Museum of the Weird banner

I don’t know if the Museum of the Weird also serves double duty as headquarters for the Keep Austin Weird movement, but it totally could. (And, yes, there is such a thing. Just check out #keepaustinweird on Insta. It’s very popular.) All I know is that when we jaunted toContinue Reading

Stranger Things Facts

The fact is, there are a lot of Stranger Things facts, from how the show was created to certain 80s references found in it. However, I’m only going to explore six facts about the series, its creators, and its stars. But pay attention, because there are more Stranger Things factsContinue Reading

Stranger Things Day

I don’t remember when I added Stranger Things Day to the Weird Holidays and Observances page. Was it the first year it was created or last year? Who knows? It’s not important really. As soon as I learned about it, I added it and it’s there now, where it willContinue Reading

Mystery man in silhouette

Have you ever heard of the Torso Murderer? I thought it sounded familiar when it first came up in “Phantom Hand,” the premiere episode for season 2 of The Holzer Files. However, when I looked into it more I realized I was probably confusing it with the Torso Killer. BothContinue Reading

Full moon on Halloween with bats on blue background

Leave it to 2020 to have a milestone-marking full moon on Halloween, which hasn’t happened in decades. Specifically, the last time there was a full moon on Halloween in all time zones was 76 years ago on October 31, 1944. The Farmer’s Almanac reported that in 2001 there was aContinue Reading

Beheaded Medusa

Several years ago we took a jaunt to Istanbul. One of the places we visited was the Basilica Cistern. Something I’d forgotten we’d done was to search for the Medusa heads that we heard were down there. (Yes. Plural. Heads.) I was reminded of that adventure, though, when a viewerContinue Reading

Courtney Mroch in Halloween costume holding up two magazines about ghosts, haunted places and the paranormal

The other day I recorded a Halloween episode with my A Haunt Mess podcast ghoulfriends, Deedee and Sara. (Hence the get up in the photo.) One of the things we had planned to do for the episode was to share a real ghost story. I didn’t decide until the dayContinue Reading

Man with white makeup and red hands screams in frustration, despair and anger

Never has a year needed a day like International Moment of Frustration Scream Day, which falls on October 12 every year, worse than 2020. Because we’ve all pretty much had our moments when we wanted to scream this year, haven’t we? (Don’t leave me hanging. I know I’m not aloneContinue Reading

United States Flag with skulls instead of stars

An article from CultureMap led me to an interesting list of the top 20 haunted states. It was titled, “Why Texas claims the creepy crown as the most haunted state in America.” Well, that caught my eye for two reasons. One, I wanted to know why Texas claimed the creepyContinue Reading

Ghost hovering in a hallway in front of man holding candle

What are ghosts? That’s a million-dollar question, isn’t it? Heck, it’s probably worth far more than a million dollars at this point. If anyone can ever answer it, that is. Which no one has definitively done yet, so for now ghosts remain myths and folklore. Even without concrete proof, however,Continue Reading

Two inconsistencies with Washington's Demon Cat story

On July 4th I posted “The White House’s Basement Demon Cat That Foretells Disaster.” Afterward, I realized something I’d shared from my research couldn’t be true about the Demon Cat story. Then someone on Instagram posted a comment that pointed out another potential mistake. Did you catch them too? IfContinue Reading

demon cat eyes superimposed on Whit House

When I was researching stories for “11 U.S. Presidents, Their Paranormal Connections and the Dreamland Wax Museum in Boston,” one of the articles I used was from HuffPost. In addition to the writer recalling a White House ghost story Ronald Reagan had told her, she listed other paranormal presidential encounters,Continue Reading