Episodes
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Remember the late '90s mystery show Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction? where you had to figure out which stories were true and which were fake? For this episode I tell the wild life story of the mysterious man who provided the "true" stories which were certainly beyond belief. I'm joined by wonder-siblings Will Rogers (our voice actor!) and Kristen Rogers-Anderson of Guide to the Unknown, a podcast that explores urban legends, the paranormal, horror movies, haunted places, and creepy pop culture. We take a trip down memory lane to discuss this cheesy gem which was also an early inspiration for what would one day become American Hysteria.
Listen to or watch Guide to the Unknown
Get tickets to our live show A Massive Seance with You're Wrong About
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Find us on Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
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Patrick Scalisi and Valerie Ruby-Omen are the creators of the 2023 book Connecticut Cryptids: A Field Guide to the Weird and Wonderful Creatures of the Nutmeg State. Together they have documented Connecticut's most important cryptids, those elusive, folkloric creatures that have not been proven to actually exist but that pop up in different forms throughout time and all over the world. For this episode, Pat and Val tell me the wild story of the Glawackus, a 1966 hoax that got totally out of hand.
Get a copy of Connecticut Cryptids
Get tickets to our live show called A Massive Seance with You're Wrong About
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Find us on Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Missing episodes?
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This is a special episode I did for the podcast 'You're Wrong About' in 2022, and I wanted to finally bring it to you directly since the deep snowfalls of winter are looming on the ever-distant horizon. This is the harrowing tale of a wagon train trapped in the Sierra Nevadas in the harsh winter of 1864-1865, famously forced to cannibalize one another to stay alive, but that is only a small fraction of an almost unbelievable story. This is probably the piece of American history that fascinates me more than any other, so I'm excited to share it with you.
Over the next couple months we will be real busy on tour with You're Wrong About for 'A Massive Seance' west coast live show tour, so we will be putting out some fun interview episodes before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming!
GET TICKETS FOR A MASSIVE SEANCE HERE
Dec 3 + 4 in Portland
Dec 11 in Seattle
Jan 11 in San Francisco
Jan 24 in Los Angeles
Thank you to You're Wrong About for allowing us to use this episode! Make sure you listen to their show if you don't already <3
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For the 100th anniversary of the Macy's Parade, we are looking at the chaos energy that has always animated this cultural institution, from its explosive balloon disasters to its surprisingly unruly origins.
Get tickets for A MASSIVE SEANCE Live Show with You're Wrong About:
linktr.ee/amassiveseance
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Sound Designer and Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Voice Actor: Will Rogers
Written, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
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This episode will give some context for our upcoming episode about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, its unbelievable chaotic origins and its totally out of control early days. Excerpts will be included from our War on Christmas Special, Haunted Attractions, Early Drag Queens pt. 1, and Toy Riots.
Get tickets for A MASSIVE SEANCE Live Show with You're Wrong About:
linktr.ee/amassiveseance
Full episodes to check out:
War on Christmas Special (2019)
Haunted Attractions (2021)
Early Drag Queens pt. 1 (2023)
Toy Riots (2019)
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Thank you to our sponsor OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code AMERICAN at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod
Sound design and Production by Riley Swedelius-Smith
Edited by Miranda Zickler
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
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Perry Carpenter is the author of the new book FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions. For this episode, we are discussing what it means to live in a world where artificial intelligence is altering our reality more and more, how we can navigate a deeply uncertain digital future, and what it all has to do with human nature and the nature of folklore.
Check out Perry book FAIK here
Find The FAIK Files podcast on Apple and Spotify
Find the Digital Folklore Podcast here
Find Perry Carpenter on LinkedIn, Twitter, and 8th Layer Media
Check out Perry's new op-ed with The Hill about our post-truth era
Get tickets to our live show called A Massive Seance with You're Wrong About
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Find us on Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
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This episode was originally released right before the 2020 presidential election and is even more relevant as we face the 2024 election. Political philosopher Jason Stanley, author of the book How Fascism Works, helps us understand how countries slide into authoritarian systems through conspiracy theories, demonization of others, the systematic erosion of truth, and the manipulation of anxieties around race and gender.
Check out How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley as well as his new book Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future
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In the 19th century, America and Europe experienced a panic over premature burial, believing that anyone could be accidentally declared dead and entombed before their time was really up. Led by a movement of quacky Spiritualists, the panic culminated in the creation of safety coffins with mechanisms that promised to save anyone who awoke six feet underground. Mere decades later, burial artists began performing all over America as a part of advertising gimmicks. They spent months underground in decked-out coffins, and the public could pay a dime to look down a viewing chute and see these "living corpses." For this Halloween special, we'll look at the panic-turned-spectacle of the American fear of being buried alive.
Get tickets for A MASSIVE SEANCE Live Show with You're Wrong About:
linktr.ee/amassiveseance
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Sound Designer and Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Voice Actor: Will Rogers
Written, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
This is a preview for "Candyman: The True Story Behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder." On April 22, 1987, 52-year-old Ruthie Mae McCoy called 911 to report that someone was trying to enter her Chicago housing project apartment through the bathroom medicine cabinet. Police thought she was imagining things, but when authorities finally checked on McCoy two days
later, they found her dead with four gunshot wounds. From “48 Hours”, “Candyman: The True
Story Behind the Bathroom Mirror Murder,” revisits the real-life account of McCoy's strange
death – one of the inspirations for the Candyman horror film – and the broader systemic issues
surrounding the tragic event. Hosted by journalist and Chicago native Dometi Pongo.
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'Buried Alive,' our upcoming Halloween special, looks at the American fear and fascination with premature burial. We'll explore the panic that swept the nation in the 1800s, leading to the creation of safety coffins for those potentially entombed too soon, and the spectacles drummed up by eccentric performers who competed to see who could stay buried alive the longest. This episode provides more historical context through excerpts from our previous episodes, Death, The 12 Foot Skeleton, and Quackery.
Get tickets for A MASSIVE SEANCE Live Show with You're Wrong About:
linktr.ee/amassiveseance
Full episodes to check out:
Death
The 12 Foot Skeleton
Quackery
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Thank you to our sponsor OneSkin: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code AMERICAN at https://www.oneskin.co/ #oneskinpod
Sound design and Production by Riley Swedelius-Smith
Edited by Miranda Zickler
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
What could possibly go wrong when two skeptical podcasters try to summon a ghost? Join Sarah Marshall of You're Wrong About and Chelsey Weber-Smith of American Hysteria for a historical, theatrical, ecstatic spectacular for the living and dead. Hold hands with your favorite disembodied voices for a spiritualist séance* featuring fireside conversation, mystifying tricks, special guests, and music from The Little Lies – the only Fleetwood Mac tribute band that may actually be ghosts. This winter, we will release the phantoms of the past year and make room for the spirit of the new.
Get your tickets here: https://linktr.ee/amassiveseance
DEC 3 + 4 | PORTLAND, OR
DEC 11 | SEATTLE, WA
JAN 11 | SAN FRANCISCO, CA
JAN 24 | LOS ANGELES, CA
Produced in collaboration with Woody Shticks + Miranda Zickler
*May contain exorcisms.
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Today Sarah Marshall transports us to the old world of British Hysteria to reveal the mysterious story of the Enfield Poltergeist and joins me at the seance table to discuss the great unknown and the ghosts we know.
Donate to help those affected by the recent hurricanes:
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
BelovedAsheville
Central Florida Mutual Aid
Listen to You're Wrong About and You Are Good wherever you get your podcasts
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Find us on Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
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Generation Alpha has made the uncanny, creepy, and chaotic YouTube series 'Skibidi Toilet' into a viral YouTube sensation, so much so that a famous director may soon be taking it to the big screen, despite the fact that the phenomenon has been called both brainrot and dangerous to the youth. On this episode, we will explain what Skibidi Toilet is, hear about similar internet videos enjoyed by Millennials and Gen X, and learn about famous art movements like net.art, Dadaism, and Surrealism to see if we can fit the seemingly meaningless Skibidi Toilet into an important artistic lineage.
Watch some Skibidi Toilet now on our Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast
Check out DaFuq!?Boom!'s YouTube channel
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Sound Designer and Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Voice Actor: Will Rogers
Written, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
The human body is a miracle. But when it’s not working, it can be the stuff of
nightmares. On this new series from master storyteller MrBallen, they’re
sharing medical horror stories and diagnostic mysteries that are surgically
calibrated to make your blood run cold.
From bizarre, unheard-of diseases and miraculous recoveries to strange
medical mishaps and unexplainable deaths — you’ll never hear the phrase
“heart-stopping” in the same way again. MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries is a
first-of-its-kind collaboration between MrBallen and Wondery, the award-
winning company behind Dr. Death.
Listen to MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts: Wondery.fm/MBMM_AH_
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Our upcoming episode is about the massively successful and deeply uncanny YouTube series Skibidi Toilet, the first content that Generation Alpha's influence has made into a world-wide sensation. Billions of views on YouTube and TikTok are attributed to the original videos and the innumerable fan videos that followed, and soon we may see this bizarro phenomenon on the big screen with a famous director attached. Skibidi Toilet has been called both brainrot and dangerous to the youth, and in this Context Clues episode we will explore transgressive creations of previous generations as well as some other online content that has inspired moral panics.
Head to our Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast to see some Skibidi Toilet videos so you can know wtf we are talking about
Full episodes to check out:
#Elsagate
The Momo Challenge
Jackass
Rotten.com
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Sound design and Production by Riley Swedelius-Smith
Edited by Miranda Zickler
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika is a Peabody Award-winning audio journalist and an assistant professor of journalism at New York University. His latest podcast, Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD “takes listeners on a journey to uncover the hidden history of the largest police force in the world – from its roots in slavery, to rival police gangs battling across the city, to everyday people who resisted every step of the way.” With the national spotlight yet again on the corruption and escalating violence of this increasingly militarized police force, it is necessary to understand the true roots of the NYPD, and see that even after close to 200 years, so much remains the same.
Listen to Empire City: The Untold Origin Story of the NYPD
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Find us on Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
Brittany Spanos is a senior writer for Rolling Stone Magazine who has taught a course at NYU called Topics in Recorded Music: Taylor Swift, which analyzes "the culture and politics of teen girlhood in pop music, fandom, media studies, whiteness and power as it relates to her image." Today we are talking about conspiracy theories that come from within the hardcore Swiftie fanbase, and the ones that come from outside, often via the right wing media.
Follow Brittany Spanos on Twitter and Instagram
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Find us on Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
The life of the conspiracy theory that claims Elvis Presley faked his death is an almost unbelievable journey through gimmick-crazy hucksters and true blue believers, the tales turning the king of rock and roll into something more like a cryptid than a superstar, evidence caught in blurry photographs and in secret messages, all covered up by shadowy forces. This zany story shows how conspiracies theories are born, how they transform, and how they never seem to die, no matter what, much like Elvis himself, allegedly.
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Find us on Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Sound Designer and Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Voice Actor: Will Rogers
Written, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices -
The idea that Elvis Presley did not die in August of 1977, that he instead faked his death, has become one of the most famous and enduring conspiracy theories of all time, essentially elevating the former superstar to the status of a cryptid. For this context clues episode, we are revisiting our 2022 episode called Fangirls which covers the rise of music fandom, including Elvis'. Next week we will explore the bizarre, fantastical creation of the Elvis is Alive movement and the many strange players that brought this tale into the conspiracy theory hall of fame.
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Sound design and Production by Riley Swedelius-Smith
Edited by Miranda Zickler
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
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Our paranormal correspondent Jim Perry is back to tell us about his recent ghost hunt inside the Queen Mary ship, where he discovered that Walt Disney had installed some ghostly gimmicks decades ago, inadvertently creating a haunting that continued on long after Disney sold the vessel. We discuss what happens when horror entertainment influences our consciousness and helps to create our modern relationship to the paranormal.
Listen to Euphomet wherever you get your podcasts
Check out SpectreVision's other podcasts
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Find us on Instagram @americanhysteriapodcast
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
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