Journey to the Fringe

We’re wrapping up the creepiest month of the year by swapping a batch of terrifying, bizarre, and downright uncanny encounters. Taylor kicks things off by tracking down some of the most aggressive (and party-crashing) Goatmen across the continent, while Chelsie brings some truly unsettling humanoid sightings that blur the line between cryptid, zombie, and something else entirely.

If that’s not enough to keep you out of the woods, we’re also digging into coyotes with smiles that are a little too human, grinning wolf-creatures stalking the hills of Georgia, and a dilapidated barn in British Columbia hiding something we’ve lovingly dubbed the Giant Canadian Spider Bat. (You'll have to hear the descriptions before you judge our horrible AI attempts to draw it).

Lock your doors, ignore that howling by the lake, and remember: Chelsie's imagination is always the scariest place to be. Happy Halloween!

Drop us a 5-star review if you survive the episode, and send your own weird encounters to [email protected] or right here in the comments

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This week on Journey to the Fringe, We're lookig, ever so breifly (and spookily) at a terrifying piece of real-world tech news just in time for Halloween: biological data centers. Traditional silicon chips are out, and human neurons are in. We dive into the National University of Singapore's newest facility, where computers are powered by hundreds of thousands of living, lab-grown brain cells fed on a life-support cocktail of sugar and micronutrients.

While the tech world praises the low energy consumption, we are asking the important questions. Are we inching closer to a Soylent Green reality? Will these "zombie data centers" end up haunted by the human cells powering them? Tune in as we break down the eerie reality of biological computing, flesh-and-blood servers, and the paranormal implications of the ultimate ghost in the machine.

https://www.pressreader.com/singapore/the-straits-times/20260816/281608132264471

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A deep‑dive mini into the real origins of Halloween, tracing the holiday back to the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain, a liminal, ghost‑friendly, bonfire‑heavy celebration marking the shift into winter. Taylor and Chelsea explore fairies, divination rituals, mumming, guising, and how these traditions evolved into modern Halloween customs like costumes and trick‑or‑treating.

In this episode, Taylor and Chelsie take a surprisingly rich detour into the roots of Halloween far beyond candy aisles and plastic skeletons. Drawing from the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain, they unpack how the end of the harvest season and the “darker half of the year” shaped beliefs about thinning veils, visiting spirits, and protective rituals.

The conversation moves through centuries of tradition: communal bonfires meant to mimic the sun, offerings left for fairies, divination rituals involving hazelnuts and egg whites, and the early forms of mumming and guising that eventually became trick‑or‑treating. Chelsea reacts to the wilder historical costumes, including the Welsh horse‑skull “white mare”, while Taylor traces how these practices survived through oral tradition, Christian reinterpretation, and immigration to North America.

It’s a folklore‑rich, surprisingly cozy exploration of how a festival for the dead became one of the most beloved holidays of the living.

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A whistleblower claims the CIA secretly accessed consumer DNA databases like 23andMe and Ancestry to hunt for alleged alien–human hybrids linked to the so‑called Nordic extraterrestrials — tall, blond beings supposedly hiding in small Colorado towns. Meanwhile, a Canadian filmmaker has officially set a Guinness World Record for producing the most live‑action Bigfoot movies, highlighting the global spread of Sasquatch lore. We break down both stories, from government secrecy to cryptid cinema’s booming cultural footprint.

In this episode, we dive into two wildly different but strangely complementary corners of the fringe world.

First, we unpack the viral claims that the CIA has been quietly accessing consumer DNA databases, including 23andMe and Ancestry, through alleged “backdoor” channels to identify people with supposed extraterrestrial ancestry. Philosopher Jason Reza Jorjani says retired Army remote viewer Lyn Buchanan told him the agency was screening for a mysterious genetic variance tied to the “Nordics,” a long‑standing UFO‑lore species described as tall, blond, blue‑eyed beings living incognito in small American towns. Despite the sensational nature of the allegations, no public evidence supports the idea that the CIA ever searched for alien‑human hybrids, and experts emphasize the scientific implausibility of such DNA markers. Still, the story taps into ongoing public fascination with UAPs, remote viewing history, and privacy concerns around genetic testing.

Then we shift to Canada, where filmmaker Elliott Scott has officially entered the Guinness Book of World Records for producing the most live‑action Bigfoot films. Announced at Winnipeg’s Horror Con, the record highlights both Scott’s prolific output and the global diversity of Bigfoot traditions — from Pacific Northwest Sasquatch to Japanese variants he plans to explore in his next film. The achievement underscores how cryptid cinema continues to thrive, fueled by cultural storytelling, regional folklore, and a dedicated fan base.

Together, these stories reveal how myths, conspiracies, and creative passion keep the fringe world very much alive.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-whistleblower-claims-the-cia-is-searching-dna-sites-for-alien-human-hybrids/

https://globalnews.ca/news/12056886/canadian-filmmaker-sets-record-for-most-bigfoot-live-action-movies/

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Buckle up, Fringe travelers — Chelsie’s flying you (telepathically, which may somehow have an even higher carbon‑footprint) through some of the world’s most haunted places, from Chile’s perfectly preserved ghost towns to Peru’s subterranean torture chambers, London’s royal specters, and a Czech castle allegedly built over a literal gateway to hell. We wander Africa’s spiritually charged Ouidah, where Vodun and ancestral memory blur the line between haunting and living tradition, dip into India’s legally‑forbidden-after-dark cursed fort, and meet headless monks in a Philippine hotel. Australia’s Black Mountain breathes, Antarctica’s Shackleton’s Hut remembers, and Canada’s Banff Springs keeps its ghosts close behind sealed doors. It’s a global sampler of hauntings, folklore, trauma, and lingering energy — a cozy Halloween passport stamp collection for anyone who loves a good ghost story and a thinner veil.

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In this Fringey Mini, we're diging into a new spin on rich people's EMOceans in an NPR piece about North Carolina’s stilt houses literally giving up and dropping into the Atlantic. Thanks to FEMA’s backwards insurance rules, homeowners are financially rewarded for letting their doomed beach houses collapse instead of removing them safely — leaving behind mountains of debris, polluted beaches, and a whole lot of rich‑people denial. It’s climate change, bad policy, and wooden toothpick stilts all coming together in an absolutley mind numbing disaster.

https://www.npr.org/2026/09/17/nx-s1-5844642/fema-homes-collapse-ocean-climate-north-carolina-maine

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This Halloween, Journey to the Fringe creeps into the shadows to uncover the world’s largest spiders, and the chilling legends that make them more than just creatures of nature.

The veil between science and nightmare is thin this Halloween. In this episode of Journey to the Fringe, we descend into the lairs of the world’s biggest spiders, the Goliath birdeater and the giant huntsman, and trace their web of myths across continents. From the jungles of South America to the catacombs beneath Paris, we explore the “Spider Monster” mystery of 1894 and the unsettling truth behind the legends that still crawl through our collective imagination. Expect goosebumps, folklore, and a few eight‑legged surprises as we spin a web of fear and fascination that only Journey to the Fringe can weave.

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Humans might secretly sense Earth’s magnetic field, but probably not enough to orient their poop or unlock fringe superpowers. We explore the strange science behind magnetoreception, why some brains react to magnetic shifts, and what it means for our place in the planet’s invisible forces.

In this episode, we dive into the curious question raised by recent research: can humans actually detect Earth’s magnetic field? A Caltech experiment found that some people’s alpha brain waves subtly shift when exposed to rotating magnetic fields, hinting at a quiet, unconscious sensory response. But does that mean we’re walking around with dormant compass abilities? Not quite.

We break down how the study worked, why scientists disagree about what the results really mean, and how animals like birds and turtles use magnetoreception far more effectively than we ever could. Along the way, we explore the implications, the skepticism, and the wonderfully weird possibilities that arise when you tell people they might have a magnetic sense — even if it’s not strong enough to help them navigate, predict danger, or, yes, orient their defecation.

It’s fringe science, real biology, and just enough absurdity to keep things grounded.

News Article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/can-humans-detect-magnetic-fields-180971760/

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We're kicking off spooky season with a bang, by digging up the real origin of the zombie. In this episode we're on a wild ride starting with the Vodu soul‑theft of the Haitian Zombie, colonial nightmares, and the very real fear of becoming an eternally enslaved in the afterlife. From bottled souls to coma poisons to America’s first “wait, that’s not how zombies work” retellings, this episode unearths how a fate worse than death became a horror icon. Grab your pumpkin lights, hold onto your Ti bon ange, and remember: This October, beware: the scariest monster isn’t the zombie — it’s us. As always.

Here are some links for you to check out;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrRtjJd9gxk&t=397s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIGmsxBMnjA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sC_5SsMI8A&t=12s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqPvWdX4ICE

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A sinkhole opens in front of Nicolas Cage’s Malibu home and somehow the real story is the emotional fallout among the ultra‑wealthy. In this mini‑sode, we unpack the LA Times report on oceanfront mansions shaking like tuning forks, cliff‑top residents feeling smugly untouchable, and the strange social hierarchy of who’s in the ocean versus who merely gazes down upon it. It’s climate chaos, coastal drama, and premium‑grade rich‑people delusion — Malibu edition.

Source;

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-09-11/at-nicolas-cage-sinkhole-in-malibu-el-nino-fears-alter-good-vibes

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