Southern Gothic

Deep in the rugged mountains of Nicholas County, West Virginia, an old creek crossing known as the Ghost Ford has been the subject of a particularly unusual haunting for generations. According to local legend, travelers making their way along the lonely road near Panther Mountain have encountered a mysterious red dog that appears out of nowhere, its enormous body glowing in the darkness as it floats several feet above the ground. Some have even claimed that the strange creature follows them along the road before suddenly disappearing near the water's edge. But what exactly is this ghostly animal, and...

Tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia, Tilley Bend Baptist Church has served its small rural community for generations. But behind the modest wooden church lies an old cemetery with a particularly unsettling reputation. Visitors have reported mysterious shadows, disembodied voices, and the apparition of a woman dressed in white wandering among the graves. According to local legend, these strange encounters may be connected to Elizabeth Bradley, a nineteenth-century mountain woman remembered as the Witch of Tilley Bend. Her story is one of bitter family rivalries, devastating tragedy, and a terrible curse said to have haunted...

On January 12, 1981, a mysterious fire destroyed the historic Prothro Mansion, an imposing antebellum plantation home that had stood along Louisiana's Red River for more than 150 years. Long before the blaze, the mansion had earned a reputation as one of the region's most haunted properties, with caretakers and visitors reporting unexplained footsteps, strange apparitions, and other unsettling encounters within its walls. But behind these ghost stories lies a troubled history of tragedy, violence, and long-buried secrets that raises an intriguing question: Could something from the mansion's past have been responsible for the fire that ultimately destroyed it?

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Just outside Gadsden, Alabama, the waters of Black Creek plunge nearly ninety feet over a sandstone cliff into the rocky gorge below. Known today as Noccalula Falls, this breathtaking natural landmark has long been associated with the tragic legend of a beautiful young Cherokee woman who, according to local lore, leaped to her death rather than marry a man she did not love. Some even claim her restless spirit can still be seen standing at the edge of the falls on moonlit nights, disappearing into the mist as she makes her fateful leap once again. But behind this haunting...

For generations, travelers along a lonely stretch of road in Sale Creek, Tennessee, have told stories of something mysterious lurking in the surrounding woods. Officially known as Shipley Hollow Road, locals have long called it Pitty Pat Hollow, a name inspired by the strange, rhythmic sound of footsteps said to follow those who venture through after dark. According to legend, whatever makes that unsettling sound has haunted the hollow since the years following the Civil War, frightening travelers and leaving behind a collection of eerie encounters that have become one of East Tennessee's most unusual pieces of folklore. But...

For generations, folks down in Charleston, Tennessee have stories of a mysterious figure dressed in the brown robes of a Catholic monk, wandering alone along the railroad tracks after dark. According to legend, his restless spirit belongs to a young man who vanished following a devastating train wreck during the Great Flood of 1867. Although his family traveled from Maryland to search for him, no trace of the missing monk was ever found.

But the story doesn't end with his disappearance. Years later, a local physician began reporting strange encounters inside his medical office, including glimpses of a...

Tell Me Your Ghost Story is a podcast where real people share their real-life encounters with the paranormal. Host Kassie Askin invites guests to share their unexplainable encounters in their own words. Some stories are terrifying, some are heartwarming, and some just might change the way you see the world. Kassie isn’t looking for answers or theories, just stories that are sure to haunt you.

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Chimney Rock towers above Hickory Nut Gorge as one of the most distinctive landmarks in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. But in the summer of 1806, a family living in its shadow looked toward the mountain and witnessed something they could hardly explain—thousands of strange figures, dressed in brilliant white, seemingly moving through the air above them.

News of the strange spectacle soon spread far beyond the isolated mountain community, leaving people to wonder what could possibly account for what had appeared above Chimney Rock. Now, more than two centuries later, the story remains a...

In the heart of Old Louisville stands a grand Victorian mansion where guests have long reported seeing the apparition of a woman dressed in black descending its sweeping staircase. According to legend, her name was Annie Whipple, a widowed governess whose desperate attempt to save a dying child led her beyond the medicine of the nineteenth century—and into the growing world of Spiritualism.

When the one man Annie believed could save the girl died before she could reach him, she refused to give up. What happened next would become one of Old Louisville’s strangest legends, conn...

On the bluffs above the James River, Richmond’s historic Hollywood Cemetery is the final resting place of presidents, governors, generals, and thousands of Civil War soldiers. But tucked into a hillside on the eastern side of the cemetery is a far less imposing mausoleum that has become the center of one of the city’s strangest legends. For generations, locals have claimed that the tomb marked with the name W. W. Pool is the resting place of something far more sinister—the Richmond Vampire.

The legend stretches beyond the gates of Hollywood Cemetery to the catastrophic collap...

Join us for another episode featuring listener-submitted stories! Send us your story now at SouthernGothicMedia.com/submissions

This episode is made possible through the support of our sponsors: Elevate your summer bedding with Quince. Go to ⁠⁠quince.com/sogo⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too.

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For nearly two centuries, folks in Battletown, Kentucky, have passed down the story of Leah Smock, a young woman who legend claims was accused of witchcraft and burned alive by her neighbors in 1840. Stories say Leah could predict the future, communicate with wild animals, and even place curses on those who crossed her. After her death, some claimed her spirit remained in the woods surrounding her lonely grave, earning her a place in local folklore as the Battletown Witch.

But behind the stories of witchcraft and hauntings was a real young woman whose life ended under mysterious...

In our recent episode on Bloody Harlan, we explored the legend of Headless Annie, but she isn’t the only ghost said to haunt the mountains of Harlan County. Just outside the town of Harlan, locals have long reported strange lights moving through the woods along Red Dog Road, a rugged mountain route where legend claims the spirit of a murdered coal miner still wanders after dark.

But there is another story connected to Red Dog Road, and this one is very real. In 1969, the body of an unidentified young woman was discovered nearby and buried in a...

Harlan County was once the center of a bitter and bloody struggle between coal miners and the powerful companies that controlled much of life in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky. But today, high above those old mining towns up on Black Mountain, locals claim something from that violent past may still be wandering the winding roads after dark.

They call her Headless Annie—a gruesome apparition said to appear without warning along the roadside, sometimes standing motionless in the glare of passing headlights, other times following those unfortunate enough to encounter her. Some say Annie was the da...

On July 26, 1911, Major Archibald Butt, the military aide to President William Howard Taft, wrote to his sister-in-law about something rather odd that had been happening inside the walls of the White House for months: “My dear Clara, It seems that the White House is haunted."

The Major then continues on to describe some of the interesting and eerie claims made members of the White House staff, folks who claim to have come into contact with an entity that has since become known simply as "The Thing."

This episode was done in collaboration with Howard Dorre of...

If you enjoyed our episode on Agnes of Glasgow, then you won't want to miss this interview with Amy Schofield, the creator of the Southern Gothic Festival in Camden, South Carolina. We talk about everything from the definition of southern gothic itself, to the many fascinating writers who will be diving into related topics at the festival, and even a little bit of conjecture about who Agnes really was!

⁠⁠Join us at the Southern Gothic Festival on October 9-10, 2026 in Camden, South Carolina!⁠⁠

This episode is made possible through the support of our spon...

For generations, visitors to Camden, South Carolina’s historic Quaker Cemetery have stopped at the unusual grave of a young woman known only as Agnes of Glasgow. According to local legend, the twenty-year-old crossed the Atlantic during the American Revolution in search of the British officer she loved, following him deep into the Carolina backcountry only to die before they could ever be reunited. Some say her heartbroken spirit still wanders the old cemetery and the woods nearby, forever searching for the man she traveled thousands of miles to find.

But the weathered stone marking Agnes’s grav...

On the morning of January 31, 1921, Surfman C.P. Brady of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Cape Hatteras Station No. 183 stood watch over the treacherous waters of the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." His early morning shift, had been uneventful until the mist began to lift around 6:30. What appeared before him was chilling: a massive, five-masted schooner, sails still raised, had run aground on the Outer Diamond Shoals. Its name was the Carroll A. Deering. But if this sight wasn't strange enough, when the Coast Guard finally made their way out to the shipwrecked vessel, it was discovered that the crew...

Along the quiet shoreline of Pass Christian, Mississippi, an old legend claims that on certain nights the delicate music of a harp can be heard drifting in from somewhere over the Gulf. There is no musician on the beach, no vessel visible offshore, and seemingly nothing out on the dark water that could explain it. Yet the story behind that strange melody begins thousands of miles away, with a wealthy couple fleeing war-torn Uruguay aboard a ship bound for a new life in New Orleans.

What followed became one of the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s strangest maritime le...

There's been some pretty big changes to a classic story! Join us as we explore a classic Alabama ghost story that claims an old dormitory on the campus of Huntingdon College is haunted by the spirit of a former student.

...but that ain't all! We also had a chance to chat with ⁠Dr. Anthony Leigh⁠, the current president of ⁠Huntingdon College⁠. Dr. Leigh discusses a little bit of the college's history, the legacy of storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham, and of course the Red Lady herself.

This episode is made possible through the support...

In 1931, Robert Johnson walked into a juke joint in Banks, Mississippi with a guitar strapped to his back. Only a little less than a year before he mysteriously disappeared from the Delta after being teased for his lack of musicianship. But now Robert Johnson was back and he was ready to take the stage and show everyone in that juke what he could do, displaying a musical mastery that left everyone shocked. From that day on, the legend of Robert Johnson has become one of the most notorious pieces of lore in American music-- a myth that claims Robert...

This special encore episode originally aired on June 9, 2020.

The Myrtles Plantation has long been called the most haunted house in America. Tucked beneath towering live oaks in the heart of Louisiana's plantation country, the grand Creole estate has become famous for its ghostly legends—phantom children, mysterious mirrors, unexplained footsteps, and the apparition of a woman in a green turban said to wander its halls more than two centuries after her death. But behind every haunting lies a far more complicated history.

Over the years, countless stories have been told about the Myrtles, blending documented tr...

⁠You Can See Me in the Dark⁠ is a podcast about true ghost stories, told by the people who survived them. Co-hosted by Melissa Sweazy and Nathan Reisman. On this episode, North Carolina based Storyteller Liz Pardue walks us through some of the most famous hauntings in a town overflowing with the spirits of the departed.

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Hidden away in a quiet Middle Tennessee cemetery is a simple headstone bearing just two words: Sadie Baker. For generations, locals have whispered that the woman buried beneath it wasn't simply laid to rest—she was accused of witchcraft, buried alive by an angry mob, and with her dying breath unleashed a curse that would haunt the family responsible for her fate.

But how much of that story is actually true? In this episode, we unravel one of Tennessee's most enduring pieces of local folklore, tracing the legend from its chilling tale of jealousy and betrayal to th...

On December 7, 1815, Marshal Michel Ney—one of Napoleon Bonaparte's most celebrated military commanders—was reportedly executed before a French firing squad in Paris. Yet in the rolling countryside of North Carolina, generations have insisted that history got it wrong. Instead, they claim Ney escaped his execution, crossed the Atlantic, and spent the rest of his life living under the name Peter Stuart Ney as a quiet frontier schoolteacher.

It's a legend built on battlefield scars, whispered confessions, strange coincidences, and a dying declaration that has fueled debate for nearly two centuries. From nineteenth-century newspaper investigations to multiple grav...

Join us for another episode featuring listener-submitted stories!

This episode is made possible through the support of our sponsors: Elevate your summer bedding with Quince. Go to ⁠quince.com/sogo⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too.

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For almost two centuries, the Pensacola lighthouse has stood overlooking the entrance to Pensacola Bay guiding generations of mariners safely through the treacherous waters of the Gulf of Mexico; but over the last few decades, this historic maritime landmark has become notorious for the purported spirits believed to call it home.

This episode is made possible through the support of our sponsor: Elevate your summer bedding with Quince. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠quince.com/sogo⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too.

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This encore episode originally aired on May 6, 2022!

Travel about 85 miles south of Little Rock, Arkansas along Interstate 30 and you come to the town of Gurdon. In a remote area, several miles outside Gurdon sit railroad tracks for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. It is along a four-mile stretch of track that sightings of a floating, glowing orb have been reported for the last ninety years, now known as the Gurdon Light.

While there are of course scientific theories that attempt to explain the origin of the Gurdon Light, many instead believe the phenomenon is linked to a...

Just west of Chattanooga, Tennessee is the Nickajack Cave, a historic natural wonder flooded in 1967 due to the construction of the Nickajack Dam. Carved by the Tennessee River over millennia, the cave has a rich history filled with tales of the Chickamauga, Confederate soldiers, and even the notorious Man in Black, Johnny Cash. Today the cave is a wildlife refuge for a colony of endangered bats, but back in 1992, after it was shut off to the public for this purpose, a man named David Gant dared enter anyway, becoming trapped in the dark, underwater cavern without any air to...

Josie Arlington, one of the most infamous Madams in New Orleans’ red-light district, Storyville was born Mary Anna Deubler to impoverished German immigrants in 1864. Theories abound as to exactly why or when Josie entered the world of sex work, but by at least the age of seventeen she was working in the brothels of New Orleans.

Entrepreneurial in spirit, Josie worked to create a life greater than what she knew, first owning the ‘Chateau Lobrano,’ and then with the creation of Storyville she built and operated The Arlington at 225 North Basin Street. The Arlington was considered one of the...

In our last episode, we explored Gallatin Street—the notorious waterfront district where Bridget Fury and some of nineteenth-century New Orleans' most dangerous criminals made their names. But Gallatin wasn't the city's first den of vice. Decades before the steamboat transformed the riverfront, there was another place where gamblers, thieves, prostitutes, and rivermen gathered on the ragged edge of the Crescent City. They simply called it the Swamp.

Hidden in the city's old backswamp stood rough saloons and gambling houses built from cypress planks and dismantled flatboats, where fortunes disappeared as quickly as they were earned. Among th...

Gallatin Street was once the most dangerous two blocks in New Orleans. Just steps from the bustling French Market, the city's notorious waterfront vice district was a place where gamblers, sailors, thieves, and sex workers collided beneath the glow of dance halls and saloons—and where violence was simply the cost of doing business. Among the larger-than-life figures who carved out a reputation there, few were more feared than Bridget Fury, a fiery red-haired woman whose name became synonymous with knives, crime, and survival in one of America's most lawless neighborhoods.

This episode is ma...

In the summer of 1938, a Kentucky man named Carl Pruitt purportedly murdered his wife in a jealous rage before taking his own life. According to legend, he was buried in a lonely cemetery far from the woman he killed, but not long after, visitors soon began noticing something deeply unsettling about his grave leading to whispers of a lethal curse.

Over the decades, the legend of Carl Pruitt's cursed grave has become incredibly popular online, inspiring countless podcasts, and YouTube videos. But where did the story actually come from? Was there ever a murderous man named Carl...

In the summer of 1938, a Kentucky man named Carl Pruitt purportedly murdered his wife in a jealous rage before taking his own life. According to legend, he was buried in a lonely cemetery far from the woman he killed, but not long after, visitors soon began noticing something deeply unsettling about his grave leading to whispers of a lethal curse.

Over the decades, the legend of Carl Pruitt's cursed grave has become incredibly popular online, inspiring countless podcasts, and YouTube videos. But where did the story actually come from? Was there ever a murderous man named Carl...

It was a chilly evening in April of 1810 when Alexander Hostler sat alone in his room with a single candle flickering in the darkness. Only days before, Hostler’s lifelong friend Samuel Jocelyn, Jr. had been found dead, leaving the young man absolutely devastated. But on this particular night, his suffering was interrupted by the sound of a voice calling to him from the stillness– a voice all too familiar.

Join us as we explore the lore behind this classic Wilmington, North Carolina legend.

This episode is made possible through the support of o...

For generations, the stately white columns of Orna Villa have overlooked the quiet streets of Oxford, Georgia. But inside the historic mansion, residents have long described strange occurrences that defy explanation: doors that slam on their own, mysterious green lights drifting through empty rooms, pictures crashing from the walls, and the unmistakable sound of someone pacing the back porch late into the night—only for no one to be there.

The stories surrounding Orna Villa have been passed down for well over a century, not by ghost hunters or paranormal television shows, but by the families who ha...

For more than two hundred years, the old North Island Lighthouse has stood watch over the entrance to South Carolina's Winyah Bay, guiding sailors safely through one of the busiest harbors on the Atlantic coast. Yet among generations of fishermen and mariners, the lighthouse has long been known for something far stranger than its beacon. According to local legend, the apparition of a young girl named Annie still appears on the water before deadly storms, offering one final warning to anyone fortunate enough to see her.

For generations, the legend of Annie has been whispered along South...

Deep within Alabama's Bankhead National Forest lies a secluded valley known as Indian Tomb Hollow, a place where towering sandstone bluffs, hidden waterfalls, ancient rock shelters, and dense hardwood forests conceal centuries of history. Long before the arrival of pioneer families, Native peoples traveled, hunted, and camped throughout these rugged mountains, leaving behind traces of their presence—and, according to local tradition, one of Alabama's most enduring legends.

At the heart of that legend is a mysterious "goalpost tree," said by some to have marked sacred ground, and a tale passed down through generations that tells of lo...

Deep within Alabama's Bankhead National Forest lies a secluded valley known as Indian Tomb Hollow, a place where towering sandstone bluffs, hidden waterfalls, ancient rock shelters, and dense hardwood forests conceal centuries of history. Long before the arrival of pioneer families, Native peoples traveled, hunted, and camped throughout these rugged mountains, leaving behind traces of their presence—and, according to local tradition, one of Alabama's most enduring legends.

At the heart of that legend is a mysterious "goalpost tree," said by some to have marked sacred ground, and a tale passed down through generations that tells of lo...

Deep within Alabama's Bankhead National Forest, hidden among the ridges and hollows of the old Black Warrior Mountains, sits the isolated Poplar Springs Cemetery. For generations, locals have claimed the little family graveyard is haunted by the spirit of one of Alabama's most legendary folk figures—a woman whose life became inseparable from stories of blood feuds, vengeance, ghostly hitchhikers, and Civil War violence. They called her Aunt Jenny.

Part history and part mountain folklore, the story of Aunt Jenny Brooks Johnston has been passed down across North Alabama for more than a century. It is a ta...