RedHanded - DAY 8: Centralia - The Real Silent Hill (ShortHand’s 13 Days of Halloween)

Episode Date: October 25, 2025

In the last 13 days before Halloween, a different ShortHand will rise from the archives for 24 hours only – before disappearing back into the vault. Get exclusive access to every ShortHand episode ad free only on Amazon Music Unlimited.--A fire has been raging under the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, for more than 60 years – and it’s nowhere near done.After the vast underground coal deposits under the former mining town caught alight, sinkholes in the road opened up into flaming pits, billowing thick smoke through town. Toxic fumes seeped up through the floorboards and poisoned people in their homes. And in the town’s cemeteries, the flames even reached up from below and swallowed up the dead themselves…Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, Please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600, to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Scams are everywhere. On your phone, in your inbox, even on your television screen. Looking at you, Tinder Swindler. What is it about scams that has pop culture so obsessed? Maybe it's because it could happen to anyone. Or maybe it's because we're all so deeply fascinated by the psyche of someone who can lie with ease, cheat with no guilt, and convince the world that they are who they say they are, even when they're not. Scamfluencers is a weekly podcast that takes you into the world of deception, sharing the stories of today's most notorious scams.

Like the recent episode of Natalie Cochran, the pharmacist Fem Fetal. It seemed like she had it all. A good job, loving husband, and two kids. But behind the scenes, Natalie was scamming friends and family using fake contracts, fake government emails, and she even faked cancer. But when the wall start closing in, she'll do anything to keep the lie alive until someone ends up dead. Listen to scam influencers now, wherever you get your podcasts. Scams are everywhere, on your phone, in your inbox, even on your television screen. So what is it about scams that has pop culture so obsessed? Maybe it's because it can happen to anyone. Or maybe it's because we're all deeply fascinated by the psyche of someone who can lie with ease and cheat with no guilt.

Listen to scam influencers now wherever you get your podcasts. Hello there, spooky listener. It's October, our favorite time of the year. And so to celebrate and give you all a well-deserved treat, we're bringing you the 13 days of Halloween. Shorthand edition. Usually, every single week over on Amazon Music, we release brand new episodes of our bite-sized sister show, shorthand. It's like red-handed's little friend. Where we delve into all sorts of fascinating topics.

From hell in different religions, Haitian voodoo, the death of Edgar Allan Poe, Qatar's syndrome, Japan's suicide forest, and so much more. And this Halloween, from the 19th of October to the 31st of October, we are going to be pulling out 13 of our most terrifying episodes of Shorthand to drop straight into your red-handed feed every single day. But beware. Each episode will only be available for 24 hours.

So get listening or abandon or hope. Enjoy. Hello. Hello. And welcome to another episode. of Shorthand, but I'm pumped. It is, of course, a long-running, known piece of knowledge on this show that I love any sort of terrible horror film.

I refuse to watch any good films. I watch all the terrible ones. I'm going to say this one is a terrible one purely because I know people are going to tell me it is, though I disagree. Silent Hill, have you seen? Yeah, of course, it's a great film. Yeah, I think it's a great film. And, obviously, Ghost Town, Abandon Town.

Mm-hmm. Mother gets, you know, pushed into this town to look for her missing daughter. Centralia, the town, the real-life ghost town we're going to be talking about today, was in fact the inspiration for the town in Silent Hill. Okay. The town of Silent Hill. Well, sign me up. Let's go.

So on the 27th of May, 1962, the people of Centralia, Pennsylvania, were getting ready for their Memorial Day celebrations. The town had been a bustling mining center for more than a hundred, years. It was a tight-knit community of thousands with shops, schools, theatres and bars. But now it stands silent. Maybe on a hill, but actually not. But it is definitely totally abandoned. Most of the buildings of Centralia have been demolished and everyone is gone. Why? Well, it's because a fire has been raging under the ground of Centralia for more. than 60 years. When the ocean of coal under Centralia caught a light, it started a fire that couldn't be

tamed. Sinkholes opened up, spewing smoke and toxic gas, deep cracks burst through the main road and smoke billowed out of them. People were knocked out in their homes by toxic gas. And in the town cemeteries, the flames even reached up from below and swallowed up the dead themselves. Ooh. I mean, victim is corn. It really does look like, if you Google Centralia and have a little look at the pictures, it really does look like some sort of modern day hellscape situation.

Because there's just like smoke pouring out of cracks in the ground and like parts where you can see flames. Yeah, it's just a weird place. But there's also a picture that somebody's uploaded of what they've called a penis trail where somebody has just gone and drawn a bunch of penises on the ground and then written penis trail on it. So I hope it was worth all of the potentially toxic fumes. Well, it took to make that picture. Did you know that in Pompeii, it had the only brothel that we are aware of at all in ancient

Rome. Well, there you go. As like a structure. Sure. Because, I mean, prostitution definitely everywhere. But it was a specific building that was just brothel. And they think it was actually like a really disastrous economic experiment because they were like, oh, we have to run this brothel. Like it has overheads and costs and stuff. And like the sex workers are everywhere else and they're cheaper. That's why it's the only one. And I learned that on Betwixt the Sheets, which is Kate Lister's history show. Love it. I think she's a doctor of I don't know, sexy history or whatever. But she's Dan Snow's protégé.

I see. Anyway, I'm trying so hard to link Pompey and Inferno to lead me on into the next bit. And I can't do it. You can do it. I don't know if I can. Well, I'm going to try. Unlike the disaster at Pompeii, which had happened thousands of years ago,

the Inferno raging under Centralia in Pennsylvania, is nowhere near over. and this is the shorthand about it. Brilliant. Well done. Centralia is nestled among the rolling green hills of eastern Pennsylvania. With dense forests and the rugged Appalachian Mountains nearby, it's a picture-perfect small-town setting.

But it wasn't the natural beauty that first led settlers to set up there. It was what lay under the ground. Vast deposits of anthracite coal. So coal was first discovered in the area, in the early 19th century. The huge expanse of black gold they discovered underground became known as the mammoth vein. And it promised practically limitless wealth

to whoever could tap it first. In 1842, the land was bought by the Locust Mountain Coal and Iron Company. And soon, mining engineer Alexander McRae moved his family there and started drawing up plans for a town. Mining began in the 1850s and 16 years later, it was incorporated as a town. Practically all of the town's men spent most of their daylight hours

deep in the damp, dark pits underground. Above ground, at least, life was mostly good in Centralia. Neighbours watched out for each other, and the coal money was still afloin. Soon enough, there were seven churches, five hotels, 27 saloons, two theatres, a bank, a post office, and 14 grocery stores. and more than 2,700 people called Centralia home.

It's a terrible name. It is. I hate it. I don't know why. I just, I would even prefer like New Bournemouth, do you know what I mean? Yeah, it sounds more of a fake name than the fake town-it-inspired Silent Hill. Yeah, exactly. Like if I came across Centralia and some sort of media concept, I'd be like, try harder.

Yeah, it really does sound like the fake town and some sort of township came. Yes. Which I may not be mildly playing. Are you still doing that? No, I gave up on Farmville a long time ago. But I have been playing a lot of like words with friends, word games, Sudoku. And then every now and then it will interrupt my game. And this is how they get you, the marketing.

Then it lets you play like two minutes of township. And I'm like, that was fun. My business, my business. That was fun. So I started township. But the one that I cannot stand is white out. Have you seen it? No, I don't know what that.

It will interrupt a Sudoku game with like 60 seconds of Whiteout. And I was like, oh, okay, a new one, kind of like Township, let's play. It's you bludgeoning polar bears. Oh my God. And then selling their stakes. I was like, this is not one that I really want to play. So anyway. Oh, no.

Unless they want to sponsor us, in which case, sponsored by Whiteout. Do you know, polar bears are like 12 foot tall? Yeah. They're fucking huge. Kill you. Kill you. I was watching four in the bed yesterday. And it's like come dine with me.

but for B&B owners and one of the guys takes the group to a like a zoo and they've got polar bears and it's just weird because they've got polar bears in like a grassy enclosure

I was like I don't like seeing polar bears on grass like this feels weird and they were like we feed our lions we feed our tigers we go into those enclosures

the polar bear enclosure is the only one we do not go into we just throw the food over the fence and I was like yeah that makes sense I mean send them back to the North Pole let them be free just leave them alone

It's all melting, isn't it? And they're all starving to death up there, so maybe not. There's also that. But anyway, Centralia, sticking with the town at the core of our shorthand today, it was doing well. It even weathered the storm of the Great Depression, which was a huge blow to the coal industry, and saw five of the town's mines close.

Sidebar, these closures didn't stop bootleg miners from scurrying down and extracting coal from the pillars, however. up. Since those pillars had been left to keep the tunnel's roofs up, this pilfering led to all sorts of collapses. And this made the tunnel network harder to navigate. And just keep that knowledge in your little brain pocket for later. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital

rooms and doctor's offices. Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries, and each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and Mysteries. Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid.

We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well researched. Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group. With a touch of humor. Shout out to her.

Shout out to all my therapists out there's been like eight of them. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. That mother f***er is not real. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tail of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the way back machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious. You should tune in to our podcast. Morbid.

Follow Morbid on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and add free by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. And just before we get to the infamous day in question, it's important to quickly understand just what made people so darn hungry for coal. So, with your permission, picture this, an area that's full of plants and trees with ground that's totally waterlogged. When the plants die, they usually sink into the soil, and microorganisms get to work breaking down all that dead matter and converting it into energy. And then those organisms go elsewhere to die, etc. It goes on the circle of life, and it moves us all. but microorganisms

can I swim and here in our marshy little cops microorganisms just can't survive underwater so all of the dead plants just sit there unbroken down and start to pile up and eventually there's so many dead plants that it fills up the water and eventually the soil comes in to cover all of it up and then other vegetation grows on top and the wet plants get buried deep underground

And that pressure builds and builds under the weight of all of this new stuff on top. And all that dead plant energy is compressed into hard, carbon-rich, black rock. And that is what coal is. And because it's just densely packed old plants, coal burns super easily. And all that stored-up energy means it releases massive amounts of heat. Which makes it perfect to heat homes or even run large-scale electrical plants. the US has a lot of it 16 states

still mine coal today that's mad they've just got so much they've just got so much this is why they're like Russia whatever man we got our own oil gas and coal

we're fine they're fine we're fucked yes Pennsylvania alone provides 5% of the US is coal and that is because they have a lot of it

but also because the coal Pennsylvania has is good shit. Pennsylvania has a lot of anthracite, which is the hardest form of coal. Interesting. Yes, it's shiny jet black. It is absolutely bursting at the seams with carbon.

That means that it burns slower for longer, and it gets much, much hotter. And that, dear France, is what is under the ground at Centralia. And there's miles and miles and miles of it. So, now we know all of that, let's return to the day before Memorial Day in 1962. By this point, the people of Centralia have been excavating for over 100 years. That day, the townsfolk, were all very excited, getting ready for their Memorial Day celebrations.

Is Memorial Day War? Yeah. Something like that. Maybe it's like our... I don't know. I just think of War Memorial. Yeah. So maybe it's that.

Is it like the people who died in the two wars, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. The big war. That's what I... That's what I have decided. In the weeks leading up to the festivities, the council had promised the people of Centralia that they would clean up the streets.

So they sent tons of rubbish to the town's dumps. Many of those dumps were unregulated, just old abandoned mine pits that people were just throwing all sorts of shit into. The council, by law, was required to put a layer of... fire-resistant clay between the layers of landfill, but they were running behind and they didn't.

Anytime the smell of these massive landfills or the rat problem got too bad, then the council asked the fire service to help them get rid of all of the rubbish. And it seems obvious. But incredibly stupid, the fire service set all of the rubbish on fire. And just in case anybody needs telling

burning rubbish in the US is illegal but it is pretty damn effective it's a very quick way to deal with quite a large problem burning things is yeah whether it's evidence trash

tennis balls tennis balls if you are an 11 year old me it is very very effective in terms of getting rid of things and also just having you know a fun wholesome Saturday afternoon out with your friends but on this particular Sunday in this particular rubbish heap

there was one small but fairly predictable problem all the rubbish was piled over an open coal seam and although the mine had been abandoned it was still connected to the entire mammoth vein that we mentioned earlier

now it's probably important to say at this point that this is only one theory as to how the fire started another theory says that the previous day a trash whaler dumped hot ash or coal from coal burners into the open trash pit. And yet another theory says

that this fire under Centralia had actually been burning since 1932 and a fire at the nearby basque colliery which is much smaller had somehow spread to the pits under Centralia. But whatever started it, the people of Centralia have been living for a century on top of an ocean of fuel.

and unbeknownst to them, it had just been lit. The fire spread through the mine tunnels, snaking under Centralia's streets. Carbon monoxide levels soared through the mines, and they were all closed immediately. All of the budgey spontaneously died at the same instant. Attempts began to put out the fire pretty quickly. Firefighters pumped water onto underground flames and even tried to smother the blaze with clay,

but fire kept popping back up. Sinkholes would rip through the roads and billow thick smoke through the town. And because there were so many abandoned tunnels, and more than that, so many collapsed abandoned tunnels, navigating it all was almost impossible. And trying to find out which tunnels stoked the fire

and then closing them off was a fool's errand. So the fire was just left to burn. Over the next few years, obviously, it got worse. The town's residents, yes, believe it or not, most were still there by this point, started reporting health problems. Some reported losing consciousness while sitting in their homes. I'd say that's more than a health problem. I'd say you're in some pretty serious trouble.

They were losing consciousness because, like we said, carbon monoxide levels and also sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and methane was seeping through. the floorboards of their home. One mother moved to Seattle after a doctor told her that gases in her house were aggravating her son's kidney disease. Worse still, she had lost another son to the same kidney

disease a few years previously. So why on earth did anybody stay? Well, it wasn't just that these folks bloody loved their town. Some homeowners were told that the fire was going the other way and would be gone soon.

And others were convinced that it was all a plot by big coal to get them to sell off all their valuable land, which I can believe. Oh, easily. It's like that bit in Chernobyl where there's that little old lady and they're like, you have to leave

and she was like, no. Like, I've been here the whole time and now you're telling me to leave or something I can't even fucking see. Absolutely. And, you know, it's also like, even if they didn't believe in that sort of conspiracy or anything,

it's like, I'm sure a lot of them weren't just like, oh yeah, let me sell this house now that's on condemned land in a town that is going to become a ghost town. and then just goes, you know, start my new life somewhere else in the US. Like, I'm guessing for a lot of people in that town who the majority of them are coal miners, they're like, oh, we're ruined. We're financially ruined.

And if we leave, they're going to take it all? Yeah. But whatever people were told, whatever they thought, whatever they discussed amongst themselves, the proof of what was really going on only got more obvious. Rats were everywhere, driven from their burrows by the heat. In some spots, the ground itself reached more than 450 degrees Celsius. Fuck me, that's 900 Fahrenheit. Homes started to lean and sinkholes kept bursting through the centre of town. Cracks open straight down into cavernous flaming mining tunnels, and smoke filled the streets.

after the fire approached a six-inch natural gas pipeline under the road buses were placed on permanent call in case there was a need for an evacuation. I'd argue, do it now. Why are they still there? We're just going to wait for the gas line to blow up and then everyone can leave. In 1981, an article in People magazine read the following.

Even the dead cannot rest in peace. Graves in the town's two cemeteries are believed to have dropped into the abyss of fire that rages below them. And then, one day, February the same year, 12-year-old Todd Domboski was playing in his grandma's garden when the ground gave way beneath him. Todd grabbed on to some nearby tree roots as lethal levels of CO2 and hot plumes of steam billowed out of the ground. he was descending into a flaming open pit luckily his cousin found him and pulled him to safety and he did narrowly escape with his life

but I don't think you would ever get over that no I wonder if he'd done something real bad like not actually bad but like what a child would think was and he's like oh no I this is my penance Yeah, absolutely. It's like some left behind shirt. Yeah.

Anyway, after Todd fell through the earth, efforts to tackle the fire, once and for all, ramped up a bit. Clay was put over the surface to prevent oxygen reaching the fire. And firefighters pumped in water, rocks, and even a slurry of what's known as fly ash, which is ash from coal-burning fireplants. But it was still burning. by this point the fire had already been burning for 20 years so yes as we've sort of casually walked you through these situations told you a couple of stories please remember the timeline this has now been going on for two decades and just to put into perspective what they're trying to do obviously when they're trying to dump a bunch of ash and water and rocks and clay they're trying to suffocate the fire because our air is typically 21% oxygen but coal can burn in an atmosphere that's just one or 2% oxygen.

So, despite their best attempts, the likelihood of choking it out because it's a coal fire was slim. Plus, remember, it's not called the mammoth vein for nothing. There were miles and miles and miles of tunnels. Now, the council had already spent millions of dollars on endless attempts to contain this fire.

And in 1983, they gave up trying to contain it for good and simply surrendered the town to the fire. Uncharacteristically, U.S. Congress decided to buy the residents out and they allocated $42 million to buy every building in Centralia and knock it down. Not everyone took them up on it. And if you've ever watched a horror film about a cursed town like Silent Hill, where kids keep dying and wondered why the townsfolk don't just move to another village, maybe go down to Centralia and ask them yourself.

because somehow even with toxic gases black smoke and literal plumes of fire bursting through the ground at any moment there were still people in the 80s who did not want to leave. Eventually in the 90s the section of Route 61 that went through the town was permanently closed and traffic was diverted hundreds of yards to the east. That closed highway full of huge smoking cracks became a weird tourist attraction. Of course it did. And if you do a little Google,

it's the first thing you'll see, the cracked road surface is now covered in colourful graffiti. And apparently there was once a hot dog stand to service the weird tourists. And a section of it was definitely the penis trail. Mm-hmm. Now somehow by 1992, there were still people living in Centralia.

So Pennsylvania moved to condemn all of the town's remaining buildings. In 2002, just 20 people remained. And the zip code was eliminated. They're really trying their best to make these people not exist anymore. But they weren't going to go down without a fight. The holdouts obtained a court order to keep their houses. But they were forbidden from passing down the property or selling it.

Do you need to forbid that? Who's going to want it? I mean, nobody because, and this sounds awful of me, but their kids are all going to die. So, like, no one's going to be left to pass it on Jesus Christ. Now, eventually the last operating store, a motorcycle shop called SpeedSpot, closed for good. In 2016, 10 people still lived in Centralia. And by 2020, there were just five. And that is the last figure that we have. 1,100 houses have been demolished.

And today, Centralia is a ghost town. And in 2021, in full-blown pandemic times, the owner of the infamous graffiti highway got sick of people congregating on it. So, it was covered in dirt. And now it's covered in plants and trees. Through the town, you can see the occasional boarded-up house or business and lots of abandoned cars. But there is one building that still contains some life.

And this is what makes it seem. extra silent Tilly, because of Centralia's seven churches, just one is still standing. On a hillside overlooking the city sits the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It's a bright white Ukrainian Catholic church that was built in 1911. And it's come pretty close to being demolished as well. According to its priest father Michael Husko, the church was on its last breath. but just in the nick of time the archbishop ordered a survey of the ground below the church

and when they drilled the church really was built on St Peter solid rock under there and so Father Husker said that it was a biblical discovery the church was spared and people from surrounding towns still go to receive communion there

today it is I would really suggest that people give this a little Google It is, look at that. Fuck me, absolutely. It's just, like Hannah said, this giant white church just standing in the middle of what has obviously become just a forest because, like I said, they covered a lot of the roads up with dirt.

They've tried to pour dirt over the fire to stop it, and plants have grown over it. But then still the road leading to the town is still just smoking and flaming. And there's just this church. You can also get a picture of this church on a tote bag or a cushion or a notebook. So there you go. If you want a bag... Oh, fucking how.

If you want a picture of the church on a bag, they do much. So that's fun. You would, though, wouldn't you? Well, but who's... Who are the proceeds going to? The Catholic Church. Yes, Father Michael Hosko.

Actually, the very head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church himself, Archbishop Shethlov Chevich, visited the Centralia Church, his very own self when he did a tour of the US. have to. Yeah. You can't leave it out. And he was so impressed by the story of the rock and the saviour of the building that he's

actually made the church a pilgrimage site and hundreds pilgrim there every year. It's a great story. If it wasn't for like, firstly, like no wonder the last shop was a bike shop because no one, you can't drive a car to there. So you're going to have to get on some sort of bike to even get through. I know usually when we discuss these things, we're like, oh, look, Let's go. I don't want to. No, I'm fine. I'm fine. No. I can barely breathe, and it's just because of the hate fever.

I really don't need to go stand in a bunch of toxic fumes. So yes, the church, if you have watched Silent Hill, you'll remember that the church in the movie and the video game, because I know it was a video game first. The church is a sanctuary. The one place that evil can't enter. And while Father Husko doesn't seem like the biggest gamer around, he does believe that the church was saved for a reason. He says, I think its history is unfolding before our eyes. The final chapter hasn't been written yet. When I look back, I see the hand of God in all these things. I can't help but believe that something truly spectacular is going to happen here.

Truly spectacular. But it might be sometime before we find out what bad is, because some estimates believe that there is enough coal under Centralia to burn for hundreds of years. My God, what a waste of coal as well. why can't you know that big fiery hole in the ground in Turkmenistan you know the one I mean in one of the stands that's just like open why can't they open it I don't know well that make it maybe I guess more oxygen hmm who knows we'll leave them to it I don't think that one's cold either

I think it's gas yeah I think it's gas because there's something about it that like the color of the the flames is like blue I know that's sulfur but I think it's also I think it's gas and you see the video footage of the people putting on like silver spacesuits and like being descended into it. Again, not something I really desperately want to do. But if you really desperately want to go check out the ghost town of Centralia, I don't know if it's advisable for us to be sending people there, but you can go there because people go pilgrimage up that big church. That's true.

So if you go, get yourself a tote bag and send us a picture. And stay safe. And we'll be back next week with another short hand. Goodbye. Bye. How hard is it to kill a planet? Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like.

like a crime scene. Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our time. And crimes like that, they don't just happen. We call things accidents. There is no accident. This was 100% preventable.

They're the result of choices by people. Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime. These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet. Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us. the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.