Folklore Episodes
Discover the beliefs, customs and stories behind supernatural beings, ghost legends and seasonal traditions. Weekly Spooky explores how tales change across communities and generations, distinguishing living traditions, documented history and modern horror fiction.
Start with these three: The Golem of Prague for Jewish guardian folklore; The Wendigo for hunger and greed in Algonquian traditions; and Monthly Spooky’s Halloween Origins for Samhain, trick-or-treating and jack-o’-lanterns. Explore more folklore episodes below.
Start with these three: The Golem of Prague for Jewish guardian folklore; The Wendigo for hunger and greed in Algonquian traditions; and Monthly Spooky’s Halloween Origins for Samhain, trick-or-treating and jack-o’-lanterns. Explore more folklore episodes below.
Oct. 25, 2024
Introducing Urban Legends | Poisoned Halloween Candy: Panic, Myth and Real Crimes
Trigger Warning: This chapter involves harm to children. In this chapter, we unwrap a notorious urban legend that has cast a sinister shadow over Halloween for decades, 'Poisoned Candy'. Join us as we delve into the origins, fears, and dark reality behind this enduring Halloween myth, exploring how the legend of tainted treats has become a sinister undercurrent of Halloween folklore, examining its roots in real cases and the fears that continue to haunt the holiday. The chapter separates the ...
Oct. 21, 2024
Terrifying & True | The Chupacabra — From Puerto Rico’s Goat-Sucker to America’s Mange Coyotes
The chupacabra began as a spined, reptilian creature in 1990s Puerto Rico, then transformed on the U.S. mainland into a hairless canine. Terrifying & True traces the “goat-sucker” from earlier livestock panic in Moca to the 1995 attacks around Canóvanas. Witness Madelyne Tolentino described a gray-green, upright being with large eyes and spikes down its back, while radio host Silverio Pérez helped give the new cryptid its name. Television, tabloids, UFO speculation, and the early internet carri...
Oct. 14, 2024
Terrifying & True | Ohio Grassman: Salt Fork Bigfoot Sightings, Footprints & Appalachian Lore
Ohio’s Bigfoot legend—the Grassman—haunts Salt Fork State Park, Hocking Hills, and the Appalachian foothills through sightings, howls, footprints, and stories that resist proof. Terrifying & True follows the state’s reputation as a major center of reported Sasquatch activity. Witnesses describe tall, hair-covered figures crossing roads and driveways, moving through old strip mines, shaking trees, throwing rocks, or calling from deep forest. Salt Fork State Park became a particular focus for inv...
Sept. 30, 2024
Monthly Spooky | Lost Cats, Murdered Spies, and Friday the 13th!
Lost cats, murdered spies, ghost children and the most unlucky day of the year lead this Monthly Spooky crypt conversation. The lost-cat story begins with an ordinary disappearance, while ghost-child reports and the death of a spy pull the conversation toward mysteries with very different stakes. Friday the 13th then supplies the folklore anchor: an unlucky date whose reputation has been reinforced by superstition, history, popular culture, and generations of people primed to notice misfortune....
Sept. 23, 2024
Terrifying & True | Fouke Monster: Boggy Creek Sightings & the Arkansas Bigfoot Legend
The Fouke Monster turned a small Arkansas town into the home of one of America’s most enduring regional Bigfoot legends—and inspired a landmark drive-in horror film. Terrifying & True traces reports of a tall, foul-smelling, red-eyed creature around Fouke and the Texarkana region, including stories that predate the best-known wave of sightings. The episode centers on Bobby and Elizabeth Ford’s alleged May 1971 encounter, the three-toed tracks found near their home, later highway sightings, the ...
Aug. 26, 2024
Monthly Spooky | Haunted Dolls for Sale, Monkeys on the Loose and Terrors of the Moon!
Haunted dolls for sale, monkeys on the loose, ghosts in an abandoned school, and myths of the Moon enter the Monthly Spooky crypt. Henrique Couto and Michelle compare strange-news reports before taking a deeper look at lunar folklore and the fears people have projected onto the night sky. Dolls advertised with haunting histories show how supernatural narratives can become part of an object’s value. Escaped monkeys provide a very real form of local chaos, while the abandoned-school segment brin...
Aug. 12, 2024
Terrifying & True | Bermuda Triangle: Flight 19, USS Cyclops & the Facts Behind the Legend
The Bermuda Triangle is blamed for vanishing ships, lost aircraft, broken compasses, and supernatural forces—but its most famous cases have more earthly explanations than the legend suggests. Terrifying & True maps the region commonly drawn between Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico, then follows the disappearances that built its reputation. The USS Cyclops vanished in 1918 with more than 300 people aboard and no confirmed wreckage. In 1945, five Navy bombers known as Flight 19 became disoriented ...
July 29, 2024
Monthly Spooky | Talking Dolls, Demon Voices and Sleep Paralysis!
Talking dolls, alleged demon voices, mysterious rat holes, ancient waste, and the terror of sleep paralysis enter the Monthly Spooky crypt. Henrique Couto and Michelle move from strange-news oddities into a deeper discussion of waking immobility, sensed presences, and why sleep paralysis has inspired supernatural explanations across cultures. A doll that appears to speak and a recording presented as a demon voice make sound the evidence under debate. Mysterious rat holes and ancient waste add ...
July 22, 2024
Terrifying & True | Sleep Paralysis: Shadow People, the Old Hag & the Science of REM Sleep
Sleep paralysis can leave a person awake but unable to move while a shadowy presence appears beside the bed or an invisible weight presses against the chest. Terrifying & True explores the frightening overlap between waking consciousness and rapid-eye-movement sleep. During REM sleep, the brain temporarily suppresses most voluntary muscle movement. An episode can occur when awareness returns before that protection has fully lifted, producing seconds or minutes of immobility, fear, and dreamlike...
July 8, 2024
Terrifying & True | Champ: Lake Champlain Monster Sightings, Evidence & Explanations
Champ, the legendary Lake Champlain monster, swims through Indigenous tradition, disputed historical claims, modern photographs, and a thriving regional cryptid culture. Terrifying & True begins with stories associated with Abenaki and Iroquois communities before examining a frequently repeated claim that Samuel de Champlain saw the creature in 1609. His surviving description more closely resembles a large fish, and historians debate whether it belongs in the Champ story at all. The episode th...
June 17, 2024
Terrifying & True | Jinn & Djinn: Islamic Tradition, Arab Folklore & Dark Encounter Stories
Jinn are far older and more complex than the wish-granting genies of Western popular culture: unseen beings of Islamic tradition and pre-Islamic Arab folklore with moral choice of their own. Terrifying & True explores descriptions of jinn as beings created from smokeless fire, distinct from humans and angels. In the Qur’an they are accountable for their decisions and may be good, harmful, faithful, rebellious, or indifferent. Earlier traditions linked them with wilderness, abandoned places, poe...
June 3, 2024
Terrifying & True | Oak Island Money Pit: Treasure Hunters, Flood Tunnels & Natural Sinkholes
Oak Island’s Money Pit has drawn treasure hunters into a centuries-long cycle of excavation, flooding, tantalizing finds, and theories that grow faster than the hole itself. The popular origin story begins in 1795, when Daniel McGinnis and two friends noticed a depression and signs of earlier activity on the Nova Scotia island. Their digging reportedly revealed layers of timber at regular intervals, encouraging later companies to descend in search of pirate gold. As shafts deepened, seawater ru...
May 6, 2024
Terrifying & True | Poltergeist Curse: Heather O’Rourke, Dominique Dunne & the Film Tragedies
The Poltergeist film series became surrounded by stories of a curse after real-life deaths, production accidents, and the revelation that human skeletons were used on screen. Terrifying & True begins with the 1982 haunted-house classic directed by Tobe Hooper and produced by Steven Spielberg, then follows the tragedies most often cited by believers. Dominique Dunne, who played Dana Freeling, was killed by her former boyfriend shortly after the first film’s release. Heather O’Rourke, the young a...
April 29, 2024
Monthly Spooky | Feeding Friends to Bigfoot, Lake Monsters, and Eating Bugs!
Bigfoot murder, ghostly intruders, and the legend of the Lake Champlain Monster lead this Monthly Spooky crypt conversation. A reported attempt to feed a friend to Bigfoot turns cryptid belief into an alleged human crime. Ghostly intruders bring the fear inside the home, eating insects supplies a more physical challenge, and the Lake Champlain segment follows Champ through the sightings and regional identity that keep the lake-monster legend alive. Those subjects give the episode an unusually ...
March 25, 2024
Monthly Spooky | Vanishing Hitchhikers, Bugs in Your Nose, and a Ghostly Love Triangle!
Abandoned asylums, ghostly lovers, and the legend of the vanishing hitchhiker lead this Monthly Spooky crypt conversation. Vanishing-hitchhiker stories attach a fleeting passenger to a road, a death, and a driver who learns the truth too late. The ghostly love triangle gives haunting an intimate motive, while an abandoned asylum supplies a location where reputation and evidence blur. The nose-bug story brings the episode back to a more physical and immediate form of unease. Rather than forcing...
Feb. 26, 2024
Monthly Spooky | Valentine's Gifts Gone Wrong, Mothman and Roasted Groundhog!
Mothman, strange pregnancies, and Valentine's Day gifts you'll never forget... even if you try lead this Monthly Spooky crypt conversation. The Valentine segment looks at gifts whose meaning or consequence goes disastrously wrong, while reports of unusual pregnancies and a roasted groundhog supply the month’s stranger headlines. Mothman gives the episode its most enduring legend: a winged figure associated with Point Pleasant, ominous sightings, and decades of cryptid debate. Monthly Spooky mo...
Nov. 27, 2023
Monthly Spooky | Wild Bears, Ghost Girls & Wendigo Folklore
A black bear steals taco bell, a ghost girl is captured on a livestream, and what is the Wendigo and why is it SO HUNGRY?! A bear stealing fast food provides the month’s bizarre real-world opening; an apparent ghost girl captured during a livestream shifts the conversation toward digital evidence and haunting claims. The Wendigo discussion then reaches into the deeper fears attached to endless hunger, winter, isolation, greed, and cannibalism. Monthly Spooky places those subjects beside one an...
Oct. 30, 2023
Monthly Spooky | Extreme Haunted Houses, Killer Rides & Halloween in 1914
An extreme haunted house no one can finish leads a Halloween Monthly Spooky featuring trapped thrill riders and wonderfully strange party advice from 1914. How terrifying can a modern haunt become before entertainment turns into endurance? What happens when an amusement-park ride leaves its passengers suspended upside down? The crypt conversation explores both nightmares, then opens a century-old guide to throwing the best Halloween party imaginable—at least by 1914 standards. This seasonal ro...
Sept. 25, 2023
Monthly Spooky | Halloween Around the World, Skinwalker Ranch & Yoga Death Studio
How do other cultures celebrate Halloween? Can you cross the Atlantic in a hamster wheel? And is there a Yoga Death Cult in Great Britain?! Each segment follows one of the subjects named in Halloween Around the World, Skinwalker Ranch & Yoga Death Studio, moving between real-world oddities, supernatural lore, and horror entertainment. The result is an easy-to-follow roundup for listeners who enjoy eerie facts, unsettling conversation, and a different doorway into the strange every month. Chec...
Aug. 21, 2023
Terrifying & True | Pakistan Urban Legends: Pichal Peri, Karsaz Churail & Haunted Places
Pakistan’s urban legends lead from a woman with backward feet to haunted roads, palaces, islands, and buildings where the past is said to remain dangerously present. Terrifying & True gathers stories from several regions rather than treating one legend as a verified case. The episode visits Old Sukkur’s Jinnat Building, Karachi’s Karsaz Road and Devil’s Point, the Mohatta Palace, and a lodge associated with sudden deaths. It also follows the Pichal Peri, a shapeshifting female spirit whose beau...
June 26, 2023
Monthly Spooky | Tasting Spirits, Mysterious Green Water, and the JERSEY DEVIL!
Mysterious green water, life beneath the ocean, and a woman who says she can taste other dimensions lead into the Jersey Devil. Henrique Couto and Michelle compare the month’s strangest stories before descending into the Pine Barrens folklore, sightings, and cultural afterlife of New Jersey’s signature cryptid. The opening stories make room for environmental mystery and unusual sensory experience before the episode reaches New Jersey’s Pine Barrens. There, the Jersey Devil becomes a case study...
June 19, 2023
Terrifying & True | Black-Eyed Children — Doorstep Encounters and an Internet Urban Legend
Pale children with completely black eyes appear at doors and car windows, asking for help—and insisting that they cannot enter until someone gives permission. Terrifying & True explores the Black-Eyed Children, a modern paranormal legend that began spreading through a Texas ghost-story mailing list in 1996. The encounters follow a repeating pattern: ordinary-looking children approach at night, avoid eye contact, and request a ride, a phone, money, shelter, or access to a home. Only when the wit...
June 12, 2023
Terrifying & True | Flannan Isles Lighthouse — Three Keepers Vanished in 1900
Three lighthouse keepers vanished from Eilean Mòr in Scotland’s remote Flannan Isles in December 1900, leaving no bodies and no surviving witness. James Ducat, Thomas Marshall, and Donald MacArthur maintained the island light until a relief crew found the station abandoned. The enduring practical theory holds that the men went outside to secure equipment near the landing and were swept away by a powerful sea. Isolation, dangerous cliffs, severe weather, and a missing safety rail made an acciden...
May 22, 2023
Terrifying & True | The Curse of King Tut
The Curse of King Tutankhamun, also known as the "Curse of the Pharaohs," is a legendary belief surrounding the tomb of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. It is said that those who entered the tomb would suffer terrible consequences and even...