The Haunted Bunker: Paranormal Mysteries & the Unexplained

The Michigan Dogman has claw marks, a police report, grainy film footage, and decades of eyewitness accounts. It also has a birth certificate: April 1, 1987. This week Shane brings the gang a mystery about how legends get made, and a radio prank that refused to stay a joke.Steve Cook, a DJ and production man at WTCM in Traverse City, needed an April Fools bit. So he wrote "The Legend, " a spoken-word song over a cheap keyboard, credited to a singer who did not exist named Bob Farley. Morning host Jack O'Malley slipped it into rotation with no setup and no warning. Within an hour, the phone lines lit up. Listeners were not calling to laugh. They were calling to report their own encounters, including one man who swore he had seen the creature back in 1937 while fishing the Muskegon River and had never told a soul. Cook later admitted to the Detroit Free Press that he made the whole thing up from his own imagination. It did not matter. "The Legend" became the station's most requested song within a month, and Cook eventually cataloged more than one hundred reports, selling the song on cassette and donating the money to animal shelters.The detail Shane could not shake: the song invented its own history. It placed the first sighting in 1887, exactly one hundred years before it aired, with eleven lumberjacks at a Wexford County logging camp, and it set a pattern of sightings in years ending in seven. Yet no newspaper, diary, or logging camp record from before 1987 describing a Michigan dog man has ever surfaced. Not from believers, not from skeptics, not from anyone.The gang investigates what grew around the prank: Robert Fortney's black dog with blue eyes near Paris, Michigan, a story whose date drifts between 1937 and 1938 depending on the telling; the July 1987 cabin near Luther, Michigan, clawed up badly enough that DNR officers and the county sheriff investigated and Paul Harvey carried the story nationally; and the infamous Gable Film, the shaky footage that anchored MonsterQuest's series finale until a man named Mike confessed on camera, ghillie suit, coat-hanger ears, and all.So, case closed? Not quite. Josh wants to know what separates a dogman from a werewolf, and Shane plays devil's advocate: maybe a Dogman really is out there, and the timing is one strange coincidence. Black dog legends reach back through Scottish and Irish lore, and truckers still trade their own versions. Why does this one keep finding believers?Also in the bunker: a snack box from Thailand turns chaotic the moment the gang meets durian, a fruit so foul that some hotels in Thailand ban it outright. Zoinks. Kim tastes it anyway, and the bunker may never smell the same.What you'll hear in this episode:How a 1987 WTCM radio prank invented the Michigan DogmanThe Luther cabin attack that made the papers and a police reportThe Gable Film hoax and the on-camera confession that ended itA durian wafer taste test that nearly cleared the bunkerAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jinkies! When an 84-year-old woman vanishes from the same home she's lived in for half a century, and the only witness is a doorbell camera that someone deliberately disconnected -- the gang knows something deeply wrong has happened.In this special combined episode, Shane brings the mystery of Nancy Guthrie's disappearance to Josh and Kim for a full deep-dive investigation and unmasking. On the night of January 31, 2026, Nancy was dropped off at her Catalina Foothills home outside Tucson, Arizona, by her son-in-law after a family dinner. By 1:47 AM, her Google Nest doorbell camera had been disconnected. By 2:28 AM, her pacemaker monitoring app lost its connection to her phone. By morning, she was gone.Nancy Guthrie is the mother of NBC Today Show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, a beloved community figure who spent 17 years at the University of Arizona creating programs that brought music to hospital patients and introduced high school students to medicine. She raised three remarkable children largely on her own after her husband Charles, a mining engineer, died of a heart attack in Mexico in 1988. At 84, Nancy lives alone with limited mobility, chronic pain, a pacemaker, and daily medication described as potentially fatal if missed.Surveillance footage -- recovered by the FBI from Google's backend systems despite Nancy having no cloud subscription -- shows a masked figure on her front porch wearing doubled vinyl gloves sealed at the wrists, a ski mask, and a holstered handgun, carrying a flashlight in his mouth and an Ozark Trail Hiker Pack on his back. Blood confirmed as Nancy's DNA was found on the front porch in droplet patterns consistent with bleeding from the nose, mouth, or face. The trail leads into one of the most watched missing persons cases in the country, with a $100,000 FBI reward, a $6 million Bitcoin ransom demand of unconfirmed authenticity, a California man arrested for sending a separate hoax ransom text, and a public dispute between the Pima County Sheriff and the FBI over evidence handling.Like, what if the very technology meant to protect us -- doorbell cameras, pacemaker monitors, smart home systems -- becomes the roadmap of a crime instead?What You'll Hear- The minute-by-minute timeline of Nancy Guthrie's abduction, from 9:50 PM drop-off to discovery the next morning- How the FBI retrieved doorbell camera footage from Google's backend systems when no cloud subscription existed -- and what that means for everyone's privacy- Blood spatter analysis of the porch evidence and what forensic experts say the droplet patterns reveal- The $6 million Bitcoin ransom demand, the hoax arrest of Derrick Callella, and how investigators tell real ransom notes from fakes- The growing tension between the Pima County Sheriff and the FBI over DNA evidence and a glove sent to a private lab in Florida- A discussion of how AI, surveillance technology, and cryptocurrency tracing are changing modern investigationsJoin the InvestigationIf you have any information about the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit tips online at tips.fbi.gov. The FBI is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to Nancy's recovery or the arrest and conviction of those responsible.Want to keep investigating with the gang? Join us on social media and share your theories. Every episode, every mystery -- we're in this together.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up, gang? This week, Josh takes the wheel for one of the most heartbreaking mysteries in Hollywood history—the tragic story of Judith Barsi.You probably know her voice even if you don't recognize her name. At just ten years old, Judith had already appeared in over 70 commercials and landed iconic voice roles that still resonate with audiences today. She was the voice behind Ducky in The Land Before Time and Anne-Marie in All Dogs Go to Heaven—characters whose optimistic catchphrases like "Yep! Yep! Yep!" masked a devastating reality happening off-screen.Josh dives deep into what made Judith so special in the industry, why directors fought to cast her despite her small stature, and the warning signs that everyone seemed to miss. The gang also discusses similar cases of young stars whose bright lights were extinguished too soon, including Jonathan Brandis and Aaron Carter.But it's not all heavy stuff—Shane and Josh also catch up on winter weather survival stories (including that infamous rice cake incident from their youth), family updates about a new baby girl, and their thoughts on period dramas getting historical details hilariously wrong.Join us as we remember a voice that touched millions, and explore why Hollywood's youngest stars often face its darkest shadows.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Jinkies—since 2007, at least twenty-one human feet have washed ashore along the coastlines of British Columbia and Washington State. All of them still wearing athletic shoes. No bodies. No explanations. Just feet.In this episode, Shane, Josh, and Kim investigate one of the strangest forensic mysteries of the 21st century. The gang traces the trail from that first disturbing discovery on Jedediah Island—when a twelve-year-old girl found a Size 12 Adidas sneaker that was far too heavy—through seventeen years of shocking discoveries that had the world convinced a serial killer was stalking the Pacific Northwest.The theories ran wild. A drug cartel dumping bodies. A government cover-up. "The Sneaker Killer" targeting victims by their footwear. The 2004 Asian tsunami somehow depositing remains twelve thousand miles away. Someone even planted a hoax—an animal paw stuffed into a sneaker—desperate to feed the frenzy.But the truth? It might be even more unsettling than fiction.Forensic science eventually provided an explanation that nobody expected. Modern athletic shoes—with their lightweight EVA foam and air pockets—float. When bodies decompose in cold water, the ankle joint naturally separates within days to weeks. Before the 1970s, leather shoes would have kept these feet on the ocean floor forever. But Nike Air technology turned human feet into messages from the dead, carried by currents that all flow toward shore.The BC Coroners Service has been categorical: no evidence of foul play in any of the discoveries. No tool marks. No cutting. Every identified victim matches a documented suicide, drowning accident, or natural death.And yet... not every case fits neatly into that explanation. Antonio Neill was twenty-two when he disappeared from Everett, Washington in December 2016. His boot—with his foot still inside—washed up on Jetty Island two years later. His mother recognized it immediately. The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office still has his case open. Still classified as suspicious.Of those twenty-one feet, approximately six remain unidentified. Six families who don't know what happened to their loved ones. Six names attached to cold cases that may never be closed.Some mysteries have explanations. Others have closure. This one offers something rarer—a reminder that the ocean keeps its secrets, but sometimes gives something back.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Alright gang, buckle up—because this case gets weird.In January 1897, a young bride named Zona Heaster Shue was found dead in her rural West Virginia home. The local doctor took one look and said "heart trouble." Her husband Erasmus—who went by "Trout," which should've been everyone's first red flag—played the grieving widower perfectly. Case closed, right?Not so fast.Zona's mother, Mary Jane Heaster, wasn't buying it. Something about her new son-in-law just didn't sit right. So she did what any determined mother would do: she prayed for answers. For four straight weeks. And then, according to her actual sworn testimony in an actual courtroom, her daughter's ghost showed up. Four nights in a row. With receipts.The spirit allegedly revealed that Trout had flown into a rage because dinner didn't include meat—and snapped her neck over it.Now here's where it gets really interesting. Mary Jane took these ghostly details to prosecutor John Alfred Preston, and somehow convinced him to dig deeper. Literally. When they exhumed Zona's body, the autopsy found exactly what the ghost described: broken neck, crushed windpipe, finger marks on the throat.Trout Shue was arrested, and what followed was one of the most bizarre trials in American legal history—the only known murder case where spectral testimony helped secure a conviction.Jinkies.Sources & Further Reading:West Virginia Encyclopedia - Greenbrier GhostGreenbrier County Tourism - The Greenbrier GhostHistorical Marker Database - Greenbrier GhostAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy