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SiriusXM and Atlas Obscura

An audio guide to the world’s strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Co-founder Dylan Thuras and a neighborhood of Atlas Obscura reporters explore a new wonder every day, Monday through Thursday. In under 15 minutes, they’ll take you to an incredible place, and along the way, you’ll meet some fascinating people and hear their stories. Our theme and end credit music is composed by Sam Tyndall.

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

In the months leading up to Labor Day, a dedicated team of craftspeople and volunteers gather in the Santa Fe Plaza Mall to build…a puppet. Not just an ordinary puppet, but a gigantic, 50-foot tall marionette with moving arms, eyes, and legs. It looks kind of like a big, somewhat-scary, somewhat-cuddly ghost. This ghost will get stuffed with shredded paper, and then around 50,000 people get together to…well, set him on fire.

This…is the Burning of Zozobra.

This episode was brought to you in partnership with Visit Santa Fe. Learn more about the Burning of Zozobra and start planning your trip now - the event takes place every year the Friday before Labor Day: https://burnzozobra.com/

 
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The Burning of Zozobra!

In 1915, a devastating fire destroyed the Chinatown in Walnut Grove, California. In its aftermath, a group of Chinese immigrant residents founded the town of Locke – not just another Chinatown, but a self-sustaining Chinese community nestled in the California Delta. Today, Locke stands as one of the last remaining rural Chinese towns in the United States.

 
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The Last Chinese Town in America

The Atlas Places Team bring two stories - one from the campus of Gallaudet University and the other from Cornell University to tell us about usual traditions that take place in these universities.

 
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Rites of Passage (Classic)

A basketball fan goes to the hall of fame – and no, it’s not the big one in Massachusetts that you may be thinking about. Hear the story behind a Midwest state’s special link to the sport.

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/indiana-basketball-hall-of-fame-museum

 
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Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame (Classic)

Deep in the Phoenix Gold Mine in Idaho Springs, Colorado, a strange noise inspires a legend.

Every Thursday this month, writer Colin Dickey joins us to talk about the cultural history behind some of our favorite spooky legends and creatures. 

 
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Local Legends Corner with Colin Dickey: Tommyknockers

Today, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk is viewed as the founder of the modern Czech state – a George Washington-like figure. When he died in the 1930s, his final words were sealed in an envelope…which then passed from his son, who died under mysterious circumstances in the 1940s, to a secretary’s flat in Scotland, to being stashed away in the National Archives, with instructions not to open the envelope until 2025. 

This September, the envelope was revealed to the public for the first time. So what were Masaryk’s famous last words?

Read more about the mysterious envelope: https://english.radio.cz/masaryks-last-words-envelope-opened-insights-a-nations-founding-president-8863213 and about the re-opened investigation into Jan Masaryk’s death: https://www.rferl.org/a/czech-murder-czechoslovakia-masaryk-cold-war/33306970.html

 
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Famous Last Words

We learn how a small town in Missouri became a world capital for a unique instrument – and how one man would go from being a down-on-his-luck furniture builder, to being known as the “zither king of Missouri.”

To learn more, check out Zither International: https://zithers-usa.com/ 

 
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The Zither King of Missouri

A girl and her father take a walk in the woods. This essay was written by Emily Lowe and edited by Tusshara Nalakumar Srilatha, and originally appeared in Off Assignment.

Plus: Off Assignment is offering a writing course, called The Practice of Imagination. It begins November 4, and you can use code ATLAS20 for 20% off: https://www.offassignment.com/practice-of-imagination 

 
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Atlas Obscura Goes Off Assignment: To the Bear We Didn't Find

A small town in Texas has embraced the story of the visit and demise of an otherworldly being from the 1800s… and what many say is America’s only alien gravesite. 

READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/1800-s-alien-gravesite

If you can’t make it out to Texas, check out this documentary about the incident which is online.

 
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Aurora Alien Gravesite (Classic)

Probably when you think of submarine warfare, WWI or WWII comes to mind. Not… the American Civil War. But oh, they had them back then! Or rather, they had one back then, and it worked exactly one time. Dylan is joined by longtime friend of the show Caitlin Doughty, of Ask a Mortician, to talk about one of their shared obsessions: the candle-lit, hand-cranked, Civil War submarine which has one of the most gruesome undersea histories you can imagine.

Find more of Caitlin’s work: https://caitlindoughty.com/

Watch her doc about the HL Hunley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiDThvhadss

Visit the Hunley for yourself: https://www.hunley.org/

 
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They Had Submarines During the Civil War?

The small mountain town of Spruce Pine provides nearly all of the ultra-pure quartz used to make the world’s semiconductors. When Hurricane Helene nearly wiped out the mines, it provided a stark wake-up call. Journalist Ed Conway joins Dylan to discuss what we can learn from this near-miss. 

Check out more of Ed Conway’s reporting and subscribe to his Substack here. To support disaster relief efforts in North Carolina, you can donate to vetted organizations here or here.

 
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Spruce Pine, Global Chokepoints, and the Future of Manufacturing

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