SPIRIT TALES AND MAGIC
Our host; Dr.G had his first paranormal experience at only eight years old. With over five decades of storytelling, magic and paranormal story collection he is an award winning story teller on a mission to revive firelight and the telling of stories!
SPIRIT TALES AND MAGIC
What happens when the universe stops your show and you open a dusty file of the world’s creepiest myths?
Thunder shakes the windows, the full moon hangs heavy, and after twenty failed attempts to air a different paranormal story, we reach for our backup: a dusty folder labeled “urban legend.” What unfolds is a fast, vivid tour through the myths that haunt mirrors, forests, cemeteries, and city sewers—and a look at why these stories stick to our lives like burrs after a midnight walk.
We start by unpacking what makes an urban legend feel true even when the facts don’t add up: proximity (“a friend of a friend”), repetition that smooths the edges, and settings we know by heart. From the infamous Stull Cemetery—rumored gateway to hell—to the shifting identities of Bigfoot (Grassman in Ohio, Skunk Ape in Florida, Yeti in the snow), we trace how geography shapes belief. We peek toward Area 51, where secrecy fuels UFO lore, and wince at the body-horror of the spider bite tale that “hatches” into nightmares. New York’s sewer alligator slithers into view, the “Well to Hell” recording screams from the depths, and Bloody Mary waits behind the glass with a ritual as old as adolescence. We give space to the Windigo’s roots in Native American lore—shape-shifting, spiritual power, and the cautionary edge of hunger—while exploring the media-fueled mutations of the Chupacabra.
Along the way, we talk about the personal legends that raised us: the boogeyman on the stairs, the pool creature after closing, the rules of night that folklore enforces with a shiver and a dare. Tech glitches and storm warnings turn into story fuel, because the unknown loves a stage. We keep it grounded, curious, and open-handed—honoring belief, welcoming skepticism, and asking you to bring your own tale to the fire.
Have a legend your family swore by? Share it with us by mail or through the site so we can add it to the map. If you enjoy exploring the world unseen with us, follow, share with a friend who loves a good scare, and leave a quick review—what myth still keeps you looking over your shoulder?
Hey everybody, it's Dr. T, Spirit Sales and Magic. Hope the night finds you well. It's about yeah, it's working on eight o'clock in Phoenix. We are under storm watches and flood watches and the closeness to the date of the full moon, which has passed us, I believe, but if still affecting behavior of the folks outside the window. It's been a very interesting day. Also, I have this strange thing going on with my throat, so I'll apologize in advance if you hear me clear my throat, or you know, I sound a little weird at times, or I take a drink of water. Yesterday, if you were listening to the podcast, we read a letter that we got from a friend that we in a place we refer to as across the pond. Someone had an issue with that, but it's it's a term of endearment, just knock it off. Here's an interesting thing. We always say that podcast in the show writes itself. The episode today that you were going to hear, which you're going to hear tomorrow, is something I encountered in New Orleans that has cropped back up again. So we're gonna leave that as a teaser. The reason you're not hearing it tonight is after 20 attempts to air it, and every now and then when we start talking about some paranormal thing, other things start to happen. So trust me, the universe doesn't want me to do that particular podcast tonight for some reason. So sometimes when we are gonna do a backup, there's a huge desk that I fit about halfway under, and off to my right-hand side is a steel bunch of drawers that have files in it. So I look the other way, I reach in and just grab something. We go from there. That's our backup system. Not exactly rocket science, but that's the way it works. So I pull out a file folder, it says urban legend, and it doesn't have anything but dust in it. There's no paper in there. So a while back, last season, some gentlemen sent me their list of the top 10 urban legends. And then there's about 15 pages that follow that on how they figured it and what they used. And I kind of shredded those because I they did a lot of scientific study, and you know, it's a pretty good list. Now, some of the things on the list, excuse me, I haven't heard of before. So we're gonna leave it up to you. Are these things that you hear of on a regular basis or not? So we'll touch for a moment on what exactly an urban legend is. Now that's kind of like asking someone to find the Motowns town. There's that if you ask a hundred people what is an urban legend, you might well get a hundred different answers. For us, an urban legend can also be known as an urban myth. It's usually either very horrific or sometimes even humorous. It's a story that's passed through generations with claims that it's 100% true. Like the broken telephone game. The story can alter from person to person, each narrator claiming to have known a friend or a friend of a friend or a family member who has lived through the tale. From psychopaths to serial killers to axe murderers in the backseat, aliens, sea monsters, urban legends are the creepy tales we love, passed down through generations and begrudgingly engraved into everybody's mind pretty much forever. I know that my particular urban legends when I was a kid that were thrown at me all the time, and I know you've heard these. Boogeyman's down there, that sort of thing. So if you're from anywhere near central Ohio and you grew up there, what is the thing that lives in the swimming pool that if you go in the swimming pool at night when the pool's closed, it drags you down to the bottom of the pool, and you are never seen again. I've tried for the life of me to remember that. Just can't seem to remember what it was. Think that's a more local thing to where I grew up. My grandmother was a huge, huge fan of that one and the boogeyman. So there's that. The top ten list of urban legends, according to these gentlemen. Number one. Now there are plenty of graveyards worldwide. They claim, though, that none are like the stool st-ul cemetery in Kansas. Now we know that graveyards often come with a label of being haunted or entering the realm of even being diabolical. But this graveyard has been labeled the gateway to hell, and they say it's for a good reason. If you ask any of the locals, they'll whisper the devil himself holds court with his worshipers here and has regular rituals on the site. The number two spot. Large, hairy, and human-like. That's what they say about him. Uh, legend has it that the beast was seen on the northwestern side of the U.S. And I believe he goes all the way up into the western end of Canada. So he ranges anywhere from six feet to 15 foot tall. And rumor has it that he emits an awful smell and an eerie, high-pinched cry. We were just talking about that a couple days back. I have a list, and we'll we'll get to that in another podcast, of what every single state calls their particular Bigfoot. I grew up in Ohio, ours is the grass man. There's the abominable snowman. There is, of course, Bigfoot, there's the Yeti, and on and on we go. Number three, Area 51. If you believe in extraterrestrial life forms, you might already be familiar with the near mythical desert base of Area 51. So that's out in the desert towns of Nevada and severely off limits to the public. Many people believe that the area is a hotspot for UFO landings and aliens. They kind of left out of that that uh lot of, shall we say, experimental aircraft in that area as well. They've been very close to that area, all the way up to the sign that says the use of deadly force has been improved. Turn around or die. That's not a myth. It's out there. Number four is the spider bite. Now, you may have heard this urban tale about a child who was bitten by a spider while exploring. Or maybe you know someone who knows someone who has a co-worker that experienced the same thing. As his mother gave him a hot bath, the bite begins oozing. But this was no ordinary bite. The sight was hatching, releasing thousands of spider's eggs from the boy's skin as his horrified mom booked on. I did hear about that one. Number five, the sewer alligator. Since the nineteen thirties, people have allegedly seen an alligator wing in the sewers of New York City. Now this reptilian monstrosity is approximately eight feet long. Some say he has white scaly skin and red eyes. Is this an albino alligator hiding from the light in the sewers of Gotham? Or is it a beast looking for its next bite to eat? We may never know. There are a lot of people that frequent New York a lot more than I do. We go there occasionally to a little place called Tannin's Magic Shop. If you get if you get up there, there's two things that I think you should do. Number one, you should go to the laughing man in Greenwich Village to have a cup of coffee. Two, whether you have an interest in magic or not, go see Tannin's. You're gonna take this little tiny elevator up this building, and when you're in there, you think you're in a hairy potter maybe. Love it. Number six is the well to hell. I believe that this creepy legend originates in Serbia. Tales are told about a Russian crew of scientists who drill down just a little too deep into the earth and discover this large unknown cavity. Fascinated by their discovery, they decide to lower a microphone to test if there's any plate movement, and the noise they heard turned them a ghastly white. You know, and they'll tell you what they heard. The wails of millions of lost souls trapped in hell. Now that's the first time I've heard of that one. I've been around urban legends for a whole lot of years, and that's number I've never heard of that one. Now, number seven, bloody Mary. This may be one of the most famous, if not the most famous, urban legend in the UK. Storytellers say if you look in the mirror and you say Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, something might happen. Although what exactly happens changes with almost each retelling of the story. Over the years, the legend has changed, as people once believed that if an unmarried woman said the three words, she would either see the face of her future husband, or if she saw Skull, that meant that she would die single. Believers linked Mary Tudor, Mary I of England, with bloody Mary for the number of Protestants that she put to death for what she termed as heresy. And just on a side note, because you know we do go off track once in a while, heresy was one of the things that could get you committed for life to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Or, as I knew it, Weston State Mental Institution. Number eight, refrained the skunk ape. It says to beware of the skunk ape if you're traveling around Florida. It was the autumn of 19, I believe, 74 when the skunk ape was first seen, and that I believe was in Dade County. Some witnesses say it resembles an orangutan. Others argue that the creature is just a black bear who roams around town rummaging through the rubbish looking for some extra things to eat, and he likes to walk on his hind legs. However, this legend has even caught the ear of the United States National Park Service. Their official statement: The Park Service considers the skunk ape to be a hoax. Didn't we just talk about Bigfoot? And again, we'll uh we'll share the list on another podcast of what every state calls their Bigfoot. So he's the skunk ape in Florida, the grassman in Ohio. Here we go with all that. But number nine is our friend the Chupacabra. The Chupacabra originates, I believe, from Puerto Rico. He's a goat-like monster who acts like a vampire. His name comes from two Spanish words chupar to suck and cabra, goat, in which people claim the monster drinks the blood of livestock animals. Over time, many different sightings of the trooper cobra all over the world. Some say it's the same size as a small bear, with spikes on its back, while some say it hops like a kangaroo, and it has long fangs. There have been several alleged sightings of that critter all over the place. Number ten, the windigo. This urban legend originates from Native American lore. Storytellers describe this creature as a demonic beast that resides along the Atlantic coast of the US and Canada. The Windigo is a supernatural character with great spiritual power who enjoys hunting humans. Is that a scary story just to keep hikers off of certain trails? Now I will say that it took about two years for the Native American folks that frequent our businesses on a regular basis to trust us enough to tell some of their stories to us. And some of them they said, you know, we'll we'll talk to you about this, but you don't put it on your podcast. Okay, that's fine. The history and the personal knowledge that these guys have of all things that go bump in the night in the middle of nowhere is mind-boggling. If you get the chance to get involved in hearing some of those stories, I could listen to them all night long. But they claim that this critter is also a shape shifter. And you'll hear a lot on the podcast that they believe in the portals and things can go in and out of the portals. And that's why you never catch them. I shot it. I have had a taxidermied. It's in my house. But you can't see it. Wow, okay. Um I didn't release their bunny a couple nights ago, but he wouldn't let me film it. So not buying that one. You gotta show me. What's your urban legend? There are so, so many of them. And they seem to vary state to state, region to region, country to country. We've already discussed that one of mine was the boogeyman. If you listen to last night's episode, you'll know our mailing address. So you can actually snail mail us your paranormal urban legend or ghost story. Or you can go to the website, and there's several ways on the website you can submit that to us as well. Urban legends are a great form of storytelling. And as of course, you know, we always say there is indeed a world unseen. A world that exists all around us all the time. And every now and then, for whatever the reason, the debt get in. Or the urban legend creeps in. Since urban legends are paranormal and some of them are ghost stories, then we can say, tell a paranormal story. Or a ghost story, even if it's an urban legend, tell that story because it's good for you. Good night, my friends. We will talk tomorrow. Dr. T Spirit Tales and Magic from Phoenix. Good night.
