A compendium of New England strangeness, paranormal or historical. Join host Tom Burby as he investigates some of the regions oddest happenings, most interesting personalities and unsolved mysteries.
You are standing on a great height, overlooking a vast distance toward the far horizon. You are invigorated and somewhat relieved – it has been a long climb. The wind…
People From Another World: The Eddy Brothers
· 58:10
You’re sitting in a darkened room. In front of you on a small, makeshift raised stage sit three people all covered by a sheet except for their heads. The man…
Walter Franklin Prince and the Fire Spook
· 1:05:23
The problem with ghost stories is that they, like ghosts themselves, are only barely there. They’re witnessed by one or two people. What is witnessed can take many forms: a…
People Who Aren’t Really There…
· 26:36
“Yesterday upon the stair,I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today I wish, I wish he’d go away… When I came home last night at three…
The Last Tree in the Meadow -a Ghost Story
· 17:32
NOTE: The following story contains description of a suicide and may not be suitable for younger listeners. Ghosts are old companions. They’ve been with us since the very beginning. Go…
The Light in the Barn
· 26:54
I was ten years old when my grandfather died. He died in his sleep during the cold February night with his rosary in his hands. My cousin had to break…
The Minister’s Black Veil & Patience Boston
· 39:38
It’s a warm July Sunday in 1745. You’re sitting in your pew at the First Church of York, Maine, waiting for the service to begin. It is a quiet time,…
The Strange Voyage of the Charles Haskell
· 20:53
A ghost story is usually a solitary thing. It lives by itself and doesn’t go out much and by its nature, is solitary and lonesome. A ghost story is the…
The Charming Man of the North Woods
· 21:53
You’ve heard a lot of stories about the old days in the deep woods of northern Maine, when river drivers cut the trees and moved the logs into the rivers,…
The Phantom Trains of the North Woods
· 17:11
There are trains in the forest that run on their own schedules, trains whose origins and destinations are as mysterious as forest itself. These are some of their tales.
The Lost Village of Riceville, Maine
· 21:34
When I was a boy, my father told me a story about a ghost town. I come from northern Maine, Aroostook County, a place of endless trees and potato fields…
The Bunkers at the End of the World
· 14:44
Loring Air Force Base, which itself is now only a memory. The bunkers we walk among are easily viewed on Google Earth but at one time in the early 1950s, this was one of the most secure and secret sites on the planet. Inside this strange and haunting set of structures half buried in the earth, the United States stored enough nuclear warheads to destroy the earth several times over. These are the depositories of doom and they are as quiet as the grave. They stand today as a testament to a period of time in our history when the words ‘the end of the world’ were no longer a metaphor. This was the
The Man Who Wandered After Death
· 16:59
Three score years and ten. It says it in the Bible, our allotted time upon this planet, the time we can expect to wander and walk and wonder, because nobody…
The Living Machine of John Murray Spear
· 22:17
It looks like a small desk without any legs, just sitting there on a table, a well-fashioned rectangular wooden box containing within it a drawer that pulls out to reveal…
Long Distance Call
· 12:31
It happens several times a day to everyone I know, usually at dinner time. Sitting quietly, minding your own business in the comfort of your own home and the phone…
The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine
· 14:16
My name is George Miller Beard and I have a strange tale to tell you, a story so bizarre and truly unbelievable that I am certain people will doubt my…
The Phantom Hitchhiker of Haynesville Woods
· 10:54
You find yourself alone on a journey, feeling somewhat lost as the houses seemed to have disappeared from the side of the road and all you have seen for the…
The Frozen Hill People of Northern Vermont
· 18:57
Elbert Stevens owned a sawmill in Bridgewater Corners, Vermont at the turn of the last century. His people had been in the area for time out of mind and he…
The Weeping Woman of Boon Island
· 17:13
The wind is blowing. It seems like the wind is always blowing here on this rock, like a constant companion, the sea breezes wafting lightly or heavy, but always, the…
Walled Alive: The Dark Origin of Poe’s Cask of Amontillado
· 17:22
Lieutenant Gustavus Drane awoke from his stupor to find himself chained to the floor. It was dark, so dark. Where was he and what was that sound? How did I…
The Eternal Wanderer: The Legend of Peter Rugg
· 14:21
There is a legend in the northeast of a man condemned to ride the storm for all eternity. When folks first started describing the man and his conveyance, he was…
The Drowned Villages of Maine
· 14:30
It is dusk of a late summer day and you are standing quietly on a shoreline. There are bits of gnarled tree roots washed ashore here and there, pebbles, and…
The Madwoman’s Ghost in the Attic
· 20:09
When I was a young boy living in Caribou, Maine, back in the 1960s, we had two rocking chairs in our living room. I spent a lot of time in…
Andrew Tozier – Maine’s Civil War Medal of Honor Winner…and Thief?
· 22:51
Not everyone can claim that they were born in Purgatory, but Andrew Tozier could, on February 11, 1838. Purgatory is a town near the Monmouth-Litchfield line in central Maine and…
“For the Moon Shone Bright” – The Purington Murders of 1806
· 28:00
[Please note – some of the descriptions in this article/episode are graphic. Use discretion with younger readers/listeners] You are lying in your bed on this hot July night. It has…