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PODCAST

The Box of Oddities

Kat & Jethro Gilligan Toth

The Webby Award-winning “Box of Oddities" is a podcast that delves into the strange and mysterious aspects of our world, exploring topics ranging from bizarre medical conditions to unsolved mysteries, and from paranormal phenomena to strange cultural practices from around the world. With a focus on oddities, curiosities, and the macabre, each episode is a journey into the unknown, where hosts Kat and Jethro Gilligan Toth share their love for unusual stories and inject their humor and commentary

true crime

All Episodes

33:51

The Body in the Glacier & The Woman Who Wouldn’t Stay...

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/10/05

A body emerges from a California glacier more than sixty years after a World War II training plane vanished in the Sierra Nevada. He’s still wearing his military uniform, carrying coins, a fountain pen, and an address book—but who is he, and what happened to the other men aboard the missing aircraft?Then, we head to Colorado for the strange story of Emma Crawford, a young woman whose dying wish was to be buried high atop Red Mountain. Unfortunately, death was only the beginning of Emma’s travels

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34:07

The Gods Below & The Boy Beyond

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/10/02

It’s time for another Freak Family Favorite, pulled from deep inside The Box of Oddities archives!First, Kat explores the surprisingly widespread history of dwarf mythology and reverence. From ancient Egypt, where people of short stature could hold prestigious positions and dwarf deities were associated with protection, childbirth, and regeneration, to Norse mythology and legends of mysterious underground craftsmen, the connection between dwarves, gods, magic, and folklore stretches across

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35:31

The Letter That Fell From the Sky

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/30

A letter disappears in one of the deadliest tornadoes in American history—then turns up 130 miles away.In 1925, the catastrophic Tri-State Tornado destroyed the Indiana home of Will Jones. Among the possessions swept away was a letter written decades earlier by his late wife. About a week later, a farmer found that same piece of paper lying in a field more than a hundred miles away—and somehow, against absurd odds, it found its way back to the man who treasured it. Then, Kat takes us inside

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32:06

San Francisco’s Buried Ships & Bizarre Toilet World...

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/28

What if the streets beneath San Francisco aren’t sitting on solid ground at all—but on the remains of abandoned ships?During the California Gold Rush, crews deserted vessels by the hundreds, leaving ships stranded along the waterfront. Some became warehouses, hotels, saloons, even a jail. Others were swallowed by landfill as San Francisco expanded outward into the bay. Today, dozens of nineteenth-century ships may still lie beneath downtown—including the Niantic, whose buried hull has repeatedly

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18:34

Inbox Of Oddities #101

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/25

The Inbox of Oddities is open, and the Freak Family has delivered another beautifully strange collection of listener stories.This time, Kat and Jethro dive into an accidentally perfect sign at a spay-and-neuter clinic, a spectacularly unfortunate product mistranslation involving “aging horniness,” a rabbit openly mocking someone’s gardening defenses, and a listener determined to bring a beloved Box of Oddities song back into heavy rotation. There’s also a Phoenix-versus-Tucson debate, memories of

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30:09

Cursed Bread and Pink Dolphins

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/23

A quiet French town is hit by a wave of sickness, terror, and impossible visions after its residents eat the same bread. Were the horrors of Pont-Saint-Esprit in 1951 caused by ergot poisoning, contaminated flour, or something even stranger? Then, deep in the Amazon, male pink river dolphins have a baffling social habit involving aerial urination, zigzagging streams, and very interested onlookers.The Box of Oddities investigates cursed bread, Cold War suspicions, hallucinations, and why nature

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30:28

The Dinosaur Tree & The Blue Mountains Mystery

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/21

An accidental Australian takeover of The Box of Oddities begins with Vegemite and somehow ends with a prehistoric mystery and a disappearance that only gets stranger.First, buried in ancient Australian rock are the delicate remains of a forest that vanished from the world millions of years ago. Scientists knew these trees only through fossils—until a park ranger climbed into a remote canyon and noticed something he couldn't explain. What he found would rewrite a small piece of botanical history

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20:36

Inbox Of Oddities #100

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/18

Halloween is creeping closer, and the Inbox is filling up with teeth, doppelgängers, bizarre coincidences, pet opossums, and the kind of heartfelt notes that make Kat and JG question whether they deserve any of you.This week: a listener wakes from wisdom-tooth surgery determined to show Kat and JG her teeth, a mysterious ambulance/fire-alarm “Boo Effect,” a license plate coincidence involving the word Gordita, and a pet opossum named Myrtle with absolutely no survival instincts. Plus, a listener

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31:24

Ghosts in Your DNA

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/16

There are ghosts in your DNA—entire lost populations whose names, languages, and worlds vanished, yet whose genetic fingerprints are still moving through people alive today. Then: the deeply unsettling truth about seeds that have sprouted in human lungs, ears, and other places nature never intended a garden to grow.In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore ancient “ghost populations,” Neanderthals, Denisovans, and the 7,100-year-old woman whose DNA revealed a hidden branch of

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42:22

The Missing Head Behind David Attenborough’s Pub

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/14

A forgotten 1952 Pan Am crash helped shape the safety briefing you hear on every flight—and now, 74 years later, the Clipper Endeavor has been found 2,000 feet beneath the Atlantic. Then: a skull discovered during a renovation connected to David Attenborough leads back to one of Victorian London’s most gruesome unsolved-for-131-years murder mysteries.A lost airliner, a missing head, and the very specific reason you should never inflate your life vest inside the plane. This is Box of

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26:39

Inbox Of Oddities #99

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/11

On this Inbox of Oddities, Kat and Jethro open the mailbag for a wonderfully strange collection of listener stories: gargoyle-like creatures watching from a grandmother’s curtain rod, an eerie phone call from a man who may have been dead, a child who seemed to know far too much about the “lady upstairs,” and an unexpected bathroom encounter with Monkees legend Mickey Dolenz.They also reflect on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, hear a powerful reminder that bravery can mean doing the thing even while

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33:30

The Psychology of Going Nowhere

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/09

A young woman boards an elevated train in 1907, reaches her stop…and simply cannot make herself leave. Her strange case of “nervousness” becomes a newspaper curiosity, but more than a century later, it feels startlingly familiar. Then, why do lost people so often make the one choice most likely to keep them lost? From the forests of Nova Scotia to the Sahara Desert, we explore the unnerving ways panic can scramble your internal compass.The Box of Oddities: where history gets weird, the brain gets

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44:17

Odd Jobs, Bad Science, and Three Generations of Horror

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/07

In this classic episode, we celebrate Labor Day by looking at the most unusual jobs. Some people get paid to break into buildings, test mattresses, cuddle strangers, or bring horses into therapy sessions. Then there’s the far darker side of deciding who is “fit” for society: the true story of Carrie Buck, a young woman institutionalized and sterilized against her will in a Supreme Court case whose legacy still haunts America. It’s strange work, terrible pseudoscience, and the kind of history that

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26:33

Inbox Of Oddities #98

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/04

This week’s Inbox of Oddities is full of the kinds of stories that make you wonder whether the universe is gently trying to get your attention. From a beloved dog who may have kept watch long after he was gone, to a grandmother’s promise delivered through a stubborn patch of flowers, the Freak Family shares paranormal experiences, unexpected kindness, rescued pups, healing, and a reminder that sometimes we get the chance to be somebody else’s Santa.Plus, Jethro and Kat put out the call for your

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39:30

Freaks, Feathers, and Yellow Fever

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/09/02

A sideshow performer known as Koo-Koo the Bird Girl becomes one of the most unforgettable faces in Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks—yet the real Minnie Woolsey remains almost a mystery. We trace the strange, sad, and surprisingly human story behind the feathers, enormous glasses, and a few seconds of dancing that outlived nearly everything else known about her.Then: a young doctor named Stubbins Ffirth sets out to prove that yellow fever isn’t contagious by conducting one of history’s most

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27:14

Ten Dimes and One Very Stubborn House

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/08/31

What can ten dimes do? For Osceola McCarty, they represented a lifetime spent washing other people’s clothes—and a quiet act of generosity that would eventually change the lives of more than a hundred students. Discover how a Mississippi laundress who left school in the sixth grade saved a remarkable fortune and created an educational legacy that continues growing decades after her death. Then, when developers decided one stubborn little house stood in the way of progress, its owners refused to

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24:39

Inbox Of Oddities #97

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/08/28

Can you feel time passing—or taste pizza using only your imagination? This week, the Freak Family opens our eyes to the wildly different ways our brains experience the world, including one listener whose sense of time appears as a constantly shifting spectrum of colors. We also hear about an eerily timed Dolly Parton “Boo Effect,” an Australian linguistic injustice, sad nipple syndrome as bedroom conversation, and a deeply moving message about grief, hospice, dark humor, and permitting ourselves to

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35:05

Black Holes, Nazis, & Fresh Baked Goods

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/08/26

Are We Living Inside a Black Hole? And Why You Should Never Trust a Nazi With a Plate Of Cookies.What if our entire universe is hiding inside a black hole? The James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered strange new clues about the early cosmos—including an ancient galaxy that appears far more developed than it should be and a mysterious imbalance in the way distant galaxies rotate. Then, meet the WWII interrogator who extracted secrets from hundreds of Allied pilots without threats or violence. His

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32:45

The Boys Who Refused to Become Monsters

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/08/24

What happens when six teenage boys are stranded on a deserted island for more than a year? Forget Lord of the Flies. The true story of the boys of Ata reveals something far more surprising—and far more hopeful—about human nature.Then, during World War II, a Muslim family in Sarajevo risks everything to hide their Jewish neighbors from the Nazis. Nearly fifty years later, with Sarajevo under siege once again, an extraordinary act of courage comes full circle. Two remarkable true stories of

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22:40

Inbox Of Oddities

The Box of Oddities ·

2026/08/21

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 medical condition still treated with bloodletting, a breathtaking encounter in Norway, and a desperate plea

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