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America's Strangest History

Americasstrangesthistory

America's Strangest History is about the stranger aspects of American history. Our weekly video podcast covers history overlooked by mainstream historians. Join us as we rediscover the untold parts of history. Hosted by John Genua and cohost/law school buddy, Jimmy Molloy. Laugh and learn about historical accounts of true crime, paranormal, Bigfoot, lost treasure and more!

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Yesterday · 25 min
Before Jeffrey Epstein. The FINDERS
In 1987 two men were arrested in Tallahassee with six children. Within days the evidence was seized, the headlines faded and the case all but disappeared. Decades later, declassified FBI documents and FOIA releases reopened the mystery: who were the Finders, who was Marion Pettie, and why did the story go silent?
Tuesday · 34 min
The Man From 2036. John Titor, the IBM 5100 and the Internet's Greatest Unsolved Mystery
On November 2, 2000, someone logged onto a small internet forum and described, in technical detail, a machine that could move a human being through time. Over four months and 151 posts he called himself John Titor, a soldier from 2036 sent back to retrieve a 1975 IBM 5100 with a hidden function almost nobody knew existed. Then he typed one last sentence and vanished. Four years later, an IBM engineer confirmed the hidden function was real.
September 25 · 16 min
The Johnny Gosch Files. The Hidden Network They Tried to Erase
In 1982 a twelve-year-old paperboy vanished from West Des Moines, Iowa. No body, no note. Four decades later the evidence points toward a hidden network behind legitimate institutions, with patterns that echo the Franklin scandal, the Finders investigation and the Epstein files. This is Noreen Gosch's decades-long search for answers.
September 22 · 55 min
The Death Valley Germans. A Family of 4 Vanished in the Desert. It Took 13 Years to Find Them.
In July 1996 a family of four German tourists drove a rented minivan into the most remote corner of Death Valley and never came out. Ninety-one days later a ranger spotted the van buried in sand in Anvil Spring Canyon, and the largest search in the park's history found exactly one beer bottle. Thirteen years on, a volunteer with eight months of experience asked the question 250 professionals never did.
September 18 · 31 min
The Fountain of Youth Was a Lie. Billionaires Are Still Hunting It.
Ponce de Leon never searched for it, yet he became the most famous name attached to a magic spring that nobody has found in 500 years. From a 1521 arrow wound in Florida to a Soviet scientist who promised 150 years and died at 65, to the Silicon Valley fortunes being spent on the same hunt today, this is the story of the oldest obsession money can buy. Three empires, one refusal to die.
September 11 · 36 min
The Stayner Brothers: One Was Kidnapped at 7. The Other Became the Yosemite Killer.
In 1972 a convicted child predator took seven-year-old Steven Stayner off a Merced, California street and raised him under a fake name for seven years. Steven came home a hero. His older brother Cary did not, and by 1999 he was the Yosemite Killer. This is the story of one family, two brothers, and every system that failed them along the way.
September 8 · 55 min
The Montauk Project: The Base Is Real. The Records Are Gone.
A rusting radar tower on the tip of Long Island became the center of America's wildest conspiracy: time tunnels, a mind-control chair, an army of stolen boys, and a monster summoned in 1983. John separates the Preston Nichols legend from the documented record and then turns to the real programs, from Project PANDORA to MKULTRA, that make the story impossible to walk away from clean.
September 4 · 34 min
Skinwalker Ranch: How the DIA Lost Control of What They Found
In 2007 a Defense Intelligence Agency physicist stood in a Utah ranch kitchen and watched an impossible machine hover in midair for thirty seconds. The U.S. government's answer was $22 million and a secret program almost nobody was supposed to know existed. This is the real story of Skinwalker Ranch and AAWSAP: the Sherman family, Robert Bigelow's NIDS, the DIA's 38 classified reports on stargates and wormholes, and the "hitchhiker effect" the program concluded followed its own investigators home.
September 1 · 29 min
The Connecticut River Valley Killer: She Gave Police His Face, Jeep, and Plate. He Was Never Found.
Between 1978 and 1988, at least seven women were stabbed to death along the New Hampshire-Vermont border, and an eighth. 22-year-old Jane Boroski, seven months pregnant, survived 27 stab wounds and gave police a description of her attacker, his Jeep Wagoneer, and his plate. He was never found. Nearly five decades later, with a deathbed confession, a disputed suspect, and a cold-case unit searching the woods where the first victim was found as recently as 2025, the Connecticut River Valley Killer remains New England's most haunting unsolved case.
August 28 · 34 min
The Reincarnation Files: 2,500 Cases. 60 Years Inside the University That Studies Life After Death.
Since the 1960s, a division inside the University of Virginia's medical school has quietly built a database of more than 2,500 cases of young children who describe verifiable details of lives they never lived, beginning with founder Ian Stevenson and continuing under Dr. Jim Tucker today. From a Louisiana toddler's nightmares of a burning WWII fighter plane to birthmarks matching the wounds of the deceased, the case files are documented, coded, and still unexplained. This is the story of the strangest research program in American academia and why almost nobody knows it exists.
August 25 · 46 min
JFK's Secret Lover Was Murdered. The CIA Burned Her Diary. The FBI Destroyed the File.
In October 1964, ten months after the JFK assassination, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Georgetown painter, ex-wife of a senior CIA officer, and President Kennedy's secret lover, was shot to death on the C&O Canal towpath behind her home. Within hours, the CIA's chief of counterintelligence was inside her locked house hunting for her diary; the diary was later burned, and in 1988 the FBI destroyed its file on her. Her killer has never been identified, and the case remains one of the strangest unsolved murders in Washington history.
August 21 · 26 min
The Missing UFO Scientists: 8 Dead or Missing. The FBI Is Investigating.
An internet body count claims eight scientists tied to UFO research are dead or missing and one of them is a retired two-star general who ran the Air Force Research Laboratory before walking out his front door into the dark, leaving behind his phone, his glasses, and his heart monitor, but not his revolver. The believers call it a pattern; the families say most of the list is ordinary grief being turned into content. This episode counts the list honestly, both sides all the way up, and lands on the one case nobody can explain.
August 18 · 47 min
The West Memphis Three: 3 Boys Found in a Ditch. 3 Teenagers Falsely Convicted.
In May 1993, three eight-year-old boys were found bound in a drainage ditch in West Memphis, Arkansas and within a year, three teenagers were convicted on a contradiction-riddled confession and testimony about satanic ritual. Eighteen years later, as the physical evidence unraveled, Arkansas released all three on Alford pleas: guilty on paper while maintaining their innocence. This is how the case went wrong, and why the central question is still open more than 30 years later.
August 14 · 37 min
Operation 40: The CIA Program They Won't Admit Exists
In 1960, the CIA created a covert program called Operation 40 to overthrow Fidel Castro and its members kept surfacing for decades, from the Bay of Pigs to the Watergate break-in. When researcher John Greenewald filed a FOIA request for the program's files, the agency released just seven pages and declared the very existence of anything more classified. This is the story of the program the CIA still won't admit exists.
August 11 · 44 min
What Ever Happened to Michael Rockefeller? 50 Years of Silence. The Priests Knew.
In November 1961, Michael Rockefeller, son of Nelson Rockefeller and heir to America's most powerful family.. swam toward the shore of Dutch New Guinea and was never seen again. The official cause of death is drowning. The documentary record, drawn from Dutch colonial files, missionary accounts, and villagers who were there, tells a very different story, one that three institutions quietly agreed never to tell.
May 6 · 17 min
The Collins Elite: When the U.S. Government Met the Devil
In 1972, U.S. intelligence officials sat in a candlelit room with Britain's most famous witch — and something calling itself Caxuulikom answered back. This is the story of the Collins Elite, the secret Pentagon group that believed UFOs weren't alien spacecraft. They were demons. From rocket scientist Jack Parsons and his Babalon Working ritual, to Operation Often, to the séance that convinced the U.S. government it was facing spiritual warfare — this is one of the strangest stories in modern intelligence history. Watch the full video version on YouTube — search America's Strangest History.
Aug 19, 2025 · 12 min
Lost Egyptian City Hidden in the Grand Canyon
In 1909, an Arizona Gazette headline shocked the world — a hidden cave deep in the Grand Canyon, filled with Egyptian-style statues, mummies, and gold. The discovery was allegedly documented by explorer G.E. Kincaid… but then, the Smithsonian denied it ever happened.Was this the greatest archaeological cover-up in American history? Why are parts of the Grand Canyon still off-limits to the public? And could ancient civilizations from across the world have set foot in North America thousands of years ago?In this episode of America’s Strangest History, we dive into the original 1909 article, Smithsonian archives, Native American legends, and the modern-day explorers still chasing the truth.#GrandCanyon #Smithsonian #HistoryMystery #LostCivilizations #EgyptianArtifacts #AmericanHistory #ancientmysteries #hiddenhistory #ancientcivilizations #forgottencivilizations #ancientamerica #governmentsecrets
Aug 19, 2025 · 7 min
Secrets of the Manhattan Project You Never Learned!
This video explores a stunning high-concept question: What if J. Robert Oppenheimer approached the Trinity Test not just as a scientist, but as a director crafting the ultimate, world-changing spectacle? We dive deep into the fascinating parallels between Project Greenlight and the top-secret, high-pressure environment of the Manhattan Project, where a single deadline could change the course of human history.This is the unseen story of how a team of engineers, physicists, and military strategists worked under immense pressure to "direct" an event with a cast of millions—and an audience of the entire world.#ManhattanProject #WWIISecrets #HistoricalMystery #Oppenheimer #MKULTRA #UnsolvedMystery #LosAlamos #ConspiracyHistory #ColdWarSecrets #OakRidge #HistoryUncovered
Aug 19, 2025 · 16 min
Did Giants Really Live on Malta? Forbidden Archaeology Evidence
For centuries, Malta has been home to mysterious megalithic temples and whispered legends of giants. Archaeologists, historians, and even local residents have told stories of massive skeletons, hidden caves, and forbidden discoveries that seem to vanish from the record.In this episode of America’s Strangest History, we investigate whether giants really walked the island of Malta. From the enigmatic Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra temples to rumored secret chambers beneath the Hypogeum, we uncover the clues, the controversies, and the cover-ups.Was this ancient island home to a lost race of giants… or is it one of history’s most enduring myths? Chapters0:00 Intro1:15 Malta’s Ancient Mysteries4:32 Giant Skeleton Claims8:10 Forbidden Archaeology & Missing Evidence12:55 Theories & Conclusions#GiantsofMalta #ForbiddenHistory #AncientMysteries #LostCivilizations #Nephilim #ElongatedSkulls #Hypogeum #AmericaStrangestHistory #forbiddenarchaeology #historymystery
Aug 19, 2025 · 13 min
The Alien Broadcast That Made a Pilot Disappear – Still Unsolved
In 1978, a young pilot sent a chilling last transmission: “It’s not an aircraft.” Moments later, his plane vanished over the Bass Strait — never to be found.This is the mysterious disappearance of Frederick Valentich, a case that has baffled investigators and UFO researchers for decades. Was it an alien abduction? A military cover-up? Or something even stranger?In this episode of America’s Strangest History, we piece together official transcripts, witness reports, and declassified documents to uncover what might have happened that night.#Vrillon #FrederickValentich #AlienBroadcast #SignalHijack #UFO #UnsolvedMystery #americasstrangesthistory #UFO #VanishedPilot #StrangeHistory #AlienAbduction #AviationMystery

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