37. The Teacup Skull: Inside Spontaneous Human Combustion

37. The Teacup Skull: Inside Spontaneous Human Combustion

WARNING: Episode describes topics that many not be suitable for children. A widow burns to ash in her armchair, leaving behind a skull shrunk to the size of a teacup and almost nothing else in the room is touched. An Irish coroner rules a man's 2010 death "spontaneous combustion" after twenty-five years on the job without seeing anything like it. This week, Mitch and Russell dig into the strange 300-year history of spontaneous human combustion: the famous cases, the FBI file on Mary Reeser, the skeptics who say it's all just a slow-burning "wick effect," and the fringe theories that refuse to die. Is it bad forensic luck repeating itself for centuries, or something science still can't fully explain? Sources: 1. "Spontaneous Human Combustion," Wikipedia. 2. "Death of Mary Reeser," Wikipedia. 3. "Spontaneous Combustion? The Curious Case of Mary Reeser," Northeast Journal. 4. "John Irving Bentley," Wikipedia. 5. "50 years later Bentley death still a mystery," Endeavor News. 6. "Henry Thomas (suspected combustion death)," En-Academic / Wikipedia mirror. 7. "Death of Jeannie Saffin," Wikipedia. 8. "George Mott," Unsolved Mysteries Wiki; Pacific Standard, "How to Explain Spontaneous Human Combustion." 9. "Coroner Concludes Irishman Died of Spontaneous Human Combustion," LiveScience. 10. "Coroner says Irishman died of 'spontaneous combustion': Blarney?" CBS News. 11. Nickell, Joe, and John F. Fischer. "Spontaneous Human Combustion," The Fire and Arson Investigator, 1984. 12. "Not-So-Spontaneous Human Combustion," Skeptical Inquirer, 1996. 13. "Wick effect," Wikipedia. 14. Emsley, John. Cited via Britannica, "Is Spontaneous Human Combustion Real?" 15. "7 Cases of Alleged Spontaneous Human Combustion," Mental Floss. 16. Dickens, Charles. Bleak House, 1853 (Chapter 32, "The Appointed Time"). 17. IMAGE — Wikimedia Commons, "Strange Death Scene of Mary Reeser.png," public domain. 18. IMAGE — Wikimedia Commons, "Bleak House Découverte de Krook calciné.jpg," public domain.

36. The UAP Files They Burned: Dept Of War Files (Part 2)

The US Department of War just released classified documents from 1948. Inside: a Top Secret cable from the European Command to the Director of Air Force Intelligence, describing three separate UAP incidents including a flying object that hovered over an American base in Germany for 30 minutes, a UAP that outran US bombers at 30,000 feet over Holland, and Swedish military divers finding an unexplained crater where a saucer was witnessed to crash. Most extraordinary line in the document: Sweden's Air Intelligence Service told American officers their best technical experts concluded the objects were 'obviously the result of a high technical skill which cannot be credited to any presently known culture on earth.' That's a government saying non-human, on paper, in 1948. #uap #declassified #ufo #projectsign Sources: 1. U.S. Department of War — USAFE Intelligence Cables, TT 1524 (Top Secret / Confidential, November 4, 1948) — Declassified government documents released 2025-2026 via UAP Disclosure Initiative 2. U.S. Department of War — German Armament and Equipment Documents, 1944-1945 — Declassified government documents released 2025-2026 3. Edward J. Ruppelt — The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (book, 1956) 4. Richard Dolan — UFOs and the National Security State, Volume 1: 1941-1973 (book, 2000) 5. Jacques Vallée — Confrontations: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact (book, 1990) 6. Project Sign — Estimate of the Situation (classified government document, 1948; all copies ordered destroyed by Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg; existence confirmed by Edward Ruppelt) 7. Swedish Defense Staff — Ghost Rocket Investigation Files (classified government documents, 1946; declassified 1984) 8. Clas Svahn — Swedish UFO researcher; interview with Karl-Gösta Bartoll on Lake Kölmjärv investigation (1984) 9. Charles P. Cabell — Wikipedia (background on USAF Director of Intelligence, 1948) — 10. Ghost Rockets — Wikipedia (overview of 1946 Scandinavian UAP wave) — 11. Foo Fighters — Wikipedia (WWII aerial phenomena, 1944-1945) 12. Project Sign — Wikipedia 13. CIA — 'A Die-Hard Issue: CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90' by Gerald K. Haines (government article, 1997) — 14. National Archives — Project Blue Book Records (government archive) 15. 'Flying saucers over air base for 30 mins' — WION News, 2025 (news article on the same document release) — 16. Mantell UFO Incident — Wikipedia (January 7, 1948 crash, Project Sign trigger) 17. Chiles-Whitted UFO Encounter — Wikipedia (July 24, 1948 Eastern Airlines incident) 18. 'See Something, Say Something: UFO Reporting Requirements, Office of Military Government for Bavaria, Germany, May 1948' — National Archives Blog, Sylvia Naylor (government archive article, 2017) 19. Gorman Dogfight, October 1, 1948 — National Guard pilot engagement over Fargo, North Dakota; documented in Project Sign files — referenced in Ruppelt (1956)

35. The Voynich Manuscript: The 600-Year-Old Coded Book Nobody Has Ever Decoded

There is a book at Yale University that no one can read. Written between 1404 and 1438, on calf-skin vellum, in a script that appears in no other document on earth. It has 240 pages of plants that do not exist, astronomical diagrams that match no known system, and a section full of bathing figures that nobody has been able to explain. William Friedman, the greatest cryptanalyst of the 20th century, spent decades on it and gave up. Statistical analysis proves the text follows the rules of real language, but also has properties that no known language shares. Sources: 1. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University — Voynich Manuscript (MS 408), digitized collection (website, beinecke.library.yale.edu [http://beinecke.library.yale.edu]) 2. University of Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory — Radiocarbon Dating of the Voynich Manuscript Vellum (research report, published in Radiocarbon, 2011) 3. Mary E. d'Imperio — The Voynich Manuscript: An Elegant Enigma (NSA technical report, written 1978, declassified 2002; available at nsa.gov [http://nsa.gov]) 4. Marcelo Montemurro and Damian Zanette — Keywords and Co-Occurrence Patterns in the Voynich Manuscript: An Information-Theoretic Analysis (journal article, PLOS ONE, 2013) 5. Gordon Rugg — An Elegant Hoax? A Possible Solution to the Voynich Manuscript (journal article, Cryptologia, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2004) 6. Claire Bowern and Luke Lindemann — The Linguistics of the Voynich Manuscript (journal article, Transactions of the Philological Society, 2021) 7. Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill — The Voynich Manuscript (book, Orion Publishing, 2004) 8. Rene Zandbergen — voynich.nu [http://voynich.nu] (research website; comprehensive source for manuscript text, transcription, provenance, and scholarly analysis; voynich.nu [http://voynich.nu]) 9. Rene Zandbergen — Where was the Voynich MS kept and how did Voynich find it? (web article, voynich.nu/extra/mondragone.html [http://voynich.nu/extra/mondragone.html]) 10. National Security Agency — Declassified documents related to the Voynich Manuscript (government document archive, nsa.gov [http://nsa.gov]) 11. Johannes Marcus Marci — Cover letter to Athanasius Kircher (primary source document, 1665/1666; transcribed and translated in multiple secondary sources) 12. Live Science — Has the Mysterious Code of the Voynich Manuscript Been Cracked? (news article covering Gerard Cheshire's 2019 claims, livescience.com [http://livescience.com]) 13. Language Log, University of Pennsylvania — Yet Again the Voynich Manuscript (scholarly blog post, critical analysis of Cheshire 2019, 14. The Art Newspaper — What Is the Voynich Manuscript? (explainer article, 2022, theartnewspaper.com [http://theartnewspaper.com]) 15. Wikipedia contributors — Voynich Manuscript (encyclopedia article, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript], accessed 2026) 16. phys.org [http://phys.org] — New Study Suggests Voynich Text Is Not a Hoax (news article covering Montemurro 2013, phys.org [http://phys.org])

34. Remote Viewing: How the U.S. Government Trained Psychic Spies for 23 Years

Project STARGATE was real. For over two decades, the U.S. government trained military personnel to use their minds to spy on Soviet facilities, locate missing people, and gather intelligence no satellite or informant could reach. This week on Yeti to Rumble, we dig into the declassified documents, the cases that are hardest to explain away, and why the debate over what actually happened is still very much alive. The Typhoon submarine. The Semipalatinsk nuclear site. The missing customs agent. Remote Viewer Number One. It's all in there. Sources: 1. Stargate Project — Wikipedia   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project_(U.S._Army_unit) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project_(U.S._Army_unit)] 2. Remote Viewing — Wikipedia   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_viewing] 3. Ingo Swann — Wikipedia   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingo_Swann [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingo_Swann] 4. Russell Targ — Wikipedia   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Targ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Targ] 5. Joseph McMoneagle — Wikipedia   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McMoneagle [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McMoneagle] 6. Joseph McMoneagle — The Stargate Chronicles: Memoirs of a Psychic Spy (book, 2002) 7. Russell Targ — The Reality of ESP: A Physicist's Proof of Psychic Abilities (book, 2012) 8. Hal Puthoff — CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing at Stanford Research Institute (paper)   https://www.newdualism.org/papers/H.Puthoff/CIA-Initiated%20Remote%20Viewing%20At%20Stanford%20Research%20Institute.htm [https://www.newdualism.org/papers/H.Puthoff/CIA-Initiated%20Remote%20Viewing%20At%20Stanford%20Research%20Institute.htm] 9. CIA — An Evaluation of the Remote Viewing Program (government document, 1995)   https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00791R000200180005-5.pdf [https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00791R000200180005-5.pdf] 10. CIA — Analysis of Remote Viewing of URDF-3, Semipalatinsk (declassified document)    https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200240001-0 [https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00791r000200240001-0] 11. CIA FOIA Reading Room — Remote Viewing Document Archive    12. History.com [http://History.com] — The CIA Recruited Mind Readers to Spy on the Soviets in the 1970s (article)    13. Tressoldi & Katz — Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Remote Viewing Research 1974–2022, Journal of Scientific Exploration (2023) 14. International Remote Viewing Association (IRVA) — Aperture Magazine  15. Project Unredacted — Project Stargate: The CIA's Psychic Spy Program

33. The Jersey Devil: 300 Years of Terror in the New Jersey Pine Barrens

January 1909: a week-long wave of sightings hit southern New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania. Police officers, postal workers, and entire trolley cars full of passengers all reported the same winged, hooved creature. Schools closed. The Philadelphia Zoo offered $10,000 for its capture. New episode of Yeti to Rumble is out now. We go deep on the Jersey Devil — from the 1735 birth curse to the 1909 week of terror to the theories that still don't fully explain the tracks. Sources: 1. "Jersey Devil" — Wikipedia. Comprehensive overview of the legend, origin theories, 1909 sightings, and physical descriptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Devil [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Devil] 2. McCloy, James F., and Ray Miller Jr. The Jersey Devil. Middle Atlantic Press, 1976. The definitive historical compilation of the legend and sighting record. 3. Regal, Brian. "The Jersey Devil: The Real Story." Kean University. Published research on the Leeds family origin theory and political context of the legend. Available through academic databases. 4. Bartholomew, Robert E., and Peter Hassall. "The 1909 Jersey Devil Sighting Wave: A Classic Example of Mass Hysteria." Research on social contagion and the 1909 events. 5. "The Jersey Devil and Folklore" — Pinelands Alliance. Cultural and geographic context of the legend within Pine Barrens communities. https://pinelandsalliance.org [https://pinelandsalliance.org] 6. "The Jersey Devil: Fact or Fiction?" — Atlantic County, New Jersey official county website. Local historical record and summary of major sightings. https://www.atlanticcountynj.gov [https://www.atlanticcountynj.gov] 7. "1909: The Devil Went Down to Jersey" — CapitalCentury.com [http://CapitalCentury.com]. Detailed reconstruction of the 1909 sightings week. https://www.capitalcentury.com/1909.html [https://www.capitalcentury.com/1909.html] 8. "The Jersey Devil, the Tale of a Viral Story from 110 Years Ago" — Philadelphia Inquirer. Analysis of the 1909 media contagion angle, including the Norman Jefferies connection. https://www.inquirer.com/news/new-jersey/jersey-devil-history-fake-news-norman-jefferies-20190123.html [https://www.inquirer.com/news/new-jersey/jersey-devil-history-fake-news-norman-jefferies-20190123.html] 9. "Joseph Bonaparte: Encounter with the Jersey Devil" — Connect Paranormal. Account and analysis of the Bonaparte sighting claim. 10. Coleman, Loren. Cryptozoology A to Z. Fireside, 1999. Overview of the Jersey Devil within the broader cryptid research context. 11. "The Jersey Devil" — Weird NJ. Long-running New Jersey publication documenting modern sightings and regional accounts. 12. "The Jersey Devil: New Jersey's Winged Legend of the Pine Barrens" — The History Girl. Detailed historical timeline and regional context. 13. "The 1909 Mass Sightings: A Week of Panic" — Headcount Coffee Blog. Reconstructed timeline of the 1909 event. 14. "The Devil Went Down to New Jersey" — National Geographic History Magazine. Overview of the Joseph Bonaparte encounter and historical context. 15. "Monster Births, Flying Kangaroos and Benjamin Franklin: The Story of the Jersey Devil" — Horror Obsessive. Analysis of the Benjamin Franklin / Leeds family conflict and its role in the legend's formation.