The Midnight Holler

1995. Puerto Rico.

Something was killing livestock in the countryside.

Farmers were finding animals dead under strange circumstances. Reports of puncture wounds began circulating. And before long, people started seeing something they couldn’t explain.

A creature with glowing eyes, sharp claws, and a row of spines running down its back.

They called it El Chupacabra.

As the sightings multiplied, fear spread across Puerto Rico. Local authorities organized searches. Newspapers followed the story. And ordinary people found themselves at the center of a mystery that would eventually reach around the world.

But what really happened that year?

Welcome to WHAINT Case Files.

From the world of The Midnight Holler comes a new investigative series exploring cryptids, strange encounters, forgotten eyewitness accounts, and the real events behind some of the world’s most enduring legends.

In our first case, we return to Puerto Rico in 1995 to investigate the origins of the Chupacabra.

We’ll revisit the accounts of Madelyne Tolentino and Misael Negrón, examine the mysterious livestock deaths, follow the growing panic across the island, and look at the evidence that investigators uncovered in the years that followed.

Along the way, you’ll hear cinematic dramatic retellings, immersive audio reconstructions of reported witness encounters, and original atmospheric sound design, bringing these accounts to life as we examine the history behind them.

These audio sequences are dramatizations based on reported accounts, not authentic recordings of the original witnesses.

Nearly three decades later, the Chupacabra remains one of the most recognizable creatures in modern folklore.

Was it an undiscovered predator? A case of mistaken identity? Or did something happen in Puerto Rico that summer that we still don’t fully understand?

We’ve got the reports. We’ve got the stories.

Now it’s time to open the file.

WHAINT CASE FILE 001 — THE CHUPACABRA

An original investigative documentary from WHAINT Radio, home of The Midnight Holler.

New to WHAINT Radio? Subscribe to follow future investigations into cryptids, folklore, historical mysteries, and unexplained encounters.

October 1964. McDowell County, West Virginia.

When a coal mine collapses beneath Black Hollow Mountain, Thomas Kincaid is trapped underground for five days.

His wife, Ruth, prepares herself for the worst.

Then, against all odds, Thomas comes home.

For a few precious days, the Kincaid family has everything they thought they’d lost. But Thomas has brought something back from the darkness beneath the mountain.

Something small.

Something that knocks five times.

And something that has taken a particular interest in their seven-year-old son, Daniel.

As Ruth struggles to understand what happened to her husband underground, she discovers that Thomas made a promise to the thing that kept him alive.

Five days of shelter. Five days of hospitality. And a debt that must be repaid.

What begins as an Appalachian ghost story becomes a haunting account of a father’s love, the promises we make to survive, and the terrible price of keeping them.

Tonight on The Midnight Holler, Jonah Elias Crowe shares Ruth Kincaid’s account of the events surrounding Black Hollow Mountain.

Some things are better left beneath the earth.

But what happens when they follow you home?

THE MIDNIGHT HOLLER — BROADCAST 027The Specter of Black Hollow Mountain

An original Appalachian folk-horror story featuring supernatural mystery, coal-mining folklore, and a family’s struggle against something they cannot understand.

Featuring original music inspired by the story, including “Black Hollow Mountain” and “The Mountain Took Him Twice.”

Tune in to WHAINT Radio, 91.5 FM.

Where the night never ends.

Deep in the American wilderness, some things are better left undisturbed.

Three forest rangers. Three terrifying encounters. And three stories that prove the greatest dangers in the woods aren’t always the ones you can see coming.

Tonight, Jonah Elias Crowe opens the files on three men whose lives were forever changed by what they encountered beyond the trails.

I KNOCKED BACK — Washington, 2018

While investigating damaged trees in Gifford Pinchot National Forest, veteran ranger Jack Wirsbinski hears something knocking against the trees. Thinking someone is playing games, he knocks back.

Something answers.

And when he finally sees what’s making the noise, he realizes he may have made a terrible mistake.

THE MEN BELOW THE ROAD — California

Ranger Donnie Haskins investigates reports of illegal dumping in a remote section of Mendocino National Forest. What he discovers is a massive illegal operation hidden deep in the wilderness.

When the men responsible realize they’ve been discovered, Donnie finds himself running for his life.

HE TOLD ME TO STAY — North Carolina, 2019

While searching for a missing hiker in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, ranger Larry Owens hears two men arguing in a snowy hollow.

Then comes a gunshot.

But when Larry investigates, he finds something that suggests the shooting happened more than two hundred years ago.

And whatever happened that winter isn’t finished.

Some dangers leave footprints. Others leave questions that take centuries to answer.

Pull up a chair, turn down the lights, and join Jonah for three unsettling accounts from the men who know America’s wilderness better than most.

You’re listening to The Midnight Holler, broadcasting from WHAINT Radio 91.5 FM.

Have a story of your own? Send it to [email protected] or call 214-699-7784 and leave a message. Your story might be featured in a future broadcast.

The Midnight Holler is a fictional horror anthology featuring original stories presented as firsthand accounts.

An isolated farmhouse in the mountains of North Georgia. A man chained to the floor of his own basement. And three words that should have been enough of a warning.

Don’t let me out.

Eli was twenty-seven years old and deep in the worst years of his meth addiction. Breaking into houses had become a way of life. He knew what to look for, what to take, and how to disappear before anyone noticed.

Then he found Caleb Daniels.

The farmhouse was unlike any place Eli had ever broken into. Reinforced doors. Heavy chains. Strange damage to the walls. And family photographs of a father and daughter who seemed to have everything to live for.

Downstairs, Caleb was waiting.

He wasn’t asking to be rescued. He was begging Eli to leave.

Because something terrible was about to happen, and Caleb knew exactly where he would go if he got loose.

What begins as a burglary in the Georgia mountains becomes a desperate night of survival, a hunt through the darkness, and an impossible decision that will change Eli’s life forever.

Two men. Two demons. One night that neither will ever forget.

The Midnight Holler — Broadcast 025: Don’t Let Me Out is a full-length, first-person werewolf horror story about addiction, guilt, fatherhood, and the difficult choices that define who we become.

Some monsters can be walked away from.

Others have to be chained.

WHAINT 91.5 — THE MIDNIGHT HOLLER

Broadcasting from somewhere beyond the treeline, where the year is still 1976 and the night never seems to end.

Hosted by Jonah Elias Crowe.

Original Southern Gothic horror, Appalachian nightmares, and strange stories for those who find themselves awake long after everyone else has gone to sleep.

WHAINT RADIO — ARCHIVED TRANSMISSION

FILE: WHAINT-1976-1106

RECORDING DATE: November 6, 1976

SOURCE: UNKNOWN

STATUS: UNAUTHORIZED TRANSMISSION

The following audio was discovered following an unexplained interruption to Broadcast 025 of The Midnight Holler.

The recording appears to document a funeral service held in Plainfield, Louisiana, in November of 1976.

The deceased is identified as Jonah Elias Crowe.

The speaker is Reverend Thomas Whitaker.

There is no record of this material being scheduled for transmission.

Following the interruption, WHAINT Radio returned to its regularly scheduled programming.

No explanation was provided.

The circumstances surrounding this recording remain unknown.

WHAINT RADIO — 91.5 FM

It’s always 1976 somewhere between the trees.

The Night the Stars Disappeared | The Midnight Holler — Broadcast 024

The sudden appearance of multiple Great Gray owls.

A hole in the sky that grows.

Forest animals that begin acting… strange.

And then a wristwatch on the wrong arm.

Henry Sellards spent most of his adult life preparing for the worst. But nothing prepared him for what happened during a late-August rotation in the mountains of northwest Montana.

At forty-eight, Henry prefers the solitude of a remote Forest Service fire lookout — forty feet above the ground, miles from the nearest town, watching a landscape he knows well.

Then one night, Henry notices something missing from the sky.

A small, perfectly round patch above the northeast ridge where there are no stars.

The next night, it’s larger.

The night after that, larger still.

And then, at 2:17 in the morning, something shakes the tower.

After that, the forest begins to change.

Animals behave in ways Henry can’t explain. Trail cameras capture things that shouldn’t be possible. Great Gray owls begin appearing around the tower — first one, then several — watching him from the tree line.

And eventually, Henry realizes that some of them may not be owls at all.

What happened on that mountain leaves Henry with several hours of his life he cannot remember, photographs he cannot explain, and one question he may never be able to answer:

Was Henry watching them… or were they watching Henry?

The Midnight Holler — Broadcast 024: The Night the Stars Disappeared

A story of isolation, missing time, strange lights, and something waiting beyond the tree line.

Best experienced with headphones, after dark.

Broadcast 023 — The Dispatcher Who Heard Tomorrow

What if 911 received your call before you needed help?

Tobias Crawford has spent seventeen years working the night shift as a 911 dispatcher in a small Texas county. He knows what it sounds like when someone is truly afraid. He knows how much thirty seconds can matter. And he knows that sometimes, no matter how quickly help arrives, it still isn’t fast enough.

Then, at 1:48 in the morning, a woman calls to whisper that someone is inside her house.

Deputies respond.

They find nothing.

The woman insists she never called.

Forty-three minutes later, the phone rings again.

Same woman. Same address. Same terrified words.

Except this time, someone really is inside her house.

Soon, more calls begin arriving early. Six minutes. Nineteen minutes. Five hours.

And Tobias realizes he may have been given something impossible:

More time.

At first, he uses it to save people.

But the more Tobias changes what hasn’t happened yet, the harder it becomes to know which future he’s preventing—and which one he’s creating.

And eventually, one of those impossible calls comes from a voice Tobias hasn’t heard since he was eleven years old.

His own.

The Midnight Holler: Broadcast 023 — The Dispatcher Who Heard Tomorrow

A supernatural horror story about time, grief, second chances, and the terrible weight of knowing what comes next.

Turn the lights down. Put your headphones on. And stay on the line.

Got a story to share? Email it to [email protected] or drop a voice mail at (214) 699-7784.

Curtis Wayne Miller has spent decades telling people that nobody is beyond redemption.

Then he meets Quincy Hale, a death-row inmate convicted of murdering four people.

During their third visit, Quincy asks him to pray.

The prison goes dark for eleven seconds.

When the lights return, Curtis is trapped inside Quincy’s body — and Quincy is wearing his.

Now Curtis has to survive another man’s enemies, another man’s reputation, and an execution date that is getting closer every day.

Meanwhile, Quincy is outside living Curtis’s life.

And the most unsettling part may be that he’s beginning to live it well.

The Midnight Holler — Broadcast 022

The Preacher on Death Row

A supernatural horror story about stolen identity, borrowed time, faith, judgment, and the true cost of believing that anyone can change.

Andrew always wanted to play with his older brother. Even after he died.

Growing up, Colby and his little brother Andrew spent their summers exploring an abandoned factory hidden deep in the woods. Fifty-foot concrete pillars. Roofless rooms. Drainage trenches. And a half-built fort they swore they’d finish someday.

It was also where Andrew first saw something that looked exactly like Colby.

Years later, after a night at the ruins ends with someone else’s father calling from the trees, Colby finally starts believing the stories people have told about that place.

Something lives out there.

Something that watches.

Something that learns voices.

Then Andrew dies.

Nearly a year later, Colby returns to their unfinished fort and finds a boy waiting beside the ladder with his back turned.

The boy has Andrew’s hair.

Andrew’s clothes.

Andrew’s voice.

And he wants to know if Colby is finally ready to play.

The Midnight Holler — Broadcast 021

THE SKINWALKER THAT LOOKED LIKE MY DEAD BROTHER

A story about two brothers, an unfinished fort, and the terrible things grief can make us willing to believe.

Some places never really let go.

BROADCAST 20

Jeff Harding isn’t his real name.

It was the name given to him before he went undercover with the Iron Wake, a Massachusetts outlaw motorcycle club with thirteen full-patch members.

For eleven months, Jeff became someone else.

He learned their routines. Earned their trust. Sat in their clubhouse. Survived being questioned by men who suspected exactly what he was. And somewhere along the way, one of those men became his friend.

The operation was supposed to end with one of the biggest cases of Jeff’s career.

Instead, eight members of the Iron Wake drove into the Massachusetts countryside one night and disappeared.

Their bodies were never found.

Their vehicles were never found.

Jeff Harding was the only man who came back.

Twenty years later, he still doesn’t know exactly what happened inside that abandoned farmhouse.

And it was the last undercover operation of his career.

Welcome to Broadcast 020 of The Midnight Holler.

Twenty broadcasts. Twenty trips into the Holler. Thank you to every one of you who has listened, subscribed, shared an episode, or sent something into WHAINT. For our 20th, we wanted to give you something special.

This is our biggest broadcast yet.

And maybe our darkest.

Keep your radio close.

WHAINT 91.5