I Think Therefore AI Part 2

In September of 2000, history professor Dr. William "Bill" Watson of Immaculata University stopped by the campus for a break with friend and fellow bagpipe musician Tom Connor during a long drive back from a performance.  While there, around 10:00 p.m. near the typically deserted faculty center lawn, both men witnessed a strange apparition that would later lead to a remarkable and meaningful coincidence.  Two years after this experience, Bill's twin brother, Reverend Dr. Frank Watson, by chance, came across a file once kept by their grandfather Joseph Tripician, a former secretary to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1970s.  One official record in this file documented a tragedy connected to a ghost story their grandfather told annually at Thanksgiving dinner.  The report outlined a mass death of workers on an arduous stretch of the then Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad in the summer and fall of 1832.  Contractor Phillip Duffy had hired 57 Irish immigrants to lay the tracks for roughly a mile through thickset trees and over a deep ravine about 20 miles west of Philadelphia.  39 newly arrived immigrants, one of them a woman, and 18 others already working there would all be dead within ninety days of their hire.  Irish Catholic immigrants were often viewed with prejudice as unseemly and unwelcome intruders by established society and expendable workers by the railroad and mining companies profiting from their cheap and desperate labor.  When the second global cholera pandemic reached this work camp, the record suggested that all 57 had succumbed to the deadly disease.  Compelled by the discovery of this document, in August 2004, Bill and Frank Watson, along with two university associates, led an archaeological excavation to find the accurate burial site for these victims.  On March 24, 2009, it was announced that the first human remains had been found.  However, a curious twist was discovered by noted physical and forensic anthropologist Janet Monge, who analyzed the bones.  Her examination revealed that at least two of the skulls found first likely received perimortem blunt-force trauma and gunshot wounds.  This conclusion leads to the prominent theory that workers were either killed out of fear they would spread the contagion, to quell a rebellion or both.  Please join us for part one of a story that yearns to be told, the Massacre at Duffy's Cut. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

27 Nov 20221h 7min

On Friday, September 4, 1964, Donald Shrum and two friends from his job at Aerojet made camp in a remote section of wilderness near the Loch Leven Lakes in an area called Cisco Grove, roughly 60 miles northeast of Sacramento, CA. The three men had planned a relaxing weekend of bow hunting for deer, but those plans would change later that evening as Shrum experienced an exhausting and terrifying UFO close encounter of the worst kind. As night approached, Shrum got lost and separated from his hunting buddies and found himself isolated on a bluff almost a mile from camp. An experienced woodsman, Shrum decided it would be wiser to spend the night in a tree safe from predators rather than trying to find his way back over rough terrain in the dark. Seeing an unusual moving light on the horizon, Shrum built three signal fires to attract what he thought were his rescuers. The fires did seem to attract this object’s attention, but not the kind anyone wants. Beyond his wildest imagination and expectations, he would soon find himself in an all-night battle to save his life or at least his freedom. As Shrum perched in his pine tree 12 feet off the ground and quietly observed this light, he realized it was something like a headlight on a massive cigar-shaped craft. A smaller ship emerged from one of this mothership’s large rectangular ports and took a position some distance to his north. Shortly after that, Shrum could hear rustling in the brush heading his direction. What emerged were a combination of beings he described as humanoid and wearing space suits and at least a couple of what appeared to him as clunky robots who seemed to be on a mission to study the flora. Once they had noticed Shrum in the tree, however, a few of these weird beings seemed intent on abducting him for reasons he feared to ponder. Until daybreak, Shrum would fight off these intruders with everything he had at his disposal. Shooting arrows and lobbing flaming personal items at them only seemed to delay their trying to climb his tree in between assaults with a mysterious white gaseous mist that would render him temporarily unconscious. Perhaps ironically, it was employing primitive means to counter advanced technology, but whatever the unfathomable cause, it worked. Donald Shrum lived to tell his tale but only after decades of PTSD and secrecy to protect his reputation. While this story may seem unbelievable to you, the United States Air Force certainly believed it and went so far as to rake away all the evidence, literally. What remains is one of the most bizarre and disturbing testimonies in UFO lore – one man’s battle against extraterrestrials at Cisco Grove. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

13 Nov 20222h 11min

Tonight's episode concludes this series of our listeners' most terrifying true tales for Halloween.  In the final Part Three of this anthology, we're proud to present five stories we believe were some of the most horrifying we've ever heard.  The collection covers a curated compilation of creepy creatures.  You may be tempted to classify them under the categories of a goblin, doppelgänger, genie, demon, and something that defies easy classification, but what are these things that people have encountered?  Do these beings even know what they are, or does it matter?  In our human desire to measure and rationalize, ask yourself: Does your "rational" explanation account for every detail offered in these reports?  Do you want to explain away these testimonies because of your confidence in a complete understanding of the natural or unnatural world?  Or could it be your fear of the unknown?   How do we know what's possible or impossible when we have such a limited and naive grasp of the true nature of our reality?  Whatever your stance, we wish to thank everyone who submitted a story for this series or has ever sent us an email detailing a personal paranormal encounter.  We've filed and cherished every one of them, and we hope to feature the ones we couldn't get to in some future offering.  And a message to all who have generously and bravely shared with us: while your experience may be uncommon and unsettling, just know that you're not alone. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

29 Okt 20222h 35min

As we continue with Part Two of our Halloween series featuring our listeners' true accounts, tonight's episode presents another three eerie tales of the supernatural.  The first story tells of a haunted college rooming house with a spirit fond of movie catchphrases.  And it may have the power to compel humans to deliver poignant messages.  Our second interview details a forceful presence with the ability to invade your dreams and physically send you to a dark portal of a waking nightmare.  Our final story is about a random encounter with... well, let's just say, one of the most terrifying entities the audience hopes they never meet.  The twist here is that whatever this thing is, it wasn't content to let you merely run away. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

24 Okt 20221h 45min

Astonishing Legends is all about fascinating and mysterious topics. And within that category, the details we cover can be unsettling or downright terrifying. But you may not realize that some of the most chilling and creepy accounts we've ever encountered have come from our listeners! We've received thousands of emails over our eight years of podcasting, and we appreciate and value every one of them. We realize that it takes no small amount of courage to send such personal anecdotes to strangers out in the world, becoming vulnerable to ridicule or scorn. So to honor that conviction and trust and show our tremendous gratitude to our audience, we're proud to present your scariest true stories in three parts. Also, because the Spooky Season is upon us, and most of us enjoy a frightening Halloween tale, what better time to hear about the weirdness of our world? So we invite you to settle in, lock your doors and windows, suspend any disbelief you might have, and enjoy these narratives as entertainment, evidence, or cautionary tales. However you choose to consume them, if the urge to publicly debunk strikes you, please respect that our storytellers insist these reports are genuine. They really did happen to someone. Remember that sometimes the most chilling thing you can see at the beginning of any work of horror fiction are the words, "Based on a true story." Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

15 Okt 20222h 27min

In Part Two of our series on the Missing 411 phenomenon, we'll first examine a study conducted to determine which National Parks are the most dangerous in the United States.  The numbers and causes may surprise you.  We then take a closer look at a few more puzzling cases and, with a critical eye, examine the data presented by David Paulides and the CanAm Project vs. what's been reported by the news media.  Discrepancies raise questions when ascertaining the objective facts and judging if the evidence is remarkable.  There are plenty of errors and omissions from all parties, but what are the causes and intentions behind them?  With hundreds, perhaps thousands of incidents, it's understandable when a news outlet rushing to report under a deadline makes mistakes, but can the same leeway be given to Paulides?  Are they honest mistakes or the handy claim that details are "cherry-picked," overlooked, or embellished to prop up a narrative and sell content?  Will later discoveries change the investigations, are we being told everything, and what are the motivations of those doing the telling or omitting?  Are blunders in the reporting, whatever the intent, proof that nothing extraordinary is going on?  As we conclude the episode with an overall skeptical analysis and finish with our personal assessments, it's clear that what is deemed either a mundane tragedy or a mysterious phenomenon is in the eye of the beholder.  As far as any alarming pattern to these cases is concerned, if strange yet commonplace coincidences do occur, how many coincidences are too many? Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

26 Sep 20223h 37min

A former police officer turned writer David Paulides was taken aside by a National Park Ranger and told about a disturbing trend he'd realized. This Ranger asserted that some people were going missing in the woods under mysterious circumstances leaving only puzzling evidence of their fate. Of course, people often go missing in the wilderness in tragic yet explainable events but what was troubling to these Rangers in the field was the apparent pattern of the occurrences and the subsequent investigation efforts. This Ranger stated that during the first seven to ten days of a disappearance, an all-out Search and Rescue effort ensued with plenty of press coverage. However, after the first week of a rescue mission, it seemed to them that the media stopped reporting, the search for the missing was called off, and no further explanation from the authorities was provided. An additionally alarming trend was that there seemed to be a reluctance or inability on behalf of the National Park Service administration to collect and provide statistics on these disappearances to the public, either through inefficiency or secrecy. If this is true, perhaps it could be from a concerted effort to diminish negative publicity and undue fear about park visitation, or maybe there is something dreadful the officials don't want the public to know. Whatever the reason, this conversation launched Paulides on a now decade-long quest for answers. Initially, after over three years and 9000 hours of investigation, utilizing his 20 years of experience with law enforcement and the resulting connections, Paulides had gathered enough information to compile two books.  Missing 411 – Western U.S. was released on March 1, 2012, documenting the stories of people who have vanished in seemingly bizarre instances in the western half of the United States. The second book, Missing 411 – Eastern U.S., was published later that month and contains special sections on unusual outdoor activities that seem related and a master list of all missing persons. Currently, ten books have been published, with more on the way, two documentaries have been produced, and Paulides' ongoing popular YouTube channel continues to highlight cases. In addition, retired police officers, Search and Rescue experts, and other professionals are dedicated to continuing researching and investigating these cases with their CanAm Missing project. One worrisome aspect they've found is that in many situations, parents, relatives, and friends of the missing believe that their loved one was kidnapped or abducted, sometimes with them nearby. No matter the causal connections or whether you think these disappearances are sad but commonplace, a conspiracy lurks or is nonexistent; the fact is that these cases are real, and the victims' stories deserve and need to be told. The question remains, however – what is really going on out in the wilds, and is it something sinister we should all be worried about? Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

11 Sep 20221h 47min

Since antiquity, espionage and deceit have always been crucial weapons of warfare.  As technology and strategy have advanced over the centuries, methods for governments to deliver information and orders to their secret agents in the field have become more sophisticated.  Yet, one form of cryptic communication implemented in the early 20th century has proven ever effective and relatively simple.  With the advent of wireless telegraphy combined with a cipher technique called a "One-time Pad," militaries have been sending coded messages to their undercover operatives abroad since World War I.  It wasn't until shortwave and HAM radio enthusiasts started noticing eerie and enigmatic broadcasts of spoken series of numbers or strange electronic sounds that these coded communiqués aroused widespread curiosity during the height of the Cold War.  Although the use of public airwaves for clandestine messaging seems to have declined in recent years, listeners can still hear these top-secret instructions delivered to unknown spies, perhaps even your neighbor.  One can only wonder how these spooky transmissions saved or cost lives or what world-changing actions they triggered.  Join us as we delve into the mysterious world of spycraft and Numbers Stations. Visit our webpage on this episode for a lot more information.

28 Aug 20222h 44min