Mystery Mountain

Mystery Mountain is Haley and Sierra working through one mystery at a time, with one of them carrying the research and the other hearing it out and reacting. Conversation comes first. Openings go to catch-up: a hunt for enough quarters to do laundry, dead earbuds, a heated pad, weeks spent in different time zones, and once an impromptu Adele rendition in place of the usual clap. Then the case starts, and the detail sharpens. In 'Ep. 49: Paula Welden', the telling follows a search her father widened by bringing in Connecticut and New York State Police. Ground and air searches reached Glastonbury Mountain and Route 9 between Bennington and Brattleboro, at a time when Vermont had no state police. Then the strange leads arrive: a waitress in Fall River, Massachusetts, whose sighting turned out not to be Paula, and a train conductor who claimed to have seen her in South Carolina. 'Ep. 51: James, Paul, and Frieda' stays in the same corner of the map. Part of it follows James, a veteran of two wars who came home to find his wife gone, fell into depression and moved into the Bennington soldiers home, then headed back there from St. Albans on December 1, 1949. That date, the telling points out, is exactly three years after Paula Welden, a small link between two files. 'Ep. 50: Carl Herrick and Middie Rivers' holds a stranger death: a man crushed, with a bear as the first explanation, and a detour through Giles Corey and the Salem witch trials as the only comparison that comes to mind. The Mothman runs across 'Ep. 52: The Mothman part 1' and 'Ep. 53: The Mothman part 2', split because the recording ran long. Part one stays with the paperwork. Couples who saw something turned back and reported it around 2 a.m. at the Mason County Courthouse to Deputy Millard Halstead, who believed them, and police had each witness write a statement in a separate room. Those written reports can be seen at the Mothman Museum, which prompts talk of a return to Point Pleasant in a Mothman onesie. Part two weighs mass hysteria, using a dancing plague in medieval Europe as the comparison. 'Ep. 54: Duncan MacPherson' has a quieter hook. An instructor keeps a student's sweater to return at the next lesson, and when Duncan never shows, he figures it is just another tourist skipping a second day. Asides are part of the texture, like a riff on the X rebrand that stops short with the note that this is not a podcast about Elon Musk's behavior. The pair are open about gaps between episodes, apologizing for a hiatus in 'Ep. 49: Paula Welden' and thanking listeners for their patience in 'Ep. 54: Duncan MacPherson'. Sign-offs typically ask for story suggestions by email, plug the show's X account and end on the promise to see everyone next time on Mystery Mountain. It suits someone who likes a case told with care by two people plainly at ease with each other.