MonsterTalk

We take a look at a fascinating slice of paranormal history in the form of a 1975 BBC documentary The Ghost Hunters. How much has changed in paranormal research since 1975? Not much, after a fashion… 

Anybody know something about these plastic pub barrels from the 1970s?

Show Notes:
Benson Herbert - ghost hunter
Andrew Green - the Spectre Inspector

John Cutten (SPR, Inventor)
Watch this masterpiece on YouTube here.
Yes - the Ion Gun is, in fact, a device for cleaning vinyl records.
Hugh’s other paranormal doco - "Out of th...

Blake catches Karen up on his current research projects: The four-wall tour dates of the PGF, and a contextual look at the Van Meter Visitor. Neither of these projects are finished but he is excited to share what he's been working on.

Dolemite is mentioned favorably.

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Blake is joined by regular contributor Matt Baxter, and special guest Kara Van Hoose from the Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife to discuss the (not that mysterious) outbreak of "tentacle bunnies" in Colorado this summer.  

News reports of "rabbits with tentacles"

Deer wasting disease (zombie deer)

"Colorado Cannibal" Alfred Packer

Colorado Parks & Wildlife 

Colorado Parks & Wildlife Karl Shuker's blog about Jackalope

99% Invisible episode on Jackalope

Wall Drug

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Some prod...

Karen and Matt are back from their book tour in the UK and they got to have some real MonsterTalk moments! Loch Ness, Boleskine House and more plus Blake wrestles with gremlins!

More photos will be available on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/137274189?pr=true&cr=true 

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It's Hollow Earth, UFOs, the birth of Sci-Fi, and more wierdshit than you can believe as we present a super-cut of our 2-part interview with Jerry Drake and Jeb Card about one of the foundational stories of "weirdshitology" in a new ginormous single episode. 

And there's a little bit of reading if you want to follow us down the rabbit hole... 

EXTENSIVE show notes freely viewable at Patreon.




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Karen and Matt check in from the UK! Karen is on tour promoting her new book Bitch: The Journey of a Word.  (affiliate link)

Islands are engines of language diversity

Borley Rectory

Mentioned for future coverage (but touched on before):

The Black Monk of Pontefract

Episodes covering Enfield and Poltergeists

Boleskine House

Some Nessie & Scotland coverage

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A fascinating chat about Australian Magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen) with Dr. Grainne Cleary in which we talk about the role of stories in creating monsters, the role of citizen science, and lots of cool biology facts about these birds. Not everything about Magpies is black and white, it turns out.

Why do birds do that? (affiliate link)

Your Backyard Birds (booktopia - Australian bookshop)

And remember:
Why do Birds Sing? will be dropping into stores September 2nd, 2025!

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...

Blake recounts his recent visit to see Robert the Doll, and his findings after a deep dive into newspapers and other literature.   Patrons get follow-up info from the girl who was the subject of the "true doll haunting" from episode #114! 


Karen's latest book:  Bitch: The Journey of a Word

Recent death "associated" with demonic doll Annabelle

Official website of the museum hosting Robert the Doll

Call for Papers: Of Gods and Monsters II (July 15, 2025 - November 1, 2025)


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Flashback to October 2016! Updated content on Robert coming soon.In this week’s episode of MonsterTalk, we talk about demonic or evil dolls, and look into the history of one of America’s most famous creepy playthings: Robert the Doll. Our interview is with Dr. Cori Convertito, Curator of the Key West Art and Historical Society, which oversees the Fort East Martello Museum, home of Robert the Doll.Robert the Doll links
dramatized film (now "Films" as of 2025)authorized history booknovelFacebook pageTwitter accountofficial websiteStories about Robert — Lore podcastVideos
Child’s Play (not based on Robert the Doll. See episode for de...

Flashback to January 2018:
In this episode of MonsterTalk, we return to discussion of the Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis (UTH) and what seems to be its growing influence in paranormal circles. It’s been used to explain UFOs, mothman, bigfoot, fairies, dogman, ghosts and many other phenomena which defy scientific demonstrability. Now it crops up again in a new film event titled Alien Intrusion which turned out to be a stealth evangelical creationist film which suggests that aliens and UFOs are actually demonic. We are joined by MonsterTalk alum Joe Laycock, Natasha Mikles and Jeb Card to discuss the UTH and Jeb’s Paranor...

FLASHBACK to December 2013:
A FAMILIAR VOICE returns to MonsterTalk as Dr. Karen Stollznow joins us to discuss her (then new) book, God Bless America.

Items of Interest
Haunting America on Amazon

More information on the case of Anneliese Michel

Wade Davis’s book on Haitian zombies — The Serpent and the Rainbow

More reading on the Satanic Panic — In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and the Occult

Music
Monstertalk Theme: Monster by Peach Stealing Monkeys

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Flashback to May 2015:
IS THERE A LOST CITY somewhere that formed the basis of the legend of Atlantis? Dr. Kenny Feder returns, not to praise Atlantis, but to bury it.

Kenny Feder: Selected Works

The Past in Perspective
Frauds, Myths and Mysteries
Linking to the Past

Related Links
Atlantis by Donovan
Podcast — Archeology Fantasies
In Search Of… Atlantis

Music
Monstertalk Theme: Monster by Peach Stealing Monkeys

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We will be playing some episodes from our archives for a few weeks this Summer - let's kick it off with this classic from October 2013! THE WARREN OMISSION.WAS THE STORY OF The Conjuring the true story of how Ed and Lorraine Warren fought demonic forces in Rhode Island? In this special episode of MonsterTalk, we hear a different side to the story of America’s first family of ghost hunting. Features interviews with investigators Joe Nickell and Steven Novella.

Full Notes

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...

We're joined by Erik Davis to discuss his book High Weirdness - a history of psychedelics and counterculture as a triptych embodied with three prominent figures: Terrence McKenna, Philip K. Dick, and Robert Anton Wilson. From Blade Runner to the Illuminati to Magic Mushrooms these three laid down foundational blocks decades ago that underpin (or perhaps undermine?) our present. 

Terrence McKenna
Philip K. Dick
Robert Anton Wilson

Pyrrho - ancient Greek skeptic

Our coverage of Operation Mindf*ck (part 1 and part 2)

Erik Davis links:
Burning Shore (Substack)

We’re joined by Matt Baxter to discuss what we thought was a horror film but turned out to be something quite different.Warning: This film and episode deal with suicide, murder, abortion, politics, religion, and pretty much most of the hot potato topics we generally try to eschew. Hopefully we do a decent job of discussing it.

Nefarious (streaming) – Affiliate Link

More on Blaze Media

Some reviews:
7th Day Adventist review

A Christian review with interesting comments

Reddit tackles Nefarious

Horror Obsessive – really didn’t care for the “b...

Matt Baxter returns to join Karen and Blake in a discussion of allegedly haunted “bothies” in the remote hiking regions of the UK. This episode contains some discussion of guns, suicide, and cannibalism.

Links to further reading/listening:

What is a “bothy?”

Mountain Bothy Association

BBC’s Uncanny episodes we mention:

Don’t Sleep in this House – December 2021

Return to Luibeilt Christmas Special 2024

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Jerry Drake returns to discuss his new book:
Hazel was a Good Girl: The Murder that Inspired Twin Peaks

Jerry has been with quite a few times to discuss Grimoires, Jack Parsons, The Hollow Earth, Internet Mysteries and Ghost Lights and we're excited to see what he makes of this real life unsolved murder with ties to one of the most influential shows to ever air on TV.

This episode does discuss murder, sexual assault, and other sensitive topics. It's not really explicit but it might not be suitable for children, hence the tag.
<...

We're back with part two of our 2-part coverage of the 1976 episode of The Six Million Dollar Man that introduced a generation of kids to Bigfoot, and the idea that the creature might be interconnected with space aliens living inside a California mountain.Related
Links:

The Bionic Book by Herbie Pilato (affiliate link)

Operation Plowshare

The Six Million Dollar Man series (DVD)

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Karen joins Blake to discuss the influential 2-part episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man that introduced a generation of kids to Bigfoot, and the idea that the creature might be interconnected with space aliens living inside a California mountain.

This is part one of a two-part special edition.

The patron edition has extended footage and no modern commercials.

Extensive show notes available here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/128686370?forSale=true 

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Blake and Karen take a minute to catch their breath and talk about where things are in their lives and what's up next in MonsterTalk news.

Links:
Bitch: The Journey of a Word

Adhesive Capsulitis 

Idiopathic Illnesses

Mechanical Turk

Speaking Machine

Replica of Speaking Machine (YouTube)

Wolfgang von Kempelen

Deep Mind

Deep Blue

Marvin Minsky

John McCarthy

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Some product links m...

This is part two of our two part look at Dragons and how these mythical beasts are being used to promote Creationism. Our guest is Dr. Philip Senter and he's the author of a new book about this topic.  We use the word bullsh!t a lot in this episode so I slapped an explicit tag on - but I don't think it's too explicit otherwise. 

Get Dr. Senter's book here: The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons

News story about Mokele Mbembe being compromised by Creationists

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This is part one of our two part look at Dragons and how these mythical beasts are being used to promote Creationism. Our guest is Dr. Philip Senter and he's the author of a new book about this topic.

Get Dr. Senter's book here: The Real Story of Dinosaurs and Dragons

Read more about "The Dragon of Bologna"

Another Book about fake historical zoological specimens 

The National Center for Science Education has long been a source for how to take action to combat the injection of Creationist material into public education.

Matt & Karen went out for a little getaway weekend to Victor, Colorado and ended up investigating the allegedly haunted Victor Hotel. Did Eddie die in the hotel elevator? Was Matt caught in embarrassing circumstances? Find out inside!




The show notes here won't show the images so you'll need to hop over to our episode webpage to see them.
https://www.monstertalk.org/s04e28-the-victor-hotel-ghost/

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We're excited to welcome back Peter Bebergal. This time we're talking about mysticism and dybbuks. Be sure and check out the links below including the upcoming talk Peter is giving April 14th for The Last Tuesday Society.

Peter on Jewish Boston podcast

All the Haunts Be Ours (affiliate link) 15-Disk Horror Collection

The Ibbur from Jewish mysticism

Peter will be talking monster culture for The Last Tuesday Society on April 14th at 3 pm ET - check it out

Grab all of Peter's Books at Amazon and support this show!

We're delighted to get to talk with Adrian Shine, who has worked for decades to raise awareness about Loch Ness and investigated the legendary creature said to inhabit the dark waters of that deep Scottish lake.  He's written a new book about Sea Monsters and their connection to the Loch Ness Mystery which releases April 1st, 2025. 

A Natural History of Sea Monsters (affiliate link)

The Loch Ness Centre

In the intro you hear a clip of IN SEARCH OF from S01E20 - which features a young Adrian. Check out In Research Of's coverage wi...

We're back with part 2 of our interview with Dr. Eleanor Janega to discuss Demons in Medieval Europe - and a lot of that has to do with sexy sex.  So… another EXPLICIT tag! 

Eleanor's Blog Going-Medieval

Eleanor's book The Once and Future Sex

The Apocalypse Tapestry of Angers (The Guardian)

The Apocalypse Tapestry (Wikipedia)

YouTube videos with Eleanor 

Monty Summers translation of the Malleus Maleficarum  (AMZ affiliate link)








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We're joined by the engaging historian Dr. Eleanor Janega to talk about how the people of Europe considered demonic sex during the medieval period of history. This episode is in two parts, and both are explicit. 

Presenter on the History Hit channel - https://www.historyhit.com/ 

Blog - https://going-medieval.com/ 

Medievalist, author, blogs about medieval history, pop culture, and swearing 

Author of: The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society

Article: “On sex with demons” - https://going-medieval.com/2020/07/30/on-sex-with-demons/

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A brief remembrance of our friend, Joe Nickell. (December 1, 1944 – March 4, 2025)

Joe Nickell's extraordinary life came to an end on Tuesday, March 4th and we're posting this brief remembrance this week instead of our regular episode.

Check out Joe's many "personas."

The Science of Monsters: Tracking the Real-Life Creatures

Archive episodes with Joe

The sourtoe cocktail

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We're joined by Allison Jornlin (paranormalwomen.com) to talk about the footprint of women in the field of parapsychology and paranormal investigation. 

We most recently talked with Allison during "the dark times" on our COVID-era MonsterTalk Live series.

She also covered the Chicago Mothman flap with us back in 2018!


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Is the cave of the winds near Manitou Springs, CO HAUNTED!? Matt Baxter has investigated and he joins us to talk about what he found.

Related Links:
Spooky Science Sisters - Roanoke episode with Karen

In Research Of… The Lost Colony - Blake & Jeb Card discuss the In Search Of… episode about Roanoke.

Eclectic Shopping options in Manitou Springs

The history of Manitou Springs

The Cave of the Winds (Official Site)

The Manitou (1978 film)

Manitou - the spirit



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We're joined by Dr. Justin Mullis to get a better understanding of the incredibly lore-dense anime series Dan Da Dan.

Justin's academia profile

Legend of Momotaro

Some links recommended by Justin:
This is a really good video about the history of the Flatwoods Monster in Japanese video games. Highly recommended.

This is the Religious Dispatches article about koro.

Here's the Japan Today interview with the current editor of MU magazine.And here's the MU magazine article I mentioned about Turbo Granny (in Japanese).

The book on Japanes...

As Valentine's day bears down upon us, we turn to the monsters whose origins lie in passion, betrayal, and tragedy. If love is the strongest human emotion, surely rage at betrayal is its nightmarish mirror - and such emotions are embodied in a variety of creatures around the world and throughout history.

Content Warning - this episode contains stories of child death, suicide, murder, and other unplesantness. And also some discussion of candy. So there's that.

Don't forget to pick up Karen's latest Book: Bitch: The Journey of a Word

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Cemeteries Cleaning and Grave Rubbing - Karen and Blake are joined by Matt Baxter to discuss the ethics and best practices around maintaining and preserving graveyards. 

Links for Grave Rubbers from CyberSpace:
The article that inspired this conversation (via The Conversation)

Ken Feder (friend of the show and emeritus professor of archaeology) sent along this helpful article about grave preservation.

The woman with the pink foam (Kaeli Mae McEwen - aka "Clean Girl") has a site where she sells the stuff.

In Atlanta - at historic Oakland Cemetery - the...

This week we're welcoming back historian Dr Joseph Gagne to tell us about a ghost story that straddles North America and Scotland.  He was last with us to tell us about the legend of La Corriveau in episode 181. 

Appearances of the Dead: A Cultural History of Ghosts by Ronald C. Finucane - mentioned by Joseph as his introduction to this story. This is an affiliate link and the book is out of print, so be advised it's PRICEY.

But wait!  You can read it for free at Archive.org.
Joseph asked me to be sure and...

Today we're discussing the strange story of The Houdini Seance and Arthur Ford the Spiritualist.  

  The last Houdini Seance (1936) - Audio + Story
  Bess Houdini 
  Arthur Ford - Spiritualist
  Arthur Ford - Obituary
  The Houdini Code
  The Bishop James Pike
  Was Pike Seance Hoax?
The Skeptics Dictionary: Arthur Ford

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In the mountains of North Georgia on a spooky civil war battlefield there is a legend of a green eyed monster. This is not that story. This is the story of the new festival set up to commemorate the monster, but also bring people and revenue to this rural southern town. We'll be talking with Nate Tucker and Dillan Whisenant about their experience kicking off the first Green Eyes Festival of Chicamauga, Georgia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chickamauga

https://www.greeneyesfestival.com/

Phil's Primetime Pizza

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This is the audio from our 2024 livestream (http://youtube.com/monstertalk).  If you saw that live, this is the same audio without the moving picture bits. If you didn't see it but want to see our mugs waggin' synchronously to our voices, you can find this particular episode here.

Otherwise - happy new year! We'll be back next week talking about how to make a successful monster festival with some guys who just did it for the Green Eyes Festival.

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Some pr...

We're joined by fellow podcaster and friend of the show, Andy Driscoll, to introduce a peculiar region in Massachusetts said to be home to concentrated high strangeness. We'll definitely be coming back to deep dive in these swamps for more details on particular claims but Andy gives us a great "hometown" introduction to this fascinating area.

Video Segment with Jeff Bellanger introducing the topic (CBS News)
The popular podcast Lore's coverage during their first season (2015)
Pukwudgie
Maushop
Dighton Rock
Larry Kusche Obituary and his Wiki Page
More with Andy Driscoll:
The Old...

One of the most "Christmas Ghost Story" ghost stories for Christmas that I've ever come across. Smee tells of a night of holiday revelry turned chilling and mysterious by the appearance of an unexpected attendee at the festivities.

You can read along with the ebook by purchasing it here. (affiliate Link)
Read more about A. M. Burrage if you like. (Wikipedia)
Art for this episode is by one of my progeny. -B

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We're excited to have Laura Krantz back to talk about her latest book - a youth-focused look at how to distinguish between magical and scientific thinking: Do You Believe in Magic?

Laura's very entertaining and informative podcasts:  LINK

Laura's other writings (affiliate LINK)

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