Believing the Bizarre: Paranormal Conspiracies & Myths

In this episode, we dive into three chilling listener-submitted stories of paranormal encounters. The first tale recounts eerie events following a tragic death, including possible possession, that leave the hosts questioning if it's truly the spirit of the deceased or something more sinister. Next, we explore a nighttime encounter with a mysterious shadowy figure that has interdimensional alien-like qualities. The final story follows a young person's psychic awakening, triggered by ghost stories and leading to frequent paranormal sightings. Listen today!Patreon: Support Believing the Bizarre and get tons of extra content by joining our Patreon.For updates, news, and extra content, follow Believing the Bizarre on social media:InstagramFacebookTwitterDiscordWant to discuss the episode on the day it drops with Tyler and Charlie? Follow on Twitch and check out the extended Twitch streams every Tuesday.Shop Merch: You can rep Believing the Bizarre and buy some unique merch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Time for another interview!We sat down with Derek Hayes, the creative mind behind the popular paranormal podcast Monsters Among Us and the documentary "Shadows in the Desert." Derek shares his journey from a childhood encounter with a mysterious black panther to becoming a respected voice in the paranormal community.He discusses his transition from Hollywood filmmaker to podcaster, and how his background in the film industry has shaped his approach to storytelling and production. The conversation delves into some of the most intriguing phenomena covered on Monsters Among Us, including the chilling "Mirrored Men" encounters that Derek has documented over the years.He also provides insight into the making of "Shadows in the Desert," a documentary exploring the paranormal activity in California's Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.From ghost lights to ancient petroglyphs, Derek offers a tantalizing glimpse into the mysteries that drew him to this unique location. Throughout the interview, Derek's passion for the unexplained shines through, as does his commitment to thorough research and balanced skepticism.He discusses the challenges of podcast production, the importance of respecting witness accounts, and the delicate balance between entertainment and investigation in paranormal content creation.This interview offers fans of the bizarre a fascinating look behind the scenes of one of the genre's most respected voices, while providing newcomers an enticing entry point into the world of paranormal podcasting and documentary filmmaking.Monsters Among Us Podcast website: https://www.monstersamonguspodcast.com/Patreon: Support Believing the Bizarre and get tons of extra content by joining our Patreon.For updates, news, and extra content, follow Believing the Bizarre on social media:InstagramFacebookTwitterDiscordWant to discuss the episode on the day it drops with Tyler and Charlie? Follow on Twitch and check out the extended Twitch streams every Tuesday.Shop Merch: You can rep Believing the Bizarre and buy some unique merch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time for 3 intriguing and mysterious disappearance stories!Our first story involves Frederick Valentich.Fred was a young Australian pilot who vanished during a routine flight in 1978. Despite his struggles with exams, Fred pursued his dream of flying, only to disappear under bizarre circumstances. Moments before his disappearance, Fred reported a strange aircraft hovering above him, followed by unexplained metallic sounds. Was it a UFO encounter, a tragic accident, or an elaborate disappearance? With no wreckage found and conflicting theories, Fred's story continues to baffle investigators and captivate the public.Our second story revolves around Karl Hunrath.In 1952, Karl claimed a glowing orb transformed into an alien named Bosco in his bedroom, injecting him with "occult techniques" to build weapons against the US military. Despite initially refusing, Karl's suspicious garage activities and sudden relocation to California raised eyebrows. The story culminates in Karl and his associate Wilkinson's enigmatic disappearance during a flight to allegedly meet extraterrestrials.Our final story is about Granger Taylor.Despite being a high school dropout, Taylor's genius for mechanics and engineering was undeniable, from rebuilding complex machinery to constructing his own flying saucer replica. His fascination with extraterrestrial technology culminated in claims of telepathic alien contact and an invitation for an interstellar journey. On a stormy night in 1980, Taylor vanished without a trace, leaving behind only a cryptic note about a 42-month space voyage.Patreon: Support Believing the Bizarre and get tons of extra content by joining our Patreon.For updates, news, and extra content, follow Believing the Bizarre on social media:InstagramFacebookTwitterDiscordWant to discuss the episode on the day it drops with Tyler and Charlie? Follow on Twitch and check out the extended Twitch streams every Tuesday.Shop Merch: You can rep Believing the Bizarre and buy some unique merch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time for another installment of Cursed Games and we have 3 creepy games for you this episode!Dive into the chilling world of supernatural games with "The Red Book," a Mexican divination ritual.Using a hard-cover red book and candlelight, players seek permission to enter and exit the game, asking questions and receiving cryptic answers from randomly selected passages.The stakes are raised in "Charlotte's Web," where participants summon the spirit of a 15th-century girl whose mother was burned for witchcraft. In a dark room with a mirror and toy as bait, players converse with Charlotte's reflection—but beware of turning around or playing twice, lest you risk eternal haunting.For thrill-seekers willing to take their chances on the road, "The 11 Mile Ritual" offers a harrowing drive through an otherworldly forest.As you progress mile by mile, the journey becomes increasingly surreal and terrifying. Shadowy figures, disembodied voices, and inexplicable phenomena test your resolve. The final mile culminates in a mysterious red light, beyond which lies the promise of your deepest desire—be it material or intangible.These games blur the line between reality and the paranormal, daring players to confront their fears and desires. From the subtle whispers of the Red Book to the heart-pounding tension of the 11 Mile Ritual, each game offers a unique gateway to the unknown.Patreon: Support Believing the Bizarre and get tons of extra content by joining our Patreon.For updates, news, and extra content, follow Believing the Bizarre on social media:InstagramFacebookTwitterDiscordWant to discuss the episode on the day it drops with Tyler and Charlie? Follow on Twitch and check out the extended Twitch streams every Tuesday.Shop Merch: You can rep Believing the Bizarre and buy some unique merch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month in Bizarre News, we discuss a variety of topics such as strange monoliths popping up, weird whale congregations, a psychic claiming we'll discover alien life soon, and more!Additionally, this month's Blind Ranking is Bigfoot-like cryptids. We all know Charlie is a super huge fan of Bigfoot... so ranking these was a lot of fun!Patreon: Support Believing the Bizarre and get tons of extra content by joining our Patreon.For updates, news, and extra content, follow Believing the Bizarre on social media:InstagramFacebookTwitterDiscordWant to discuss the episode on the day it drops with Tyler and Charlie? Follow on Twitch and check out the extended Twitch streams every Tuesday.Shop Merch: You can rep Believing the Bizarre and buy some unique merch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We have 3 listener submissions this week!Story 1-In 2010, Stephanie and her boyfriend's family moved into a spacious rental house that seemed perfect at first. Shortly after moving in, Stephanie experienced a frightening incident in the bathroom when an unseen presence tried to open the door while she was showering.Weeks later, she heard unexplained growling in the hallway, and her boyfriend's mother, Deborah, saw a shadowy figure in her bathroom and kitchen. Throughout their stay, the family encountered numerous unexplained occurrences, including constantly unlocked doors, an unusual accumulation of dead flies, and mysterious symbols etched inside cabinets that weren't there when they moved in.Despite the unsettling experiences, the family stayed in the house for a year before moving out. After leaving the property, Stephanie and her boyfriend's family stopped experiencing paranormal activity.Story 2-Throughout his childhood, Josh experienced several paranormal encounters in his family home, including seeing an elderly man in rags and shadowy figures roaming the halls. At age 5, Josh was so terrified by these nightly apparitions that he would sleep on his mother's bedroom floor, unaware that he was sleep-talking about "black robes" to her.Years later, as a teenager, Josh had a vivid sleep paralysis episode involving a burned figure and a woman instructing him to bleed the radiators, which he seemingly did in reality while asleep.After this incident, Josh developed an unexplained scar on his right shoulder that resembled a burn mark, adding a physical dimension to his supernatural experiences.Story 3-Sophia (anonymous) lived with her brother John and a roommate named Melissa, who claimed to have a demon attachment and practiced occult activities in their shared house. One night, while home alone, Sophia experienced an inexplicable incident where furniture was rearranged and kitchen cabinets were opened without any apparent explanation.A subsequent paranormal investigation revealed the presence of multiple entities in the house, including a potentially malevolent spirit.Following this event, Sophia experienced ongoing paranormal activity, including shadow figures, strange noises, and physical sensations, until she moved out of the house in March 2020, after which the haunting phenomena ceased.Patreon: Support Believing the Bizarre and get tons of extra content by joining our Patreon.For updates, news, and extra content, follow Believing the Bizarre on social media:InstagramFacebookTwitterDiscordWant to discuss the episode on the day it drops with Tyler and Charlie? Follow on Twitch and check out the extended Twitch streams every Tuesday.Shop Merch: You can rep Believing the Bizarre and buy some unique merch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's listener submission time and we have two creepy tales for you today! In the first story, Chris and his friend Mike were interested in the paranormal and started using a Ouija board. Initially, nothing unusual happened, but then they connected with a spirit named Adam Greene. They asked for signs of his presence, and the planchette spun rapidly and flew off the board. Another time, they heard slow, pounding footsteps behind a sheet hung in the doorway, followed by a flash of light. Over time, Adam's messages turned darker and insulting, and he seemed to shift to an evil persona named "Fuzzy". Paranormal events intensified. Chris had an out-of-body dream where he flew over Mike and his parents. Mike revealed they had all seen a shadow fly over them in real life. Chris believes the entity may have been the demon Zozo based on the double Z in the name, the evil energy, and the bad luck they experienced, including Mike's uncle passing away. Eventually, they stopped using the board as too many disturbing things were happening.Story #2 involves Robin.When Robin was six, his friend Jason's father took them to a cemetery in the woods at 2-3am after giving them beer. They opened a grave, saw a skeleton, then heard loud footsteps and shrieking. Soon after, Robin began seeing terrifying faces peeking into his room at night that would vanish when he looked directly at them. It caused him great fear, keeping him up at night. One time, he woke to see a face at the foot of his bed staring at him, then his covers flew off by themselves. He ran out of the house in terror. At age 16, Robin returned to the cemetery with friends and was chased off by the angry landowner. That night, they all had the same nightmare of a ghostly female figure screaming at them from the disturbed grave. Now at 21, Robin still sees the scary faces and also hears disembodied sounds. Most frighteningly, he sees a tall, pitch-black figure darker than the surrounding darkness appearing in doorways and on the stairs. It sometimes charges at him on all fours before vanishing. Photos never capture this haunting presence. Robin doesn't believe enough in God to get an exorcism, so he is trying to cope with the ongoing supernatural torment.Patreon: Support Believing the Bizarre and get tons of extra content by joining our Patreon.For updates, news, and extra content, follow Believing the Bizarre on social media:InstagramFacebookTwitterDiscordWant to discuss the episode on the day it drops with Tyler and Charlie? Follow on Twitch and check out the extended Twitch streams every Tuesday.Shop Merch: You can rep Believing the Bizarre and buy some unique merch#alienabduction #ufoabduction #kellycahill #aliens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are excited to continue our monthly interviews with Mike Ricksecker.Mike is the author of the best-selling books A Walk In The Shadows, and Alaska's Mysterious Triangle, as well as several historic paranormal books. His latest best-selling book is Travels Through Time: Inside the Fourth Dimension, Time Travel, and Stacked Time Theory, published in 2023. He has appeared on multiple television shows and programs, including History Channel's Ancient Aliens and The UnXplained, Travel Channel’s The Alaska Triangle, Discovery+’s Fright Club, Animal Planet’s The Haunted, multiple series on Gaia TV, and more. Mike is the producer and director of the docu-series, The Shadow Dimension, available on several streaming platforms, and produces additional full-length content on ancient wisdom, lost civilizations, and the supernatural on his extensive YouTube channel.For more than six years he has hosted The Edge of the Rabbit Hole livestream show and also hosts the Connecting the Universe interactive class. He operates his own book publishing and video production company, Haunted Road Media, representing a number of authors, and winning the award for Excellent Media in The Paranormal Field at the 2019 Shockfest Film Festival.Mike’s historic paranormal articles have been published in The Baltimore Sun, Paranormal Underground Magazine, and he previously wrote an Oklahoma City paranormal column for Examiner.com (2010 – 2014). His work has also been featured in The Oklahoman, The Frederick News-Post, Marshall University’s The Parthenon, and Louisiana State University’s Civil War Book Review. He now hosts many of these articles along with informational videos and learning courses on the Connected Universe Portal website.In this interview, Mike Ricksecker discusses his personal experiences with shadow entities and other supernatural phenomena that set him on his current path. He explains his "stacked time" theory, proposing that time is not linear but that past, present and future exist concurrently. Ricksecker suggests some ghostly encounters may actually be "time slips" where two moments resonate at the same frequency. He also shares insights on the unique energy and phenomena of the Alaska Triangle, the possible link between aliens and shadow people, and his view that while some shadow entities may be demonic, interdimensional, or extraterrestrial, we shouldn't overgeneralize them as all being evil. Finally, Ricksecker discusses astral projection and his belief that the key to time travel lies in achieving specific meditative states, something challenging for busy modern lifestyles. His ideas provide an open-ended, thought-provoking perspective on the paranormal.Patreon: Support Believing the Bizarre and get tons of extra content by joining our Patreon.For updates, news, and extra content, follow Believing the Bizarre on social media:InstagramFacebookTwitterDiscordWant to discuss the episode on the day it drops with Tyler and Charlie? Follow on Twitch and check out the extended Twitch streams every Tuesday.Shop Merch: You can rep Believing the Bizarre and buy some unique merch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In August 1993, Kelly Cahill, a 27-year-old mother of three from Victoria, Australia, experienced a life-changing UFO encounter. While driving home from a party with her husband, Andrew, they witnessed a mysterious craft with orange lights in a nearby field.Later that night, they encountered the same object hovering above the road, and as they approached it, they saw figures inside before it disappeared.Suddenly, a bright light engulfed their car, and they experienced a mysterious blackout, losing an hour of time. In the following weeks, Kelly and her husband suffered from various inexplicable symptoms, including headaches, nausea, and fatigue. Kelly discovered a strange triangular mark and a scar on her body. As her memories of the encounter began to resurface, she recalled being approached by tall, thin, black figures with luminous red eyes.Despite the entities' telepathic reassurances, Kelly felt an overwhelming sense of evil and terror. Kelly reached out to Bill Chalker, a renowned UFO researcher, who investigated the incident and discovered additional witnesses who had similar experiences that night.The investigation uncovered physical evidence at the site, including chemical and magnetic anomalies, unusual radiation readings, and inexplicable marks in the field. As Kelly's story gained media attention, she became a prominent figure in the UFO research community. She appeared on television shows, participated in conferences, and authored a book titled "Encounter:The True Story." Despite the incredible nature of her account, Kelly Cahill has been consistently regarded as a credible witness, with no history of mental illness or apparent motive for deception. Her experience remains one of the most compelling and well-documented cases in UFO history.Patreon: Support Believing the Bizarre and get tons of extra content by joining our Patreon.For updates, news, and extra content, follow Believing the Bizarre on social media:InstagramFacebookTwitterDiscordWant to discuss the episode on the day it drops with Tyler and Charlie? Follow on Twitch and check out the extended Twitch streams every Tuesday.Shop Merch: You can rep Believing the Bizarre and buy some unique merch#alienabduction #ufoabduction #kellycahill #aliens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finland, a land of breathtaking landscapes and rich history, is home to a captivating array of mythical creatures and tales.From the depths of the sea to the heart of the forest, these legends have been woven into the fabric of Finnish culture for centuries. The malevolent Iku-Turso, known as the "ox of death" and "father of diseases," lurks in the ocean's depths, while the mischievous Menninkäinen, reminiscent of hobbits and gnomes, dance in the woods and delight in riddles and shiny treasures. In the vast forests, one may encounter the shape-shifting Peikko, giant trolls feared as bogeymen who kidnap and torture children.The enchanting Keiju, delicate fairy-like beings, grace the skies and woodlands in three distinct forms: Luonnotar, Ilmatar, and Metsänneito. The enigmatic Hiisi, towering humanoid creatures, dwell in the mountains and forests, marking sacred sites and challenging those who dare to enter their domain.These powerful spirits can be both malevolent and beneficial, causing harm or offering aid when summoned by skilled shamans. The Näkki, a seaweed-clad immortal water demon, haunts the depths of ponds and rivers, luring unsuspecting children to their watery graves. Only through the utterance of magical incantations can one hope to escape its grasp.Lastly, the majestic Otso, the king of the forest and bear spirit, is revered as a friend, brother, or even a transformed human, symbolizing the deep connection between the Finnish people and the natural world.These mythical beings, each with their unique characteristics and stories, continue to capture the imagination and inspire awe in those who explore the fascinating realm of Finnish mythology.Patreon: Support Believing the Bizarre and get tons of extra content by joining our Patreon.For updates, news, and extra content, follow Believing the Bizarre on social media:InstagramFacebookTwitterDiscordWant to discuss the episode on the day it drops with Tyler and Charlie? Follow on Twitch and check out the extended Twitch streams every Tuesday.Shop Merch: You can rep Believing the Bizarre and buy some unique merch#paranormalpodcast #finlandmyths #finlandfolklore #finlandcreatures #finnishfolklore  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices