Listen With The Lights On

Why is a baker’s dozen 13? There are multiple theories as to how it started. Some say it was a 13th century thing, when English King Henry the Third was annoyed by small loaves of bread. Some say the convention has more modern origins. Master Storyteller Jonathan Kruk joins us once more to offer another take on the origin of the Baker’s Dozen, in the old Dutch colonial town of Beverwyck, just in time for the holidays.

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There are historical markers all over the world. They are typically signs, placards or statues denoting some important bit of history that occurred in a particular place. But in some places, history and lore are heavily intertwined. New York State is trying something new to reflect this powerful connection.

If you’ve traveled across New York State, no doubt you’ve seen at least some of the blue and yellow signs peppered across the region. Now, you may have the good fortune to see similar markers in red. These call out bits of lore that define the place or region as much as its history.

We spoke with Ellen McHale, folklorist and executive director of the New York Folklore Society about it’s new initiative to mark lore.

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It hasn’t been a great season for those with a fear of clowns. What with the slew of typical horrifying clown masks parading around town on Halloween, and also with a remarkable number of creepy clown sightings making headlines and circulating on social media.  On this episode of Listen with the Lights on, we wanted to get to the bottom of this fright…So we talked to a clown.

Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns. It’s not an official phobia—it’s not recognized by World Health Organization or the American Psychiatric Association. But some people are just terrified by them. Clowns are supposed to make us laugh. Why do they inspire fear instead?

The fall of 2016 has been a rough one for coulrophobics. Several US cities have experienced a number of menacing clown sightings. In some cases law enforcement was called. The news spread like wildfire on social media. Major news outlets covered it.

Some experts say this type of evil clown panic happens every few years, driven by hype from pop culture. We’ve brought in an actual clown to shed some light on the phenomenon. Meet Ragliacci a working clown out of Troy, New York.

Do you have a fear of clowns? Do you have another type of fear? Tell us about it! Email us at [email protected].

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According to an Associated Press Survey from 2008, 34 percent of Americans say they believe in ghosts. Other surveys, like a Gallup poll from 2005, report similar results–about one third of America thinks ghosts are real. But given the immense popularity of “ghost-hunting” reality series that have hit TV ad the internet in the last decade or so, it seems that it’s no longer enough to just believe in them. Seeing (or hearing) is believing.

Why are we as a culture so obsessed with finding spectral evidence of life after death? We try to answer this big question as we tag along with the Tri-City New York Paranormal Societyas they investigate West Hall at RPI.

Listen to our previous episode, The Hauntings of West Hall, for more about the building’s popular lore.

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On this episode, we delve into the legend surrounding the 19th-century New England Vampire Panic.

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Ever wonder what lives in the cavernous storage rooms of a museum? Crates of artifacts, mixed with mummified remains and taxidermy? Or is there something even spookier?

We visit the “Something Scary” exhibit at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield Massachusetts in this episode of Listen with the Lights On to unearth a few creepy delights.

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What lurks in the shadows in Griffintown, Montreal?

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In the late 1600s, a group of French protestant families—Huguenots, as they were known—settled in New York’s Hudson Valley. Looking for religious freedom—they were heavily persecuted in their French Catholic homeland—they built small stone houses and formed a community in and around what is now the town of New Paltz.

More than 200 years later, the descendants of those Huguenot families worked to preserve the homes and legends, which are still toured and told on the street today. The modern Huguenot Street is a busy thoroughfare, lined by shops, restaurants and the historic Huguenot homes. It has a rich history, and it is considered to be very haunted.

AJ Shenkman is the historian of Historic Huguenot Street, the organization that manages the 10-acre National Historic Landmark District. He’s also a high school history teacher and the author of Wicked Ulster County: Tales of Desperadoes, Gangs & More. He joins us now with stories of the Deyo House on Huguenot Street.

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While there are common threads in lore throughout the world, nearly every country and culture has its own distinct tales. In the United Kingdom for example, many stories revolve around mystical creatures in the rolling hills and mists that are characteristic of the landscape. In the United States, we talk a lot about Bigfoot, who allegedly roams our forests and mountains.

In Canada, snow and winter imagery play a large role in legends there. On this episode of Listen with the Lights On, we explore a French Canadian tale from Montreal.

As you enter the campus of McGill University in the heart of Montreal, you see students mingling about buildings that display a mix of modern and gothic architecture. But beyond the bustle of a busy campus, looming on the horizon, is the voluminous Mount Royal. The city’s namesake. And the setting for one of Montreal’s most haunting tales.

Donovan King leads Haunted Montreal ghost tours, and authors the Haunted Montreal blog, where he shares scary stories from around L’Ile de Montreal. He shares the legend of Simon McTavish—a tale he says is one of the creepiest ghost stories in Canada.

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Are UFOs and alien encounters the stuff of science fiction, or are we really not alone out there in the universe?

On this episode of Listen with the Lights On, we visit a UFO Conference in Kingston, New York, where a few dedicated individuals are devoted to unearthing the truth behind this popular modern lore.

Unidentified flying objects have fascinated humans for centuries. We didn’t have an official name for them until about 1953, when the US Air Force coined the term UFO.

By the Air Force’s initial definition, a UFO is “any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object.”

A.k.a., a flying saucer.

The Mutual UFO Network, the largest privately funded research center, says it received over 8,000 reports of sightings in 2014. MUFON and another reporting body, the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) each claim to receive as much as a thousand reports per month.

New York’s Hudson Valley has been known as a hotbed of UFO activity—a famous series of sightings took place in the skies over the region in the 1980s. Unsolved Mysteries dedicated an episode to them in 1992.

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