The Scarecast: Scary Stories, Mysteries, and True Crime
The Scarecast: Scary Stories, Mysteries, and True Crime
Michael Crutchfield
For almost a decade, The Scarecast—hosted by Michael Crutchfield—has captivated audiences with spine-tingling stories that explore the shadowy depths of real-life horror. Originally launched on YouTube as MaddMike, The Scarecast masterfully narrates true accounts of chilling encounters, from paranormal experiences to unsettling run-ins with strangers. With over a hundred episodes, The Scarecast stands out for its dedication to authentic, listener-submitted tales that leave audiences both unsettled and eager for more. Crutchfield’s storytelling prowess and commitment to sharing genuine scares have made The Scarecast a must-listen for fans of the eerie and unexplained.Get In Touch With Me:Instagram / TikTok / X : @thescarecast  YouTube / Facebook: The ScarecastWebsite: www.thescarecast.comEmail (Send Me Stories): [email protected]
EP13 - Mayk Leão's Viral UFO Encounter... A Hoax?
Could a Brazilian animal rescuer have captured one of the most compelling UFO videos of the decade — or did he just pull off one of the biggest viral hoaxes of 2026? In this episode of The Scarecast, we break down the full story of Mayk Leão, a rural influencer from Campo Largo, Paraná, Brazil, who on May 31, 2026, claims he experienced a terrifying, reality-shattering encounter with a massive disc-shaped craft that hovered over the forest near his property — and then flew silently over his house... but what unravel's in this story, will make you question whether this was all a hoax. But we don't stop there. This case opens the door to Brazil's long and deeply unsettling history of UFO encounters — as I dive into the rabbit hole covering Operação Prato (1977–1978), The Night of the UFOs (1986), and my favorite, The Varginha Incident (1996). Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Jun 10
36 min
EP12 - The Human Mask Phenomenon
What if the scariest part of modern life isn’t ghosts or demons, but the feeling that the people we see on screen… aren’t really who they appear to be? In this episode of The Scarecast, we dive into what I’m calling “The Human Mask Phenomenon”—a wave of viral moments where the internet becomes convinced someone is literally wearing another person’s face. From a Fox News guest whose shifting neck “seam” sparked mask theories, to Jim Carrey’s altered appearance at the César Awards, to claims that high-ranking politicians are doubles in silicone, we break down how each clip exploded and why so many people refuse to accept the official explanations. We also revisit the infamous airplane meltdown, tracing Tiffany Gomas’ panic on the plane and her later media apology tour, and asking what it is about her story that still doesn’t sit right with so many viewers. Along the way, we unpack how hyper-real masks, deepfakes, live TV glitches, and pure paranoia are blending together into a new kind of modern folklore—where every strange angle, bad shadow, or weird reaction becomes proof that reality itself is wearing a disguise. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Jun 5
15 min
EP11 - The Mysterious Case of Amy Eskridge: Anti-Gravity, Threats, and Ultraterrestrials
This episode dives into the mysterious life and passing of anti‑gravity researcher Amy Eskridge, a brilliant Huntsville scientist who warned friends that if anyone ever said she took her own life, she "most definitely did not”—weeks before she was found deceased from a supposed "self- inflected gunshot." From alleged directed‑energy “pain ray” attacks and burned hands, to threats, tampered records, and a shadowy “intel bomb” ultimatum from a stranger who knew details from her classified medical records, this episode walks you through her final text messages in chilling detail. We explore her claims about suppressed anti‑gravity breakthroughs, ultraterrestrials and future human timelines, and the powerful defense contractors she believed were willing to harass scientists to de*th to protect multi‑billion‑dollar secrets. Along the way, we connect her story to other suspicious cases like Mark McCandlish, and to wider questions: how far would someone go to keep world‑changing propulsion off the books—and did Amy Eskridge pay the ultimate price for getting too close? Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
May 8
1 hr 32 min
EP10 - 15 Scary Stories from Turnbull Canyon | Whittier, CA
In this episode of The Scarecast, I’m taking you back into Turnbull Canyon to tell fifteen of the scariest listener stories I’ve ever received from this haunted stretch of road. I’ll be your guide as we move from stalled cars and pounding on the windows, to robed figures appearing out of the darkness, to skinwalker‑like creatures charging on all fours and disappearing into the night. Along the way, I’ll narrate encounters with ghostly children, vanishing pedestrians, cult‑like gatherings, and phantom vehicles that tailgate you through the canyon before blinking out of existence. I also weave in a few real cases tied to the area, including infamous attacks and alleged ghost photos, to show how easily true crime and the supernatural collide in Turnbull. Settle in, turn the lights down, and let me tell you fifteen reasons people refuse to drive this canyon after dark. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Apr 23
25 min
EP9 - The Dark History of Turnbull Canyon | Whittier, CA
Turnbull Canyon looks like a peaceful four‑mile loop in the Puente Hills near Whittier, but generations of locals and investigators see it as a hotspot of tragedy, legend, and paranormal activity. In this episode, we go back centuries to the Tongva homeland, Spanish colonization, and mission‑era violence that left deep scars on the land and fueled claims of restless Indigenous spirits still haunting the canyon. You’ll hear how Mexican secularization, the rise of massive ranchos, and how the canyon got its name. The canyon was named after real estate mogul Robert Turnbull, who mysteriously passed away just after he sold his canyon property to Quaker founders. The episode also explores stranger 20th‑century chapters: inventor William Haight’s towering “Electrodome” weather‑control device built inside the canyon, later wrapped up in rumors of government interest and eerie abandonment after a mysterious final test on New Year’s Eve 1932. From there, we dissect the enduring but unproven tales of a forgotten asylum, the so‑called Gates of Hell, robed cults, and Depression‑era child sacrifices. Unlike many stories around Turnbull, some horrors are fully documented: the 1952 crash of Flight 416 and the modern crime cases of Gloria Gaxiola and Claudia Tecuautzin, both tied to the canyon’s roads and ravines. By the end of the episode, you’ll see how centuries of colonization, bloodshed, financial ruin, bizarre experiments, and verified crimes have all converged to make Turnbull Canyon one of Southern California’s most infamous “cursed” places — and why so many people refuse to drive it at night. In the next episode, we will be covering the personal accounts of people who have ventured into this very canyon, so make sure you subscribe and stay tuned. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Apr 16
40 min
EP8 - 10 Scary Stories from the Colorado Street Bridge | Pasadena, CA
A few weeks ago, I visited the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena, California—one of the most haunted locations in Southern California and a place infamous for its long history of incidents and paranormal hauntings. I went there with a couple of friends as part of Joshua Amen’s weekly paranormal scavenger hunt, and being on (and beneath) the bridge immediately brought back all the chilling stories listeners have sent me over the years. In this first volume, I share 10 terrifying encounters tied to the Colorado Street Bridge—stories of shadow figures, “ghost jumpers,” faceless apparitions, demonic roars, and things that stalk you from the darkness under the arches. You’ll also hear a quick rundown of the bridge’s past, from its construction in the early 1910s to the 150+ lives believed to have been lost there, and the hauntings people still report today. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Apr 11
24 min
EP7 - 5 Strange Cases Involving Scientists and Defense Employees
n this episode, we follow a chilling pattern that no official agency has ever laid out in one place: a nine‑month window where scientists, analysts, and officers tied to America’s air and space power either vanished or had their lives ended violently, while the official narratives stayed fragmented and strangely incomplete. We start by going much deeper into the disappearance of rocket‑alloy pioneer Monica Jacinto Reza, whose work on the Mondaloy superalloy helped the U.S. break its dependence on Russian RD‑180 rocket engines, and who walked into the Angeles National Forest on a familiar trail in June 2025 and simply never came back. From the scrubbed “green burial” memorial and missing cell‑phone forensics, to a mysterious hiking companion known only as Subject A. Then we move to New Mexico, where Los Alamos employee and DOE advisory board member Melissa Casias returns home in the middle of the day, only for her family to later find both her personal and government LANL phones apparently wiped back to factory state on the very day she vanishes along Route 518. At Wright‑Patterson Air Force Base, we revisit the brutal triple incident involving AFRL project manager Jacob Prichard, finance specialist Jaymee Prichard, and top‑secret‑cleared analyst 1st Lt. Jaime Gustitus — a so‑called “domestic” case that still has no publicly stated motive and is being driven not by local homicide but by Air Force counterintelligence investigators. We also examine the murder of fusion physicist Nuno F.G. Loureiro outside Boston, targeted by a heavily prepared gunman who also carried out a mass shooting at Brown University after years of quiet planning, burner phones, and a pre‑staged storage unit in another state. Finally, we look at the murder of Caltech astrophysicist and NEO Surveyor scientist Carl Grillmair, shot on his rural porch by a man who had already been caught once on the property with an illegal rifle, then inexplicably released under a “dismissed in the interests of justice” gun case only eleven days before the homicide. Across these cases, the same eerie themes keep surfacing: wiped devices at nuclear and space institutions, missing phone data in an era where every step is usually logged, investigations steered by agencies that think in terms of threat surfaces, and a trail of elite technical workers whose deaths are labeled “motive unknown” or treated as isolated anomalies. No one in authority is saying these events are connected — but when you line them up side by side, the pattern that emerges might be too sharp, and too unsettling, to ignore. DISCLOSURE: All information in this episode is based on publicly available sources, open‑source research, and my own analysis. The patterns and connections discussed are speculative and intended for discussion and storytelling purposes only. Nothing in this episode should be interpreted as an accusation of wrongdoing by any individual, agency, or institution, nor as a statement of fact about classified programs or ongoing investigations. Listeners should remember that in many of these cases, official information is limited, and reasonable people can disagree about what the available evidence means. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Apr 4
44 min
EP6 - The Disappearance of William “Neil” McCasland
On February 27, 2026, retired Air Force Major General William “Neil” McCasland walked out of his Albuquerque home and vanished, leaving his phone and glasses behind but taking his gun, wallet, and backpack. Once commander of Wright‑Patterson’s secretive lab and linked to UFO insider Tom DeLonge, McCasland disappeared just days after President Trump ordered the release of UFO and alien files. In this episode, we unravel his classified past, his eerie ties to UFO disclosure, and the leading theories about what really happened to the general who knew too much. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Mar 25
31 min
EP5 - The Man Who Erased Himself: The Unsolved Mystery of Peter Bergmann
A quiet stranger arrives in the Irish town of Sligo in June 2009, checks into a hotel under the name “Peter Bergmann,” and spends four days methodically erasing his identity before his body is found on Rosses Point beach. In this episode of The Scarecast, we retrace his final steps through CCTV, witness statements, and autopsy findings to explore how a man in the age of surveillance could vanish without a name, a past, or a single confirmed connection left behind. From terminal illness and planned disappearance to whispers of espionage and criminal ties, we unpack the leading theories behind one of Ireland’s most haunting unsolved mysteries. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Mar 20
19 min
EP4 - Dolly’s Dip: The Matterhorn Death Disney Wants You to Forget
Disneyland sells itself as the happiest place on Earth—but behind the music and fireworks, there are stories the park will never put on a brochure. In this episode, I take you inside the concrete heart of the Matterhorn Bobsleds to unpack the horrifying and still‑unresolved death of Regena “Dolly” Young, a 47‑year‑old woman who fell from her bobsled in 1984 and was struck and killed by the next oncoming car in a section of track now known as “Dolly’s Dip.” We’ll go back to Disneyland’s first recorded guest fatality on the Matterhorn in 1964, examine how lightly regulated theme park safety was in the 1980s, and break down the three leading theories of how Dolly’s seatbelt mysteriously ended up unfastened. Then we move into the paranormal: after‑hours track walks, cold spots, dead work lights, and cast members who swear they’ve felt Dolly watching them from the darkness inside the mountain.​ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Mar 13
24 min
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