Philip K. Dick spent his career writing about false memories, alternate worlds, and people discovering that reality wasn’t quite what they thought it was.

Then, in 1974, something happened to him.

Join host Robert Barber as we follow Philip K. Dick’s 2-3-74 experiences — a series of strange events that left him questioning memory, time, and the nature of reality itself.

Three years later, at a science-fiction festival in Metz, France, Dick would tell an audience:

“We are living in a computer-programmed reality…”

What happened to Philip K. Dick in 1974?

And how did those experiences lead him toward ideas that would later be compared to simulation theory?

This episode of State of the Unknown explores one of the strangest chapters in Philip K. Dick’s life and the mystery behind his belief that reality might not be as fixed as it appears.

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at [email protected] or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

In March 1876, residents near Olympia Springs in Bath County, Kentucky, reported one of the strangest events ever recorded in the state: pieces of what appeared to be raw meat falling from a perfectly clear sky.

Join host Robert Barber as he revisits the bizarre event that became known as the Kentucky Meat Shower—a case that drew attention from newspapers, doctors, scientists, and curious onlookers trying to understand what had happened.

The material was found scattered across the Crouch property, collected by witnesses, examined, debated, and—bizarrely—tasted by two men who thought it resembled mutton or venison.

What followed was a series of competing explanations, each trying to answer the same basic question:

How does something that looks like raw meat end up falling from a clear Kentucky sky?

In this Fragment, we return to Kentucky in 1876 and follow the surviving accounts of one of America’s strangest historical mysteries.

Fragments is the short-form companion to State of the Unknown—remarkable stories, forgotten accounts, folklore, and unexplained events that may not need a full documentary, but still deserve another telling.

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at [email protected] or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

In April 1907, two miners in Leadville, Colorado, rented a small house and paid three weeks in advance.

Four nights later, they were done.

Join host Robert Barber as he follows a strange newspaper account of a paranormal encounter that frightened two working miners badly enough to abandon the house—and the money they'd already paid—rather than spend another night inside.

Their story soon spread through the neighborhood, where residents connected what the men reported to an older story about the property. Then another witness came forward with a strange experience of his own.

More than a century later, the original newspaper account survives. But separating the history from the stories surrounding one of Leadville's real hauntings is much more difficult.

What happened inside that house? And what could convince two men that three weeks of rent simply wasn't worth going back?

In this episode of State of the Unknown: Fragments, Robert explores one of the real paranormal stories preserved in an old newspaper account—and an unexplained mystery that still leaves more questions than answers.

State of the Unknown explores paranormal encounters, real hauntings, strange stories, folklore, and unexplained mysteries from across America.

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at [email protected] or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

In July 1969, six people were parked near Greer Island on Lake Worth, just outside Fort Worth, Texas, when something came down from a tree and landed on their car.

John Reichert would later describe a strange creature covered in fur and scales, with long, claw-like hands. Within days, his report had drawn police, reporters, curiosity seekers, and armed monster hunters to the shores of Lake Worth. Then other people began reporting encounters of their own.

What followed became one of Texas's strangest cryptid encounters: the case of the Lake Worth Monster, sometimes remembered today as the Lake Worth Goatman.

But the story that survives isn't quite as simple as the legend it became.

In this episode of State of the Unknown, join host Robert Barber as we return to the original 1969 reports, follow the witnesses behind one of Texas's strangest unexplained encounters, and examine the evidence, contemporary explanations, and later claims that have followed the case for more than half a century.

Was the Lake Worth Monster an unidentified creature? An elaborate prank? Or did something else happen along the shores of Lake Worth that summer?

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at [email protected] or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

When 20-year-old Carl Lawson took a job helping renovate Bobby Mackey’s Music World, a country nightclub in Wilder, Kentucky, he had no idea he was stepping into what would become one of America’s most infamous paranormal haunting cases. What began with footsteps echoing through an empty dance hall after closing and the feeling that he wasn’t alone would eventually help build a ghost story that has followed the nightclub for decades.

Over the decades, Bobby Mackey’s Music World has become synonymous with ghost stories, possession, and the paranormal. But how much of that reputation was there from the beginning, and how much grew over time?

In this episode, join host Robert Barber as we trace the story back to the man who was there before the television crews, the ghost tours, and the national attention. Through firsthand accounts, historical records, and the legends that followed, we explore how one caretaker’s experiences transformed an ordinary Kentucky nightclub into one of the most infamous paranormal locations in America.

Was Carl Lawson witnessing something genuinely unexplained... or watching a legend take shape around him?

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at [email protected] or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

Two listeners pointed me toward Franklin Castle, one of Ohio’s most famous haunted houses and the center of decades of ghost stories and paranormal claims.

I expected to find another ghost story.

Instead, I found something far stranger.

In 1980, a woman living inside Franklin Castle claimed the spirit of the home’s original owner confessed to murder. The story spread across books, television, ghost tours, and the internet until it became part of the castle’s haunted history.

But where did that story actually come from?

This is the strange tale of one newspaper interview… and how a single extraordinary paranormal claim may have changed the reputation of Franklin Castle forever.

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at [email protected] or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

In November 1718, the pirate known as Blackbeard was killed in the waters near Ocracoke Island. His head was carried away as proof of his death, while his body disappeared beneath the surface.

But around the Outer Banks, people believed the story didn't end there.

Join host Robert Barber for a short journey into one of North Carolina's oldest ghost legends.

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at [email protected] or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

Join host Robert Barber as he examines one of America’s most enduring cryptid and unexplained creature encounters.

In the summer of 1988, seventeen-year-old Christopher Davis stopped along a quiet road outside Bishopville, South Carolina, to change a flat tire. Minutes later, he reported being chased by a strange creature unlike anything he had ever seen.

His account would draw the attention of local law enforcement, reporters, curious visitors, and eventually the entire country. Before long, the area around Scape Ore Swamp had become home to one of the nation’s most famous cryptid legends: the Lizard Man of Scape Ore Swamp.

But before there was the Lizard Man...

there was only one frightened teenager trying to explain what happened on a lonely stretch of Browntown Road.

In this episode of State of the Unknown, we follow Christopher’s reported creature encounter, the investigation that followed, and the events that transformed a single late-night experience into one of South Carolina’s greatest unexplained mysteries.

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at [email protected] or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

Welcome to State of the Unknown: Fragments.

Every other Tuesday, alongside our full documentary episodes, I’ll be sharing a shorter story—forgotten newspaper accounts, enduring folklore, strange witness reports, and historical mysteries that deserve another telling. They’re not documentaries. They’re simply remarkable stories that have stayed with me, and now I’m passing them on to you.

In this very first Fragment, we travel to southwest England in the winter of 1855, where people across several villages woke to discover mysterious hoof-like tracks in the fresh snow. They crossed fields, appeared on rooftops, climbed walls, and left entire communities searching for an explanation that never came.

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at [email protected] or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.

Something new is coming to State of the Unknown.

Every story doesn’t need thirty minutes.

Some are too strange to ignore…
too fascinating to forget…
and too small to become full documentaries.

Beginning next week, I’m introducing State of the Unknown: Fragments—a brand-new storytelling series featuring the forgotten newspaper accounts, old legends, eerie folklore, and remarkable historical oddities that have stayed with me long after the research was over.

Just me.
A microphone.

And a story I think you’ll be glad you heard.

Listen to this short trailer, and join me Tuesday for the very first Fragment.

Support State of the Unknown

If you enjoy the show and would like to help support it, you can become a Sasquatch Supporter for $3 a month. Your support helps cover the costs of researching and producing the show, website hosting, distribution, and helping more people discover State of the Unknown.

Membership is completely optional, and the show remains free for everyone.

Become a Sasquatch Supporter on Patreon

🔍 New episodes every Tuesday
🌐 Visit stateoftheunknown.com for show notes and to submit your own story.
📬 Questions, theories, or story ideas? Reach out at [email protected] or @stateoftheunknownpodcast.

Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.