The Internet Says it’s True

Anthony Hopkins needed a copy of The Girl from Petrovka to prepare for a movie role, but none of the major London bookstores he tried had one. Then, while waiting for a train at Leicester Square Underground station, he spotted the exact novel sitting abandoned on a seat. Months earlier, author George Feifer had lost one very particular copy of that book somewhere else in London, and when the two men finally compared notes, an alrea...

Weeks before D-Day, readers of the Daily Telegraph began encountering some unusual answers in the newspaper's crossword puzzle - Utah, Omaha, Overlord, Mulberry and Neptune. British intelligence noticed too. The man constructing the puzzles was investigated, the invasion went ahead, and the whole thing was dismissed as an extraordinary coincidence. Forty years later, one of his former students finally explained where the words had ...

We're all familiar with the use of "John Doe" or "Jane Doe" as a placeholder name or when an identity is unknown. But where did the name come from? This week, we do a deep dive into the history of John Doe and find out who he really was - then do a quick quiz with podcaster Wize Otero! 

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A simple white headstone in Arlington National Cemetery hides one of the most remarkable stories in American history. This week, Michael Kent traces the life of Army Specialist Richard Leroy McKinley, the tragic SL-1 nuclear reactor accident, and the extraordinary engineering that created the only radioactive grave in Arlington. What began as a routine maintenance procedure became a turning point in nuclear safety and left behind a...

Did a Japanese admiral really say America could never be invaded because there would be "a rifle behind every blade of grass?" It's one of the most repeated quotes in American history, cited in speeches, books, and debates for decades. This week, Michael Kent follows the trail back through wartime records, biographies, and historical research to discover where the quote actually came from, why historians reject it, and how one sent...

Originally released May 2nd, 2022. Was Sammy Davis Jr. a member of the Church of Satan? It's widely known that he converted to Judaism after the auto accident that took his eye, but this week, a listener sent us an article about Sammy Davis Jr. the Satanist. In this episode, we talk about the life of this multi-faceted entertainer and the claim in question. Then we chat with Comedian and Producer of CBus Comedy, Lisa Berry!

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A college student saw a Pepsi commercial, did the math, and tried to claim a United States Marine Corps Harrier jump jet. What followed became one of the most famous advertising lawsuits in American history and inspired the hit Netflix documentary Pepsi, Where's My Jet? This week, Michael Kent explores the true story behind the Pepsi Points promotion, the courtroom battle that followed, and why one joke commercial is still taught i...

What do you do when you've directed a movie... but you don't want your name on it?

This week, Michael explores one of Hollywood's strangest traditions: Alan Smithee, the fictional film director created by the Directors Guild of America for filmmakers who had lost creative control of their projects. Along the way, you'll hear how one Western accidentally created a decades-long Hollywood secret, why critics u...

In 1969, future President Jimmy Carter stood outside a Lions Club meeting in rural Georgia and saw something in the sky he couldn't identify. Decades later, the report remains one of the most famous UFO sightings ever associated with a U.S. president. Was it Venus, a military-related phenomenon, an optical illusion, or something else entirely? This week, we follow the facts, separate the myths from the history, and explore why a si...

A computer sound effect sparked one of the funniest stories in tech history. This week, Michael explores the decades-long trademark war between Apple Computer and the Beatles' Apple Corps, a conflict that stretched from the late 1970s into the age of the iPod and iTunes. Along the way, an Apple engineer slipped a sarcastic message into the Macintosh operating system, creating the legendary "Sosumi" alert sound. What started as a le...