BURIED ALIVE!

American Hysteria

W!ZARD Studios

Society & Culture

4.4 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the 19th century, America and Europe experienced a panic over premature burial, believing that anyone could be accidentally declared dead and entombed before their time was really up. Led by a movement of quacky Spiritualists, the panic culminated in the creation of safety coffins with mechanisms that promised to save anyone who awoke six feet underground. Mere decades later, burial artists began performing all over America as a part of advertising gimmicks. They spent months underground in decked-out coffins, and the public could pay a dime to look down a viewing chute and see these "living corpses." For this Halloween special, we'll look at the panic-turned-spectacle of the American fear of being buried alive. Get tickets for A MASSIVE SEANCE Live Show with You're Wrong About: linktr.ee/amassiveseance Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline or get your mitts on some merch at americanhysteria.com Sound Designer and Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler Voice Actor: Will Rogers Written, Produced, and Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Exclusively on Disney Plus.
0:02.0	It's hard and it's brutal and that's what makes it special.
0:06.0	The multi-award winning series, FX's The Bear, is back for a brand new season.
0:11.0	Upon my signal, unleash hell.
0:15.0	And every second counts.
0:17.0	When that shows zero, this restaurant ceases operations.
0:21.8	FX is the bear.
0:23.1	New season now streaming exclusively on Disney Plus.
0:27.0	18 plus subscription required season C's apply.
0:34.1	On this podcast, we explore fantastical thinking, moral panics, urban legends, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and crazes, examine the forces that shape our culture, and tell the stories that create the realities we share, and sometimes the realities we don't.
0:56.1	I'm your ghost, Chelsea Weber Smith, and this is American Hiscaria.
1:05.0	1,000 people buried alive by their best friends.
1:09.5	They had a string tied to their fingers that come above ground and tied to a bell.
1:13.2	People paying a dollar to see a man in love with death.
1:16.3	It sure beats being buried alive under a used car lot.
1:25.4	If you were to wander through the headstones of the Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut,
1:32.6	maybe this very Halloween, you would eventually come across a strange sight in this otherwise unremarkable graveyard.
1:42.9	It's a large raised cement square, the final resting place of Dr. Timothy
1:49.1	Clark Smith, who died suddenly in 1893. In the center of the square is what appears to be a window
1:58.8	into the ground, with a thick pane of glass, now gone green and forever foggy with time.
2:07.3	But if you lived in the 19th century and were wandering through this very cemetery, maybe on Halloween,
2:15.2	you would have seen something quite different if you got down on your knees to peer into the grave's window.
	...

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