Astonishing Legends

Background: Have you ever encountered someone other-worldly? Someone who seemed to exude a dark charisma that frightened you with their ability to be so magnetic? Legend: Talented comedy writer, Paula Pell, joins us in this episode for a glimpse over her shoulder at an event from her past that while fleeting, was so poignant it stuck with her for the rest of her life. A chance crossing of paths with what on the surface seemed to be a man, but upon closer inspection felt like much, much more than that.

Legend: Bird flies at the window, death knocks at the door. According to legend, if a bird crashes into a window in your house and dies from the collision, it is a portent that someone close to you is going to die. Background: Can someone who's passed away send the living messages by manipulating our world and even other living things in it? That's what Eric Robinson says happened to him and his entire family and when you hear the details, you'll have a hard time drawing a different conclusion.

Legend: A spirit visits two siblings multiple times a week for several months during their highschool years. Neither one of them knew it was happening to the other. Background: Comedy and Improv performers, writers and producers, Liz and Craig Cackowski were both visited by something almost nightly for over a year when they were in highschool. It visited them in nearly the identical way several nights a week. They never spoke of it to anyone until 10 years later when they were both out with friends telling ghost stories and Liz found out that her brother had been visited by the same spectral being that haunted her 8 years after him.

Legend: In the 1890's an illicit affair centered around a hotel in Norway ends badly. Are the departed lovers still hanging around the original section of the hotel's top floor? Background: Marc Brugnoni and Marisol McIlvain work for a large travel and entertainment company in their marketing department. This means they frequently are sent to exotic locations around the world to produce high-end filmed content to inspire people to come and visit. On this 2013 trip to the Geiranger Fjord in Norway, they both experience something unexplained in their rooms and their denial of the events drop away when it comes up just prior to the beginning of the next shooting day at breakfast, and that wasn't the end of it.

Legend: Time traveler stories have abounded throughout history, but one of the most enduring ones of the past hundred years is the legend of John Titor, a man from the year 2038 who's story of how time travel works proves to be plausible. Background: There are more than few recent stories of folks appearing out of town in old photos or even a Chaplin film and we will visit the most famous of them. Even the guy who found a wormhole while fixing his kitchen sink.

Legend: There are many different levels of torment that some ghosts seem to offer, but what could be worse than mocking? Background: When our guest was 12 years old and home alone in upstate New York he experienced an encounter with something heard but not seen. Was it real? What would you have done? Listen to his tale and try to decide if you could have handled it differently.

Have you ever collected anything? Have you ever been a fan of anything or anyone? If so, how serious were you about it, how far would you go to obtain a collectible and what would be your most treasured "gets?" Background: After our cold open on Charly Charlie, Scott sits down for a discussion with Astonishing Legends' own intrepid reporter in the field, "Master" Marc D'Andre (you'll find out who called him "Master" later in the episode) to find out about two of his passions: movies and the occasional autograph, letter or interaction from some of his favorite actors and personalities. Some of Marc's memorable encounters include: the great Robert DeNiro; a phone call from 80s & 90s heartthrob Kelly LeBrock (The Woman in Red, Weird Science); from Star Wars - Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing & Anthony Daniels, and a heartfelt and inspiring correspondence with character actor, Steve James (To Live and Die in L.A., the American Ninja series).

Legend: Technically an invasive species has to kill off a pre-existing species to meet the definition of being invasive. After you hear this episode, we'll be you'll agree there are some things though that should be classified as invasive no matter what. Background: Tonight we talk with two guests. One who may never spend the night in New York City with a window open again, and another who although his Texas doctor was ultimately shot to death by a jealous husband, has a story about a visit to his practice a few years earlier that eclipses that event. Tonight's Quote: "Two-legged creatures we are supposed to love as we love ourselves. The four-legged, also, can come to seem pretty important. But six legs are too many from the human standpoint. ~ Joseph W. Krutch (Author, Critic, Naturalist)

Legend: In 1837, someone or something leapt into history in nine foot bounds, assaulting women and men, breathing fire and tearing at their clothes. What exactly was Spring-Heeled Jack? Background: Tonight we're diving into the history of Spring-Heeled Jack. We're going to take a look at one of the most detailed research papers ever done on him and try to figure out just who or what he might have been. Join us as we unravel the various sightings and take a look at all the plausible explanations that have been put forth over the years and then you can decide for yourself if Spring-Heeled Jack was super natural or a cunning hoax followed by copycat hoaxing for over 150 years. Tonight's Quote: "He also has spring-heeled or india-rubber soled boots, for no man living could leap so lightly, and, I might say, fly across the ground in the manner he did last night.’ ~ GHR Davidson (Greater London Citizen, 1872)

Have you ever taken a camping trip by yourself? A trip to get away? Were you alone? Are you sure? Background: Tonight we interview retired Emergency Room Physician and now published author Dr. Richard J. Goldstein who took a simple little camping trip by himself a while back and found that he was not welcome at the campsite he chose. Tonight's Quote: “Ghosts could walk freely tonight, without fear of the disbelief of men; for this night was haunted, and it would be an insensitive man who did not know it.” ~ John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat

Legend: Pirate treasure? English, French or Spanish military plunder? The secret Rosicrucian works of Sir Francis Bacon and therefore also the possible original missing folios of Shakespeare? Or perhaps the greatest sacred antiquities lost to history, such as the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the Spear of Longinus or the menorah from King Solomon's temple? Or maybe it's all just natural geological processes forming a sinkhole, plain and simple? These are just some of the theories of what could be down in the infamous and mysterious "Money Pit" on Oak Island, Nova Scotia -- thought by many to be one of the greatest archeological mysteries of North America, and possibly the world.

Background: Part 2 of our series on the elusive Money Pit on Oak Island continues from where we left off in Part 1, which covered the initial discovery of the pit in 1795 up to 1867. Part 2 covers the dissolution of The Oak Island Eldorado Company (later known as the Halifax Company) in 1867 up until a fateful day in 1965, when the island would claim its next four victims in just a matter of minutes. Tragic as this was, this did not deter the line of treasure seekers from that moment until the present day, even though local legend claims the island will take one more life before it will give up its secrets.

Background: Part 3 of our series picks up from where we left off in Part 2, which covered the years between 1867 and 1965. Part 3 starts after the tragic accident that befell the Restall crew on August 17, 1965 and continues with the history of the Money Pit up until the present day. Now that you'll know the entire timeline of the events of the Money Pit's mysterious history, Part 4 will cover all of the major theories of what is or was, down there. Tonight's Quote: "This project, when we get through with it, may or may not make us rich. But at least we will have solved one of the world's greatest mysteries." ~ David Tobias, one of the founders of the Triton Alliance, Ltd. in 1969 along with Dan Blankenship.

Background: Now that you've heard Parts 1 through 3 (hopefully!) covering the entire history and timeline of the Oak Island Money Pit, Part 4 covers most all of the theories out there of who could've built it, what they put down there and why. Tonight's Quote: "...I’ll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I’ll drown my book." ~ Prospero, from William Shakespeare's (or Sir Francis Bacon's?) The Tempest; Act 5, Scene 1, Page 3

Background: While having lunch near the Los Alamos National Laboratory one day with the likes of Edward Teller, "father of the nuclear bomb" Nobel Prize winning physicist Enrico Fermi wondered out loud (after the topic of recent UFO sightings came up) "Where is everybody?" Basically what he meant was, if the universe is so seemingly infinite and old, and it's mathematically probable that other star systems have developed intelligent life like ours has, and it's also theoretically possible that an alien civilization with tens or even hundreds of thousands of years of technological advancement could have made it to our galaxy by now, even with sub-lightspeed travel, why haven't we seen any aliens yet? Tonight, in one of our more conversational shows, we take a broad look at the paradox that bears his name. By the way, supposed UFO sightings are commonly reported around atomic activities.

Background: On January 27, 1959, a group of outdoor enthusiasts, known as 'tourists' in Russia, consisting of seven men and two women, mostly students and graduates of the Ural Polytechnical Institute (which is now the Ural Federal University) left the village of Vizhay in the northern Ural Mountains on a two-week ski trek, through a region called Sverdlovsk Oblast, the "gateway to Siberia" in Russia.

Background: Part 2 of our Special on Dyatlov Pass: On January 27, 1959, a group of outdoor enthusiasts, known as "tourists" in Russia, consisting of seven men and two women, mostly students and graduates of the Ural Polytechnical Institute (which is now the Ural Federal University) left the village of Vizhay in the northern Ural Mountains on a two-week ski trek, through a region called Sverdlovsk Oblast, the "gateway to Siberia" in Russia.

Some tales are tall tales, and some tales involve an ape-like creature that stands over 7 feet tall and weighs around 700 pounds. Such was the tale of Albert Ostman, who claimed that in 1924, while on a leisurely prospecting trip in British Columbia, Canada, he was kidnapped in the middle of the night by a Sasquatch, or what is more commonly known as "Bigfoot." While some folks might be quick to dismiss Mr. Ostman's story as a stretch of the truth by no small means, it's hard to deny the folksy charm and curious wonder his tale invokes, whether tall tale or sober testimony. Tonight's Quote: “ I have learned from experience that a modicum of snuff can be most efficacious.” Fictional Character Hieronymus Carl Friedrich von Münchhausen on escaping from a monster.

They watch us. They wait. Lurking in the shadows or in bright daylight, from afar, in the corners of our eyes or in our very own bedrooms, staring directly at us, sometimes with eyes of red fire. They observe us and learn our behavior or they try to choke the breath and souls from our bodies. But why are they here and what do they really want with us?

America in the mid-nineteenth century was still a very young nation in the process of finding its own identity, its states not yet fully or harmoniously united. Differing ideas on what methods of production and government its inhabitants should employ were fomenting into a house divided and would lead to one of the bloodiest and devastating civil wars any country could experience. Leading up to America's Civil War, various factions were coalescing into numerous political parties and regional movements, with ideological lines drawn largely on the issue of slavery. The struggle for America's southern states' self-determination gave rise to a secret society known as the Knights of the Golden Circle, whose members were determined to gain power, wealth and influence for their cause either within the Union, or if necessary as their own autonomous territory.

The Confederate Army’s losses at the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July 1863 marked a turning point in America’s Civil War, one that was not favorable for furthering the cause of “Southern Independence.” With the hopes of an overall military victory for the Confederacy now beginning to fade, the clandestine leaders of the KGC took the movement fully underground, secreting not only their commands and communications, but also their amassed wealth and weapons. There is sufficient circumstantial evidence to suggest that significant amounts of gold and silver as well as armaments had been collected by the KGC from agents, members and sympathizers, but that then begs the question, where did it all go? If a vast, non-centralized network of money and guns needed to be kept from the hands of a dominant and soon to be victorious Union government, what methodology could a secret organization use to hide it all, and who and what system could be trusted to find it again when it was needed?

They had lawyers, guns and money, as well as cartographers and engineers, tradesmen, politicians and professionals of all station, all embedded in American society and the money in the earth itself. One day these would all be needed by the Knights of the Golden Circle and if the people, their skills and their ideals would not survive the generations then their amassed fortune would. And here is where one legend intersects with another: The Lost Dutchman Mine and the Knights of the Golden Circle. Was the Lost Mine a massive KGC treasure cache? It's treasure may never be found, but those that have gone looking may have found its sentinels, and along with it, an often mysterious demise. Tonight's Quote: "...The secessionists of (El) Monte are only awaiting the withdrawal of troops from Los Angeles before they commence operations..." Edwin A. Sherman, San Bernardino County Newspaper Editor in a letter to Union Army General E. V. Sumner, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Division