Haunted Talks

In the summer of 2026, an island covered in trees appeared in the middle of a remote reservoir in British Columbia. Then it vanished.

It wasn't the first. For centuries, sailors have reported phantom islands that rise from the sea, drift across the water, or linger on maps even when no one can find them. Some have natural explanations. Others have inspired legends of Atlantis, strange creatures, and demons calling through the mist.

From ancient myths to islands erased from modern charts, listen to this episode of Haunted Talks and discover what happens when the world refuses to match the map. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like: Episode 222 – Poveglia: Italy's Island of the Dead

Episode 184 – Dark Folklore From Around the World, Part 1

Episode 164 – What Happened to the Mary Celeste? For information or to purchase tickets for our ghost tours or paranormal adventures in Kingston, Ottawa, or Toronto, please visit hauntedwalk.com.

After more than 25 years with The Haunted Walk, Margo MacDonald has heard countless ghost stories, explored haunted places, and experienced things she still can't explain. Yet all that time spent exploring the paranormal has left her with more questions, and an even greater sense of wonder.

In her new book, A Curious Presence: An Exploration of Ghosts and the People Who Haunt Them, Margo travels across Canada and the UK to investigate hauntings and meet some of the paranormal world's most intriguing thinkers. She even challenges herself to spend a night alone in one of England's most notoriously haunted inns, where a series of puzzling responses only begin to make sense months later.

Margo returns to Haunted Talks to take us behind the scenes of writing her book and share how the journey challenged her long-held assumptions about ghosts. It's an exploration of how we investigate the paranormal, the role we might play in the mysteries we encounter, and why some experiences can be meaningful even when we can't explain them.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like:

Episode 3 – Margo MacDonald, Reburial of Richard IIIEpisode 92 – The Haunting at Home For information or to purchase tickets for our ghost tours or paranormal adventures in Kingston, Ottawa, or Toronto, please visit hauntedwalk.com.

Nearly a century later, we're revisiting the mystery with the help of one of her most famous fictional detectives: Miss Marple.

Christie disappeared from her home after a troubled evening, and her abandoned car was soon discovered in the English countryside. A massive search followed. Police chased leads, newspapers fuelled speculation, and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle turned to a medium for help.

But where had Agatha Christie gone?

In this episode, we follow the real clues of Christie's disappearance through the eyes of Miss Marple. She retraces the mystery, encounters the suspects, and follows the strange trail left behind, with the real events of the case woven throughout.

For Christie fans, there are Easter eggs along the way. For everyone else, there is one wonderfully strange question at the centre of it all:

What happens when the Queen of Crime becomes the mystery herself?

If you enjoyed the episode, you might also like: Episode 174 – The Dark Events That Inspired Edgar Allan PoeEpisode 105 – Who Tried to Kill Shirley Temple?

Charlie Chaplin's corpse was stolen from his grave and held for ransom. Thomas Paine was dug up and carried across the Atlantic. Pieces of Beethoven and Schubert disappeared in the name of science. And René Descartes somehow ended up buried without his head.

In this episode, we uncover the bizarre true history of famous corpses that were stolen, moved, studied, scattered and lost. Along the way, we meet grave robbers, obsessive admirers, ambitious scientists and restless ghosts, and discover why a final resting place isn't always quite so final. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like: Episode 56 – Valentino's Ghost DogEpisode 105 – Who Tried to Kill Shirley Temple? For information or to purchase tickets for our ghost tours or paranormal adventures in Kingston, Ottawa, or Toronto, please visit hauntedwalk.com.

In the conclusion to our haunted road trip across North America, we travel north to the infamous Valley of the Headless Men, listen for an invisible gathering deep in the Great Smoky Mountains, cross the strange emptiness of the Badlands, and enter the haunted halls of the Banff Springs Hotel.

Along the way, we explore how unanswered questions become legends, and why some mysteries only grow stranger with time. These are stories shaped by wilderness, uncertainty, and our need to know what happened.

Pack your road trip snacks, keep your eyes on the trail, and join us for the final leg of Haunted Parks of North America. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like: Haunted Parks of North America – Part One (Ep. 227) For information or to purchase tickets for our ghost tours or paranormal adventures in Kingston, Ottawa, or Toronto, please visit hauntedwalk.com.

Summer is the season for open roads, quiet trails, dark lakes, and nights under the stars. But we never enter the wilderness empty-handed. We bring our oldest fears with us.

In Part 1 of our two-part journey, Haunted Talks sets out on a road trip through some of North America's most beautiful parks and wild places. Along the way, we find restless spirits, strange lights in the sky, ghostly figures on the water, cursed landscapes, and something watching from just beyond the campfire glow.

These are places people visit to escape the noise of the world. But after dark, the wilderness has a way of making the silence strange.

Buckle up, roll down the windows, and keep your eyes on the treeline. Mentioned in this episode: Episode 13 – The Many Deaths of Tom Thomson Episode 214 – Ghosts on a Plane: The Haunting of Flight 401

To the dispatcher, it sounded impossible. Maybe even delusional. Ruthie Mae's call was treated as low priority. Officers came, knocked, and left. Two days later, they forced the door and found her dead inside. The mirrored medicine cabinet had been pulled from the wall, revealing a dark passageway behind it. Ruthie Mae had been telling the truth. Someone had come through the mirror.

If that sounds familiar, it should. Ruthie Mae's case would later become entangled with Candyman, the horror film that helped turn a mirror, a repeated name, and a hook-handed killer into one of the genre's most enduring nightmares.

On this episode of Haunted Talks, we explore the real murder behind Candyman, and how architectural shortcuts, systemic neglect, folklore, and disbelief transformed an ordinary apartment fixture into a threshold for evil.

But this story is more than a chilling connection to a famous film. It is about fear, poverty, disbelief, and the unsettling truth that some of the most terrifying horror stories begin with something real.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like:

Episode 216 – Lizzie Borden: Inside the Murder HouseEpisode 184 – Dark Folklore From Around the World Episode 151 – Forgotten: The Death of Joyce Carol Vincent

Was Denver International Airport built for the end of the world?

Since opening in 1995, the airport has become the centre of endless conspiracy theories. Secret tunnels. Apocalyptic artwork. Underground bunkers. A mysterious time capsule linked to an organization that seemingly never existed.

For decades, these and other oddities have fueled rumours of hidden agendas, secret societies, and plans for an uncertain future.

In this episode, we explore how an airport became a magnet for suspicion and speculation, examining the stories, symbols, and mysteries that have convinced so many people that something is hidden beneath Denver International Airport.

What began as a transportation hub may have become something else entirely: a canvas for modern paranoia.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like: Episode 214 – Ghosts on a Plane: The Haunting of Flight 401Episode 188 – Something in the Air: What Happened in Mattoon, Illinois?

For information or to purchase tickets for our ghost tours or paranormal adventures in Kingston, Ottawa, or Toronto, please visit hauntedwalk.com.

Before Houdini became the name history remembered, another illusionist drew enormous crowds and commanded extraordinary fees. He called himself the Great Lafayette, and his performances were part magic show, part circus, part theatre of death.

Then, one night in Edinburgh, his grand finale set the theatre on fire. Lafayette was seen rushing back inside, through the flames, to save the animals he loved.

By morning, investigators believed they had found his body.

Then they found him again.

Was it a tragic mistake, a final escape gone wrong, or the last great illusion of a man who spent his life making audiences wonder where the real Lafayette had gone? If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like: Episode 49 – Houdini's Ghost Episode 204 – Mysteries of the Keyhole House For information or to purchase tickets for our ghost tours or paranormal adventures in Kingston, Ottawa, or Toronto, please visit hauntedwalk.com.

What if a ghost is not only something we encounter in the dark, but something we may, in some mysterious way, participate in?

In this special episode of Haunted Talks, Jim presents a manifesto for reimagining the paranormal. Moving beyond the familiar debate between "spirits of the dead" and "tricks of the mind," he explores a third possibility: that hauntings may emerge from a stranger relationship between memory, consciousness, place, intention, and attention.

Drawing on the Stone Tape theory, quantum physics as a provocative analogy, years of Alone in the Dark investigations, and a collective experiment with more than one hundred Haunted Talks listeners during the 2024 solar eclipse, Jim asks whether the human mind may be more than a neutral observer of the unknown.

He also recounts an unforgettable session at the top of the CN Tower, where a voice through a spirit box refused the label of "ghost" and, when asked where it normally resided, answered with one word: consciousness.

This is not an argument for blind belief. It is an invitation to ask better questions, to move beyond gadgets and certainty, and to consider whether the mystery is stranger, wider, and closer than we think. To see/hear the full interview with Jim, visit SIPA Canada's Youtube channel or check out their Paranormal Chronicles podcast.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like:

Episode 218 – Why Ghost Stories Matter

For information or to purchase tickets for our ghost tours or paranormal adventures in Kingston, Ottawa, or Toronto, please visit hauntedwalk.com.