July 12, 2026

🐂S05E39 – Cattle Mutilations: Part 1🛸

⚠️ Content Warning: This episode contains detailed discussion of animal injuries and death. Both parts carry an explicit tag.⚠️ Blake and Karen welcome Lee Weiss, a religious studies scholar whose deep dive into the FBI’s declassified cattle mutilation files grew into a sweeping study of one of America’s strangest panics. Blake first met Lee at the Of Gods and Monsters […]

Regular Episode 28 min read
July 5, 2026

🦕 S05E38 – Champ Across the Border

Blake and Karen welcome back historian Dr. Joseph Gagné, a specialist in New France and the French colonial period of North America, to talk about Champ – the famous monster of Lake Champlain. Most of the lake sits between New York and Vermont, but about 7% of it lies in Quebec, and Joseph’s upcoming paper in the ethnology journal Rabaska […]

Regular Episode 32 min read
June 28, 2026

🪓 S05E37 – The Lizzie Borden Murders

Note: This episode deals with murder and goes into some detail, so we’re putting the “explicit tag” for the mature content, perhaps not suitable for all audiences. MonsterTalk steps outside its usual territory for a true-crime case with a paranormal afterlife. Blake and Karen welcome Hallie, host of The Morbid Curiosity Podcast, to revisit one of the most notorious unsolved […]

Regular Episode 45 min read
June 21, 2026

S05E36 – The Chinnery Backseat Ghost

🚗 The Chinnery Backseat Ghost A skeptical look at one of the most famous ghost photographs ever taken – the 1959 “backseat ghost” snapped by Mrs. Mabel Chinnery in Ipswich, England. This episode is distilled from a recent MonsterTalk Live stream with Blake, Karen Stollznow, and special guest Matt Baxter, who brought fresh research (and one neat new idea) to […]

Regular Episode 45 min read
June 14, 2026

S05E35 The Newby Church Specter

Blake, Karen and Matt discover that this famous ghost photo isn’t as old as they expected, and perhaps not as mysterious either. Do we get it right? Do you have a different explanation? Let us know what you think. The picture was taken by the Reverend Kenneth F. Lord inside the Church of Christ the Consoler, a Victorian Gothic Revival […]

Regular Episode 41 min read
June 7, 2026

S05E34 – Rakshasas

Most Americans meet the Rakshasa in exactly two places: a 1974 episode of a beloved horror TV series and the pages of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Both versions give you a debonair, tiger-faced shape-changer with a taste for human flesh – but neither prepares you for how deep, how old, and how genuinely alive these creatures are. To […]

Regular Episode 42 min read
May 31, 2026

S05E33 – The Devil Went Down to Devon

Hosts: Blake Smith, Karen StollznowSpecial Co-Host: Matt Baxter On the morning of February 9, 1855, residents across south Devon, England, discovered strange hoof-shaped tracks in the snow. The prints – about 4 inches long, 3 inches wide, and spaced roughly 8 inches apart in single file – appeared to have been left by a biped with a donkey-like hoof. Reports came in […]

Regular Episode 52 min read
May 24, 2026

S05E32 – Monsters of the Deep with Dr. Darren Naish

Guest: Dr. Darren NaishHosts: Blake Smith & Dr. Karen Stollznow 📝 Episode Summary Darren joins Blake and Karen to discuss his new article in Geology Today, which grew out of his work on the Monsters of the Deep museum exhibition. The exhibition originally opened at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Cornwall in 2020, traveled to two additional venues, and […]

Regular Episode 40 min read
May 10, 2026

S05E30 – From Loup Garou to Rougarou (pt 1) with Louisiana Dread’s Kyle Crosby

🎙️ Episode Introduction This is part one of a two-part conversation. Blake and Karen are joined by Kyle Crosby, filmmaker, historian, and founder of Louisiana Dread, a multimedia project dedicated to documenting the dark history, folklore, and culture of the Pelican State. Kyle is a native of Larose, Louisiana, who grew up in Lafourche Parish and on Grand Isle. He […]

Regular Episode 30 min read