PODCAST · society
Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast
by J.W. Ocker
My name is J.W. Ocker. For more than a decade, I have sought out odd sites and artifacts. I believe that within a tank or two of gas of any point in the country are oddities worth trekking to on a Saturday afternoon. And I have the stories as proof.
Episodes
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Episode 39: Return to the Lizzie Borden House
For the second time in my life, I stay the night at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, a crime scene turned morbid historical attraction. Hear me and my girlfriend Dani October talk about our experience there, as well as at the crime scene next door, where Lizzie's great aunt drowned two of her...
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Episode 38: Happy Halloween 2024
I discuss the 2024 OTIS Halloween Season that I do every year on oddthingsiveseen.com and how it kinda went awry from my original intention, and I go deeper into this year's theme of "Is Halloween Getting Annoying?" Support this podcast and other of my oddity initiatives on my Patreon. Follow me…
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Episode 37: Chasing Zombies in Romero-Land and Savini-ville
In this episode, we travel to Pittsburgh to see horror movie sites connected to George Romero and Tom Savini, while waxing (and waning) nostalgic on how much has changed at both the sites and in my own life since my original 2006 visit to the place back in the first days of OTIS. See photos from…
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Episode 36: Giant Sky Clams! A Reading from THE UNITED STATES OF CRYPTIDS
In this episode, I read the introduction to my book, "The United States of Cryptids," as well as an entry on one of the weirdest cryptids in its pages: The giant sky clams of Nevada. Come for the bigfoot parties. Stay for the flying mollusks. Buy The United States of Cryptids here. Support this...
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Episode 35: Movie Monster Museums I Have Loved
I have visited probably a dozen movie monster museums across this country in my time searching out oddity. Three of these museums stand out as my favorites--one in Nevada, one in Connecticut, and one in Massachusetts. Come with me and let's be old-fashioned Monster Kids for a while. See photos…
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Episode 34: Digging Through Mulder's Office: The X-Files Preservation Collection
The X-Files is my favorite show of all time. I was on the couch for its debut on September 10, 1993. So when I found out a museum of original props had opened a mere three hours from me, I wasted only two years to get there. See photos from my visit here. Visit the museum website here. Read about...
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Episode 33: Visiting the Sites of the Martha Stewart of Serial Killers
My fascination with serial killers comes with a heaping load of shame, except for in one instance: Ed Gein. That's because without Gein, we might not have Norman Bates. Or Leatherface. Or Buffalo Bill. Or the Firefly family. So my shame load was only a mild one as I visited sites related to him…
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Episode 32: The Place Where the Music Died
On February 3, 1959, a small plane carrying pop stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper crashed into an Iowa cornfield, killing all three instantly and inspiring Don McLean to write American Pie. We trudge into that cornfield, to see the place where the music died. See images from…
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Episode 31 (Special On-Location): Cryptid Kaiju of the Dakotas
In this special on-location episode, I head to North and South Dakota to see a couple of gigantic cryptid statues. In Bismarck, North Dakota, a quartet of Thunderbirds glower above a lightning storm on the banks of the Missouri. Then I drive five hours southwest through snow and rain and flocks…
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Episode 30: That Time I Bought a Cursed Object
In this episode, I read from my latest nonfiction book, Cursed Objects, to talk about what exactly is a cursed object, as well as to tell the story of the time I bought one to see what would happen. Buy Cursed Objects: Strange but True Stories of the World's Most Infamous Items. See bonus Cursed...
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Episode 29: The Man Who Built a Mechanical Messiah
We visit High Rock Tower Park, where nineteenth century spiritualist John Murray Spear built his New Motive Power, aka, the God Machine, aka, the Infant Motor, aka, the Mechanical Messiah, all based on plans that the ghosts of Benjamin Franklin and Socrates gave him. Then the story gets weird....
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Episode 28: Booing Ghosts: My Personal Take on the Paranormal
I’m a guy who digs the ghostly. I love the macabre. I obsessively search out spooky sites and objects like my afterlife depends on it. That means I always find myself in paranormal circles, be they crop, spellcasting, or fairy. I’m constantly absorbing other people’s takes on the paranormal. And…
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Episode 27: A Haunted Tower, An Abandoned Base
We head to Cape Cod in Massachusetts to find neighboring, but very different oddities: A nineteenth century tower in a forest that is haunted by a famous opera singer who fights the local witch and an abandoned air force base with connections to a UFO abduction. Yeah, this one has it all. Even...
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Episode 26: A Reading from "A Season with the Witch"
A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts is my account of living in the city of Salem, Massachusetts, during the entire month of October, getting to the heart of this weird city during its weirdest season. In this episode, I read from that book. I'm also...
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Episode 25 (On Location): Yea, Though I Walk Through an Abandoned Bible Theme Park
For this episode, we're going on location to an abandoned Bible theme park (and murder scene) looming over the town of Waterbury, Connecticut. It's oddities like these that this site and that podcast and, well, I (me?) are made for. Photos from my visit to Holy Land USA. Address of Holy Land USA:...
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Episode 24: Running [to] the Asylum
My obsession with Danvers State Hospital (aka Danvers Insane Asylum) started with the horror movie Session 9 back in 2001, which was filmed inside the then 120-year-old abandoned asylum. Over the next two decades, I visited the site, found the asylum cemetery, watched Session 9 on the site where…
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Episode 23: I Have a Favorite Cemetery
I take you back to where my love for cemeteries first started...Highgate Cemetery in London. I met her in 1999, returned to her in 2017. We go to both West and East Cemeteries, finding the graves of Douglas Adams and Karl Marx and the guy who wrote The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, to the parts that...
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Episode 22: The New York Town That Talks to Ghosts
Lily Dale is an quaint little town in western New York that you'd probably like a lot…if you can stomach all the ghosts. But the residents like it that way. After all, they’re all mediums. In this episode, I tell you about my visit to this strange place and about my own personal session (my very...
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Episode 21: A Tale of Two Torture Museums
Torture museums: Are they ghastly tourist traps with acute deficiencies of taste or family-friendly opportunities for history lessons? I have no clue! But I've been to two of them, one in Wisconsin and one in Florida, and they couldn't have been more different experiences from each other. Let's...
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Episode 20: The Two Most Bonkers Museums in the Country
I don't use the term bonkers lightly, but in this episode, I'm going to tell you about two of the most bonkers museums I've ever been to. And that image you have in your head when I say "museum"? Throw it out. Doesn't apply. Oddly enough, both of these museums have very boring names, despite…
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Episode 19: JAWS in a Chicken Wing Joint
We're headed to Staten Island. to a chicken wing joint. That has a 13-foot-long artificial great white shark hanging from its ceiling whose name is JAWS. But not thee one from the movie, the one from the ride. This one's a weird one, so strap on your life jacket, grab a harpoon gun, and make sure...
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Episode 18: She's Also the "I" in OTIS, Part 2
In Part 2 of this interview with my wife about this thing called OTIS, we delve into her photography and how that intersects with the project, some of her favorite oddities and where she wants to go the most, what it's like doing OTIS with kids, and--my favorite part in the entire interview--we...
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Episode 17: She's Also the "I" in OTIS, Part 1
For almost the entire 12 years of OTIS, there have actually been two I's in that acronym, my own and my wife's. Lindsey's never told her half of the OTIS story, though, until now. In this first part of the interview, we cover how the whole thing started (which was around the time we met each...
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Episode 16: Physical Evidence of Hollow Earth Theory...Believers
In this episode, I take you to Hamilton, Ohio, to see the hollow-earth-inspired gravestone of one of the theory's biggest evangelists, and then we go to Estero, Florida, to see the remnants of a hollow earth cult whose definition of hollow earth is mind-blowing. Photos of my visit to the hollow...
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Episode 15 (Special On-Location): A Monk Cave, a Vampire Grave, and a Witch Path
We recently trekked to the Springfield area of Massachusetts to see some seriously weird, creepy, and fascinating oddity, and recording the whole outing. That's the "Special On-Location" part. I'd tell you more, but it's kind of all in the title. Photos of this road trip on OTIS. A deeper dive…
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Episode 14: How to Do Sleepy Hollow
Gather 'round, and I'll elucidate, everything I've learned over a decade of visiting Sleepy Hollow, New York, during the Halloween season. The only thing you need to know in advance is that the Headless Horseman is my favorite monster. All of my OTIS articles on Sleepy Hollow. The 2019 OTIS...
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Episode 13: How to Do Salem
In this episode, I answer the four questions I'm always asked about Salem, Massachusetts: When to go there, what to do there, what are my favorite spots there, and how do I feel about partying on the corpses of the murdered? All of my OTIS articles on Salem. My book on Salem, which I wrote after...
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Episode 12: PS — New Hampshire is Swarming with UFOs
We're one month away from the 58th anniversary of the most famous alien abduction in the history of the lore: The Betty and Barney Hill Incident. On the 47th anniversary, my wife and I, newly arrived in New Hampshire, spent a night retracing their route through the White Mountains, and then we…
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Episode 11: The Unabashed Horrors of Zak Bagan's Haunted Museum
In a first for this podcast, I present a candid, unscripted story of my recent visit to The Haunted Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada. The museum is owned by Zak Bagans (of "Ghost Adventures" fame) and features the earthly remains of Charles Manson, Jack Kevorkian's van, a dybbuk box, and a…
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Episode 10 (Special On-Location): Maryland, Scaryland
In our second ever Special On-Location episode, I take you with me on a recent road trip we took to Baltimore, Maryland, to see some of the sights that make the state so spooky, including the unmarked grave of Herman Munster, the site where the Ouija board named itself, the Edgar Allan Poe House,...
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Episode 9: A Giant Squid and an Even Bigger Titan of Biology
In this episode, I take you behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum in London to witness the most mindboggling biological artifacts in the entire collection: Archie the Giant Squid and actual specimens bottled by Charles Darwin himself on his world-changing HMS Beagle voyage. Oh, and I...
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Episode 8: House of a Sinner, Arm of a Saint
In this episode, I take you to the house where infamous occultist Aleister Crowley enjoyed a magick retirement and then to the severed arm of Saint Edmund. Surprisingly, neither of these two sites are in Europe. They're in New England. And they are mere hours from each other. The depth of oddity…
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Episode 7 (Special On-Location): A Jaunting in Connecticut
In this special episode of Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast, I take you on location with me on a road trip I took last Saturday to see five oddities in Connecticut: Two sites connected to a Great Awakening preacher who has haunted me since childhood, a minor witch memorial, the house of a serial...
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Episode 6: The Fire that Froze Pompeii
We're going international in this episode, heading to Italy to see what it's like/how exhausting it is to visit both Pompeii and Vesuvius in a single day. Volcanic ghost towns might be the most fascinating ghost towns. Pics from out stroll through Pompeii. Pics from our ascent up a foggy…
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Episode 5: A Garden Full of Cobra Lilies and Corpse Flowers
Plants are 80% of the planet's biomass. So it makes sense that there are some odd plants out there. I've seen a few in my day. Like a swamp full of cobra lilies in Oregon and a seven-foot-tall phallus-shaped corpse flower in New Hampshire. Let's get botanical. Pics from our time among the cobra...
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Episode 4: Lying in Bed, Just Like Lizzie Borden Did
The story of Lizzie Borden and the ax murder of her parents has been told...to death. But the oddest part of the story is that today...you can stay the night at the crime scene. Which. We. Did. Pics from our night at Lizzie Borden's. More pics from our night at Lizzie Borden's. Address for Lizzie...
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Episode 3: Playing Chicken with Area 51
We head out to the Nevada desert to play chicken with Area 51. And see an Independence Day (the movie) time capsule. And eat at an alien-themed eatery. And generally look for the truth that is out there. Pictures from The Extraterrestrial Highway. Pictures from Area 51. The video of the tour…
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Episode 2: Let's Picnic at a Flaming Ghost Town
Centralia, Pennsylvania, is a ghost town...on fire. Beneath its grass blades, a coal fire rages that has burned for half a century and will burn for centuries longer. Smoke wafts over the sites where neighborhoods once stood. Roads choke on overgrowth. Pockets beneath the topsoil are waiting to...
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Episode 1: The Spookiest Statue in the Cemetery…and the Smithsonian
A suicide brought it into existence. A copy of it turned evil. You can find a version of it in a graveyard, at the Smithsonian, at an artist's studio in New England...and outside, just around the corner from the White House. Come with me, J.W. Ocker, as we visit the Adams Memorial and its Mr.…
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Introducing Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast!
My name is J.W. Ocker. For more than a decade, in my spare time, I have sought out odd sites and artifacts. I'm terrible at maps and bad at driving, but I believe that within a tank or two of gas of any point in the country are oddities worth trekking to on a Saturday afternoon. And I have the...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
My name is J.W. Ocker. For more than a decade, I have sought out odd sites and artifacts. I believe that within a tank or two of gas of any point in the country are oddities worth trekking to on a Saturday afternoon. And I have the stories as proof.
HOSTED BY
J.W. Ocker
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast have?
Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast currently has 40 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast about?
My name is J.W. Ocker. For more than a decade, I have sought out odd sites and artifacts. I believe that within a tank or two of gas of any point in the country are oddities worth trekking to on a Saturday afternoon. And I have the stories as proof.
How often does Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast release new episodes?
Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast has 40 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast?
Odd Things I've Seen: The Podcast is created and hosted by J.W. Ocker.
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