Disturbing History

On one of the most isolated islands on Earth, an ancient Polynesian civilization carved nearly 1,000 enormous stone statues and somehow transported them across miles of rugged volcanic terrain. For centuries, the mysterious moai of Easter Island have fueled theories about lost civilizations, environmental destruction, and a society that supposedly destroyed itself.But what if the story we've been told is wrong?This week on Disturbing History, Brian investigates the remarkable history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), separating archaeological evidence from centuries of speculation. How did the islanders move statues weighing more than 80 tons? What really happened to the island's forests? And why are recent archaeological discoveries and DNA studies challenging the long-accepted narrative of starvation, warfare, cannibalism, and societal collapse?The investigation reveals a far more disturbing history involving European explorers, devastating slave raids, disease, cultural destruction, and exploitation that nearly wiped out the Rapanui people. From the mysterious, undeciphered rongorongo script and the famous Birdman ceremony to ancient evidence of contact with South America and sacred statues taken to foreign museums, this episode uncovers the extraordinary achievements of a civilization whose true history has been overshadowed by myth.The greatest mystery of Easter Island may not be how its people built those incredible statues, but how the world came to believe they destroyed themselves.Email BrianGet Brian's Books Leave Us A VoicemailVisit Our WebsiteHave a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

What if everything we've been told about dinosaurs was a lie? Were these prehistoric giants real, or is the entire dinosaur industry built on fabricated fossils, museum replicas, and a carefully constructed scientific hoax? This week on Disturbing History, Brian investigates one of the internet's strangest and increasingly popular conspiracy theories: Dinosaurs never existed.From a remarkably preserved 110-million-year-old dinosaur discovered in an Alberta oil sands mine to fossil discoveries dating back centuries, Brian examines the evidence behind these ancient creatures and the claims made by those who insist they're nothing more than an elaborate deception. Were dinosaur bones really discovered before the 1800s? Why do museums display plaster casts? What about famous scientific frauds like Piltdown Man and Archaeoraptor? And did scientists actually discover soft tissue inside a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex?Along the way, we explore ancient Chinese dragon bones, Native American fossil legends, the discovery of Sue the T. rex, and the surprising disagreement between dinosaur conspiracy theorists and biblical creationists.Were dinosaurs real, or have we all been fooled? Brian separates documented discoveries from speculation, examines the scientific mistakes that fueled the conspiracy, and follows the evidence wherever it leads.The truth is buried millions of years in the past. But is it really what we've been told?Email BrianGet Brian's Books Leave Us A VoicemailVisit Our WebsiteHave a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

In 1958, scientist Charles David Keeling began measuring carbon dioxide levels high atop Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano. The atmosphere contained approximately 316 parts per million of CO2. By May 2026, that number had climbed to 432. What happened in between, and what does it mean for our planet?In this episode of Disturbing History, Brian tackles three of the most debated questions in modern science: Is the Earth really getting warmer? Are sea levels actually rising? And are humans responsible? From the earliest discoveries of greenhouse gases to decades of climate research, Brian examines the scientific evidence, the controversies, and the predictions that didn't hold up. We explore the infamous climate emails, disputed temperature records, accusations of manipulated data, and what major oil companies knew about global warming decades before it became a political battleground.Then we turn to the oceans. Are rising seas a genuine threat? What do historical tide gauges, NASA satellites, and melting ice sheets actually tell us? And what can places like Miami, Louisiana, and the island nation of Tuvalu teach us about the consequences?No political talking points. No fearmongering. Just the history, the science, the controversies, and the evidence.Email BrianGet Brian's Books Leave Us A VoicemailVisit Our WebsiteHave a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

Five mass extinctions. Billions of years of evolution. Entire species wiped from existence. And one disturbing question: Are we living through the next one? In 1796, a young French anatomist named Georges Cuvier examined the fossilized remains of mammoths and mastodons and reached a conclusion that challenged everything scientists thought they knew about the natural world: entire species could disappear forever. Even Thomas Jefferson resisted the idea, holding out hope that living mammoths might still roam the unexplored American wilderness.More than two centuries later, we know Cuvier was right. The history of life on Earth is filled with catastrophic extinction events that erased entire ecosystems, transformed the planet, and fundamentally changed the course of evolution.In this episode of Disturbing History, Brian investigates the terrifying science behind Earth's Big Five mass extinctions, the discoveries that revealed them, and the growing scientific debate over whether humanity is triggering a sixth.Our journey begins with a thin layer of ancient clay containing an unusual concentration of iridium. That discovery led scientists Walter and Luis Alvarez to propose that an enormous asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, setting off the catastrophe that ended the reign of the non-avian dinosaurs. The evidence would eventually lead researchers to the massive Chicxulub impact crater beneath Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.But the dinosaur extinction was only one chapter in a much darker geological history.Brian explores all five of Earth's great mass extinctions, from the devastating ice age that emptied ancient oceans during the Ordovician to the mysterious collapse of marine ecosystems during the Devonian. We examine the Great Dying, approximately 252 million years ago, when catastrophic volcanic activity in Siberia helped unleash the deadliest known extinction in Earth's history, eliminating an estimated 81 to 96 percent of marine species. We also uncover how massive volcanic eruptions at the end of the Triassic helped clear the evolutionary path for dinosaurs to dominate the planet. Then the story takes an even more disturbing turn.What happens when the force driving extinction isn't an asteroid, an ice age, or a volcanic catastrophe—but us? From the last surviving woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island to the disappearance of the dodo and Steller's sea cow, Brian examines how human expansion, relentless hunting, and habitat destruction helped drive remarkable animals into extinction.We revisit the brutal 1844 killing of the last confirmed breeding pair of great auks, the industrial-scale slaughter of billions of passenger pigeons, and the heartbreaking death of Martha, the last known passenger pigeon, at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. We also investigate the disappearance of the Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, whose last known captive representative died just 59 days after Tasmania granted the species legal protection.These aren't ancient mysteries buried beneath millions of years of rock. They're documented events preserved in photographs, museum collections, eyewitness accounts, and historical records. Finally, Brian examines one of the most consequential debates in modern science: Has the sixth mass extinction already begun? Some researchers warn that modern extinction rates are dramatically higher than natural background levels and that humanity is driving a biodiversity crisis unlike anything in recorded history. Others question whether the geological definition of a mass extinction can accurately describe an event still unfolding. The evidence raises a chilling possibility. For the first time in Earth's history, a species may possess the scientific knowledge to recognize a mass extinction while simultaneously contributing to its acceleration.Five times, life on Earth suffered catastrophic losses. Each time, the survivors inherited a different world. The question now is what kind of world we're leaving behind.Have a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

For more than four decades, one of America's most terrifying serial killers hid in plain sight. He was a burglar, a serial rapist, a murderer—and for six years, a sworn police officer. His name was Joseph James DeAngelo, but the world would come to know him as the Golden State Killer.On April 24, 2018, police arrested the 72-year-old former officer after a groundbreaking DNA investigation finally connected him to a horrifying series of crimes that had haunted California since the 1970s.Left alone in an interrogation room, DeAngelo began speaking to himself about a mysterious figure named "Jerry," the lives he had destroyed, and the price he would have to pay. His chilling words would later be played in court. In this episode of Disturbing History, Brian investigates the complete history of the Golden State Killer, tracing his evolution through three notorious identities:The Visalia Ransacker (1974–1975): A prolific burglar responsible for terrorizing a California community and the murder of Claude Snelling, a father who tried to protect his daughter.The East Area Rapist (1976–1979): A calculating predator who stalked neighborhoods, broke into homes, restrained victims, and committed approximately 50 sexual assaults across Northern California.The Original Night Stalker (1979–1986): A ruthless killer responsible for a series of brutal murders throughout Southern California before seemingly disappearing without a trace.How did a man responsible for so much violence escape detection for 42 years? And how did his position as a police officer allow him to remain above suspicion?Brian explores the decades-long investigation, the detectives who refused to abandon the victims, and the forensic breakthroughs that finally exposed the killer. From the earliest crime scenes and the discovery that multiple notorious offenders were actually one man to Michelle McNamara's bestselling book I'll Be Gone in the Dark, this episode examines the relentless pursuit of justice.At the center of the investigation is investigative genetic genealogy, a revolutionary technique that combined decades-old DNA evidence, the genealogy database GEDmatch, and painstaking family-tree research. Investigators, including Paul Holes and genetic genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter, helped unravel a mystery that conventional police work had failed to solve.The episode concludes with DeAngelo's shocking 2020 courtroom admissions, the emotional testimony of survivors and victims' families, and his sentence of 11 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.But beyond the DNA breakthroughs and the arrest lies a more disturbing question: How could a former police officer commit such horrific crimes for years, disappear into an ordinary suburban life, and remain unidentified for decades? This is the story of the Golden State Killer, the victims whose lives were forever changed, and the extraordinary investigation that finally brought one of America's most elusive serial predators to justice.Content Warning: This episode contains detailed discussions of sexual assault, violent crime, and murder. Listener discretion is strongly advised.Have a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

You'd never confess to a crime you didn't commit, right? Out of the first 375 people in the United States cleared by DNA evidence after a conviction, 102 of them had.In this episode of Disturbing History, Brian looks at how an innocent person ends up in an interrogation room saying the words, who built the room, and what it did to a long list of real people whose names belong in the record.The episode opens with Peter Reilly, an 18-year-old in Canaan, Connecticut, who came home from a church meeting in September 1973 and found his mother dead. After roughly 25 hours of questioning and a polygraph he was told he'd failed, Reilly began telling state police that it really looked like he'd done it.The tape of that interrogation survived, and so did the witness statements that put him miles away, which sat undisclosed in a prosecutor's file for four years. From there the story goes back to the 1936 Supreme Court case Brown v. Mississippi, where three Black tenant farmers were whipped into confessing and a deputy testified it wasn't too much for a Negro, and forward to the Chicago polygraph examiner John Reid, whose nine-step technique replaced the third degree and still dominates American police training. Reid's own signature case, the 1955 confession of Darrel Parker in Lincoln, Nebraska, turned out to be false when a career criminal's deathbed admission came to light decades later. The episode covers Miranda v. Arizona, the 1969 Frazier v. Cupp decision that made it legal for police to lie about evidence in all 50 states, and the research of psychologist Saul Kassin, including the 1996 experiment in which 100 percent of innocent college students signed a confession under the right conditions, and the 2004 study showing that innocent suspects waive their Miranda rights far more often than guilty ones do.Then the cases.The Central Park Five, questioned for up to 30 hours and told they could go home. The Norfolk Four, where a detective later convicted of extortion kept adding sailors to a rape and murder that DNA tied to one man acting alone. The Beatrice Six in Nebraska, where a sheriff's psychologist taught suspects that repressed memories of a murder could surface in dreams, and five of them pleaded guilty to a crime committed by a man who'd been excluded years earlier by a blood-typing error.Earl Washington Jr., with an IQ around 69, who came within nine days of execution in Virginia on a confession that got the victim's race, height, and number of wounds wrong. Christopher Ochoa and Richard Danziger in Austin, Jeffrey Deskovic in Peekskill, 14-year-old Michael Crowe in Escondido, Juan Rivera in Waukegan, Marty Tankleff on Long Island, Damon Thibodeaux on Louisiana's death row, Huwe Burton in the Bronx, the Dixmoor Five, the West Memphis Three, Brendan Dassey, and the torture victims of Chicago's Area Two under Commander Jon Burge.The episode closes with what has changed since: the Illinois recording law sponsored in 2003 by a state senator named Barack Obama, the 2017 decision by one of the country's largest police training firms to stop teaching the Reid Technique, the juvenile deception bans now in ten states, the British PEACE model built after the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, and the fact that in every state in this country, police may still lie to an adult about the evidence.It ends back in Canaan, where the murder of Barbara Gibbons has been open for 53 years and her son remains the only person ever tried for it.Email BrianGet Brian's Books Leave Us A VoicemailVisit Our WebsiteHave a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

The Hills Have Eyes: The Terrifying Legend Behind the Horror MovieIn episode three of our Spooky Season series exploring the true stories behind Hollywood’s most terrifying horror movies, Brian investigates the disturbing legend that inspired Wes Craven’s 1977 cult classic, The Hills Have Eyes.For nearly 300 years, the story of Sawney Bean and his murderous Scottish cannibal clan has haunted generations. According to legend, Bean and his family lived in a remote coastal cave, ambushing, murdering, and devouring more than 1,000 unsuspecting travelers before being discovered and executed. But did any of it actually happen?Brian traces the legend back to its earliest known publication in 1734, uncovering historical contradictions, missing evidence, and the disturbing political and cultural influences that may have created the entire story. Along the way, he explores documented cases of cannibalism and notorious American murder families whose real crimes rivaled anything Hollywood could imagine.Then, discover how Wes Craven transformed a centuries-old Scottish nightmare into The Hills Have Eyes, moving the horror from a seaside cave to the desolate American desert.Was Sawney Bean history’s most horrifying serial killer, or was the entire legend a carefully constructed fiction?The truth behind The Hills Have Eyes may be more unsettling than the movie itself.Email BrianGet Brian's Books Leave Us A VoicemailVisit Our WebsiteHave a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

What do Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse have in common? They all died at 27, becoming part of one of music history's most haunting legends: The 27 Club. But is there really a deadly curse, or does the truth reveal something far more disturbing?In this episode of Disturbing History, Brian  investigates the mysterious deaths, unanswered questions, and decades of controversy surrounding rock music's most infamous club. From Brian Jones's suspicious drowning and Jimi Hendrix's disputed final hours to Jim Morrison's death in Paris without an autopsy, each case reveals a different tragedy.Brian also examines Kurt Cobain's controversial death, Amy Winehouse's fatal relapse, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding blues legend Robert Johnson.Finally, Brian explores two major scientific studies that investigated whether musicians really face a greater risk of dying at 27. Their findings challenge the legend while exposing a troubling reality about fame, addiction, mental health, and premature death in the music industry. Is the 27 Club a supernatural curse, a statistical coincidence, or a self-fulfilling prophecy? The answer may be more disturbing than the legend itself.Email BrianGet Brian's Books Leave Us A VoicemailVisit Our WebsiteHave a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

In 2013, Time branded millennials “The Me Me Me Generation.” The accusations were familiar: lazy, entitled, and obsessed with themselves. Yet teenage drinking, smoking, pregnancy, and fighting were all declining, while young adults faced rising student debt and a difficult path to homeownership. The complaints about the next generation were nothing new. The world they were inheriting deserved a closer look.In the seventh installment of Disturbing History’s journey through American life, Brian revisits the 2010s—the decade when his own generation became the adults doing the complaining. The economy recovered, smartphones transformed everyday life, and scientific discoveries pushed the boundaries of human knowledge. But prosperity and progress shared the headlines with addiction, corporate deception, and warnings that went unanswered.This episode follows the opioid epidemic from prescription pills to fentanyl, examines Flint’s water crisis, and revisits disasters from Deepwater Horizon to Hurricane Maria and the destruction of Paradise, California. Along the way, Theranos, Wells Fargo, and Boeing raise an unsettling question: what happens when protecting an institution becomes more important than protecting the people who trust it?Then there’s the device in everyone’s pocket. Instagram and viral fundraising showed what connection could accomplish. Cambridge Analytica, data breaches, and conspiracy theories revealed its costs. From surveillance disclosures to Pizzagate and the harassment of Sandy Hook families, the decade exposed how quickly information—and misinformation—could change lives.There were also extraordinary reasons to look up: the Higgs boson, gravitational waves, Pluto in startling detail, and the first image of a black hole. Rescuers brought Chilean miners and a Thai youth soccer team home alive. Violent crime remained far below its early-1990s peak.Even the Cubs finally won. The decade closes with avocado toast, “snowflake” accusations, and the reply “okay, boomer.” By then, the millennials on that magazine cover were approaching middle age—and the first complaints about the generation behind them were already appearing in the same magazines.Email BrianGet Brian's Books Leave Us A VoicemailVisit Our WebsiteHave a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

What if our universe contains entire dimensions of space that we cannot see, touch, or detect? What if those hidden dimensions exist all around us, occupying the very rooms we live in? And could they explain some of humanity's greatest mysteries, from unexplained disappearances and paranormal encounters to UFOs, Sasquatch, and even telepathy?In this episode of Disturbing History, Brian takes a deep dive into one of the most fascinating and controversial ideas in theoretical physics: the seven hidden dimensions of M-theory. Modern physics describes a universe with three dimensions of space and one of time. But M-theory proposes eleven dimensions in total, including seven additional spatial dimensions that may be concealed within the fabric of reality itself. Brian traces the remarkable history of this idea, from Einstein's groundbreaking work on spacetime to the forgotten physicists who first proposed invisible dimensions, the strange geometry of string theory, and the revolutionary discoveries that gave rise to M-theory. But this isn't just a journey through theoretical physics. Brian explores the unsettling possibility that hidden dimensions could help explain phenomena that have puzzled humanity for centuries. Could ghosts, apparitions, and other unexplained encounters involve something beyond our familiar three-dimensional world? What about the theories suggesting UFOs and UAPs originate from another dimension rather than another planet? Could the mysterious behavior sometimes attributed to Sasquatch point toward something far stranger than an undiscovered primate?The investigation also revisits The Telepathy Tapes, examining extraordinary claims involving consciousness, unexplained communication, and quantum entanglement. Brian explores what science actually tells us about these phenomena, including the groundbreaking experiments that earned the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, and why quantum entanglement cannot be used to transmit information.Along the way, we examine the real experiments searching for hidden dimensions, from precision gravity measurements to the Large Hadron Collider and the ATLAS Collaboration's September 2026 search for microscopic black holes. So far, the results have revealed no evidence of additional spatial dimensions.Where does established science end and speculation begin?And if seven invisible dimensions really do surround us, what might that mean for our understanding of reality, consciousness, and the unexplained? The science is extraordinary. The possibilities are mind-bending. But the biggest mystery remains unanswered.Are we experiencing all of reality, or only the tiny fraction our senses allow us to perceive?Email BrianGet Brian's Books Leave Us A VoicemailVisit Our WebsiteHave a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation?Send your suggestions to [email protected] History is a dark history podcast exploring unsolved mysteries, secret societies, historical conspiracies, lost civilizations, and the shadowy stories buried beneath the surface of the past.Follow the show and enable automatic downloads so you never miss a deep dive into history’s most unsettling secrets.Because sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.