Let's Talk Spooky

Send us Fan Mail

The Appalachian Mountains are among the oldest mountain ranges on Earth, stretching more than 2,000 miles across the eastern United States. For generations, the people who lived in these mountains have shared stories about strange encounters in the woods, mysterious creatures, and folklore that seems to blur the line between history and legend.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore some of the lesser-known legends said to originate in the Appalachian region. From ancient Cherokee folklore to stories shared by hunters and hikers in the mountains today, these tales reveal how deeply storytelling is woven into Appalachian culture.

We’ll dive into stories about:

• Appalachian Mimic Legends – Stories of voices in the woods that sound almost human.• The Wampus Cat – A mysterious creature said to roam the mountains and forests.• The Moon-Eyed People – A strange group described in Cherokee traditions who were said to move through the mountains only at night.• Appalachian Witch Traditions – Folk healers, “granny women,” and the folklore surrounding witches in the mountains.• Spearfinger (U’tlun’ta) – One of the most chilling Cherokee legends about a shapeshifting predator that could disguise itself as an old woman.

The Appalachian Mountains are full of stories, and many of them are still told today by the people who live closest to the forests and hills where these legends began.

So gather close, dim the lights, and join us as we explore the strange folklore and eerie legends hidden deep in the Appalachian Mountains.

And remember…

Stay curious. Stay spooky.

Sources: 

Books & Academic Sources

Mooney, J. (1992). Myths of the Cherokee. Dover Publications.(Original ethnographic work documenting Cherokee legends, including Spearfinger)

Jones, W. (2009). Appalachian Ghost Stories and Other Tales. Globe Pequot Press.

Briggs, K. (1976). An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures. Pantheon Books.(Background on regional folklore traditions)

Folklore & Historical Sources

North Carolina Folklife Institute⁠https://ncfli.org⁠

Smoky Mountain News – Cherokee folklore archives⁠https://www.smokymountainnews.com⁠

Georgia Historical Society – Moon-Eyed People references⁠https://georgiahistory.com⁠

Folklore & Legend Collections

Appalachian History Project⁠https://www.appalachianhistory.net⁠

Atlas Obscura – Appalachian folklore and legends⁠https://www.atlasobscura.com⁠

Additional Folklore References

Cherokee Nation Cultural Resources⁠https://www.cherokee.org⁠

Smithsonian Folklife & Cultural Heritage⁠https://folklife.si.edu⁠

Send us Fan Mail

In Part One of this two-part series, we explore real missing person cases connected to the Appalachian region and the 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail.

Appalachia stretches from Georgia to Maine, cutting through national forests, deep mountain hollows, and some of the most rugged terrain in the eastern United States.

In this episode, we examine documented disappearances, including:

• Dennis Martin (1969) – 6-year-old boy who vanished in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park• Trenny Lynn Gibson (1976) – A teenager who disappeared during a school trip near Clingmans Dome• Louise Chaput (2001) – Quebec woman murdered while hiking in the White Mountains

These cases remain either unsolved or deeply debated.

SOURCES 

• FBI – Highway Serial Killings Initiative⁠https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2009/april/highwayserial_040609⁠

• National Park Service – Great Smoky Mountains⁠https://www.nps.gov/grsm⁠

• Disappearance of Dennis Martin⁠https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Dennis_Martin⁠

• Trenny Gibson CaseTennessee Bureau of Investigation

• Louise Chaput CaseAppalachian Trail Noir (archival reporting)Backpacker Magazine reporting on NH cold cases

• Samuel Little – FBI Archives⁠https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/samuel-little-serial-killer⁠

• Gary Hilton Case Documentation

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore some of the most haunted universities in North America and the UK — from abandoned asylum buildings and Gothic towers to medieval cathedral ruins and anatomy theatres linked to real historical crimes.

These aren’t urban legends pulled out of thin air. Many of these campuses are built on documented history involving:

• Former psychiatric institutions
• Grave robbing
• The Burke and Hare murders
• Public dissections
• Religious executions
• Phantom monks and ghostly figures

📚 Sources

Ohio University & The Ridges

• Ohio University. The Ridges History.⁠https://www.ohio.edu/ridges/history⁠
• Ohio History Connection. Athens Lunatic Asylum Overview.

University of Toronto

• Richardson, D., Careless, J.M.S., & Craig, G.M. (1990). A Not Unsightly Building: University College and Its History. Mosaic Press.

Queen’s University

• Queen’s University Archives. Grant Hall History.⁠https://www.queensu.ca/archives/⁠

University of St Andrews

• University of St Andrews. History of the University.⁠https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/about/history/⁠
• Historic Environment Scotland. St Andrews Cathedral.⁠https://www.historicenvironment.scot/⁠

University of Edinburgh

• University of Edinburgh. History of the University.⁠https://www.ed.ac.uk/about/history⁠
• Rosner, L. (2009). The Anatomy Murders: The True and Spectacular History of Edinburgh’s Notorious Burke and Hare.
• Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Surgeons’ Hall Museums – Burke & Hare Collection.⁠https://museum.rcsed.ac.uk/⁠

Send us Fan Mail

Valentine’s Day is often framed as a celebration of romance — roses, chocolate, candlelight.

But beneath the surface, February 14th carries a far older and darker history.

In this bonus episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the lesser-known folklore and urban legends connected to Valentine’s Day — from early martyrdom and ritual superstition to backroad ghost stories and industrial-era mining lore.

Sources & Further Reading

• Brunvand, J. H. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings.
• Dégh, L. Legend and Belief: Dialectics of a Folklore Genre.
• Kelly, H. A. Chaucer and the Cult of Saint Valentine.
• Springhill Miners’ Museum Archives (Nova Scotia mining history).
• Simpson, J., & Roud, S. A Dictionary of English Folklore.

If you enjoyed this bonus episode:

💌 Follow Let’s Talk Spooky
⭐ Leave a rating or review
🖤 Share with someone who loves a little history with their hauntings

Until next time…
 Stay curious. Stay spooky.

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore modern accounts of time slips, missing time, and parallel reality experiences shared by users on Reddit.

From waking up in impossible locations with no memory of how they got there… to stepping into what felt like another universe… these first-hand accounts blur the line between psychological phenomenon and paranormal mystery.

Are these glitches in perception? Dissociation? Dimensional shifts?
 Or something far stranger?

Stay curious. Stay spooky.

Stories sourced from public Reddit threads on r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix and r/ParanormalEncounters.
 Additional references include folklore accounts of time slips and psychological research on dissociation and missing time.

The stories discussed in this episode are shared from public Reddit forums and reflect personal experiences and interpretations of the original posters. These accounts are not independently verified.

Send us Fan Mail

Time slips don’t arrive with spectacle.
They happen quietly—on familiar roads, well-marked trails, and in places people believe they know.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore the folklore, historical accounts, and modern experiences of time slips: moments when people report briefly stepping outside linear time. Across cultures and centuries, these encounters share the same unsettling details—sudden silence, altered landscapes, missing hours, and the instinctive certainty that staying would be a mistake.

We move from early folklore warnings about “thin places” and forbidden roads into documented case studies and contemporary accounts, including travelers who pass through villages that no longer exist and hikers who narrowly avoid stopping in places that feel profoundly wrong.

Fear appears to end the experience. Movement restores the world. And those who return are left with the same quiet certainty: something real happened, even if it cannot be explained.

This episode isn’t about proving time slips.
 It’s about recognizing the patterns they leave behind—and what they suggest about how fragile the present moment may be.

Condensed Sources & Further Reading

Historical & Documented Cases

• Kersey Time Slip (1957) — British soldiers report encountering a medieval version of the village
• Bold Street Time Slip Accounts — Repeated reports of slipping into the past on the same street
• Versailles – The Moberly–Jourdain Incident (1901)
  An Adventure by Charlotte Anne Moberly & Eleanor Jourdain

Folklore & Cultural Context

• Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
• Katharine Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies
• Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, Myth, Legend & Romance

Psychical & Modern Accounts

• Jenny Randles, Time Storms
• Fortean Times archives
• Society for Psychical Research case files
• Reddit: r/HighStrangeness, r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix (comparative modern reports)

TikTok: @letstalkspookypod 

Insta: @letstalkspooky 

Email: [email protected] 

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore four ships whose stories continue to drift through maritime history and folklore. These ships reveal how maritime disasters don’t always sink into history—they linger, resurface, and sometimes drift back into view.

SS Valencia (1906)

• Parks Canada — The Sinking of the SS Valencia
  Government overview of the disaster and its impact on marine safety
  https://www.canada.ca/en/parks-canada/news/2017/06/the_sinking_of_thessvalencia.html
  
  
• Maritime Museum of British Columbia — SS Valencia: A Theatre of Horror
  Artifact records and historical interpretation
  https://mmbc.bc.ca/exhibits/ss-valencia-a-theatre-of-horror/
  
  

SS Atlantic (1873)

• Library and Archives Canada — The Wreck of the Atlantic
  Archival documentation and historical context
  https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/Pages/ss-atlantic.aspx
  
  
• Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 — SS Atlantic Disaster
  Immigration history and survivor context
  https://pier21.ca/community-presents/ss-atlantic-immigrant-ship-disaster
  
  

Baychimo (Abandoned 1931)

• Manitoba Museum — Baychimo: The Adventures of the Ghost Ship of the Arctic
  Museum-based archival research and documented sightings
  https://manitobamuseum.ca/baychimo-the-adventures-of-the-ghost-ship-of-the-arctic/
  
  
• Canada’s History — S.S. Baychimo Icebound
  Historical summary grounded in documented events
  https://www.canadashistory.ca/explore/transportation/s-s-baychimo-icebound
  
  

Pass of Melfort

• Heritage BC — Pass of Melfort Submerged Heritage Record
  Official wreck record and site documentation
  https://heritagebc.ca/submerged-heritage-resource/pass-of-melfort/
  
  
• Wrecksite.eu — Pass of Melfort
  Maritime registry data and loss details
  https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?167255=
  
  

🎧 Content Note

This episode blends documented maritime history with regional folklore and later retellings. Where stories move beyond archival evidence, they are presented as cultural responses to loss and danger along Canada’s coast.

Send us Fan Mail

In 1863, the quiet fishing village of Sandy Cove was forever changed by a single, unsettling discovery.

Along the rocky shoreline, locals found a young man sitting alone on the beach—both of his legs freshly amputated, his clothes still fine, his expression calm but distant. When asked who he was or how he came to be there, he spoke only one word:

“Jerome.”

Over the next fifty years, Jerome would become one of Atlantic Canada’s most enduring mysteries. He lived out his life moving between homes and institutions across Nova Scotia, refusing to explain his past, lashing out violently when pressed, and guarding his silence with almost supernatural determination.

Was Jerome a sailor punished for mutiny? A political exile from Europe? A victim of organized crime—or a man deliberately erased? Sources & Further Reading- Primary & Historical Sources

• Mooney Jr., Fraser. Jerome: Solving the Mystery of Nova Scotia’s Silent Castaway. Nimbus Publishing.
• Digby County historical records and oral histories
• 19th-century Nova Scotia newspaper accounts documenting Jerome’s discovery and later life

Secondary & Folklore Sources

• Nova Scotia Archives – regional medical and institutional records
• Local histories of Digby Neck and the Annapolis Basin
• Maritime folklore collections documenting oral traditions surrounding Jerome

Online & Reference Materials

• Canadian Museum of History – regional folklore archives
• Nova Scotia Museum – coastal community history resources
• Encyclopedic entries and historical summaries on the Jerome of Sandy Cove case

Episode Links- 

https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/NgYX0NnAXZb

https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/10mSdwwAXZb

Send us Fan Mail

New Orleans has always belonged to the night.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we step into the gas-lit streets of the French Quarter to uncover the vampire legends that took root in the city’s earliest days—where European superstition, colonial fear, and scandal blurred the line between myth and history.

We trace how Old World vampire folklore crossed the Atlantic and embedded itself in New Orleans, shaping burial customs, whispered convent legends, and tales of blood-drinking figures who walked openly among society. From the unsettling story of the Carter Brothers to the infamous legend of Jacques St. Germain, these vampires were not creatures of castles—but of parties, parlors, and disappearing acts.

This episode explores how fear of the undead reflected real historical anxieties about death, disease, and identity in one of America’s most haunted cities—and why New Orleans remains inseparable from vampire lore to this day.

Pour yourself a drink, lock the doors, and walk with us into the dark.

 📚 Sources & Further Reading

Historical & Folklore Sources

• Davis, Wade. Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie. University of North Carolina Press.
• Barber, Paul. Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality. Yale University Press.
• Summers, Montague. The Vampire: His Kith and Kin. 1928.
• Lecouteux, Claude. The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind.

New Orleans–Specific Sources

• Kendall, John S. History of New Orleans. Lewis Publishing Company.
• Campanella, Richard. The West Bank of Greater New Orleans: A Historical Geography.
• New Orleans Historic Collection (archival essays and folklore references)
• French Quarter historical walking-tour records and preserved oral histories

Jacques St. Germain & Vampire Lore

• Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters.
• Ellis, Bill. Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture.
• Contemporary newspaper accounts referenced in late-19th-century New Orleans archives

Cultural & Pop Culture Context

• Skal, David J. V Is for Vampire: An A to Z Guide to Everything Undead.
• Nina Auerbach. Our Vampires, Ourselves. University of Chicago Press.

📸 Follow @letstalkspookypod on TikTok & Instagram ⭐ Leave a review to help fellow spooky souls find the show 📩 Have a vampire story or local legend? Send it in for a future listener episode

Until next time…

🖤 Stay Spooky 

Send us Fan Mail

Long before Dracula, Ireland was already telling stories of the dead who refused to stay buried.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we explore ancient Irish vampire lore—legends of revenants, blood-drinking dead, and cursed burials rooted in fear, famine, and unresolved death. From the tragic tale of the Dearg-Due to the violent legend of Abhartach, these stories reveal a darker understanding of the undead, where vampires were not romantic outsiders, but neighbors, rulers, and lovers.

These early Irish legends would go on to shape many of the vampire-slaying traditions found across Europe, leaving behind a legacy of fear, ritual, and ancient hunger.

Sources & Further Reading

• Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. Myth, Legend and Romance: An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition.
• Barber, Paul. Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality.
• Ellis, Peter Berresford. The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends.
• National Folklore Collection (Dúchas.ie), University College Dublin
• Geoffrey Keating. Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (17th century)