Aboard a Flying Saucer Part 1
On Sunday night, July 27, 1952, Cement Batch Plant Operator Truman Bethurum took a little snooze during his break while working the swing shift on an Asphalt Mixing Plant project near Mormon Mesa, Nevada.  He awoke to hear unintelligible murmuring from eight to ten small-sized men who had surrounded his truck.  Initially startled by the diminutive beings who all seemed to be wearing uniforms, w...
2hr 21m Sep 10, 2023
2hr 21m
The Van Meter Monster Part 2
In the second part of our series on the mysterious visitor to Van Meter, Iowa, it’s time to wonder how so many credible people could see a creature so incredible and what that creature could be.  An extant pterosaur, your run-of-the-mill cryptid, a Keel-like “uttraterrestrial,” something like a tulpa or an egregore, or simply a transdimensional interloper from the sacred and mystical bowels of ...
2hr 46m Aug 20, 2023
2hr 46m
The Van Meter Monster Part 2
In the second part of our series on the mysterious visitor to Van Meter, Iowa, it’s time to wonder how so many credible people could see a creature so incredible and what that creature could be.  An extant pterosaur, your run-of-the-mill cryptid, a Keel-like “uttraterrestrial,” something like a tulpa or an egregore, or simply a transdimensional interloper from the sacred and mystical bowels of ...
2hr 56m Aug 20, 2023
2hr 56m
The Van Meter Monster Part 1
When most folks hear about a fantastical cryptid sighting, they just assume it was a dubious, one-off, misinterpreted encounter by the town drunk, or overimaginative prankster kids, if they believe any of it at all.  But none of this applies to the incident where a mystical creature terrorized the small farming town of Van Meter, Iowa, in 1903.  For five nights starting September 29, an impossi...
1hr 46m Aug 05, 2023
1hr 46m
Shades of Death Road
There is a road in Warren County, New Jersey, that, according to many generations of locals, seems to be a vortex or at least a hotspot of all manner of paranormal and unsettling activity.  Tales of Native American spirits seen along the roadside, ghostly victims of vigilante justice dangling from “The Hanging Tree,” spectral deer running alongside cars, murder and highway robbery, UAPs and glo...
1hr 53m Jul 23, 2023
1hr 53m
The Debrief on Disclosure
In December 2017, the New York Times published a ground-breaking article titled “Glowing Auras and Black Money: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program.” The report was noteworthy not only for what it brought to light about the earnest government/military study of the UAP phenomenon but also that such a storied and seemingly no-nonsense newspaper like the New York Times finally took the subject s...
2hr 2m Jun 25, 2023
2hr 2m
Tales from Monster Fest 2023
We were honored to be invited to the inaugural celebration of Monster Fest 2023, produced by our good friends Seth Breedlove and his crew at Small Town Monsters. Taking place at the DoubleTree hotel in downtown Canton, OH, the evening of Friday, June 2, saw the premiere of STM’s latest documentary, On the Trail of Bigfoot: Land of the Missing, at the historic (and haunted) Canton Palace Theater...
1hr 21m Jun 11, 2023
1hr 21m
Interstellar with Dr. Avi Loeb
We’re pleased and honored to present a special guest for this episode, Dr. Abraham “Avi” Loeb. Dr. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University and received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel at the age of 24. He has written nine books and nearly 1000 papers, led the first international project supported by the Strategic Defense ...
2hr 1m May 28, 2023
2hr 1m
Astonishing Trailer 1 2023
Astonishing Promo Trailer 1 - 2023
1m May 24, 2023
1m
Mantis Men
Anyone familiar with UFO and alien abduction lore knows that all manner of creatures have been reported to be associated with the phenomenon.  While the "Grays" have dominated the popular culture imagination, some who claimed encounters recall things as fantastic and diverse as robots, androids, simians, reptilians, humanoid hybrids, and even Nordic-looking "Space Brothers and Sisters."  Yet on...
2hr 34m May 14, 2023
2hr 34m
Entombed in Tsarichina Part 2
In Part Two of our series on the mysterious hole in Tsarichina, Bulgaria, we take a closer look at the history of the legendary Tsar Samuel, whose legacy sparked the initial search and the likelihood of his treasure hoard.  We’ll also examine the role of the famous Bulgarian prophet, Baba Vanga, whose consultation decreed that the hole was a phenomenon mankind could not explain, along with a me...
1hr 44m Apr 30, 2023
1hr 44m
Entombed in Tsarichina Part 1
In 1990 in the small village of Tsarichina in western Bulgaria, a resident kept having vivid dreams and what he claimed were psychic messages directed at him. Dimitar Kekemenov claimed that famous historical Bulgarian notables told him he was descended from the heroic Tsar Samuel of the First Bulgarian Empire in the 11th century and that it was his national duty to find Samuel’s lost treasures ...
1hr 45m Apr 16, 2023
1hr 45m
Let's Not Meet - A True Horror Podcast Crossover Promo
Listen to Scott and Forrest on Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast this April 3rd, 2023!
1m Apr 03, 2023
1m
Our Strange Skies Crossover Promo
Forrest and Scott join their good friend Rob Kristoffersen over at Our Strange Skies for a special April 1st crossover show!
29s Apr 01, 2023
29s
Conjuring Philip Part 2
As stated in the book, Conjuring up Philip: An adventure in psychokinesis, written by Iris M. Owen, in the introduction written by her husband, Dr. A.R. George Owen, the “Group of 8’s” initial goals were to first find out whether seemingly interactive spirit communication could be produced in bright light. Secondly, they wanted to know if a spirit medium was necessary or if ordinary people coul...
1hr 59m Mar 26, 2023
1hr 59m
Conjuring Philip Part 1
In 1972, the Toronto Society for Psychical Research, led by mathematical geneticist Dr. A.R. George Owen, assembled a group of volunteers from various backgrounds to try something never before attempted. For their experiment, they aimed to manifest a fictional ghost they named “Philip Aylesford” and would try to communicate with this fabricated entity through séance-like sessions conducted unde...
1hr 47m Mar 12, 2023
1hr 47m
The Great Mull Air Mystery
On Christmas Eve, 24 December 1975, concert violinist Peter Gibbs was just finishing dinner with his girlfriend at the Glenforsa Hotel on the Isle of Mull in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The pair had traveled to this island in the Inner Hebrides four days earlier to look for hotels to purchase for his property investment company. Gibbs had rented an airplane to island hop during their holiday to ...
1hr 53m Feb 26, 2023
1hr 53m
Forrest on TV Tonight! February 20th 2023
Forrest will be on History's Greatest Mysteries tonight at 9/8c talking about The Lost Colony of Roanoke!
12s Feb 20, 2023
12s
The Nazca Lines Part 2
In part two of our series on the Nazca lines, we examine some of the prevailing theories about their purpose.  From astronomical earthwork markers, maps of aquifer sources, and a gargantuan textile & mummy manufactory to processional pathways for worshippers, a conclusive and comprehensive explanation continues to elude researchers and the public.  Yet while most scholars and enthusiasts concen...
1hr 59m Feb 13, 2023
1hr 59m
The Nazca Lines Part 1
On a high desert plateau in southwestern Peru, only about 230 miles south of the capital Lima, hundreds of massive and mysterious artistic designs are scraped into the arid soil.  Technically known as geoglyphs, these figures range from straight lines and geometric shapes to biomorphic caricatures of animals, plants, and a humanoid.  Typically composed of single, continuous outlines, the earthw...
1hr 59m Jan 29, 2023
1hr 59m
End of Life
Like so many stories and people that come our way, this is another one that seemed to be put in our path by some grander force for a higher purpose.  Recently, Scott and his wife Emily were out at dinner and struck up a conversation with the stranger sitting next to them, Lauren Hopper, who told them she worked as an end-of-life doula.  While many of us have heard of a Birth Doula, someone who ...
1hr 50m Jan 14, 2023
1hr 50m
The Astonishing All-Star Holiday Special III
Well, it's our second favorite time of year again, after Halloween, but that’s no reason not to invite all of our spooky friends over for some eggnog, stories, fun, and good conversation. The Astonishing Legends All-Star Holiday Special has become something of a tradition, and we were excited to do it again in 2022 for the third time. This year we are thrilled to be able to present the audio fr...
2hr 9m Dec 22, 2022
2hr 9m
Massacre at Duffy's Cut Part 2
In Part Two of our series on the massacre at Duffy's Cut, we continue our discussion with investigating brothers, Drs. Frank and Bill Watson.  We examine the historical circumstances and the likelihood of these 57 workers all dying of cholera or being murdered out of fear and prejudice.  Also considered is the remarkable number of coincidences and hauntings connected to the paranormal nature of...
1hr 22m Dec 10, 2022
1hr 22m
Massacre at Duffy's Cut Part 1
In September of 2000, history professor Dr. William "Bill" Watson of Immaculata University stopped by the campus for a break with friend and fellow bagpipe musician Tom Connor during a long drive back from a performance.  While there, around 10:00 p.m. near the typically deserted faculty center lawn, both men witnessed a strange apparition that would later lead to a remarkable and meaningful co...
1hr 7m Nov 27, 2022
1hr 7m
Battle at Cisco Grove
On Friday, September 4, 1964, Donald Shrum and two friends from his job at Aerojet made camp in a remote section of wilderness near the Loch Leven Lakes in an area called Cisco Grove, roughly 60 miles northeast of Sacramento, CA. The three men had planned a relaxing weekend of bow hunting for deer, but those plans would change later that evening as Shrum experienced an exhausting and terrifying...
2hr 11m Nov 13, 2022
2hr 11m
Your True Halloween Stories Part 3
Tonight's episode concludes this series of our listeners' most terrifying true tales for Halloween.  In the final Part Three of this anthology, we're proud to present five stories we believe were some of the most horrifying we've ever heard.  The collection covers a curated compilation of creepy creatures.  You may be tempted to classify them under the categories of a goblin, doppelgänger, geni...
2hr 35m Oct 29, 2022
2hr 35m
Your True Halloween Stories Part 2
As we continue with Part Two of our Halloween series featuring our listeners' true accounts, tonight's episode presents another three eerie tales of the supernatural.  The first story tells of a haunted college rooming house with a spirit fond of movie catchphrases.  And it may have the power to compel humans to deliver poignant messages.  Our second interview details a forceful presence with t...
1hr 45m Oct 24, 2022
1hr 45m
Your True Halloween Stories Part 1
Astonishing Legends is all about fascinating and mysterious topics. And within that category, the details we cover can be unsettling or downright terrifying. But you may not realize that some of the most chilling and creepy accounts we've ever encountered have come from our listeners! We've received thousands of emails over our eight years of podcasting, and we appreciate and value every one of...
2hr 27m Oct 15, 2022
2hr 27m
The Missing 411 Part 2
In Part Two of our series on the Missing 411 phenomenon, we'll first examine a study conducted to determine which National Parks are the most dangerous in the United States.  The numbers and causes may surprise you.  We then take a closer look at a few more puzzling cases and, with a critical eye, examine the data presented by David Paulides and the CanAm Project vs. what's been reported by the...
3hr 37m Sep 26, 2022
3hr 37m
The Missing 411 Part 1
A former police officer turned writer David Paulides was taken aside by a National Park Ranger and told about a disturbing trend he'd realized. This Ranger asserted that some people were going missing in the woods under mysterious circumstances leaving only puzzling evidence of their fate. Of course, people often go missing in the wilderness in tragic yet explainable events but what was troubli...
1hr 47m Sep 11, 2022
1hr 47m
Numbers Stations
Since antiquity, espionage and deceit have always been crucial weapons of warfare.  As technology and strategy have advanced over the centuries, methods for governments to deliver information and orders to their secret agents in the field have become more sophisticated.  Yet, one form of cryptic communication implemented in the early 20th century has proven ever effective and relatively simple....
2hr 44m Aug 28, 2022
2hr 44m
The Somerton Man - Mystery Solved?
On December 1, 1948, an unknown man was found lying dead on the sand on Somerton Beach next to the neighborhood of Glenelg, about 7 miles (11 km) southwest of Adelaide, South Australia. He had no money or identification on him, the labels in his clothing were cut off, and his minimal possessions yielded no clues. Further adding to the mystery, a rolled-up scrap of paper with the Persian phrase ...
1hr 57m Aug 14, 2022
1hr 57m
Mystery Solved! The Somerton Man TRAILER
Did we hear about the Somerton Man case being solved? Yes. And now you will, too, on August 13th, 2022.
2m Jul 29, 2022
2m
I Think Therefore AI Part 2
As we continue our discussion based on Blake Lemoine’s assertion that the Large Language Model chatbot LaMDA had become sentient, we relay the rest of his conversation with the program and then some questions and answers with Lemoine himself. But as Lemoine has said, machine sentience and personhood are just some of many questions to be considered. His greater issue is how an omnipresent AI, tr...
2hr 41m Jul 25, 2022
2hr 41m
I Think Therefore AI Part 1
On June 11, 2022, The Washington Post published an article by their San Francisco-based tech culture reporter Nitasha Tiku titled, "The Google engineer who thinks the company's AI has come to life." The piece focused on the claims of a Google software engineer named Blake Lemoine, who said he believed the company's artificially intelligent chatbot generator LaMDA had shown him signs that it had...
2hr 5m Jul 10, 2022
2hr 5m
Your True Stories Volume 1
We're marvelously fortunate and extraordinarily grateful that so many listeners have sent us their personal stories of mysterious experiences over the years. While it's not possible to respond to all of them, we can and should present some for the entertainment and edification of all. So as thanks to those who've shared, and a treat for us that love to hear them, we're featuring three stories f...
3hr 16m Jun 26, 2022
3hr 16m
Mel's Hole Part 2
As we dive further into the epic of Mel's Hole, we learn that in the third phone call to Art Bell on the Coast to Coast AM radio show on April 24, 2000, Mel reveals what had happened to him since his initial calls in 1997. After supposedly taking the deal from the US government to relocate to Australia and receive a compensation of $250,000 per month for the lease of the land he received in a d...
3hr 22m Jun 12, 2022
3hr 22m
Mel's Hole Part 1
One of the most enduring and pervasive tropes to ever capture the human imagination is the concept of a "bottomless pit." On Friday, February 22, 1997, a man calling himself "Mel Waters" had faxed Art Bell, the much-beloved and sadly now-passed host of the highly-rated, paranormal-themed radio talk show, Coast to Coast AM, claiming to have one on his property. Mel said his property is about nin...
2hr 8m May 29, 2022
2hr 8m
What it Wasn't - Or How I Learned to Stop Dismissively Categorizing Potentially Paranormal Events as Mass Hysteria
Often when one hears about some group of people claiming to experience a highly strange event or similarly acting out in bizarre and irrational manners, it's easy and common to dismiss the episode as a case of "mass hysteria." Phenomena like the audience reaction to Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast, "The Dancing Plague of 1518," the "Windshield-Pitting Mystery of 1954," and "The ...
2hr 45m May 16, 2022
2hr 45m
The Enfield Horror and other Midwest Monsters
On the evening of April 15, 1973, Enfield, Illinois, resident Henry McDaniel heard a scratching noise outside his door he thought might be a bear. He opened it to find a hideous creature he described as having "... three legs on it, a short body, two little, short arms coming out of its breast area, and two pink eyes as big as flashlights. It stood four and a half feet tall and was grayish colo...
1hr 19m Apr 24, 2022
1hr 19m
Charles Fort - Our Supernatural Father Part 2
In the second part of our series on Charles Hoy Fort, we first return to the formative events of his adolescence that shaped his personality, career, and personal philosophies. Fort chronicled anecdotes from his youth in an unpublished manuscript titled Many Parts, written while in his 20s and of which only fragments remain. What can be gleaned from tales of his boisterous boyhood adventures, p...
2hr 2m Apr 10, 2022
2hr 2m
Charles Fort - Our Supernatural Father Part 1
Perhaps most everyone listening to this show is familiar with the term "Fortean," meaning something related to the paranormal, the supernatural, or just generally strange phenomena. But where did that term come from? How did "Forteana" come to describe many of the topics we cover on the podcast? We owe that cognomen and a good deal of our inspiration for our reportage to the work of one man, Ch...
2hr 7m Mar 27, 2022
2hr 7m
The Mystery of Pumapunku Part 2
In tonight's Part Two of our series, we continue with the "Why?" of Tiwanaku and Pumapunku. As in, why was it all built? Why did Tiwanaku society spend so much effort and resources on it, and what did it mean to them? We then transition to the "How?" such a monumental architectural and cultural feat could be accomplished. What craftsmanship skills and construction technology did they possess to...
3hr 43m Mar 14, 2022
3hr 43m
The Mystery of Pumapunku Part 1
We’ve all heard of the mystical and wondrous ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica and South America: The Maya, Olmecs, Aztecs, and the Inca.  But one culture that developed on the southern end of Lake Titicaca in present-day western Bolivia near the border with Peru left behind ruins so monumental they continue to intrigue archaeologists and spark hypotheses of anachronistic, advanced technolog...
2hr 9m Feb 28, 2022
2hr 9m
Boundless Remote Viewing with Lori Williams Part 2
In part two of our conversation with Remote Viewing instructor Lori Lambert Williams, we'll discuss what is known about how the process works and what is still unknown.  Including how the practice can get your non-local consciousness to work with your subconscious and how it can improve your daily life.  We'll also explore the mechanics and procedure of a Controlled Remote Viewing session.  Lor...
2hr 32m Feb 13, 2022
2hr 32m
Boundless Remote Viewing with Lori Williams Part 1
We're honored and excited to present a conversation with our good friend and Remote Viewing sensei Lori Lambert Williams. Lori first started studying Remote Viewing back in 1996, mentored by her now longtime friend, Lyn Buchanan. Lyn was one of the original members of the military unit of Viewers created in 1972 at the Standford Research Institute by physicists Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff and ...
1hr 42m Jan 30, 2022
1hr 42m
Skinwalkers at the Pentagon
One of the most baffling, disturbing, and popular subjects we've ever covered on the show is the mystery of Skinwalker Ranch. The groundbreaking book Hunt for the Skinwalker was the source for most of our research. And this is why we're honored and excited to discuss the follow-up book Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders' Account of the Secret Government UFO Program, with two of its author...
2hr 20m Jan 16, 2022
2hr 20m
An Astonishing All-Star Holiday Special II
We at Astonishing Legends love… well... legends of course, and myths, and traditions. The first two often lead to the latter. But none of it, no story we've ever come across or covered, happens in a vacuum. The one constant connection between all of it, which matters most to us, is people. And so continuing on with a new tradition of our own, we'd like to present another Astonishing All-Star Ho...
2hr 51m Dec 24, 2021
2hr 51m
Devil's Den: The Reckoning Part 2
More people have personal paranormal stories than you know.  Even some of your relatives or your closest friends.  They're not likely to share those stories because they know or suspect the telling will be met with, at the least, eye-rolling or good-natured ribbing, and at the worst, ridicule, scorn, and even anger.  Beyond confessions of seeing ghosts or cryptids, this seems to be even more tr...
2hr 55m Dec 13, 2021
2hr 55m
Devil's Den: The Reckoning Part 1
We're proud and pleased to bring back one of our most intriguing guests, Terry Lovelace, Esq., to talk about his new book, Devil's Den: The Reckoning.  Our first interview with Terry, episode 155: "Abduction at Devil's Den," which aired on October 13, 2019, is one of our most popular and one of the most talked-about. Surprisingly, not because of its controversial nature, but because Terry's una...
2hr 1m Nov 29, 2021
2hr 1m