of Historic Places site), WikipediaThe Battle of Folck's Mill, Western Maryland's Historical LibraryThe Invasion, Aug 1864: The Cumberland Alleganian's Original Account, Western Maryland's Historical LibraryFolck's Mill Marker, Historical Marker DatabaseThe History of Puccini Restaurant, Cumberland, MarylandThe Phantom Battle of Edgehill, Historic UKThe Spectral Army of Souther Fell, Mysterious Britain and IrelandThe Dieppe Raid Case, Mysterious Britain and IrelandThe Drummer of Tedworth, WikipediaPhantom Armies of the Night by Claude LecouteuxThe Rosenheim Poltergeist, by Tess Pfeifle at Astonishing LegendsWe're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

Our friend Richard Hatem is taking his Paranormal Bookshelf on the road! The Light in the Dark Tour 2026 is an all new live show playing six cities in seven days, September 13th through 19th, and it winds up at the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Richard and Susan Lambert will be at the festival both days selling Mothman and podcast merch, and on Saturday night, September 19th, he's performing an episode of the podcast picked especially for Point Pleasant.Hear Scott and Rich talk about the tour in his most recent post on the RHPB feed:SpotifyApple PodcastsTour Dates and TicketsSunday, September 13: Storm Crow Manor, Toronto, ONMonday, September 14: Padraigs Brewing, Minneapolis, MNTuesday, September 15: The Red Lion Pub, Chicago, ILWednesday, September 16: B Side Lounge, Cleveland Heights, OHThursday, September 17: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA (FREE SHOW!)Saturday, September 19: Trinity UMC Community Center, Point Pleasant, WV (The Mothman Festival)More from RichardAll Tour Dates and TicketsRichard Hatem's Paranormal Bookshelf on Apple PodcastsRichard Hatem's Paranormal Bookshelf on SpotifyParanormal Bookshelf MerchThe Mothman FestivalTickets for every show but Carnegie Mellon (which MAY not require them, TBD)  are at richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/events, or search Richard Hatem on Eventbrite. Come out and see Richard do his thing!

In tonight's dead letter, a teenager in rural Arkansas in the late 2000s goes poking around an abandoned schoolhouse and comes home with a mirror she likes the look of. Years later it's hanging in her first Los Angeles apartment, and one evening while she's in the bath she catches the towel on the back of the door swinging wildly but the moment she turns to look, it stops dead. But that’s only part of the story. Relevant Prior EpisodesThe Bell Witch Part 1The Scrying GameMel's Hole Part 1Abduction at Devil's DenNightmarchers of HawaiiThe Ghosts of Flight 401 Links and Further ReadingAmerican Hauntings — Troy Taylor's books, podcast, and live eventsReunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones by Raymond MoodyNote: We say 1933 in the episode — Reunions was published in 1993.Oculus (2013), dir. Mike FlanaganWhat is a "dybbuk" in the prologue of the Coen brothers' A Serious Man?Ghosts On A Plane? The Story Of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

In tonight's dead letter, in the summer of 1996, two college kids from New Jersey were road-tripping to Gen Con when they got off I-80 near Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, looking for food and a place to stay. Around 11:30 PM, at a gas station that turned out to be closed for the night, three blonde kids in bathing suits were standing under a light, saying something to them that neither of them could make out. Relevant Prior EpisodesBlack Eyed Kids Part 1Strange Intruders with David Weatherly Part 1Sam the Sandown ClownDan, Susan, Micah Hanks and Missing TimeAbduction at Devil's DenSkinwalker Ranch Part 1 Links and Further ReadingStrange Intruders by David WeatherlyThe Gift of Fear by Gavin de BeckerDeath as a Child: The Modern Legend of the Black-Eyed Children (Atlas Obscura)8 local spots you didn't know were haunted (northcentralpa.com — the "Otzinachson"/Demon's Den lore) We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

In tonight's dead letter, listener John is nineteen, home from his freshman year and a few shifts into a summer dishwashing job at a grand old house on Michigan's Old Mission Peninsula that has been a restaurant since the 1950s. The staff there blame anything strange in the building on a ghost they call Genevieve, and John doesn't believe in any of that. One warm night he goes upstairs to change out of his kitchen clothes, and the bulb pops the second he flips the switch. Strange enough on its own, but what happens next is why this particular night stuck with him.Note: The room referenced at Waverly in the Episode is 503. It should have been 502.Relevant Prior EpisodesGreyfriar's Kirkyard Halloween SpecialThe Sallie House – Ghost in the Machine Part 1Lockdown at Waverly SanatoriumThe True Story behind the Conjuring Part 1A Live Reading with Jim Hunt - Psychic MediumLinks and Further ReadingThe Mission Table Restaurant of Bowers Harbor: A Splendid Building, But Not a Residence for a Ghost — Julie Schopieray, Grand Traverse JournalWould the Real Mrs. Stickney Please Stand Up? Setting the Old Mission Ghost Story Straight — Northern ExpressThe Haunting of Bowers Harbor Inn – Is It Genevieve Stickney's Ghost? — Old Mission GazetteBowers Harbor Inn — Wikipedia, on the 1927 fire and the house built around the old farmhouseMission Point Lighthouse — History, the light at the tip of Old Mission Peninsula near the 45th parallelOccupational Folklife — American Folklife Center, Library of CongressMeet the Mackenzie Poltergeist of Greyfriars Kirkyard — Icy Sedgwick, on the grabs and marks reported on the toursWaverly Hills Sanatorium — American Hauntings, on Room 502 and the nurse storyThe Buxton Inn — Wikipedia, the Granville, Ohio inn Forrest visitedWe're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

In 1673, Rebecca Cornell was found dead beside the hearth in her Rhode Island home. Afterward, her ghost allegedly appeared to accuse someone of murder and her son was tried and hanged. Her story is just one of nearly sixty strange intersections of true crime, hauntings, history, and food collected in Cuisine to Kill For, the new cookbook from veteran paranormal investigator and television personality Amy Bruni. This week, Amy joins us to talk about the haunted restaurants, infamous deaths, cocktails, dinners, desserts, and recipes that reveal just how naturally the paranormal and the culinary can share a table.Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

In tonight's dead letter, listener Mary is on a ghost tour in Key West when the guide stands her group under an old, unmarked movie marquee and asks them what happened there. Before he says another word, Mary smells smoke. The story he tells the group involves a church fire, and more strange events unfold from there.Relevant Prior EpisodesConjuring Philip Part 1The True Story behind the Conjuring Part 1Resurrection Mary Part 1The Count of St Germain Part 1Links and Further ReadingGreat Fire of Key West (1886) — WikipediaOur History — St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Key WestStrand Theater, 527 Duval Street — Cinema TreasuresSan Carlos Institute — WikipediaChicago Hauntings: The Horrors of the Iroquois Theater Fire That Killed 602 People Downtown in 1903 — CBS ChicagoAmerican Ghost Walks — the ghost tour company the hosts recommendDowsing — BritannicaThe Philip Experiment — WikipediaWe're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

In tonight's dead letter, a truck-riding barn cat named Milo becomes the witness our listener Amy needs to affirm that she’s not seeing and hearing things. The old stone house they occupy seems to have some very strange and unusual visitors. One defying any conventional explanation or even paranormal categorization. Related Astonishing Legends EpisodesDyatlov Pass Part 1Monsters Among Us Background & Further ReadingInfrasound and the Paranormal — Vic Tandy's "fear frequency" researchThat Ghostly Presence May Just Be Bad Plumbing — Popular Science, on infrasound and haunted-house perceptionBeast of Bray Road — Wikipedia background on the Linda Godfrey dog-man case Forrest referencesGhosts of the Kent Stage — KentStater, on the haunted Kent, Ohio venue Scott We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

In tonight's dead letter, Eric, a longtime listener on active duty in the Navy, pulls into Juneau, Alaska for a port call in the summer of 2009 and hikes up the Mount Roberts trail for the view over the harbor. Around eleven in the morning, in full daylight, he watches a perfectly round patch of light — a little bigger than a manhole cover, a shade lighter than the water — glide from boat to boat, slip under the cruise-ship dock, and circle a small float out in the middle of the channel. It never changes shape, never touches anything but the water, and as best he can tell, he's the only one who sees it. Then he hikes all the way down to that dock to find out what it was.REFERENCE LINKSRelated Astonishing Legends EpisodesThe Edgar Cayce Story Part 1The Sallie House – Ghost in the Machine Part 1The Sludge Entity Part 1Background & TopicsUnidentified Submerged Objects (USOs) — WikipediaInvestigation Alien (George Knapp) — NetflixThe "Plasmoids" Paper — Journal of Modern Physics (2024)Foo Fighters (WWII) — WikipediaNikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower — WikipediaLake Pend Oreille Acoustic Research Detachment (U.S. Navy)Mount Roberts Trail, Juneau — Alaska.orgAmerican Ghost Walks: Ketchikan Ghost TourWe're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

In tonight's dead letter, our listener Kayla takes her two-and-a-half-year-old son to a private family viewing for his great-grandmother and keeps him in a back room so his last memory won't be the casket. All night, unprompted, he pulls relatives into that room to show them a ghost sitting in the corner with an unusual facial feature…or lack of one. As they leave, his mother — who'll tell you straight out she's a skeptic — stops at the chair and quietly tells whatever's there it's not welcome to follow them home. What happens over the next few weeks is why she finally wrote to us.REFERENCE LINKSRelated Astonishing Legends EpisodesEp 85: The Bell Witch Part 1 Background & Further ReadingThe Bell Witch — WikipediaAdams, Tennessee (the Bell Witch's Red River community) — WikipediaShadow Person — WikipediaDiscussing Death With Young Children — ZERO TO THREEWe're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!