Today we venture (with flashlights on) into the TNT area, a vast abandoned munitions factory in Point Pleasant, West Virginia – where, in the 1960s, people started reporting sightings of a strange, winged creature with red glowing eyes. The creature became known as “the Moth...

Olney, Illinois is your quintessential Midwestern small town. It’s in the middle of farm country - a place you might drive right past. But people do stop, and they come for one thing: squirrels. But for how long?

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Thompson’s Ice House in Bristol, Maine is one of the only places in the United States where people gather every winter to take part in the age-old process of harvesting ice from a frozen pond. 

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Ross Jennings, aka the First Piper, has been on a world-spanning quest to play the bagpipes in every country of the world. 

LEARN MORE: https://www.thefirstpiper.com/

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Producer Manolo Morales is not a fan of cats. But he may just change his mind after taking a walking tour in Brooklyn Heights dedicated to cat history called Cats About Town. 

 

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Producer Jerome Campbell shares two stories about how far animals will go for their meal. 

 

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Deep in the Australian Outback, on the bank of the Finke river, stands a modest two-room house. Albert Namatjira built it for his family as his fame grew, but their time there was cut short. Today, the rise, fall, and enduring legacy of one of Australia’s most important artists.

 

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School is back in session for many. So all week, we're bringing you stories from our archive about schools with a little something extra -- unusual traditions, ceremonies and customs. Students at Reed College study things like philosophy, history and English. But for the pas...

School is back in session for many. So all week, we're bringing you stories from our archive about schools with a little something extra -- unusual traditions, ceremonies and customs. In the 1980s, a group of friends on the track team at Sul Ross State University hauled a di...

School is back in session for many. So all week, we're bringing you stories from our archive about schools with a little something extra -- unusual traditions, ceremonies and customs. The Flagg Grove School in Brownsville, Tennessee has become a museum dedicated to its most famous student.

If you have stories about schools with strange, unusual or wondrous traditions or ceremonies tell us about it. Give us a call at (315) 992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and story. Or better, you can record a voice memo and give it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com.

 

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School is back in session for many. So all week, we're bringing you stories from our archive about schools with a little something extra -- unusual traditions, ceremonies and customs. For years, students at Bennington College snuck into a locked room for a glimpse of strange and magical instruments created by professor Gunnar Schonbeck. Today, we join his orchestra. 

If you have stories about schools with strange, unusual or wondrous traditions or ceremonies tell us about it. Give us a call at (315) 992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and story. Or better, you can record a voice memo and give it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com.

 

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School is back in session for many. So all week, we're bringing you stories from our archive about schools with a little something extra -- unusual traditions, ceremonies and customs. In this episode, producers Jonathan Carey and Michelle Cassidy have stories from the campuses of Gallaudet University and Cornell University .

If you have stories about schools with strange, unusual or wondrous traditions or ceremonies tell us about it. Give us a call at (315) 992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and story. Or better, you can record a voice memo and give it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com.

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Thor Pedersen is the first person to visit every country in the world without flying. That is 203 countries by land and sea. He sits down with Kelly to unpack his epic quest, which he chronicled in his book, The Impossible Journey.

 

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We meet Becky Sigwright, who captains a wind-powered boat that’s been sailing around Maine since before the invention of the telephone. This episode was produced in partnership with the Maine Office of Tourism.

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We asked you to send us your stories inspired by Brad Ryan’s quest to travel to all 63 U.S National Parks with his grandmother. And some of you had some really interesting things to say.  Plus, we wanna hear your stories about the unusual, distinct or memorable tours yo...

We head to the cliffs of Balneario El Condor in Argentina to visit a parrot city… and the parrot suburbs. And we meet the biologist who risks his life to study them. 

Learn more about the parrot colony and Juan Masello’s work. 

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For thousands of years, a massive bat colony has lived in a cave about 30 minutes from San Antonio, Texas. Ryan Huling, author of the Book "The Hidden Nations of Animals," tells us all about it. 

If you want to hear about Ryan’s journey to visit other animal colonies, check out our episode titled: “The Animal Worlds We Rarely See."

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Producer Talon Stradley takes us on a tour of three skinny houses – each with a big story inside. Do these skinny houses have you curious about spite houses? 

Check out that episode here. 

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We will always love Dolly Parton, who installed a “dreambox” time capsule at her amusement park. In it, there’s a secret song that no one will hear until the legendary artist turns 100. Dolly Parton died this week at age 80, sparking a global outpouring of grief and tributes. 

 

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In the 1700s, a farmer plowing his fields near the English town of Silchester uncovered a very large gold ring dating back to Roman times, inscribed with the name “Senecianus.” Seventy miles away, in the remains of an old Roman temple complex, a curse tablet was discovered t...

For decades, the sailing stones of Death Valley were a mystery. They'd show up in lists of the world's unexplained phenomena, alongside the Bermuda Triangle and ball lightning. But then, two cousins came along and decided to ruin everything by solving this mystery once and for all.

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A new dream and effort has arisen to re-envision Hogan's Alley, a predominantly Black community in Vancouver.

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We asked, you answered. Hear listener stories of near death travel experiences.

PLUS: We wanna hear from you! Tell us about your intergenerational travel stories. Who did you go with?  Where did you go? What did you learn about traveling with this person of a different age? How did the trip go? What are some stories you brought back? We want to hear it all. 

Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and story. Our mailbox will cut you off after three minutes so please call again if you get disconnected. Or better yet, you can record a voice memo and email it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com. 

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We all dream of the perfect vacation when everything goes right. This episode is about the opposite. Hear stories of people having near death travel experiences.

PLUS: We wanna hear from you! Tell us about your intergenerational travel stories. Who did you go with?  Where did you go? What did you learn about traveling with this person of a different age? How did the trip go? What are some stories you brought back? We want to hear it all. 

Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and story. Our mailbox will cut you off after three minutes so please call again if you get disconnected. Or better yet, you can record a voice memo and email it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com. 

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Cal Flyn is the author of Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape. She also has a new book, called The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness. On today’s show, she and host Kelly McEvers explore the allure of places that humans have abandoned.

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Producers Amanda and Glydel bring you stories of places, spanning from the Ozark mountains to a cave in Portugal, where death is not as final as it seems. 

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We visit a museum in Montana that’s a dream for dinosaur nerds, and home to bones that are the real deal, locally sourced and sustainably foraged.

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/great-plains-dinosaur-museum

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We wanna hear from you! Tell us about your intergenerational travel stories. Who did you go with?  Where did you go? What did you learn about traveling with this person of a different age? How did the trip go? What are some stories you brought back? We want to hear it all. 

Give us a call at 315-992-7902 and leave a message telling us your name and story. Our mailbox will cut you off after three minutes so please call again if you get disconnected. Or better yet, you can record a voice memo and email it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com. 

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A race is on to save this world heritage site that straddles the border of Togo and Benin. It’s home to remarkable earth tower homes called Takienta, and the Batammariba people, whose existence is threatened by climate change and migration.

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/koutammakou-batammariba

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Emily Zarka is the host of the PBS digital series Monstrum, a show that tries to  figure out how monster mythology was created and shaped through oral storytelling, literature, and film.

Today she tells us about the Flatswoods monster in West Virginia, a legend that dates back to the 1950s.

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