Astonishing Legends

In tonight's dead letter, a teenager in rural Arkansas in the late 2000s goes poking around an abandoned schoolhouse and comes home with a mirror she likes the look of. Years later it's hanging in her first Los Angeles apartment, and one evening while she's in the bath she catches the towel on the back of the door swinging wildly but the moment she turns to look, it stops dead. But that’s only part of the story.

Relevant Prior Episodes
The Bell Witch Part 1
The Scrying Game
Mel's Hole Part 1
Abduction at Devil's Den
Nightmarchers of Hawaii
The Ghosts of Flight 401

Links and Further Reading
American Hauntings — Troy Taylor's books, podcast, and live events
Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones by Raymond Moody
Note: We say 1933 in the episode — Reunions was published in 1993.
Oculus (2013), dir. Mike Flanagan
What is a "dybbuk" in the prologue of the Coen brothers' A Serious Man?
Ghosts On A Plane? The Story Of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401

We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!

In tonight's dead letter, in the summer of 1996, two college kids from New Jersey were road-tripping to Gen Con when they got off I-80 near Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, looking for food and a place to stay. Around 11:30 PM, at a gas station that turned out to be closed for the night, three blonde kids in bathing suits were standing under a light, saying something to them that neither of them could make out.

Relevant Prior Episodes
Black Eyed Kids Part 1
Strange Intruders with David Weatherly Part 1
Sam the Sandown Clown
Dan, Susan, Micah Hanks and Missing Time
Abduction at Devil's Den
Skinwalker Ranch Part 1

Links and Further Reading
Strange Intruders by David Weatherly
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker
Death as a Child: The Modern Legend of the Black-Eyed Children (Atlas Obscura)
8 local spots you didn't know were haunted (northcentralpa.com — the "Otzinachson"/Demon's Den lore)

We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!

In tonight's dead letter, listener John is nineteen, home from his freshman year and a few shifts into a summer dishwashing job at a grand old house on Michigan's Old Mission Peninsula that has been a restaurant since the 1950s. The staff there blame anything strange in the building on a ghost they call Genevieve, and John doesn't believe in any of that. One warm night he goes upstairs to change out of his kitchen clothes, and the bulb pops the second he flips the switch. Strange enough on its own, but what happens next is why this particular night stuck with him.
Note: The room referenced at Waverly in the Episode is 503. It should have been 502.

Relevant Prior Episodes

Greyfriar's Kirkyard Halloween Special

The Sallie House – Ghost in the Machine Part 1

Lockdown at Waverly Sanatorium

The True Story behind the Conjuring Part 1

A Live Reading with Jim Hunt - Psychic Medium

Links and Further Reading

The Mission Table Restaurant of Bowers Harbor: A Splendid Building, But Not a Residence for a Ghost — Julie Schopieray, Grand Traverse Journal

Would the Real Mrs. Stickney Please Stand Up? Setting the Old Mission Ghost Story Straight — Northern Express

The Haunting of Bowers Harbor Inn – Is It Genevieve Stickney's Ghost? — Old Mission Gazette

Bowers Harbor Inn — Wikipedia, on the 1927 fire and the house built around the old farmhouse

Mission Point Lighthouse — History, the light at the tip of Old Mission Peninsula near the 45th parallel

Occupational Folklife — American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Meet the Mackenzie Poltergeist of Greyfriars Kirkyard — Icy Sedgwick, on the grabs and marks reported on the tours

Waverly Hills Sanatorium — American Hauntings, on Room 502 and the nurse story

The Buxton Inn — Wikipedia, the Granville, Ohio inn Forrest visited

We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!

In 1673, Rebecca Cornell was found dead beside the hearth in her Rhode Island home. Afterward, her ghost allegedly appeared to accuse someone of murder and her son was tried and hanged. Her story is just one of nearly sixty strange intersections of true crime, hauntings, history, and food collected in Cuisine to Kill For, the new cookbook from veteran paranormal investigator and television personality Amy Bruni. This week, Amy joins us to talk about the haunted restaurants, infamous deaths, cocktails, dinners, desserts, and recipes that reveal just how naturally the paranormal and the culinary can share a table.
Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

In tonight's dead letter, listener Mary is on a ghost tour in Key West when the guide stands her group under an old, unmarked movie marquee and asks them what happened there. Before he says another word, Mary smells smoke. The story he tells the group involves a church fire, and more strange events unfold from there.
Relevant Prior Episodes
Conjuring Philip Part 1

The True Story behind the Conjuring Part 1

Resurrection Mary Part 1

The Count of St Germain Part 1

Links and Further Reading
Great Fire of Key West (1886) — Wikipedia

Our History — St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Key West

Strand Theater, 527 Duval Street — Cinema Treasures

San Carlos Institute — Wikipedia

Chicago Hauntings: The Horrors of the Iroquois Theater Fire That Killed 602 People Downtown in 1903 — CBS Chicago

American Ghost Walks — the ghost tour company the hosts recommend

Dowsing — Britannica

The Philip Experiment — Wikipedia

We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to deadletteroffice@astonishinglegends.com!