All Episodes

August 17, 2025 • 44 mins
STORIES:
  • The Bowler and The Cabbie
  • The Cowboy's Mummy
  • The Crocodile Hunters
  • Curse of the Black Goat
  • La Lechuza: Borderlands Witch-Owl Encounters

www.Eerie.News

Host - M.P. Pellicer
www.MPPellicer.com

SUPPORT VIA DONATION
Buy Me A Coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Marlene11

Miami Ghost Chronicles: www.MiamiGhostChronicles.com
Nightshade Diary: www.NightshadeDiary.com
Stories of the Supernatural: www.StoriesoftheSupernatural.info
Eerie News - www.Eerie.News
Stranger Than Fiction Stories: www.storiesofthesupernatural.info/strangerthanfiction
MY BOOKS:
Amazon: http://amazon.com/author/marlenepardopellicer
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17113386.Marlene_Pardo_Pellicer
SIGN UP FOR MY NEWSLETTER ON SUBSTACK:
https://marlenepardopellicer.substack.com/
You can find me on major video and podcast platforms, just look for MP Pellicer or Miami Ghost Chronicles.
Hypnosis DIY - https://www.hypnosis-diy.com
Music - Pixabay.com, Purple-Planet.com
Narration always by a human, no A.I.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/eerie-news--5470966/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
And we're off to some more unusual news aka eerie news.
Like always, let's start out with strangers. In fiction stories,
this is titled The Bowler and the Cabby. On a
warm spring night in nineteen sixty one, a twenty year

(00:25):
old student shot a taxi driver on the outskirts of Tallahassee.
She said she believed he was about she was about
to he was about to attack her, but it turned
out that wasn't exactly accurate. Una kapern Birds started attending
Florida State University FSU in the summer and fall of
nineteen fifty nine. She once worked at the W. T.

(00:48):
Edwards Tuberculosis Hospital and the Florida Industrial Commission. However, on
April thirteenth, nineteen sixty one, she was unemployed. She lived
in a rooming house and was a member of the
local bowling team, which was set to participate in a
tournament a week later. None could have anticipated what happened

(01:12):
that evening of April thirteenth. Una Bird left her motorcycle
behind Moon's Jewelry store at four three six North Monroe Street,
walked to the post office, where she called a Victory cab.
At eight p m Adam Budd Jenkins, thirty six, was
the cab driver. They were traveling northbound on US twenty seven,

(01:35):
when three miles out, she told him to pull over
close to a rural church. It turned out he was
being robbed. The young lady demanded he put his money
on the hood of the car. Suddenly, shots sprang out
and Jenkins slummed to the ground. He had been shot
in the chest and leg. Later, Bird would claim he
made a sudden move and she thought he was about
to attack her. She left his body where it lay,

(01:58):
master face with that heesi of tape and took his car.
She arrived at the j. C. Bland service station on
US ninety and, with gun in hand, forced the attendant,
Hosey Barnes, to give her one hundred and eighty seven dollars.
Bird shot at him as she was leaving. During the
Troshy claimed it was an accidental discharge. State Trooper Ralph

(02:18):
Moore stopped the cab after she committed the robbery, and
she gave up meek glee. He said. The boyish looking
woman was wearing a gi cap and leather gloves. She
had masked her face so well that the gas station
attendant thought she was a man. Bird told the trooper,
I'm going to give up. You'd better check out around
the church. There's a man there who may be dead.

(02:40):
Trooper Moore went back to the churchyard where Jenkins lay dead.
The revolver used by Bird turned out to have been
reported stolen three months before from the home of state
Trooper Sam Oswald. Only fifty dollars were recovered from miss
Bird when she was arrested. What happened to the difference
remained unknown. She was charged with the fatal shooting of

(03:01):
Jenkins by the grand jury. She pled innocent. Jenkins's services
were held on April sixteenth, nineteen sixty one, at the
Enon Church. He was thirty six years old and the
father of three children. He had worked as a taxi
cab driver for fifteen years and, according to police, had
a clean record. Don Carmen later told the courts he

(03:22):
and three other friends had spoken to Kathy as they
referred to her, shortly before the crimes took place. He
said she looked cheerful and was driving her motorcycle, a
red nineteen fifty eight Harley Davidson. Her only comments were
that she was looking for a job, but she wasn't
in a hurry since she planned on traveling to Indiana
for the bowling tournament in June nineteen sixty one. The

(03:45):
court requested a mental examination for Bird. Her court appointed attorney,
Wilfrid Varne, filed a motion to quatch the indictment charging
Miss Bird with murder and arm robbery. He alleged that
her arrest was illegal and the affid David on which
the arrest warrant was issued failed to show probable cause
for the arrest as required by Florida and the U.
S Constitution. A second and diamond was issued by the

(04:07):
Leon County Grand Jury and her travel was set for
October nineteen sixty one. Una Bird was the youngest daughter
of Vienna and William Bird of Chattahoochee, Florida. She had
no criminal passed and her rent was paid up at
the room she had moved into two weeks before, located
at two sixteen West College Avenue. There was little in
the way of motive beyond robbery for the crime. During

(04:31):
the trial, Bird tried to present in insanity plea, but
two state psychiatrists testified as expert witnesses that she was saying.
In October nineteen sixty one, Bird was convicted of first
degree murder. She faced life in prison, but the jury
recommended mercy. Otherwise she would have faced execution in the
electric chair. The judge imposed a life sentence. In December

(04:55):
nineteen sixty one, the robbery charge Penny against Bird was
dropped since she had been conveyed of the murder charge.
Let me tell you something, okay, let me keep my hair.
Bird did not serve a life sentence. It might have
been released as early as the nineteen eighties, even possibly
in the nineteen sixties. Great pains were taken to keep

(05:16):
this out of public knowledge, especially after she did not
appeal her conviction in nineteen sixty one. She stayed living
in Florida. The question begs to be asked, what went
wrong that a young woman could murder an unknown man
in cold blood? And here we go, why would she
do this? Unless she was at leading a double life

(05:38):
no one knew about. She didn't have a criminal past.
She came from a family and a good family. She
was attending the university. She belongs to the bowling team. Apparently,
I mean she had enough money that she was paid up.
She had a motorcycle, I'm saying all the things that
you think, Well, somebody that's in dire streets financially. She

(06:01):
was the youngest child of her parents, so probably she
was maybe even given what she wanted, what would make
her go? And it was this guy's bad luck that
he was the one that answered her call for a taxi?
What made her do that and shoot the guy in

(06:23):
cold blood? They didn't know him, there was no tie, No,
they did not know each other before that night. And
then go off and hold up a gas station and
then they can't figure out what she did with like
one hundred about one hundred and something dollars between the
times she took it and the time she was arrested,

(06:45):
which was a very short period of time. So you
ask yourself unless, like I said, she was leading a
double life and nobody knew what else she was up to.
That another which had never been arrested for anything. But
it's aplicable what she did. It's inexplicable what she did. Also,

(07:06):
it seems they went through a lot to keep her
name out of the newspaper. Later on as to when
exactly she was freed, she was she turned down going
ahead and appealing her conviction, the first conviction she got.

(07:30):
But then it seems she might have been released as
early as the nineteen sixties, but at least by the
nineteen eighties she was freed. And this, for all intents
and purposes, this was cold blooded murder and this thing
of she thought that this man had made a sudden moved. Again,

(07:51):
she was the perpetrator. So this is a very unusual
story about I don't want to even say a break
with reality, but somebody that does something inexplicable and there's

(08:12):
never really given any reason. You'reing the trial why supposedly
she killed this man besides the fact at the end
you know that she was saying, well, he made a
sudden move. But as to why she decided, because remember
it could have been anybody whoever would have been the
taxi driver that responded to the call for her, that

(08:34):
would have been the person. Why did she decide to
do that that night? Again very unusual. Maybe there was
mental illness there that hadn't been diagnosed. Who knows, But anyway,
next story out a stranger than fiction stories is the
Cowboys Mummy. The story goes that a desperado got caught
cheating at cards in eighteen nineties Arizona. This was a

(08:56):
killing offense. He got shot a couple of times, but
he rode off into the desert and became an enigma.
Who was he really? The mumm of five Remains of
a man made the rounds and side shows around the
United States. The mahogany colored mummy was displayed in a
second hand store in Yuma, and then a carnival show

(09:17):
in Texas bought him. Sideshow conman Soaphy Smith acquired him
and named the mummy McGuinty. Nineteen oh nine, the mummy
showed up at the Alaska Yukon Exposition and in nineteen
fifteen at San Francisco's Panama Pacific Exposition. In the nineteen thirties,
he was sold to a doctor in San Jose for

(09:38):
thirty five dollars. After the doctor's death, it was back
to the carnival circuit for McGuinty. He was given a
different story, mostly as an outlaw gunslinger that met a
bad end. In nineteen fifty five, year old curiosity shop
in Seattle, Washington bought the mummy, renamed him Sylvester, and
placed him in a glass case. He made an appearance

(09:59):
at the nineteen sixty two Seattle World's Fair. Sylvester's back
story is that he was found by two cowboys in
the desert sands of HeLa Ben, Arizona in eighteen eighty
five or eighteen ninety five. Cause of death was supposed
to be a bullet he got for his troubles when
he cheated at cards. The arid sands and the heat
he mummified his body where he fell. The non romantic

(10:23):
version is as Sylvester was preserved in Arsenic he toured
as a wild West outlaw or as a desperado from
the Old West. In two thousand and one, the Bioanthropology
Research Institute at Quinnipiac University scanned Sylvester via mri I
and CT. In two thousand and five, with newer technology,

(10:43):
more relations about the mummy were found. It turned out
he was a Caucasian male five eleven five ee eleven
inches tall, weighing about two hundred and twenty five pounds.
When he was alive, his age was about forty five.
There was proof he led a hard life. He had
shotgun pellets in his right cheek, neck and lung. However,

(11:04):
he walked around with these for a while and this
injury didn't cause his death. There was metal shrapnel, possibly
a piece of a bullet, under his collar bone. Blue
eyes peer out between his slitted eyelids. His internal organs
and his brain are well preserved. The two thousand and
five exam found that his tongue was intact. He had
a healthy liver, which means chances are he wasn't a drinker. However,

(11:28):
he did have severe bunions and extremely high arches. The
secret to Sylvester's excellent preservation is that he was injected
with arsenic, probably by an embalmer, right after he died.
Arsenic kills bacteria and insects that eight in decomposition. Where
is Sylvester now He keeps company with another mummy named Sylvia,

(11:48):
acquired by the Old Curiosity Shop in nineteen seventy. She
was a white European female about thirty years old, and
her remains were found in a Central American cave. She
died of tuberculosis, and into organs are only blobs. She
only weighs twenty pounds versus Sylvester, who weighs one hundred
and twenty one hundred and twenty pounds. Silver's described as

(12:15):
a desiccated mummy in nineteen seventy eight. She was believed
to be about one hundred and eighty years old. She
was Mamma fied naturally with her mouth hanging open because
of the climate. There is a third mummy named Gloria.
She has a child found in the desert to the southwest.
Like Sylvester, she's been on display since the nineteen twenties.

(12:36):
Rounding out the mummy family at the shop is petrifiedro
a petrified dog. As to what happened as to what
McGuinty slash Sylvester died from and who he was remains
a mystery. At one point, he had what appeared to
be a bullet hole in his midsection, which has later
proven to have been intentionally made to go with the

(12:56):
story of McGinty's death by gunshot. There's a theory that
self was the Louisiana kid who had a shootout with
one of Soapie Smith's gang members outside of Saloon and Creed,
Colorado in eighteen ninety two. The kids supposedly didn't receive
any fatal shots, but he was never heard from again.

(13:16):
Did Soapie Smith ship off the dead kid to an
embalmer so that he could cash in on a cobb
display the world may never know. And there you go.
They've done all this, you know, examination of them, and

(13:37):
they got but they just don't have any idea who.
And obviously he must have been around somebody when he
died that they preserved him right away. That's why he's
in such good shape. He must have been in some
town where there was an embalmer and they took him.
Look at his split over. The embalmers had pump them
full of our snake, all right. Next story Strangers in

(14:00):
fiction stories. As titled the Crocodile Hunters, Christina chris Pawlawski
at first glance would be the most unlikely crocodile hunter
you could imagine. However, nineteen fifty seven she nabbed an
Australian saltwater crocodile, which was said to measure twenty eight feet.
When Christina count out Katowska was thirteen years old, she

(14:23):
along with her grandmother, mother, and sister, were sent to
a Siberian camp after the Russians arrested her father in
nineteen forty. She never saw her father again. Two years later,
the women were evacuated from the USSR and ended up
in British East Africa. Christina met her first husband and
gave birth to two sons, Stephen and Jersey. From there,

(14:44):
the family went to England and then to Australia in
nineteen forty nine, where Chris gave birth to their daughter, Barbara.
The marriage ended and Chris supported her family by renting rooms.
In nineteen fifty five she met Roman Ron Polowski, who
was part of the pol Underground. When he was a
young teenager, his father was killed and his mother sent
to prison. He was captured and sent to a German

(15:07):
camp in Slovakia. He escaped, went on to serve in
the US Army and ended up in Australia. They married
after a week of their meeting. They moved to Korumba,
where Ron was engaged in gold prospecting. One day, the
family was by the river when the adults heard one
of the boys yelled, Barbara the crocodile. Three year old
Barber was being stalked by a twelve footer. Rom Polowski

(15:29):
grabbed a rifle and shot the crock between the eyes.
Someone in the town helped him skin it, and a
dealer in Brisbane paid them ten pounds for it. This
was equivalent to about a week's wages in those days.
Rompolowski saw opportunity and he built a small boat known
as a humpy from scraps found at metalworks. They christened

(15:49):
it the Joey. Thus the family embarked on their career
as crocodile hunters. During these years, a family lived in
an outback tin shack and a crocodile meet, despite sometimes
not having electricity. Jersey aka George Paulowski recalls them as
some of the best days of his life. The family
ventured into inhospitable terrain as they hunted crocs, all while

(16:13):
learning more about their quarry. The Pulowskis aimed to shoot
the animals behind the ears or through the eyes so
they would die immediately. In July nineteen fifty seven, Chris
killed a twenty eight footer that brought her fame as
a relentless crocodile hunter. The animaley asleep on the banks
of a beach in the Gulf of Carpentaria. It was

(16:34):
so big that they were unable to move it and
harvest the skin. Over the next fifteen years, they killed
from five thousand to ten thousand salties as the crocodiles
are known, with Chris supposedly missing only three shots. Prior
to her arrival in Australia, she had never fired a rifle.
She learned how to skin the crocs faster than most
and would do so right after her kill. Ron once

(16:57):
told reporters she was better than me with a pistol,
and she was much better with a rifle at moving
targets from a boat. We both could hit a bottle
top at one hundred yards, but Chris could shoot through
the same hole the second time. This earned her the
Moniker one shot. She became an expert not only as
a hunter, but as a taxidermist. She was also recognized

(17:17):
for her koifd blonde hair, red manicured nails, a scarlet
lipstick orn even when on the hunt. George Polowski described
where his mother competed against another croc hunter from up
North who claimed no one could skin a crocodile faster
than him. She skinned, cleaned, and salted her kill before
he was anywhere near finishing. Eventually, the Polawski the Polowskis

(17:40):
gave up hunting for conservation. During their years of stalking
their corey, they noted their mating and eating habits. They
became experts in crocodile behavior. The rivers, once thronged by crocodiles,
were decimated by other hunters who came to make your
living the same as the Polowski's wow. In nineteen sixty five,

(18:03):
the couple started the first crocodile farm in the area.
They raged hatchlings from eggs found in the wild with
hopes of farming, conserving, and managing the crocodile population. Ron
Plowski became a self taught photographer and documentarian in the process.
Their children hand dug the pools and helped out around
the farm. The political climate of the day didn't favor conservation,

(18:27):
and the efforts were made to silence of Paulowski's message.
The lease on their farmland was rescinded and some oil
was dumped into their pools where they kept the crocs.
They They hand cleaned each animal detergent, only losing one.
In an act foreshadowing Australa's present day authoritarian tactics. Their
house was rated for an illegal revolver they used in

(18:49):
a documentary. The search yielded nothing, since a tip off
from a local policeman gave them a heads up and
they returned it to its owner. Eventually they had to
shut down after a drawn up battle with the Queensland government.
Times changed and in nineteen seventy two, rom Polowski gave
evidence in the House of Representatives about wildlife conservation. He

(19:11):
described how in the last twenty years the kroc population
had declined by eighty percent. Based on his recommendation, the
government banned called crocodile hunting. Later on, Chris said she
regretted killing the twenty eight foot reptile as it lay
snoozing on the banks of the Norman River. A replica
of the doomed reptile named Chris the Savannah King is
stationed in the middle of the town of Normanton. Present

(19:34):
day George Polowski is the owner of Chris Kroc Australia.
It was established in nineteen eighty nine in the town
of Normanton. They buy and sell tan crocodile leather products.
His family's farm laid the foundation for the leather industry
in this part of Australia. Urban myth of reality. Rom
Polowski went on to supply a picture that allegedly depicted

(19:56):
the twenty eight foot of his wife, Chris shot in
the summer of nineteen In fifty seven, he estimated that
it weighed in at two tons. At first glance, the
animal appears enormous. However, when you take a close look
at the figures next to it used to give it scale,
the actual size as difficult to determine. Also, the fact
that the people in the picture appeared to be dressed

(20:18):
in an earlier time period than the nineteen fifties questions
its validity. Some say the picture is from a hunt
on the Roper River fifty years prior. Patures taken by
Ron were said to be lost in the nineteen seventy
four floods, and no one else in the town took
a picture what must have been quite a sight in Krumba.
Another source said the crocodiles shot by Chris was added

(20:41):
to the Guinness Book of Records with photos supplied by Ron.
There is no record of this at Guineas. According to
zoologists familiar with these types of crocodiles, a twenty eight
foot salty is far outside the maximum size for these animals,
including the skull size. Christina Pulowski died in two thousand
and four, according to Guinea. As of twenty twenty two.

(21:02):
The largest crocodile in captivity ever was a twenty foot
saltwater crocodile captured on September third, twenty eleven, in Buna
Juan in the province of Agusan del Sud Mindanao, Philippines.
The crocodile was named Lolonge and housed in a customed
built enclosure at Buna Juan Eco Park and Research Center, Philippines.

(21:25):
Lelong was waiting at a truckway bridge and verified as
approximately three hundred and seventy pounds. Lo Long died of
February tenth, twenty thirteen. The crocodile was named after A.
Nesto Lolng Golurg Gognat. He was one of the veteran
crocodile hunters from the Palawan Crocodile Wildlife Reservation Center who

(21:47):
led the hunt after weeks of stalking. The hunt for
Lolong took its toll on Cognata's health. He died of
a heart attack several days before the crocodile was captured.
Lolong was estimated to be at least fifty years old old.
The animal was suspected of eating a fisherman who went
missing in the town of Bunahuan and also consuming a
ten year old girl whose headless body was discovered in

(22:10):
two thousand and nine, shortly after she fell in a
lake when the croc bumped the boat she was traveling in.
He was also a primary suspect in the disappearance of
water buffaloes in the known area. So there you go.
You have to what's that saying about. You know, you

(22:30):
get lemon to make lemonade. These this is what these
people did. They were like they escaped very bad experience
in your World War two. They end up in Australia
and they become crock hunters. You have to admire them
for that. Not only did they become crock hunters, they
became great crock hunters. Okay, the next story is tiled

(22:55):
Curse of the Black Coat, also out of Strangers and
Fiction Stories. Incubus was a nineteen sixty six American horror
film starting soon to be Captain Kirk William Shatner. However,
his claim to fame has more to do with a
streak of misfortune that struck many that were involved in
the film. The movie was directed by Leslie Stevens, who

(23:16):
created the Outer Limits and shot in black and White.
The actors spoke their lines in the constructed language Esperanto
to create an otherworldly feeling. The plot surround the efforts
of a succubis and incubus to lead human souls into perdition.
Even the nineteen sixties, was considered an underground film, and
perhaps many were unaware of the curse that would nip

(23:39):
at the heels of those involved in its production. The
setting is a small village named Nauman Toom during a
lunaric eclipse. There are two succubist's sisters, Kia played by
Alison Ames and Amael played by Eloise Hart. Kia determines
to seduce an innocent or clean soul. The intended Victimi

(24:00):
is William Shatner's character, a wounded soldier. At the end
of the film, the question is does purity overcome corruption.
The incubus was played by Serbian Milos Milos born Milos Milosovic,
who was a stunt double and bodyguard for actor Alain Delone.
He was the first to suffer the consequences of working
in the film. In nineteen sixty five, was still married

(24:23):
to Cynthia Bouron. Milos starred an affair with actress Carolyne
Mitchell born Barbara and Thompson, who was estranged from her
husband Mickey Rooney shortly after the release of Incubus. In
February nineteen sixty six, Barbara Thompson Rooney twenty nine, and
Milos twenty four were found that in the bathroom of
the home she once shared with Mickey Rooney and their

(24:45):
four young children, Milos shot his lover under the chin
and then put a bullet in his brain. The police
believed there was a murdered suicide, spurred by Milo's belief
that Barbara was seeking to reconcile with Mickey. During the incident,
Rooney was at Saint John Hospital in Santa Monica, recovering
from an intestinal infection he caught in the Philippines while

(25:06):
filming Ambush Bay. The story was that Rooney had returned
from the Philippines in December to find that his estranged
wife had taken up with Milos, who had been a
friend of the family for a year. A week before
the incident, Rooney had filed for divorce. The day of
the murder, Mickey and Barbara met at the hospital, and
Rooney tried to convince it to resume their marriage. And

(25:27):
she agreed to stop seeing Milos. No doubt, she was
also convinced to reconcile since her husband would be seeking
custody of their children. Barbara had started out as a
teenage beauty queen, went on to modeling, and she aspired
to be an actress, appearing in a couple of b films.
On August twelfth, nineteen fifty eight, she made the newspapers,
but for the wrong reason. Headlines read Starlett takes sleeping

(25:51):
pills at Mickey Rooney's home. The explanation given was that
she had taken the pills accidentally. After getting woozy, she
was stripped down to her birthday so suit dunked in
Rooney's pools by friend, and finally ended up being dropped
off at a hospital emergency room. Four months later, she
became Missus Rooney number five in a Mexican ceremony. Problem

(26:12):
was that Rooney hadn't yet secured a divorce from wife
number four. Five months later, a lawful marriage took place
in Los Angeles. Between nineteen fifty nine to nineteen sixty three,
Barbara gave birth to four babies. As a family expanded,
Rooney's money decreased significantly. He went bankrupt in nineteen sixty two,
despite earning twelve million dollars throughout his acting career thus far,

(26:36):
the irs went after him for one hundred thousand dollars
in back taxes. Instead of a glamorous acting career, she
got marriage to a broke actor who was almost twenty
years older than her, and to make matters worse, he
would also cheat on her. Who knows what drove Barbara
Rooney into the arms of another man, and perhaps she
didn't know that Meeto's wife, Cynthia, had already felt for divorce,

(26:59):
charging him with it assault. Initially, Melosovic agreed to ending
the relationship, and this surprised the guests since he was
known for having a fiery temper. He then took Barbara
into the master bedroom and locked the door. This was
the last time either was seen alive. The next day,
a house guests unlocked the bedroom door and found Barbara
Rooney shot through the jaw. Meadows's body was on top

(27:21):
of hers. He had a bullet hole through his temple.
Official inquiry found that Meados had shot Thompson with Rooney's
chrome plated thirty eight caliber revolver. No one could explain
why the shots were not heard, even though her children
and a maid when bedrooms just down the hall. Rumors
swell that Rooney was the one who killed them in
revenge for their betrayal. He would go on to marry

(27:43):
three more times. That children were raised by their maternal grandmother.
In a strange twist, it appeared that being a land
alone's bodyguard came with its own run of bad luck.
Stevan Markovic, who was De Lahan's bodyguard after Metals left
for Hollywood, was found murdered in a parish Paris rubbish
dump in nineteen sixty nine. The police investigation has closed

(28:06):
allegations of sex parties and involving Delone and other French
government officials. In nineteen sixty nine, the BBC interviewed Delon
about what became known as the Markovic affair. Quote This
is the interview part of the interview the BBC did
with him. Reporter asked people, once more, don't say it

(28:26):
straight to your face, but they suggest very strong that
you have homosexual taste. Delone responds, so what's wrong if
I had, or I did, would I be guilty of something?
If I like it, I'll do it. We have a
great actor in France's name Michelle Simon, and Michelle Simone
said once, if you like your goat, make love with

(28:47):
your goat. But the only matter is to love. Yeah, okay.
But getting back to the incubus curse. Shortly after the
release of the film, Leslie Stevens production company in Backgrum bankrupt.
He was married to Alison Eames and they divorced. Shatner's
sister in the film is raped by a goat, which
is the incubus in disguise. She is played by actress

(29:09):
Anna Anne Atmar. She committed suicide in October nineteen sixty six.
Only days before death, she was keeping company with Jay
Sebring at an event at the Century Plaza. Three years later,
Seabring would be ritually killed by the Manson family when
staying with Sharon Tate at her home in Benedict Canyon.
In nineteen sixty eight, Marina Hobby seventeen, the daughter of

(29:33):
one other actress in the film, Eloise Hart, who played
the other succubists, was viciously murdered. Her body was found
dumped off Mulholland Drive. The killers were never found. Some
believed she was the victim of members of the Manson family.
A year later, Sharon Tate and her onboard child would
be murdered by the Manson by Manson and his followers.

(29:55):
Tate had attended the premiere of Incubis with her husband
Roman Polans. I'm telling you, some people say coincidence, But
let me tell you something. There's coincidence, then there's coincidence.
All right, let's keep going. The film Thought to Be

(30:21):
Lost was found in France in nineteen ninety six with
French subtitles at the Cinematique Francais. Some were spared from
the dark shadows cast by Incubus. Shatner would go on
to become one of Hollywood's most recognizable actors. Cinematographer Conrad
Hall would go on to win three Academy Awards for
his work on Butch Cassidy and The Sun, Dance Kid,

(30:41):
American Beauty and Road to Perdition, and his book Shatner Rules.
Shatner described that a few months after the end of filming,
he was in a makeup chair for Star Trek when
a rock came crashing through the trailer window. He found
a note attached to it which right, your next Shatner,
yespers said they were angry because they had not been

(31:03):
consulted during the course of the film and ticked off
they were excluded from the premiere. They also asked for
autographs from Shatner and the request have been ignored, so
they decided to curse Incubus and anyone who laid eyes
on the film. Shatner writes that he destroyed every copy
of the movie he came across. So what do you

(31:23):
think of that? Huh? Because I mean you could say, well,
it's just coincidence. It's true, it could be just coincidence,
but there's coincident that there's bad coincidence. So yeah, a

(31:46):
lot of people in a short period of time. I
want to say, maybe when the first four years after
they released this, some pretty bad things happened to people
that were involved in it somehow, whether it was the
actors or the production stuff. Huh. That's that's what happens
when I don't know. Okay, let's go now. Next story

(32:11):
is out of Anomalian and this is titled Lally Choose
a borderland which owl encounters documented by redded users and
I'll read some of these in a minute. South Texas,
a northern Mexico fresh threads across Reddit suggest that the
legends of laly Chousa, which said to take the form
of an enormous owl, remains active in the digital age.

(32:34):
These posts describe late night whistles outside bedroom windows, giant
owl silhouettes, and a belief that answering a whistle or
babylike cry can invite danger. As a result of story
continues to travel from family folklore into online communities, and
one paranormal thread, a user recalls hearing a pattern whistling

(32:55):
just outside my bedroom window as a child in South Texas.
That detail often linked to lally Chusa folklore. It also
matches descriptions from other witnesses, which adds weight to the
claim quote Lalchusa Hugh, my grandmother warmed me about that
one as a kid, I was lying in bed in
the dark and heard whistling just outside my bedroom window.

(33:16):
I leaped out of bed so fast and ran to
my parents' room down the hall. Another account describes the
biggest owl have ever seen that seemed to follow me
as I moved from town to town. The user adds
that Alychusa is a witch that takes the form of
the owl, and that it targets unsuspecting people. In addition,
a second post and the same subreddit mentions here in

(33:37):
a distinct whistle before the siding. Regional references placed Alychusa
within a broader Borderland's tradition of shape shifting, which is
in omens The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Library
Guide Catalogs folk Lower treatments of the legend. Texas Standard
frames it as both a cautionary tale and a story

(33:59):
of revenges South Texas and Northern Mexico. Across reddit accounts,
three motifs recur mimicry, a whistle or baby cry, large,
silent flight, and fear. Responding naturalists note that the large owls,
especially the grain horned owl, can appear unusually big at
close range and produce surprising vocalizations, and the same way

(34:22):
borne owls are known for eerie human likes, creatures, screeches.
Bottom line Reddit's first person post keeps while they choose
some public conversation, they blend personal memory, cultural tradition, ambiguous
nighttime observations, whether understood as a living piece of Borderland's
folklore or as misidentified wildlife filtered through community belief, the

(34:45):
legend clearly endures. Okay, so these are some of those stories,
let's find out. Okay. First story, when I was at
elementary school, I remember walking home. As I arrived to
my front yard, I was looking down and saw the
shadow a person flying above me. I looked up and

(35:05):
saw the biggest owl have ever seen flying above me.
It was unreal. I remember being confused because the shadow
did not match the figure. I went inside and the
only person to understand what I was explaining was my
brother in law. He explained to me what I had
just witnessed. It was at a chosa. He told me
how to protect myself from it, but to always be wary.

(35:28):
Ever since then, I encountered more and more owls. They
seemed to follow me as I moved from town to town.
I forgot to mention the explanation my brother in law
gave me out of choose as a witch, it takes
the form of the owl. It always it takes away
unsuspecting people. He told me that if I curse at it,
it will leave me alone. What I did know was

(35:50):
that it would continue to follow me, often in groups. Okay,
Another story, I remember when I was young, no older
than six, had countered my first LOTUSA. It was in
the middle of the night and everyone was asleep with me.
I had stayed up watching cartoons, and I remember the
TV had suddenly turned off by itself. I tried everything,

(36:13):
from plugging it in and out, pressing all the buttons
you name it. Then all of a sudden, I had
this ugly, wretching feeling that I wasn't alone. The light
coming through the window I disappeared for a moment, as
if something big enough flew by to cover the whole window.
I even heard a loud whoosh, and then it was quiet.

(36:33):
I sat there, frozen in fear. When I heard these
heavy thumps coming from the roof. It almost sounded like
if someone was hopping around slowly on the roof. I
had gotten enough courage to inch my way towards the
window and tried to see if I could spot what
was making that noise. The thumb stopped, and suddenly the

(36:54):
air was filled with a loud whistle. It wasn't like
a high pitched one. It was a low pitched but
loud whistle, almost sounded like a man raising his pitch
by one before losing it back down. It did this
many times, and I could tell it was definitely coming
from the roof. Without warning, the lytusa flew off the

(37:17):
roof and landed in a tree nearby. This thing was massive.
It had to have a wingspan of at least ten
to fifteen feet and a height of six feet tall.
When perched on the branch, I could only make out
the silhouette at first, but when the whistling came from
the trees, I noticed that whatever this bird was, it
looked like it had the face of a human. It

(37:39):
was a little off, the eyes a little beadier, and
the nose appeared to be gone, but it resembled that
of a human head. I ran to my parents when
I saw that, but they told me to be quiet
and to pray to God and it would fly away.
That's when I learned it was called a lichusa, a
witch that possessed a birdlike body. They told me a

(38:00):
ly came when children were up late, and the reason
for that was because they can easily manipulate electronics and
tools such as guns and such, meaning they would be
able to enter a home take the kid with ease,
and the parents wouldn't be able to do a thing.
In other words, it would be easy pickings. It would
take your kid flying through the air only to land

(38:20):
somewhere to eat the guts through the belly button. But
since they're witches or evil spirits, praying will cause them
to leave you alone as they do not like it.
I'm not sure why, but they just don't anyway. Me
and my parents prayed quietly until the whistling eventually stopped.
I don't remember much after that, other than falling asleep
and then brushing it off as a creepy night. But

(38:42):
eventually I would have more encounters, like coming home from
a store late at night alone and seeing a large
wing creature flying over me before disappearing into the trees
in the distance before whistling that ugly tune, or when
I was lying in bed trying to sleep before hearing
it land on my roof before whistling. It's the whistling

(39:03):
that scares me. That's when they let you know that
they know you're awake, that they know you're aware of them.
My buddy's grandpa had an encounter with one and landed
right on his porch as he was coming back from
hunting late at night. He tried to shoot the damn thing,
but somehow the Lichusa had used its power to jam

(39:25):
the gun up. When he tried to fire at it.
The instant he aimed his shotgun away, it fired on
its own, and when he would try it again, the
same thing. So he just shouted and cussed at it,
and that seemed to make it leave. Maybe it says
he had no fear to it or fear for it.
I don't know, but I'm glad that I heard that story.

(39:47):
I never wanted to feel I was alone. No one
ever talks about lychoosas Everyone's always busy with la your
ownA or whatnot. But yeah, I can now be a
peace knowing we're not the only ones who experienced these encounters. Now,
let me see do we have anymore? There is another

(40:08):
story I remember encountering something when I was a kid
growing up in West Texas. I used to walk home.
This was always at night, from my best friend's house,
which is two blocks away from my parents. I both
saw them fly over us, making a weird noise, almost
like laughter. It happened a couple of times to us,
so we would cuss at them and then take off

(40:29):
running towards our houses. They would follow me all the way,
but would never come close to the house. It was
as if something wouldn't let them get near. I now
live in California and have encountered some at my work.
I've always been seeing them at night and they tend
to get pretty close. I just cussed them out or
just tell them that I'm not in the mood to
deal with them, and they just do that weird noise.

(40:52):
One of the most recent ones was when I was
finishing up my daily work getting ready for the night shift,
and as I was walking from one location to another,
one of them flew right next to me and landed
about six yards in front of me. I stopped and
asked to leave me alone and just stood there looking
at me. I walked towards it, and it didn't move
at all. It just stared at me, and as I

(41:14):
came close, it flew away and landed on the wall.
It stayed there until I finished doing what I was doing.
As I headed back to the main building, it just
took off. This is another experience. My experience was at
night in Eagle Pass, Texas. I was fifteen years old

(41:36):
and had lost my faith. We went to the border
town to visit family. I overheard my teas await at
mom talking about my idea, Eva's recent divorce, how they
believe her ex husband had put a curse on her.
She found the jar of dirt under her bed. She
talked about how she could hear scratching on her bedroom
window at midnight every night. After they broke up, they

(41:59):
talked about how I had to be a lechusa. I
thought they were tripping. I laughed it off. Later that night,
my cousin showed up. We decided to hang out in
the backyard. As we were listening to music and chatting,
I was talking about how our relatives were so superstitious
and crazy. Then out of nowhere, we heard the most
eerie screech. We didn't even turn around to see where

(42:20):
it came from. Our scary asses ran straight inside are
the Eva's house with fear on our faces and in
our voices. We exclaimed that the litusa was outside. All
the women in the house, including a way I went
straight to the backyard and started cursing and shining lights
at the bird. I don't take this lightly anymore. Turns
out my ideas X did hire a bruja to curse her.

(42:44):
She eventually broke it through the aid of another a
white witch. My family or Catholic could still visit the
white witches to help with whatever it is. Any assistance
with I think it's a rip off. It doesn't make
sense to other folks when I try to explain it.
Whatever helps people'll sleep at night. I guess it seems
you're used to it and don't give it your energy

(43:05):
to it, you should be fine. Okay, let's see any
more stories here. Let's see here's what other. So when
I was younger, I was being watched by an ugly
owl aka lalichusa or bruja at mid at night. I
was on my porch, just enjoying being outside. I hear

(43:28):
this whistle sound that I didn't know where it was
coming from. I thought maybe it was someone I knew
from the neighborhood, so I whistled back, thinking maybe they
would come into view. As soon as I whistled, I
see an owl perch onto the power lines. As my
eyes adjusted to its face, it had this ugly, weird
looking face. I peered up and started crying, and I

(43:49):
went to my mom. She of course just thought it
was my imagination. It scared me so much that I
stayed inside for the next few nights. But I could
hear the whistle still, and I would look out the
wind blinds and I could see it on the power
line still. So I got my mom and showed her,
and she saw it. She looked scared. She told my grandma.
My grandma said a prayer over me that night, and

(44:11):
I didn't see the owl since. So Accordingly, my grandma
said that owl is a witch who comes to kill
people so she can keep her magic. It's supposed to
be a Mexican folklore. I can't say for sure that's
what it was, but it definitely scared me. I no
longer whistle when I hear a whistle. Okay, there you go.

(44:38):
Some they choose the stories. I will be back soon
with some more eerie news. Maybe some le choose the news.
Who knows. Till next time.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

The Male Room with Dr. Jesse Mills

The Male Room with Dr. Jesse Mills

As Director of The Men’s Clinic at UCLA, Dr. Jesse Mills has spent his career helping men understand their bodies, their hormones, and their health. Now he’s bringing that expertise to The Male Room — a podcast where data-driven medicine meets common sense. Each episode separates fact from hype, science from snake oil, and gives men the tools to live longer, stronger, and happier lives. With candor, humor, and real-world experience from the exam room and the operating room, Dr. Mills breaks down the latest health headlines, dissects trends, and explains what actually works — and what doesn’t. Smart, straightforward, and entertaining, The Male Room is the show that helps men take charge of their health without the jargon.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.