Season 6 has clewed up. The following episodes are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and where ever you get your podcasts.
Season 6 Episode 1: The Mandela Effect
Release Date: October 16, 2023
The Mandela Effect is a very weird phenomenon where a significant number of people remember an event or piece of pop culture clearly in one way while a different significant number of people remember the same thing in a very different way. The term was coined by a paranormal researcher named Fiona Broome who posted on the Internet that she clearly remembered South African civil right leader Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s. To her surprise, she learned she was not the only one who had this memory. In this episode, we discuss some examples of the Mandela Effect and explore both supernatural and scientific explanations
Season 6 Episode 2: Halloween Origins: Poisoned Candy Urban Legend and Jack O'Lantern
Release Date: October 30, 2023
Every year we hear about someone randomly poisoning Halloween candy. This is a persistent urban legend but is based on a true story that happened in Texas in 1974. In this episode we will tell you all about piece of sh*t Ronald Clark O’Bryan’s unimaginable crime. Then, on a much needed lighter side, we learn about the folktale of Stingy Jack and how the Jack O’Lantern came to be.
Season 6: Episode 3: Remembered Past Lives: James Leininger and The Pollock Twins
Release Date: November 13, 2023
Some people think we only get one life to live and others think our spirit or soul returns again and again in different bodies. While past lives have never been 100% scientifically proven, The Division of Perceptual Studies at The University of Virginia has been studying this possibility for decades. In this episode we present two such cases. First, an American boy named James Leininger who remembered a past life as a WWII pilot. Then, the case of the Pollock Twins who are British girls who believed they were the reincarnations of their sisters who died in a car accident before they were born.
Season 6 Episode 4: Necropants and the Hand of Glory
Release Date: November 27, 2023
At some point in our ancient history, we figured out we need to handle the mortal remains of our dearly departed. There have been three main methods: bury, cremate, mummify. But there have also been those on the fringe who figured they had a better idea. In this episode we are talking about a couple of these unique and questionable postmortem decisions. First, we look are magical necropants from Icelandic folklore and then the Hand of Glory. Do we tie in a Newfoundland story? You bet your sweet cotton socks we do!
Season 6: Episode 5: Human Magnetism and Infallible Recall
Release Date: December 11, 2023
From Batman to Spiderman to The Tick and everything in between, superheroes are engrained in our pop culture. Whether you are a fan or not, you know the usual story: a seemingly normal person has an extraordinary experience that grants them some superpower that they must determine whether to use for the power of good or evil. It’s great entertainment! But there are some real people who claim to possess actual superpowers. In this episode, we look are two such superpowers: human magnetism and infallible recall. Would you want one of these powers?
Season 6: Episode 6: Why Macbeth is a Cursed Play
Release Date: January 2, 2024
High school students have had “Macbeth” on their required reading list for generations so we are all at least somewhat familiar with the play: witches tell a guy he will become king and his ambition drives him to do terrible things and eventually causes his downfall. You may also know that it is bad luck to say “Macbeth” in the theater but why is that? In this episode we will examine possible reasons and let you know what to do to break the curse should you accidentally invoke it.
Season 6: Episode 7: Toxic People: Gut Fermentation Syndrome and The Mysterious Death of Gloria Ramirez
Release Date: January 15, 2024
Human bodies are generally made up of the same stuff but some peoples’ chemistry does some pretty freaky reactions. In this episode we talk about Gut Fermentation Syndrome where your body turns your gut into its very own microbrewery when you eat carbohydrates. We also delve into the mysterious case of Gloria Ramirez whose trip to the ER resulted in several people around her getting sick.
Season 6: Episode 8: Munchausen’s Syndrome
Release Date: February 15, 2024
In this episode we look into the namesake of Munchausen’s Syndrome. This is a condition where people fake being sick in order to gain sympathy from others. Then we look at the very strange case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard who suffered her whole life at the hands of her own mother who had the related Munchausen’s By Proxy Syndrome where a caregiver fakes or induces illness in their dependent to get sympathy from others. Spoiler alert: It did not end well for Gypsy Rose’s mother.
Season 6: Episode 9: Can Bread Make You Hallucinate?
Release Date: March 11, 2024
This episode was inspired by the super popular and super awesome video game and HBO adaptation “The Last of Us”. In the series, cordyceps evolve to spawn a zombie pandemic but is this more than science fiction? While nothing of this magnitude is likely to happen, the fungus ergot has been cited as the possible cause of an event in 1951 where many people in a small town had some pretty intense hallucinations after eating bread made from questionable flour. Ergot is also a possible explanation for the 1518 Dancing Plague in Strasbourg where it is said hundreds of people were compelled to dance even though they were exhausted and in pain. Some people even lost their lives. The potential cures for the Dancing Plague were almost as weird as the affliction itself!
Season 6: Episode 10: More Stories From Newfoundland and Labrador
Release Date: April 1, 2024
This is our last episode for Season 6. We welcome back our guest host Ted and we talk about more stories from Newfoundland and Labrador. We talk about the origins of the Screech In Ceremony where you can become an honorary Newfoundlander in just a few easy steps. Then we visit a forgotten monument that was meant to commemorate the completion of the Trans-Canada Highway. Finally, we reminisce about food and beverage that are native to or common in our province.
We are taking a short hiatus to prepare for Season 7. Please stay subscribed so you’ll be notified as soon as our our new episodes are available.