In this episode of Haunted Cosmos, we learned that no dog is safe from the ATF, and I learn that I have an astonishing amount in common with known cult leader David Koresh.

This episode is brought to you by Zilli Creative Works, bringing you face-to-face family fun that is fierce, fast, and affordable.

The world is not just stuff.

Minus 111.9. The widely publicized mystery of the flying softers may soon be solved. By the time we're done telling you the sad tale at the heart of today's episode of Haunted Cosmos,

you'll likely stand back from the cast of characters and ask, can all of them lose?

And in a way, that is exactly what happened just outside the city limits of Waco,

Texas. The year was 1987. It was a black night in East Texas. The wind whipped like a slave

driver's lash between the gray headstones that passed beneath George Rodden's plotting feet.

In his right hand, he held a shovel, and his left, a gas lantern.

He wasn't looking for just any grave. It had to be old enough not to upset his followers too

deeply, but recent enough to still mean something to them. After more than an hour of reading

epitaphs and narrowing down his options, he found one that seemed to fit. He set the lantern on a nearby marker and began to dig.

The work was slow, grueling.

Every time he wiped his brow with a dirt-streaked sleeve,

a new smear formed, aging him by what seemed like decades.

By the end, his shirt clung to his body and soaked through.

His pants were heavy with the thick wet air. When the hole was finally finished, he collapsed onto its rim breathless.

The lantern's glow was now blocked by the edge of the pit, cloaking the grave's contents in a

velvety darkness. After catching his breath, Rodden remained there, almost immobile with exhaustion.

The wind still hadn't let up. It began to push his damp shirt against his freshly dried skin,

sending a chill through his body. He took it as his cue to get back to work. After all,

he wasn't done. Not yet. He climbed out of the hole, grabbed the lantern, and knelt again. Now the light showed everything, the rotting wood, the hand from the old dried-out corpse, fallen out of a hole in the coffin. Even in death, this nobody, for that was how Rodden thought of him, had been a victim of rats. Rodden jumped down into the grave and stood at the coffin's head.

...