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  • The Lobster Boat Returned Alone - Where Was Lisa Zeller?

    The Lobster Boat Returned Alone - Where Was Lisa Zeller?
    2026/09/10
    The Lobster Boat Returned Alone - Where Was Lisa Zeller?

    Fear that someone vanished in plain sight: a thirty-two-foot lobster boat returned to port with a rinsed coffee mug upside down and sixty dollars tucked beneath it, its owner nowhere to be found - and a satellite tracker that went silent fourteen nautical miles from home. Who heard nothing that night, and what did the fresh gouge on the bow hide?

    In this episode, we tell the timeline of Lisa Zeller’s last trip, the instruments and people who tracked the Maren B., and the small, concrete mysteries left behind that refuse to add up. How did a routine lobstering run turn into a disappearance with a perfect return and almost no physical explanation?

    Person: Lisa Zeller
    Age: 38
    Vessel: Maren B.
    Date: July 16-19, 2011
    Distance from home when SPOT went dark: 14 nautical miles

    - The SPOT satellite device transmitted normally until 23:47 on July 18, then stopped fourteen nautical miles northeast of Portsmith.
    - The Maren B. was found tied to the municipal float at 05:30 on July 19 with every light off and the wheelhouse locked.
    - A rinsed coffee mug was found upside down on the drainer with $60 in cash beneath it.
    - Fuel readings: full when the boat departed; a quarter tank when checked on return, consistent with the filed trip of ~120 nautical miles.
    - A fresh gouge on the port bow estimated to result from a strike at 12-15 knots, showing white-edged wood with no oxidation.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 分
  • The Morning Fire: How a Dead-Camp Flame Came Back to Life

    The Morning Fire: How a Dead-Camp Flame Came Back to Life
    2026/09/09
    The Morning Fire: How a Dead-Camp Flame Came Back to Life

    A nearly impossible campfire rekindled itself beneath a perfectly intact tent fly: a dinner-plate of orange coals, a thin ribbon of blue smoke, and two birch logs arranged in an X - despite the camper extinguishing the fire eight hours earlier and dead-calm weather all night. How did heat appear to rise from beneath a stone ring with no footprints, no wind, and dew left unbroken on the tent?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from Lloyd Stewart’s careful extinguishing at 9:47 p.m. to Dawn Perry’s discovery at 6:22 a.m., and the eight months of reconstruction by journalist Angela Petersen that unearthed an unexpected physical explanation - and one question she could not fully answer: what burned under the ring?

    Person: Lloyd Stewart
    Person: Dawn Perry
    Person: Angela Petersen
    Date: June 14, 2019
    Location: Site Seven-Charlie (Talbot Creek drainage, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest)

    - The campfire was extinguished at 9:47 p.m. and found burning again at 6:22 a.m., a span of eight hours and thirty-five minutes.
    - The fire measured approximately the size of a dinner plate with orange coals and a thin ribbon of blue smoke.
    - Lloyd pressed the back of his hand against the ash until satisfied no heat remained before zipping his tent.
    - The Twisp weather station recorded dead calm from 2:00 a.m. through 6:00 a.m. the night in question.
    - The campsite gravel had been re-graded in fall 2018 using vesicular basalt aggregate sourced from near Conconully.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    19 分
  • The Handset Breathing at Room Eleven: 33 Seconds Unaccounted For

    The Handset Breathing at Room Eleven: 33 Seconds Unaccounted For
    2026/09/08
    The Handset Breathing at Room Eleven: 33 Seconds Unaccounted For

    Fear tightens in the throat when a dead phone inhales: a beige push-button receiver on gravel, its cord taut through broken glass, and a woman inside a motel room who says the handset breathed for thirty-three seconds though the line was inactive. What happened in Room Eleven between 1:00 a.m. and dawn that left a handset fourteen inches from the wall and a cord pulled back through a smashed window?

    In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from Erin Simmons’s late-night arrival at the Dusty Wheel Motel to the discovery by runner Jennifer Hamilton at 5:45 a.m., laying out the timeline, the physical evidence, and the technical details that make the case so baffling. Can an unconnected telephone produce deliberate breathing, or is there another explanation for the broken window and the cord pulled taut?

    Person: Erin Simmons
    Date: May 7, 2019
    Location: Room Eleven, Dusty Wheel Motel, Sutter Flats, Nevada
    Event: Handset reportedly producing breathing while line inactive
    Distance: Handset found 14 inches from exterior wall

    - Erin Simmons checked into Room Eleven at 11:40 p.m. on May 6 and had been sitting in the dark since around 1:00 a.m.
    - The Dusty Wheel Motel is a single-story L-shape with 14 rooms; Room Eleven sits at the far end, furthest from the highway.
    - A regional wireless carrier repeater station 340 feet from the room had been upgraded in March 2019, six weeks before the incident.
    - The motel handset was a beige push-button telephone plugged into a wall jack that led to a junction box sealed in silicone caulk and documented as having no active connection.
    - At 5:45 a.m. on May 7, runner Jennifer Hamilton found the handset lying in the gravel 14 inches from the wall with its cord running back through the broken window and still taut.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 分
  • Typed Prophecy: A Dead Engineer's Letter Predicted The Flood

    Typed Prophecy: A Dead Engineer's Letter Predicted The Flood
    2026/09/07
    Typed Prophecy: A Dead Engineer's Letter Predicted The Flood

    A typed letter dated April 14, 2011 predicted, down to the junction and a 6:18 a.m. time, a water-main rupture that happened four days later at 6:22 a.m. The note was signed by T. Prescott - a man who had been dead since 2008 - and it was found carefully placed on a reading table inside the forced-open archive at Drexel Hall. How could a three-year-dead civil-engineering consultant foresee the exact failure, or was the letter planted after the fact?

    In this episode, you’ll hear the sequence of discovery, the document’s physical details, and the immediate institutional reactions, as staff and contractors confront whether the sheet was prophecy or a staged report. What does the combination of a manual typewriter imprint, a forced latch, and a precise four-minute mismatch imply about who brought the letter and why?

    Person: T. Prescott
    Date: April 14, 2011
    Event: Water main rupture
    Time logged by city: 6:22 a.m.
    Location: Drexel Hall archive, north utility junction and Breck Avenue

    - The letter predicted a failure at the junction of Breck Avenue and the service road behind Drexel Hall and gave the time 6:18 a.m.
    - The city logged the actual rupture at 6:22 a.m., four minutes after the letter’s predicted time.
    - The archive room measured 1,200 square feet and held county deed records going back 140 years and unique nineteenth-century survey maps.
    - Thomas Prescott died in 2008 at age sixty-one and had led a major infrastructure study for Aldermoor in 2003; his firm dissolved that year.
    - Photographs showed a broken latch with wood splinters and a clean strike at the plate; nothing in the archive was missing except the anomalous manila folder on the reading table.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 分
  • The Shoe on the Gate: A Man's Vanishing 17-Minute Gap

    The Shoe on the Gate: A Man's Vanishing 17-Minute Gap
    2026/09/06
    The Shoe on the Gate: A Man's Vanishing 17-Minute Gap

    A single brown leather dress shoe, men's size eleven, sat upright on the top rail of a locked ferry gate at 7:20 AM on March 14, 2019 - heel down, toe toward the river, with no ladder, no footprints in the frost, and the ferry a quarter mile away. Why did one shoe appear where no one could have placed it, and what explains the seventeen-minute gap between the ferry docking and a man's truck arriving at home?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline of that night and the quiet morning discovery to lay out the sequence of movements, witnesses, and constraints that turned a shoe into a mystery, asking whether the missing eleven minutes can be explained by ordinary travel, an overlooked witness, or something else entirely.

    Person: Philip Callahan
    Date: March 14, 2019
    Location: Hollen Crosser ferry dock, Hollen, Illinois
    Event: Single brown leather dress shoe found upright on locked gate rail
    Time gap: 17 minutes unaccounted for between 10:36 PM ferry docking and 10:53 PM truck arrival

    - The ferry crossing takes four minutes and the road alternative is fifty-one miles.
    - Philip had been crossing five days a week for nearly three years and lived on Sycamore Lane in Westbank.
    - The last ferry departed Hollen at 10:30 PM; Dennis Pryor locked the gate at 10:47 PM and saw no shoe.
    - The ferry docked at Westbank at 10:34 PM with four passengers; Philip was not among them.
    - Philip’s truck was seen arriving at his driveway at 10:51 PM, while the walk from the Westbank landing to his house takes six minutes.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 分
  • A Sealed Cistern Fills Itself: The Mystery at Roan Flat Ranch

    A Sealed Cistern Fills Itself: The Mystery at Roan Flat Ranch
    2026/09/05
    A Sealed Cistern Fills Itself: The Mystery at Roan Flat Ranch

    A rusted padlock and an unbroken lichen cap hid eleven thousand gallons of water in a cistern that had been dry for decades - yet the lid sang like a washing machine before anyone opened it. How did a sealed, half-buried cistern with no pipes and no nearby buildings refill overnight to a temperature between surface melt and the regional aquifer?

    In this episode, we follow the call that started everything, the owner who kept the key on a hook above his sink, and the retired civil engineer whose probe gave the first surprising measurement that reframed the mystery. What subterranean path delivered that water, and why did the sound draw a passerby to a sealed relic?

    Person: Michelle Coleman
    Person: Troy Quinn
    Person: Harold Vreeland
    Person: Paul Decker
    Event: Lid opened to reveal ~11,000 gallons

    - The cistern is about four feet across and was built in 1971 with a compacted caliche base rather than poured concrete.
    - Michelle Coleman heard a sound at 7:43 AM on a Saturday in February 2019 and reported it to Cibola County dispatch.
    - Troy Quinn bought Roan Flat Ranch in 2003, ran roughly 41 head of Black Angus cattle on 640 acres, and hung the cistern key above his kitchen sink with a red rubber tag.
    - A sheriff's deputy who inspected the site heard faint intermittent sounds like pressurized water two days after the initial report.
    - A probe measured the cistern water at 51°F, colder than regional groundwater (54-58°F) but warmer than surface snowmelt (38-44°F).

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分
  • The Mill That Hummed: A Dry Bobbin, A Hidden Room, One Impossible Sound

    The Mill That Hummed: A Dry Bobbin, A Hidden Room, One Impossible Sound
    2026/09/04
    The Mill That Hummed: A Dry Bobbin, A Hidden Room, One Impossible Sound

    An impossible fourteen-inch wooden bobbin lay bone-dry against a river retaining wall after nine days below freezing and four feet-per-second current - a photograph that pulled a team into a building emptied for thirty years. Inside a sub-floor once worked for twenty-one years, they found a man who had been living there for approximately fourteen months and a sound recorded in a building with no electricity; what produced that rhythmic ninety-second hum?

    In this episode, we follow how a river-side photograph, an inspector’s marginal note, and a recorded hum led a small team to request access, enter an abandoned mill, and descend to a sub-floor where unexpected evidence and a longtime occupant raised new questions about the mill and the sound. How did a dry bobbin and a marginal inspector’s remark trigger an official entry that uncovered a hidden occupant and a baffling recording?

    Person: Philip Keller
    Person: Gordon Thompson
    Person: Melissa Davis
    Event: Access approved for February 4, 2019
    Person: Roy Ashburn

    - Temperature at the river when the bobbin was found: 11 degrees (January 9, 2019)
    - River current speed where bobbin sat: four feet per second
    - Bobbin size and type: fourteen-inch wooden, double-flanged, dry
    - Years the Harmon Street mill had been closed: closed 1989, equipment stripped by 1991, electricity removed by 1993
    - Time Roy Ashburn had been living in the sub-floor: approximately fourteen months

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    20 分
  • The Last Ticket: Tomato Bisque from an Empty Diner

    The Last Ticket: Tomato Bisque from an Empty Diner
    2026/09/03
    The Last Ticket: Tomato Bisque from an Empty Diner

    A frozen parking lot, a dry laminated place mat with an order written in blue ballpoint, and a cast-iron pot left on a live burner: the scene at Patton's Diner raises a cold, persistent unease about what routines can outlast who keeps them. Who left a last order of tomato bisque, grilled cheese on white, and black coffee on the kitchen carousel the day the diner closed - and why did the ritual continue for years afterward?

    In this episode, we follow the details of that place, the people who ran it, and the small, stubborn acts that kept a Thursday ritual alive long after the doors were boarded. What does it mean that a handwritten order matched a woman who had died seven years earlier, and that a live gas line kept a pot ready on the stove?

    Location: Garvey Falls, western Pennsylvania
    Person: Agnes Patton
    Person: Kimberly Wagner
    Date: Diner closed August 2013
    Event: Place mat order found December 2019

    - The parking lot of Patton's Diner had been frozen solid for eleven days when the place mat was found.
    - Agnes Patton opened the diner in autumn 1978 and ran it until she died in March 2013 at age eighty-one.
    - Kimberly Wagner drove two hours every Thursday for years to sit in the parking lot and wait at the locked front door.
    - The diner closed for good on the last Thursday in August 2013 with a final order placed on the carousel: tomato bisque, grilled cheese on white, black coffee no sugar.
    - A contractor found a cast-iron pot on the second burner with the valve open but unlit; the gas company later confirmed the gas line had been active the entire time.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分