Episode 5: The Hinterkaifeck Murders & Elisa Lam

Episode 5 is all about UNSOLVED DEATHS. I mean, I’m inclined to say UNSOLVED MURDERS but Elisa Lam’s death was never officially concluded to be anything but bizarre, so… I guess you’ll have to make your own decision.

Justine starts off by telling us about the Hinterkaifeck murders, where a family of 5 and their maid were all slaughtered at their rural farmhouse in Bavaria, Germany.

It’s one of those stories where it’s obvious that they were murdered — they didn’t kill themselves with a mattock, that’s for sure — but the possibilities of WHO could have done it are dizzying, and the reports of there being ghostly activity in the house just makes it even more confusing.

Gray tells us about Elisa Lam, a college student who was on a solo trip to Los Angeles when she was found dead in one of the Cecil Hotel’s rooftop water tanks. (Really makes you think twice about drinking hotel tap water, doesn’t it?)

There are SO MANY bizarre details that make this case impossible to solve, but I challenge you to listen and come to your own theory (and then tell us about it!).

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Episode 4: Aleister Crowley’s Lam & Kenneth Arnold

For episode 4 our theme was “the genesis of modern UFO and extraterrestrial culture here in the United States”. A pretty ambitious topic and we certainly didn’t even break the surface of all there is to the foundation of this thorough subject, but we tried.

Gray first told us about Aleister Crowley, an occultist, fringe-dweller, and man of many talents who believed himself to be a prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century, a period of time when we as humanity would reach self-realization and actualization (sounds awesome, right? LET’S GO).

He tried many times throughout his life to contact various spirits and entities and that often meant partaking in bizarre sex acts while high on a number of recreational drugs. No judgment here, this guy sounds like he had a great life. He found himself in New York City around 1914 and somewhere along the way decided to contact an interdimensional entity (which is how aliens were referred to, at the time — they were more in the realm of magic rather than science). Amazingly, he was apparently successful, making contact with Lam, and potentially opening up a portal for what we now know as “Grays” to contact us in the Western world.

Justine told us about Kenneth Arnold, an American aviator and businessman who is best known for what is generally considered the first widely reported modern UFO sighting in the United States.

He was just going for a casual flight near Mount Rainier in Washington State when he saw nine unusual objects flying nearby. Being a man of logic he tried to exclude all reasonable possibilities before coming to the inevitable conclusion that these had to be extraterrestrial in nature. From his description of their erratic motion being “like a saucer skipped across water”, he was incorrectly quoted in the press and coined the term “flying saucer”, which we’ve all heard a million times before.

Both fascinating stories on their own, but you’ve gotta listen to the episode to hear the incredible connection we made between our two topics!

Episode 3: The Lost Colony of Roanoke

For episode 3 we took a detour away from the paranormal and discussed the LOST COLONY OF ROANOKE.

There were actually two settlements in 1585 that wound up landing at Roanoke Island in what is today’s Dare County, North Carolina. The first of which was lacking in supplies (and having serious issues with the local Native Americans, duh) so many of them left, but the second bunch — a group of 115 led by John White — ended up there as well, and later disappeared without a trace.

Well, that isn’t totally true. They found the word CROATOAN carved into a post of the fence around the village, as well as C-R-O carved into a nearby tree. The houses and fortifications had all been dismantled. Did the colonists leave to find a new, more hospitable place to settle? Did the Native Americans take over and destroy the colony? Did the colonists end up, desperate for food and supplies, integrating with the Native American tribes and eventually bearing children of future generations with them? Join us to discuss these theories and more…

Episode 2: Bobby Mackey’s Music World & Stull Cemetery

Our second episode released on HALLOWEEN so we had to get real spooky. We each chose locations that have been deemed “Portals to Hell” — Gray talking about Bobby Mackey’s Music World in Wilder, Kentucky, and Justine talking about Stull Cemetery in Stull, Kansas.

Bobby-Mackeys

Bobby Mackey’s Music World has had several incarnations: first as a slaughterhouse (always a good start, right?), then as a roadhouse, and now as a nightclub/gateway to hell (it’s most interesting, by far). It is supposedly the site of several deaths and, well, I would not want to go near the well that is said to be the portal to the devil himself.

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Stull Cemetery doesn’t seem like much — an itty bitty cemetery in the middle of a lightly populated town — but there are rumors about it dating back to the 1950’s concerning the devil bearing a child with a witch, a werewolf-like boy creeping behind trees, a particularly fascinating stone church, and possibly two times a year when the devil dances around with those who have recently died violent deaths. Cool, right?

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Give episode 2 a listen to see why Bobby Mackey’s Music World is fascinating enough to have attracted the crew of Ghost Adventures to investigate, and whether Stull Cemetery does indeed have a stairway to hell…

Episode 1: Mothman

In this very first episode of Unknowable we dove in with one of our very favorite cryptids: THE MOTHMAN.

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Art by Gray Turel

We primarily focused on the years 1966 and 1967 when the Mothman was terrorizing Point Pleasant, West Virginia, but we also went a bit into other sightings around the world and throughout history, including Chernobyl (where it was referred to as the “Blackbird of Chernobyl”) and even an alleged sighting (and photograph!) during the World Trade Center terrorist attack on 9/11.

An alleged photo of the “flying alien” captured during the 9/11 terrorist attack.

We also touched a bit on the unusual government agents and “men in black” that were seen around Point Pleasant during, and following, the Mothman sightings, as well as bizarre premonitions and dreams that some residents had that seemed to predict the collapse of the Silver Bridge, which resulted in the deaths of 46 people.

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We had fun speculating on whether the Mothman is indeed a bizarre mutation of an existing animal due to faulty storage of TNT, a man wearing a jetpack and night vision goggles (nope, stop, don’t even suggest that to us), or perhaps just a sad, misunderstood cryptid who is trying his best to warn us of impending doom. Tune in to hear about a topic that we are super passionate about — maybe you’re hearing about the Mothman for the first time, or maybe you’re also a fan, but either way we hope you learn something new!

Unknowable Podcast

Welcome to our podcast, where we talk about all things mysterious, unusual, or unknowable.

Episode 5: The Hinterkaifeck Murders & Elisa Lam

Episode 4: Aleister Crowley’s Lam & Kenneth Arnold

Episode 3: The Lost Colony of Roanoke

Episode 2: Bobby Mackey’s Music World & Stull Cemetery

Episode 1: Mothman