Emily and Caroline discuss the Queen Mary’s history: built in the 1930s as a luxury transatlantic liner, later refitted in WWII as the troopship “Great Ghost,” and involved in a 1942 collision with HMS Curacoa that killed hundreds. After postwar service declined with the rise of air travel, Long Beach bought and converted the ship into a hotel and tourist attraction. They then cover its reputation as one of the world’s most haunted sites, highlighting reports of the “lady in white,” the spirit of crewman John Pedder killed by Watertight Door 13, the notoriously active Room B340, eerie sounds linked to the collision area, and paranormal claims around the drained first-class pool and alleged vortex zones, alongside several firsthand online accounts.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Queen-Mary-ship

https://www.museodelmarpr.org/echoes-of-the-past-the-rms-queen-mary/

https://usghostadventures.com/haunted-stories/hauntings-of-the-rms-queen-mary/#:~:text=In%20the%20accident%2C%2018%2Dyear%2Dold%20John%20Pedder%20was,only%20been%20a%20crew%20member%20for%20a

This episode dives into the legend of the Lost City of Z and British explorer Percy Harrison Fawcett, who believed the Amazon rainforest once held an advanced civilization hidden beneath the jungle. After years of research—drawing on indigenous accounts, early European reports, artifacts, and the mysterious Manuscript 512—Fawcett launched a final expedition in 1925 with his son Jack and Jack’s friend Raleigh Rimmel, then vanished after his last message from “Dead Horse Camp.” The hosts cover the enduring theories behind their disappearance, the deadly search efforts that followed, and how modern tools like lidar and archaeological discoveries near the Xingu River reveal planned settlements, roads, and plazas—suggesting Fawcett’s broader claims about complex Amazon societies were likely right, even if Z was never a single city.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_City_of_Z

https://louiswolf.com/english/2023/6/3/the-lost-city-of-z-a-journey-into-the-history-discoveries-and-mythology-of-a-legend

https://ageofsteam.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/quest-for-the-lost-city-of-z/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/09/19/the-lost-city-of-z

https://time.com/4735505/the-lost-city-of-z-true-story/

https://www.historyhit.com/facts-about-percy-fawcett-and-the-lost-city-of-z/

Emily and Caroline dive into the history and legends of Bran Castle in Romania, often linked to Dracula. They trace its origins to 1377, when Hungary’s King Louis I authorized the Transylvanian Saxons to build a fortress on a high rock to defend a key mountain pass and serve as a customs point, with construction completed in 1388 and later ownership shifting among Transylvanian princes and the Hapsburg Empire. They explain how the castle’s modern fame surged after Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula—despite Stoker never visiting Romania—and how the character was loosely inspired by Vlad the Impaler, whose campaigns and alleged brief imprisonment near the castle fueled the association. The episode also explores Romanian strigoi vampire folklore, garlic-based defenses, St. Andrew’s Day traditions, and reported ghost stories and paranormal experiences at the castle today.

Sources:

https://www.history.co.uk/articles/vlad-the-impaler-7-gruesome-acts-by-the-man-who-inspired-dracula

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vlad-the-Impaler

https://www.bran-castle.com/en/dracula/

https://vocal.media/geeks/jure-grando-alilovic-vampire

https://www.transylvaniaunveiled.com/blog/unveiling-the-strigoi---transylvanias-haunted-souls

https://dracula-castle.ro/visitor-information/