E771 - What Happens to the Dead When a Town Is Abandoned?

What happens when a town disappears—but the dead are left behind?

This episode begins with a familiar American disaster: Centralia, Pennsylvania, the coal town that has been burning underground since 1962. Most people know the story of the smoke, the buckling roads, and the evacuation. Far fewer know what happened after the living left—when the cemeteries remained, sitting directly above an active underground fire.

We explore how burial grounds like the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Cemetery slowly began to shift. Headstones tilted. Graves rotated. Steam vented from the soil. Over decades, officials were...