The Flying Dutchman

Before he was a vampire, he was a prince. In this solo episode we go back to 15th-century Wallachia to meet the real Vlad III, known as Vlad Țepeș or Vlad the Impaler. He was a ruler whose cruelty frightened even his enemies. We look at the history behind the legend, from his reign and his battles to the stories of impalement that made his name feared across Europe. Then we follow how his reputation passed down through the centuries until it reached Bram Stoker, and how it became Dracula, the most famous vampire of all time. Is the real man more frightening than the monster? Listen and decide for yourself.

It's spooky season, and this listener-submitted story takes us to Gunslinger Gulch, a ghost town that is anything but ordinary. We start with what you need to know about owner Karen Brassard, then follow the visit as the property turns ominous after dark. We go through the hotspots one by one: the saloon, figures on the boardwalk, the man in the bathroom, the cabin and the church. Then come phantom animals, strange lights and the mystery of Steve, followed by touches, doors opening and closing and lingering human traces in the old boarding house and brothel. How many presences are really at Gunslinger Gulch? Morning skepticism gives way to one last cinematic haunting, and we end by asking whether the town's layered histories explain its unsettling reputation.

This week's story was submitted by Kymber Burt, age 9 — thank you, Kymber, for sharing your ghost story with us. 👻 Every town has one. Every empty road, every lonely stretch of highway, every family that whispers of a strange sighting the night before someone died. In this episode we trace the Phantom Blue Horse — a ghost legend that crossed oceans with settlers, haunted American battlefields, lingered in Native American traditions, and still appears on dark roads today. From Cornish folklore to Gettysburg, from the Apache Southwest to modern-day Wyoming highways, we follow the hoofbeats and ask the question every folklorist eventually faces: are these stories, or are they warnings?

Step inside the crumbling cellblocks of Eastern State Penitentiary — the Philadelphia prison built for total isolation that became one of America's most notoriously haunted places. In this episode we trace how a radical 19th-century experiment in solitary confinement gave way to decades of abandonment and silence, and how that silence bred some of the most chilling ghost stories ever told. From shadowy figures in Cellblock 12 to disembodied voices echoing down long-empty corridors, we walk through the site's most bone-chilling encounters — and ask the question that lingers long after the tour ends: is Eastern State truly haunted, or is its history horror enough?

Room 109 of the Goldfield Hotel is said to hold one of Nevada's most enduring ghost stories — Elizabeth, chained and forgotten, and the baby legend that refuses to die. In this episode we trace Goldfield's rise from boomtown to bust, walk through the hotel's glamorous beginnings, and meet the spirits that supposedly linger there: the hanged woman, the rooftop ghost, the stabber, and the upper-floor apparitions tied to mining magnate George Wingfield. We close with a dramatized midnight investigation inside the hotel itself — and ask the question every ghost story eventually forces: are the hauntings real, or is it folklore built on a genuinely tragic past?