MonsterTalk

Episoder

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  ☠️S05E42 - THE BLACK DEATH🐀 03.08.2026 54min

  Blake and Karen are joined by Dr. Ben Dodds, author of Myths and Memories of the Black Death to discover more about a disease which forever changed world history when it swept across Europe in the 1300s.The conversation runs from the mechanics of the disease - what a bubo actually is, what finally kills you, and why the textbook rats-and-fleas model spreads far too slowly to explain what medieval eyewitnesses described - to the harder question of how anyone in 2026 knows any of it. Along the way: the marmot hypothesis, the medieval physicians who were certain they had it figured out, the appalling 1348 pogroms whose victims were dug out of the ground in a Catalan town a short drive from where Dodds was sitting, why Monty Python understood the Middle Ages better than most historical novelists, and a closing answer about the aftermath that most listeners will not see coming. Blake's cold open, meanwhile, sets out to explain why we call it the Black Death at all - and reels in an unexpected monster.Extended show notes at MonsterTalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  🛸 S05E41 - Government Disclosure 27.07.2026 39min

  Blake and Karen welcome back paranormal investigator Matthew Baxter to sift through the latest government UAP release - the so-called PURSUE document dump - and work out what, if anything, is actually in it. Baxter took on the job of reading the paperwork so nobody else has to, and he returns with a skeptic's field report on what the government handed over, and what it quietly left out.From a Nevada billionaire's decades-long influence campaign to a $22 million taxpayer-funded hunt for the strange at a remote Utah ranch, the trio traces how fringe belief got bootstrapped into official policy - and asks whether the whole disclosure spectacle is meant to illuminate anything at all, or just to bury the question under an avalanche of unanalyzed data. Along the way: anglerfish, ice cream cones, and an epistemological war we didn't even know we'd been drafted into.🎧 What's Inside🛸 What "PURSUE" actually stands for - and what the release did and didn't include🏛️ AARO decoded: why "all-domain" is more than a rebrand💰 The billionaire whose private money quietly seeded decades of official UFO research👻 The "two agendas" baked into disclosure from the start (hint: it was never only about spacecraft)🍦 A former government UAP chief's memorable verdict on the whole enterprise🎣 The anglerfish test: what real extraordinary evidence actually looks like⚔️ The "epistemological war" - and why skeptics feel like they brought a calculator to a shouting match🪐 What some disclosure advocates are really hoping to find out thereBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  🐂S05E40 - Cattle Mutilations: Part 2🛸 20.07.2026 37min

  ⚠️ Content Warning: This episode contains frank discussion of animal death, carcass predation, and graphic descriptions of animal mutilation. Listener discretion is advised.Blake and Karen continue their conversation with religious studies scholar Lee Weiss on the cattle mutilation mystery. If you missed part one, wind your podcast player back an episode - this one picks up right where the panic peaked. At the center of part two is Emmy Award-winning reporter Linda Moulton Howe, whose 1980 documentary A Strange Harvest wrapped a decade of dead cows, black helicopters, and hypnotic regressions into a single package and delivered it to America.Lee walks through what happened next: the government's Rommel Report and its verdict of "Mother Nature," the tragic Bennewitz affair, cow parts arriving by mail in Alberta, a declassified CIA remote-viewing file, and how the whole phenomenon finally hardened into alien orthodoxy. It all ends with the big question - what's actually killing these animals?Extended show notes at Monstertalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  🐂S05E39 - Cattle Mutilations: Part 1🛸 13.07.2026 39min

  ⚠️ Content Warning: This episode contains detailed discussion of animal injuries and death. Both parts carry an explicit tag.⚠️Blake and Karen welcome Lee Weiss, a religious studies scholar whose deep dive into the FBI's declassified cattle mutilation files grew into a sweeping study of one of America's strangest panics. Blake first met Lee at the Of Gods and Monsters conference in 2019, and the two reconnected at its 2026 sequel - both contributed to the academic volume Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous. (affiliate link)In part one of this two-part investigation, Lee lays out the anatomy of the "classic mute" - the missing eyes, ears, and soft tissue, the reportedly bloodless wounds, the absent tracks - and traces the phenomenon back to its 1967 case zero: Snippy the horse, found dead in Colorado's San Luis Valley. From Victorian sheep panics and escaped menagerie cats to the economic collapse of the 1970s American rancher, the picture that emerges is far stranger than dead livestock. And that's before the unmarked helicopters show up.Part two lands next week.Extended show notes at MonsterTalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  🦕 S05E38 - Champ Across the Border 06.07.2026 45min

  Champ Across the Border: Blake and Karen welcome back historian Dr. Joseph Gagné, a specialist in New France and the French colonial period of North America, to talk about Champ - the famous monster of Lake Champlain. Most of the lake sits between New York and Vermont, but about 7% of it lies in Quebec, and Joseph's upcoming paper in the ethnology journal Rabaska asks a question almost nobody else has: how does the French-speaking side of the border see this most American of lake monsters? The answer involves a fabricated Samuel de Champlain quote, a five-foot fish that really was a monster in its own way, nearly 300 years of digitized Quebec newspapers, and a curious case of cross-border monster pride - because why borrow Champ when you already have Ponik and Memphré? Plus hoax serpents, colonial werewolf panics, and how Nessie taught every lake monster what a lake monster is supposed to look like.Extended show notes at MonsterTalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  🪓 S05E37 - The Lizzie Borden Murders 29.06.2026 1t 5min

  Note: This episode deals with murder and goes into some detail, so we're putting the "explicit tag" for the mature content, perhaps not suitable for all audiences.MonsterTalk steps outside its usual territory for a true-crime case with a paranormal afterlife. Blake and Karen welcome Hallie, host of The Morbid Curiosity Podcast, to revisit one of the most notorious unsolved crimes in American history: the August 1892 axe murders of Andrew and Abby Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts, and the trial that acquitted Andrew's daughter Lizzie while leaving much of the public convinced she did it.Drawing on Hallie's background in anthropology and skeletal analysis, the conversation lays out the timeline, the forensic evidence, and the tangle of rumor and theory that has kept the case alive for more than a century - before turning to the crime scene itself, now run as "America's most haunted" bed-and-breakfast, and asking what, if anything, still lingers there.Extended show notes at MonsterTalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E36 - The Chinnery Backseat Ghost 22.06.2026 58min

  A skeptical look at one of the most famous ghost photographs ever taken - the 1959 "backseat ghost" snapped by Mrs. Mabel Chinnery in Ipswich, England. This episode is distilled from a recent MonsterTalk Live stream with Blake, Karen Stollznow, and special guest Matt Baxter, who brought fresh research (and one neat new idea) to a very old mystery.It's also a companion piece to our Newby Church Ghost coverage and the spirit-photography episode of Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers (1985), which examined the Chinnery photo alongside the Cottingley Fairies and the Newby ghost.Extended show notes at our Patreon site.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E35 The Newby Church Specter 15.06.2026 58min

  Blake, Karen and Matt discover that this famous ghost photo isn't as old as they expected, and perhaps not as mysterious either. Do we get it right? Do you have a different explanation? Let us know in the comments.👻 The Spectre of Newby ChurchIn one black-and-white photograph of a church altar, a tall, hooded figure stands where the photographer swore no one was standing. The "Newby Monk" has haunted paranormal books, websites, and late-night clip shows for decades, and it remains one of the most reproduced ghost photographs ever taken. In this episode we dig into where the image really came from, who took it, when it was actually shot, and how a clever photographer might have made it.Extensive show notes at monstertalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E34 - Rakshasas 08.06.2026 53min

  Most Americans meet the Rakshasa in exactly two places: a 1974 episode of a beloved horror TV series and the pages of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Both versions give you a debonair, tiger-faced shape-changer with a taste for human flesh - but neither prepares you for how deep, how old, and how genuinely alive these creatures are. To dig us out of that pop-culture foxhole, we sat down with academic researcher Eric Zsebenyi for a tour that runs from the Rig Veda to the Ramayana, into Buddhism, through present-day Sri Lankan politics, and finishes at the tent-shaped tomb of a very naughty Victorian translator.🎙️ Our GuestEric Zsebenyi holds a master's degree from Naropa University (2000) and has pursued Buddhist studies as a lifelong avocation alongside a career as a civil servant. His path to the Rakshasas began with a Dharma protector named Vetali in his own meditation practice - which, as you'll hear, leads straight back to one of India's stranger monsters. Blake met Eric at the recent Gods & Monsters Conference, where Eric delivered a paper on the Vetala.You can find Eric's work here: Eric Zsebenyi on Academia.eduExtensive show notes at Monstertalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E33 - The Devil Went Down to Devon 01.06.2026 1t 8min

  On the morning of February 9, 1855, residents across south Devon, England, discovered strange hoof-shaped tracks in the snow. The prints - about 4 inches long, 3 inches wide, and spaced roughly 8 inches apart in single file - appeared to have been left by a biped with a donkey-like hoof. Reports came in from more than 30 locations across the county. Within days, the Illustrated London News published a letter from a correspondent calling himself "South Devon" that would define the legend for generations: a continuous 100-mile trail, identical prints in every parish, passage over rooftops and through haystacks, a crossing of the two-mile-wide River Exe. The Devil, some locals whispered, had walked through Devon.In this episode, Blake, Karen, and Matt dig into the original sources, trace how the story was embellished over 170 years of retelling, and examine the many theories - from wood mice to Romani conspiracies - that have been offered to explain the Great Devon Mystery. EXTENSIVE show notes at https://monstertalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E32 - Monsters of the Deep with Dr. Darren Naish 25.05.2026 52min

  Darren joins Blake and Karen to discuss his new article in Geology Today, which grew out of his work on the Monsters of the Deep museum exhibition. That exhibition originally opened at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Cornwall in 2020, traveled to two additional venues, and most recently ran at the Aberdeen Art Gallery in Scotland. Darren describes how each venue's unique architecture required a complete redesign of the exhibition, changing both the visual layout and the narrative flow.Extensive show notes at monstertalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E31 - From Loup Garou to Rougarou (pt 2) with Louisiana Dread's Kyle Crosby 18.05.2026 39min

  This is part two of our conversation with Kyle Crosby, creator and host of Louisiana Dread. In Part 1, we covered the history of the Acadians and how they carried the loup-garou legend from France to the bayous of Louisiana. Now, in Part 2, Kyle walks us through the transformation of the loup-garou into the Rougarou - from strict werewolf to all-purpose shapeshifting boogeyman - and takes us on a tour of Louisiana's other legendary creatures, from the Axeman of New Orleans to the feu follet to the Grunch.Extensive show notes at MonsterTalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E30 - From Loup Garou to Rougarou with Louisiana Dread's Kyle Crosby 11.05.2026 38min

  This is part one of a two-part conversation. Blake and Karen are joined by Kyle Crosby, filmmaker, historian, and founder of Louisiana Dread, a multimedia project dedicated to documenting the dark history, folklore, and culture of the Pelican State. Kyle is a native of Larose, Louisiana, who grew up in Lafourche Parish and on Grand Isle. He spent years working in the film industry before returning home to preserve the stories he felt were being lost to time. Through his popular YouTube channel and social media platforms, he bridges the gap between scholarly history and regional folklore - covering everything from the legend of the Rougarou and the Honey Island Swamp Monster to the real-life mysteries of the Cajun Coast. Kyle is currently adapting his historical deep dives into a scripted horror anthology series, with one episode in the festival circuit and a second in pre-production. Blake met Kyle at the second Gods and Monsters conference at Texas State University, where Kyle's presentation on Louisiana's history and folklore inspired Blake and Karen to finally tackle the Rougarou as a proper episode. In this first part, the conversation digs into the history of the Acadian expulsion, the cultural forces that produced Cajun and Creole Louisiana, and the Old World roots of the Rougarou legend. In part two, they'll get into what the Rougarou actually became - a shape-shifting boogeyman with regional variants, plus feux follets, and a monster that might have been born from a traveling circus. Extensive show notes at MonsterTalk.OrgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E29 - Science of the Supernatural with Melissa Maffeo 04.05.2026 45min

  Neuroscientist Dr. Melissa Maffeo joins Blake and Karen to discuss her new book Science of the Supernatural: Critical Thinking for the Mind and Brain (Cambridge University Press, 2026). Melissa is an associate teaching professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, where she also serves as Associate Director of the Neuroscience Program.In this episode, Melissa talks about using paranormal topics as an accessible entry point for teaching psychology and neuroscience, and shares her view that most supernatural experiences can likely be explained by what's happening in our brains - even if we don't yet have all the answers. The conversation covers a wide range of topics from the book, including the God Helmet experiments, the neuroscience of out-of-body experiences, how parasites can hijack behavior, and whether prior belief shapes what we experience. Extended show notes at our website.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  FLASHBACK BONUS: S01E069 The Key to the Legend of the Map Monsters 01.05.2026 50min

  To announce (and celebrate) the Spanish language release of Chet Van Duzer's beautiful and informative book on map monsters, I'm re-releasing episode S01E69!Grab your copy in Spanish here:SPANISH LANGUAGE : Monstruos marinos en mapas medievales y renacentistas by Chet Van DuzerOr snag it in English here:Sea Monsters on Medeival and Renaissance MapsExtensive show notes here!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E28 The Cottingley Fairies 27.04.2026 1t 10min

  Blake and Karen are joined by Matt Baxter to discuss the strange case of the Cottingley Fairies.  https://www.monstertalk.org/?p=2706Hosts: Karen Stollznow, Blake SmithGuest: Matt BaxterIn this episode, the MonsterTalk crew tackles one of the most famous photographic hoaxes in history - the Cottingley Fairies. In 1917, two young cousins in West Yorkshire produced five photographs that appeared to show real fairies dancing in the garden behind their home. What began as a bit of childhood mischief spiraled into a worldwide sensation when https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society championed the images as proof of the supernatural. The team explores how layers of credibility - authentic negatives, expert validation, retouched reproductions, and celebrity endorsement - created a blueprint for how misinformation gains legitimacy. More than a debunking, this is a story about two girls swept up in forces far beyond their control, and the adults who used them.🧚 The Five Photographs1. Frances and the Dancing Fairies (July 1917) - The iconic first image. Frances gazes past four dancing fairies, one playing a pipe.2. Elsie and the Gnome (September 1917) - Elsie reaches toward a gnome who looks suspiciously like Rowan Atkinson.3. Frances and the Leaping Fairy (August 1920) - Taken with the new Cameo cameras and marked plates provided by Gardner.4. A Fairy Offering a Posy of Harebells to Elsie (August 1920) - Featuring a fairy with a very fashionable 1920s bob haircut.5. Fairies and Their Sun Bath (August 1920) - The most blurred and "ethereal" looking image. Frances maintained to her death that this one was genuine. Matt suspects the camera simply wasn't stable.🔍 The Story in BriefIn the summer of 1917, cousins Elsie Wright (15, turning 16) and Frances Griffiths (9) were living together at 31 Main Street, Cottingley, West Yorkshire. Frances and her mother had returned to the UK from South Africa because Frances's father, Arthur Griffiths, had gone to serve on the Western Front. The girls played constantly at the beck (stream) behind the house, and when scolded for getting wet, claimed they went there to see fairies.To prove it, they borrowed Elsie's father Arthur Wright's Midg quarter-plate camera - a glass-plate camera from around 1912 - and returned within the hour with one of the most iconic images in paranormal history: Frances gazing past a group of four dancing fairies, one playing a pipe. A second photograph followed - Elsie with a gnome (who, Karen notes, bears a striking resemblance to Rowan Atkinson).Elsie's father Arthur, a keen amateur photographer with his own darkroom, immediately suspected a prank. But Elsie's mother Polly believed the photographs were genuine. In 1919, Polly attended a lecture on "Fairy Life" at the Bradford Theosophical Society and shared the images. That brought them to the attention of https://theosophy.wiki/en/Edward_L._Gardner, president of the London lodge of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society, and eventually Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was already writing an article on fairies for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strand_Magazine.Gardner had the negatives examined by photographic expert Harold Snelling, who declared them "genuine" with "no trace of studio work" - technically true, since the trick was all done in-camera with cardboard cutouts and hatpins, not in a studio. Snelling then produced enhanced copies from the original negatives for publication - transforming evidence into what Matt calls "presentation artifacts," though they continued to trade on that original credibility claim.In 1920, Gardner returned to Cottingley with two Cameo cameras and secretly marked photographic plates. The girls produced three more photographs: Frances and the...
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  S05E27 - Monsters: Myths, Legends, and Real Encounters with Richard Estep 20.04.2026 52min

  🎙️ Blake and Karen welcome back author and paranormal investigator Richard Estep to discuss his new book from Visible Ink Press, Monsters: Myths, Legends, and Real Encounters. Richard is a paramedic, clinical educator, and the author of more than 30 books on the paranormal, true crime, and history. Karen wrote the foreword for this one - and donated her fee to Doctors Without Borders. 👏Extended show notes available at Our Website.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E26 Haunted Cemeteries 13.04.2026 35min

  In Part 2 of our chat with folklorist Chris Woodyard we talk about the lore of haunted cemeteries.Find Chris on BlueSky, FaceBook, and our back catalog!Chris also partners with Dr. Simon Young on the Boggart & Banshee podcast!Extended notes at https://monstertalk.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E25 - Headless Motorcyclist Ghosts 06.04.2026 42min

  In part 1 of our chat with folklorist Chris Woodyard, we discuss haunted roads and headless motorcycle ghosts.Find Chris on BlueSky, FaceBook, and our back catalog!Chris also partners with Dr. Simon Young on the Boggart & Banshee podcast!Extended notes at https://monstertalk.org Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.
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  S05E24 - ParaMormonal Activity with Steve Cuno 30.03.2026 54min

  We talk with Karen's friend, author and Ex-Mormon, Steve Cuno about paranormal ideas in the Mormon religion. Steve Cuno: Behind the Mormon Curtain: Selling Sex in America’s Holy City“It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass: Confessions of an Ex-Mormon, Ex-Polygamist, Ex-Wife David W. Patten and Mormon Bigfoot:Reddit ThreadBetween Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and FolkloreBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing.