Today we’ll be talking with one of the big influences for our True Crime episode, Rachel Monroe, author of Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession. Rachel talks to us about true crime fandom, getting to know the real people behind the sensational stories, and the impact of crime narratives on public policy.

Next time on the show: Fake News

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Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Produced by Miranda Zickler
Sound by Clear Commo Studios
Sponsored by Anchor Podcasts
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CrimeCon and Columbiners with Rachel Monroe

American Hysteria explores how fantastical thinking has shaped our culture – moral panics, urban legends, hoaxes, crazes, fringe beliefs, and national misunderstandings. Poet-turned-podcaster Chelsey Weber-Smith tells the strangest stories from American history and examines the forces that create the reality we share, and sometimes, the reality we don't.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

In the late 1950s, an organization known as SINA started a campaign with the mission of clothing naked animals for the sake of decency. Today we will look at this bizarre moral crusade and its leader, whose life you'll have to hear about to believe.

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Sound Designer and Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Voice Actor: Will Rogers
Written, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
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The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals

Journalist and author Tom Risen is here to tell me about some of the real conspiracies that the CIA and the FBI were involved in from the 50s to the 70s and how, in 1975, one senator finally took these agencies to task, revealing shocking truths that would be used for decades to make the conspiracy theories we know today seem far more plausible. Tom writes about government surveillance and spy agencies and is the co-author of the bestselling book 'The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys—and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy,'" which he wrote with his father, James Risen, another journalist who has spent decades covering intelligence agencies.

Get Tom's Book

Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith

Head to americanhysteria.com to get merch and leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline!

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When Conspiracies Aren't Just Theories with Journalist Tom Risen

John O'Connor is the author of The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster, a cross-country adventure and investigation into the lore around Bigfoot as well as the personalities of those who spend their lives chasing this elusive creature.

Get John's book here

Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith

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Bigfoot's Big Adventure with Author John O'Connor

For the second part of this Urban Legends Hotline episode, we are continuing to explore various tall tales of ruthless gang initiations from the 1990s onward, as well as looking at the sweeping anti-gang laws of the 80s and 90s that had devastating effects on communities and categorized entire neighborhoods as gang associates, enacting severe punishments based on erroneous assumptions and outright lies.

Call for a Ceasefire and Help End Civilian Suffering

Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts

Sound designer and associate producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Producer: Miranda Zickler
Voice Actor: Will Rogers
Written, produced and hosted by by Chelsey Weber-Smith
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Gang Initiations pt. 2

For this Urban Legends Hotline episode, we are answering a listener message about a story of street gangs initiating wannabes with frightening rituals including driving around with their headlights off and murdering the first good samaritan who gives them a courtesy flash. We'll explore several scares that have flared up due to different versions of this urban legend, as well as real crimes wrongfully blamed on these initiations, all leading to the feeling that street gangs were creeping into the suburbs, looking for human sacrifices.

Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts

Sound designer and associate producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Producer: Miranda Zickler
Voice Actor: Will Rogers
Written, produced and hosted by by Chelsey Weber-Smith

Thank you to our sponsors:
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CrimeCon and Columbiners with Rachel Monroe

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