The Box of Oddities

Edgar Allan Poe’s Rattling Skull & The Honeymoon Murder at Acadia National Park

What happens when you dig up the remains of one of history’s most famous masters of horror and discover something rattling around inside his skull? And how does a romantic honeymoon in one of America’s most beautiful national parks end in murder?

This week on The Box of Oddities, we’re digging into two disturbing true stories involving mysterious deaths, buried secrets, and some deeply unsettling discoveries.

First, JG explores the bizarre 1875 exhumation of Edgar Allan Poe. More than 25 years after the legendary writer’s mysterious death, workers reportedly discovered something extraordinary inside his skull. Was it his remarkably preserved brain, evidence of a previously unknown medical condition, or something else entirely? Plus, the enduring mystery of the Poe Toaster, the shadowy stranger who visited his grave for decades, bearing roses and cognac.

Then, Kat takes us to Acadia National Park in Maine, where a young bride's fatal fall from a seaside cliff in 1987 initially appeared to be a tragic accident. But investigators soon uncovered a suspicious life insurance policy, a troubling marriage, and a husband's past that suggested something far more sinister. The murder of Kathy Frost Larson would ultimately expose a chilling pattern of deception and death.

Plus, a killer refrigerator, a homicidal gingerbread man, and other wonderfully ridiculous horror movies that probably should never have been made.

Grave robbing, literary mysteries, true crime, Halloween weirdness, and a generous helping of gallows humor. Just another perfectly normal week with the Freak Family.

The Box of Oddities — where the strange, the macabre, and the wonderfully weird feel right at home.

Keep flying that freak flag!

#EdgarAllanPoe #PoeToaster #TrueCrime #AcadiaNationalPark #UnsolvedMysteries #Halloween #MacabreHistory #BoxOfOddities

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Box of Oddities Halloween Special Preview: True Ghost Stories, Haunted Houses & Unexplained Encounters

Something strange is happening, Freak Family. And this time, you're the ones telling the stories.

As we count down to our 9th Annual Box of Oddities Halloween Special, Kat and Jethro crack open the archives to revisit some of the creepiest, strangest, and most unforgettable paranormal experiences submitted by listeners.

A postal worker hears mysterious humming in an empty office—just before a broken telephone begins ringing. A childhood accident leads to a terrifying out-of-body experience. A woman recalls growing up in a funeral home, surrounded by caskets, mysterious noises, and things that might not have been entirely dead. And a family discovers that whatever is lurking in their house seems particularly fond of the staircase.

There are ghost sightings, haunted dolls, unexplained footsteps, possible messages from deceased loved ones, eerie dreams, and chilling encounters with the unknown. Some stories are genuinely frightening. Others are unexpectedly touching. And a few prove that sometimes the scariest thing in the room is a sibling with a twisted sense of humor.

These are the strange-but-true personal experiences of the Freak Family, told by the people who lived them.

The 9th Annual Halloween Special is almost here. Until then, turn down the lights, check the hallway, and remember: just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there.

The Box of Oddities — where the strange, bizarre, and unexplained feel right at home.

Keep flying that freak flag!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can riding a train actually drive you insane? And why have cultures around the world spent centuries telling stories about women with teeth in places teeth absolutely do not belong?

This week on The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore two bizarre intersections of history, folklore, psychology, and humanity's most uncomfortable fears.

First, we're heading to Victorian England, where a mysterious phenomenon known as Railway Madness had people convinced that traveling by train could cause sudden, violent insanity. From gun-wielding passengers and naked aristocrats to terrified travelers trapped inside moving railway carriages, the strange incidents sparked a genuine nineteenth-century panic. But were trains actually driving people mad, or was society struggling to cope with a world moving faster than ever before?

Then, Kat sinks her teeth into one of mythology's most unsettling recurring themes: vagina dentata, the ancient legend of the toothed vagina. Found in folklore from Native American traditions to India, Japan, and Māori mythology, these extraordinary stories explore sexuality, power, reproduction, and death. Along the way, we encounter a goddess with a deadly secret, an unfortunate encounter involving a sword scabbard, real medical oddities involving teeth growing inside tumors, and a controversial modern invention that brings this ancient nightmare disturbingly close to reality.

Plus, the great shoes-in-the-house debate, Thailand's unforgettable plus-size clothing stores, and the unexpected dangers of jumbo pants.

Strange history. Disturbing folklore. Uncomfortable anatomy. Just another day inside The Box of Oddities.

Join Kat and Jethro for another journey into the wonderfully weird, where the truth is often stranger than anything we could invent.

Keep flying that freak flag!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome our newest sponsor, FÜM

What happens when scientists open a 134-year-old coffin and discover a body that has been remarkably preserved? And what happens when an inventor decides the automobile would be better if the passengers rode inside one enormous wheel?

This week on The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore two extraordinary stories where science, mystery, and human ingenuity take some very strange turns.

First, the mysterious death of Robert Kennicott, a 19th-century Smithsonian naturalist who died under suspicious circumstances in the Alaskan wilderness in 1866. Rumors of suicide followed him for more than a century. But when forensic anthropologists exhumed his remains in 2001, they discovered an astonishingly well-preserved body—and evidence of four toxic substances. Could modern forensic science finally solve a 135-year-old mystery?

Then, buckle up for the Dynasphere, one of the most bizarre inventions in automotive history. Developed by British engineer John Archibald Purves in the 1930s, this gigantic motorized monowheel promised to revolutionize transportation. It actually worked! Unfortunately, steering was questionable, braking was terrifying, and passengers faced the deeply unpleasant possibility of something called gerbiling.

Plus, in our spooky season edition of The Thing in the Middle, we explore five unsettling death superstitions from around the world, including ghost portals, mysterious knocking, and the surprisingly sinister implications of an empty rocking chair.

Historic mysteries, preserved corpses, forgotten inventions, strange science, and supernatural folklore. It's another delightfully peculiar journey into the unexpected on The Box of Oddities.

Keep flying that freak flag!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Inbox of Oddities: Ghostly Voices, Time Travel & Homesick Nipples

The Freak Family has spoken, and once again, we're questioning whether any of you should be allowed out in public unsupervised.

In this episode of Inbox of Oddities, Kat and Jethro dig into another gloriously strange collection of listener emails, bizarre personal experiences, paranormal encounters, and unsolicited corrections.

First, a chilling Halloween ghost story takes us to Kentucky's historic Mayo Mansion, where a late-night ghost hunt produces a mysterious humming voice caught on an audio recording. Was someone—or something—trying to communicate from the other side?

Then, a listener proposes a fascinating twist on time travel: What if we could observe the past without actually traveling there? Naturally, this raises more questions than answers.

Elsewhere in the inbox, we hear firsthand tales of the famous Emma Crawford Coffin Races in Manitou Springs, Colorado, explore the emotional consequences of being mistaken for someone else's mother, and discover why one listener believes Jethro owes a preschooler a formal apology.

Plus, Australian listeners correct our pronunciation, a mysterious connection to Gremlins resurfaces, we revisit flesh-eating turtles, and someone finally finds a community that understands the deeply unsettling phenomenon of homesick nipples.

Yes. Homesick nipples.

And with our 9th Annual Halloween Special approaching, we're looking for your creepiest true stories, unexplained experiences, and paranormal encounters. Record your story on your phone and send it to [email protected] for a chance to be featured!

It's listener mail at its weirdest, funniest, and occasionally most disturbing.

Keep flying that freak flag!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You’ve seen the Hindenburg footage. You’ve heard the famous radio broadcast. But what was it actually like to be inside the Hindenburg when it caught fire?

Kat and Jethro revisit one of history’s most recognizable disasters through the eyewitness accounts of the people who survived it. Passengers were thrown across rooms as the airship tilted, an acrobat hung from the outside waiting for the right moment to drop, a mother threw her children from a window, and a teenage cabin boy survived thanks to an extraordinary accident involving a ruptured water tank. Of the 97 passengers and crew aboard, remarkably, 62 survived. Their stories reveal a side of the Hindenburg disaster that the famous newsreel footage could never capture.

Then, Kat heads to the Great Lakes, where some Michigan sand dunes aren’t content to simply sit there looking picturesque. They move. Slowly. Relentlessly. And occasionally straight through somebody’s house.

Near Silver Lake, homeowners have battled migrating dunes that can advance several feet a year, burying cottages, orchards, and anything else unfortunate enough to be in their path. And beneath the dunes near Lake Michigan lies the remains of Singapore, Michigan—a once-thriving 19th-century settlement gradually swallowed by sand.

Two stories about being in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time: surviving the Hindenburg from the inside, and the very patient sand dunes that will eventually have your house.

Welcome to The Box of Oddities.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A body emerges from a California glacier more than sixty years after a World War II training plane vanished in the Sierra Nevada. He’s still wearing his military uniform, carrying coins, a fountain pen, and an address book—but who is he, and what happened to the other men aboard the missing aircraft?

Then, we head to Colorado for the strange story of Emma Crawford, a young woman whose dying wish was to be buried high atop Red Mountain. Unfortunately, death was only the beginning of Emma’s travels. Her grave was moved, her coffin was swept down a mountainside, her remains spent years in a basement—and today, thousands of people gather every year to race coffins through the streets in her honor.

In this episode of The Box of Oddities: the frozen mystery of WWII airman Leo Mustonen and the wonderfully bizarre history behind the Emma Crawford Coffin Races of Manitou Springs.

Strange history, unsolved mysteries, frozen remains, bizarre burials, and one of America’s most unusual festivals. Just another day inside The Box of Oddities.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s time for another Freak Family Favorite, pulled from deep inside The Box of Oddities archives!

First, Kat explores the surprisingly widespread history of dwarf mythology and reverence. From ancient Egypt, where people of short stature could hold prestigious positions and dwarf deities were associated with protection, childbirth, and regeneration, to Norse mythology and legends of mysterious underground craftsmen, the connection between dwarves, gods, magic, and folklore stretches across cultures and centuries.

Then, Jethro revisits the deeply troubling disappearance of five-year-old Stephen McKernan. In 1988, Stephen vanished from a crowded Scottish holiday park after being out of his family’s sight for only seconds. Sixteen days later, his body was discovered six miles away—just beyond the area police had searched. Authorities concluded that Stephen wandered there on his own and died from exposure.

But eyewitness reports, the brutal terrain, a six-foot fence, and one particularly strange detail involving Stephen’s shoes and socks raise questions that have never entirely gone away.

Ancient gods, mysterious dwarves, a baffling disappearance, and a case officially considered solved that somehow still doesn’t feel solved.

It’s another Freak Family Favorite from The Box of Oddities.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A letter disappears in one of the deadliest tornadoes in American history—then turns up 130 miles away.

In 1925, the catastrophic Tri-State Tornado destroyed the Indiana home of Will Jones. Among the possessions swept away was a letter written decades earlier by his late wife. About a week later, a farmer found that same piece of paper lying in a field more than a hundred miles away—and somehow, against absurd odds, it found its way back to the man who treasured it.

Then, Kat takes us inside Bayernhof, the spectacularly eccentric Pittsburgh mansion built by millionaire Charles B. Brown III. The 19,000-square-foot home is packed with secret passages, an indoor waterfall, a concrete cave, and more than 140 antique automatic musical instruments. But after Brown’s death, his family discovered the house had been designed with a surprising purpose all along.

Plus: strange superstitions involving deadly chewing gum, cursed opals, lethal electric fans, red ink, and the potentially catastrophic consequences of trimming your fingernails after dark.

The Box of Oddities: strange history, bizarre true stories, unexplained events, unusual people, and the wonderfully weird corners of the world.

And don’t forget: our ninth annual Halloween special is coming. If you have a paranormal experience of your own, record it and send it to [email protected] for a chance to be included.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if the streets beneath San Francisco aren’t sitting on solid ground at all—but on the remains of abandoned ships?

During the California Gold Rush, crews deserted vessels by the hundreds, leaving ships stranded along the waterfront. Some became warehouses, hotels, saloons, even a jail. Others were swallowed by landfill as San Francisco expanded outward into the bay. Today, dozens of nineteenth-century ships may still lie beneath downtown—including the Niantic, whose buried hull has repeatedly resurfaced during construction, complete with artifacts and bottles of wine and champagne sealed underground for more than a century.

Then Kat takes us into a very different corner of human achievement: toilet-related world records. Meet the man who smashed 46 wooden toilet seats with his head in one minute, the record holder who passed his entire body through a toilet seat ten times in sixty seconds, and the Belgian man who spent nearly five days sitting on a toilet in the middle of a bar—all in pursuit of questionable glory.

Plus: Kat goes to jury duty and, completely on brand, discovers she has brought more knives than expected.

Buried Gold Rush ships, forgotten champagne, toilet-seat martial arts, bizarre Guinness records, and one woman who apparently cannot enter a government building without accidentally carrying a weapon.

It’s another beautifully strange episode of The Box of Oddities.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices