Ghosts of DC

On June 4, 1970, a former bakery truck driver from Phoenix named Arthur Barkley hijacked TWA Flight 486 and demanded $100 million from the U.S. Supreme Court. All over a $471.78 tax bill he owed. The jet landed at Dulles twice, and the second time, airport police were waiting with deer rifles.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2019/09/03/dulles-airport-hijacking/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

In 1908, a retired Washington policeman named William West said he was the only officer who ever arrested a President: Ulysses S. Grant, for racing his horses up 13th Street in 1872. We went looking for that arrest in the papers of 1872, and found something else.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2014/03/04/ulysses-grant-arrested-speeding/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

On a Saturday night in May 1975, a rock band set up in the East Room of the White House, after the Secret Service had searched every instrument case. It was Susan Ford's senior prom, and as far as anyone can tell, the only prom the White House has ever had.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2012/02/07/senior-prom-at-the-white-house/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

In the fall of 1971, a puppy named Ginger turned up dead and headless near Fletchertown Road in Old Bowie, Maryland. The neighbors blamed the Goatman. But until a few days earlier, his stories had come from the other end of Prince George's County.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2023/11/03/maryland-goatman-legend-bowie/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

In August 1949, a Washington newspaper reported that a priest had freed a Mount Rainier, Maryland, boy from possession by the devil. For years, the story behind The Exorcist pointed to a lot on Bunker Hill Road. The family never lived in Mount Rainier at all.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2026/10/29/exorcist-1949-mount-rainier-cottage-city/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

For decades, a sign on Georgetown's Old Stone House said George Washington had used it as his headquarters. He hadn't. That mistake may be the reason the house survived a used car lot, a congressman who wanted to sell it, and the ghost stories that came later.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2026/10/07/old-stone-house-georgetown-haunted/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

On two Saturday nights in July 1952, radar at National Airport and Andrews Air Force Base tracked targets nobody could identify, some of them over the White House and the Capitol. Pilots saw lights, jets were scrambled, and the Pentagon called its biggest press conference since World War II to blame the weather.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2018/02/26/flying-saucers-capitol-white-house/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

Just upriver from Key Bridge sit three little rocks called the Three Sisters. Since at least the 1890s, people have said they moan before someone drowns. In 1968, Congress ordered a freeway bridge built right on top of them, no matter what any court decided. Construction actually started.

This episode draws on two posts. The legend: https://ghostsofdc.org/2013/10/04/three-sisters-legend/

The bridge fight: https://ghostsofdc.org/2015/04/13/never-built-three-sisters-bridge-across-potomac/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

Every bit of Hains Point was river bottom or mud flat until 1882, when an Army engineer named Peter Hains started pumping the Potomac's mud into new land. The point got his name while he was still alive, and the river has been trying to take it back ever since.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2022/04/08/why-is-it-named-hains-point/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

In December 1980, U2 played its second American show at a Georgetown club tucked under the Whitehurst Freeway, as the opening act. Decades earlier, the same room had a pirate brig for argumentative dates, and a 1951 shooting with two police officers inside.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2026/06/06/the-bayou-dc/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

Just before 3 a.m. on November 10, 1984, the dancers at Benny's on 14th Street took the stage for the last time. The 1977 law written to keep Washington from ever having another red light district had spent years protecting this one.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2012/05/07/14th-street-red-light-district-washington-dc/

This episode discusses the history of adult businesses on 14th Street.

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

In August 1930, the Tabard Inn near Dupont Circle went up for auction. The high bidder was the woman who had started it, three years after she sold it.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2026/10/21/tabard-inn-history-1739-n-street/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

Adams Morgan isn't named for a president or a police chief. It's named for two elementary schools a block apart, one white and one Black, and the two principals who brought their neighbors together in 1955.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2022/03/16/named-adams-morgan/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

In June 1922, a 23-year-old Duke Ellington played a beauty contest at an amusement park in far Northeast DC. It was the only major amusement park ever built inside the city, and Black Washingtonians built it because Glen Echo wouldn't let them in.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2026/05/24/suburban-gardens-deanwood-black-amusement-park/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

In March 1791, George Washington met two feuding camps of landowners at a Georgetown tavern. Three days later he had the land for a capital, and he hadn't bought most of it.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2012/03/02/d-c-is-composed-of-land-from-19-original-owners/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

In 2019, engineers checked what was still holding up DC's last streetcar bridge. Their answer wasn't the steel.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2026/10/20/foundry-branch-trestle-last-streetcar-bridge/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

About 1,700 homes in Rosslyn have an expiration date. In 2052, the land under them goes back to the landlord, and the buildings go with it.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2026/06/15/river-place-rosslyn-arlington-towers/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

Walk north from Lafayette Square and the streets go H, I, K. For more than two hundred years, people have blamed a grudge against John Jay, but the man they blame never named a single street.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2013/01/30/why-is-there-no-j-street/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

In July 1911, the Washington Post reported that a man on the Potomac punched a shark on the nose. Days later, Alexandria's fishermen formed the Society for the Suppression of Man-Eating Fish.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2012/07/09/sharks-potomac/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.

In December 1963, the British Embassy told a DC disc jockey it couldn't help him get a Beatles record. Two months later, the band played its first American concert at Washington Coliseum, and the embassy threw them a party.

Full story, photos and sources: https://ghostsofdc.org/2012/01/06/beatles-first-concert-washington-coliseum/

Narrated by an AI version of Tom's voice. AI also helps research and write the scripts; facts are checked against the original sources, and Tom reviews the episodes.