Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast

For the second time in my life, I stay the night at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, a crime scene turned morbid historical attraction. Hear me and my girlfriend Dani October talk about our experience there, as well as at the crime scene next door, where Lizzie's great aunt drowned two of her children. It's not a B&B, though. Just a coffee house. Called Miss Lizzie's Coffee. See photos from the stay there. See photos of Miss Lizzie's Coffee next door, where the other Borden murder occurred. Check out the Dani October's site. Support this podcast and other of my oddity initiatives on my Patreon. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Buy my latest book, Cult Following: The Extreme Sects that Capture Our Imaginations and Take Over Our Lives. (buying through my bookshop store maximizes support for me and for indie bookstores). Check out my other spooky books,

In this episode, we travel to Pittsburgh to see horror movie sites connected to George Romero and Tom Savini, while waxing (and waning) nostalgic on how much has changed at both the sites and in my own life since my original 2006 visit to the place back in the first days of OTIS. See photos from my trip here. See photos from the Living Dead Museum here. Read my original OTIS piece on my first visit to the Dawn of the Dead Mall. Support this podcast and other of my oddity initiatives on my Patreon. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Buy my latest book, Cult Following: The Extreme Sects that Capture Our Imaginations and Take Over Our Lives. (buying through my bookshop store maximizes support for me and for indie bookstores). Check out my other spooky books,

I have visited probably a dozen movie monster museums across this country in my time searching out oddity. Three of these museums stand out as my favorites--one in Nevada, one in Connecticut, and one in Massachusetts. Come with me and let's be old-fashioned Monster Kids for a while. See photos from my visit to Tom Devlin's Monster Museum here. See photos from my visit to Cortlandt Hull's Witch's Dungeon here. See super-out-of-date photos of my visit to Count Orlok's Nightmare Gallery here. See photos from my visit to the Twilight Zone paintings on the carousel in Rod Serling's hometown of Binghamton, New York, here. Support this podcast and other of my oddity initiatives on my Patreon. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Preorder my next book, Cult Following: The Extreme Sects that Capture Our Imaginations and Take Over Our Lives. (buying through my bookshop store maximizes support for me and for indie bookstores). Check out my other spooky books,

My fascination with serial killers comes with a heaping load of shame, except for in one instance: Ed Gein. That's because without Gein, we might not have Norman Bates. Or Leatherface. Or Buffalo Bill. Or the Firefly family. So my shame load was only a mild one as I visited sites related to him in his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin. With my wife and two kids. See photos from our visit to Plainfield here. Hardware Store Address: 110 S. Main St., Plainfield, WI. Plainfield Cemetery Address: 6590 5th Ave, Plainfield, WI. Property Address: Archer Avenue and Second Avenue. Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon. I also write spooky books, including my latest The Smashed Man of Dread End.

In this special on-location episode, I head to North and South Dakota to see a couple of gigantic cryptid statues. In Bismarck, North Dakota, a quartet of Thunderbirds glower above a lightning storm on the banks of the Missouri. Then I drive five hours southwest through snow and rain and flocks of pheasants to Keystone, South Dakota, to see the world's largest Bigfoot statue, right in the shadow of Mount Rushmore. Come with me. See images of the world's largest wooden Bigfoot statue. See images of the Thunderbird statue of Bismarck. Bigfoot statue address: 121 Roy Street Highway 16A, Keystone, SD. Thunderbird statue address: 1605 River Rd, Bismarck, ND Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon. I also write spooky books.

We visit High Rock Tower Park, where nineteenth century spiritualist John Murray Spear built his New Motive Power, aka, the God Machine, aka, the Infant Motor, aka, the Mechanical Messiah, all based on plans that the ghosts of Benjamin Franklin and Socrates gave him. Then the story gets weird. Photos from my visit to High Rock Tower Park Address of High Rock Tower Park: 30 Circuit Ave, Lynn, MA. A book about John Murray Spear. My Cursed Objects book is out now! Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon. I also write other spooky books.

We head to Cape Cod in Massachusetts to find neighboring, but very different oddities: A nineteenth century tower in a forest that is haunted by a famous opera singer who fights the local witch and an abandoned air force base with connections to a UFO abduction. Yeah, this one has it all. Even pirates. Photos from my visit to the Jenny Lind Tower. Photos from my visit to the abandoned North Truro Air Force Station. Address of North Truro Air Force Station: Old Dewline Road, Truro, MA. GPS coordinates of the Jenny Lind Tower: 42.034664, -70.055276. My Cursed Objects book is out now! Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon. I also write other spooky books.

For this episode, we're going on location to an abandoned Bible theme park (and murder scene) looming over the town of Waterbury, Connecticut. It's oddities like these that this site and that podcast and, well, I (me?) are made for. Photos from my visit to Holy Land USA. Address of Holy Land USA: 60 Slocum Street, Waterbury CT. Website for Holy Land USA. My Cursed Objects book is out now! Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon. I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

I take you back to where my love for cemeteries first started...Highgate Cemetery in London. I met her in 1999, returned to her in 2017. We go to both West and East Cemeteries, finding the graves of Douglas Adams and Karl Marx and the guy who wrote The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, to the parts that inspired Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book and The Abominable Dr. Phibes with Vincent Price, into crypts and through plots of stones invisible under creepers. I hope you fall in love with it, too. Highgate Cemetery website. My photos of the west section of Highgate Cemetery. My photos of the east section of Highgate Cemetery. My Cursed Objects book is up for preorder. Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon. I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

Torture museums: Are they ghastly tourist traps with acute deficiencies of taste or family-friendly opportunities for history lessons? I have no clue! But I've been to two of them, one in Wisconsin and one in Florida, and they couldn't have been more different experiences from each other. Let's visit them together now, and learn the shameful secret of all medieval torture museums. With bonus serial killer severed head and alien implant asides. Photos from the Museum of Historic Torture Devices in the Wisconsin Dells. Address for the Museum of Historic Torture Devices: 305 Broadway, Wisconsin Dells, WI Photos from the Medieval Torture Museum in St. Augustine, Florida Address for the Medieval Torture Museum: 100 St George St, St. Augustine, FL My visit to the severed head of the Dusseldorf Vampire. My Cursed Objects book is up for preorder. Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon. I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

We're headed to Staten Island. to a chicken wing joint. That has a 13-foot-long artificial great white shark hanging from its ceiling whose name is JAWS. But not thee one from the movie, the one from the ride. This one's a weird one, so strap on your life jacket, grab a harpoon gun, and make sure your boat is of adequate size. Photos from my visit. Address for 494 Chicken: 3785 Victory Blvd, Staten Island, New York. Universal Studios Hollywood tram tour video. Universal Studios Orlando original JAWS ride video. Universal Studios Orlando revamped JAWS ride video. Photos of JAWS decaying in a yard in Maryland. The history of JAWS the ride. Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon. I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

For almost the entire 12 years of OTIS, there have actually been two I's in that acronym, my own and my wife's. Lindsey's never told her half of the OTIS story, though, until now. In this first part of the interview, we cover how the whole thing started (which was around the time we met each other), what our first oddities we visited together were, what oddities she is completely uncomfortable visiting, the types of oddities she loves to see, and her take on our night at Lizzie Borden's. Also debuting today, a minisode pulled from the interview where we somehow end up arguing Halloween vs. Christmas. That minisode is going on the OTIS Club Patreon and will be open to all member levels, which means you can hear it for as little as $1. Odd Things My Wife's Seen (including photos of her). The OTIS Club Patreon, where you can get the bonus minisode. The time we stayed together at the Lizzie Borden House. The time we visited Ed Gein sites. Want to learn about the oddities we visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon. I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.

We recently trekked to the Springfield area of Massachusetts to see some seriously weird, creepy, and fascinating oddity, and recording the whole outing. That's the "Special On-Location" part. I'd tell you more, but it's kind of all in the title. Photos of this road trip on OTIS. A deeper dive into Witch Path. GPS Coordinates for Monk Cave: 42.506533, -72.409833 Address of South Cemetery (Grave of Martha Dwight, the Vampire): 143 Mill Valley Rd., Belchertown, MA Address of Fairview Cemetery (Grave of Edward Bellamy): 687 Front St, Chicopee, MA Witch Path address: Witch Path, Springfield, MA Want to learn about the oddities I visit in real time? Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Patreon. I also write other books that you can buy. Spooky books.