36.17 - MU Podcast - Super Special Spooky Halloween Special

Summary

Hosts Brandon Thomas and Joe Hodgden trade campfire-style ghost stories for a Halloween special. The tales include British ghosts said to have followed the London Bridge to Lake Havasu, Arizona, and a 1963 Boy Scout who woke up with 1870s-era shell casings after an apparent encounter with outlaw Black Jack Ketchum. They also revisit two famous English poltergeist cases, the Cock Lane Ghost and the Drummer of Tedworth, plus an invisible strangling entity from a Brad Steiger book.

Key takeaways

• 1London Bridge was sold in 1962 to Arizona developer Robert McCulloch, reassembled at Lake Havasu, and dedicated on October 10, 1971; Victorian-dressed specters were reportedly seen at the opening ceremony.
• 2Cock Lane Ghost (London, 1762): knocking spirit 'Scratching Fanny' accused William Kent of poisoning Fanny Lynes with arsenic; Samuel Johnson joined an investigation, and Richard Parsons was later convicted and imprisoned.
• 3Thomas 'Black Jack' Ketchum, born October 31, 1863, was accidentally decapitated during his April 26, 1901 hanging in Clayton, New Mexico, reportedly because the 200 lb test sandbag was left on the rope.
• 4In 1963 at Philmont Scout Ranch, a scout named Skip reportedly saw a semi-translucent gunslinger at a Ketchum hideout and woke with six shell casings later dated to about 1878 that still smelled of fresh gunpowder.
• 5Drummer of Tedworth (1662-63): after magistrate John Mompesson confiscated drummer William Drury's drum, his house suffered drumming, jingling coins, levitating beds, and a red-eyed apparition, documented by Joseph Glanvill.
• 6Books cited: 'Haunted Highway: The Spirits of Route 66' (Robinson & Hilaki), 'Ghosts of the Wild West' (Natalie Fowler & Jessica Freeberg), and Brad Steiger's 'Things That Go Bump in the Night.'

Glossary terms

Source

Transcript excerpt

mysterious universe season 36 episode number 17 and welcome to your super special spooky halloween special are you ready for this joe of course okay so picture this we're all sitting around a warm campfire after a wonderful day of whatever whatever insert perfect day here it's just simply going to be different for everybody though whatever your perfect day was it is now moving into your perfect after day the old night part there you know back to the fire it's an absolute fresh evening as the fallen leaves reveal the scurry of something out there you hope it's small and unthreatening or at the most extreme case and at the very least puntable we are ready with imagination of flutter as we're graced with the tales of the lives of the less mundane i'm your flashlight under the chin friend brandon thomas and with me as always is the only damn kid to ever actually get razor blades in his halloween candy so we all have to check them before we can consume our acquired booty of goodies here scare joe hodgden i'm actually glad you uh left that in because what's funny is i was not allowed to uh trick-or-treat or celebrate halloween in any way i was wondering if you grew up kind of similar so were you allowed to do that no we weren't like militant we went to public school yeah we had a childhood i will say uh we um did we went out we trick-or-tried trick-or-trotted and it was great and then we moved to keller so like all these uh fancy neighborhoods and they gave out like full-size candy bars and we just love that and it was all cul-de-sac so we could go out on our own oh dude it...

Excerpt from Mysterious Universe, Oct 30, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.