In tonight’s dead letter, listener Jeannette shares a deeply atmospheric story from a bike commute across one of the most famous bridges in the world. Enveloped in the freezing, thick San Francisco fog, what starts as a quiet ride she’s done a million times turns into an inexplicable encounter with a solitary figure standing near the edge. After a strangely profound exchange of words, she looks back to find the massive walkway entirely empty. She is convinced that he couldn’t have had time to have taken his life in that brief moment. It opens up a conversation about crisis apparitions, liminal spaces, and the heavy emotional toll anchored to such a monumental location.

REFERENCE LINKS

SFGate: Japanese Taxi Drivers Claim Ghost Passengers Hail Cabs at Site of 2011 Tsunami: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Japanese-taxi-drivers-claim-ghost-passengers-6806980.php

Golden Gate Bridge Suicide Deterrent Net Project: https://www.goldengate.org/district/district-projects/suicide-deterrent-net/

Bridge Rail Foundation: http://www.bridgerail.net/

"Unsolved Mysteries"- Tsunami Spirits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11107472/

KCRW Unfictional Podcast: https://www.kcrw.com/shows/unfictional/latest

Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry: https://bookshop.org/p/books/ghosts-of-the-tsunami-death-and-life-in-japan-s-disaster-zone-richard-lloyd-parry/4c115c39e1094566?ean=9781250192813&next=t

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What if the infamous Lead Masks Case wasn’t a one-off tragedy, but the final step in a years-long chain of dangerous experiments? In part 2, we pull back from the image of two dead electronics technicians on Vintém Hill to uncover a much bigger world of underground spiritist circles, secret ham radio messages, strange explosions near the beach, homemade electrical devices, and an earlier death that seems to mirror the case almost exactly. As the pattern widens, the story becomes far darker and more unsettling: not just a mystery about what happened that night in 1966, but whether the clues that could have explained everything were ruined by the investigation itself.

Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

In tonight’s dead letter, we’ll take you through the brutalist monuments and ancient layers of Sofia, Bulgaria looking for what may have been the scene of a localized timeslip. After giving up the search for a playground that made a pronounced childhood impression, our listener Vili, stumbles right into a beautifully preserved version of it. We’ll discuss the folklore of missing time, and how our own memories might just be powerful enough to physically manifest things we wish to recover that don’t exist anymore.

REFERENCE LINKS

National Palace of Culture (NDK) in Sofia

Samodiva - Bulgarian Woodland Spirits

The Moberly–Jourdain Incident (Versailles Time Slip)

Ed Debevic's Retro Diner

Alpine Gardens (Alpinarium)

The Ghosts of Versailles Part 1 (Astonishing Legends)

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In one of Brazil’s strangest unsolved mysteries, two electronics technicians travel to Niterói in 1966, buy matching raincoats, hike up a remote hill with cash, water, towels, and a handwritten set of bizarre instructions, then turn up dead days later lying side by side on palm leaves, wearing homemade lead eye masks and showing no clear cause of death. What follows is a case that spirals far beyond a simple true-crime puzzle, with every answer leading to a bigger question: were these men victims of a bizarre accident, participants in something occult, or did they believe they were about to witness something not of this world?

Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

In tonight’s dead letter, we hear from a librarian who works the desk at a fairly new building down in the Southeast. But the ground it sits on has a much heavier history: the library was built right over the exact footprint of four demolished hospitals, with the old medical cornerstones still cemented into the walkway outside. When a freshly upgraded security system triggers overnight and catches something moving in the dark, the staff is forced to wonder if the property's busy past is finally bleeding into the present.

REFERENCE LINKS

The Bray Road Beast Documentary on Prime Video

A Haunting at the Hoyt Library on Prime Video

Small Town Monsters Official Website

ER70 EVP Recorder on the App Store

Waverly Hills Sanatorium

We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

In tonight’s dead letter, we hear a story from a listener who along with her husband encountered something bizarre hovering low near their land down in the southernmost part of the Australian mainland. They struggle to understand what they’re looking at and how it could even exist. Somehow it seems to control the outcome of their day in ways that they can’t quite remember. The guys branch out to explore similar phenomena throughout the episode, touching on the famous Frederick Valentich disappearance over the nearby Bass Strait, the mechanics of space-time warp bubbles, and the strange nature of screen memories.

NOTE: File needed a revision so this is the 2nd posting to replace the first deleted one.

REFERENCE LINKS

Wilsons Promontory National Park

Astonishing Legends: The Disappearance of Frederic Valentich Part 1

Astonishing Legends: Abduction at Devil's Den (Terry Lovelace)

Astonishing Legends: Devil’s Den the Reckoning Part 1

Remote Viewing (TransDimensional Mapping) the Calvine UFO Part 1

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In tonight’s dead letter, a routine room cleaning following a patient's passing turns into a puzzling technological glitch. A sensor alarm designed to protect patients from hurting themselves keeps going off. The solution to silencing the machine isn't found in a manual, but in a centuries-old tradition regarding the departure of the human soul.

REFERENCE LINKS

Appalachian Superstitions About Death

The Custom of the Soul Window (Seelenfenster)  (Requires translation)

Why Do Nurses Hear Phantom Call Bells?

We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]

In the lonely New Mexico desert, police discover an abandoned Volkswagen Beetle containing a 12-string guitar, a wallet, clothes, and a box of unsold records. Things a working musician would never willingly leave behind. The car belongs to Jim Sullivan, a talented singer-songwriter who had just made a strange call to his wife saying he’d been pulled over and that she “wouldn’t believe” what happened, before promising to call again from Nashville. He never did. What makes the story unforgettable is that those unsold records were his album called U.F.O., filled with songs about driving into the desert, leaving his life behind, and encountering something in the sky. In this episode, we dive into the eerie disappearance of a man who may have unknowingly written the soundtrack to his own vanishing.

Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

In tonight’s Dead Letter, Forrest and Scott read a submission from Stacey, which delves into the "Uncanny Valley" phenomenon in a true-life scenario. In a coastal town already known for its dark past and unusual coastal events, a silent, out-of-place stranger pays an unexpected visit to a college apartment. Sometimes the most chilling stories are those where the door remains locked and whatever was on the other side…is still out there somewhere.

REFERENCE LINKS

History of Bellingham, Washington

The Salish Sea Severed Feet Phenomenon

Kenneth Bianchi and Western Washington University

The Uncanny Valley in Psychology

We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!

Tonight, Forrest and I are sitting down with Jeremiah Byron for an exclusive live video interview about the unprecedented, real-time flap of Bigfoot sightings currently moving through Northeast Ohio. This special broadcast is completely private and only available to Astonishing Legends Patreon members and Bigfoot Society Supercast subscribers. Grab your drinks and join us in the chat tonight at 9:30 PM Eastern, 8:30 PM Central, and 6:30 PM Pacific for all the breaking updates!

In tonight’s dead letter from listener Amanda, the boundary between an adorable trusted holiday icon and nocturnal terror is tested in the deep woods near the Allegheny National Forest. A massive silhouette of something that shouldn’t exist peering over the hood of a car sparks a lifelong mystery. Amanda may have been a child when she saw this, but her mom and grandmother were both also eyewitnesses.

References and Links:
The History of Warren, Pennsylvania
The Folklore of the Celtic Púca
Flemish Giant Rabbits: Facts and Size
The Psychology of Childhood Memory and Trauma

We're looking for more stories! Send your Dead Letter to [email protected]!