Uncanny Aly

This week on Uncanny Aly, we’re doing things a little differently. No vampire investigations, no conspiracy boards, and considerably less research. Instead, we’re going home to Appalachia.

My cousin Megan joins me from Tennessee as we talk about what it was actually like growing up in Appalachia, where ghost stories, superstition and “something weird happened in the woods” were just part of life.

We share some of our own unexplained experiences, creepy family stories and the strange things we grew up being told never to do. We also get into Appalachian folklore along the way, including haints, death omens, folk healing, blood stopping, boogers, protective traditions and, of course, why you absolutely do not whistle in the woods.

This episode is much less of a researched deep dive and much more like sitting up late swapping scary stories with your cousins.

Some of these stories have explanations.

Some of them… we still have absolutely no fucking idea.

🎧 A quick audio note: We had some volume issues during recording this week. We’ve corrected as much as possible in editing, but you may notice a few fluctuations throughout the episode. Thanks for bearing with us.

An ancient vampire bloodline, mysterious secret societies, a Venetian jewellery shop, and a man known only as Signore M. How much of Rich B's viral TikTok story can actually be verified?

This week on Uncanny Aly, we're opening the Signore M files.

Armed with historical research, archival records, and a healthy dose of scepticism, we're investigating the claims behind one of TikTok's strangest ongoing mysteries.

From Venice and Florence to a mysterious Croatian grave, we examine alleged vampire bloodlines, questionable historical connections, linguistic inconsistencies, and nine supposedly secret organisations. We also explore some intriguing parallels with Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.

With additional perspectives from Croatian creator Damyen Le Fay, we're separating documented history from speculation, folklore, and fiction.

Is there something genuinely unexplained beneath the story, or are we witnessing an exceptionally elaborate modern mythology?

We're not here to tell you what to believe. We're here to follow the evidence.

Welcome to the investigation. Let's get weird.

Vampires, folklore, the Mafia, getting mugged in Naples, and a mysterious man called Signore M. Obviously, we had to start here.

In the pilot episode of Uncanny Aly, I’m joined by my friend Bianca for a very normal conversation about vampires that rapidly becomes anything but normal.

We dig into vampire folklore across different cultures, supernatural vampires versus the creatures history actually believed in, and why so many societies developed stories about things that fed on the living. Then we head to Italy: Venice, Florence, Naples, the Mafia, one particularly unfortunate mugging, and a TikTok story involving a mysterious encounter with a man known only as Signore M.

History gets weird. Folklore gets weirder. And occasionally, real life is the strangest part.

Welcome to Uncanny Aly.

Let’s get weird.