Haunted American History

The Peyton Randolph House stands at the heart of Colonial Williamsburg, once home to the first president of the Continental Congress and generations of one of Virginia's most powerful families. Today, it's also called one of Williamsburg's most haunted buildings. Visitors report children running through empty rooms, apparitions beside beds, and unexplained activity in the basement—including a security guard who claimed something physically grabbed his legs in the dark. But beneath those stories is a history far more unsettling than the legends: epidemic disease, slavery, attempted escapes, and people who disappear from the historical record after fighting for their freedom. Tonight, we explore the Peyton Randolph House—and what happens when centuries of genuine human suffering become tangled with the stories we tell about ghosts. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For decades, the Ancient Ram Inn has been called one of the most haunted buildings in England—a medieval labyrinth supposedly plagued by demons, witches, phantom soldiers, and violent unseen forces. Its longtime owner, John Humphries, claimed something dragged him from bed on his very first night inside. Years later, investigators digging beneath that same room uncovered the bones of a woman and child. But the deeper you dig into the Ram's history, the stranger the story becomes—not because its most famous legends are true, but because many of them aren't. Tonight, we separate five centuries of genuine history from witch-burning myths, pagan sacrifices, sleep paralysis, protective magic, and the very real human remains beneath the floor of the Ancient Ram Inn. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For generations of Vermonters, the Dog Team Tavern was the kind of restaurant people remembered for the rest of their lives: enormous prime rib, a spinning “relish wheel,” rationed sticky buns, and a history that began with an Arctic medical mission. Then, early on September 1, 2006, the restaurant burned to the ground. Owner Christopher Hesslink's pickup was found behind the building with his two dogs safely inside. Hesslink himself was later discovered dead in the ruins beside a shotgun. His death was ruled a suicide—but investigators classified the fire as suspicious, and its cause was never publicly reconciled with that ruling. Tonight, we explore the strange history, devastating final night, unanswered questions, and eventual ghost stories of Vermont's Dog Team Tavern. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On March 20, 2004, a Vermont State Police trooper found a car backed into the side of an abandoned farmhouse along Route 118. The doors were closed. The keys were missing. Loose change, a broken necklace, and an unsmoked cigarette lay outside. Inside were two uncashed paychecks belonging to seventeen-year-old Brianna Maitland. The scene was initially treated as a drunk-driving accident, and the car was towed before anyone realized Brianna was missing. More than twenty years later, she still hasn't been found. Tonight, we examine Brianna's final day, the investigation that lost precious time before it even began, the theories and evidence accumulated since, and an open Vermont case police still believe can be solved. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On an August evening in 1968, two employees at a Vermont summer camp watched a strange light descend over Lake Champlain. Sixteen-year-old “Michael” and nineteen-year-old “Janet” claimed they saw smaller objects emerge from a glowing craft, one of them hovering close enough to reveal two child-sized figures inside. Then came a beam of light—and a blank space in their memories. Ten years later, recurring nightmares drove Michael to UFO investigator Walter Webb, who tracked Janet down and began an investigation that would consume five years. Under separate hypnosis, both witnesses described something far stranger than what they consciously remembered. Tonight, we examine the Buff Ledge encounter, one of Vermont's strangest UFO cases—and the controversial technique responsible for its most extraordinary claims. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1823, Mercie Dale lay dying in a Vermont farmhouse convinced that her son-in-law had been poisoning her. Before she died, she supposedly left the Hayden family with a curse: their name would end within three generations, and the last Hayden would die in poverty. For decades, that prediction seemed ridiculous. Mercie's grandson built a railroad fortune and erected one of the grandest mansions in Vermont, complete with an enormous ballroom and a spring-loaded dance floor. Then the children began dying. The money disappeared. The mansion was abandoned. And eventually, the final Hayden died penniless and obscure. Tonight, we explore the curse of the Hayden family, the haunted mansion it left behind, and whether supernatural vengeance—or ordinary human pride—really destroyed one of Vermont's wealthiest families. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

High above Bennington, Vermont, sits a stone mansion that has been a millionaire's private castle, a Catholic seminary, a college, and even a COVID vaccination site. But through every incarnation, stories have followed it. Students at Southern Vermont College reported phantom piano music, unexplained voices, a Woman in White, and a hooded figure wandering the grounds. One security guard supposedly found a 200-pound desk pushed against the inside of a locked, empty room. Tonight, we explore the Everett Mansion—and how more than a century of changing occupants transformed one eccentric Gilded Age estate into one of Vermont's most enduring haunted houses. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For generations of students at Bennington College, Jennings Hall has been the building you don't want to be inside after midnight. Phantom piano music drifts from locked practice rooms. Footsteps pace empty corridors. Doors slam without wind. And one story claims a terrified professor once fled into the Vermont snow as violent knocking traveled through the mansion toward him. But Jennings has another claim to fame: that the imposing granite estate inspired Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House . It's a perfect story. It's also almost certainly wrong. Tonight, we explore the genuine hauntings of Jennings Hall, the strange musical history embedded in its walls, and the surprising collection of psychic researchers, Manhattan architecture, California mansions, and family history that actually helped Shirley Jackson build Hill House. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Between 1979 and 1980, three young women connected to the same troubled corner of Fall River, Massachusetts were murdered. Doreen Levesque was found beneath high-school bleachers. Barbara Raposa was discovered frozen in the woods. Karen Marsden vanished shortly after telling police she believed she was going to be killed. Then investigators began hearing about Satan worship, secret rituals, blood ceremonies, and a supposed cult operating inside the city's drug and sex trade. The resulting trial sent Carl Drew to prison for life—but the prosecution's central witness later recanted, other witnesses followed, and questions surrounding the convictions never disappeared. Tonight, we examine the Fall River murders, the alleged Satanic cult that made national headlines, and a case where deciding what was real may be harder now than it was forty-five years ago. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In September 1972, a dog emerged from the woods of Springfield, New Jersey carrying a decomposed human arm. The remains belonged to sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma, who had disappeared 43 days earlier. Almost immediately, her death became something else. Newspapers reported a coffin made from branches, wooden crosses, a pentagram, mutilated animals, and whispers that Jeannette had been sacrificed by a Satanic cult. For nearly fifty years, those stories became inseparable from her name. But when the original case photographs were finally released, the alleged ritual scene disappeared. Tonight, we examine the unsolved death of Jeannette DePalma, the predators hunting Northern New Jersey's highways in the 1970s, and how an ordinary pair of fallen branches helped transform the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl into one of America's earliest Satanic Panic legends. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On September 1, 2015, seventeen-year-old Macin Smith apparently left his home in St. George, Utah, to catch the school bus. He never arrived. His wallet, cash, identification, passport, backpack, phone, and laptop were all left behind. More than a decade later, his online accounts remain untouched, extensive searches of the surrounding desert have found nothing, and investigators have never established what happened after the garage door opened that morning. A hidden handwritten note pointed toward one possibility. Unconfirmed sightings hundreds of miles away suggested another. And search warrants reveal that detectives eventually examined whether Macin ever left home at all. Tonight, we examine the disappearance of Macin Smith... a case with three major theories, and evidence that refuses to fit neatly inside any of them. St. George Police Department can be reached at 435-627-4300. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children takes tips at 1-800-THE-LOST. ( 1-800-843-5678) YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In Tooele, Utah, there's a haunted attraction that never had to pretend it was an abandoned hospital...because it actually was one. Asylum 49 occupies the former Tooele Valley Hospital, built on land that had previously served as the county poor farm. For years, its full-contact haunted house operated on one side of a wall while elderly residents lived in an active care facility on the other. But employees soon began reporting things no actor was responsible for: slamming doors, shadow figures, children in empty hospital rooms, and a little girl in a white nightgown who supposedly frightened the people hired to frighten everyone else. Tonight, we explore the history and legends of Asylum 49—and the bizarre complications that arise when a commercial haunted house claims its most convincing performers aren't actually on the payroll. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

At three in the morning on April Fools’ Day, 1893, the alarm bells at Utah’s Granite Paper Mill began ringing. The people living nearby heard them, checked the date—and went back to sleep. By sunrise, the mill’s wooden interior and machinery were gone, leaving behind a roofless fortress of granite that somehow refused to disappear. Over the next 130 years, the ruin became a Jazz Age ballroom, a counterculture rock club, a Halloween attraction, a Hollywood filming location, and eventually one of Utah’s most notorious haunted landmarks. But many of its ghosts have histories almost as strange as the building itself—because they appear to have been assembled from real events, theatrical props, canyon acoustics, and decades of collective memory. Tonight, we explore the Cottonwood Paper Mill, a building that survived fire, abandonment, and folklore... and may now be facing the one thing it can't survive: demolition. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For decades, employees and visitors at Salt Lake City’s Rio Grande Depot told stories about the Purple Lady —a young woman supposedly killed by a train after a disastrous reunion with her returning fiancé. People claimed to see her reflection in the women’s restroom, hear her singing after hours, and feel her presence moving through the building’s basement corridors. But when Utah historians finally dug into the story, they found something unexpected: there was no dead woman, no train accident, no newspaper coverage, and no Purple Lady before the state moved into the building in the 1980s. Tonight, we explore one of Utah’s most famous hauntings, the century-old building noises that may explain some of its ghostly reputation, and the remarkable possibility that an entirely invented ghost story became real enough for people to start experiencing it. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On the shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake sits a concert venue with a strange problem: it seems to have inherited more than a century of history that didn't actually happen there. The original Saltair burned. Its replacement burned, burned again, and was eventually destroyed by arson. The third Saltair was built a mile away—then the lake rose and flooded it. Today, employees report phantom footsteps, children laughing in empty rooms, a woman staring across the salt flats, and a uniformed man watching from an upper railing. But Saltair's strangest story belongs to a twenty-year-old woman whose remains were discovered nearby in 2000. For twelve years she was known only as Saltair Sally , until investigators realized that her extraordinarily long hair had been quietly recording where she'd lived. Tonight, we explore the monsters, ghosts, fires and strange history of the Great Salt Lake... and how science finally gave Saltair Sally her real name: Nikole Kristina Bakoles. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For centuries, people living along South Africa's Orange River warned of something enormous beneath the water: a serpent capable of taking livestock, controlling floods, and guarding unimaginable riches in the deep places of the desert. Prospectors called it the Grootslang—the Great Snake. One terrified explorer claimed he watched it rise twelve feet from the river. Another supposedly disappeared while searching for its diamonds. And in 1910, British prospector Fred Cornell became concerned enough to throw dynamite into one of its alleged lairs. But the strangest thing about the Grootslang isn't whether the monster ever existed. It's that the elephant-headed creature you'll find everywhere online today apparently never existed in the original legend at all. Tonight, we follow the Great Snake from ancient water spirit to diamond guardian—and discover how the internet accidentally created an entirely different monster. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 departed Kuala Lumpur carrying 239 people and disappeared. But the aircraft didn't simply vanish. Military radar showed it reversing course and crossing Malaysia. A forgotten satellite terminal continued quietly answering automated signals for hours. Investigators eventually determined the Boeing 777 had flown deep into the Southern Indian Ocean until its fuel was exhausted. More than a decade later, pieces of the aircraft have washed ashore thousands of miles away, but the main wreckage, black boxes, and definitive explanation remain missing. Tonight, we reconstruct the final seven hours of MH370—and examine how a quarter-million-pound airliner managed to slip through the seams of the modern world. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On January 13, 1996, nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was riding her pink bicycle through an abandoned grocery-store parking lot in Arlington, Texas, when a black pickup pulled in. A witness watched a man grab her, force her into the truck, and drive away. Four days later, Amber was found murdered. Investigators would eventually learn something even more devastating: she may have remained alive for as long as two days after she was abducted. At the time, police had no way to instantly warn every driver, television viewer, and radio listener in North Texas what vehicle to look for. Ten days after Amber vanished, one woman called a radio station with a simple question: why not use the emergency broadcast system for missing children? Tonight, we tell the story of Amber Hagerman, the unsolved murder that still haunts Arlington, and how one black pickup truck changed the way the world searches for abducted children. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1897, a mysterious silver airship allegedly limped across the sky above Aurora, Texas, smashed into a judge's windmill, and exploded. Townspeople searching the wreckage claimed they found something even stranger: the burned body of a pilot they believed wasn't human. They gave the stranger a Christian funeral and buried him in the local cemetery. Decades later, UFO investigators came looking for the body—and found metal beneath the grave, a missing headstone, a sealed well allegedly contaminated by wreckage, and a town willing to guard its cemetery with shotguns. Tonight, we investigate the Aurora UFO crash, the strange physical evidence left behind, and the practical joker who may have invented the entire thing to save a dying Texas town. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In September 1900, ten nuns and ninety-three children were trapped inside an orphanage on the exposed western edge of Galveston Island as a Category 4 hurricane swallowed the city. With one dormitory already gone and the Gulf rising through the remaining building, the Sisters made a decision. They cut down the clotheslines, tied groups of children to themselves, and waited for the water. When the orphanage collapsed, ninety children and all ten Sisters died. Days later, recovery crews found them scattered along the coast—still tied together. The knots had held. Tonight, we tell the story of St. Mary's Orphan Asylum, the three boys who somehow survived, and a decision made in the final minutes before the deadliest natural disaster in American history destroyed almost everything around them. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.