Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast

About Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast

The Restoration Obscura Field Guide is a podcast where photography and history converge to uncover the stories time tried to erase. Through restored images, archival research, and immersive storytelling, it explores the hidden corners of the past, from the backroads of Upstate New York to forgotten places across the nation and around the world. Each episode uses photography and historical restoration as a lens to preserve the past, rediscover lost narratives, and bring overlooked history back into focus. These are the stories that deserve to be remembered, told with care, curiosity, and an eye for the forgotten. restorationobscura.substack.com (https://restorationobscura.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

John Bulmer

Category

education · history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

18 Apr 2025

Latest episode

14 Jan 2026

Latest episodes

14 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   14 Jan 2026

   The Petersburgh Snow Hole

   JOHN BULMER, narrator, examines the Petersburgh Snow Hole, a unique cold-air trap in New York's Taconic Range, exploring its geological formation, historical significance through carved inscriptions, and the impact of human interaction on this fragile environment.

2. 

   3 Dec 2025

   The Champlain Lake Monster

   This episode explores the history of the Champlain Lake Monster, examining its origins in Indigenous traditions and its evolution through sensational 19th-century accounts and 20th-century media, revealing how the enduring myth reflects humanity's fascination with the unknown.

3. 

   18 Nov 2025

   When the Grid Failed

   John Bulmer's podcast episode examines major blackouts of 1965, 1977, and 2003, revealing how technology failures impact civic trust and community resilience across different eras.

4. 

   31 Oct 2025

   The Body Snatchers of Albany, NY

   John Bulmer explores Albany's Washington Park, revealing its past as a burial ground and the city's hidden history of grave robbing to advance early American medicine, highlighting the uneasy relationship between progress and social inequality.

5. 

   21 Oct 2025

   The Abair Bigfoot Incident

   John Bulmer investigates the Abair Bigfoot Incident of 1976 in Whitehall, New York, exploring the intertwining of belief, doubt, and local memory in Adirondack folklore.

6. 

   12 Oct 2025

   RO Dispatch: Exploring Albany's Underground

   Restoration Obscura explores Albany's underground, revealing hidden tunnels and forgotten spaces that reflect the city's history of commerce, resistance, and Cold War secrets.

7. 

   7 Oct 2025

   A History of the Dark

   John Bulmer explores how darkness has shaped human experience, belief, invention, and imagination throughout history, discussing personal memory, cultural inheritance, and our shifting relationship with the night.

8. 

   25 Sept 2025

   Season Two: The Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast Returns

   The Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast explores forgotten infrastructure, vanished towns, and Cold War secrets, revealing how memory and place shape our present.

9. 

   23 Jun 2025

   Nuclear Sites of the Adirondacks

   Restoration Obscura explores the hidden Cold War history of the Adirondacks, revealing forgotten nuclear missile sites and their lasting environmental impact on local communities.

10. 

    9 Jun 2025

    Albany Interrupted

    John Bulmer explores the human cost of Albany's Empire State Plaza, revealing the displacement of thousands from razed working-class neighborhoods and the erasure of their history in this episode.

11. 

    19 May 2025

    After the Rain

    Episode 4: After the Rain: The Storm That Dumped Radiation on Troy, New York Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast Written and hosted by John Bulmer In this episode of the Restoration Obscura Field Guide, we investigate one of the Capital Region’s most unsettling Cold War legacies—a radioactive rainstorm that quietly fell over Troy, New York, in the spring of 1953. Drawing on Bill Heller’s A Good Day Has No Rain, along with government documents and independent research, this story traces how nuclear fallout from a Nevada test site traveled across the country and landed, unannounced, on a city that never saw it coming. Act I introduces listeners to the events surrounding “Shot Simon,” a 43-kiloton atmospheric nuclear test conducted at the Nevada Test Site. When radioactive debris entered the jet stream, it traveled thousands of miles before being pulled down by a spring storm over New York’s Capital Region. At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Professor Herbert Clark’s students detected radiation levels in local rainwater more than 4,500 times the government’s safe limit—higher than some areas impacted by the Chernobyl disaster. While Clark urgently reported the findings to the Atomic Energy Commission, the response was silence. Meanwhile, documents revealed that Kodak had received prior warnings about nuclear tests to protect its film products—an agreement never extended to the public. Act II explores the science of fallout and its long-term effects on the human body. Radioisotopes like Strontium-90, Iodine-131, and Cesium-137 entered Troy’s ecosystem and were absorbed into water, soil, crops, and livestock. Once consumed or inhaled, these isotopes embedded themselves in bone, muscle, and organs—altering DNA, irradiating tissues from within, and triggering illnesses years or even decades later. Studies from the National Cancer Institute and other public health agencies have linked fallout exposure to significant increases in leukemia, thyroid disorders, and soft tissue cancers. Yet despite scientific confirmation of the dangers, no government-sponsored study was ever conducted in Troy. Families were left with unspoken questions, unexplained diagnoses, and a generational burden of illness without acknowledgement. Act III expands the focus beyond Troy to reveal a national and global pattern of radioactive exposure. From the sheep ranches of Nevada and the rain-soaked farms of Iowa to the windswept atolls of the Marshall Islands, communities around the world became unintentional participants in the nuclear arms race. The Kodak Agreement stands as one of the most disturbing symbols of this era—a private arrangement prioritizing corporate preservation over public health. The episode closes with a sobering reflection on modern environmental crises, including PFAS contamination, that mirror the same institutional silence and delay that defined the fallout era. This episode combines historical storytelling with investigative research to bring one of Troy’s most overlooked Cold War events back into the public eye. It’s a narrative shaped by declassified documents, scientific studies, and the voices of those who lived in the fallout’s shadow. What happened in Troy wasn’t isolated—it was part of a larger pattern of denial, misdirection, and forgotten consequence.This episode includes full source citations.You can read the original article here: https://restorationobscura.substack.com/p/the-fallout-that-fell-as-rain (https://restorationobscura.substack.com/p/the-fallout-that-fell-as-rain) Subscribe to support independent, reader-funded storytelling: www.restorationobscura.com (https://www.restorationobscura.com) 🎧 The Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast is streaming now on all major streaming platforms. Every photo has a story. And every story connects us. © 2025 John Bulmer Media & Restoration Obscura. All rights reserved. Get full access to Restoration Obscura at restorationobscura.substack.com/subscribe (https://restorationobscura.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

12. 

    5 May 2025

    The Bloody Pit

    Restoration Obscura Field Guide – Episode 3 The Bloody Pit: Hoosac Tunnel, Western Massachusetts Beneath the Berkshires, a nearly five-mile tunnel cuts through Hoosac Mountain—a staggering feat of 19th-century engineering. Officially called the Hoosac Tunnel, it’s more commonly known by its darker name: The Bloody Pit. This episode tells the full story, from the tunnel’s origins in the mid-1800s as an ambitious plan to link Boston with upstate New York, to the nearly 25 years of brutal labor it took to complete. Hundreds of workers, many of them Irish immigrants and Civil War veterans, toiled in near-total darkness using hand tools, black powder, and later, nitroglycerin—powerful but dangerously unstable. Explosions, cave-ins, and toxic smoke claimed lives by the dozen. Official records say nearly 200 men died. The real number may be higher. We dive into one of the worst disasters in American tunnel history: the 1867 fire and collapse of the Central Shaft, which trapped thirteen men underground. Their bodies weren’t recovered for nearly a year. The tragedy and the ghost stories that followed helped cement the tunnel’s chilling nickname. As construction dragged on, reports emerged of disembodied voices, cold winds in still air, and phantom lights on the tracks. Some claimed to see ghostly workers in the dark. Others believed the tunnel itself was cursed. Today, the tunnel remains active. Freight trains still rumble through daily. There are no lights, no walkways, and no room for mistakes. While its engineering legacy is significant, its emotional and human cost is just as profound. The Hoosac Tunnel is both a marvel of progress and a monument to the people it consumed. This episode also draws connections to other forgotten industrial sites like the erased mining town of Tahawus in New York’s Adirondacks—places where ambition met wilderness and where memory lingers even after the buildings are gone. Please note: while these stories are powerful and compelling, the sites themselves remain hazardous. Trespassing into active or abandoned infrastructure is both dangerous and often illegal. Curiosity is important, but so is respect. The Bloody Pit isn’t just a tunnel. It’s a wound carved into stone. And this episode is a reminder that some places remember—even when we forget. Companion article available at: https://restorationobscura.substack.com/p/the-hoosac-tunnel (https://restorationobscura.substack.com/p/the-hoosac-tunnel) Learn more at: www.restorationobscura.com (https://restorationobscura.substack.com/p/the-hoosac-tunnel) About Restoration Obscura: Restoration Obscura brings lost history back to life through long-form storytelling, archival research, and photographic restoration. From Cold War secrets to vanished neighborhoods, wartime experiments to strange ruins, each story casts light on what history left behind. Streaming on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music. © 2025 John Bulmer Media & Restoration Obscura. All rights reserved. Educational use only. Get full access to Restoration Obscura at restorationobscura.substack.com/subscribe (https://restorationobscura.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

13. 

    21 Apr 2025

    The Thing in the Sky

    Episode 2: The Thing in the Sky – The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings of the 1980s This episode of the Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast traces the mysterious wave of UFO sightings that overtook New York’s Hudson Valley in the 1980s. These weren’t fringe accounts or fantasy. Over a decade, more than 5,000 credible reports described massive, silent, triangular crafts gliding low over towns. Witnesses included police officers, pilots, engineers, and everyday commuters. Some said the objects followed cars. Others said they hovered silently, blotting out the stars. We revisit the night of March 24, 1983, when over 300 people called in to report the same strange object. We hear firsthand testimonies from across the region and explore theories ranging from local pranksters to military experiments—none of which fully explain the scale or persistence of the phenomenon. But the Hudson Valley was not alone. This episode also looks back at other well-documented incidents, from the 1947 Roswell crash to the 1952 radar sightings over Washington, D.C., from Rendlesham Forest in England to Kecksburg, Tehran, and the Phoenix Lights. These stories share uncanny similarities—credible witnesses, detailed reports, and no definitive answers. We also go deeper—into the long history of skywatching. Long before radar and satellites, the Haudenosaunee and Lenape peoples recorded celestial events in stories and stone. We’ll talk about their star lore, ancient alignments in upstate New York, and what we may have lost in the era of light pollution and orbital clutter. This episode doesn’t seek to prove or disprove—it’s about documenting the experiences, patterns, and historical context behind the reports. These stories remain part of the public record, part of a collective memory that refuses to fade. Support the show by subscribing and sharing.Learn more at www.restorationobscura.com (http://www.restorationobscura.com) Copyright 2025 John Bulmer Media & Restoration Obscura. All rights reserved. Get full access to Restoration Obscura at restorationobscura.substack.com/subscribe (https://restorationobscura.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

14. 

    18 Apr 2025

    How to Read the City Like a History Book

    Introducing the Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast I’m excited to share something new with you today: the launch of the Restoration Obscura Field Guide Podcast—an ongoing audio companion to the work I’ve been doing here with words and images. Each episode of the Field Guide is a standalone journey into forgotten, hidden, or overlooked history. Some episodes are solo explorations—narrative stories told through deep research and firsthand observation. Others will feature interviews with historians, preservationists, photographers, and storytellers who help us bring the past back into focus. Whether we’re following the path of a buried river, decoding ghost signs on old brick walls, or tracing the rise and fall of an industrial corridor, Restoration Obscura is always about one thing: finding history in the places we thought we knew. Episode 1: How to Read the City Like a History Book We start close to home—in Albany, Schenectady, and Troy—where history isn’t just preserved in museums. It’s embedded in the landscape. Episode 1 shows you how to read a city like a history book. From faded advertisements to cobblestone streets breaking through asphalt, every street corner holds a clue. The Erie Canal’s footprint still shapes Albany’s layout. Brick row houses in Troy speak to generations of laborers and craftsmen. In Schenectady’s Stockade District, Dutch Colonial homes sit beside Victorian mansions—architecture as a timeline. We go below the surface too: tracing waterways like the Poestenkill and Rutten Kill, finding manhole covers stamped with the names of long-gone foundries, and exploring how even street names—like Mill Lane or Water Street—are artifacts of the past. Episode 1 is a guide to seeing what most people overlook. It offers practical ways to interpret the built environment—how to recognize buried infrastructure, decode ghost signs, and read the subtle clues left in brickwork, street layouts, and old industrial sites. It’s about understanding that cities aren’t just built—they’re built over time, and each layer leaves something behind. History isn’t lost. It’s built into the streets we walk every day. Restoration Obscura is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. What is Restoration Obscura? The name Restoration Obscura is rooted in the early language of photography. The camera obscura—Latin for “dark chamber”—was a precursor to the modern camera, a box that transformed light into shadow and shadow into fleeting image. This project reverses that process. Instead of letting history fade, Restoration Obscura brings what’s been lost in the shadows back into focus. But this is more than photography. This is memory work. Restoration Obscura blends archival research, image restoration, investigative storytelling, and historical interpretation to uncover stories that have slipped through the cracks—moments half-remembered or deliberately forgotten. Whether it's an unsolved mystery, a crumbling ruin, or a water-stained photograph, each piece is part of a larger tapestry: the fragments we use to reconstruct the truth. History isn’t a static timeline—it’s a living narrative shaped by what we choose to remember. Restoration Obscura aims to make history tactile and real, reframing the past in a way that resonates with the present. Because every photo, every ruin, every document from the past has a story. It just needs the light to be seen again. If you enjoy stories like these, subscribe to Restoration Obscura on Substack to receive new investigations straight to your inbox. Visit www.restorationobscura.com (http://www.restorationobscura.com/) to learn more. You can also explore the full archive of my work at www.johnbulmermedia.com (http://www.johnbulmermedia.com/). Every Photo Has a Story. © 2025 John Bulmer Media & Restoration Obscura. All rights reserved.Content is for educational purposes only. Get full access to Restoration Obscura at restorationobscura.substack.com/subscribe (https://restorationobscura.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

246

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

14 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 26 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

6

Social presence

0

YouTube

66

Engagement

51