Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast

Centralia, Pennsylvania, is a ghost town...on fire. Beneath its grass blades, a coal fire rages that has burned for half a century and will burn for centuries longer. Smoke wafts over the sites where neighborhoods once stood. Roads choke on overgrowth. Pockets beneath the topsoil are waiting to cave in at the next footstep. The idea of the place is terrifying. But the reality of the place is...fascinating. Heck, I brought my family with me on one of my visits.

• Photos from my first visit to Centralia.

A suicide brought it into existence. A copy of it turned evil. You can find a version of it in a graveyard, at the Smithsonian, at an artist's studio in New England...and outside, just around the corner from the White House. Come with me, J.W. Ocker, as we visit the Adams Memorial and its Mr. Hyde, the Black Aggie, and learn the strange story that entwines them.

Photos on OddThingsIveSeen.com of the funerary sculptures.

Sites you can visit:

• Rock Creek Cemetery (Adams Memorial): 201 Allison St NW, Washington, DC

Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon.

My name is J.W. Ocker. For more than a decade, in my spare time, I have sought out odd sites and artifacts. I'm terrible at maps and bad at driving, but I believe that within a tank or two of gas of any point in the country are oddities worth trekking to on a Saturday afternoon. And I have the stories as proof.