The Box of Oddities
True Crime & Paranormal
About
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. From the strange history of medical practices to chilling true crime stories, to natural (and unnatural) events, "The Box of Oddities" satisfies your thirst for the weird and the unusual, offering an informative and entertaining look into the dark and mysterious corners of our world. JIMMY KIMMEL, ABC-TV says, " Should you be the type who has an interest in weird stuff, this is a fun thing to allow in your head!" <b
Episodes
- Why Humans Are So Weird
From ancient survival instincts and prehistoric brain wiring to butter knives, bras, and the bizarre origin of high heels, this episode of The Box of Oddities explores the strange, hidden reasons humans behave the way we do. Why do we hoar…
- Inbox Of Oddities #86
In episode #86 of The Box of Oddities, hosts Kat and Jethro discuss listener-submitted stories covering topics like haunted farmhouses, Viking digestive habits, ghost geese, and peculiar "Wombat Geometry" emails. They also touch on Niʻihau…
- The Radioactive Boy Scout
This episode of The Box of Oddities covers two true stories: Walter Williams, a hospice patient who began breathing hours after being declared dead, and David Hahn, a teenager who attempted to build a nuclear reactor. The episode also touc…
- Victorian Drug Party
This episode discusses Victorian nitrous oxide parties and the accidental discovery of modern anesthesia. It also covers the Carnian Pluvial Episode, a long period of intense rain 233 million years ago, linking it to volcanic activity, ext…
- Inbox Of Oddities #85
This episode of The Box of Oddities features listener stories on strange phenomena including mysterious receipts, vanishing coffee, and odd personal anecdotes. Hosts JG and Kat also discuss retro pop culture, unusual items, and peculiar de…
- Bones In The Wall & a 1776 Resurrection
This episode of The Box of Oddities covers two distinct mysteries: a human skull found in a wall during a 1978 renovation in Batavia, Illinois, which was later investigated using modern DNA technology, and the story of Jemima Wilkinson, a…
- Digital Minds and Endless Miles
Can a Brain Live Without a Body? | Digital Immortality, Ancient Curses & the World’s Most Brutal Race What if the first creature to outlive its own body… wasn’t human? In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro dive into one of…
- Inbox Of Oddities #84
It’s May Day, and the Inbox of Oddities is blooming with the strange, the heartfelt, and the hilariously unhinged. In this listener-driven episode, Kat and Jethro dig into real-life stories that blur the line between coincidence and someth…
- Ghost in the Machine and Milk in the Veins
What if the voices we hear in modern ghost hunts… were already being heard long before recording devices even existed? In this unsettling episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro explore the eerie origins of Electronic Voice Phenome…
- Trapped in a Phrase. Trapped in a Room
What if the last thing your brain said… was the only thing it could ever say again? And what if the person sent to protect you… was the one you needed protection from? In this unsettling episode of *The Box of Oddities*, Kat and JG explore…
- Inbox Of Oddities #83
Real Listener Stories: Haunted Laughter, Phantom Lists & Signs From the Other Side What happens when the strange isn’t just a story… but something that happens to you ? In this chilling edition of Inbox of Oddities , we dive into real list…
- The Ugandan Death Cult And Spray-On Skin
What happens when belief becomes so powerful it overrides doubt—and what happens when science pushes back against death itself? In this episode of The Box of Oddities, we explore two deeply human stories that sit on opposite ends of the sp…
- From the Morgue to the Melting Earth
What does it take to be declared dead… and then wake up in a morgue? In this episode of The Box of Oddities, we uncover the astonishing true story of Vulcana, a Victorian-era strongwoman who shattered expectations, defied societal norms, a…
- Inbox of Oddities #82
Step into the Inbox of Oddities , where reality bends just enough to make you question everything you thought was… normal. In this chilling and oddly comforting collection of listener stories, Kat and Jethro sift through emails that blur t…
- Invisible Minds and Missing Years
What if you didn’t vanish… What if the world just stopped noticing you? In this episode of The Box of Oddities , we explore a chilling psychological case drawn from real clinical observations—a man we’ll call “Daniel,” who became convinced…
- The Ledbury Ghost Letters and the Myth of Total Isolation
In this eerie episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro unravel the chilling mystery of the Ledbury Ghost Letters—messages that arrived through the mail long after their senders had died. Not misplaced. Not delayed. Delivered at exac…
- Inbox Of Oddities #81
Rainy days, duplicate receipts, and messages from beyond the veil… this week’s Inbox of Oddities delivers a collection of listener stories that blur the line between coincidence and something far stranger. It starts innocently enough—“soft…
- Your Brain Is Hiding Things From You
What if reality isn’t what you think it is? In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro peel back the limits of human perception—starting with a real scientific phenomenon that suggests some people can see millions more colors…
- Cemeteries, Stilts And Pigeon Poop
Are cemeteries really the end of the story… or just the beginning? In this unsettling episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro wander into places where the boundary between the living and the dead feels dangerously thin. From Kansas…
- Inbox Of Oddities #80
Listener stories that blur the line between coincidence, memory, and something far stranger… In this chilling installment of Inbox of Oddities , the Freak Family delivers a collection of real-life encounters that range from quietly unsettl…
- The Buga Sphere: A Hoax, or Something Else?
A mysterious metallic orb, impossible physics, and inventions that should never exist. A mysterious metallic sphere falls from the sky… and what happens next only deepens the mystery. In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro…
- The “Ball Cutter” Is Real (And It’s Worse Than You Think)
What if the most terrifying creature in the water… isn’t hunting you—it’s just making a terrible mistake? In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat returns from a sun-soaked (and slightly overcooked) girls cruise, only to dive straight…
- The Atomic Priesthood Problem
Freak Family Favorites: The Nuclear Warning That Must Survive 10,000 Years What message would you leave for humans who don’t exist yet? In this Freak Family Favorites bonus episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro revisit one of the…
- A Message Hidden for 120 Years
A library receives a small, unremarkable package… but inside is a book that’s more than a century overdue—and a message that was never meant to be read in its own time. In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro unravel the eer…
- Voices Inside the Ice & America’s Strangest Relic
What if the Earth itself could sing—and early explorers thought they were hearing voices beneath the ice? In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro unravel the eerie mystery of Antarctica’s “frozen choir,” a haunting phenomeno…
- Inbox Of Oddities #79
Listener stories that blur the line between coincidence and the unexplained take center stage in this eerie and hilarious installment of the Inbox of Oddities . From a respiratory therapist’s chilling encounter with a phantom gurney in a f…
- Frozen Minds & Goat Bladders
One man falls asleep in the early 1920s… and wakes up to a world on the brink of the moon landing. In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro explore the chilling true story behind encephalitis lethargica—the mysterious neurol…
- The Body Beneath The Gas Station
Sometimes history hides its secrets in the strangest places… like the bottom of a forgotten well. In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro uncover the chilling real-life mystery of the Woman in the Well—a century-old murder d…
- Inbox Of Oddities #78
Strange coincidences, mysterious encounters, and the oddly comforting idea that your dog might be greeting someone from beyond the hallway—this episode of The Inbox of Oddities dives deep into the wonderfully weird moments listeners can’t…
- Arsenic And Old Wallpaper
Victorian homes were supposed to be safe havens of comfort and refinement… but what if the most dangerous thing in the room was the wallpaper? In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro uncover the bizarre history of arsenic-la…
- Frozen Pilot. Underground Conspiracies
In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore a chilling moment of Cold War history and descend into the strange world of underground conspiracy theories. First, American soldiers on a Korean War patrol stumble upon a cras…
- The Great LEGO Spill, Killer Waves & Weird Wedding Rituals
In this Box of Oddities bonus episode, “Freak Family Favorites,” Kat and Jethro dive into a wildly entertaining mix of listener mail, strange history, and bizarre real-world oddities that prove the world is far stranger than fiction. From…
- Future Humans & The Amazon’s Boiling River
Episode 784: Future Humans, Urban Legends & the Amazon’s Boiling River Are UFOs actually… us? This week on The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro dive headfirst into one of the most unsettling and scientifically grounded UFO theories you’ve…
- Living Shadows and The Maura Murray Mystery
In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro wander into two deeply unsettling mysteries—one quietly strange, the other heartbreakingly unresolved. First, we travel to Victorian London , where police reports, medical notes, and…
- Inbox Of Oddities #77
Inbox of Oddities is back—and the Freak Family did not disappoint. This episode is packed with listener stories that blur the line between coincidence, comedy, grief, and the quietly unsettling. From eerie “boo effects” that hit a little t…
- An Empty Morgue Isn’t Always Empty
What happens when a body arrives at a hospital morgue without any record of how it got there? In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro examine a disturbing class of real-world cases involving unidentified bodies that appear…
- Mothman Wasn’t Alone
This episode of The Box of Oddities drifts from quiet museum news into deeply unsettling territory, beginning with an update on the International Cryptozoology Museum and sliding straight into one of America’s most enduring paranormal myst…
- Inbox Of Oddities #76
The Inbox of Oddities returns with a collection of listener stories that blur the line between coincidence, comfort, and the quietly unexplained. In this episode, Kat and JG open the mailbag to explore moments that refuse to be neatly cate…
- Awake on the Autopsy Table
What if death isn’t a clean switch—off, then on—but something messier? In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro dig into a deeply unsettling early-20th-century medical case involving a European woman who was pronounced dead……
- The Thing Under the Pyramids
In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro begin exactly where all great mysteries begin: with a frozen burrito and a deeply personal kitchen ritual that absolutely does not need to exist—but does anyway. From there, things es…
- Inbox Of Oddities #75
On this Friday the 13th edition of Inbox of Oddities , Kat and Jethro open the mailbag and let the Freak Fam take the microphone. From Ohio to Australia, Wisconsin to Vermont, listeners share experiences they can’t quite explain—and aren’t…
- Unexplained Human Presence Detected
In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro wander into one of the strangest phrases ever to appear in official U.S. government records: “Unexplained human presence detected.” Buried inside real Freedom of Information Act docum…
- Ancient Rome, Quantum Time, and the Dead Next Door
Could ancient Romans really talk to the dead—and did they build a device to help them do it? In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro tumble headfirst into one of archaeology’s strangest unsolved mysteries: the Roman dodecah…
- Inbox Of Oddities #74
The Inbox of Oddities is where the strange, the personal, and the unexplained land when listeners finally decide, “Okay… I should probably tell someone about this.” This episode —stories of disconnected intercoms that answer anyway, phone…
- Legally Dead But Still Breathing
When Bureaucracy Kills You on Paper and the 1906 exorcism of Clara Germana Cele. What if you woke up one morning and discovered the government had already buried you—on paper? In this episode of The Box of Oddities, Kat and Jethro explore…
- Yellow Pencils and Dead Phone Lines
Why did Henry David Thoreau care so much about pencils—and why did some phone numbers keep ringing long after they were disconnected? In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro wander into two stories that shouldn’t be connect…
- Inbox Of Oddities #73
The Inbox of Oddities is back, and this one is packed wall-to-wall with listener stories that refuse to sit quietly in the corner. From strange family rules that outlive their original reasons, to rooms that seem to rearrange themselves wh…
- The Montauk Radio Transmissions That Were Never Explained
What happens when a military base shuts down… but the signals don’t? In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro dig into a strange, documented mystery tied to Camp Hero in Montauk, New York—a Cold War radar installation offici…
- Hidden In The Basement of Danvers State Hospital
What happens when a wall hides more than it should? In this episode of The Box of Oddities , Kat and Jethro explore two unsettling, very real stories where history was quietly sealed away—literally and figuratively. First, we descend into…
- Inbox Of Oddities #72
Inbox of Oddities returns with a collection of listener stories that live in the unsettling space between coincidence and something more. A clock that refuses to keep proper time after changing hands. An apartment with footsteps, furniture…