[SPEAKER_00]: In the cold early morning hours of January 17, 1909, a weary father named John McOwen was roused from his sleep by the sound of blood curdling screams.

[SPEAKER_00]: But as bad as that sounds, they weren't the screams of someone in pain or danger.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were the screams of his infant daughter, whaling for all the reasons that babies do in the nighttime darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: He quickly got out of bed and hurried down a hallway to his daughter's room.

[SPEAKER_00]: Shhh, John tried to calmer, but the little girl wouldn't be suath by his gentle sounds.

[SPEAKER_00]: He leaned into her crib and picked her up, holding her warm body next to his own, and almost immediately the crying stopped.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that was when John heard the sounds that had likely awakened her.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were coming from outside, next to the Delaware Division canal, which ran directly behind the house.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were grunting, whistling and scratching sounds, and unlike anything he'd ever heard in his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: John walked over to the window and pulled the curtain aside, peering out into the darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: The only light was that of the moon overhead, but it turned out to be enough to give him the shock of his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: There on the edge of the canal was a large dark-skinned figure with massive wings.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was tall, like a man, but had the body of an animal, and had short arms with what appeared to be claws on its hands or paws, whatever they were.

[SPEAKER_00]: Its back legs, which the creature was standing on, were crooked like those of a horse.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever this thing was, it was hopping along the edge of the canal, scratching at the frozen ground and making barking whistling sounds.

[SPEAKER_00]: John let out a frightened gasped that was so loud that his daughter began crying again.

[SPEAKER_00]: He dropped the curtain back into place and with the little girl in his arms hurried back to his own bedroom, and climbed back into bed with his still sleeping wife.

[SPEAKER_00]: the baby soon dosed off, but John did not.

[SPEAKER_00]: He remained awake for the rest of the night waiting and watching for the monster that he'd seen outside of his house.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was the devil, he knew, it had come back.

[SPEAKER_00]: He'd spent his entire life believing that it had been only a legend.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now that legend had come to life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to American Nightmares, the podcast dedicated to America's history of horror.

[SPEAKER_00]: Through sinister tales of murder, madness, mayhem, spirit, scandals, and sins, I'll be presenting the origins of American terror with true accounts of diabolical witches, murderous madmen, haunted houses, death and dying, and stories of revenge and despair that have been torn from the pages of our haunted past.

[SPEAKER_00]: As you're aware from previous episodes, we're beginning our journey back in time with the mysterious figure that served as the source of so much of America's fear.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Devil Himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: American Nightmares is written performed and produced by Troy Taylor.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And thank you for joining me for episode 7 in the Pines.

[SPEAKER_00]: As was mentioned in an earlier episode, the Puritans in the early colonists found more monsters in America than just witches.

[SPEAKER_00]: The devil had birthed the variety of what were often called monstrous births, and they became signs and omens for the believers in an angry God.

[SPEAKER_00]: Spectral shapeshifting dogs along with demonic giant black bears haunted the woods around the settlements.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were, as cotton-mather claimed, surrounded by evil spirits, and the sea, the rivers, lakes, forests, and swamps around them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the Puritans were not the only ones finding monsters on the American Frontier.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sea Serpent swam in our waters and strange beasts populated the wilderness that loomed over most new American settlements.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the response to the beasts the settlers met were not always the same and didn't always share the Puritan desire to destroy all monsters or cleanse the American landscape.

[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how devilish the monsters might be.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, they turn them into legends.

[SPEAKER_00]: For example, tales of catfish that grow to monster size and show a kind of primal viciousness have had a long history in American lore.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stories of such fish and western rivers that were able to pull swimmers into the watery blackness never to be seen again circulated during the late colonial era.

[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps the earliest stories of these river monsters came from French explorers father Jacques Marquette and Louis Juliette who in 1673 claimed that a giant creature slammed into their canoe on the Illinois River.

[SPEAKER_00]: The explorers later insisted the incident had occurred after local Native Americans warn them of a devil that lived beneath the waters and would quote [SPEAKER_00]: In 1780, a missionary who came to minister to several new settlements along the Ohio River reported that a giant catfish had dragged several fishermen to their deaths.

[SPEAKER_00]: The stories continue to exert a powerful hold on the imagination, into the 20th century, as shown by a Kentucky tale of the remains of a human baby that was found in the gullet of one of the river monsters.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's an aside that's completely off-scripped.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I was a kid growing up in Decatur, Illinois, there were stories that had circulated for years about giant catfish that lived below the edge of the dam that had made Lake [SPEAKER_00]: Stories had it that there had been divers who had gone down looking for, well, who knows.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it came upon these giant catfish, and one of them it was said, returned to the surface so frightened by the size of one of these catfish that he claimed it was the size of a small cow.

[SPEAKER_00]: believe it or not.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, believe in front to your monsters, we're spawned from the folklore of the old world, and by the tendency of front-tier communities to produce stories that scared the populace away from the shadowy forests and lakes that surrounded them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in late colonial America, the question of monsters became a matter of national pride, a debate raged during the 18th century, over a theory concocted by French scientists about American degeneracy.

[SPEAKER_00]: The theory claimed that the climate in America produced animals and human beings that were inferior to their European counterparts.

[SPEAKER_00]: While the theory didn't extend to the European settlers, although it came close, these scientists certainly believed the indigenous people to be of a lower race.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, the theory of degeneracy in America was nothing more than [SPEAKER_00]: cultural propaganda, pretending to be scientific theory.

[SPEAKER_00]: Colonial thinkers, including the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, responded with propaganda of their own, arguing in fact that the American continent had produced gigantic, powerful, and brule creatures, unlike anything anyone had ever seen in Europe.

[SPEAKER_00]: The American wilderness they stated had produced monsters, and America's monsters were much bigger than those found anywhere else in the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: This discussion led to new debate over the discovery of quote Giants' bones that had been found in New York.

[SPEAKER_00]: It also set out a wave of fossil collection that made the American mastodon, the subject of public discussion, and debate.

[SPEAKER_00]: collecting fossils became a passion for amateur paleontologists, and during the American Revolution, the bones that were being found throughout the colonies became a symbol of national honor.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even George Washington, during one of the most difficult times for the Revolution, took time off to go fossil hunting.

[SPEAKER_00]: In 1780, Washington established the headquarters of the Continental Army near West Point, New York, as he contemplated an attack on the British stronghold of New York City.

[SPEAKER_00]: A snowfall in December gave him the opportunity to travel to a nearby farm where a giant tooth had been discovered.

[SPEAKER_00]: In 1781, Thomas Jefferson wrote a natural history of his home state of Virginia and discussed the fossils of the mastodon in detail.

[SPEAKER_00]: He believed the creature was not only the largest ever shaped the American continent with its massive stride, but insisted it was the largest creature that had ever inhabited the Earth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some American thinkers weren't convinced the bones belonged to an animal, though.

[SPEAKER_00]: They saw the fossils as proof of the biblical accounts of giants, rather than a symbol of national superiority.

[SPEAKER_00]: As restiles, who was president of Yale University from 1778 to 1795, at first refused to accept the idea that the gigantic teeth being unearthed America belonged to a creature anything like a mastodon.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stiles instead embraced what he called the doctrine of monsters, which was the belief that anomalies like gigantic fossils proved that the wonders of the Bible existed on the American landscape.

[SPEAKER_00]: Stiles admitted that most natural scientists believed the bones belonged to four legant animals, but he insisted they belonged to giant humans.

[SPEAKER_00]: His writings on the subject excited those who wanted to believe that biblical history had a place in the history of the new nation, especially since Stiles was considered a major intellectual celebrity in the early American public.

[SPEAKER_00]: But thankfully, Stiles eventually changed his mind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thomas Jefferson, who was shocked by someone so prominent, believing in something so stupid, began a correspondence with styles that eventually led to the university president's understanding of fossils, bones, and archaeology.

[SPEAKER_00]: But even so, his belief in monsters gained new life and a popular account from the Kentucky Territory that portrayed fossil finds at a place called Big Bone Lick as the uncovering of evidence of a true American horror.

[SPEAKER_00]: The book was written in 1793 by John Filsen, and was given the lust and sensational title of the discovery, settlement, and present state of Kentucky.

[SPEAKER_00]: It portrayed the mastodon as the quote, tyrant of the forest and perhaps devour of man.

[SPEAKER_00]: Filsen strange travel guide portrayed the front here as a land of Native American graves, restless spirits, and, of course, the bones of monsters' creatures.

[SPEAKER_00]: He imagined the plant eating mastodon as a raging carnivore, and suggested that the native inhabitants had once formed a confederation to destroy the monster, because it would have otherwise brought about the extension of all the other animals in the region.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wilson had used the discovery of some mastodon bones to create a secret and terrifying history of America, in which humans had been terrorized by creatures out of an HP Lovecraft story.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, Filson didn't just talk about monsters.

[SPEAKER_00]: He also produced the first series of stories about Daniel Boone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Boone was an actual historical character, a Native American fighter in a land surveyor who made claim to vast tracks of land on the Kentucky Frontier in the late 18th century.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wilson, who had traveled with Boone on an expedition through the Comberland Gap and search of settlement sites transformed him into America's first frontier superhero.

[SPEAKER_00]: Daniel Boone and men like him did travel west of the Appalachians during that period, killing and pushing out the native people.

[SPEAKER_00]: In national mythology, Boone became a symbol of the American masters of the frontier, winning out over a brutal nature that had once been the home of Phyllson's quote, Tyron of the Forest.

[SPEAKER_00]: American settlers desperately wanted to be the masters of the savage beasts of the wilderness region.

[SPEAKER_00]: but they'd eventually find out that some monsters refuse to be tamed.

[SPEAKER_00]: During America's colonial period, the vast region west of the Appalachians was a untamed frontier and home to many stories of monsters and demons, but there were some wilderness areas that were much closer to home.

[SPEAKER_00]: The pine barrens of Southeastern New Jersey was one of the most rugged places in the colonies, a region of vast forests, sandy soil and patches of swamp.

[SPEAKER_00]: But even in the early days, population encroached on the pine barrens in the form of dozens of industrial towns and villages, furnaces and forges throughout the area produced munitions for the American caused during the revolution during the conflicts with the barbry pirates and the war of 1812.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the mid-19th century, though, a better grade of iron ore was found in the west, and production and the pine bearings went into a decline, and most of the population moved on.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that was in the future.

[SPEAKER_00]: When Americans first began trying to tame the pine bearings, stories began to filter out about a strange creature that lurked in the forests and swamps.

[SPEAKER_00]: usually reported as a large, leathery monster with wings, more than 2,000 sightings of the creature began in the early 1700s.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some say continue to this day.

[SPEAKER_00]: First, given its name during a time when diabolical beliefs ran rampant in America, the beast quickly became known as the Jersey Devil.

[SPEAKER_00]: The origins of the Jersey Devil shrouded in mystery is the very existence of the creature itself.

[SPEAKER_00]: but it shouldn't be surprising to hear that a marginalized woman and the devil himself are at the heart of the story.

[SPEAKER_00]: According to legend, a poor woman named Jane Leeds discovered that she was pregnant with her 13th child in 1735.

[SPEAKER_00]: overwhelmed with trying to keep her large family fed and clothed, she told her friends and relatives that quote the devil can take the next one.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he did, or so the story went.

[SPEAKER_00]: When the baby was born, he was a monster.

[SPEAKER_00]: He immediately took on a grotesque appearance with a reptilian body, a horse's head, bat wings, at a long, forked tail.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no record of what Jane thought about this monstrous child, but, well, let's be honest, it could have been good.

[SPEAKER_00]: The devil thrashed about the lead's home for a bit, and then vanished up the chimney to terrorize the surrounding region, proving that it's a good idea to be careful what you ask for, especially where the devil is concerned, which of course was the moral of the story.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even though the origin of the devil was likely pure invention, the monster itself seemed to be real.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, something was out there in the pine barrens, carrying off large dogs, geese, cats, small livestock, and even occasional children.

[SPEAKER_00]: The children were never seen again, but the animals remains were often found.

[SPEAKER_00]: The devil was also said to dry up the milk of cows by breathing on them and to kill [SPEAKER_00]: In 1740, the frightened residents begged a local minister to exercise the creature, and the story stated the exorcism would banish the monster for 100 years.

[SPEAKER_00]: However, the devil returned to the pine barrens on at least two occasions before that century was up.

[SPEAKER_00]: Legend has it that naval hero, Commodore Stephen Decatur, visited the hand over ironworks in the pine barrens in 1800 to test the foundries canon balls.

[SPEAKER_00]: While on the firing range, he allegedly saw a strange creature flying through the sky overhead.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ordering his men to take aim and fire on the creature, Decatur watched as the monster cross the sky.

[SPEAKER_00]: His men would later swear that the beast was struck by Decatur's cannonball, but the devil just flew off.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second sighting took place a few years later.

[SPEAKER_00]: This time the devil was seen by another respected witness, Joseph Bonaparte, the former King of Spain and the brother of Napoleon.

[SPEAKER_00]: He leased a country house near the Pine Barons from 1816 to 1839.

[SPEAKER_00]: He reported seen the Jersey Devil while hunting game one day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then, in 1840, as the minister warned, the devil returned and brought terror to the region once again.

[SPEAKER_00]: It snatched sheep from their pens and preyed on children who lingered outside after sunset.

[SPEAKER_00]: Livestock vanished and were found slaughtered and residents caught glimpses of a winged monster that were accompanied by chilling screams and inexplicable cloven hoof prints that were left behind.

[SPEAKER_00]: People across South New Jersey locked their doors and hung a lantern on the doorstep, hoping to keep the creature away.

[SPEAKER_00]: In 1859, the devil was seen in Haddonfield and then vanished until the winner of 1873 when it was spotted near Bridgeton.

[SPEAKER_00]: For the next two decades, the monster was spotted over and over again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Livestock vanished and residents reported screams in the night.

[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, though.

[SPEAKER_00]: by the turn of the new century, the stories faded away.

[SPEAKER_00]: And most people began to regard the Jersey Devil as nothing more than a local urban legend.

[SPEAKER_00]: Until 1909, when that legend returned to life.

[SPEAKER_00]: that year the Jersey Devil returned and literally hundreds of people reported seeing it or saw its footprints.

[SPEAKER_00]: The hysteria became so bad that schools closed across portions of the state and people refused to go outside after dark or often even in the daytime.

[SPEAKER_00]: People were terrified and maybe for good reason.

[SPEAKER_00]: The first sighting occurred in the early morning hours of January 17th, a man named Thak cousins of Woodbury was leaving a local hotel when he heard a strange hissing noise and saw a blur of something crossing the street.

[SPEAKER_00]: As the figure vanished into the darkness, he saw the movement of wings and then the thing turned in his direction and he saw two glowing white eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was on that same morning that John McOwen was awakened by the sound of his baby daughter crying and saw the winged creature outside the nursery window.

[SPEAKER_00]: But John wasn't the only one to see the devil that morning.

[SPEAKER_00]: But nearby a police officer named James Sackville also spotted the monster while walking his beat.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was passing a dark alley when the wing creature hopped into the street and let out a horrific scream.

[SPEAKER_00]: He ran toward the creature and had hop backward and retreat.

[SPEAKER_00]: He then fired his revolver at the beast, but it spread its wings and flew off.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not long after the devil dodged the policeman's bullet, the creature was spotted by postmaster EW minister.

[SPEAKER_00]: He woke up around 2am and heard what he called, quote, eerie almost supernatural sounds outside of his house.

[SPEAKER_00]: He looked out and saw a winged creature fly past his window.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said it had a long neck, long back legs, and shorter legs in front.

[SPEAKER_00]: the devil let out a cry and a whistle as it disappeared into the darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: The following morning, people all over the area woke up to find strange hoof prints in the snow.

[SPEAKER_00]: The tracks circled homes went up to doors and prowled around trash cans.

[SPEAKER_00]: They climbed trees, skipped from one rooftop to another, trampled across fields into the streets over fences and then vanished, as if whatever had made the tracks just flew away.

[SPEAKER_00]: General Panic gripped the area, doors and windows were bolted and people refused to leave home, especially after dark.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those who ventured out went in search of the creature.

[SPEAKER_00]: Attempts were made to capture and kill it, but all were unsuccessful.

[SPEAKER_00]: more sightings and encounters occurred on January 19th.

[SPEAKER_00]: A man named Nelson Evans and his wife were awakened by strange noises outside and nervously peered out the window to see a large animal on the roof of their shed.

[SPEAKER_00]: They watched it stamp back in 4th for nearly 10 minutes and describe [SPEAKER_00]: It was three and a half feet high with a face like a collie and a head like a horse.

[SPEAKER_00]: It had a long neck, wings about two feet long and its back legs were like a crane and had horses hooves.

[SPEAKER_00]: It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mrs.

Nelson added that when the creature flapped its wings, it made a muffled sound, quote, like when a wood saw makes when it strikes a rotten place.

[SPEAKER_00]: A drawing based on the Nelson's description appeared in the Philadelphia evening bulletin and became the most famous version of the creature.

[SPEAKER_00]: The sightings went on for weeks, and witnesses to the monster's antics numbered into the hundreds, including several firemen in West Collinswood, who tried to knock it out of the sky with their fire hoses.

[SPEAKER_00]: Several monster hunts were organized, but never got close enough to the devil to shoot it.

[SPEAKER_00]: They found dozens of tracks in the woods and fields around many South Jersey towns, but all the trails ended suddenly when the creature apparently took flight.

[SPEAKER_00]: in South Camden, a woman named Mary Sorbinsky, raised in alarm after the devil attacked her dog.

[SPEAKER_00]: Several police officers rushed to the scene and in front of a crowd of curious neighbors, they emptied their revolvers at the devil, but it escaped without a scratch.

[SPEAKER_00]: The daughter of William Pine from Camden was bringing her father his dinner pale when she stumbled across some strange tracks in the snow.

[SPEAKER_00]: She became so frightened that she fell into a dead faint.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her father and others examined the tracks and said they resembled a donkey with only two legs.

[SPEAKER_00]: Another witness was Reverend John Purcell, who said that he, quote, had never seen anything like it before.

[SPEAKER_00]: The devil was seen late one night by a trolley car engineer named Edward Davis.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was shocked when he saw a strange figure leap across the tracks in front of his trolley and then disappear into the darkness.

[SPEAKER_00]: Davis said that the creature resembled quote, [SPEAKER_00]: In the early morning hours of January 21st, the devil made a frightening appearance in Camden.

[SPEAKER_00]: Members of the Black Hawk social club were finishing a gathering around 1 am when they heard an uncanny sound outside the back window.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of them looked out to see a gruesome face looking in at him and let us scream.

[SPEAKER_00]: The other club members fled in terror, but that man grabbed a club and waved it at the [SPEAKER_00]: I witnessed accounts of the Jersey Devil filled the newspapers, along with photos and reports of cloven footprints that have been found in yards, woods, and parking lots.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Philadelphia Zoo offered a $10,000 reward for the beast's capture, but there were no takers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Schools closed due to a lack of students, theater's cancel performances and mills and factories were shut down when workers refused to report for their shifts.

[SPEAKER_00]: then, as suddenly as it had come, the devil vanished into the pine barrens again.

[SPEAKER_00]: The stunning events of 1909 had come to an end.

[SPEAKER_00]: Up until that time, it was always assumed that Jersey Devil was nothing more than an old wife's tale.

[SPEAKER_00]: But now, the entire region had been the scene of this mythical beast rampage, leaving hundreds of eyewitnesses in its way.

[SPEAKER_00]: that wouldn't be the last time the Jersey Devil was encountered.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was seen again in 1927 when a cab driver was changing a tire along a lonely road one night.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had just tightened the last lug nut when the cab began shaking violently.

[SPEAKER_00]: He looked up to see a huge winged creature crouching on the roof of the car.

[SPEAKER_00]: The driver leaving his jack and flat tire behind, jumped into the cab and drove to the nearest police station where he reported the encounter.

[SPEAKER_00]: In August 1930, farm workers reported seeing the devil crashing through the fields and devouring blueberries.

[SPEAKER_00]: it was reported again two weeks later, just north of Leeds Point and then it disappeared again.

[SPEAKER_00]: In November 1951, a group of children were allegedly cornered by the devil at a park in Gibbstown but it flew away without hurting anyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Reports claimed it was spotted by dozens of witnesses over the next few days, and then it vanished again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sidings continued here and there for years, and then peaked once more in 1960, when blood curdling cries terrorized a group of people near May's landing.

[SPEAKER_00]: State officials tried to calm the nervous residents, but no explanation could be found for the weird sounds.

[SPEAKER_00]: Policeman, nailed signs and posters everywhere, stating that the Jersey Devil was a hoax, but curiosity seekers flooded into the area anyway.

[SPEAKER_00]: Harry Hunt to own the Hunt Brothers Circus offered $250,000 for the Beast Capture, hoping to add it to his side-show attractions.

[SPEAKER_00]: it was good press for the circus, which of course was all you wanted, but the monster was never caught.

[SPEAKER_00]: In 1993, a forest ranger named John Irwin was driving next to a river in South Jersey when he was startled by the devil appearing in the road ahead of him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said that he and the creature stared at one another for several minutes before the devil turned and hopped away into the forest.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, as you can see, it turns out the Jersey Devil is not just a relic of America's past.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even today, isolated sightings of it still take place, but they are few and far between.

[SPEAKER_00]: It seems that since paved roads, electric lights, and modern conveniences have come to the rugged pine barrens, the monster has retreated further into the wild, refusing to leave its home.

[SPEAKER_00]: This lack of sightings has caused many to believe that the devil is simply an urban legend, a myth from early American folklore and a product of nothing but mass hysteria.

[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, that's what everyone thought in 1909 too, and look how that turned out.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's possible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just possible that the Jersey Devil is still out there lurking in the wilderness, just waiting for the time when it returns to wreak havoc again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to this latest episode and I hope you'll stay with me for just a few more minutes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do you hear some of the latest news and announcements from American nightmares?

[SPEAKER_00]: We have a hard deadline of January 5th coming up for one of the events at Dead of Winter.

[SPEAKER_00]: The free daytime food drive will be February 7th and will be collecting canned goods, non-perishable items and anything else that you think will help out folks in need as your admission to the event.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is our 27th annual Dead of Winter and we'd love to make this our biggest year so far.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're partnering with Franklin Lodge and Alton where the daytime events and ticketed after hour events will be held.

[SPEAKER_00]: And speaking to those, they are filling up quickly.

[SPEAKER_00]: We have a black mirror workshop, a ghost hunt at the lodge with like two spots left, and a devil came to St.

Louis dinner event with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those do require a reservation and a portion of the proceeds from each of those also goes to help the hungry in the region.

[SPEAKER_00]: But here's where we have the deadline.

[SPEAKER_00]: We also have a special VIP event that's being held at the new American Audities Museum on Friday night, February 6th.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the night before, debt of winter.

[SPEAKER_00]: And those guests will receive one of the limited edition shirts for this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: However, we do have a deadline to sign up for that because we have to order the shirts.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you'd like to attend the VIP event, you have until January 5th.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's next Monday to sign up for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: So don't miss it and we'll hope to see you there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, just one week after that deadline, tickets go on sale for the 2026 haunted America Conference.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's on January 12 when those tickets go on sale.

[SPEAKER_00]: The website is available now for the conference at ghostconference.net, and you can check it out to see this year's roster of speakers and presenters after our events, tours, ghost hunts, workshops, and anything else you need to know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Vendor spaces are already available for 2026 but probably not for much longer because they're really filling up fast.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're hoping to have a Vendor booth this year, you don't want to wait much longer to get that booked.

[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, mark your calendars for January 17th when we'll be holding our grand reopening celebration at the new location of the American [SPEAKER_00]: Our first event will be held the following weekend in Alton, Sayons, followed by our first dinner, the Devil came to St.

Louis on January 31.

[SPEAKER_00]: But things are really coming together, and the new museum space is going to be even bigger and better than what we had before.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we hope to see you on January 17 to check it out.

[SPEAKER_00]: and with that I'd like to wrap things up by saying thanks again for checking out the latest episode of American Nightmares part of the American Haunting's podcast network.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you like the show we hope you'll consider checking out the other shows in the network and recommend all of them to friends family people you work with anyone you think would love them too.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you do have thoughts or comments about American nightmares, leave us a review or text or comments to the hotline at 217-791-785-9.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have not been great about checking that lately because we've been buried working on the museum, but I swear to you, I will be checking it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well as a thank you we've got a discount code that's just one word podcast and that gives you 10% off any books, tours or events you purchase from our online store which you'll find at americanhontains.net that website is also home to our books tours ghost tons dinner events the haunted america conference in the american oddities museum and while that makes american haunting sound big we're really a small business that's grateful for all your support because we [SPEAKER_00]: do all this without you.

[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you and goodnight, good luck, and I'll see you next time.

[SPEAKER_00]: As long as the devil doesn't get you, or me, first.