Freaks, Feathers, and Yellow Fever
A sideshow performer known as Koo-Koo the Bird Girl becomes one of the most unforgettable faces in Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks—yet the real Minnie Woolsey remains almost a mystery. We trace the st...
2 Sep 39min
Ten Dimes and One Very Stubborn House
What can ten dimes do? For Osceola McCarty, they represented a lifetime spent washing other people’s clothes—and a quiet act of generosity that would eventually change the lives of more than a hundred...
31 Aug 27min
Inbox Of Oddities #97
Can you feel time passing—or taste pizza using only your imagination? This week, the Freak Family opens our eyes to the wildly different ways our brains experience the world, including one listener wh...
28 Aug 24min
Black Holes, Nazis, & Fresh Baked Goods
Are We Living Inside a Black Hole? And Why You Should Never Trust a Nazi With a Plate Of Cookies. What if our entire universe is hiding inside a black hole? The James Webb Space Telescope has uncover...
26 Aug 35min
The Boys Who Refused to Become Monsters
What happens when six teenage boys are stranded on a deserted island for more than a year? Forget Lord of the Flies. The true story of the boys of Ata reveals something far more surprising—and far mor...
24 Aug 32min
Inbox Of Oddities
A listener dreams that Mothman shows up at her patio door—and refuses to let him inside because of his dust. Aerial arts may have accidentally cured another Freak’s lifelong motion sickness. And a wom...
21 Aug 22min
Buried for 246 Years—and Finally Identified
He Vanished at 14. DNA Found Him 246 Years Later—and Why So Many Towns End in “Kill” A teenage soldier vanished during one of the American Revolution’s most devastating defeats. Nearly 250 years late...
19 Aug 34min
Charlie No-Face & The Jesus Mothership
A glowing faceless figure stalks the lonely roads of western Pennsylvania—or so the legend goes. But behind the terrifying tale of Charlie No-Face was Ray Robinson, a real man whose tragic childhood a...
17 Aug 37min
