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Haunted American History

Bloody FM

A daily campfire-style podcast blending American history, folklore, and true crime.
What scares you? Let’s find out.

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20 episodes
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23 min on average

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#199Today · 24 min
The Hotel That Kept a Record of Its Ghosts: Hotel Alex Johnson (South Dakota)
For nearly a century, the Hotel Alex Johnson has towered over downtown Rapid City, hosting presidents, Hollywood stars, and generations of travelers. But some guests apparently never checked out. Employees report phantom high heels crossing empty floors, elevators moving without passengers, and the apparition of the hotel's long-dead founder still watching over his lobby. Then there's Room 812—where a young bride plunged eight stories to her death and guests now claim something opens the windo
Yesterday · 19 min
The Millennium Falcon Beneath the Sea: The Baltic Sea Anomaly (Baltic Sea)
In 2011, a pair of Swedish treasure hunters scanned the floor of the Baltic Sea with a $1,900 sonar system—and accidentally ignited one of the biggest archaeological mysteries of the internet age. The blurry image appeared to show a massive circular object with a dome, strange geometric features, and a 300-meter skid mark trailing behind it. Within days, the world was calling it a crashed UFO, an ancient monument, and even the Millennium Falcon. But what happened when scientists finally examine
Saturday · 21 min
The Desert That Never Forgets: The Nazca Lines (Peru)
Stretching across the Peruvian desert are thousands of enormous lines, geometric shapes, and animal figures so vast they can only truly be appreciated from the sky. For decades, they inspired theories about ancient astronauts, lost civilizations, and mysterious messages to the stars. But the truth is even more extraordinary. Tonight, we uncover the real story of the Nazca Lines—a civilization that turned one of the driest places on Earth into a permanent canvas, creating giant rituals, hidden
#198Friday · 22 min
The Devil in Petticoats: Becky Cotton (South Carolina)
In 1807, a woman stood laughing on the courthouse steps in Edgefield, South Carolina. Moments later, her own brother walked across the square, picked up a stone, and killed her in broad daylight. No one arrested him. No one charged him. The town simply let him walk away. To understand why, we have to unravel the extraordinary story of Rebecca "Becky" Cotton—a woman who murdered her husband with an axe, charmed a jury into acquitting her, married one of the jurors, and became the inspiration fo
#197Thursday · 22 min
The Faces in the Water: The Ghost Pirates of Charleston (South Carolina)
For more than 300 years, Charleston has whispered the same warning: don't look into the rainwater on Water Street after dark. They say the flooded gutters sometimes reveal pale, waterlogged faces staring back from beneath the surface. According to local legend, they're the ghosts of pirates whose bodies were never buried after the infamous hanging season of 1718. Tonight, we uncover the true story of Blackbeard's blockade, the disastrous career of the Gentleman Pirate Stede Bonnet, and the exe
#196Wednesday · 19 min
The Headless Soldier in Room 8: 20 South Battery (South Carolina)
Charleston's Battery is one of the most photographed streets in America, lined with elegant mansions overlooking the harbor. But hidden behind one of those grand homes is a carriage house where guests have spent decades reporting encounters they can't explain. A headless Civil War soldier that growls when touched. A lonely Victorian gentleman who slips into bed beside sleeping women. Floating orbs, phantom footsteps, and rooms with reputations so infamous that visitors request them by number. To
#195Tuesday · 22 min
The Gardens That Remember Everything: Magnolia Plantation (South Carolina)
Magnolia Plantation is often celebrated as one of the most beautiful gardens in America. Couples marry beneath its moss-draped oaks, tourists wander its famous bridges, and photographers capture its breathtaking blooms. But beneath that beauty lies a far darker history. Built by enslaved hands, shaped by Gullah Geechee traditions, and layered with generations of suffering, Magnolia has become a place where visitors report crushing sensations, phantom voices, shadow figures, and unexplained encou
#194August 3 · 23 min
The Serial Killer Who Never Was: Lavinia Fisher (South Carolina)
Charleston's Old City Jail is one of the most haunted buildings in America—or so the ghost tours claim. Nearly every story begins with Lavinia Fisher, the beautiful innkeeper who supposedly poisoned travelers with oleander tea before dropping them through a trapdoor to their deaths. It's a chilling tale... and almost entirely fictional. Tonight, we separate two centuries of myth from documented history, uncover the real crimes of John and Lavinia Fisher, and explore the darker truth behind a j
August 2 · 20 min
The Ghost Ship That Never Was: The Mary Celeste (Atlantic Ocean)
The most famous ghost ship in history never had steaming cups of tea, half-eaten meals, or a ticking clock left behind. Those details were invented by a young Arthur Conan Doyle years after the fact. The real mystery is stranger. In 1872, the Mary Celeste was discovered adrift in the Atlantic Ocean—her cargo intact, her provisions untouched, and every member of her crew, including the captain's wife and two-year-old daughter, gone without a trace. Tonight, we separate myth from history and unc
#193August 1 · 28 min
The Hearts They Burned: The New England Vampire Panic (New England)
In 1990, archaeologists uncovered a colonial grave in Connecticut unlike anything they had ever seen. The skeleton had been carefully rearranged—its skull placed atop its ribs and its crossed leg bones forming a macabre skull-and-crossbones. Someone had dug this man up decades after his death, cut open his chest, and burned his heart because they believed he was a vampire. But this wasn't the story of one corpse. It was part of a forgotten epidemic that swept across New England, where grieving
#192July 31 · 25 min
The Execution That Ended the Gallows: The Murder of Amasa Sprague (Rhode Island)
On New Year's Eve 1843, Rhode Island's most powerful industrialist was found brutally beaten to death along the Pocasset River. His pockets were still full of cash, making one thing immediately clear: this wasn't robbery... it was revenge. What followed became one of the darkest chapters in American legal history, as prejudice, political influence, and a corrupt court system sent an innocent Irish immigrant to the gallows. Tonight, we unravel the murder of Amasa Sprague, the execution of John
#191July 30 · 24 min
The School That Became a Prison: Ladd School (Rhode Island)
Hidden deep in the forests of Rhode Island stood one of America's largest institutions for people with developmental disabilities. For decades, the Ladd School promised care, education, and hope... but behind its doors were overcrowding, neglect, scandal, and heartbreaking loss. After the campus closed, abandoned buildings gave rise to ghost stories of shadowy figures, crying children, and haunted hospital halls. Tonight, we separate urban legend from documented history and uncover the tragic
#190July 29 · 24 min
The Ghost the Government Recorded: Ramtail Mill (Rhode Island)
Deep in the forests of western Rhode Island lies the forgotten site of the Ramtail Mill, where locals once claimed a dead night watchman refused to leave his post. They said the factory bell rang by itself, machinery roared to life after midnight, and a lone lantern drifted through the darkness long after its keeper was buried. The legend became so widespread that, in 1885, a Rhode Island state census officially listed the abandoned mill as simply: "Ram Tail Factory (haunted)." Tonight, we unc
#189July 28 · 26 min
The Ship That Never Stopped Burning: The Palatine Light (Rhode Island)
For nearly three centuries, sailors have reported a mysterious flame rising from the waters off Block Island... a ghostly ship said to burn without ever being consumed. Legend blames murderous wreckers, a doomed immigrant vessel, and a restless spirit forever searching the sea. But the real history is far more tragic. Tonight, we uncover the true story of the Princess Augusta, the infamous Palatine Light, a towering woman accused of witchcraft, and how one of New England's greatest ghost stories
#188July 27 · 24 min
The Story That Haunted America: The Conjuring House (Rhode Island)
The Conjuring made this Rhode Island farmhouse one of the most famous haunted houses in the world. Millions know the story of the Perron family, the Warrens, and the witch named Bathsheba. But how much of it is actually true? Tonight, we separate Hollywood from history, uncover the real lives behind the legends, examine the séance that tore a family apart, and explore how a centuries-old farmhouse became one of the most controversial paranormal stories ever told.
July 26 · 20 min
The Lighthouse That Waits for Justice: Gibraltar Point Lighthouse (Ontario)
On Toronto's quiet islands stands Canada's oldest lighthouse... and one of its most haunted. For more than two centuries, visitors have reported a ghostly keeper pacing the tower after dark, searching for justice that never came. But behind the legend lies a true story of colonial violence, a respected Bavarian immigrant beaten to death by drunken soldiers, a mysterious grave hidden beneath shifting sand dunes, and a sacred Indigenous landscape forever changed by war. Tonight, we separate folkl
#187July 25 · 28 min
The Mountain That Collected Misery: Hexenkopf Rock (Pennsylvania)
For centuries, the people of eastern Pennsylvania believed there was a hill where you could leave your sickness behind. Not cure it... leave it. Powwowers cast illness into an ancient rock, convinced it could absorb disease, curses, and human misery until the mountain itself became something to fear. But Hexenkopf is more than a haunted hill. It is a place where Native American spirituality, Pennsylvania Dutch folk magic, witchcraft trials, tax rebellions, and modern pagan traditions all converg
#186July 24 · 23 min
The Dark Truth About Pennhurst: Pennhurst State School (Pennsylvania)
For decades, the abandoned buildings of Pennhurst State School and Hospital have been called one of America's most haunted places. Visitors report shadow figures in the tunnels, phantom nurses walking the halls, and a towering entity known only as "The King." But the real horror didn't begin after the patients died... it happened while they were still alive. Built on the promise of compassion, Pennhurst became a warehouse of neglect, abuse, forced sterilization, and forgotten lives. Tonight, we
#185July 23 · 25 min
The Child They Couldn't Erase: The Boy in the Box (Pennsylvania)
For sixty-five years, America knew him by only one name: The Boy in the Box. A brutally abused little boy, abandoned in a cardboard bassinet box in a vacant Philadelphia lot, with no name, no family, and no one to claim him. Detectives chased psychics, carnival workers, and heartbreaking confessions that led nowhere, while one investigator devoted his entire life to giving the child back his identity. Then, in 2022, advances in forensic genealogy finally accomplished what generations of detectiv
#184July 22 · 30 min
The Battlefield That Won't Let Go: Gettysburg (Pennsylvania)
Gettysburg is remembered as the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil. More than 51,000 men became casualties in just three days. But when the armies marched away, they left behind far more than broken fences and shattered lives. Hospitals overflowed with the dying. Mass graves disappeared beneath the earth. Families returned to homes stained with blood. Today, visitors still report phantom soldiers, silent field hospitals, mysterious figures among the rocks of Devil's Den, and an elevat

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