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Astonishing Legends

Astonishing Legends

By: Astonishing Legends Productions
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The world is more mysterious than most people are comfortable imagining. We cross paths with the mystical from time to time and may not even notice it. If we do, we quickly return to our usually mundane daily existence. But what if we not only acknowledged the unknown, we investigated it and spoke with those in the know? That's what co-hosts Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess, and co-executive producer Tess Pfeifle do at Astonishing Legends. Over 100 million downloads and hundreds of thousands of listeners have discovered the thrill of exploring the mysteries of our world, showing that the unknown can be both captivating and intriguing. Welcome to Astonishing Legends!Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • S2 Ep36: The Mimic

    S2 Ep36: The Mimic
    Sep 22 2026
    In tonight's dead letter, our listener Ed and his wife are newlyweds, sharing the apartment he's lived in for about two years in Clay Center, Nebraska. One morning in early 2020, he hits snooze on his alarm and sees a figure walking out of their bedroom, silhouetted by the living room lights he'd set on a timer, and it looks just like his wife, but it’s not.
    Relevant Prior Episodes
    Ep 26: Shadow People
    Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts
    Ep 64: Electronic Fog
    Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts
    Ep 226: Boundless Remote Viewing with Lori Williams Part 1
    Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts
    Links and Further Reading
    Ed's Floor Plan of the Apartment
    Clay Center, Nebraska, Wikipedia
    World's Largest Ball of Twine, Kansas Tourism
    Note: We call it the world's biggest ball of yarn in the episode. It's actually a ball of sisal twine. I always mess that up! (Scott)
    Doppelganger, Britannica
    Hypnagogic Hallucinations, Cleveland Clinic
    A-Yokai-A-Day: Ikiryo, Matthew Meyer
    Alexander Cannon (psychiatrist), Wikipedia
    STAR GATE [Controlled Remote Viewing], Federation of American Scientists
    Astral Projection Hypnosis by Dr. Steve G. Jones
    Journeys Out of the Body by Robert A. Monroe
    Richard Hatem's Paranormal Bookshelf
    Beyond the Bermuda Triangle by Bruce Gernon and Rob MacGregor
    We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!
    Show More Show Less
    32 mins
  • S2 Ep35: The Benevolent Warning

    S2 Ep35: The Benevolent Warning
    Sep 15 2026
    In tonight's dead letter, our listener named Mark is driving through western Michigan at two in the morning in 1978, working off a paper map and handwritten directions to a house he's never been to. He comes up a hill and into a curve on US 131, and there are four people standing in his lane. Two of them are waving him over to the right, and the other two have their arms raised above their heads in an X. Had they not been there he may have had a fatal collision, and when he went to find them shortly after, they had vanished.
    Relevant Prior Episodes
    Ep 102: Resurrection Mary Part 1
    Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts
    Ep 116: Small Town Monsters
    Astonishing Legends · Spotify · Apple Podcasts
    Links and Further Reading
    Lydia: The Ghost of Jamestown Bridge, NCpedia
    A History of the Vanishing Hitchhiker, Beardsley and Hankey, 1943
    The Bray Road Beast, Small Town Monsters
    Jim Harold's Campfire: True Ghost Stories, Books 1 through 6
    Note: We call it the National Highway Transportation Safety Association in the episode. The ‘A’ is actually for Administration.

    We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!
    Show More Show Less
    41 mins
  • S2 Ep34: The Lady in the Rocking Chair

    S2 Ep34: The Lady in the Rocking Chair
    Sep 8 2026
    In tonight's dead letter, listener Mothmaiden remembers a time when she was four years old and an only child in a neighborhood with no other kids, and she had an imaginary friend named Cindy Cora who looked exactly like Betty Rubble from The Flintstones. Then on a sunny afternoon, in her own bedroom with the light coming through the window, she saw an elderly woman with white and gray hair piled high on her head, sitting in a rocking chair, calm and gentle and completely solid. Were these things connected?
    Relevant Prior Episodes
    Abduction at Devil's Den
    Devil's Den: The Reckoning Part 1
    Chris McKinnell and the Warren Legacy
    Dan, Susan, Micah Hanks and Missing Time
    Links and Further Reading
    Two-thirds of school-age children have an imaginary companion by age 7, University of Washington
    Note: We say about one in three for the invisible-only friends. In the study, about two thirds of kids have had an imaginary companion by age seven, and about one in three have one at the time they are asked.
    The psychological significance of play with imaginary companions in early childhood, Learning & Behavior
    Childhood amnesia, Wikipedia
    Ghosts and Apparitions in Psi Research, the Society for Psychical Research's Psi Encyclopedia
    Phantasms of the Living (1886) by Gurney, Myers and Podmore, Internet Archive
    Strange Intruders by David Weatherly
    Devils Den: The Reckoning by Terry Lovelace
    Contact (1997), Wikipedia
    Note: We say David Morse was one of the doctors on ER. He played Dr. Jack Morrison on St. Elsewhere.
    Sesame Street debuts, November 10, 1969, HISTORY
    Wall Street crash of 1929, Wikipedia
    The History of Bettys in Pop Culture, Refinery29
    Natalie and Tara on YouTube

    We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!
    Show More Show Less
    47 mins
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