Return to Skull Island back in 1933 with Eddie Guimont to see whether there's more to the overlooked SON OF KONG than you've heard. Topics include: -UPDATE ON PERCY FAWCETT’s LOST CITY! -Occult beliefs in Bolsonaro’s government -Was Kong intended to be sympathetic? -The origins & making of Son of Kong -The real-life colonial adventures of Kong’s creators -The social and economic world of Kong’s 1933 -The trope of the ancient lost monument-builders -The ethnicity of the Skull...

Cian chats with Michael Robinson, author of The Lost White Tribe. Topics include: -the story of Henry Morton Stanley and his 'white' Ruwenzori tribe, a story that was famous at the time but is almost never mentioned today even in biographies of Stanley -the birth of adventure fiction, the obsession with plots about lost cities and lost races -connections to the life and work of HR Haggard, his place as a founder of lost world literature, his fictional lost white tribes in King Solomons...

A lost race in Panama and some man-eating trees show up in this Amazing Stories tale from 1926, written by traveller and finder of Lost Worlds in fact and fiction, A. Hyatt Verrill! Buy Me A Coffee Read the story here

A lost world comic book from the 50s drawn by the great Frank Frazetta!

Cian explains changes coming, a new show, a slight change of theme, and some behind-the-scenes info!

Cameron McCormick returns to discuss cryptozoological bestiaries that stretch the boundaries of belief with huge numbers of undiscovered critters running around. *NOTE: I made an error in referring to The Bigfoot Filmography. The book I actually had in mind was Cryptid Cinema by Stephen Bisette. I’m away from home for a few days but I’ll fix that when I’m back! LINKS: WoW on BuyMeACoffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wideatlantic Cameron on...

In celebration of the book 'When The Stars Are Right, HP Lovecraft and Astronomy' by Edward Guimont and Horace A. Smith, Eddie returns to the cabin. We tackle the Old Gent Of Providence and his fascination with turn-of-the-century astronomy, as well as his various connections to the great and good of early planetary science fiction! Including, but not limited to: -Teenage Lovecraft meets Percival Lowell, and worries he's been too harsh on the latter's Martian canal theories -Lovecraft...

We chat with Dr Francis Young about that favourite WAW topic, the theory of 'Pagan survivals!' Subtopics include: -what we do know about pre-Christian European socities -how did the Pagan survival theory come about in Victorian times -the significance of yew trees -the Green Man -connections to alien greys LINKS Francis Young Twitter (that’s what I’m calling it) https://twitter.com/DrFrancisYoung?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author Twilight Of the Godlings (and other...

Hit the road with WAW on tour through the highlands of Scotland! We visit the home of Nessie, meet Felicity the Inverness Mystery Big Cat, hear what Lovecraft had to say about the monster of the Loch, go ghost-hunting at Glamis Castle, and have a close call with the Great Grey man of Ben McDhui in a most unexpected location!

From the gilllman of Robert W Chambers' 'The Harbour Master' to the monstrous apes and aquatic dinosaurs of 'King Kong,' fiction has informed the cryptozoologists who went out into the dark corners of the earth seeking 'real' mystery creatures. Justin Mullis returns to talk us through his article 'Cryptofiction.' Get ready for a monster-load of influential stories from writers both familiar and obscure. Talk includes: -Famous cryptozoologists who were influenced by monster fiction -The...

We're chuffed to welcome the esteemed hosts of MONSTER TALK, Dr Karen Stollznow and Blake Smith, to the cabin to talk about the 1957 movie THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN. Written by the tremendous, influential British writer Nigel Kneale, this has got to be one of the best, and most interesting, cryptic films ever made. The fact that it hails from the days of 1950s yeti-mania makes it an important marker of a cultural cryptozoological moment - but even so, Kneale finds ways to put his own stamp on...

Lauren the Gothic Bookworm opens the tomb of maybe-classic The Mummy from 1999 as we discuss action movie tropes, Orientalism in Hollywood, the golden age of Egyptology in the popular imagination, and Arnold Vosloo. Digressions include: -The horror-centric directions the film almost went in -The lure of the ‘golden age of Egyptology’ in Western storytelling -Creative use of dodgy CGI -The mummy as an Indiana Jones clone, and Orientalism in lost race fiction -Inconsistent geography in the...

Professor Christine Ferguson visits the cabin to discuss the later adventures of Professor Challenger! In 1925, Arthur Conan Doyle's serialisation of 'The Land Of Mist' began in the Strand magazine. This novel was the author's great attempt to make his decades-long interest in spiritualism palatable to the widest audience possible. Did he succeed? Did he portray the world of 1920s London accurately? And why did he choose Professor Challenger, the maverick of the scientific world, to play the...

How many Lost World connections can we make in this episode about turn-of-the-century ghost writers searching for extinct animals in South America? Dr Edward Guimont is at hand to tell the tale, bringing essential palaeontological and colonial context for South America in 1900.  Hesketh Hesketh Pritchard, creator of Flaxman Low, was sent on this expedition for news mogul C Arthur Pearson. Featuring: -a potted history of the Occult Detective genre -Hesketh Pritchard himself as a product of...

What if 'fairies' are a memory of a squat race of mysterious pre-humans who lived in Europe before modern humans arrived? Justin Mullis brings a LOT to the cabin in this episode. We cover: the origins of euhemerism and 'explanations' for Norse gods. Bernard Heuvelmans and euhemerism, our first (but not last!) connection to cryptozoology. Early famous supporters of a mystery race include Sir Walter Scott! Euhemerism used to explain troll legends in Sweden. Disenchantment and the changing...

The 1961 Hill abduction is usually considered the 'ground zero' of the entire 'genre' of UFO abductions. It's been pored over by UFO believers and skeptics for decades; been the stuff of TV movies and comic strips. In short, it's been done to death. So I didn't want to return to the subject without a fresh take or some new research. Dr Edward Guimont, having been hard at work at the Betty & Barney Hill archives at the University of New Hampshire, returns to the pod to furnish fascinating...

Lisa drops into the cabin with a Halloween tale ... the story of Pearl Curran, a woman who channelled a spirit calling herself 'Patience Worth.' As Patience, Pearl wrote books that gave her a new life among the literati, and eventually adopted a child who she raised as Patience herself. Sources: The Case Of Patience Worth, L. Gilman, 1916 The Patience of Pearl: Spiritualism and Authorship in the Writings of Pearl Curran, Daniel B. Shea, 2012 Ghostwriter and Ghost by Ed Simon, Public...

Bob Fischer, creator of 'Haunted Generation,' joins us for a wide-ranging chat about Hauntology, and how ‘Haunted Generation’ feelings of an uncanny childhood differ around the world. We cover Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World and the how the paranormal was presented in the 70s. We cover memories of a pre-digital age, Alan Garner and the Owl Service, Nicholas Fisk and ‘Grinny’ and a few of our favourite 'Paranormal Ambient' albums. There are warm Fighting Fantasy memories, Bob talks about...

For a ramble through the life of a person who made old, wyrd England the focus of his occult writings and poetry, Cian invites Justin Hopper to the cabin. We cover the life and times of Victor Neuburg, the now-obscure creator behind the Vine Press. A man who knew Aleister Crowley intimately, discovered Dylan Thomas, took part in the infamous Paris Working, and became the local eccentric publisher in a small English town. The book Obsolete Spells is out August 15th, 2022. APOLOGIES to all the...

Jeb Card joins us to discuss the supposed witchcraft connections to the murder of Charles Walton on Valentines Day, 1945. Important players include (returning podcast fave) Margaret Murray, Egyptologist and writer of 'The Witch Cult In Western Europe' and Robert Fabian, Detective Superintendent of the London Met and early true crime tv celebrity. Both took the murder as a clue that something sinister, long-lived, and magical was brewing in the rural English countryside. And of course we can't...

Cian is joined by YouTuber 'Truth Is Scarier Than Fiction' to discuss the making of the Cryptid Iceberg videos and more! NOTES Buy Me A Coffee, or I'll wood knock-you out! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wideatlantic Truth Is Scarier Than Fiction Youtube https://www.youtube.com/c/Truthisscarierthanfiction/videos Truth Is Scarier on Twitter https://twitter.com/TruthScarier The Allure of Vintage Dinosaur Artwork by HoopsandDinoMan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKXokoLHXQI

Could this be ... the Final Fantasy of Fawcett? In this last episode of Fawcettmania, Cian sits by a stream and flicks the pages of 'Brazil That Never Was' by A.J. Lees, as well as articles by arch Fawcett-dismisser John Hemming. In an episode as thrilling as a mid-Victorian face-off between rival explorers at a packed RGS debate, we conclude: -confirmation (probably) of the date when Conan Doyle attended Colonel Percy's lecture! -tangents about John Hanning Speke and a descendent at a...

So there's a lot of Lost World in our Fawcett this episode, but it's not my fault that the two won't stay a Stegosaurus length apart! In this episode, our boy Percy gets down on the British Empire following the First World War, is quite polite about a certain odious British biologist, hints at sightings of living dinosaurs yet again, and lays out his alternative history of South America before going missing for good. It's good for what ails ya. Buy Me A...

Lauren returns to the cabin to discuss all things H.R. Haggard, especially his deep obsession with ancient Egypt. We cover: -Haggard in 'Who's Who in Egyptology' -his own visits to Egypt -his writing of 'Cleopatra' -his mania for collecting Egyptian rings -his dislike for modern, changing Egypt -his friendship with Howard Carter -his attempts to exonerate Western archaeologists @gothicbookworm (Instagram & Twitter)  @mummymaniamondays @mummymaniafacts (Twitter)...