Arcanum Obscura

We have a soup episode this week, which means we talk about anything and everything and jump all over the place, and for a portion we talk a little about missing white woman syndrome which came about from a docuseries I watched and I know we've talked about it before

Hello hello hello, Nate did have plans for a paranormal episode but as we've found with paranormal stories they tend to be hard to find good ones. Lots of great stories but most are brief incidents and little to no legend of backstory, when we do find more we like to cover them. So sticking to the scary story idea he revisits rNoSleep, and as you all know we love NoSleep and tend to read through them in our free time and bring some of the ones we find interesting here.

A few episodes back we talked about the unsolved case of Jeannette DePalma who is thought to have possibly been a victim of the man we cover today, Richard Cottingham aka The Torso Killer aka The Times Square Ripper.

We have a couple horrible cases this week, brought to you by Nate. The first case, most of you have probably heard of, is horrendous these usually tend to be my realm but now Nate has brought us one. There is a pretty in depth docu on this case you can find on streaming services and I would recommend it if you won't to learn more of this poor child's ordeal. The second case involves a family with thirteen children and is awful as well, but we end on a more positive note with this one.

We love NoSleep so we're venturing back to some stories from there today, partly because our personal schedules have been so busy as of late, as well as working on our finale episode little by little and getting things in place for our new cast. We hope you enjoy these stories and we'll be back with a new episode as soon as we can.

So the show is all Nate on this one. We start in St. Petersburgh Florida with a case of a murder suicide pact that doesn't go as planned, this case only happened last month, Feb 2025, not even a month yet. After this case Nate moves on to two cases that confused him when he was looking into them and confused me as well as he tells the story, the confusion sets in with both suspects having the same name, Nathan Brooks, so two kids, the same name, one case in 1995 in Ohio dubbed The Dark Prince of Bellaire, the other in 2013 in Washington, having the same name it makes it confusing when you find articles and don't note the date since the two kids both tried and one succeeded with murdering their parents.

This week we do our usual catching up with some of Nates academy stories and then he brings us this interesting story. A girl with seemingly everything, a second girl, the victim, with perfect grades and possibly a bright future. One party, one incident that changes everyone's lives around them.

Back to a little true crime, this was an odd case since there isn't much info and it stills remains unsolved today. There were plenty of rumors but not much evidence to work with, then the disappearing and reappearing case files. This case is possibly tied to a serial killer but after nearly 50 years it's still unsolved.

Due to job schedules and holidays we haven't been able to get together to record, and if your a listener you tend to know what that means. We ramble on and talk way too much to get to a story, so... that's what happened.

This week, UAP's, this week is less about sightings and more about the gov't acknowledging UAP's, their definition of what constitutes a UAP and the federal site where we can go to view casefiles and conclusions investigations. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We are back, and as you know if we miss a week we tend to banter more then usual, now we've missed a month due to holidays and vacations and we did have a plan for the episode but decided we're going to ramble way too much so lets just do a soup episode. So, soup episode number three is here for your ears to devour. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We have some updates this week on previous episodes. First we have the Missouri Dungeon case, this is the case of the woman who escaped the homemade dungeon of Timothy M. Haslett. This case is still underway and during her captivity Haslet had threatened her by saying he had two other victims hat hadn't made it out. We know this wasn't just empty threats anymore and one earlier victim has been identified as well as murder charges being added to his current list of charges. We hope the police continue the investigation to find if there was another victim as well so they may all have justice. The Delphi Murder trial has currently been going for just over a week. Some new information has come out as evidence, mainly images of the scene and sadly Abby and Libby. This case isn't going to be an open and shut case as everyone had hoped. The defense is currently focusing on the "poor quality" images of the bullet used as evidence to tie Richard Allen to the scene, and also the lack of any DNA evidence of his. Hopefully justice will be served for Abby and Libby, their families as well as friends. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

This week we have some strange deaths to talk about. Nate comes with the always unusual spontaneous human combustion. Most of us have heard about the woman he talks about; images of the scene are pretty prevalent when you look into this strange phenomenon. After that, and too not get into too much detail here, I go into some hospitals in South Africa that seem to have a probably with bodies in ceilings. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We are back, the hurricane prevented recording last week but here we be. This week we are going with the idea Nate had a few weeks back, talking about strange stories that were reported by people in the military. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We had an idea for this weeks episode, we had intended to talk about strange paranormal or supernatural occurrences reported during wartime, or within the military. At the last minute I changed the plan, I wanted to talk about my sister and her murder. Its not a crazy story nor is it very long with tons of characters and wild strange twists, it's just what happened. I believe I have mentioned it before in some episodes and I felt like talking about it this week, maybe for personal closure or just felt it was right to talk about it. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

Nate had an idea for looking at some supernatural and paranormal incidents during wartime. We have all heard of the common ones like foo fighters and gremlins though we may still delve into them. As he was looking for some he came across this reddit story and decided to share it. Honestly after hearing it and learning this is only the 1st part of 5 I'm going to go read the rest because it was interesting and left too many questions still. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We've talked about skinwalkers before but this week I thought it may be interesting to dig through some subreddits and find personal encounters with skinwalkers, so we come with a few stories of different peoples experiences with possible skinwalkers. I read through several and decided on a few that felt pretty interesting. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

This is a pretty rough case like some others I have done, while reading and researching the case I found that thankfully a lot of the explicit details weren't presented in the sources I read from, this doesn't in anyway lessen how horrible this case was and what was done to these individuals but what I can only describe as monsters. I apologize for how I'm talking in this episode, due to getting over covid again I'm a bit short of breath still. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

Nate takes control this week and brings some stories of crimes committed through. We've all heard some of these stories, not necessarily the ones Nate brings today, but warnings and unfortunate events that happen due to people either giving out too much information on the internet and social media or being lured through chat to real life locations. One of the stories Nate has in this episode is a familiar one to most of you, the craigslist murders. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

This was a tough episode, not as in hard to talk about, but hard to write anything for so we take a different approach this week. I have a list of strange possibly morbid traditions from around the world and tell them to Nate then we talk a little about each one. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

After a two week hiatus we are back with some Florida man stories. It is a crazy place down here and I'm sure you've all heard some crazy stories about this state so we decided to share a few crazy ones we found. The main one I cover is actually really close to where I live and I heard nothing of it until specifically looking for Florida man stories. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

First up the story of Patty Hearst and the Symbionese group. Was she a willing or unwilling participant? Did she have Stockholm syndrome? It's a tricky one to tell given some of the things that happened. After that I have a short snippet about the great Wisconsin cheese heist. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

If you've listened to a good amount of our episodes you may know I tend to bring the horrific stories compared to what Nate brings to the table. This week is no exception, I start us of with The Hi-Fi Murders, what is initially believed to be a robbery in 1974 takes a much darker turn, sadly leaving three dead and two scarred for life. Following that up Nate talks a little about the Geezer Bandit, a bank robber who appears to be in his 70's but there may be more to it. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

True crime this week. Nate talks about something he found on reddit, the story of Tom Justice, a bank robber who was known as the Choir Boy and later the Bicycle Bank Robber, I do prefer the first name do to why they called him that and I also feel what he did with what he stole also fit that name. Then I talk about the murder David Auchterlonie. It's a sad tale of a pointless murder, or a thrill kill as a judge described it since there was no reason for what happened to happen. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

Another true crime episode. This week I have The Kurim Case which is a pretty horrific case involving children, though not much for details on that part of the case. The was more focus on the perpetrators and the bizarre twist. Nate follows that up the the case of Mr. DuBoise, to be honest, this case pissed me off, not to give anything away but the evidence was ridiculous as well as all those involved in prosecuting this case. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

For anyone who doesn't know, a soup episode is where we just talk and joke and ramble on about anything. No stories, no creepy games, nor any true crime. Just us rambling about whatever. I explain the soup episode origins in the episode, but if the talking part of our podcast is your least favorite part I'd skip soup episodes. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

This week we have another creepypasta game. This time around it's The Devil Game, a little game/ritual to someone the devil in order to talk to him, asks questions, and possibly play some mind games. This one is a bit longer then the other "games" ones we've done but I enjoyed reading it and thought our listeners may as well. We recently missed a couple weeks of episodes and now Nate has gone on vacation so we may miss next week and possibly the week after, but we will be back in a couple weeks tops and as always we hope you enjoy this episode. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We missed a couple weeks of recording, first Nates work schedule interfered with one week, then the next week I was dying of an illness.... see... a witch turned me into a newt..... I got better though. So we are back and this week we have some fun stories, we have a very tall woman who makes a very strange sound and hunts children, then we have some crazy yokai you can enjoy. We also have a whore spider... that's right, a real whore spider! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

Some more reddit stories this week. Everyone loves some r/nosleep stories! I won't go into too much about the stories. One is the story of someone playing one of those cursed games, mainly one involving an elevator. The second story is one that involves voices in your head and big money prizes! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

Since we had the big Solar Eclipse last week I thought it may be cool to go over some different beliefs about Solar Eclipses from around the world. Some blame the actions of disgruntled gods, others giant celestial animals, and even one with an angry kid. We hope you enjoy. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

Some interesting Cryptids this week. First up is the strange flatwoods monster, I personally hate this thing now, but Nate brought it to the table so I'll just add my hate for this thing onto Nate, he could use some more. Then we have the creepy looking Fresno Nightcrawlers, I've seen videos and even a few shows looking into these things. I'm not gonna say for sure but one thing I can say, fake or real, one of the videos just has a weird creepy vibe with how it walks. Last up is the Brownie (aka broonie, brùnaidh, gruagach, hobs, silkies, ùruisgs, bwbach, fenodyree), these little fellas are considered part of the fairy folk but don't ever tell them that. But they tend to like to come out in the cover of the night and be helpful for the most part. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

Another true crime week. First, Nate reads a story about Marcus Wesson, I really can't say much about this aside the guy is a monster, disgusting, a murderer, amongst many many other things. I've personally covered some pretty bad stories here and now it's Nates turn. Aside from the few descriptive words of this man, he's a cult leader who had children with his children and his children's children, that should be more then enough to make you loathe this man. After that horrid mans story we move on to the Bloody Benders. The Benders were a family of serial killers. In the 1870's they had a grocery/inn that they murdered out of. Many people went missing in the area and several bodies were found on their property. Amongst the people who went missing were the Benders themselves. Normally here is where I'd say "we hope you enjoy", but the first story pretty much ensures you will not. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

This week we dive back into true crime. First we head to Australia for the horrific murder of two young girls, Marianne Schmidt and Christine Sharrock. This sadly unsolved case took place in 1965 when two girls who went to the beach with family never returned home. There was a few suspects but to this date it remains unsolved. The second case branches off of the first case, as Christopher Wilder was a suspect in the Wanda Beach case, amongst many other cases all leading up to a large murder spree across America. He's known as The Beauty Queen Killer and The Snapshot Killer. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

Back to true crime this week. This is another unsolved case where everyone gets accused, arrested, and released, except the killer. For a short time in New Orleans and surrounding areas the people were gripped by fear as a man was sneaking into homes and murdering a total of six people. One day he breaks his silence with a message to the media which is, simply put, bizarre. Just remember to get your jazz on! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We wrap up the first ARC of the Ben Drowned story this week. Well, technically Nate wraps it up. This has been an easy few weeks for me since he chose a story he enjoys and its been multi episodes, and for me its just been pretty cool to hear the full story since I had only previously known of it by name and not much about it. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

Another week of cursed games. This week we took a break from Ben Drowned but that will be back next week with the final part. This week we have Pokemon Black and also the Lavender Town Syndrome. Neither are in depth or as long as Ben Drowned but I had never heard the Pokemon Black story and thought it was rather interesting. It's a bit different then most of the cursed game stories since it doesn't involve horrific death and curses to people who play. Instead its a bit more moral issues and psychological damage. There's of course our usual banter but a bit more excessive this week. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We continue with the Ben Drowned cursed Zelda game this week. Making it through pats 2-4. It's pretty interesting, I had heard of it before but never read it so nice to be able to hear it now. Next week we will finish the last part and have the game I found as well, Pokemon Black. I also scheduled the previous weeks episode for thr wrong date so it went up friday instead of wednesday. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We covered a cursed game a while back, the whole Herobrine story in Minecraft. But we decided to go a little deeper now and cover a couple more. First up, and a multi part series since it's a long story is Ben Drowned. A strange Zelda game, sold by a strange man, with a pervious save already on it from someone named Ben. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We get to do the rest of the people we had for last weeks episode this week, we may do a third part to this soon. Not to give any details because these peoples stories are pretty short, so we have Tsutomu Yamaguchi, followed by Aimo Koivunen. Then we take a slight detour to the horse, Staff Sergeant Reckless, and finally we finish with the "unluckiest man in the world", Walter Summerford, though bad luck may not be a super power. Though I hope it is because I'd be unstoppable! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

So we've been going for two weeks, I was in the ER on new years eve into new years day, I don't really want to get into it but it involved fireworks and a "hold my beer" moment..... not really, but I was in the ER. The following week Nate wasn't feeling well but, I also presented Nate with his Christmas present which he didn't appreciate, but now we're back. This weeks episode is Super Humans, and next week's will be a continuation. This is stories of humans who how done crazy things, like the first story of Daniel Daly who is basically a one many army, and also the second story about Simo Häyhä, also known as White Death, a ridiculous sniper. As always we hope you enjoy the stories and our usual shenanigans. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

This week we went back to reddit for some more creepy stories. We found two christmas ones that are good as well as three other, so a total of 5 short horror stories this week. Also, we most likely will not be recording this week so no new episode next week, I spent news years eve into new years day in the ER and still recovering so most likely won't be able to record. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

In 1827 in Polstead, Suffolk, England, a woman, Maria Marten, was murdered at a local landmark known as the Red Barn. The story has some weird turns, such as Maria loving a man and having his child to later loving his brother and being with him. Letters written to the family after she had been murdered to keep up the lie of what happened. Down to supernatural intervention which led to the discovery of the crime as well as the body of Maria Marten. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

I heard a bit of this story a while back, I believe I saw it in a little short video, like a youtube short or something and what I heard of her has stuck with me and I've wanted to cover it for some time now and finally decided to do it this week. I also believe, even though I talk about it in the episode, that the saying "hell hath no fury liked a woman scorned" should 100% be about Olga, even though the quote comes froma play nearly 1000 years after her life. I don't want to say too much about Olga here for fear of ruining the story but Olga was from viking heritage, she was a warrior, a princess, a vengeful wife and a Saint. That's a lot of accolades for one person and she damn sure earned all of them. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

Staying in the realm of sleep issues Nate talks about sleep deprivation today. We go over causes and effects as well as some stories from people who have experienced weird things when sleep deprived. And spiders, there's spiders in this one! And sorry, no arachnophobia toggle to make them silly or cute! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

I was researching a story for this week an it moved into sleep paralysis so I thought it may be interesting to talk a little about Sleep Paralysis, then branch into some legends from around the world that came from this condition that wasn't understood at the time. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We continue on with missing children this week with Virginia Dare. Virginia Dare was the first english born child in America in 1587, then she went missing. Not only did she go missing but the whole colony of Roanoke went missing and it all still remains a mystery to this day. When we were looking for stories we both found this one odd since articles singled her out while the whole colony was missing. The lost colony of Roanoke has been a long standing mystery with several investigations as well as making its way into pop culture, most notably for me was when it was in the show Supernatural. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

This is a strange true crime episode about missing children. The Sodder family was a large family with a total of 10 children. The father came to America and did well for himself, he bought a house and married and his family began to grow. He was very outspoken about his beliefs and this may have been what led to a strange series of events leading up to a fateful Christmas Eve that would change their lives forever when 5 of their children go missing. It's a strange story, lots of weird events throughout, things like a fire chief who can't drive a fire truck, sightings of strangers, phones in multiple places not working, missing ladders, and even bumps in the night. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

This episode is literally about nothing. We used to do two podcasts a week, this one of course as well as "Listen or the Kitten Gets it!" which was just playing games and rambling. And since we ramble quite a bit throughout each episode we had the idea of doing a "nothing" episode once a month where we just ramble on about whatever, once a month seemed a bit much so now we may just do an episode like this occasionally. Sort of a little break from researching stories and writing and just talk about whatever's on our minds. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We're back with our fourth Halloween Special! And posting a day early to release on Halloween! This year we of course stuck with the creepy, it is for Halloween, the best holiday ever after all! And I'm using lots of exclamations! For this years episode we dove into reddit, and coincidentally we both went to the same subreddit, r/ShortScaryStories, this week we have four stories for you, we each came to the table with two we liked and we hope you enjoy them as well, and have a safe and happy Halloween! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

We changed things up a little this week from the past couple weeks. We still wanted to stay around the cryptid type lore, but a slight step off of the path and into strange creatures from Greek myths. So we start with the Empousa (Empusa), a creature said to be a flesh eating beautiful shape shifter who can take on many forms and many combinations of forms. Next up, the Hecatoncheires, these guys are pretty crazy, they are three giants but aside from that I don't want to give away any more, you'll have to listen to find out. Again, not going to say much here, the Skiapodes are a strange race of humanoid creatures, who enjoy lying in the shade the create. Finally, the Erinyes, female deities that serve up vengeance in the underworld. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support

More cryptids this week! First up is a creature from West Virginia, Veggieman! Veggieman may not be as well known as other West Virginian cryptids, yeah, I'm talking to you Mothman! stop stealing all the limelight! Although lesser known he is a pretty unique character all on his own, with very alluring jaundice eyes! We follow the legend of veggieman with the Native American legend of Walking Sam, an entity that may be responsible for the suicides of several people. After going from Walking Sam and his propensity for stalking depressed people we move on to a depressed little creature, The Squonk, who I find adorable and want one of my own! I believe he is my spirit animal. Finally we come to the entity or person known as Le Loyon, there's not very much to say about Le Loyon but the story takes a sharp 90° turn into something completely different related to a name written by Le Loyon. As always we hope you enjoy our stories, nonsense, and ramblings! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/arcanumobscura/support