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The Box of Oddities

Kat & Jethro Gilligan Toth

The Webby Award-winning “Box of Oddities" is a podcast that delves into the strange and mysterious aspects of our world, exploring topics ranging from bizarre medical conditions to unsolved mysteries, and from paranormal phenomena to strange cultural practices from around the world. With a focus on oddities, curiosities, and the macabre, each episode is a journey into the unknown, where hosts Kat and Jethro Gilligan Toth share their love for unusual stories and inject their humor and commentary. From the strange history of medical practices to chilling true crime stories, to natural (and unnatural) events, "The Box of Oddities" satisfies your thirst for the weird and the unusual, offering an informative and entertaining look into the dark and mysterious corners of our world.

JIMMY KIMMEL, ABC-TV says, "Should you be the type who has an interest in weird stuff, this is a fun thing to allow in your head!"

“Truth is stranger than fiction, and the Box of Oddities is the strangest of all!” -SLUGGO, SIRIUS XM LITHIUM

“Kat & Jethro wring humor from bizarre, macabre and perplexing places.” -BOSTON MAGAZINE

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Yesterday · 26 min
Inbox Of Oddities #99
On this Inbox of Oddities, Kat and Jethro open the mailbag for a wonderfully strange collection of listener stories: gargoyle-like creatures watching from a grandmother’s curtain rod, an eerie phone call from a man who may have been dead, a child who seemed to know far too much about the “lady upstairs,” and an unexpected bathroom encounter with Monkees legend Mickey Dolenz. They also reflect on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, hear a powerful reminder that bravery can mean doing the thing even while you’re afraid, and put out the call for your true spooky stories for the ninth annual Box of Oddities Halloween special. It’s paranormal encounters, weird celebrity pee lore, anxiety, mysterious USB drives, and the magnificent freak family—just the way an Inbox should be. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#838
Wednesday · 33 min
The Psychology of Going Nowhere
A young woman boards an elevated train in 1907, reaches her stop…and simply cannot make herself leave. Her strange case of “nervousness” becomes a newspaper curiosity, but more than a century later, it feels startlingly familiar. Then, why do lost people so often make the one choice most likely to keep them lost? From the forests of Nova Scotia to the Sahara Desert, we explore the unnerving ways panic can scramble your internal compass. The Box of Oddities: where history gets weird, the brain gets stranger, and sometimes the best thing you can do is stay put. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#837
Monday · 44 min
Odd Jobs, Bad Science, and Three Generations of Horror
In this classic episode, we celebrate Labor Day by looking at the most unusual jobs. Some people get paid to break into buildings, test mattresses, cuddle strangers, or bring horses into therapy sessions. Then there’s the far darker side of deciding who is “fit” for society: the true story of Carrie Buck, a young woman institutionalized and sterilized against her will in a Supreme Court case whose legacy still haunts America. It’s strange work, terrible pseudoscience, and the kind of history that should never be forgotten. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 4 · 26 min
Inbox Of Oddities #98
This week’s Inbox of Oddities is full of the kinds of stories that make you wonder whether the universe is gently trying to get your attention. From a beloved dog who may have kept watch long after he was gone, to a grandmother’s promise delivered through a stubborn patch of flowers, the Freak Family shares paranormal experiences, unexpected kindness, rescued pups, healing, and a reminder that sometimes we get the chance to be somebody else’s Santa. Plus, Jethro and Kat put out the call for your true scary stories for the ninth annual Box of Oddities Halloween Special. Record your experience on your phone and send it to curator@theboxofoddities.com—you may hear it in this year’s spooky celebration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#836
September 2 · 39 min
Freaks, Feathers, and Yellow Fever
A sideshow performer known as Koo-Koo the Bird Girl becomes one of the most unforgettable faces in Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks—yet the real Minnie Woolsey remains almost a mystery. We trace the strange, sad, and surprisingly human story behind the feathers, enormous glasses, and a few seconds of dancing that outlived nearly everything else known about her. Then: a young doctor named Stubbins Ffirth sets out to prove that yellow fever isn’t contagious by conducting one of history’s most stomach-turning medical experiments on himself. Plus, cow muffin bingo, lawnmower races, frog jumping, crab beauty pageants, and other wonderfully odd Labor Day traditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#835
August 31 · 27 min
Ten Dimes and One Very Stubborn House
What can ten dimes do? For Osceola McCarty, they represented a lifetime spent washing other people’s clothes—and a quiet act of generosity that would eventually change the lives of more than a hundred students. Discover how a Mississippi laundress who left school in the sixth grade saved a remarkable fortune and created an educational legacy that continues growing decades after her death. Then, when developers decided one stubborn little house stood in the way of progress, its owners refused to budge. What followed was a three-year standoff that left their home balanced atop a towering pillar of dirt in the middle of an enormous construction pit. It became one of China’s most famous “nail houses” and sparked a national debate over property rights, eminent domain, and how far powerful developers will go to hammer down the people standing in their way. Generosity measured in dimes and defiance measured in feet above a construction site. It’s The Box of Oddities! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 28 · 24 min
Inbox Of Oddities #97
Can you feel time passing—or taste pizza using only your imagination? This week, the Freak Family opens our eyes to the wildly different ways our brains experience the world, including one listener whose sense of time appears as a constantly shifting spectrum of colors. We also hear about an eerily timed Dolly Parton “Boo Effect,” an Australian linguistic injustice, sad nipple syndrome as bedroom conversation, and a deeply moving message about grief, hospice, dark humor, and permitting ourselves to feel it all. It’s heartfelt, hilarious, occasionally inappropriate, and brought to you entirely by the beautiful weirdos who fill our inbox. Keep flying that freak flag! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#834
August 26 · 35 min
Black Holes, Nazis, & Fresh Baked Goods
Are We Living Inside a Black Hole? And Why You Should Never Trust a Nazi With a Plate Of Cookies. What if our entire universe is hiding inside a black hole? The James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered strange new clues about the early cosmos—including an ancient galaxy that appears far more developed than it should be and a mysterious imbalance in the way distant galaxies rotate. Then, meet the WWII interrogator who extracted secrets from hundreds of Allied pilots without threats or violence. His weapons were casual conversation, carefully placed misinformation…and sometimes a plate of cookies. How did prisoners reveal valuable intelligence without realizing they’d said anything at all? Two mind-bending stories involving cosmic mysteries, psychological manipulation, snack cakes, and the unsettling possibility that everything we know exists inside someone else’s patch of darkness. It’s The Box of Oddities! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#833
August 24 · 32 min
The Boys Who Refused to Become Monsters
What happens when six teenage boys are stranded on a deserted island for more than a year? Forget Lord of the Flies. The true story of the boys of Ata reveals something far more surprising—and far more hopeful—about human nature. Then, during World War II, a Muslim family in Sarajevo risks everything to hide their Jewish neighbors from the Nazis. Nearly fifty years later, with Sarajevo under siege once again, an extraordinary act of courage comes full circle. Two remarkable true stories of survival, kindness, and ordinary people choosing to become the helpers when the world is at its worst. Also: pets may be angels, Kat encounters one at a drive-thru, and we celebrate five astonishing comebacks—including species once believed extinct. Come fly the freak flag with us as we explore the strange, the inspiring, and the beautifully unexpected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 21 · 22 min
Inbox Of Oddities
A listener dreams that Mothman shows up at her patio door—and refuses to let him inside because of his dust. Aerial arts may have accidentally cured another Freak’s lifelong motion sickness. And a woman dreams of playing with her late grandfather in an old hot rod, only to discover it may be a memory from infancy—and that her father dreamed about him on the very same night. Plus, the modern medical condition still treated with bloodletting, a breathtaking encounter in Norway, and a desperate plea for the return of “What You Got for Me?” It’s another strange, funny, and unexpectedly moving journey through the Inbox of Oddities. Fly your Freak Flag proudly! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#832
August 19 · 34 min
Buried for 246 Years—and Finally Identified
He Vanished at 14. DNA Found Him 246 Years Later—and Why So Many Towns End in “Kill” A teenage soldier vanished during one of the American Revolution’s most devastating defeats. Nearly 250 years later, DNA recovered from a tiny piece of bone may have finally given him back his name. The remarkable story of Private John Pumphrey begins beneath the soil of a South Carolina battlefield—and ends with a family hearing the name history had forgotten. Then, Kat turns a 3,000-mile road trip into a linguistic excavation. Why do so many towns end in kill, ville, burg, ton, and ford? America’s highway signs are filled with language fossils revealing who settled the land, what they found, and occasionally, which important dude owned it. From the unknown soldiers of the Battle of Camden to the hidden histories embedded in American place names—history is everywhere. Sometimes it’s buried beneath your feet. Sometimes you pass it at 70 miles an hour. Keep flying that freak flag, beautiful freaks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#831
August 17 · 37 min
Charlie No-Face & The Jesus Mothership
A glowing faceless figure stalks the lonely roads of western Pennsylvania—or so the legend goes. But behind the terrifying tale of Charlie No-Face was Ray Robinson, a real man whose tragic childhood accident transformed him into the infamous Green Man of Pennsylvania. Then, Kat and Jethro explore the bizarre, darkly funny, and sometimes completely unhinged final words of executed criminals—including baked-apple jokes, complaints about SpaghettiOs, one killer’s suggested newspaper headline, and Aileen Wuornos’ promise to return with Jesus aboard a giant mothership. Urban legends, death-row one-liners, and a Rolex rescued from the sewer after 18 months. Just another perfectly normal episode of The Box of Oddities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 14 · 35 min
Horse Manure Apocalypse
HORSE MANURE CRISIS! And Victorians Crawl Inside Dead Whales for a Bizarre Cure! A Freak Family Favorite returns! First, the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894—and the very real fear that cities would eventually disappear beneath nine feet of horse poop. Then, the spectacularly revolting Victorian “whale cure” for rheumatoid arthritis, which involved spending hours inside a warm, decomposing whale carcass. Two historical problems. Two deeply questionable solutions. One unusually fragrant episode of The Box of Oddities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#830
August 12 · 32 min
Glitch in Reality & Ghost in the Family Tree
What if the world didn’t move smoothly—but jumped from moment to moment like a broken film reel? Meet LM, the woman who could see colors, faces, and objects clearly but couldn’t see them move. Her rare neurological condition, akinetopsia, revealed something astonishing about how the brain constructs reality. Then, an adopted man searching for his biological mother discovers that she had spent nearly 50 years at the center of one of Massachusetts’ most haunting unsolved mysteries. The Lady of the Dunes finally had a name—but identifying Ruth Marie Terry was only the beginning. Along the way, Kat accidentally crosses into Canada, gets caught with a stun gun, and briefly becomes an international weapons smuggler while looking for a thrift store. Motion blindness, a cold case solved through genetic genealogy, and the most stressful grouse sighting in recorded history. It’s The Box of Oddities! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#829
August 10 · 37 min
Before Your First Memory & Valley Of The Calls
Your brain was listening before you ever took your first breath. Newborns can recognize their mother’s voice—and even stories heard in the womb—but could any of those experiences survive as actual memories? JG explores prenatal learning, infantile amnesia, and the unsettling possibility that your earliest memory may be something your brain quietly invented. Then, Kat follows a voice across Saskatchewan’s Qu’Appelle Valley, where the landscape can make distant calls seem impossibly close. An Indigenous tradition, a tragic love story, and Pauline Johnson’s haunting poem all became tangled in the meaning of a name: “Who calls?” From the Cree trickster Wîsahkêcâhk to the mysterious St. Louis Ghost Light, Saskatchewan is filled with stories shaped by the land—and some of them still seem to answer back. Childhood memories, phantom voices, ghostly lights, and a potentially explosive bucket of dog poop. Just another day inside The Box of Oddities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 7 · 22 min
Inbox Of Oddities #95
The Freak Family has been busy. This week on Inbox of Oddities, Kat and JG crack open the listener mailbag and discover a funeral urn that can preserve the voice of the person inside it, a legendary Texas rock that may have swallowed a man whole, and the deeply unfortunate mystery of a toilet seat that suddenly developed a perfect blue butt print. Then there’s a possible Boo Effect at one of America’s strangest museums, the surprisingly fascinating history of the Brannock Device, a road trip tradition involving the Uranus Fudge Factory, and the only beach in America where you can apparently land an airplane—as long as the tide cooperates. Plus, a Freak Family member shares a wonderfully funny near-final line from her mother-in-law, we revisit the weird phenomenon of nipple sadness, and discover that The Box of Oddities has apparently been used as homeschool curriculum. Which feels both flattering and possibly irresponsible. Listener stories, strange coincidences, weird history, questionable business names, and proof that the Freak Family may be even stranger than Kat and JG. Keep flying that freak flag. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#828
August 5 · 35 min
Is My Red Is Your Red?
What if your brain suddenly decided that words had colors? In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro dive into one of neuroscience's strangest documented phenomena: a woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury and awoke seeing vivid colors every time someone spoke. Her condition—known as acquired speech-to-color synesthesia—raises an unsettling question: if the brain can rewrite reality after an injury, how much of the world we experience is actually being created inside our own minds? From disappearing colors and tetrachromats who may perceive millions of shades the rest of us never will, to the mystery of whether your experience of "red" is anything like anyone else's, this episode explores the fragile line between perception and reality. Then, the conversation shifts to one of South Korea's most haunting unsolved mysteries: the 1991 disappearance of the Frog Boys. Five young friends set out to collect salamander eggs on a day off from school and never returned. After one of the largest searches in the nation's history, their remains were discovered eleven years later in an area investigators had searched repeatedly. Was it a tragic accident, a calculated murder, or something else entirely? Decades later, the case remains unsolved—but it forever changed how South Korea responds to missing children. Along the way, expect the usual detours into bizarre headlines, questionable road-trip food decisions, and the wonderfully weird conversations that only happen inside The Box of Oddities. In this episode: Acquired speech-to-color synesthesia How the brain creates color and perception Tetrachromats and the mystery of subjective reality The neuroscience of consciousness and qualia The unsolved Frog Boys case How one tragedy transformed South Korea's missing-child investigations If you love strange science, unsolved mysteries, psychology, neuroscience, true crime, and the wonderfully inexplicable, welcome home. The Freak Family has been waiting for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#827
August 3 · 29 min
Oscar Wilde, Dutch Schultz & Sad Nipples
What were someone's last words really supposed to reveal? During the Victorian era, people believed a person's final moments exposed the truth about their soul. Families gathered around deathbeds with notebooks in hand, hoping to capture profound final wisdom—but history suggests many of the world's most famous last words may have been polished, embellished, or invented entirely. In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Jethro explores the fascinating history behind legendary final quotes from Oscar Wilde, Admiral Horatio Nelson, Nathan Hale, and gangster Dutch Schultz, asking whether these iconic farewell lines tell us more about the dying... or the living. Then Kat investigates one of the strangest neurological mysteries you've probably never heard of: Nipple Sadness (also called Sad Nipple Syndrome). Why do some people experience an unexpected wave of sadness, anxiety, guilt, or even homesickness when their nipples are stimulated? Scientists think hormones and brain chemistry may be involved, but the phenomenon remains largely unexplained. It's an episode about the stories we tell ourselves at the end of life—and the bizarre ways our brains can surprise us while we're still living. In this episode: The Victorian tradition of collecting famous last words Were Oscar Wilde's final words invented? The mystery surrounding Admiral Nelson's "Kiss me, Hardy" Dutch Schultz's bizarre deathbed ramblings Why we remember death the way we do What causes "Nipple Sadness"? The possible connection to dopamine, oxytocin, and Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (D-MER) Strange neuroscience and unexplained human experiences If you love strange history, neuroscience, medical mysteries, psychology, famous last words, Victorian culture, and bizarre true stories, this episode belongs in your ears. #BoxOfOddities #FamousLastWords #VictorianHistory #Neuroscience #MedicalMysteries #DutchSchultz #OscarWilde #BrainScience #WeirdHistory #Podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 31 · 39 min
Bat People, Lunar Beavers & Human Skin Books
Freak Family Favorites: Bat People, Moon Hoaxes, and Museums That Shouldn't Exist This Freak Family Favorites episode comes straight from the recommendations of the Freak Family, and it's packed with the kind of stories that remind us why history is often stranger than fiction. First, Kat unpacks one of the greatest media hoaxes ever printed: The Great Moon Hoax of 1835. Newspapers convinced thousands of readers that a giant telescope had discovered life on the Moon—including winged bat people, intelligent beavers that built villages, strange temples, and an entire lunar civilization. It spread across America and Europe before anyone stopped to ask whether any of it was actually true. Then Jethro takes a tour through some of the world's most bizarre museum exhibits. From Galileo's preserved middle finger and Thomas Edison's supposed last breath to necropants, human-skin books, serial killer relics, and anatomical displays that blur the line between science and the macabre, these are museums unlike any you've ever visited. If you've ever wondered how easily people can be fooled—or why museums sometimes keep the strangest souvenirs imaginable—this Freak Family favorite belongs at the top of your playlist. In this episode: The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 Bat people, lunar beavers, and the newspaper story that fooled the world Sir John Herschel's unwitting role in history's most famous astronomy hoax Edgar Allan Poe's unexpected connection to the scandal The world's strangest museum exhibits Galileo's middle finger, Thomas Edison's last breath, necropants, human-skin books, and more Weird history, oddities, curiosities, and unbelievable true stories Perfect for fans of: Weird history, historical hoaxes, Edgar Allan Poe, astronomy, museums, macabre history, curiosities, folklore, and the strange true stories that make the world wonderfully weird. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
#826
July 29 · 39 min
The Silence Between the Signals
Long before smartphones and satellites filled the sky with signals, early radio experimenters were hearing something they couldn't explain. Giant antennas stretched across fields captured strange repeating pulses, mysterious buzzing, and what some believed sounded almost like language. Even Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi wondered if the transmissions might be coming from Mars. In this episode, JG shares a remarkable story from his grandfather's homemade crystal radio in rural Maine and explores the forgotten mystery that convinced some of the world's greatest inventors they might not be alone. Then, discover the incredible story of the Gallaudet Eleven—the deaf volunteers whose unique physiology helped NASA solve one of the biggest problems of human spaceflight. While everyone else became violently motion sick, these remarkable men endured spinning rooms, brutal centrifuges, hurricane-force seas, and bizarre experiments that paved the way for astronauts to survive in space. Their contributions changed aerospace medicine, yet their story remains largely unknown. Also: terrible business names, radio nostalgia, and the strange ways overlooked people sometimes make history. If you love mysterious science, forgotten history, Nikola Tesla, early radio, NASA, space exploration, and the wonderfully weird stories history forgot, this episode is for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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