Haunted American History
A daily campfire-style podcast blending American history, folklore, and true crime. What scares you? Let’s find out.
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On October 30, 1938, a radio reporter broadcasting from a farm field in New Jersey suddenly stopped speaking.
Moments earlier, he had described a terrifying scene: a strange metal cylinder, creatures emerging from inside it, and a mysterious weapon burning everything in its path.
Then came silence.
And somewhere in a New York studio, a piano began to play.
The broadcast was Orson Welles's adaptation of The War of the Worlds, a fictional account of a Martian invasion presented through realistic news bulletins.
According to newspaper headlines the following morning, America had descended into chaos. Families fled their homes. People barricaded themselves indoors. Some reportedly believed the world was ending.
But how much of that actually happened?
Tonight, we're revisiting one of the most famous broadcasts in American history, examining the evidence behind the legendary nationwide panic, and uncovering what really happened when another radio station staged its own Martian invasion eleven years later.
It's a story about fear, sensational headlines, the power of radio, and how a Halloween prank became a piece of American mythology.
Welcome to Day Sixteen of 31 Days of Halloween.
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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA
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YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
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hauntedamericanhistory.com
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In 1949, a thirteen-year-old boy living outside Washington, D.C., began experiencing something his family couldn't explain.
Scratching sounds came from inside the walls. Furniture reportedly moved on its own. Strange marks appeared on the boy's skin.
His family believed something supernatural was happening.
Eventually, they turned to the Catholic Church.
What followed was a series of exorcisms conducted by Jesuit priests in St. Louis, Missouri, and documented in a diary that would remain largely hidden for decades.
The boy became known to the public as Roland Doe.
And more than twenty years later, his story would inspire one of the most terrifying films ever made: The Exorcist.
But the real events were very different from what appeared on screen.
Tonight, we're investigating the 1949 exorcism case, the priests who claimed to witness extraordinary events, the evidence that raised serious questions about their accounts, and the boy who grew up to become a NASA engineer while trying to escape the most frightening chapter of his childhood.
Welcome to Day Fifteen of 31 Days of Halloween.
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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA
CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory
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On Halloween night in 1974, eight-year-old Timothy O'Bryan came home from trick-or-treating in Pasadena, Texas, with a giant Pixy Stix.
His father helped him open it.
Timothy complained that the candy tasted strange.
Within an hour, he was dead.
Investigators discovered that the candy contained a lethal dose of cyanide. Four other children had received identical poisoned treats, and police raced to find them before anyone else could be hurt.
The case seemed to confirm one of America's greatest Halloween fears: that a stranger might deliberately poison the candy handed to innocent children.
But the stranger didn't exist.
The killer was Timothy's own father, Ronald Clark O'Bryan, a church deacon drowning in debt who had secretly purchased life insurance policies on his children.
And the story didn't end with his conviction.
Tonight, we're examining the murder that helped transform Halloween, the nationwide panic over poisoned candy and razor blades, and the surprising truth about how often children have actually been harmed by contaminated trick-or-treat candy.
Welcome to Day Fourteen of 31 Days of Halloween.
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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA
CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
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HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm
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In November of 1960, a teenage girl wrote a letter to Dear Abby warning other teenagers about something she'd heard.
A young couple had been parked on a deserted road when their radio interrupted the music with a frightening announcement.
A dangerous man had escaped from custody.
And where his right hand should have been, he had a hook.
The couple fled, but when they reached home, they discovered something hanging from the passenger-side door handle.
For generations, Americans have told some version of this story around campfires, at sleepovers, and in the back seats of cars.
But where did the Hookman come from?
Tonight, we're tracing one of America's most famous urban legends, from its earliest documented appearance to the real-life Phantom Killer who terrorized Texarkana in 1946, the folklorists who argued over its meaning, and the horror movies that introduced it to new generations.
And before the night is over, there's one more story to tell.
A girl waiting alone in a stalled car.
A strange scratching sound on the roof.
And a warning not to look back.
Welcome to Day Thirteen of 31 Days of Halloween.
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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA
CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
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In 1888, a woman named Maggie Fox stood before two thousand people in a New York theater, removed her shoe, and demonstrated how she had spent decades convincing Americans she could communicate with the dead.
She cracked her toe joints.
Forty years of séances, spirit messages, and mysterious knocking sounds had helped create a nationwide obsession with the supernatural.
But the story didn't end when the trick was exposed.
Instead, Americans found increasingly elaborate ways to pay for the experience of being frightened.
Spirit cabinets. Optical illusions. Ghosts appearing on theater stages. Amusement park rides that carried passengers into complete darkness. Midnight horror shows where monsters wandered through the audience.
Eventually, those traditions would come together in the haunted attractions we recognize today.
Tonight, we're tracing the strange history of America's haunted houses, from the Fox sisters and P.T. Barnum to a New Jersey invention called the Pretzel, Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, and the tragedy that changed haunted attraction safety forever.
Welcome to Day Twelve of 31 Days of Halloween.
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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA
CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
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In 1899, Halloween was so destructive in parts of America that grown men sat outside their homes with shotguns, waiting for the pranksters to arrive.
People stole gates, overturned outhouses, tore up sidewalks, and sometimes set property on fire.
Halloween wasn't the family-friendly celebration we recognize today.
And in Hiawatha, Kansas, one woman had finally had enough.
Her name was Elizabeth Krebs. She was a Swiss immigrant, a gardener, and a mother who had buried three of her four children. After years of watching Halloween vandals destroy the flowers she cared for, she decided to do something about it.
In 1912, she convinced her town to replace the destruction with costumes, music, prizes, and a community celebration.
But the story of America's oldest Halloween traditions isn't quite as straightforward as the town's commemorative plaques suggest.
And just up the road, in a local cemetery, another extraordinary story was taking shape: a grieving widower spending his fortune on eleven marble statues of himself and his dead wife.
Tonight, we're heading to Hiawatha, Kansas, for the woman who helped tame Halloween, a century-old argument over who celebrated it first, and one of America's strangest monuments to love and loss.
Welcome to Day Eleven of 31 Days of Halloween.
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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA
CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
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On Halloween night in 1991, eighteen-year-old Doris Gipson was driving along a rural road outside Elkhorn, Wisconsin, when she struck something with her car.
She stopped to investigate.
There was nothing in the road.
Then she saw something running toward her on two legs.
Within months, reports of a strange, upright, wolf-like creature had turned an ordinary Wisconsin farm road into the center of one of America's most famous cryptid mysteries.
They called it the Beast of Bray Road.
But America's werewolf stories didn't begin in Wisconsin.
From the rougarou of Louisiana's bayous to the mysterious Michigan Dogman, a creature whose legend began as an April Fools' Day radio prank, stories of people becoming wolves have followed Americans for centuries.
And somewhere along the way, Hollywood helped convince us what a werewolf was supposed to look like.
Tonight, we're following the strange history of America's werewolves, the witnesses who claimed to encounter them, and the Halloween night that put Bray Road on the map.
Welcome to Day Ten of 31 Days of Halloween.
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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA
CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
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In 1612, a young woman named Alizon Device asked a traveling peddler for some pins.
He refused.
A short distance down the road, the man collapsed.
Today, a doctor would probably call it a stroke. Alizon believed she'd done it with witchcraft.
And she confessed.
Within months, accusations had spread through two feuding families living beneath Pendle Hill. Elderly women described spirits that appeared as dogs and hares. Neighbors accused neighbors. Family members turned on one another.
And when the trials finally began, one of the prosecution's most important witnesses was a nine-year-old girl placed on top of a table so the courtroom could hear her accuse her own mother and brother of witchcraft.
Ten people would be hanged.
One more would die in a dungeon before reaching trial.
And four hundred years later, people still climb Pendle Hill in the dark on Halloween night.
Tonight, we're heading to Lancashire for the story of the Pendle witches—and the accusations, confessions, family feuds and frightened children that sent them to the gallows.
Welcome to Day Nine of 31 Days of Halloween.
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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA
CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory
HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm
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In January of 1909, strange tracks began appearing in the snow across New Jersey.
They crossed yards. Climbed fences. Appeared on rooftops. Witnesses reported hearing wings outside their homes and seeing something with hooves, glowing eyes, feathers, fur—and occasionally a head like a horse.
Schools reportedly closed. Armed posses went looking for it. Newspapers put it on the front page.
And suddenly, everyone was talking about an old story from deep inside the Pine Barrens.
According to the legend, in 1735 a woman known as Mother Leeds discovered she was pregnant with her thirteenth child and cursed the unborn baby:
Let this one be the Devil.
But buried underneath the familiar monster story is a real colonial family that had been associated with Satan for decades, a feud involving Benjamin Franklin, a massive newspaper-fueled panic—and a Philadelphia showman who decided the best way to capitalize on the hysteria was to paint a kangaroo and give it wings.
Tonight, we're heading into the Pine Barrens for the strange history of New Jersey's most famous monster.
Welcome to Day Eight of 31 Days of Halloween.
VERB ENERGY Limited addition Blood-Orange Pound Cake- Promo Code - HAUNTED
Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA
CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory
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In 1776, somewhere in the hills of Westchester County, an American cannonball took the head off a Hessian soldier.
His name was never recorded.
His grave has never been found.
And about twenty years later, a young writer named Washington Irving arrived in the Hudson Valley and eventually gave that forgotten soldier a horse.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow would become one of America's great ghost stories. But beneath the Headless Horseman are real battlefields, real graves, a captured British spy, a haunted tulip tree, an old Dutch church—and generations of people who slowly began treating Irving's fiction as their own folklore.
Eventually, the Horseman got a grave.
Then Sleepy Hollow became a Halloween destination.
And finally, the town itself took the ghost's name.
Tonight, we're separating Washington Irving's story from the history underneath it—and finding out how a fictional Headless Horseman became one of America's most enduring Halloween legends.
Welcome to Day Seven of 31 Days of Halloween.
VERB ENERGY Limited addition Blood-Orange Pound Cake- Promo Code - HAUNTED
Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA
CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory
HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.