Is This a Ghost?  By  cover art

Is This a Ghost?

By: Clayton Smith and Patrick Dean
  • Summary

  • A real podcast about real ghosts that's real funny.

    Clayton Smith and Patrick Dean
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Episodes
  • 101. LaLaurie Mansion
    May 1 2024

    Well this one's uncomfortable! Our Facebook fans chose this story over a nice, quaint, non-brutal story that didn't make us cringe. Thanks a lot, Facebook fans. It's not often we kick off the show with a content warning!

    This is the story of the LaLaurie Mansion. Come for the ghosts, stay for the right amount of porn for LinkedIn, Dark Patrick, rated "B" for "butane," pre-dinging the dong, bones for tapas, the Full White, and the Taco Bell menu of kids' names.

    Sources:

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine_LaLaurie
    • https://www.frenchquarterphantoms.com/blog/the-real-story-behind-the-lalaurie-mansion-new-orleans-most-haunted-home
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution
    • https://www.outlookindia.com/art-entertainment/nicolas-cage-confirms-he-had-multi-million-dollar-debt-blames-it-on-real-estate-crash-news-281114
    • https://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/comments/c4st4w/working_at_the_lalaurie_house/
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • 100. Two Haunts and a Flaunt (Centennial Edition!)
    Apr 24 2024

    It is somehow our 100th episode! *noisemaker sound* Who knew there were so many ghosts in the world? To celebrate our centennial, Clayton has a surprise for Patrick -- he's turning the tables with his own version of Two Haunts and a Flaunt! But this time, there's a twist. The three stories are all revisitations of stories we've already shared. That's right...new ghosts from old haunts!

    Then, after the stories, unpaid intern Jen Swanson joins the guys for a bit of trivia, a dash of Would You Rather?, and a touch of personal reflection from the last 100 episodes.

    This is the 100th episode of Is This a Ghost? Come for the ghosts, stay for the scream of a child (as it were), tobaccopreneurship, a little leg bed, the coriander did it, 10 cc’s of soy sauce please, infants can stack, why is my brain flapping?, Kool-Aid and Takis and all the thwocking and the copping.

    Sources:

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Seward
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Abraham_Lincoln
    • https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Surratt
    • https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/ruth-dodge.html
    • https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/ghost-of-titanic-survivor-haunts-cellar-on-nob-3326890.php
    • https://sfmuseum.org/hist5/dodge6.html
    • https://www.geographicus.com/P/ctgy&Category_Code=dodgewashington

    Additional audio:

    • aww.wav by phmiller42 -- https://freesound.org/s/124996/ -- License: Creative Commons 0
    • Correct.wav by CogFireStudios -- https://freesound.org/s/421002/ -- License: Creative Commons 0
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    1 hr and 47 mins
  • 99. The Hatchet Lady of Red Rocks
    Apr 17 2024

    Do you love good music, chill vibes, natural beauty, and an axe-wielding elderly ghost? Then Red Rocks might be the venue for you.

    This is the story of The Hatchet Lady of Red Rocks. Come for the ghost, stay for a nice little preview of the heat death of the universe, never forget (your birthday), this Tom Cruise-ass life, the Phish residency, behavior plus axe, and my hatchet kink.

    Sources:

    • https://coloradostories.online/colorado-connie-blog/f/the-hatchet-lady-of-morrison?blogcategory=Morrison+Colorado+Legend
    • https://www.longmontleader.com/regional-news/bones-in-our-backyard-3-true-horrific-happenings-in-colorados-history-5922661
    • https://puzzleboxhorror.com/the-hatchet-lady-of-red-rocks-urban-legend/
    • https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/colorado/denver/creepy-legend-red-rocks-denver/
    • https://www.denverpost.com/2016/06/02/seventy-five-facts-about-red-rocks/
    • http://americashauntedroadtrip.com/tag/hatchet-lady-of-red-rocks/
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brisben_Walker
    • https://morrisonhistory.org/people/john-brisben-walker/

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    51 mins

What listeners say about Is This a Ghost?

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

makes me laugh out loud

This podcast makes me want to get drunk and have conversations with my friends 😂 I will listen with a headphone in while doing chores and my kids keep asking what I'm laughing at. A great podcast for anyone that enjoys paranormal/history stories but also has a dark humor.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Ghost stories for interest, not scares

I enjoyed listening to this podcast over a long distance road trip I was doing alone. I'm not super into podcasts in general, because I often find podcaster people annoying and, mostly, I don't love having to listen to a conversation I can't take part in. But I loved Cartalk back in the day, so that's an example of a talk radio show I enjoyed. I'm guessing this is not really a show for super ghost obsessives, since they are very open about not doing tons of reasearch, but it is good enough to tell an absorbing story and they note the stuff that could stand more investigation, if you want to do it. They also tell a lot of stories I've never heard before, which is refreshing. They hit some of the big, famous ones, of course, but also go into a lot of smaller, more off the wall ones as well, which I really enjoy. I find ghost stories super interesting, but when I'm driving for hours alone, especially at night, I don't need to be freaked out. They go on so many tangents and get distracted by the randomest details, that it's very difficult to get genuinely scared. It is, however, entertaining and they have a friendly vibe. I subtracted a star on a less important rating because sometimes the meandering tangents are genuinely too long, especially the ones about their personal lives.

Other points of note: I appreciate Patrick's effort to "fix" some of the misguided phrasing of things, such as when a sexual relationship between a slave and her owner is termed an "affair" by a reputable news source and he insists on calling it assault. It is hopeful when people doing things in the public eye/media etc. learn to be better and call out mistakes like this (yes, it is generous to call them mistakes). Secondly, I very much enjoy Clayton's appreciation of the ridiculous. The more absurd and, frankly, dumb the situation gets, the more he savors it, which gives me vicarious chuckles. Third, they have serious geek cred, which they reveal incidentally, for the most part, like when Clayton makes a semi obscure He-Man reference or when he admits his celebrity crush is on Tatiana Maslany (She Hulk). I own a Bubbah Hotep dvd and saw it on the big screen in Chicago hosted by Bruce Campbell in person, so I feel like they're kinda my people (Patrick has a signed poster from the movie).

Overall, definitely five stars. My favourite story so far is the one about the ghost hole. I love that and think it needs to be a plot device in a mystery novel.

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