An alien. A spacecraft. A UFO conspiracy that reaches the Pentagon.

On March 16, 1957, an alien visitor landed in a spacecraft in a field in Alexandria, Virginia, walked out, and said, in clear English, that he needed to see the president. His name was Valiant Thor, and he said he had come from Venus, sent by the High Council of his own people, with a warning about nuclear war, and an offer that sounded impossible.

Is this the greatest UFO conspiracy theory of all time, or is there something real hiding inside a story about an alien, a spacecraft, and the Pentagon? What happened when he walked into the room with the president, and who told this story in the first place, is where it gets stranger. Grab your headphones, and join us as we follow Thor down the crooked path, and ask how much of this we should believe.

🌍 Connect With Us

TikTok: @downthecrookedpath

Instagram: @downthecrookedpath

Spooky Pod Squad: Shoutout to the Creators Collective on Instagram @spookypodsquad

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Welcome back,

When we last left off, our hosts were in a

perilous position, coming to you from an

abandoned radio station with a Halloween

broadcast that had gone awry.

Forced to continue the show (and continue enduring some seriously unsettling tales recorded by their friends in the Collective), the entity on the phone has not only started to make those stories a reality,

but It has now begun to learn

who they are..

All hopes of escaping alive are starting to

seem lost after Brandon fails to make a

break for it...but will a ghostly host, back

from the past, be the one to save this group

and end this curse once and for all? Or will

things only continue to get worse for our five

podcasters from here?

It’s time to keep the broadcast going, are you ready to tune back in?

Credits:

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was involved in the making of this episode.

This episode was a collaborative effort of the Creators Collective.

A special thanks to hosts,

Missy, Emily, Valerie, Brandon, Amanda and Niamh and guest hosts Ale and Tom.

Episode artwork by Amanda.

Script by Missy.

Editing by Niamh, Missy and Emily

And a huge thank you to all our contributing podcasts,

Do You Dare? Podcast

Grimly Podcast

Canadian Creepies Podcast

Terrorific Podcast

Down the Crooked Path Podcast

Rowan and Pine Podcast

Tea, Tales and Talks Podcast

Skip or Scream Podcast

Creepy Shit Podcast

Something Strange Podcast

Unknown, Unsolved, Unseen Podcast

Death Kissed Traveller Podcast

Moon Brews Podcast

Macabre Mondays Podcast

Not My Ghost, Not My Problem Podcast

It Came From The Maritimes Podcast

And Thick Thighs Creepy Vibes Podcast

If you enjoyed this episode please consider checking out our fellow creators, following them on socials, subscribing, rating and reviewing.

*Ad included at the beginning of this episode is for The Creators Collective and you can find them and all of the podcasts involved in the creation of this episode by following the link below:

https://linktr.ee/CreatorsCollectivePodcasters

And from all of us at the Collective,

We wish you a very spooky, very happy Halloween!

On a fog-choked Valentine’s Day in 1945, seventy-four-year-old farm laborer Charles Walton walked up Warwickshire's Meon Hill to trim hedges. He never made it home. By nightfall, his niece Edith would discover his body pinned to the earth in a scene so brutal and mechanically violent, it looked less like a crime and more like a ritual execution.

Surrounded by a tight-lipped community, a landscape littered with the sudden, eerie deaths of black dogs, and a chilling 1875 historical mirror case, Fabian faced the toughest battle of his career. Did a desperate village execute a suspected warlock to pour his blood back into a failing soil, or did a very human killer use ancient folklore as the perfect smoke screen? Grab your headphones and join us as we unearth Britain's oldest, coldest ghost case.

🌍 Connect With Us

• TikTok: @downthcrookedpath
• Instagram: @downthcrookedpath
• Spooky Pod Squad: Shoutout to the Creators Collective on Instagram @spookypodsquad

🛒 Support Our Sponsors

• Cozy Earth | Luxurious Bamboo Sheets, Pajamas, & More
  • 💰 Get 21% OFF | Promo Code: DTCP2000
  • 🔗 Shop Cozy Earth Here
• Everwild Designs | Meaningful Lifestyle And Gift Jewelry
  • 💰 Get 20% OFF | Promo Code: CROOKED
  • 🔗 Shop Everwild Designs Here

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Welcome,

Tonight we come to you from an abandoned radio station for a very special Halloween two part series to broadcast some of the scariest stories, urban legends and real events live on air.

Five friends have broken in with the plan to create something spectacularly and unforgettably spooky but their night is about to take a twisted turn when something sinister that was lurking within the confines of the building begins to take the forms of the stories they tell…

They are only given one rule - Don’t stop the broadcast if you want to get out alive.

Will they finish their show?

Will they figure out what’s causing all of this?

Will they make it through the terrifying stories recorded by their friends in the Collective unscathed?

There’s only one way to find out and that is to tune in with them…

Credits:

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was involved in the making of this episode.

This episode was a collaborative effort of the Creators Collective.

A special thanks to hosts,

Missy, Emily, Valerie, Brandon, Amanda and Niamh.

Episode artwork by Amanda.

Script by Missy.

Editing by Niamh, Missy and Emily

And a huge thank you to all our contributing podcasts,

@Do You Dare? Podcast

@Grimly Podcast

@Canadian Creepies Podcast

@Terrorific Podcast

@Down the Crooked Path Podcast

@Rowan and Pine Podcast

@Tea, Tales and Talks Podcast

@Skip or Scream Podcast

@Creepy Shit Podcast

@Something Strange Podcast

@Unknown, Unsolved, Unseen Podcast

@Death Kissed Traveller Podcast

@Moon Brews Podcast

@Macabre Mondays Podcast

@You Good Cuh Podcast

@It Came From The Maritimes Podcast

And @Best Worst Case Scenario Podcast.

If you enjoyed this episode please consider checking out our fellow creators, following them on socials, subscribing, rating and reviewing.

*Ad included at the beginning of this episode is for The Creators Collective and you can find them and all of the podcasts involved in the creation of this episode by following the link below:

https://linktr.ee/CreatorsCollectivePodcasters

Don’t forget to tune back in next week for part 2!

In the summer of 1518, a woman stepped into a Strasbourg street and started dancing. This is the story of the dancing plague, the strangest outbreak in medieval history.

She did not stop. Not that day, not the next. Within weeks the streets were full of people dancing day and night, their feet bleeding and their bodies giving out, and no one could say why. The woman history calls Frau Troffea became the face of a mystery no one has solved.

The city's physicians blamed overheated blood. The council built stages and hired musicians, prescribing more dancing as the cure. The priests called it the curse of Saint Vitus, the saint whose name gave St. Vitus's Dance to history. Later centuries blamed poisoned bread, mass hysteria, and religious frenzy.

But the city records tell a stranger story than any of the theories. And the woman who started it all may never have existed.

Join host Amanda Joy on Down the Crooked Path for the full story of the 1518 dancing plague.Connect with the show: Instagram and TikTok @downthecrookedpath. New episodes every Thursday.

This week's sponsors: Cozy Earth: 21% off luxurious bamboo sheets and pajamas with code DTCP2000:

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On February 24, 1978, five friends left a college basketball game in Chico, California and never came home. Days later their car was found abandoned on a remote mountain road in the Plumas National Forest, seventy miles in the wrong direction. Four of the men were eventually found dead. The fifth, Gary Mathias, was never found at all.

In this episode:

• The night of the game and the drive that went seventy miles off course
• The abandoned Mercury and Joseph Schons, the stranger stranded on the same road that night
• The Forest Service trailer, the tucked sheets, and Ted's months of survival
• The search for Gary Mathias and the 2020 sheriff's memo calling it a homicide case
• Every major theory: the wrong turn, foul play, the bridge, and what the evidence actually supports

Sources: Wikipedia (Yuba County Five), StrangeOutdoors.com, Den of Geek, Tony Wright's Things Aren't Right: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five (2024), Netflix's Files of the Unexplained Season 1 Episode 3, Stuff You Should Know.

Connect with me: Instagram: @downthecrookedpath TikTok: @downthecrookedpath Listen: https://rss.com/podcasts/down-the-crooked-path/

Support the show: Cozy Earth, luxurious bamboo sheets, pajamas and more. Get 21% off with promo code DTCP2000: https://promocode.to/cozy-earth/dtcp2000-zhz Everwild Designs, meaningful lifestyle and gift jewelry. Get 20% off with promo code CROOKED: https://promocode.to/everwild-designs/crooked-c4c

Keywords: Yuba County Five, Gary Mathias, 1978 disappearance, Plumas National Forest, Chico California, unsolved mystery, missing persons, Ted Weiher, Jack Madruga, Bill Sterling, Jackie Huett

In November 1929, a young London occultist named Norah "Netta" Fornario traveled to the remote, wind-swept Scottish island of Iona. Deeply embedded in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn lineage and Alpha et Omega temple, Netta was searching for a "thin place"—a geographic portal where the earthly veil drops and nature spirits can be summoned. Days later, she was dead.

Was she the victim of a catastrophic psychic feud? Did she successfully open a gateway to interdimensional UAPs or the mythical Sidhe? Or did her extreme ritual fasting trigger a tragic, undiagnosed medical emergency known as metabolic acidosis?

Join host Amanda Joy as we peel back the layers of this classic gothic mystery, exploring the physical evidence left on the mound, the strange chemical reaction that turned her silver cross pitch black, and the final night that the island of Iona refuses to give up.

Connect With Us

Thank you for walking down this crooked path with me! Let’s keep the conversation going on social media:

• TikTok: @downthecrookedpath
• Instagram: @downthecrookedpath

✨ Creator Shoutout: Massive love to our incredible creators collective! Give them a follow for all things eerie and unexplained on Instagram: @spookypodsquad

Exclusive Listener Discounts & Sponsors

Support the brands that make this show possible! Use our links and promo codes below to grab your exclusive listener deals:

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Step into the overgrown, foggy paths of London's historic graveyard as we uncover one of the most bizarre chapters in modern vampire lore. In the early 1970s, a media-fueled frenzy gripped the city, transforming a local ghost hunt into a full-blown paranormal media circus. At the center of this unexplained mystery were two rival researchers, David Farrant and Sean Manchester, whose bitter obsession with tracking down the elusive Highgate vampire sparked a Fifty-Year War.

From midnight cemetery raids and shocking court evidence to a 1974 Old Bailey prison sentence and decades of digital sabotage, Amanda Joy breaks down the raw, human madness behind the myth

🕸️ Where to Find Down the Crooked Path

Don't get lost in the dark! Follow the trail and join our community of mystery junkies online:

• Instagram: @DownTheCrookedPath — Behind-the-scenes look at the graveyards, historic crime photos, and episode visual aids.
• TikTok: @DownTheCrookedPath— Bite-sized deep dives into the world's strangest urban legends.
• Facebook: Down the Crooked Path Podcast Discussion Group — Chat with Amanda and fellow listeners about tonight's case.

🎙️ Community Shout-Out

A massive shout-out to our incredible network at the Creators Collective! We wouldn't be here without the absolute best community of indie audio storytellers. If you love things that go bump in the night, go give our eerie family a follow over on Instagram at the @SpookyPodSquad for your ultimate fix of daily macabre content and indie podcast recommendations.

Want to sink your teeth into the primary documents, and deep dives used to map out tonight's journey? Explore the links below:

• Gothic History Breakdown: Read the historical timeline, cultural impact, and secondary accounts of the rivalry on the Gothic lore archives at David Castleton's The Serpent's Pen Blog.
• The 1974 Legal Case: Read the original archival reporting on David Farrant's Old Bailey trial and the media frenzy surrounding the cemetery desecration via the New York Times Archival Library.
• The Magician's Duel & Feud History: Explore how the urban legend completely consumed the lives of both men in the comprehensive investigative feature by The Observer.