Gauge Illumination - Horror, folklore, and strange signals from the road.

Some ghosts haunt houses, some haunt people, but are there ghosts that haunt the places where America was built? Outside Fayetteville, North Carolina, the Vander Light is said to be the lantern of Archer Matthews, a railroad worker who was decapitated by a passing train and continues walking the tracks in search of his missing head. But what if the railroad is more than a place for a ghost to linger? What if it's a passageway between the America that was, the America that is, and the America still to come?Our guest, Sal Ciano, co-author of "In the Shadow of the Eldritch and Other Lovecraftian Tales," joins us to talk about a ghostly train story of his own as we follow the Vander Light into strange territory where folklore, history, and the American landscape collide. Along the way, we consider the railroad as a delivery system for the past, carrying its ghosts into the present, and find an unexpected connection to our movie of the week, "Unstoppable," starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. Perhaps these two railroad men are Archer Matthews returned, given another chance to face the machine that killed him. This time, though, the ghost might just save us all.The trains keep moving. The tracks remember. And sometimes, something comes back the other way.Keep your Gauge Illuminations on the right track.

Here's something you shouldn't do: go looking for the 13 Steps to Hell.Naturally, that's exactly where Gauge Illuminations is going.Maltby's 13 Steps to Hell is one of those roadside folklore tales that begins with a real place and ends with it becoming something more than the sum of its parts. Just outside Snohomish in Washington State, according to the legend, there's a staircase beneath an old cemetery. If you find it after midnight, you're supposed to walk down the thirteen steps, counting as you go. And when you reach the bottom, you're supposed to turn around.That's when things get interesting.Jimmy Mac follows the legend down into the dark, then connects Maltby's ritual of descent with H.P. Lovecraft's The Statement of Randolph Carter, another story about a nighttime journey, a descent into forbidden territory, and instructions coming back from somewhere they probably shouldn't.Along the way, there's another road into the story: David Lynch's The Straight Story, which understands that sometimes the journey itself is the story, even when the destination is nowhere near Hell.Jimmy is joined by writer and podcaster Jon Grilz of Creepy, whose love of horror and creepypasta led him to Small Town Horror and eventually to one of the most enduring corners of the scary-story universe. His story of telling creepy stories becomes a story about finding your tribe.Because that's the strange bargain at the heart of these stories. They tell us not to go there, and then they give us detailed instructions on how to go there. And when you go, you often find others who want to go there with you.And that can be the beginning of a beautiful creepy friendship.Maltby gives us thirteen steps. Lovecraft gives us a telephone line into the dark. Lynch gives us a lawnmower.And somehow we're still talking about the road.Don't turn around. Gauge Illuminations is already downstairs. Your community awaits.

Episode 7: The Shaman’s Portal of Oklahoma (Some Places Demand a Legend): What this place needs is an urban legend.Beaver Dunes Park near Beaver, Oklahoma, really contains roughly 300 acres of sand hills inside a 520-acre park. The green lightning, vanished conquistadors, missing homesteader, Colorado tourists, and Professor Mark Thatcher are the legend-making layer. Jimmy Mac separates place from story and explains landscape extension—using negative space, disruption, and a sense of ruin to turn a landscape into a canvas.Author, SiriusXM producer, and rock historian Scott Shea joins Jimmy to explore rock-and-roll’s strange places: Joshua Tree, Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Altamont, the Beach Boys’ contact with Charles Manson, eerie songs, and Shea’s forthcoming Waylon Jennings biography. The Idiot’s Guide covers legend tripping, apophenia, and cognitive dissonance; John Carpenter supplies examples of uncanny stillness; This Week in Science Fiction celebrates Neptune’s discovery by mathematics; and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia faces the five-rule road-movie test.

Here's something you shouldn't do: go looking for the 13 Steps to Hell.Naturally, that's exactly where Gauge Illuminations is going.Maltby's 13 Steps to Hell is one of those roadside folklore tales that begins with a real place and ends with it becoming something more than the sum of its parts. Just outside Snohomish in Washington State, according to the legend, there's a staircase beneath an old cemetery. If you find it after midnight, you're supposed to walk down the thirteen steps, counting as you go. And when you reach the bottom, you're supposed to turn around.That's when things get interesting.Jimmy Mac follows the legend down into the dark, then connects Maltby's ritual of descent with H.P. Lovecraft's The Statement of Randolph Carter, another story about a nighttime journey, a descent into forbidden territory, and instructions coming back from somewhere they probably shouldn't.Along the way, there's another road into the story: David Lynch's The Straight Story, which understands that sometimes the journey itself is the story, even when the destination is nowhere near Hell.Jimmy is joined by writer and podcaster Jon Grilz of Creepy, whose love of horror and creepypasta led him to Small Town Horror and eventually to one of the most enduring corners of the scary-story universe. His story of telling creepy stories becomes a story about finding your tribe.Because that's the strange bargain at the heart of these stories. They tell us not to go there, and then they give us detailed instructions on how to go there. And when you go, you often find others who want to go there with you.And that can be the beginning of a beautiful creepy friendship.Maltby gives us thirteen steps. Lovecraft gives us a telephone line into the dark. Lynch gives us a lawnmower.And somehow we're still talking about the road.Don't turn around. Gauge Illuminations is already downstairs. Your community awaits.Jon Grilz is a writer and podcast living in Minnesota. His love of horror and creepypastas led to a simple question, "Where are all the creepypasta podcasts?" Having started his horror podcasting with Small Town Horror, delving into the world of some of the best scary stories felt like a natural transition. He can often be found quietly muttering to himself. These words, rarely heard, are best left unknown.https://www.creepypod.com/https://twitter.com/creepypodhttp://creepypod.tumblr.com/https://www.instagram.com/creepypodhttps://www.facebook.com/creepypod/https://www.youtube.com/creepypod

Thom Bray has spent most of his life around trucks, highways, emergencies, and the assorted poor decisions people make while traveling between one place and another.Before retiring from J. J. Keller & Associates in 2025, Thom spent more than 20 years there as a transportation safety and regulatory expert. Before that came another couple of decades in trucking as a driver, driver trainer, safety supervisor, instructor, claims manager, training director, and safety director.He has driven throughout the United States and Canada, which means that when the rest of us begin discussing lonely highways, strange things beside the road, and places where perhaps you ought not stop after dark, Thom has actually been there.As if that weren’t enough, he is also a firefighter, advanced EMT, and Deputy Chief of the Amherst Fire District in Wisconsin.So Jeremy can tell us why the legend works.Thom can tell us why stopping the truck to investigate it is a terrible idea.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-bray-a1a3921bFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/thom.bray1/Amherst Fire District: https://www.amherstfd.org/

Megan Kate Nelson is a historian, writer, and Pulitzer Prize finalist whose work examines the American West, the Civil War, environmental history, and national mythology. Her books include The Three-Cornered War, Saving Yellowstone, Ruin Nation, Trembling Earth, and The Westerners.Official website: https://megankatenelson.com/About: https://megankatenelson.com/about/

Lyle Blackburn is an author, musician, podcaster, and cryptid researcher whose lifelong fascination with strange creatures has made him one of the essential chroniclers of the Fouke Monster. His books include The Beast of Boggy Creek, Boggy Creek Casebook, Beyond Boggy Creek, Texas Bigfoot, Sinister Swamps, and enough other monsters to make walking home after dark considerably less appealing. His research has also contributed to documentaries by Small Town Monsters, and he has appeared on Expedition X, The UnXplained, Finding Bigfoot, and plenty of other places where sensible people go looking for unreasonable things.And because researching monsters apparently wasn’t enough, Lyle is also the frontman of the Texas hellbilly band Ghoultown. Which makes him perfect for this episode: he understands that cryptids aren’t merely things people claim to see. They become movies, songs, festivals, hometown legends, and eventually part of the way a community recognizes itself.Website: https://www.lyleblackburn.com/Fouke Monster: https://www.foukemonster.net/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lyleblackburn/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lyleblackburn.officialYouTube — Monstro Bizarro: https://www.youtube.com/@MonstroBizarroMonstro Bizarro Podcast: https://www.lyleblackburn.com/podcast.htmGhoultown: https://www.ghoultown.com/

Mothman expert Steve Ward provides deep historical lore and investigation into the sightings around the TNT area.Website: https://www.mothmanmuseum.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve.ward.5/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/mothmanfestival/

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author, editor, and paranormal historian. She is a six-time Bram Stoker Award winner, a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the author of four novels and more than 200 short stories. Her nonfiction explores Halloween, ghosts, spiritualism, horror cinema, and the history of the supernatural.Official website: https://lisamorton.com/Substack — The Whole Haunted World: https://lisamorton.substack.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisamortoninla/Facebook — Official page: https://www.facebook.com/HalloweenLisa/Facebook — Personal profile: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.morton.165/X / Twitter: https://x.com/cinriterYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn45T3zhdFCP7j62g-h_6PQGoodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/345026.Lisa_MortonThe Ghost Report with Lisa Morton: https://theghostreportwithlisamorton.podbean.com/

Scott G. Shea is the author of All the Leaves Are Brown: How the Mamas & the Papas Came Together and Broke Apart. He is a longtime radio producer who has produced Seize the Day with Gus Lloyd on SiriusXM’s Catholic Channel since 2012, as well as five nationally aired audio documentaries. A lifelong student and collector of popular music, Shea writes about rock history and has completed a biography focused on the first fifteen years of Waylon Jennings’s career.Official website: https://scottsheaauthor.com/Bio: https://scottsheaauthor.com/bio/Books: https://scottsheaauthor.com/books/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottsheaauthor/