The talking board didn’t begin in Baltimore. It began centuries earlier — in Chinese spirit-writing traditions, in medieval European divination, in the letter-grids of Elizabethan occultists. This week we trace that ancient impulse through the grief of post-Civil War America, across the Pacific to Japan’s Kokkuri-san, and into the hands of the men who bottled it, patented it, and sold it as a parlour game. We’ll get into the real stories behind the legends, the accounts that won’t stay buried, and a haunted house in Oregon where five people got an answer nobody in the room agreed to give. And somewhere in all of it — a man on a roof, and what the board told him to build.

• Smithsonian Magazine, “Patience Worth: Author From the Great Beyond”

• The Strong National Museum of Play — Ouija board collection and archival research

• Skeptical Inquirer, “Demoniac: Who Is Roland Doe?”

• Yokai.com Encyclopedia, “Kokkuri-san” (citing Inoue Enry■’s Meiji-era research)

• Zeitlin, Judith T. “Zhang Dai’s Planchette Writing.” T’oung Pao, vol. 84 (1998) Baltimore Magazine, “The Dark and Fascinating History of the Ouija Board”

• Atlas Obscura, “How the Ouija Board Got Its Name”

• Jefferson Public Radio, “As It Was: Ouija Board Chases Ghost Sleuths from ‘Haunted’ House”

• UK Intellectual Property Office Blog, “The Ouija Board: The Invention That Named Itself”

• Uncanny Japan Podcast, “Kokkuri Spirit Boards”

• The Ghost in My Machine, “Kokkuri-san: How to Play the Spirit of the Coin”

• American Hauntings, “The Mystery of Patience Worth”

• All That’s Interesting — Roland Doe coverageTier 4 — Aggregated community accounts

Used only for the real experiences segment. Presented as oral-tradition-style accounts, not verified fact.

• Reader’s Digest, reader-submitted Ouija stories

• Reddit r/Paranormal — cross-corroborated Ouija accounts

• BuzzFeed Community, reader-submitted Ouija stories

This episode contains discussion of death, grief, and alleged demonic possession, including a contested historical exorcism case. One brief, non-graphic historical mention of a suicide attempt appears in the closing segment. No method or detail is discussed. Listener discretion advised.

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For Canada Day, we’re taking a six-province ghost story road trip — from an abandoned BC sanatorium to a 275-year-old Halifax church still bearing a scar from 1917.

Content Warning: This episode discusses tuberculosis and institutional death, the historical mistreatment of Indigenous patients within Canada’s healthcare system (including forced hospitalization and non-consensual medical procedures), suicide, the death of a child, and a mass-casualty disaster (the 1917 Halifax Explosion, approximately 2,000 deaths). Nothing is depicted graphically, but listener discretion is advised.

Stay curious, stay spooky.

Sources Tier 1 — Primary & Institutional Kamloops Museum & Archives, Tranquille Sanatorium collection · Parks Canada, Fort George National Historic Site · St. Paul’s Anglican Church official history page · CBC News, “Canada’s oldest Anglicanchurch marks 275 years” · APTN News, “Former Edmonton hospital still haunts families” · Ghosts of Camsell research project & “Camsell” documentary (Edmonton Heritage Council / Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail)

CTV News, “Ghostly tales endure at War of 1812 site FortGeorge” · The Globe and Mail, MP Brenda

Chamberlain account · Atlas Obscura, “Face in the Windowat St. Paul’s Church” · Canadian History Ehx

(Craig Baird), Halifax Explosion & Charles CamsellHospital coverage · NUVO Magazine, “Who Haunts the Halls of Canada’s GrandHotels?”

Ghost Walks of Niagara-on-the-Lake · Tourism Winnipeg,“Stories of the Macabre” · Discover Halifax, haunted Halifax guide · The Wren, Tranquille history & timeline · Friends of Fort George ghost tour materials · Squarepeg Tours, Fort Garry Room 202

Assorted ghost-tour operator anecdotes and guesttestimonials cited within tourism and paranormal interest sites; used only for the “people claim to see…” texture, not as historical fact.

Regional Journalism & Established OutletsResearched Tourism & Local History SitesFolklore & Tourism-Operator Accounts (legend texture only)

Website: letstalkspooky.com | Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com | Instagram: @letstalkspookypodcast | TikTok: @letstalkspookypod

Have footage, photos, or a story of your own from any of these six locations? Send it our way — we’d love to feature it. And if this one had you in a road-trip mood, a quick rating or review helps other curious souls find the show.

On the brightest night of the year, a woman walks into a hill that everyone else avoids — and finds a feast, a fairy King and Queen, and a workbench where small hands shape weaponsmeant for the unsuspecting. It's a story she really told, in 1662, in the Scottish parish of Auldearn — one of the most detailed witch trial confessions ever recorded, given, as far as we know, without torture. This episode follows Isobel Gowdie's testimony from the Fairy Hill to her unexplained disappearance from the historical record, travels north into the bonfires, flower crowns, and pole-dances of Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Danish Midsummer tradition,makes a brief stop in Gaelic Cape Breton, and closes with the real rituals — protective herbs, threshold blessings, and a few you can still try tonight — tied to the longest day of the year.

Content note: this episode discusses historical witch trial testimony and execution. Light touch on detail — see the standalone content warning card for full wording and placement.

SOURCES (tiered)Peer-reviewed / academic

• Wilby, Emma. The Visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, Witchcraft and Dark Shamanism in Seventeenth-Century Scotland (2010) — and her related work, Cunningfolk andFamiliar Spirits.

• Hall, Alaric. “Getting Shot of Elves: Healing, Witchcraft and Fairies in the Scottish Witchcraft Trials.” Folklore 116 (2005): 19–36.

• Davidson, Thomas. “Elf-Shot Cattle.” Antiquity 30 (1956): 149–155.

• Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Database, University of Edinburgh.

• National Records of Scotland — Privy Council registers, July 1662.

• Scottish Parliament, Petition PE1855 — pardon and memorial for those convicted under theWitchcraft Act 1563.

• National Museum of Denmark — Sankt Hans Aften and bonfire tradition history.

• SmithsonianMagazine, Atlas Obscura — coverage of the Witches of Scotland campaign and the2022 formal apology.

• The Copenhagen Post, The Local Denmark — reporting on Sankt Hans Aften witch-effigy tradition and its origins.

• Spookyscotland.net,Willow Winsham's research blog, Hoydens & Firebrands — secondary folklore writing on Isobel Gowdie, cross-checked against academic sources above.

• The Old Farmer's Almanac, The Pagan Grimoire — general Midsummer/Litha customs acrossSweden, Norway, Finland; used for cultural texture, not as primary historical authority.

Website: letstalkspooky.com

Email:letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

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Got a personal paranormalencounter, a piece of local folklore, or a Midsummer tradition from your ownfamily? Send it our way — real listener submissions may be featured in a futureepisode.

Archival / institutionalRegional journalismResearched folklore resources (flagged, used forcolor/cultural detail)CONNECT

On a dark Venezuelan highway, a truck driver hears something that shouldn't be there — a whistle, seven notes, rising and falling. What he doesn't know is that the closer it sounds, the further away the danger really is. In this bonus deep-dive, we go back to a legend first touched on in Episode 4 and give El Silbón — the cursed soul of the Venezuelan plains — the full story he deserves: the murder that created him, the real man who may have inspired him, the bones he carries and counts outside your door, and theThe whistle paradox has kept two countries listening for two hundred years.Primary / Academic:

Bonilla, Valentina S. — “The History Behind El Silbón: Exploring Historical and Psychological Elements to the Urban Legend” — University of North Florida,PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas, Vol. 5. Peer-reviewed academic paper.

Pérez Montero, Carmen — “Mitos y leyendas predominantes en el Estado Portuguesa” — Regional oral history collection; source of multiple llanero eyewitness testimonies referenced in this episode.

Gebauer, Juan Fernández — Fantasmagorias documentary series on Latin American monster legends; field research conducted in the Portuguesa region, Venezuela.

Oral History & Regional Cultural Sources:

Cuenta el Abuelo — “Vivencias Llaneras del Abuelo: Testimonios sobre El Silbón” — transcribed testimony from the Pérez Montero collection, including the LorenzoGarcía family-connection account and the Eladio Antonio Moreno encounter narrative.

Venezuela Narrada — “La Leyenda del Silbón” — biographical detail on Joaquín Flores, including birth record claims, family members, and the disputed final confrontation with his father.

Mythlok — “El Silbón: The Whistling Spirit That Hunts inVenezuelan Folklore.” Wild Hunt — Alan D.D., “Column: El Silbón, a Venezuelan Legend About the Ancestors.”

A Note on Source Credibility:

This episode draws on a tiered range of sources. The cultural and historical framework — the Independence War context, the llanero way of life, the structure of the legend itself — is supported by peer-reviewed academic research. The biographical details of Joaquín Flores and the modern encounter account that opens the episode are drawn from regional oral history and cultural blogs; they cannot be verified against official archival records and are presented as oral tradition rather than confirmed historical fact. This distinction is consistent with how folklore scholarship treats such material — and, frankly, it's part of what makes the story worth telling.

CONNECT WITH LET'S TALK SPOOKYWebsite: letstalkspooky.com

Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

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Listener Favourites

We’re taking a week off to let the team rest, recharge, and get ready for more spooky stories — but we didn’t want to leave you without something eerie to listen to.

This week, we’re revisiting a few listener-favourite episodes: the ones that stayed with you long after they ended.

These episodes explore the places where folklore, history, fear, and belief begin to blur. From the true stories behind terrifying urban legends, to changelings, doppelgängers, thin places, and lost time, each episode asks the same unsettling question: what if the old stories were not just stories after all?

Episode 45: When the Legend Was Real — True Stories Behind History’s Scariest Urban Legends
Urban legends are often dismissed as campfire stories, but sometimes the truth behind them is even darker. This episode looks at the real events, fears, and historical moments that helped shape some of the scariest legends we still tell today.

Episode 48: Changelings
For centuries, families believed that something unnatural could steal a child and leave something else behind. This episode explores changeling folklore, the fear beneath the belief, and the unsettling real-world consequences of stories told to explain what people could not understand.

Episode 41: Doppelgängers: The Double Across Cultures
What would you do if you saw yourself — or if someone else saw you where you could not possibly be? This episode follows the doppelgänger across cultures, from omens and spirit doubles to stories that suggest seeing your own double may be more than just a strange coincidence.

Episode 32: Thin Places, Lost Time
Some places feel different, as though the world has worn thin and something else is pressing through. This episode explores thin places, missing time, and eerie stories where people step out of the ordinary world — and return changed, confused, or not quite sure how long they were gone.

Because sometimes, the stories that haunt us most are the ones that feel a little too real.

And don’t forget — we’re always looking for listener stories for an upcoming listener story episode. If you have a paranormal experience, local legend, strange encounter, haunted object story, or something you just can’t explain, we would love to hear from you.

Send your stories to letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com or reach out to us on social media.

Stay curious, stay spooky.

CONTENT WARNING

This episode contains discussion of the murder of three children (Camp Scott, Oklahoma, 1977), documented sexual abuse at summer camps, predatory behaviour toward minors, and the legend of Elias White, which involves the hanging of an enslaved man. Please take care if any of these topics are difficult for you.

Every sleepaway camp has a monster. Not the same monster — each one builds its own, passed down from counselor to camper, summer after summer, until no one quite remembers where the story started. Only that it’s true. Only that it happened here.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Spooky, we’re going to camp — all of them at once. We’re meeting the monsters that haunt the American sleepaway camp tradition: Hatchet Annie, the wronged camper who came back with an axe. The Banana Man, the predatory counselor who never quite left. The Man from the Farm, the ordinary man from next door who walked into the woods one night and decided to stay. Elias White, the enslaved man whose hanging made an entire forest forbidden. And the cluster of drowned children, grieving ghosts, and hermits on islands that haunt every dock, swamp, and cabin in the country.

CONNECT

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Stay Curious. Stay Spooky.

SOURCES

Folklore & Scholarship

• USC Digital Folklore Archives (folklore.usc.edu) — Hatchet Annie, the Banana Man (informant KM,

2022); Mary Brown / Troy Camp (Taylor, 2015); The Hermit, Maine all-boys camp (BM, 2023); Elias

White, Bass Lake CA; Camp Seven Hills, western NY (2019)

• Bill Ellis — “The Camp Mock-Ordeal: Theater as Life,” Journal of American Folklore, 1981

• Jay Mechling — “The Magic of the Boy Scout Campfire,” Journal of American Folklore, 1980 Camp Scott (1977)

• Victims: Lori Lee Farmer (8), Michele Heather Guse (9), Doris Denise Milner (10) — June 13, 1977, Mayes County, OK

• Suspect Gene Leroy Hart acquitted March 1979; died June 1979, age 35 — case officially unsolved

• 2019 DNA testing: inconclusive but pointed toward Hart; eliminated other suspects. Real-World Underpinning

• CBS News (2018) — 500+ documented cases of sexual abuse at U.S. camps over 55 years

• Jon Conte, University of Washington — structural risk factors at camps

• Regulatory gap: 8 U.S. states have no overnight camp licensing; 18 states have no mandatory staff background checks

Content note:

This episode contains discussion of racial violence, lynching, and the racially motivated expulsion of an entire Black community in 1912 Georgia. It also includes detailed accounts of multiple drowning deaths and body recovery. Additionally, this episode covers the colonial erasure of Indigenous spiritual tradition. Listener discretion is advised.

In July 2023, three men died at Lake Lanier in Georgia in a single weekend. Lake Lanier is one of the most visited recreational lakes in the United States. It is also one of the deadliest — and once you understand what is sitting beneath its surface, the death toll stops feeling like a coincidence.

This week, we visit two dangerous lakes and hear their haunting tales.

LAKE LANIER

Georgia Department of Natural Resources — annual drowning reports (primary source for all death statistics)

Forsyth County Sheriff's Office — official press release, Thomas Milner death, July 2023

Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America (W.W. Norton, 2016) — primary source for

1912 Forsyth County racial history

CNN — interview with rescue diver Buck Buchanan, 2020

Adventures in Cemetery Hopping — Alta Vista Cemetery, Delia Parker Young / Susie Roberts grave

documentation

OKANAGAN LAKE

BC Coroners Service — annual provincial drowning reports (primary source for all death statistics)

Elder Marlene Squakin (Yamxwa) — N'ha-a-itk tradition, documented via Summerland Museum / Castanet.net,

March 2024

Summerland Museum — working with Syilx knowledge keepers on N'ha-a-itk cultural framing

BC Wildlife Act, 1989 — Ogopogo protected status

Have a story, a local legend, or a documented case you'd love to hear covered on Let's Talk Spooky? Send it in. We want to hear from you.

letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com

www.letstalkspooky.ca

Instagram: @letstalkspookypodcast

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What's the oldest fear in the human record? Not vampires. Not werewolves. Not anything that hunts in the dark. It's the person sitting across from you at dinner—the one who poured your drink.

In this episode, we're diving into one of history's most chilling archetypes — the woman poisoner. From the prison cells of ancient Rome to a TikTok trend that exploded in 2024, the legend of the woman who knows what grows in the dark has never really gone away.

Four women. Four centuries. One very uncomfortable truth about trust, proximity, and the people who feed us.

Content Warnings:

This episode contains discussion of: poison and poisoning, domestic violence, child death (including infant death), execution, and serial homicide. Please take care of yourself.

Sources & Further Reading

Locusta

• Tacitus, Annals (Books 12 & 13) — the original ancient source
• Suetonius, Life of Nero — describes Locusta's estate and students
• Cassius Dio, Roman History — corroborating accounts
• "Locusta of Gaul: Rome's Imperial Poisoner" — Crime Reads (crimereads.com)

• "Aqua Tofana: Slow-Poisoning and Husband-Killing in 17th Century Italy" — Mike Dash History (mikedashhistory.com)
• Giulia Tofana — Wikipedia (start here, then follow the citations)
• "What Is MATGA?" — Fast Company (fastcompany.com)
• MATGA movement coverage — Newsweek, November 2024

• Mary Ann Cotton — Britannica (britannica.com)
• "The Dark Angel of Durham" — Weird Darkness

• "The Story of Nannie Doss, the Giggling Granny" — All That's Interesting (allthatsinteresting.com)
• Nannie Doss — Wikipedia
• Nancy "Nannie Doss" Hazle — Encyclopedia of Alabama