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Desert Oracle Radio

Desert Oracle Radio is a weekly road trip through the weird American desert from the publisher of Desert Oracle, the pocket-sized field guide published in Joshua Tree, California. Hear tales of mysterious lights, missing tourists, lost mines, venomous creatures, weird history and weirder people. Hosted by editor Ken Layne and featuring a cast of intriguing mystics, oddballs, scientists and artists, Desert Oracle Radio is your soundtrack for a desert night. The program is broadcast on Friday nights

society & culture places & travel

All Episodes

28:00

Christmas In Chelsea with St. Nicholas

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/12/05

From Desert Oracle Radio, this is The Eldritch Republic, our new series about America’s strange history & uncanny folklore. Tonight we visit the beautiful country estate of Clement Clarke Moore, the big house called "Chelsea" where he read his Christmas poem to the family. The poem is "A Visit From St. Nicholas," and the country estate is now the neighborhood of Chelsea, New York City. Santa Claus, it turns out, is a New York City native. He was created from old Dutch traditions of St

en-US

28:00

Thanksgiving In the High Desert

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/11/25

Snowy mountaintops across the Western Mojave, all the transverse ranges have at least a dusting, with the big peaks covered in white. San Gorgonio looks so pretty right now, you can almost forget it’s a haunted mountain that eats people alive and is usually known by its grim local nickname “Old Grayback.” It must be Thanksgiving in the High Desert! An all-new episode with new soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver, this is Desert Oracle Radio Episode #253. ALSO: Listen to the end, for

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66:03

All Hallows Tales, Live In New York

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/11/02

Recorded live in New York before an audience of DOR Patrons & assorted Manhattanites, this is Desert Oracle’s special Halloween Ghost Stories. Thanks to our special guestsMatt Welch from The Fifth Column and Nicholas Lowry from Antique Roadshows & the new Czech graphic-design documentary Identity. Special thanks to our listeners who told ghost stories, RedBlueBlackSilver for the spooky soundscapes that surrounded us all, and Jonathan Farber for hosting the event.Support the show:

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28:00

The Eldritch Republic: Thomas Jefferson's UFO

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/10/20

From Desert Oracle Radio, this is The Eldritch Republic, our new series that’s all about America’s strange history & uncanny folklore. Tonight we meet William Dunbar, frontier scientist on the Lower Mississippi, and hear his weird report to longtime friend Thomas Jefferson, regarding a large, low-flying mystery object that stunned the people of Baton Rouge in the Spring of 1800. Written and hosted by Ken Layne, with soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Desert Oracle Radio © ℗

en-US

36:59

The Eldritch Republic: Year of the Assassins!

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/10/10

There were two attempted assassinations of President Gerald Ford in September 1975. Both in California, both by women, and both with strange connections to Charles Manson. And then there was third incident six months later, involving not the president, but First Lady Betty Ford. A very strange third incident. This isThe Eldritch Republic, a new collection of uncanny history and American folklore fromDesert Oracle Radio.Just in time for the Halloween season, with new episodes throughout the U.S

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28:00

The Autumn Equinox

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/09/21

September 22 is the day & 11:19 a.m. is the hour when Fall finally arrives in the Mojave Desert. Add an hour for Nevada and Utah, which both share a little of the Mojave with California and Arizona. While it's still hot on the desert floor, the mountains are cool and the aspens are changing color. Too far from the aspen groves? If you're in the desert, there are Fremont's cottonwoods somewhere near you, and few trees have such fantastic fall colors. New soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver, written

en-US

28:00

Monsoon Mood

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/08/29

On a monsoon evening, the sky streaked with golden bands, tropical clouds drawn up from the Sea of Cortez, everything is vibrant, delirious light. No sound but the crunch of boots and dog paws in the sandy wash lined with desert willow and Mormon tea, before we climb up to the mesa and through a high-desert forest of Joshua trees and Juniper. We sit for a while, at sunset: Great Apollo blazing over western mountains.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracleSee omnystudio.com/listener

en-US

28:00

Walking the Wild Lands with Henry David Thoreau

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/08/15

A centuries-old conspiracy regarding Soothsayers' Oaks in the Bible, plus a walk in the woods with good old Henry David Thoreau. Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracleSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

en-US

28:00

Mapping the Mojave with Col. Henry Washington

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/07/22

Out here in the Great Mojave Wilderness, we’re always talking about Section 6 or Section 33 or whatever it is, but how did we get that system, that public-lands overlay? Who did the work? Tonight we tell you about . . . well, not the father of our country, but his nephew: Col. Henry Washington, the man who made the baseline and the meridian back in the 1850s, the defining lines by which all other property in Southern California is measured. With fitting desert soundscapes by

en-US

28:00

Highway 247 Revisited

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/07/11

People will come to the Mojave on purpose, in summertime, and then they get sad because they can't go outside without bursting into flames. A couple of summers ago, a guy died in Death Valley just fromriding his motorcycle outside. Overheated. The 120° heat no less lethal just because it was blowing all over him at cruising speed. He just dehydrated and died. This is the time of year to stay in the car with the A/C blasting. Do your sightseeing with a seatbelt on. How about a historic and scenic

en-US

28:00

Don't Let Them Take Our Western Public Lands

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/06/26

"God bless America, let's save some of it." — Edward Abbey One of the senators Utah sent to Washington has slipped in some very dangerous legal language into the big federal budgeting bill, language that’s vague enough to allow the beginning of the sell-off of our Western Public Lands. Including National Forests. Not including national parks, monuments, etc., but very much including Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands. In fact, that’s what this senator, “Based

en-US

28:00

Deployment From Twentynine Palms

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/06/17

The Mojave gets slow in the summertime, not much going on. So there was much excitement when the word spread on that early summer night: The Marines were shipping out toLos Angeles. Rumorsof troop carriers and white buses, full of Marines with full kit, ready to go, and deeply annoyed to be called back early on a Saturday night. But, it was something to do, somewhere to go. Everybody wants to get out of the Mojave in summertime. Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.Support the show:

en-US

28:00

Who Got Eaten By the Old Gopher Snake?

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/05/29

The reality of knowing the wild animals on your land is knowing that they generally live on an accelerated timeline. The new crop of Mojave cottontails and rock squirrels each spring will shrink to one or two lucky buddies by late summer, with the rest succumbing to reckless road crossings and red-tail hawks and rattlesnakes . . . the local ravens feasting on the remains, if there are any. Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Hosted and written by Ken Layne. Broadcasting Friday nights on KCDZ 107.7 FM

en-US

28:00

The Mad Bomber of Twentynine Palms

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/05/19

The maniac who blew himself up outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic is our latest High Desert dingbat to make the national news. Luckily, the four (or five?) injured in the Palm Springs terror attack have been treated and released from the hospital. But who bombs fertility clinics? Meet America's worst new subculture, the violent anti-natalists. With geographically relevant soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracleSee omnystudio.com/listener for

en-US

28:00

Father Crowley: Desert Padre of the Owens Valley

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/05/09

If you’ve run around the breathtaking Eastern Sierra, you know Crowley Lake, and Crowley Point, and maybe even the rare Crowley Lupine of the Sierra’s Eastern slope. All three are named in honor of Father John J. Crowley, the Padre of the Desert. His heroic life and tragic death are remembered on this very Catholic episode of Desert Oracle Radio, with soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracleSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy

en-US

28:00

The Vanishing Boy of Yavapai County

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/04/19

Here’s how the Channel 12 news in Phoenix began the story, Thursday night on the 10 o’clock news: “God sent that dog to rescue my son.” These words were spoken by the toddler’s father, Corey Allen, outside the family’s home on the west side of rural Seligman, Arizona. Corey Allen says he was working on the roof, Sarah Allen was inside with their youngest. And two-year-old Bodin Allen went outside to play. But when Bodin Allen’s mom called for him, he

en-US

28:00

Spring Forward With the Desert Birds

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/04/06

It's a cool & pleasant springtime in the Mojave High Desert. The hummingbirds are lingering on the branches of creosote and catclaw, looking around for the flowers. Where are the flowers? Well, that’s always the guessing game up here, isn’t it? Sometimes they’re evident by the end of March, sometimes it’s the beginning of May. Varies by terrain, by altitude, by a hundred little differences from spring to spring, in this forward motion of our lives. ALSO: Traveling Doc

en-US

28:00

Remembrance of Lost Time: Anniversary of a Lockdown

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/03/17

Happy Ides of March, happy St. Patrick’s Day, and happy five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 lockdown — the beginning of it anyway: 15 days to slow the spread . . . not a great slogan, for what it cost, but that’s what we got. Much of the world is much the same as it was five years ago. Same iPhone, same president, same daylight savings time. Where did the lockdown time go? What did it do to us? Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this advertising-free

en-US

28:00

The Wonderful, Wonderful Cactus Wren

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/02/28

Night has fallen on the desert, the desert spring is here, and that means the bugs are coming back, and that means we’ll be seeing a lot more of our beloved desert friend, the wonderful wonderful Cactus Wren. Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracleSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

en-US

28:00

Surrounded in the Night

Desert Oracle Radio ·

2025/02/15

A winter storm cut loose from the mountains, the cold wind whipping around the creosote, rain dripping down through the swamp-cooler vent: 2025 came in like a Lion and it’s the Year of the Snake. We’ve got both out here, in the Mojave Wilderness. Mountain lions, or cougars. And snakes, too, although it’s still a bit early to see our reptile friends up here at 4,000 feet elevation. (Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver, written & hosted by Ken Layne.) Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p)

en-US

257 results

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