Disturbing History

Disturbing History-True Stories
  • 4.9 (41)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Weekly

Disturbing History is a dark history podcast uncovering the strange, sinister, and little-known stories the past tried to bury. Each week, we explore unsolved mysteries, secret societies, forgotten crimes, eerie folklore, lost civilizations, historical conspiracies, and disturbing events that never made it into your high school textbook .Hosted by author, investigator, and storyteller Brian King-Sharp, Disturbing History dives deep into: Unsolved historical mysteriesSecret societies and hidden power structuresDark folklore and urban legendsLost colonies and vanished civilizationsTrue crime cases buried by timeHistorical conspiracies and cover-upsParanormal events rooted in real historyThrough immersive storytelling and investigative research, we uncover the shadowy corners of the past — the uncomfortable truths, forgotten tragedies, and disturbing secrets that shaped our world.If you’re fascinated by dark history, obsessed with unexplained events, or drawn to stories that blur the line between fact and legend, this podcast is for you. Because the past isn’t always dead. Sometimes it’s just been buried. Follow Disturbing History and turn on automatic downloads for weekly deep dives into history’s most unsettling stories.

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  1. 15h ago

    Three Mile Island Meltdown

    On March 28, 1979, at 4:00 a.m., a relief valve at Three Mile Island opened as designed—and then failed to close. For more than two hours, operators believed it had shut because the control-room indicator showed the electrical command, not the valve’s actual position. By the time the mistake was understood, roughly half the fuel in Unit Two had melted.The men in the control room did not know how bad it was. Neither did the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The full extent of the damage would not be confirmed until engineers lowered a camera into the reactor vessel three years later and found a five-foot void where the top of the core had once been. In this episode of Disturbing History, Brian goes beyond the familiar story of America’s worst commercial nuclear accident and into the warnings, failures and unanswered questions that came before and after it.Eighteen months before the meltdown, another Babcock & Wilcox reactor at Davis-Besse experienced a nearly identical stuck-open relief valve. Engineers warned that operators could misread the signs of a loss-of-coolant accident and shut down emergency cooling at exactly the wrong moment. One NRC inspector was concerned enough to travel to Washington on his own time just six days before Three Mile Island to warn commissioners that something was badly wrong. The Kemeny Commission later concluded that the correct operating guidance was never passed along to the utilities.The episode reconstructs the accident minute by minute: the closed emergency feedwater valves, the overwhelming alarm system, the printer that fell so far behind that critical records were lost, temperature readings above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit that operators dismissed as impossible, and a hydrogen burn inside containment that was initially written off as an instrument problem. Then the crisis moved beyond the plant. Conflicting radiation readings, contradictory public statements and confusion inside state and federal agencies turned Three Mile Island into a communications disaster. Governor Dick Thornburgh advised pregnant women and young children within five miles of the plant to leave. Roughly 144,000 people ultimately evacuated the surrounding area. The episode also examines the infamous hydrogen bubble, the federal scramble to obtain potassium iodide because no national stockpile existed, and the radiation readings that appeared, disappeared or were later disputed. And then there was the criminal investigation.Less than two months after the accident, control-room operator Harold Hartman told federal investigators that Metropolitan Edison had been falsifying reactor coolant leak-rate data before the meltdown to avoid shutting the plant down for repairs. Federal prosecutors later sharply criticized the NRC’s handling of the allegations. In 1983, a grand jury indicted Metropolitan Edison on charges involving falsified tests and destroyed records. The company eventually pleaded guilty, becoming the only American nuclear utility convicted of a criminal offense. The final portion of the episode turns to the question that remains the most controversial: what happened to the people living around the plant? Residents reported metallic tastes, skin irritation, nausea, hair loss and dead animals. Official estimates said offsite radiation doses were far too low to cause acute radiation sickness. Decades of epidemiological studies have produced conflicting interpretations, with some finding no convincing cancer link and others identifying patterns that warranted further investigation. Thousands of personal injury claims were eventually dismissed because plaintiffs could not prove exposure above the required legal threshold.Nearly half a century later, the physical story of Three Mile Island still is not finished. Much of the damaged core remains stored in Idaho, some radioactive material is still being removed from Unit Two, and the neighboring Unit One reactor is being prepared for a possible return to service as the Crane Clean Energy Center. After thousands of pages of federal reports, a criminal prosecution, decades of litigation and the dismantling of a melted reactor core, some of the most basic questions surrounding Three Mile Island remain unresolved—including who closed two critical valves that should have been open on the morning the accident began. Email Brian Join Our FREE Newsletter Get Brian's Books Leave Us A Voicemail Visit Our Website Have a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation? Send your suggestions to brian@paranormalworldproductions.com. Disturbing 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.

    Three Mile Island Meltdown

  2. 1d ago • Subscribers Only

    Three Mile Island Meltdown-Ad Free Vault Access

    On March 28, 1979, at 4:00 a.m., a relief valve at Three Mile Island opened as designed—and then failed to close. For more than two hours, operators believed it had shut because the control-room indicator showed the electrical command, not the valve’s actual position. By the time the mistake was understood, roughly half the fuel in Unit Two had melted.The men in the control room did not know how bad it was. Neither did the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The full extent of the damage would not be confirmed until engineers lowered a camera into the reactor vessel three years later and found a five-foot void where the top of the core had once been. In this episode of Disturbing History, Brian goes beyond the familiar story of America’s worst commercial nuclear accident and into the warnings, failures and unanswered questions that came before and after it.Eighteen months before the meltdown, another Babcock & Wilcox reactor at Davis-Besse experienced a nearly identical stuck-open relief valve. Engineers warned that operators could misread the signs of a loss-of-coolant accident and shut down emergency cooling at exactly the wrong moment. One NRC inspector was concerned enough to travel to Washington on his own time just six days before Three Mile Island to warn commissioners that something was badly wrong. The Kemeny Commission later concluded that the correct operating guidance was never passed along to the utilities.The episode reconstructs the accident minute by minute: the closed emergency feedwater valves, the overwhelming alarm system, the printer that fell so far behind that critical records were lost, temperature readings above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit that operators dismissed as impossible, and a hydrogen burn inside containment that was initially written off as an instrument problem. Then the crisis moved beyond the plant. Conflicting radiation readings, contradictory public statements and confusion inside state and federal agencies turned Three Mile Island into a communications disaster. Governor Dick Thornburgh advised pregnant women and young children within five miles of the plant to leave. Roughly 144,000 people ultimately evacuated the surrounding area. The episode also examines the infamous hydrogen bubble, the federal scramble to obtain potassium iodide because no national stockpile existed, and the radiation readings that appeared, disappeared or were later disputed. And then there was the criminal investigation.Less than two months after the accident, control-room operator Harold Hartman told federal investigators that Metropolitan Edison had been falsifying reactor coolant leak-rate data before the meltdown to avoid shutting the plant down for repairs. Federal prosecutors later sharply criticized the NRC’s handling of the allegations. In 1983, a grand jury indicted Metropolitan Edison on charges involving falsified tests and destroyed records. The company eventually pleaded guilty, becoming the only American nuclear utility convicted of a criminal offense. The final portion of the episode turns to the question that remains the most controversial: what happened to the people living around the plant? Residents reported metallic tastes, skin irritation, nausea, hair loss and dead animals. Official estimates said offsite radiation doses were far too low to cause acute radiation sickness. Decades of epidemiological studies have produced conflicting interpretations, with some finding no convincing cancer link and others identifying patterns that warranted further investigation. Thousands of personal injury claims were eventually dismissed because plaintiffs could not prove exposure above the required legal threshold.Nearly half a century later, the physical story of Three Mile Island still is not finished. Much of the damaged core remains stored in Idaho, some radioactive material is still being removed from Unit Two, and the neighboring Unit One reactor is being prepared for a possible return to service a

    Three Mile Island Meltdown-Ad Free Vault Access

  3. 2d ago

    The "True Story" Of The Mayan Calendar

    On July 12, 1562, in the Yucatán town of Maní, Franciscan friar Diego de Landa ordered Maya books, sacred objects, and religious images gathered in front of the church and burned. The destruction came at the end of a brutal campaign in which thousands of Maya people were interrogated, many under torture, and more than 150 died. But the story of Diego de Landa is more complicated than the fire he ordered.In this episode, Brian follows the strange trail left behind by one of the most consequential acts of cultural destruction in the history of the Americas, because the same man responsible for burning Maya texts also produced a manuscript that, centuries later, helped scholars begin deciphering Maya writing. From there, the episode separates the Maya civilization preserved in the archaeological record from the version that has taken shape in popular culture. Brian examines the 260-day ritual calendar that never truly disappeared, the origins of the Long Count, and the extraordinary inscriptions at Yaxchilán depicting royal bloodletting as an act of political and spiritual power. He follows the arrival of foreign warriors at Tikal in 378, the capture and beheading of Copán’s king, and new DNA evidence from Chichén Itzá that overturned the familiar legend of sacrificed maidens and replaced it with a far more disturbing reality. The episode also dismantles the 2012 apocalypse story using the Maya inscriptions themselves and looks at what archaeologists now understand about the so-called Maya collapse: prolonged drought, warfare, political breakdown, abandoned cities, and evidence of communities burning long-established centers as the old order came apart. But the Maya story did not end when the great cities emptied, and it did not end with the Spanish conquest. Brian follows that history through the Caste War of Yucatán, into the twentieth-century violence documented by Guatemala’s truth commission, and finally to the daykeepers of Momostenango, where the ancient count of days is still being maintained today. This is not simply the story of a civilization that disappeared.It is the story of what was deliberately destroyed, what endured in spite of it, and how centuries later we finally began to understand the difference. Email Brian Join Our FREE Newsletter Get Brian's Books Leave Us A Voicemail Visit Our Website Have a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation? Send your suggestions to brian@paranormalworldproductions.com. Disturbing 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 "True Story" Of The Mayan Calendar

  4. 3d ago • Subscribers Only

    The "True Story" Of The Mayan Calendar Ad Free Vault Access

    On July 12, 1562, in the Yucatán town of Maní, Franciscan friar Diego de Landa ordered Maya books, sacred objects, and religious images gathered in front of the church and burned. The destruction came at the end of a brutal campaign in which thousands of Maya people were interrogated, many under torture, and more than 150 died. But the story of Diego de Landa is more complicated than the fire he ordered.In this episode, Brian follows the strange trail left behind by one of the most consequential acts of cultural destruction in the history of the Americas, because the same man responsible for burning Maya texts also produced a manuscript that, centuries later, helped scholars begin deciphering Maya writing. From there, the episode separates the Maya civilization preserved in the archaeological record from the version that has taken shape in popular culture. Brian examines the 260-day ritual calendar that never truly disappeared, the origins of the Long Count, and the extraordinary inscriptions at Yaxchilán depicting royal bloodletting as an act of political and spiritual power. He follows the arrival of foreign warriors at Tikal in 378, the capture and beheading of Copán’s king, and new DNA evidence from Chichén Itzá that overturned the familiar legend of sacrificed maidens and replaced it with a far more disturbing reality. The episode also dismantles the 2012 apocalypse story using the Maya inscriptions themselves and looks at what archaeologists now understand about the so-called Maya collapse: prolonged drought, warfare, political breakdown, abandoned cities, and evidence of communities burning long-established centers as the old order came apart. But the Maya story did not end when the great cities emptied, and it did not end with the Spanish conquest. Brian follows that history through the Caste War of Yucatán, into the twentieth-century violence documented by Guatemala’s truth commission, and finally to the daykeepers of Momostenango, where the ancient count of days is still being maintained today. This is not simply the story of a civilization that disappeared.It is the story of what was deliberately destroyed, what endured in spite of it, and how centuries later we finally began to understand the difference. Email Brian Join Our FREE Newsletter Get Brian's Books Leave Us A Voicemail Visit Our Website

    The "True Story" Of The Mayan Calendar Ad Free Vault Access

  5. 5d ago

    The Challenger Disaster

    On the night of January 27, 1986, a Morton Thiokol engineer named Allan McDonald refused to sign a document saying it was safe to launch the space shuttle Challenger the next morning. The engineers who built the shuttle's solid rocket boosters had recommended against flying in temperatures colder than 53 degrees, then reversed themselves after a 30-minute private caucus in which a vice president was told to take off his engineering hat and put on his management hat. The launch went ahead at 11:38 a.m. in 36-degree weather, and 73 seconds later Challenger came apart on live television. In this episode, Brian opens with his own memory of watching the launch as a 12-year-old home sick from school, on one of the few channels carrying it live, and then goes into the record most people have never read. He follows the paper trail from Roger Boisjoly's July 1985 memo warning of a catastrophe of the highest order, through the launch constraint that NASA's own booster manager imposed and then waived five flights in a row, to the ice team's disputed 8-degree reading on the right booster before dawn. He walks through the teleconference and the caucus using the sworn testimony of the men who were in the room, and explains why the people with authority to scrub the launch that morning had never heard the words O-ring in connection with it.The second half of the episode covers what the official record says about the crew after the breakup, drawn from the July 1986 report by physician and astronaut Joseph Kerwin. The crew compartment stayed intact, climbed to 65,000 feet, and took 2 minutes and 45 seconds to reach the water. Four emergency air packs were recovered and three had been switched on, including pilot Mike Smith's, which someone seated behind him would have had to reach back and activate. Three lever-lock switches on Smith's panel had been moved from their launch positions. Brian keeps to what the physical evidence supports and stops where Kerwin stopped. The episode also tells the story of how the Rogers Commission found out about the Thiokol recommendation only after a NASA budget analyst leaked documents to the New York Times and McDonald stood up in a closed hearing to say NASA wasn't telling the whole story.  It covers Richard Feynman's ice water demonstration and the phone call from Sally Ride that set it up, a detail General Donald Kutyna kept secret for 26 years. It follows McDonald and Boisjoly home to Utah, where both men were reassigned within weeks of testifying, and traces what the rest of their lives looked like. Bob Ebeling, the engineer who first raised the alarm about the forecast, spent 30 years blaming himself and received a letter from one of the NASA managers who had overruled him two months before he died. The episode closes on the wreckage sealed inside two abandoned Minuteman missile silos at Cape Canaveral, the pieces the ocean has kept returning as recently as 2022, and Barbara Morgan, the backup teacher who watched from the ground with the families and flew to the International Space Station 21 years later. Email Brian Join Our FREE Newsletter Get Brian's Books Leave Us A Voicemail Visit Our Website Have a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation? Send your suggestions to brian@paranormalworldproductions.com. Disturbing 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 Challenger Disaster

  6. Aug 24 • Subscribers Only

    The Challenger Disaster-Ad Free Early Vault Access

    On the night of January 27, 1986, a Morton Thiokol engineer named Allan McDonald refused to sign a document saying it was safe to launch the space shuttle Challenger the next morning. The engineers who built the shuttle's solid rocket boosters had recommended against flying in temperatures colder than 53 degrees, then reversed themselves after a 30-minute private caucus in which a vice president was told to take off his engineering hat and put on his management hat. The launch went ahead at 11:38 a.m. in 36-degree weather, and 73 seconds later Challenger came apart on live television. In this episode, Brian opens with his own memory of watching the launch as a 12-year-old home sick from school, on one of the few channels carrying it live, and then goes into the record most people have never read. He follows the paper trail from Roger Boisjoly's July 1985 memo warning of a catastrophe of the highest order, through the launch constraint that NASA's own booster manager imposed and then waived five flights in a row, to the ice team's disputed 8-degree reading on the right booster before dawn. He walks through the teleconference and the caucus using the sworn testimony of the men who were in the room, and explains why the people with authority to scrub the launch that morning had never heard the words O-ring in connection with it.The second half of the episode covers what the official record says about the crew after the breakup, drawn from the July 1986 report by physician and astronaut Joseph Kerwin. The crew compartment stayed intact, climbed to 65,000 feet, and took 2 minutes and 45 seconds to reach the water. Four emergency air packs were recovered and three had been switched on, including pilot Mike Smith's, which someone seated behind him would have had to reach back and activate. Three lever-lock switches on Smith's panel had been moved from their launch positions. Brian keeps to what the physical evidence supports and stops where Kerwin stopped. The episode also tells the story of how the Rogers Commission found out about the Thiokol recommendation only after a NASA budget analyst leaked documents to the New York Times and McDonald stood up in a closed hearing to say NASA wasn't telling the whole story.  It covers Richard Feynman's ice water demonstration and the phone call from Sally Ride that set it up, a detail General Donald Kutyna kept secret for 26 years. It follows McDonald and Boisjoly home to Utah, where both men were reassigned within weeks of testifying, and traces what the rest of their lives looked like. Bob Ebeling, the engineer who first raised the alarm about the forecast, spent 30 years blaming himself and received a letter from one of the NASA managers who had overruled him two months before he died. The episode closes on the wreckage sealed inside two abandoned Minuteman missile silos at Cape Canaveral, the pieces the ocean has kept returning as recently as 2022, and Barbara Morgan, the backup teacher who watched from the ground with the families and flew to the International Space Station 21 years later. Email Brian Join Our FREE Newsletter Get Brian's Books Leave Us A Voicemail Visit Our Website

    The Challenger Disaster-Ad Free Early Vault Access

  7. Aug 23

    The Silver Bridge Collapse

    On December 15, 1967, ten days before Christmas, the Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant, West Virginia collapsed into the Ohio River during rush hour, killing 46 people. Federal investigators traced the disaster to a single cracked steel bar, eyebar 330, with a hidden flaw about one tenth of an inch deep that had been growing for four decades inside a joint no inspector could see. That's the documented story.  The other story says a winged creature with red eyes had been warning the town for thirteen months.In this episode, Brian takes apart the Mothman legend and puts the real history back in the middle. Drawing on his sixteen years in law enforcement, he walks through the original November 1966 sighting by the Scarberry and Mallette couples, the deputy who vouched for their sincerity, and the newspaper headline that couldn't decide what to call the thing. He follows the story through the abandoned World War II munitions plant known as the TNT area, the armed crowds that nearly turned a monster hunt into a tragedy, the sandhill crane and owl explanations, and the national UFO hysteria of 1966 that primed the whole country for a mystery in West Virginia. Then the episode turns to the two writers who welded the monster to the disaster years after the fact. Gray Barker, a documented hoaxer from Clarksburg who invented much of the men in black mythology, published the first book connecting the creature to the collapse in 1970.  John Keel followed in 1975 with The Mothman Prophecies, built around a prediction that, by his own account, foretold the wrong disaster entirely. Brian examines why the prophecy fails as evidence, what the engineering record actually shows about why the bridge fell, how the collapse rewrote bridge inspection law for the entire country, and how a grieving river town eventually turned its strangest inheritance into an economy. The episode closes with Mary Hyre, the local reporter who documented everything as it happened and died before any of it became a legend. Email Brian Join Our FREE Newsletter Get Brian's Books Leave Us A Voicemail Visit Our Website Have a forgotten historical mystery, disturbing event, unsolved crime, or hidden conspiracy you think deserves investigation? Send your suggestions to brian@paranormalworldproductions.com. Disturbing 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 Silver Bridge Collapse

  8. Aug 23 • Subscribers Only

    The Silver Bridge Collapse-Ad Free Vault Access

    On December 15, 1967, ten days before Christmas, the Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant, West Virginia collapsed into the Ohio River during rush hour, killing 46 people. Federal investigators traced the disaster to a single cracked steel bar, eyebar 330, with a hidden flaw about one tenth of an inch deep that had been growing for four decades inside a joint no inspector could see. That's the documented story.  The other story says a winged creature with red eyes had been warning the town for thirteen months.In this episode, Brian takes apart the Mothman legend and puts the real history back in the middle. Drawing on his sixteen years in law enforcement, he walks through the original November 1966 sighting by the Scarberry and Mallette couples, the deputy who vouched for their sincerity, and the newspaper headline that couldn't decide what to call the thing. He follows the story through the abandoned World War II munitions plant known as the TNT area, the armed crowds that nearly turned a monster hunt into a tragedy, the sandhill crane and owl explanations, and the national UFO hysteria of 1966 that primed the whole country for a mystery in West Virginia. Then the episode turns to the two writers who welded the monster to the disaster years after the fact. Gray Barker, a documented hoaxer from Clarksburg who invented much of the men in black mythology, published the first book connecting the creature to the collapse in 1970.  John Keel followed in 1975 with The Mothman Prophecies, built around a prediction that, by his own account, foretold the wrong disaster entirely. Brian examines why the prophecy fails as evidence, what the engineering record actually shows about why the bridge fell, how the collapse rewrote bridge inspection law for the entire country, and how a grieving river town eventually turned its strangest inheritance into an economy. The episode closes with Mary Hyre, the local reporter who documented everything as it happened and died before any of it became a legend. Email Brian Join Our FREE Newsletter Get Brian's Books Leave Us A Voicemail Visit Our Website

    The Silver Bridge Collapse-Ad Free Vault Access
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4.9
out of 5
41 Ratings

About

Disturbing History is a dark history podcast uncovering the strange, sinister, and little-known stories the past tried to bury. Each week, we explore unsolved mysteries, secret societies, forgotten crimes, eerie folklore, lost civilizations, historical conspiracies, and disturbing events that never made it into your high school textbook .Hosted by author, investigator, and storyteller Brian King-Sharp, Disturbing History dives deep into: Unsolved historical mysteriesSecret societies and hidden power structuresDark folklore and urban legendsLost colonies and vanished civilizationsTrue crime cases buried by timeHistorical conspiracies and cover-upsParanormal events rooted in real historyThrough immersive storytelling and investigative research, we uncover the shadowy corners of the past — the uncomfortable truths, forgotten tragedies, and disturbing secrets that shaped our world.If you’re fascinated by dark history, obsessed with unexplained events, or drawn to stories that blur the line between fact and legend, this podcast is for you. Because the past isn’t always dead. Sometimes it’s just been buried. Follow Disturbing History and turn on automatic downloads for weekly deep dives into history’s most unsettling stories.

Information

  • Creator
    Disturbing History-True Stories
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    282
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Paranormal World Productions LLC
  • Show Website
    Disturbing History
  • Provider
    Brian King-Sharp

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