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Blake, Karen and Matt discover that this famous ghost photo isn't as old as they expected, and perhaps not as mysterious either. Do we get it right? Do you have a different explanation? Let us know in the comments.
👻 The Spectre of Newby ChurchIn one black-and-white photograph of a church altar, a tall, hooded figure stands where the photographer swore no one was standing. The "Newby Monk" has haunted paranormal books, websites, and late-night clip shows for decades, and it remains one of the most reproduced ghost photographs ever taken. In this episode we dig into where the image really came from, who took it, when it was actually shot, and how a clever photographer might have made it.
Extensive show notes at monstertalk.org
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Most Americans meet the Rakshasa in exactly two places: a 1974 episode of a beloved horror TV series and the pages of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Both versions give you a debonair, tiger-faced shape-changer with a taste for human flesh - but neither prepares you for how deep, how old, and how genuinely alive these creatures are. To dig us out of that pop-culture foxhole, we sat down with academic researcher Eric Zsebenyi for a tour that runs from the Rig Veda to the Ramayana, into Buddhism, through present-day Sri Lankan politics, and finishes at the tent-shaped tomb of a very naughty Victorian translator.
🎙️ Our GuestEric Zsebenyi holds a master's degree from Naropa University (2000) and has pursued Buddhist studies as a lifelong avocation alongside a career as a civil servant. His path to the Rakshasas began with a Dharma protector named Vetali in his own meditation practice - which, as you'll hear, leads straight back to one of India's stranger monsters. Blake met Eric at the recent Gods & Monsters Conference, where Eric delivered a paper on the Vetala.
You can find Eric's work here: Eric Zsebenyi on Academia.edu
Extensive show notes at Monstertalk.org
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On the morning of February 9, 1855, residents across south Devon, England, discovered strange hoof-shaped tracks in the snow. The prints - about 4 inches long, 3 inches wide, and spaced roughly 8 inches apart in single file - appeared to have been left by a biped with a donkey-like hoof. Reports came in from more than 30 locations across the county. Within days, the Illustrated London News published a letter from a correspondent calling himself "South Devon" that would define the legend for generations: a continuous 100-mile trail, identical prints in every parish, passage over rooftops and through haystacks, a crossing of the two-mile-wide River Exe. The Devil, some locals whispered, had walked through Devon.
In this episode, Blake, Karen, and Matt dig into the original sources, trace how the story was embellished over 170 years of retelling, and examine the many theories - from wood mice to Romani conspiracies - that have been offered to explain the Great Devon Mystery.
EXTENSIVE show notes at https://monstertalk.org
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Darren joins Blake and Karen to discuss his new article in Geology Today, which grew out of his work on the Monsters of the Deep museum exhibition. That exhibition originally opened at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Cornwall in 2020, traveled to two additional venues, and most recently ran at the Aberdeen Art Gallery in Scotland. Darren describes how each venue's unique architecture required a complete redesign of the exhibition, changing both the visual layout and the narrative flow.
Extensive show notes at monstertalk.org
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This is part two of our conversation with Kyle Crosby, creator and host of Louisiana Dread. In Part 1, we covered the history of the Acadians and how they carried the loup-garou legend from France to the bayous of Louisiana. Now, in Part 2, Kyle walks us through the transformation of the loup-garou into the Rougarou - from strict werewolf to all-purpose shapeshifting boogeyman - and takes us on a tour of Louisiana's other legendary creatures, from the Axeman of New Orleans to the feu follet to the Grunch.
Extensive show notes at MonsterTalk.org
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This is part one of a two-part conversation. Blake and Karen are joined by Kyle Crosby, filmmaker, historian, and founder of Louisiana Dread, a multimedia project dedicated to documenting the dark history, folklore, and culture of the Pelican State. Kyle is a native of Larose, Louisiana, who grew up in Lafourche Parish and on Grand Isle. He spent years working in the film industry before returning home to preserve the stories he felt were being lost to time. Through his popular YouTube channel and social media platforms, he bridges the gap between scholarly history and regional folklore - covering everything from the legend of the Rougarou and the Honey Island Swamp Monster to the real-life mysteries of the Cajun Coast. Kyle is currently adapting his historical deep dives into a scripted horror anthology series, with one episode in the festival circuit and a second in pre-production. Blake met Kyle at the second Gods and Monsters conference at Texas State University, where Kyle's presentation on Louisiana's history and folklore inspired Blake and Karen to finally tackle the Rougarou as a proper episode. In this first part, the conversation digs into the history of the Acadian expulsion, the cultural forces that produced Cajun and Creole Louisiana, and the Old World roots of the Rougarou legend. In part two, they'll get into what the Rougarou actually became - a shape-shifting boogeyman with regional variants, plus feux follets, and a monster that might have been born from a traveling circus.
Extensive show notes at MonsterTalk.Org
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Neuroscientist Dr. Melissa Maffeo joins Blake and Karen to discuss her new book Science of the Supernatural: Critical Thinking for the Mind and Brain (Cambridge University Press, 2026). Melissa is an associate teaching professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, where she also serves as Associate Director of the Neuroscience Program.
In this episode, Melissa talks about using paranormal topics as an accessible entry point for teaching psychology and neuroscience, and shares her view that most supernatural experiences can likely be explained by what's happening in our brains - even if we don't yet have all the answers. The conversation covers a wide range of topics from the book, including the God Helmet experiments, the neuroscience of out-of-body experiences, how parasites can hijack behavior, and whether prior belief shapes what we experience.
Extended show notes at our website.
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To announce (and celebrate) the Spanish language release of Chet Van Duzer's beautiful and informative book on map monsters, I'm re-releasing episode S01E69!
Grab your copy in Spanish here:
SPANISH LANGUAGE : Monstruos marinos en mapas medievales y renacentistas by Chet Van Duzer
Or snag it in English here:
Sea Monsters on Medeival and Renaissance Maps
Extensive show notes here!
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Blake and Karen are joined by Matt Baxter to discuss the strange case of the Cottingley Fairies.
https://www.monstertalk.org/?p=2706
Hosts: Karen Stollznow, Blake Smith
Guest: Matt Baxter
In this episode, the MonsterTalk crew tackles one of the most famous photographic hoaxes in history - the Cottingley Fairies. In 1917, two young cousins in West Yorkshire produced five photographs that appeared to show real fairies dancing in the garden behind their home. What began as a bit of childhood mischief spiraled into a worldwide sensation when https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society championed the images as proof of the supernatural. The team explores how layers of credibility - authentic negatives, expert validation, retouched reproductions, and celebrity endorsement - created a blueprint for how misinformation gains legitimacy. More than a debunking, this is a story about two girls swept up in forces far beyond their control, and the adults who used them.
🧚 The Five Photographs1. Frances and the Dancing Fairies (July 1917) - The iconic first image. Frances gazes past four dancing fairies, one playing a pipe.
2. Elsie and the Gnome (September 1917) - Elsie reaches toward a gnome who looks suspiciously like Rowan Atkinson.
3. Frances and the Leaping Fairy (August 1920) - Taken with the new Cameo cameras and marked plates provided by Gardner.
4. A Fairy Offering a Posy of Harebells to Elsie (August 1920) - Featuring a fairy with a very fashionable 1920s bob haircut.
5. Fairies and Their Sun Bath (August 1920) - The most blurred and "ethereal" looking image. Frances maintained to her death that this one was genuine. Matt suspects the camera simply wasn't stable.
🔍 The Story in BriefIn the summer of 1917, cousins Elsie Wright (15, turning 16) and Frances Griffiths (9) were living together at 31 Main Street, Cottingley, West Yorkshire. Frances and her mother had returned to the UK from South Africa because Frances's father, Arthur Griffiths, had gone to serve on the Western Front. The girls played constantly at the beck (stream) behind the house, and when scolded for getting wet, claimed they went there to see fairies.
To prove it, they borrowed Elsie's father Arthur Wright's Midg quarter-plate camera - a glass-plate camera from around 1912 - and returned within the hour with one of the most iconic images in paranormal history: Frances gazing past a group of four dancing fairies, one playing a pipe. A second photograph followed - Elsie with a gnome (who, Karen notes, bears a striking resemblance to Rowan Atkinson).
Elsie's father Arthur, a keen amateur photographer with his own darkroom, immediately suspected a prank. But Elsie's mother Polly believed the photographs were genuine. In 1919, Polly attended a lecture on "Fairy Life" at the Bradford Theosophical Society and shared the images. That brought them to the attention of https://theosophy.wiki/en/Edward_L._Gardner, president of the London lodge of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society, and eventually Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was already writing an article on fairies for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strand_Magazine.
Gardner had the negatives examined by photographic expert Harold Snelling, who declared them "genuine" with "no trace of studio work" - technically true, since the trick was all done in-camera with cardboard cutouts and hatpins, not in a studio. Snelling then produced enhanced copies from the original negatives for publication - transforming evidence into what Matt calls "presentation artifacts," though they continued to trade on that original credibility claim.
In 1920, Gardner returned to Cottingley with two Cameo cameras and secretly marked photographic plates. The girls produced three more photographs: Frances and the Leaping Fairy, A Fairy Offering a Posy of Harebells to Elsie (featuring a conspicuously fashionable 1920s-bobbed fairy), and Fairies and Their Sun Bath. These were again sent to Snelling for enhancement before publication.
Both Kodak and Ilford examined the photographs. Kodak found no proof of fakery but refused to certify them as genuine, noting that fairies aren't real. Ilford said they were fake. Believers interpreted the ambiguity as validation.
Doyle published his article in the Christmas 1920 Strand, and followed it with https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47506 in 1922. The reaction was brutal - the creator of Sherlock Holmes was widely mocked. Gardner sold prints at lectures, and the rights became tied to the Theosophical movement. The girls and their families received little or no money.
In 1921, Gardner returned to Cottingley with more cameras and an occultist named https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hodson. The girls were no longer present - both had moved overseas and married. No new photographs were produced, but Hodson claimed to see fairies everywhere.
The case languished for decades until 1978, when it was attacked from multiple angles at once. Fred Gettings - a prolific British author of some 59 books on art, occultism, astrology, tarot, and esoteric symbolism - was researching early illustration for his book https://amzn.to/41Onnlu (Harmony Books, 1978) when he stumbled across fairy drawings in https://www.gutenberg.org/files/39592/39592-h/39592-h.htm (1915, illustrating a poem by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Noyes called "A Spell for a Fairy") and recognized the unmistakable similarity to the Cottingley fairies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi noted in https://amzn.to/4tZQzlB, is that Gettings was himself an avowed believer in spiritualism and spirit photography - Gettings wasn't looking to debunk anything. He was simply honest enough to publish what he found. The single most damning piece of evidence against the Cottingley photos came not from a skeptic but from a believer.
That same year, Randi enlisted Robert Sheaffer - a skeptic experienced in investigating UFO claims - and https://archive.org/details/ground-saucer-watch-news-bulletin/Ground%20Saucer%20Watch%20Bulletin%20-%201976%2006%20-%20June/ in Phoenix, Arizona, to perform computer-enhanced image analysis on the photographs. Spaulding's scanning technology, originally developed for analyzing satellite and UFO photographs, confirmed the fairy figures were flat (exactly what you'd expect of paper cutouts) and turned up what appeared to be a thread support in photo number four. Randi initially reported these findings and promoted the "string" theory of how the fairies were supported. According to at least two independent sources, Elsie Wright - by then in her late seventies and still not confessing - responded via New Scientist, sarcastically asking what part of the sky the strings were supposed to be attached to. By the time Randi wrote up the case in chapter 2 of https://amzn.to/4tZQzlB (1980), titled "Fairies at the Foot of the Garden," he had reconsidered: he captioned the computer enhancement image as "doubtful evidence" and wrote that no support was even necessary for the figures. Randi included Gettings's Princess Mary's Gift Book discovery in the chapter but disappointingly did not provide a proper citation for Ghosts in Photographs.
The hoax remained officially unresolved until the early 1980s, when pressure mounted from two directions simultaneously. Journalist Joe Cooper, who had been working directly with both women for years, secured Elsie's first public confession for The Unexplained magazine in 1982. Concurrently, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Crawley, editor of the British Journal of Photography, was publishing a thorough ten-part forensic investigation titled "That Astonishing Affair of the Cottingley Fairies" (1982-1983). Crawley's work prompted Elsie to write him a detailed confession letter dated 17 February 1983, now held at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. The combined weight of Cooper's journalism and Crawley's photographic analysis finally brought the truth out after more than sixty years: the fairies were cardboard cutouts drawn by Elsie, copied from illustrations by Claude Shepperson in Princess Mary's Gift Book (1914), with wings added by the girls. They were held upright in the grass with hatpins - the very mechanism that Randi's string theory had tried and failed to identify. Frances maintained to her death that the fifth photograph - Fairies and Their Sun Bath - was genuine.
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🎙️ Blake and Karen welcome back author and paranormal investigator Richard Estep to discuss his new book from Visible Ink Press, Monsters: Myths, Legends, and Real Encounters. Richard is a paramedic, clinical educator, and the author of more than 30 books on the paranormal, true crime, and history. Karen wrote the foreword for this one - and donated her fee to Doctors Without Borders. 👏
Extended show notes available at Our Website.
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In Part 2 of our chat with folklorist Chris Woodyard we talk about the lore of haunted cemeteries.Find Chris on BlueSky, FaceBook, and our back catalog!Chris also partners with Dr. Simon Young on the Boggart & Banshee podcast!
Extended notes at https://monstertalk.org
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In part 1 of our chat with folklorist Chris Woodyard, we discuss haunted roads and headless motorcycle ghosts.
Find Chris on BlueSky, FaceBook, and our back catalog!Chris also partners with Dr. Simon Young on the Boggart & Banshee podcast!
Extended notes at https://monstertalk.org
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We talk with Karen's friend, author and Ex-Mormon, Steve Cuno about paranormal ideas in the Mormon religion.
Steve Cuno:
Behind the Mormon Curtain: Selling Sex in America’s Holy City
“It’s Not About the Sex” My Ass: Confessions of an Ex-Mormon, Ex-Polygamist, Ex-Wife
David W. Patten and Mormon Bigfoot:
Reddit Thread
Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore
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Part two of our discussion of the interesting made-for-TV film The Stately Ghosts of England(1965). Blake and Karen are joined by Matt Baxter and this is a continuation of part 1. The film stars Margaret Rutherford, her husband Stringer Davis, and celebrity clairvoyant Tom Corbett.
Extended notes at http://monstertalk.org
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Blake and Karen are joined by Matt Baxter to discuss the 1965 made-for-TV film The Stately Ghosts of England. The film stars Margaret Rutherford, her husband Stringer Davis, and celebrity clairvoyant Tom Corbett.
Extended show notes available at MonsterTalk.org
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I'm excited to be posting this BONUS content - an interview with film historian Gary D. Rhodes. Gary is joining me to talk about his newest book Weirdumentary: Ancient Aliens, Fallacious Prophecies, and Mysterious Monsters from 1970s Documentaries. I can't overstate how enjoyable this book was and how likely listeners to MonsterTalk and In ReSearch Of... are to be equally thrilled with it.
extended episode notes available on our website.
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We are delighted to talk with Dr. Christopher Beatty about his research into Dragonflies. From ancient times these insects have been the subject of wonder, fear and misinformation. Let's keep the wonder but get rid of some of the other stuff as we dive in on a creature whose lifecycle, morphology, and effectiveness as a hunter elevate its place in the lore of humanity.
Why this title for the episode? Tune in and find out.
Petroglyphs of Dragonflies 1000y/o (Atlas Obscura)
Dragonflies in Japan - Akitsu Shima
Dragonfly Helmet (Japanese)
Those are from a class of helmets called Kiwari Kabuto - amazing variety
Some cool electronica I used to listen to back in "the day" from an album named after dragonflies: Odonata by Amethystium
Good lord - has it been 25 years?? Tempus fugit.
Additional note from Dr. Beatty:
"I’m the past-president of the Dragonfly Society of the Americas, a group that promotes public awareness, as well as research and conservation of dragonflies. We are open to anyone with interest in odonates, and membership is quite inexpensive ($15/year).
We have an annual meeting, which for 2026 will be taking place in Hot Springs, North Carolina, in the last week of June. Info on the meeting can be found here:https://www.dragonflysocietyamericas.org/hotsprings2026."
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We're joined by Christina Ward of Feral House publishing to talk about the intersection of food, culture, belief, control, and the weird as she tells us about two of her recent projects:
American Advertising Cookbooks and Holy Food.
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Host of Bone & Sickle, Al Ridenour joins us to talk about the traditions of European Carnival season. It's the subject of his latest book, A Season of Madness.
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In part two of our two-part interview with Owen Davies, we continue the discussion of witches and witch prosecutions with thoughtful considerations of the meaning of witch and how it can be an identity or an accusation. Be sure and catch both parts of this fascinating chat.
Some related viewing/reading:
A curious case of Black Magic in Norfolk
Blake's article about the "PA Hex Hollow" murders (Skeptoid #996)
Books by Owen*:
Grimoires: A History of Magic Books
Popular Magic: Cunning-folk in English History
Magic: A Very Short Introduction
Folklore: A journey through the past and present (with Ceri Houlbrook)
The Oxford Illustrated History of Witchcraft and Magic
America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft After Salem
*We use Amazon affiliate links for books when available
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Some product links may be affiliated with Amazon revenue sharing. - Se mer
