The Box of Oddities

The Inbox of Oddities is open, and the Freak Family has delivered another beautifully strange collection of listener stories.

This time, Kat and Jethro dive into an accidentally perfect sign at a spay-and-neuter clinic, a spectacularly unfortunate product mistranslation involving “aging horniness,” a rabbit openly mocking someone’s gardening defenses, and a listener determined to bring a beloved Box of Oddities song back into heavy rotation.

There’s also a Phoenix-versus-Tucson debate, memories of a skateboarding Pope look-alike, mysterious internet rabbit holes, questionable bathroom barbecue-tong etiquette, and plenty of pet pictures.

But things take a decidedly eerie turn with the story of a late-night highway rest stop, a strange older man, and a warning to take the next exit. Minutes later, the listener discovers a serious accident on the road they would have been traveling. When they return from the restroom, the mysterious stranger has vanished.

Coincidence, intuition, guardian angel… or something much stranger?

Plus, Kat and Jethro are looking for your creepy, unusual, and unexplained stories for the upcoming Halloween episode.

It’s listener mail at its funniest, weirdest, and occasionally unsettling best on this episode of The Inbox of Oddities.

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

A quiet French town is hit by a wave of sickness, terror, and impossible visions after its residents eat the same bread. Were the horrors of Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951 caused by ergot poisoning, contaminated flour, or something even stranger? Then, deep in the Amazon, male pink river dolphins have a baffling social habit involving aerial urination, zigzagging streams, and very interested onlookers.

The Box of Oddities investigates cursed bread, Cold War suspicions, hallucinations, and why nature remains undefeated at being weird.

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

An accidental Australian takeover of The Box of Oddities begins with Vegemite and somehow ends with a prehistoric mystery and a disappearance that only gets stranger.

First, buried in ancient Australian rock are the delicate remains of a forest that vanished from the world millions of years ago. Scientists knew these trees only through fossils—until a park ranger climbed into a remote canyon and noticed something he couldn't explain. What he found would rewrite a small piece of botanical history and eventually trigger an extraordinary fight to keep something ancient from disappearing all over again.

Then, 30-year-old Jessica Zarinsky leaves a Western Sydney pub with a man she's just met and vanishes. CCTV traces their journey toward the Blue Mountains, but eventually Jessica disappears from the cameras—and the man she was traveling with disappears too. Years later, investigators find him in one of the strangest places imaginable. But the discovery only deepens the mystery of what happened to Jessica.

Two Australian stories. One survivor from an almost unimaginable past. One woman whose family is still waiting for answers.

Also: wombat poop, penguin fences, Vegemite, and further evidence that Australia may be the most Box of Oddities place on Earth.

The Box of Oddities — where the strange, bizarre, mysterious, and unexplained remind us that the world is much weirder than we think.

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

Halloween is creeping closer, and the Inbox is filling up with teeth, doppelgängers, bizarre coincidences, pet opossums, and the kind of heartfelt notes that make Kat and JG question whether they deserve any of you.

This week: a listener wakes from wisdom-tooth surgery determined to show Kat and JG her teeth, a mysterious ambulance/fire-alarm “Boo Effect,” a license plate coincidence involving the word Gordita, and a pet opossum named Myrtle with absolutely no survival instincts. Plus, a listener suggestion sends the hosts down a dark historical path toward Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries.

And, of course, the ninth annual Box of Oddities Halloween special is coming. Have a spooky story? Record it and send it to [email protected].

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

There are ghosts in your DNA—entire lost populations whose names, languages, and worlds vanished, yet whose genetic fingerprints are still moving through people alive today. Then: the deeply unsettling truth about seeds that have sprouted in human lungs, ears, and other places nature never intended a garden to grow.

In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore ancient “ghost populations,” Neanderthals, Denisovans, and the 7,100-year-old woman whose DNA revealed a hidden branch of human history. Plus, they meet the unfortunate people who discovered that sometimes “it went down the wrong pipe” can become a very literal medical nightmare.

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

A forgotten 1952 Pan Am crash helped shape the safety briefing you hear on every flight—and now, 74 years later, the Clipper Endeavor has been found 2,000 feet beneath the Atlantic. Then: a skull discovered during a renovation connected to David Attenborough leads back to one of Victorian London’s most gruesome unsolved-for-131-years murder mysteries.

A lost airliner, a missing head, and the very specific reason you should never inflate your life vest inside the plane. This is Box of Oddities.

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

On this Inbox of Oddities, Kat and Jethro open the mailbag for a wonderfully strange collection of listener stories: gargoyle-like creatures watching from a grandmother’s curtain rod, an eerie phone call from a man who may have been dead, a child who seemed to know far too much about the “lady upstairs,” and an unexpected bathroom encounter with Monkees legend Mickey Dolenz.

They also reflect on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, hear a powerful reminder that bravery can mean doing the thing even while you’re afraid, and put out the call for your true spooky stories for the ninth annual Box of Oddities Halloween special. It’s paranormal encounters, weird celebrity pee lore, anxiety, mysterious USB drives, and the magnificent freak family—just the way an Inbox should be.

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

A young woman boards an elevated train in 1907, reaches her stop…and simply cannot make herself leave. Her strange case of “nervousness” becomes a newspaper curiosity, but more than a century later, it feels startlingly familiar. Then, why do lost people so often make the one choice most likely to keep them lost? From the forests of Nova Scotia to the Sahara Desert, we explore the unnerving ways panic can scramble your internal compass.

The Box of Oddities: where history gets weird, the brain gets stranger, and sometimes the best thing you can do is stay put.

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

In this classic episode, we celebrate Labor Day by looking at the most unusual jobs. Some people get paid to break into buildings, test mattresses, cuddle strangers, or bring horses into therapy sessions. Then there’s the far darker side of deciding who is “fit” for society: the true story of Carrie Buck, a young woman institutionalized and sterilized against her will in a Supreme Court case whose legacy still haunts America. It’s strange work, terrible pseudoscience, and the kind of history that should never be forgotten.

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

This week’s Inbox of Oddities is full of the kinds of stories that make you wonder whether the universe is gently trying to get your attention. From a beloved dog who may have kept watch long after he was gone, to a grandmother’s promise delivered through a stubborn patch of flowers, the Freak Family shares paranormal experiences, unexpected kindness, rescued pups, healing, and a reminder that sometimes we get the chance to be somebody else’s Santa.

Plus, Jethro and Kat put out the call for your true scary stories for the ninth annual Box of Oddities Halloween Special. Record your experience on your phone and send it to [email protected]—you may hear it in this year’s spooky celebration.

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