The Box of Oddities

Inbox of Oddities: Ghostly Voices, Time Travel & Homesick Nipples

The Freak Family has spoken, and once again, we're questioning whether any of you should be allowed out in public unsupervised.

In this episode of Inbox of Oddities, Kat and Jethro dig into another gloriously strange collection of listener emails, bizarre personal experiences, paranormal encounters, and unsolicited corrections.

First, a chilling Halloween ghost story takes us to Kentucky's historic Mayo Mansion, where a late-night ghost hunt produces a mysterious humming voice caught on an audio recording. Was someone—or something—trying to communicate from the other side?

Then, a listener proposes a fascinating twist on time travel: What if we could observe the past without actually traveling there? Naturally, this raises more questions than answers.

Elsewhere in the inbox, we hear firsthand tales of the famous Emma Crawford Coffin Races in Manitou Springs, Colorado, explore the emotional consequences of being mistaken for someone else's mother, and discover why one listener believes Jethro owes a preschooler a formal apology.

Plus, Australian listeners correct our pronunciation, a mysterious connection to Gremlins resurfaces, we revisit flesh-eating turtles, and someone finally finds a community that understands the deeply unsettling phenomenon of homesick nipples.

Yes. Homesick nipples.

And with our 9th Annual Halloween Special approaching, we're looking for your creepiest true stories, unexplained experiences, and paranormal encounters. Record your story on your phone and send it to curator@theboxofoddities.com for a chance to be featured!

It's listener mail at its weirdest, funniest, and occasionally most disturbing.

Keep flying that freak flag!
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You’ve seen the Hindenburg footage. You’ve heard the famous radio broadcast. But what was it actually like to be inside the Hindenburg when it caught fire?

Kat and Jethro revisit one of history’s most recognizable disasters through the eyewitness accounts of the people who survived it. Passengers were thrown across rooms as the airship tilted, an acrobat hung from the outside waiting for the right moment to drop, a mother threw her children from a window, and a teenage cabin boy survived thanks to an extraordinary accident involving a ruptured water tank. Of the 97 passengers and crew aboard, remarkably, 62 survived. Their stories reveal a side of the Hindenburg disaster that the famous newsreel footage could never capture.

Then, Kat heads to the Great Lakes, where some Michigan sand dunes aren’t content to simply sit there looking picturesque. They move. Slowly. Relentlessly. And occasionally straight through somebody’s house.

Near Silver Lake, homeowners have battled migrating dunes that can advance several feet a year, burying cottages, orchards, and anything else unfortunate enough to be in their path. And beneath the dunes near Lake Michigan lies the remains of Singapore, Michigan—a once-thriving 19th-century settlement gradually swallowed by sand.

Two stories about being in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time: surviving the Hindenburg from the inside, and the very patient sand dunes that will eventually have your house.

Welcome to The Box of Oddities.
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A body emerges from a California glacier more than sixty years after a World War II training plane vanished in the Sierra Nevada. He’s still wearing his military uniform, carrying coins, a fountain pen, and an address book—but who is he, and what happened to the other men aboard the missing aircraft?

Then, we head to Colorado for the strange story of Emma Crawford, a young woman whose dying wish was to be buried high atop Red Mountain. Unfortunately, death was only the beginning of Emma’s travels. Her grave was moved, her coffin was swept down a mountainside, her remains spent years in a basement—and today, thousands of people gather every year to race coffins through the streets in her honor.

In this episode of The Box of Oddities: the frozen mystery of WWII airman Leo Mustonen and the wonderfully bizarre history behind the Emma Crawford Coffin Races of Manitou Springs.

Strange history, unsolved mysteries, frozen remains, bizarre burials, and one of America’s most unusual festivals. Just another day inside The Box of Oddities.
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It’s time for another Freak Family Favorite, pulled from deep inside The Box of Oddities archives!

First, Kat explores the surprisingly widespread history of dwarf mythology and reverence. From ancient Egypt, where people of short stature could hold prestigious positions and dwarf deities were associated with protection, childbirth, and regeneration, to Norse mythology and legends of mysterious underground craftsmen, the connection between dwarves, gods, magic, and folklore stretches across cultures and centuries.

Then, Jethro revisits the deeply troubling disappearance of five-year-old Stephen McKernan. In 1988, Stephen vanished from a crowded Scottish holiday park after being out of his family’s sight for only seconds. Sixteen days later, his body was discovered six miles away—just beyond the area police had searched. Authorities concluded that Stephen wandered there on his own and died from exposure.

But eyewitness reports, the brutal terrain, a six-foot fence, and one particularly strange detail involving Stephen’s shoes and socks raise questions that have never entirely gone away.

Ancient gods, mysterious dwarves, a baffling disappearance, and a case officially considered solved that somehow still doesn’t feel solved.

It’s another Freak Family Favorite from The Box of Oddities.

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A letter disappears in one of the deadliest tornadoes in American history—then turns up 130 miles away.

In 1925, the catastrophic Tri-State Tornado destroyed the Indiana home of Will Jones. Among the possessions swept away was a letter written decades earlier by his late wife. About a week later, a farmer found that same piece of paper lying in a field more than a hundred miles away—and somehow, against absurd odds, it found its way back to the man who treasured it.

Then, Kat takes us inside Bayernhof, the spectacularly eccentric Pittsburgh mansion built by millionaire Charles B. Brown III. The 19,000-square-foot home is packed with secret passages, an indoor waterfall, a concrete cave, and more than 140 antique automatic musical instruments. But after Brown’s death, his family discovered the house had been designed with a surprising purpose all along.

Plus: strange superstitions involving deadly chewing gum, cursed opals, lethal electric fans, red ink, and the potentially catastrophic consequences of trimming your fingernails after dark.

The Box of Oddities: strange history, bizarre true stories, unexplained events, unusual people, and the wonderfully weird corners of the world.

And don’t forget: our ninth annual Halloween special is coming. If you have a paranormal experience of your own, record it and send it to curator@theboxofoddities.com for a chance to be included.
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