Ross Moore approached the entrance to his brother’s house. He could tell something wasn’t right. The neighbor was used to seeing the Moore family up at an early hour, performing chores and starting their day… but not today. Ross, having a key to the house, slowly opened the door. Nothing could prepare him for what he was about to discover. He mustered up his courage and cautiously walked into the living room to discover a grizzly scene…
The Villisca Axe Murders are one of the most notorious family slayings in the United States. This small town was shaken to its core upon the discovery of the remains of an entire family of well-liked individuals. Accusations flew, crime scenes were tampered with, all chaos broke loose; but one thing was for certain: the Moore family was no more. Over the years numerous leads would be followed only to dead ends while the killer went free. Was this the work of a hitman or a cold-blooded and sadistic serial killer?
In Finland, near Helsinki, there exists a body of water over a square mile in size, known as Lake Bodom. Over 50 years ago, a small group of teenagers went out to this area to camp and enjoy a night of drinks and fun. Unfortunately the events that would occur at their campsite would fall short of anyone’s definition of fun. Sometime between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 am, an unknown suspect, standing outside of the tent would slash and bludgeon three of the teens to death. Only one, Nils Gustafsson would survive the violent onslaught. The local police department was not only caught off guard by the gruesomeness of the crime scene, but would go on to conduct a less than thorough investigation. The unique part of this case is not just the violence but also the fact that multiple significant suspects would admit to committing the crime at different times. To this day, no one has officially been convicted of the murder of Maila Björklund, Anja Mäki and Seppo Boisman.
Lt. Colonel Percival Harrison Fawcett was a man among men. A leader in the British military and an expedition who had been out on countless excursions into uncharted and enemy territory was obsessed with the idea of a lost yet wondrous city in the deep jungle of the Amazon. In the early 20th century, he set out on his third and last expedition in search of this great alleged myth. This adventure would present numerous obstacles including but not limited to vicious jaguars, reptiles and angry natives.
2 long years passed without any word from the rugged Fawcett, his son Jack and Jack’s friend Raleigh Rimell. Various different explanations have been suggested many of which have significant degrees of plausibility. Could these brave men have gone native and simply joined the Indians in the Amazonian jungle? Perhaps a strange obsession with the cult known as Theosophy had something to do with their disappearance. Listen in to this episode and find out!
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Aliens… Do they really exist? Are we really all alone in the universe? Perhaps it depends on your definition of the term “alien”; perhaps your stereotypical small-bodied Grey or maybe something as simple as a microbe could define this term. But how could we know that aliens exist? Some think that crop circles are a sign that aliens not only exist but have visited earth. With reports dating back centuries, this concept is not foreign. Many crop circles are localized to southern England however they can be found all over the world.
While many suggest that they are all simply pranks or hoaxes performed by very creative and skilled artists, others think that at least a certain percentage are the result of otherworldly visitors.
Other evidence for the existence of extra-terrestrial life lies in personal reports of human abduction. Perhaps the oldest reports of these abductions occurred in 1961. “The Hill Abduction” is the story of Barney and Betty Hill who were an inter-racial couple were well educated and involved in professional organizations. These individuals would have much to lose and little to gain from fabricating a story of the sort. Nonetheless they share the tale of traveling down a country road in their car one night while following a mysterious light.
As the light approached closer Barney stopped the car and got out wielding his trusty pistol. As he got closer he was able to spot “non-human” creatures inside what appeared to be a disk-shaped flying object. He screamed “They’re going to capture us!” as he ran back to the car, however shortly thereafter both of them report slipping into a strange trance. After waking up 35 miles south of where they had originally stopped the car, they would go on to continue their lives while being plagued by strange dreams and other odd occurrences.
Another alien encounter was reported by a “Dr. Jonathan Reed”. While out in the woods one day he came upon a strange humanoid creature fighting with his beloved dog, Suzy. When the alien got the upper hand and somehow reduced his dog to a pile of dust, Reed angrily approached the creature from behind and struck it in the head, killing it.
The remains were captured in various photographs, however the authenticity of this story has been questioned.
Travis Walton, on the other hand was a logger who was in the presence of five of his buddies when he encountered aliens. Traveling in a truck down yet another country road after a long day’s work, the men spotted a strange glowing object in the distance. As they approached it, one man would describe it as “a luminous object, shaped like a flattened disk” and nearly 20 feet in diameter.
Walton got out and approached the saucer but was immediately struck by a bright blue light emanating from the craft which knocked him back onto the ground. While the other men bolted, Walton would go missing for 5 days, only to return with a tale of alien abduction. Despite this wild tale, all the men would go on to pass polygraph tests suggesting that they were telling the truth. Tune in to this podcast episode and decide for yourself: are aliens really out there?
In this sequel to the original Ancient Mysteries, Eric discusses several mysterious cases from olden times. First is the legend of the screaming mummy. Gaston Maspero, the head of the Egyptian Antiquities Service was inspecting various different mummies found at Deir El Bahri near the Valley of the Kings. Amongst the newly-discovered, legendary leaders of Egypt was an unmarked sarcophagus belonging to an unknown mummy. However this was no ordinary mummy. Upon opening the case he discovered this mummy’s face was locked in an eternal scream. This body had been bound by his hands and feet, so tightly that there were marks on his bones. But despite this apparent torture the remains were carefully mummified and preserved. The body had also been wrapped in sheep or goat skin which is considered by the ancient Egyptians to be ritualistically unclean. While many believe this individual to be the traitor son of Ramses III who was punished for his alleged betrayal of his father, others suspect him to be a prince from the nearby rival civilization of the Hittites. Modern advancements in technology have shed some light on the details regarding this unexplained anomaly however this mystery has yet to be confirmed.
Next up is the “Devil’s Footprints” which were a line of footprints left in the snow, discovered one morning in 1855 in Devon, England. These footprints were said to have stretched over 100 miles which is more distance than any earthly creature would be able to cover in a single night. These cloven hoof prints were said to have either scaled 14 foot walls or passed directly through them and continued on the other side, unimpeded. One report states that the trail passed a two-mile stretch of the River Exe and then continued on the other side. While clergymen were eager to jump on this opportunity and claim these prints belonged to Satan himself and that he was here to collect souls of sinners, others took a more reasonable approach and attempted to rationalize the anomaly as belonging to animals. One thing is for sure: these footprints caused a significant amount of unrest in Devon in the 1850s.
Our final investigation is the mysterious disappearance of James Burne Worson. This story of a shoemaker and established citizen in his community in Warwickshire, England tells of this boastful individual’s habit of getting involved in impossible wagers. His latest bet involved him running to a nearby town and back again — a total round trip of nearly 40 miles. After setting out on this venture, with two fellows following him in a carriage to vouch for his completion of the task, Worson began running without difficulty for several miles. Then suddenly with their eyes fully upon him, he stumbled and began to fall, let out a shrill gut-wrenching scream and immediately vanished without hitting the ground. There have been very few reasonable explanations for what could have happened here, however the truth of the story is in question. Is it possible for individuals to not only go missing but to disappear entirely?
