In this episode, we travel back to London’s Whitehall district—a place infamous for political intrigue, shadowy alleyways, and, in the autumn of 1888, a mystery so disturbing it was almost forgotten beneath the thunder of the Jack the Ripper murders happening at the same time.

This is the story of The Whitehall Women—a case involving multiple unidentified female remains discovered in and around Whitehall. Long before modern forensic science, police were left piecing together bodies found in separate locations, months apart, with no clear suspect, no confirmed victim identity, and a timeline that overlaps with another unsolved murder series just streets away.

Overshadowed by the Ripper mythology, this case has become one of Victorian London’s darkest cold cases. And in many ways, it’s even stranger.

• The grisly discovery of a woman’s torso during construction of the new Metropolitan Police headquarters
• The earlier and later discoveries of additional body parts in the Thames and in vaults beneath Whitehall
• Why investigators believed the remains belonged to a single unidentified woman
• How this murder fits into the broader pattern of the so-called “Thames Torso Murders”
• Comparisons between the Torso Murderer and the Ripper — and why many historians believe they were not the same person
• The forensic limitations of 1888 and how they shaped the investigation
• The haunting question that lingers:
• Who were the Whitehall Women, and why did nobody report them missing?

Unlike the Ripper victims, the Whitehall Women had no names, no occupations, no known family — at least, none that history recorded. Their anonymity is part of what makes this case so chilling.

The killer showed anatomical precision, access to private spaces, and enough confidence to deposit remains in highly trafficked areas — including right under the noses of the authorities building Scotland Yard.

This case forces us to consider the women Victorian society ignored, the victims whose stories weren’t sensational enough for newspapers, and the mysteries still sitting in archival corners waiting to be fully understood.

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On April 1st, 2006, Ohio State medical student Brian Shaffer went out for drinks with friends at the Ugly Tuna Saloona in Columbus, Ohio. Surveillance cameras captured him entering the bar… and then, somehow, not leaving.

Despite being surrounded by cameras, witnesses, and the heartbeat of a busy college nightlife district, Brian Shaffer simply vanished.

Tonight, we walk through the full timeline of Brian’s final known hours, break down the surveillance footage frame-by-frame, explore the strange architectural quirks of the bar and surrounding construction that may hold clues, and sift through the theories that have kept this case alive for nearly two decades.

It remains one of the most haunting unsolved disappearances in modern American history — a true locked-room mystery without the room.

👉 Brian’s final night out — the bar crawl, the conversations, and the last confirmed sighting

👉 Surveillance footage and why investigators are so puzzled by its gaps

👉 Who Brian was: his personality, relationships, grief, and aspirations

👉 The Ugly Tuna’s layout and how construction zones fueled hidden-exit theories

👉 Why many investigators believe Brian never left the building alive

👉 The 2020 phone “ping” rumor and why experts remain skeptical

👉 Theories including:

• Accident or misadventure

• Voluntary disappearance

• Foul play

• Misidentification on the footage

👉 Why the lack of evidence may be the most telling clue of all

Brian’s disappearance sits at the crossroads of tragedy and impossibility.

A crowded bar, multiple cameras, friends yards away, and a young man who loved music, medicine, and the people in his life — gone without a single confirmed trace.

The case remains open.

And Brian’s family continues to live in hope of answers.

Any piece of information, no matter how small, may help solve this case.

If you know anything related to the disappearance of Brian Shaffer, please contact:

📞 (614) 645-4545

(Ask for the detective assigned to the Brian Shaffer case.)

📞 1-800-634-4097

📞 (614) 461-8477 (TIPS)

You may remain anonymous and could be eligible for a reward.

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🔥 Leaving a 5-star review

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🔥 Following on social media for upcoming fireside stories

Your support keeps the fire burning and helps new listeners find the show.

In this episode, we step out of the world of ghosts, time slips, disappearances, and strange creatures — and venture into a mystery far closer to home:

Your own brain.

For decades, scientists believed memory worked like a filing cabinet: one idea, one location. But a few unexpected experiments — severed neural pathways, maze-running rats, shattered holograms, and neurological oddities that shouldn’t have been possible — began pointing to something far stranger.

The result was a radical proposal now known as the Holographic Brain Theory — the idea that memories may not be stored in one spot at all, but are distributed throughout the brain, much like how every fragment of a hologram contains the entire image.

And if that’s true… it could fundamentally reshape how we understand memory, trauma, consciousness, and even the nature of reality itself.

Tonight, we explore the scientists who made this discovery, the experiments that shouldn’t have worked, and the strange implications of a mind that behaves more like a hologram than a hard drive.

👉 Karl Pribram and the neuroscientific puzzle that led him to the holographic model

👉 Why removing large portions of rats’ brains didn’t erase their memories

👉 The eerie parallels between holograms and how the brain distributes information

👉 What this model might say about trauma, dreams, and altered states of consciousness

👉 How the theory overlaps with physicist David Bohm’s holographic model of the universe

👉 The criticisms, limitations, and ongoing research around holographic memory storage

👉 What this theory could mean for identity, emotion, and the mystery of consciousness

👉 Why some scientists think the holographic brain may help explain paranormal experiences, near-death accounts, or the sense of “expanded consciousness”

The Holographic Brain Theory isn’t just about neuroscience — it’s about how we understand ourselves.

If memory is distributed throughout the brain…

If consciousness isn’t confined to a single location…

If the mind processes reality holographically…

Then the boundary between brain, self, and world may be far blurrier than we think.

This model challenges:

• traditional neuroscience
• metaphysics
• our assumptions about the limits of human perception
• and even aspects of spiritual and paranormal experiences

It’s a scientific theory with implications that stretch into philosophy, psychology, and the edges of the unknown.