Join acclaimed ghost storyteller Mike Brown for a bi-weekly tour through the shadows of history. The Pleasing Terrors Podcast features stories about haunted places, creepy history, and forgotten folklore.
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A wax figurine forgotten in museum storage. A book of poems that prophesied a ghost. A woman on a beach who found something she wasn't looking for. In the final episode of the Charleston Gothic series, the investigation returns to where it began — the Dock Street Theatre — and follows the last of three trails through Charleston's tangled relationship with Edgar Allan Poe. Along the way, a…
Episode 51: The Unfortunate Pirate For over a century, "Annabel Lee" has been read as Edgar Allan Poe's final love poem—a haunting elegy to his child bride Virginia, written months before his death. But what if we've been wrong about the poem's true subject all along? In this episode, Mike follows a trail of evidence from a forgotten 1827 tale about a murderous pirate to the windswept shores of…
CHARLESTON GOTHIC Episode 4: Tekeli The Charleston Library Society has survived fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, and war—emerging each time with its treasures intact. Among those treasures: the world's most complete archive of Charleston newspapers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this episode, we enter the stacks where a ghost named Hinson is said to wander, where Henry Timrod's…
Find the grave of Annabel Lee and you find the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe! In this episode, a hand-drawn map pulls us through a locked iron gate into Charleston's most overgrown churchyard, where legends gather like mist and names disappear into leaves. A lady in white wanders the paths. Sixty-four people have collapsed before this very gate. We follow the trail of Annabel Lee—the girl Poe loved, or…
In this episode, we follow the Annabel Lee legend backward: from modern ghost tours to nineteenth-century poetry, from pirate treasure maps to academic footnotes, from Sullivan's Island beaches to a forgotten corner of a graveyard. What emerges is not a simple ghost story, but an obsession—shared by scholars, storytellers, and an entire city convinced that something precious was buried in the…
The Descent has led us to Charleston, and to a haunted historic theatre where we uncover a clue that may bring us closer to finding the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe. Sources: The Ghosts of Charleston by Julian Buxton Charleston Ghosts: Hauntings in the Holy City by James Caskey Complex, archetype and symbol in the psychology of C.G. Jung by Jolande Jacobi The Mad Booths of Maryland By Preston Kimmel…
In this episode we visit the most haunted house of Edgar Allan Poe and then retrace his path to the threshold of a secret world. Sources that were either referenced directly or consulted during the writing of this episode: Ghosts of Philadelphia by Charles J. Adams III A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak The Final Days of Edgar Allan Poe: Nevermore in…
In this episode we continue our search for the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe and retrace his path through the final, ill-fated months of his life. Sources that were either referenced directly or consulted during the writing of this episode: Ghosts of Philadelphia by Charles J. Adams III A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Mark Dawidziak True Tales of the Unknown: The…
In this episode we embark on a search for the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, guided by Henry David Thoreau and the mystery of the Hollow Earth. Our quest begins with a visit to a haunted saloon and an apartment building that is hiding a dark past.
The conclusion of the three part series which combines history, ghosts, true crime and fairytales.
The second episode in a three part series about one of Charleston's lost stories. It is a true story that combines history, true crime, ghosts and fairy tales.
This is the first in a three part series about one of Charleston, South Carolina's lost stories. It combines history, ghosts, true crime, amd fairytales.
This episode features the untold story of the origin of King Kong.
This episode tells a story about pirates and a haunted dungeon.
This episode tells the story of the Charleston mermaid.
This is a story about a German fairytale and a brutal murder in northwestern Georgia. Suggested reading: The Corpsewood Manor Murders In North Georgia by Amy Petulla
This a story about the Titanic, Victorian sex trafficking and a mummy's curse.
Haunted houses, midnight witchcraft and famous murder in historic Savannah, Georgia.
In this episode I visit some of Savanah's most haunted locations. Suggested Reading: Haunted Savanah: America's Most Spectral City by James Caskey Haunted Savannah by Georgia R. Byrd
Harry Houdini and the Halloween Séance.
An unexpected return to a very creepy place to do a very foolish thing.
This episode features The Wizard of Oz, Greek mythology and a famous unsolved murder.
Episode 30: Resurrection delves into the history of Chicago's most famous ghost: Resurrection Mary!
I am with Alyson Horrocks of The Strange and Unusual Podcast. It's the evening of August 20th, 2017. We are in Danvers, MA which was previously known as Salem Village. We are visiting the Samuel Parris archeological site. Surrounded by a rail fence there are two stone lined cellars marking the location of the house that once stood here. Next to this location is a grassy path that leads to the back…
Alyson Horrocks from the Strange and Unusual Podcast took me on a tour of a historical site with a dark past. The site sits in a town called Danvers, but it was once Salem Village. This site was the culmination of a strange mix of religion, superstition, folklore, slavery, patriarchy, truth, and lies. A place where people's imagination or secret motives ran wild and story or lie or desperate…
The history of the Navajo goes back in time to the Four Corners region in Arizona. Where the spider grandmother spun a giant web and threw it into the night sky to create the stars. This area known as Canyon de Chelly is also known as the Canyon of the Dead after a misguided weaver's warning resulted in a cruel cave massacre. Like the art and designs of the Navajo weaver's blanket, the Navajo…
On November 20th, 1850 night watchman George Pollard Jr. makes his nightly rounds on the foggy Island of Nantucket, MA. An island once inhabited by proud tribes of Native Americans before the addition of the colonists. An island that was the whaling capital of the world for over a century. The inhabitants and the whalers themselves were haunted with superstition and legends about the dark…
Count Dracula's story is one of many pieces; a story of a man and the secrets that are hidden inside his castle. Bram Stoker, the story's author, is also a man of many secrets who constructed his own castle and built a fortress around his heart. The puzzle of Count Dracula is not complete until the intertwining pieces are put together. When put together what do the pieces reveal about the story…
Chicago's West 63rd Street Post Office was built in 1938 over the site of what its creator referred to as "The Castle", and in 1902 an Ohio Daily News article called it Chicago's Ghost Castle. Whatever you want to call it, this site was once or possibly still is the home to a notorious killer. A figure who built a home that included a 2nd floor full of secret passages, trap doors, and hidden…
The Heriot House in Georgetown, South Carolina was built in 1765. It is now the Harbor House Inn and there are many stories by visitors and Georgetown residents alike of seeing an image of a woman that looks like she doesn't belong there. Is this woman the ghost of a forlorn lover or does she represent something more sinister? Something that ties in with the four circles of Dante's Inferno and…
In Austin, Texas in 1884 a female servant was killed in a gruesome ax murder. Feeble attempts were made to find the murderer, but to no avail. Soon a series of gruesome ax murders and attacks followed. Each one more horrific than the other, and the murders spread beyond the black servant population to the white community. What originally was considered a black problem in the South twenty years…
In Native American folklore, there was a dark creature that possessed the mind and body of men, instilling within them a great hunger for human flesh. The Wendigo was feared by tribes throughout what is now North America and Canada as stories of bloodshed and terror spread across the continent. Picture it: Your best friend, your husband, your sister -- crouched down and feasting upon the flesh of…
The Salisbury Plain is the name for the 300 miles of grasslands located in Wiltshire, England. Home to Stonehenge, a rich history, and a wide variety of plants and animals, the Salisbury Plain is one of the most famous locations in England. For the residents of Wiltshire, however, the area is notorious for more than its archaeological features and mystical energy. The great grassy plains of…
The White House: In all it's glory, from the immaculately-kept gardens to the walls hung with priceless art, is an icon of American history and power. Home to every President since 1800, the White House is seen as a safe haven for the President and their family. Not even the heavy iron fence that borders the grounds of the White House can keep dark magic from harming its inhabitants. A curse…
Deep within the heart of New Jersey lies an untamed swath of trees and brush, long believed to be the home of the Jersey Devil itself. A horrifying creature with the head of a goat and the wings of a bat, the legend of the Jersey Devil has haunted the Pine Barrens for generations. Yet the Jersey Devil might not be the only degenerate creature lurking within the shadows of the Pines. What dark…
Who can forget the classic tale of the mad scientist who creates a gorgeously gruesome Creature, only to become frightened and disgusted by his own creation? Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein is one of the most widely taught examples of Gothic literature, yet most readers don't know the true story behind Shelley's most famous work. Was Frankenstein really the product of a writing competition…
Fairy tales often teach an important moral lesson, hidden within the entertaining twists and turns of the story. The tale of Bluebeard, the rich man who keeps the bodies of his murdered wives locked behind the forbidden doors of the dungeon in his castle, doomed to have his wrongdoing exposed by his newest wife, serves as a reminder to young women that curiosity can sometimes be your downfall --…
The time between three and four in the morning is said to be the hour when evil is at the height of it's power -- the time when the Devil ascends from Hell and ghosts haunt the land of the living. In part two of my experience of the Devil's hour inside Charleston's Old City Jail, I receive a message from Hell itself, and discover the truth about one of the jail's most famous prisoners -- Lavinia…
Nestled inside Charleston, South Carolina lives a menacing stone monstrosity, often called the most haunted building in America -- The Old City Jail. The square upon which the Jail sits has been home to untold amounts of suffering and torture, making it the perfect breeding ground for the supernatural to take hold. As part of my training and experience as a storyteller and tour guide, I have been…
The railroad tracks over the Tsavo river are flanked on either side with lush grasses. A picturesque river runs below, providing a calming base for the trains that rush from Uganda to Kenya and back again. During it's construction, men from all over India and far parts of Africa gathered at the Tsavo river, working for months on end. At first, the men were oblivious to the twin pairs of golden…
Throughout history, disasters of astronomical proportions have taken place on one auspicious day -- Friday the Thirteenth. Shipwrecks, tsunamis, raging forest fires, brutal murderers, and horrifying accidents have all claimed victims on a day that many believe has been cursed since the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The same serpent who tested the pair has become the dark figurehead…
Underneath our world lies a twisting and complicated maze, a dark mass of underground caves, passageways, and secrets. In part two of our Labyrinth series, we delve into the explorations of Greg Newkirk into the heart of the Kentucky goblin mystery. Episode Highlights: The m-cave mystery in the desert The "other grandma" Return of the Kentucky goblins Secret missions and underground battles…
The brave Greek hero Theseus made a name for himself when he defeated the monstrous Minotaur and escaped the depths of the Labyrinth by mapping his path back to safety with a ball of red string. The story of the Kentucky Goblins is much like the twisting, mysterious Labyrinth. Many researchers have found themselves lost within the details of the tale, searching for the truth of what lives in the…
The city of dreams, the city that never sleeps, the city with streets paved with opportunities… for many of us, New York represents a glittering place where absolutely anything is possible. Yet for all its glamour and sparkle, there are dark secrets lurking within its shadows, and history has done little to wash away the blood that once soaked New York's prosperous streets. They say the population…
The idyllic Fox Hollow Farm boasts of a basement-level swimming pool and sprawling acres of land. But all is not as it seems. A man creeps through the woods nearby, his legs transparent in the flashlight's beam. There is an incessant knocking at the front door by hands unseen. Night swims in the pool end with ghostly fingers clenched tight around a throat. For Joe Leblanc, Fox Hollow Farm was…
Mysteries are a rarity in our world. What used to be unexplainable is now quickly answered by the modern marvels of technology and science. So when a new mystery appears, we drive ourselves crazy searching for an explanation, haunted by what we can't explain. One modern mystery is reasoning behind the strange events that took place on a Siberian mountain in 1959, in which a group of experienced…
Werewolves have been portrayed in folklore, books, movies and television for centuries. Rageful howls under the full moon. Fangs, claws, fur, muscle and legend. Is it a monster? A ghost or a demon? Is it real? Historic folk tales about werewolves often evoke images of crisp nights in dark ages of Europe. Yet in the United States, the state of Georgia has one of the longest histories of werewolf…
A haunted house should loom out of the darkness, its windows boarded up, ghosts and dust as the only occupants. But horror dwells inside two beautifully decorated homes in the Benedict Canyon of Beverly Hills. While its name means "heaven" in Spanish, 10050 Cielo Drive was nothing but Hell for the five victims brutally murdered by Charles Manson's "Family" within its walls. Some say their spirits…
Wear garlic around your neck. Carry a wooden stake. Hang a crucifix on the wall, and never, ever, open the door for Dracula. The superstitions that were meant to protect our ancestors from vampires taught them the most important lesson of all: never invite a monster inside. Yet with the birth of Spiritualism in the 19th century came a rise in the belief that the dead harbor secret knowledge from…
Early 19th-century America was a time for the pioneer, the robust adventurer who leaves the familiarity of home in search of fortune and success. One such man was John Bell, a farmer who settled in Adams, Tennessee with his family and slaves. Their idyllic country life was soon disturbed after the youngest Bell child, Elizabeth, drew the attention of a sinister spirit. Strange creatures stalked…
