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The Box of Oddities

The Box of Oddities

Kat & Jethro Gilligan Toth 960 Episodes Aug 21, 2026

The Box of Oddities is a Webby Award-winning podcast that explores strange and mysterious aspects of the world, from bizarre medical conditions to unsolved mysteries and paranormal phenomena. Hosts Kat and Jethro Gilligan Toth share unusual stories with humor and commentary, covering topics like strange history, true crime, and unnatural events. Each episode offers an informative and entertaining look into the dark and curious corners of our world.

Episodes

Inbox Of Oddities
Inbox Of Oddities Aug 21, 2026 1360 A listener dreams that Mothman shows up at her patio door—and refuses to let him inside because of his dust. Aerial arts may have accidentally cured another Freak’s lifelong motion sickness. And a woman dreams of playing with her late grandfather in an old hot rod, only to discover it may be a memory from infancy—and that her father dreamed about him on the very same night. Plus, the modern medica
Buried for 246 Years—and Finally Identified
Buried for 246 Years—and Finally Identified Aug 19, 2026 2077 He Vanished at 14. DNA Found Him 246 Years Later—and Why So Many Towns End in “Kill” A teenage soldier vanished during one of the American Revolution’s most devastating defeats. Nearly 250 years later, DNA recovered from a tiny piece of bone may have finally given him back his name. The remarkable story of Private John Pumphrey begins beneath the soil of a South Carolina battlefield—and ends with
Charlie No-Face & The Jesus Mothership
Charlie No-Face & The Jesus Mothership Aug 17, 2026 2237 A glowing faceless figure stalks the lonely roads of western Pennsylvania—or so the legend goes. But behind the terrifying tale of Charlie No-Face was Ray Robinson, a real man whose tragic childhood accident transformed him into the infamous Green Man of Pennsylvania. Then, Kat and Jethro explore the bizarre, darkly funny, and sometimes completely unhinged final words of executed criminals—includ
Horse Manure Apocalypse
Horse Manure Apocalypse Aug 14, 2026 2124 HORSE MANURE CRISIS! And Victorians Crawl Inside Dead Whales for a Bizarre Cure! A Freak Family Favorite returns! First, the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894—and the very real fear that cities would eventually disappear beneath nine feet of horse poop. Then, the spectacularly revolting Victorian “whale cure” for rheumatoid arthritis, which involved spending hours inside a warm, decomposing whale
Glitch in Reality & Ghost in the Family Tree
Glitch in Reality & Ghost in the Family Tree Aug 12, 2026 1943 What if the world didn’t move smoothly—but jumped from moment to moment like a broken film reel? Meet LM, the woman who could see colors, faces, and objects clearly but couldn’t see them move. Her rare neurological condition, akinetopsia, revealed something astonishing about how the brain constructs reality. Then, an adopted man searching for his biological mother discovers that she had spent nea
Before Your First Memory & Valley Of The Calls
Before Your First Memory & Valley Of The Calls Aug 10, 2026 2267 Your brain was listening before you ever took your first breath. Newborns can recognize their mother’s voice—and even stories heard in the womb—but could any of those experiences survive as actual memories? JG explores prenatal learning, infantile amnesia, and the unsettling possibility that your earliest memory may be something your brain quietly invented. Then, Kat follows a voice across Saskat
Inbox Of Oddities #95
Inbox Of Oddities #95 Aug 7, 2026 1347 The Freak Family has been busy. This week on Inbox of Oddities, Kat and JG crack open the listener mailbag and discover a funeral urn that can preserve the voice of the person inside it, a legendary Texas rock that may have swallowed a man whole, and the deeply unfortunate mystery of a toilet seat that suddenly developed a perfect blue butt print. Then there’s a possible Boo Effect at one of Ame
Is My Red Is Your Red?
Is My Red Is Your Red? Aug 5, 2026 2110 What if your brain suddenly decided that words had colors? In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro dive into one of neuroscience's strangest documented phenomena: a woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury and awoke seeing vivid colors every time someone spoke. Her condition—known as acquired speech-to-color synesthesia—raises an unsettling question: if the brain can rewrite rea
Oscar Wilde, Dutch Schultz & Sad Nipples
Oscar Wilde, Dutch Schultz & Sad Nipples Aug 3, 2026 1792 What were someone's last words really supposed to reveal? During the Victorian era, people believed a person's final moments exposed the truth about their soul. Families gathered around deathbeds with notebooks in hand, hoping to capture profound final wisdom—but history suggests many of the world's most famous last words may have been polished, embellished, or invented entirely. In this episod
Bat People, Lunar Beavers & Human Skin Books
Bat People, Lunar Beavers & Human Skin Books Jul 31, 2026 2380 Freak Family Favorites: Bat People, Moon Hoaxes, and Museums That Shouldn't Exist This Freak Family Favorites episode comes straight from the recommendations of the Freak Family, and it's packed with the kind of stories that remind us why history is often stranger than fiction. First, Kat unpacks one of the greatest media hoaxes ever printed: The Great Moon Hoax of 1835. Newspapers convinced tho
The Silence Between the Signals
The Silence Between the Signals Jul 29, 2026 2376 Long before smartphones and satellites filled the sky with signals, early radio experimenters were hearing something they couldn't explain. Giant antennas stretched across fields captured strange repeating pulses, mysterious buzzing, and what some believed sounded almost like language. Even Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi wondered if the transmissions might be coming from Mars. In this episode,
Echoes in the Clay, Monsters in the Water
Echoes in the Clay, Monsters in the Water Jul 27, 2026 1971 Could an ordinary clay pot be the oldest recording device in human history? On this episode of The Box of Oddities, JG explores one of archaeology's most captivating ideas: the theory that ancient pottery may have accidentally preserved microscopic traces of sound while spinning on a potter's wheel. From the birth of "acoustic archaeology" to modern AI-assisted research, discover why scientists s

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