The Secret Society of Strangers Podcast

The Secret Society of Strangers (SSOS)Strange history. Unsolved mysteries. Eerie encounters.Join Lee, Josh, and Jen as they dive into the weirdest corners of the past — from Roanoke to Roswell, cryptids to curses, true crime to time slips.We explore the stories that still echo — the ones that leave experts baffled, skeptics squirming, and conspiracy theorists taking notes.With sharp research, dark humor, and a love for the unknown, SSOS is more than a podcast — it’s a community for the curious. Got a strange story? We’re listening.New episodes weekly. Follow us on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get weird.🕯️ Come curious. Stay strange.

The Secret Society of Strangers Podcast is a society podcast hosted by SSOSPod, with 100 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

SSOSPod hosts The Secret Society of Strangers Podcast, a society show with 100 episodes published.

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  Episode #122

  The Black Queen: Barbara of Cilli (S2)

  Aug 11, 202647 min

  She co-founded the order that gave Dracula his name. She was accused of drinking blood, running an alchemy lab, and cutting a deal with the devil. Six hundred years later, Croatian kids still play a schoolyard game named after her. Her name was Barbara of Cilli — Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Hungary, Bohemia, and Germany, and one of the most powerful women of the 15th century. History turned her into a monster. Tonight we find out who did it, and why. Stay Curious. Stay Strange. Listen & Subscribe: Spotify · Apple Podcasts · Podbean · YouTube Hit subscribe so the next one finds you. Wear the Society: ssos-shop.fourthwall.com — code SSOSPOD takes 5% off. ☕ Support the Show: Buy Me a Coffee — every cup helps. Follow Us: Instagram · TikTok Clips, extras, and whatever rabbit hole we fell down that week. Got a High Strangeness Story? Somewhere the locals avoid? Somewhere the stories don't quite add up? We want to hear about it. Email at ssospodcast@gmail.com us or slide into the DMs — we're listening. ️ Stay Curious. Stay Strange. A Strange Static Media Production. Lee — Writer, Researcher, Editor, Producer Josh & Jen — Co-Host, Assistant, Creative, Co-Producer SOURCES & FACT-CHECK NOTES Dvořáková, Daniela — Barbara of Cilli (1392–1451) — primary modern biography. Wikipedia — Barbara of Cilli; Order of the Dragon; Counts of Celje; Veronika of Desenice; Ulrich II, Count of Celje; Carmilla. (Wikipedia confirms Carmilla is ‘likely based on the legendary image of Barbara as a vampire.’) Journal of Dracula Studies (Kutztown University) — Carmilla / Order of the Dragon academic connection. Paušek-Baždar, Snježana (2008) — ‘Queen Barbara of Cilli as Alchemist in Samobor’ — supports the alchemy lab. Secret Zagreb / Love Zagreb — Medvedgrad and Black Queen folklore (flag as folklore, not record). FACT-CHECK — the €2 coin is 2014 (600th anniversary of her 1414 coronation as Queen of Germany), designed by Matej Ramšak — NOT 2008. Script corrected. FACT-CHECK — 2022 Konstanz event/exhibition title: ‘Barbara von Cilli – Kaiserin, Alchemistin, Vampir’ (Empress, Alchemist, Vampire). Verified via Wikipedia. FLAG — devil’s-pact, snake-in-the-tunnels, raven-was-a-cursed-lover, lovers-off-the-battlements: all folklore. Delivered as legend in-script; keep it framed that way.

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  Episode #121

  Phrogging, Part 2 — The Denver Spider Man (S2)

  Jul 28, 202643 min

  In 1941, a quiet Denver neighborhood became convinced one house was haunted. Lights switched on in empty rooms. Footsteps echoed behind locked doors. A widow fled her own home; her housekeeper quit, certain the place was cursed. They were all closer to the truth than the police — because something WAS in that house. Not a ghost. A man. This week, Lee leads Josh and Jen through the case of Theodore Coneys, the “Denver Spider Man,” who murdered 73-year-old Philip Peters and then lived in the victim’s attic crawlspace for nine months — freezing, starving, three feet above the people hunting for a phantom. It’s the most famous case of “phrogging” in American history, and the realest ghost story Denver ever told. Stay Curious. Stay Strange. CTA + LINKS Listen & Subscribe: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube: @SSOSPodcast | Podbean ☕ Support the Show: Buy Me a Coffee | Patreon (The Curious / The Strange tiers) | TeePublic (merch) Follow Us: Instagram: @secretsocietyofstrangerspod | TikTok: @ssospodcast | Discord (link in description) Got a High Strangeness Story? Email: ssospodcast@gmail.com — or DM us on socials. We're listening. CREDITS A Strange Static Media Production. Lee — Writer, Researcher, Editor, Producer Josh & Jen — Co-Host, Assistant, Creative, Co-Producer SOURCES Primary / Archival Lowall, Gene. "1942: The Spider Man." In Denver Murders, edited by Lee Casey. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946. Sifakis, Carl. The Encyclopedia of American Crime. Facts on File, 1982. Denver Public Library Special Collections and Archives — "The Tale of the Denver Spider Man" (2019). Trial records, Denver County Court, October 1942. Detective James E. Childers interview, Denver Post Empire, February 7, 1960. Period News Coverage The Paducah Sun, July 4, 1954 — "Here's Spine Chilling Story of The Spider Murder and a Ghost." Contemporary Denver newspapers, 1941–1942 (Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News). Modern Coverage / Secondary 9News Denver — "Stranger than fiction: the 'Denver Spiderman' and his Moncrieff Place murder" (2019). Law Week Colorado — "Denver's Spider Man, 'The Ghost House of Denver'" (June 2022). Morbidology — "Theodore Edward Coneys, The Denver Spiderman" (Emily G. Thompson). Colorado Public Radio / Colorado Postcards — "Denver Spider-Man" (September 2023). HistoricalCrimeDetective.com — "Mug Shot Monday! Theodore Coneys, the Spiderman of Denver, 1941." Revisit Denver — "Denver Legends: The Spider-Man" (July 2025). Find A Grave Memorial #43200386 — Theodore Edward Coneys. Wikipedia — Theodore Edward Coneys (cross-referenced against primary sources above).

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  Episode #119

  The Winchester Mystery House (Season 2)

  Jun 30, 20261h 6m

  She inherited a fortune built on a rifle. The story goes that a medium told her every soul ever killed by that gun was coming for her — and the only way to stay alive was to keep building. Never let the hammers stop. Never let the house be finished. Sarah Winchester built. For thirty-six years, in a house in San Jose, California, the construction never stopped — until the day she died. 160 rooms. Staircases that climb into ceilings. Doors that open onto open air. The most famous haunted house in America — and the widow who, by some accounts, is still inside it. But the story they sell at the gate is not the story of who actually lived there. This week on Secret Society of Strangers, we walk the legend in full. And then we tell you who Sarah Winchester really was. Because they buried her twice — and the second burial is the one we should be angry about. Hosts: Lee, Josh, Jen Edited by: William Bertschinger Primary historical source Ignoffo, Mary Jo. Captive of the Labyrinth: Sarah L. Winchester, Heiress to the Rifle Fortune. University of Missouri Press, 2010 (rev. 2022). First full-length archival biography. Twenty years of research in Sarah’s personal letters, Winchester financial records, building records, contemporary news coverage. 🕯️ Stay Curious. Stay Strange.

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  Episode #118

  Guest Episode | Born Awakened — Samantha Leifker (Season 2)

  Jun 23, 202656 min

  Some people have one strange experience in a lifetime. Samantha Leifker has spent thirty years collecting them. This week the Strangers sit down with Samantha Leifker, author of Born Awakened: An Otherworldly True Story — a memoir that refuses to stay in any single category. It starts in a childhood home where the dead didn't stay quiet, and it spans decades of UFO contact, out-of-body travel, missing time, interdimensional beings, and a pull toward East Tennessee she still can't fully explain. We get into all of it: the poltergeist house she grew up in, the cube-shaped craft, the entities she says have been guiding her since before she could understand them, and what it actually feels like to live a life where the paranormal isn't a story you tell — it's a Tuesday. This is the kind of conversation SSOS was built for. The hauntings, the UFOs, the consciousness work — Samantha doesn't treat them as separate mysteries. She treats them as one. And after this, you might too. And this is only round one — we're already setting up a second sit-down to go even deeper with Samantha, so consider this your way in. Stay Curious. Stay Strange. 📖 GUEST — SAMANTHA LEIFKER / BORN AWAKENED Book — Born Awakened: An Otherworldly True Story (Amazon): https://a.co/d/03y6m5Y0 Instagram: @bornawakened — https://www.instagram.com/bornawakened Facebook: Born Awakened — https://www.facebook.com/share/18E8i8HKWC/ TikTok: @bornawakened — https://www.tiktok.com/@bornawakened Free Newsletter (Substack): https://bornawakened.substack.com/ 🎧 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE Spotify · Apple Podcasts · YouTube @SSOSPodcast · Podbean ☕ SUPPORT THE SHOW Buy Me a Coffee 📱 FOLLOW US Instagram · TikTok 📧 GOT A HIGH STRANGENESS STORY? Email us or DM on socials — we're listening. 🕯️ Stay Curious. Stay Strange.

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  Episode #117

  Gregor MacGregor & the Poyais Scheme .(April Fools series )

  May 3, 20261h 31mS0

  <p>He called himself a prince. He created a flag, a constitution, a currency. He published a 355-page guidebook to a capital city with an opera house and a cathedral.</p> <p>And none of it existed.</p> <p>In the finale of our April Fools series, we tell the story of Gregor MacGregor — the Scottish soldier who invented an entire nation called Poyais, convinced hundreds to invest their life savings, and sent 250 settlers to die in an empty jungle.</p> <p>Nearly 180 people never came home. And MacGregor? He was never convicted. He died a general, buried with full mi...

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