Nellie Bly, The King Of Sting, Dildos, Casanova, Oysters, The Cadaver Synod & Operation Cat Drop

The Sirius Problem, Dorothy Eady, Ötzi the Iceman & MK-ULTRA

This week on The Oddities Department, history gets cosmic, reincarnated, frozen, and deeply classified. In Episode 23, Gavin and Lindsay take you through four bizarre true stories from the stranger corners of science, history, mystery, and government decision-making. First, Lindsay looks up at The Sirius Problem, where the Dogon people of Mali, a hidden companion star, French anthropology, ancient knowledge, and modern skepticism all collide in one of the weirdest debates to ever escape an academic journal. Is it astronomy? Is it anthropology? Is it cultural exchange? Is it space fish? Depends who you ask, and unfortunately, everyone is asking loudly. Then Gavin takes us into the strange life of Dorothy Louise Eady, the little girl from Edwardian England who fell down the stairs, was declared dead, woke back up, and spent the rest of her life insisting she remembered ancient Egypt. She would grow up, move to Egypt, work near the Temple of Seti I, become known as Omm Sety, and build an entire life around a home she should not have known how to miss. From there, Lindsay drags us into the Alps for Cave Man Carbs, where Ötzi the Iceman shows up frozen, tattooed, arthritic, murdered, and somehow still not done becoming everyone’s problem. What begins as one of the oldest cold cases in human history eventually leads to ancient microbes, questionable science, and the deeply unsettling possibility that archaeology sometimes ends in bread. And finally, Gavin opens the file on MK-ULTRA, the CIA’s very real, very documented program of mind-control research, non-consensual drug experiments, LSD, safe houses, destroyed records, and reckless disregard for human life. It is not a conspiracy theory. It was the conspiracy.  This episode has everything: suspicious stars, reincarnation, ancient Egypt, dead pharaoh romance, glacier murder, bad knees, yeasty bread science, LSD experiments, government secrets, safe houses, brothels, shredded records, and just enough chaos to make it worth the listen. Listen to The Oddities Department anywhere you get your podcasts. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2563520/fan_mail/new]

Great Lakes Mysteries, Elmer McCurdy, Vodou & A Real Life Oddity

This week on The Oddities Department, history gets wet, explosive, misrepresented, and unclaimed. In Episode 22, Gavin and Lindsay take you through four bizarre oddities from the stranger corners of history.  First, we head to the Great Lakes, where freshwater looks calm from the shoreline, but underneath the surface, things get cold, violent, ancient, and deeply suspicious. There are vanished ships, missing planes, singing sands, underwater stone formations, ghost ships, lake monsters, red goblins, and one very important reminder that “it’s just a lake” is how people end up in the footnotes. Then we meet Elmer McCurdy, a real-life outlaw with a tragic beginning, a drinking problem, bad instincts, and just enough nitroglycerin knowledge to make every robbery worse. Elmer wanted fortune, glory, and a place in outlaw history. What he got was loose change, destroyed money, poor planning, whiskey, bloodhounds, and one of the most embarrassingly unsuccessful criminal careers the American West ever coughed up. From there, we pull apart what people think they know about Vodou. Zombies, dolls, curses, demons, possession, and scary movie nonsense all go under the museum lights, and what we find underneath is older, richer, and far more human. This exhibit digs into Haitian history, slavery, survival, resistance, ancestors, religious camouflage, and the way fear can turn someone else’s sacred tradition into a horror prop with bad lighting. Finally, we end in the back room with A Real Life Oddity, a story that starts with a dead man no one came to claim and spirals into funeral homes, sideshows, carnival theft, wax museums, exploitation films, amusement parks, glow-in-the-dark paint, forensic investigation, and one deeply unsettling question: who the hell let this happen? This episode has everything: shipwrecks, outlaw stupidity, cursed freshwater, spiritual misinformation, singing beaches, missing planes, train robberies, bad explosives math, mystery bodies, carnival chaos, and just enough education to make the whole thing legally defensible.  Content warning: This episode contains discussion of drowning, shipwrecks, plane crashes, death, body parts, human remains, slavery, colonial violence, religious discrimination, corpse exploitation, mummified remains, gun violence, alcohol abuse, illness, tuberculosis, profanity, and historical mistreatment of people and bodies after death. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2563520/fan_mail/new]

Mammoth Cave, The Bone Wars, Paul the Octopus & Balloon Animal Mania

This week on The Oddities Department, history gets underground, overconfident, tentacled, and fully airborne. In Episode 21, Gavin and Lindsay take you through four bizarre true stories from the stranger corners of science, history, and human decision-making. First, we descend into Mammoth Cave, where one of the largest cave systems on Earth comes with blind shrimp, fish-eating spiders, ancient Indigenous exploration, ghost stories, tuberculosis huts, tourist scams, fake police officers, and the Kentucky Cave Wars. Because apparently, even a hole in the ground can become a business rivalry with bad signage and worse judgment. Then we dig into The Bone Wars, the ridiculous scientific feud between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. These two brilliant paleontologists helped introduce the world to some of the most famous dinosaurs in history, then spent years turning fossil discovery into a petty, expensive, reputation-destroying slap fight. There are grudges, sabotage, dynamite, academic humiliation, and one dinosaur head placed very confidently on the wrong end. From there, we meet Paul the Octopus, the eight-armed oracle who predicted World Cup winners and made the entire sports world briefly surrender its sanity to a mollusk. What started as a cute aquarium publicity stunt became an international frenzy involving gamblers, angry fans, government officials, death threats, soccer superstition, and one damp little legend with a mussel and vibes. Finally, we float back to the 1700s for Balloon Mania, when Europe discovered hot air balloon flight and immediately decided the responsible thing to do was send up a sheep, a duck, and a rooster first. It was Enlightenment science, public spectacle, animal testing, and barnyard aviation all wrapped into one deeply questionable basket. This episode has everything: cave spiders, fossil drama, psychic seafood, dinosaur beef, cursed tourism, medical hubris, hot air balloons, airborne livestock, and just enough education to make the chaos feel legally defensible. Content warning: This episode contains discussion of death, claustrophobia, entrapment, starvation and exposure, tuberculosis, historical medical experimentation, human remains, animal testing and endangerment, death threats, profanity, and historical mistreatment of people and animals.  Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2563520/fan_mail/new]

Nuns Gone Wild, Idaho's Beaver Drop, Ogoh-Ogoh & Nyepi, The Newport Sex Scandal

This week on The Oddities Department, history gets feral, airborne, spiritually cleansed, and deeply inappropriate. In Episode 20, Gavin and Lindsay take you through four bizarre true stories from the stranger corners of history. First, we enter the medieval convent, where The Nuns Go Wild, stressed-out nuns started meowing, biting, clawing, and spiraling into full group chaos. Was it mass psychogenic illness, repression, neurospicy energy, or the world’s holiest cat choir? Probably yes. Then we head to 1948 Idaho for The Great Idaho Beaver Drop, also known as Operation High-Dive — the real wildlife management plan where officials solved a beaver relocation problem by putting beavers in crates and dropping them from airplanes with parachutes. Somehow, against all logic and reason, it worked. From there, we travel to Bali for Ogoh-Ogoh and Nyepi, a powerful New Year tradition where giant demon effigies are built, paraded through the streets, shaken, burned, and followed by a full day of silence, reflection, and reset. It’s emotional arson with cultural depth, and honestly, we’re obsessed. Finally, we end in Newport, Rhode Island, with one of the wildest scandals in U.S. Navy history: the 1919 Newport Sex Scandal. What began as a moral crusade against queer sailors turned into an outrageous undercover investigation involving entrapment, hypocrisy, explicit reports, Senate outrage, and an accidental archive of early 20th-century queer life. This episode has everything: meowing nuns, airborne beavers, Balinese demon rituals, Navy scandal, queer history, government incompetence, moral panic, and just enough education to make the chaos feel productive. Content warning: This episode contains explicit sexual language, discussion of anti-queer persecution, institutional abuse, religious repression, and historical mistreatment of marginalized people. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2563520/fan_mail/new]

King Ferdinand’s Royal Rooster, Prehistoric Trees, Unusual Body Disposal Methods & Tobacco Smoke Enemas

This week on The Oddities Department, Gavin and Lindsay drag you through four exhibits that somehow connect royal anatomy, prehistoric swamp forests, death rituals, and one of the worst medical ideas humanity ever committed to paper. We start with King Ferdinand VII of Spain, a terrible ruler with an allegedly massive, malformed royal problem that required doctors, strategy, and possibly furniture. Then we travel back more than 300 million years to the Carboniferous Period, when trees refused to rot, oxygen levels went wild, and bugs grew large enough to make eye contact with your soul. From there, Lindsay builds Gavin a deeply cursed post-death menu featuring sky burial, Famadihana, mellification, and possibly the most annoying afterlife option of all: becoming glitter. Finally, Gavin closes the tour with the truly real history of tobacco smoke enemas, the 18th-century medical practice where doctors believed the cure for drowning, disease, and general inconvenience was blowing smoke directly up someone’s backside. This episode has everything: bizarre history, strange science, royal scandals, giant prehistoric insects, creative corpse disposal, questionable medicine, and enough wood jokes to get us escorted out of our own museum. Stay curious. Stay weird. And please… keep the tobacco out of your chocolate starfish. Topics include: King Ferdinand VII, Spanish royalty, bizarre medical history, Carboniferous Era trees, prehistoric insects, odd burial practices, sky burial, Famadihana, mellification, tobacco smoke enemas, weird history, strange science, and The Oddities Department. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2563520/fan_mail/new]