State of the Unknown | Documentary Stories of Real Unexplained Encounters

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?

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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.

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🔍 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?

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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.

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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 the show

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 the show

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 the show

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 the show

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.

For one remarkable week in January 1909, communities across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were gripped by reports of the Jersey Devil, one of America’s most famous cryptid and paranormal legends.

Police officers claimed to see a strange creature moving over rooftops. Families awoke to unexplained sounds outside their homes. Residents discovered unusual hoofprints in fresh snow. Newspapers printed new eyewitness accounts almost every day as reported sightings spread from town to town, transforming an old Pine Barrens legend into a genuine regional panic.

Was a single unexplained creature responsible for the growing reports? Did fear, folklore, and sensational headlines feed one another until an entire region was looking into the darkness for the same thing? Or did something truly unexplained move through the Delaware Valley during that extraordinary week?

In this episode of State of the Unknown, join host Robert Barber as he follows the documented chronology of the 1909 Jersey Devil Panic through contemporary newspaper coverage, eyewitness accounts, police reports, and the public reaction that turned one of America’s oldest paranormal creature legends into front-page news.

In this episode:

• The first reported Jersey Devil encounters that set the panic in motion
• Patrolman James Sackville’s reported sighting and gunshots on Buckley Street
• The mysterious hoofprints that drew entire communities into the snow
• The famous Gloucester City encounter that gave newspapers their most detailed description
• How the reported creature sightings spread across three states in a matter of days
• Why the old Leeds Devil legend suddenly became the “Jersey Devil”
• What historians and researchers believe may have fueled one of America’s most famous paranormal panics

What do you think happened during the Jersey Devil Panic of 1909?

Support the show

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 explores the strange case of Albert K. Bender, the UFO investigator whose story helped give rise to the legend of the Men in Black.

In the early 1950s, Bender founded the International Flying Saucer Bureau, one of the earliest civilian UFO organizations in the United States. Through its newsletter, Space Review, the group connected people interested in UFO sightings, flying saucers, and unexplained aerial phenomena during the early years of the modern UFO era.

Then the organization suddenly shut down.

Bender later said the decision came after a disturbing encounter with three mysterious visitors who seemed to know far more about his UFO investigations than they should have.

What happened inside Bender’s home? Who were the men he described? And how did his account become one of the foundational stories behind the Men in Black legend?

This episode explores Albert K. Bender, the International Flying Saucer Bureau, the early UFO movement of the 1950s, and the mysterious encounter that became part of one of the most enduring legends in UFO history.

Topics Covered

• Albert K. Bender
• Men in Black
• Men in Black origin
• International Flying Saucer Bureau
• Space Review
• UFO history
• UFO sightings
• Flying saucers
• Early UFO investigations
• 1950s UFO movement
• Mysterious visitors
• UFO conspiracy theories
• Paranormal encounters
• Unexplained mysteries

SEO Keywords

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Support the show

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 explores the second half of the Travis Walton alien abduction case, one of the most famous UFO and paranormal encounters in American history.

Five days after disappearing in the Arizona wilderness, Travis Walton returned alive.

His coworkers had spent nearly a week under suspicion. Search crews had searched the forest. Investigators had tried to determine what happened on the night Walton vanished near a reported blue-white light in the woods.

But the mystery was far from over.

After his return, Walton described an extraordinary alien abduction experience unlike anything the searchers, witnesses, or investigators expected. He claimed to have awakened in an unfamiliar environment with no understanding of where he was, how much time had passed, or what had happened after the reported UFO encounter in the forest.

What followed became the foundation of one of the most famous alien abduction accounts ever reported and later inspired the film Fire in the Sky.

Was Walton describing a genuine encounter with something unknown? Was there another explanation for the missing time and the memories he later shared? Or does the lasting power of the case come from the questions that still surround it decades later?

This episode follows Walton’s account of the missing days, the experience he described after waking, and the events leading to his return.

This is the story of the five days Travis Walton said were taken from him and the account that transformed a wilderness disappearance into one of the most enduring UFO and alien abduction claims in American history.

Topics Covered

• The Travis Walton alien abduction case
• The reported alien abduction experience
• The five missing days
• The aftermath of the 1975 Arizona UFO encounter
• The memories Walton later described
• The events that inspired Fire in the Sky
• Alien abduction claims and witness testimony
• The return of Travis Walton
• The continuing debate surrounding the case
• UFO history and abduction reports
• Skeptical and believer interpretations
• The human experience of confronting the unknown

SEO Keywords

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Support the show

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.