THE UNKNOWN: Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a place that has always mystified scholars, travelers, and storytellers, inspiring legends that it was built by giants, or conjured by Merlin using ancient magic to move the massive stones. And while its true construction remains a mystery, theories persist of lost civilizations and even extraterrestrial involvement. Some even think the site could be a portal to another world.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  When you're faced with something you just can't explain, something that doesn't quite belong in the world as you understand it, it's only natural to search for answers. Some people turn to religion and faith hoping that something divine might offer them a little bit of clarity. Others look for logic, patterns, proof. They ask questions, compare stories, and try to ground the unknown in something recognizable. Now, I'm not religious, but I am spiritual, agnostic for sure. And I always turn to the spirit of our beautiful mom for answers because I know she is watching over me and my sister. But for some, there's another instinct.

• 0:46Rasha Pecoraro?

  When the answers don't come, they look up to the sky, to the stars, to whatever might be watching from above.

• 0:56Yvette Gentile?

  In some cases, this is literal. Sailors and explorers once used the constellations to guide them across endless oceans and unknown lands. Today, we scan horoscopes, track celestial shifts, and search for meaning hidden in the heavens. Meaning, humans have been watching the sky for tens of thousands of years. We know this because of the many ancient stone structures that were clearly designed to align with certain solar phenomena. Take Stonehenge, 20 to 30 ton stones on average, standing in a ring arranged with flawless symmetry.

• 1:38Yvette Gentile?

  And every year during solstice, the arches align perfectly with the sun at dawn and dusk. But while this monument is incredibly famous and has been studied for centuries, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about it. Like who built it? How did they build it? And what purpose does it serve? Was it a sacred gateway to the unknown? Because some theories suggest it wasn't constructed by humans alone. It might have required, I don't know, maybe a touch of magic with help from forces not of this world. I'm Yvette Gentile.

• 2:22Rasha Pecoraro?

  And I'm her sister, Rasha Pecoraro. This is So Supernatural.

• 2:58Rasha Pecoraro?

  There are certain places in the world that are so iconic, so mysterious, they almost don't need introductions. If I say the words "The Vatican" to you, you might picture obscure religious rituals, archives of hidden texts, the Vatican's chronovisor, and priests debating about God, theology, and the secrets of the afterlife.

• 3:23Yvette Gentile?

  Or if I bring up the Pyramids of Egypt, you might think of ancient curses, magic, mysterious gods, and mystical rituals.

• 3:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  But today, we're discussing another legendary site: Stonehenge, which may be one of the most iconic structures on the face of the earth. Because let's be honest, people have been speculating about this monument for centuries.

• 3:50Yvette Gentile?

  That's right, but before we dig into the mysteries of Stonehenge, let's lay out the facts as we know them. Construction probably began around 3,000 BCE. At this time, England and the rest of Europe were still stuck in the Stone Age. They were basically hunter-gatherers. People were just starting to discover agriculture and inventing the wheel. Plus, they'd begun making tools out of naturally occurring metals like iron and copper. All to say, the people of the time weren't very technologically advanced. But this is when a major construction project began in southern England, just off the shores of the English Channel.

• 4:33Yvette Gentile?

  Today, the region is known as Salisbury Plain, and it stretches across roughly 300 square miles of mostly treeless, grassy land. Scientists believe the people who lived in Salisbury Plain at the time began hauling these huge, massive stones from other parts of the country. Nowadays, geologists can tell where the stones come from based on the soil composition and the specific minerals in them. They know that these rocks didn't all originate in Salisbury Plain. One of them may have come from modern-day Scotland, and that's about 450 miles away.

• 5:14Yvette Gentile?

  And keep in mind that each of these stones weighs about 44,000 pounds on average, and that's 22 tons, or about three to four African bush elephants. And the ancient people were transporting them without access to trucks, trains, or pulleys. To this day, nobody actually knows how the builders got the stones to Salisbury Plain. They may have built very sturdy boats, but think about how big and how buoyant those boats would have to be to carry several tons of rock plus a crew without sinking. And when they reached their destination,

• 5:56Yvette Gentile?

  those people might have rolled the stones on logs. The process would have been long, slow, and inefficient, which is why some researchers say there has to be another explanation for how those stones were transported there. They're just not sure what that is.

• 6:17Rasha Pecoraro?

  Those facts are even more impressive when you realize construction on Stonehenge didn't end until roughly 1500 BCE. That's 1,500 years after the building initially began. For context, the ancient Roman Empire ended about 1,550 years ago. So imagine you finally finishing a project that some ancient relative of yours started over a millennium ago. It would take some serious dedication to keep a project going for that long, meaning Stonehenge must have been incredibly important.

• 6:58Yvette Gentile?

  But it's not like they were building continuously for the whole time. Instead, the ancient people built the outside part of Stonehenge, which took them roughly 65 years, then they just stopped. 300 years later, people picked up construction again, and they kept at it for another 160 years or so. Then came another decade-long break, another period of building, and off and on, they kept at it until about 1500 BCE, when the monument was finally done. No one knows why the builders kept starting and stopping, and to this day, nobody knows what it was actually designed for.

• 7:43Yvette Gentile?

  There's no written documentation from the workers about their reasoning, so all we can do is study the structure and come up with our own theories. The oldest story was written down in the 1100 CE, so roughly 4,100 years after Stonehenge started. But some say it might be even older than that. And I find it so fascinating because it sounds like it's straight out of an episode of one of my all-time favorite shows, Game of Thrones. There's magic, war, betrayal, and some pretty legendary figures.

• 8:21Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, as the story goes, a good king named Constantine ruled the nation of England. But when he died, he didn't have an heir lined up. Constantine had three sons, and no one was sure which one should inherit the throne. The oldest, Constantine, had vowed to become a priest and gave up his right to the crown. But his younger brothers, Ambrosius or Leonis and Uther Pendragon, were still young kids. Neither was old enough or mature enough to rule. After a lot of debate back and forth, the brothers agreed that Constantine should give

• 9:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  up the priesthood, leave the monastery where he lived, and lead their people. So he became king, only to immediately be betrayed by one of his advisors, an evil man named Vortigern. He killed Constantine, declared himself the ruler, and resolved to get rid of Ambrosius and Uther so they couldn't threaten him. The two brothers fled the country, escaping to the land now known as France. They were too young to build their own army, invade England, and take back the throne that was rightfully theirs. But they were willing to bide their time. In the meantime, Vortigern ended up being a terrible king.

• 9:46Rasha Pecoraro?

  His own son even tried to overthrow him, and a lot of people supported his son's revolt. The nation was ripped apart by a civil war between Vortigern's supporters and his son's army. That's when England's enemies, the Saxon people, saw how weak and unstable the country was, so they seized the opportunity to invade. Before anyone knew it, there were multiple wars being fought for control of England. Somewhere along the way, the generals of all the different enemies agreed to meet up and negotiate for peace. They decided to have this meeting on Salisbury Plain, where Stonehenge stands today.

• 10:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  And they set some ground rules, like, first of all, no one could bring any weapons with them. Except, the Saxon general didn't keep his word. Instead, he and his men ambushed the others at Salisbury and slaughtered all of them. Then, the Saxons took over England.

• 10:51Yvette Gentile?

  But the story didn't end there. Years went by, and finally, Uther and Ambrosius were adults with their own massive army. After years of living in exile in France, they were ready to come home and reclaim their father's crown. Which they did. They finally had the power and the strength to overthrow the Saxons and set England free. By the time the dust had settled, Ambrosius was king. And one of his first goals as ruler was to build a monument to everyone who died in the ambush on Salisbury Plain. The only problem was, he didn't know what the monument should look like, or how it should be built. So, he sought a little help

• 11:36Yvette Gentile?

  from a powerful sorcerer named Merlin. Merlin told the king they should build a ring of stone arches. But they couldn't use any old stones. They needed to gather these very special boulders, which could only be found in Ireland. This was really concerning, because not only was Ireland incredibly far away, the country was also said to be home... to giants.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend. Because, well, that's what I'm... Yeah, that's me.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna have the answers because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts.

• 12:47Speaker 03

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 13:04Rasha Pecoraro?

  Merlin, the king's brother Uther, and a few trusted soldiers made the long journey to Ireland where the stones they needed were held. Along the way, they had a lot of different adventures, from coming face to face with giants to battling Irish armies. But thanks to Merlin's powers, the English always won. After they defeated their enemies, Merlin told everyone to climb a mountain, which was higher than anything the men had ever seen before. At the very top, they supposedly found a bunch of stone arches standing in a perfect circle.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  So basically, they found Stonehenge already assembled, just in the wrong country.

• 13:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yes. That's when Merlin explained why these stones were so valuable. Apparently, when giants died, their spirits didn't move on to the afterlife. Instead, their spirits went directly into the stones, filling the rocks with power and magic. Merlin said these stones were packed with the souls of departed giants, and they had healing properties, meaning anyone who was sick or injured could come to the stone circle and be healed. On top of that, the stones would mystically protect whatever land they stood on. That's when they knew they had to get these stones back to England.

• 14:34Yvette Gentile?

  The problem was the stones were impossibly heavy. They had no idea how they were going to accomplish this mission on their own. But Merlin had a plan. He lifted his staff, gave it a wave, and the stones began to shake and shift. Then the stones slowly rose into the air, and he used his powers to fly them down to the bottom of the mountain, all the way back to Salisbury Plain. He even magically placed them in the same circular pattern they'd been in back in Ireland. And that's where Stonehenge has stood to this very day.

• 15:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  The legend says both Ambrosius and his brother Uther were buried under Stonehenge after their deaths. And Uther's son supposedly went on to inherit the crown and become one of the most legendary kings in British history: King Arthur. I have to say, we all know I am a huge Disney fan and I've watched every animated Disney movie ever made. And this reminds me so much of the Disney classic film, The Sword in the Stone, which came out in 1963. It's about young King Arthur and the wizard Merlin. Do you remember this movie, Yvette, and how obsessed I was with it?

• 15:58Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, I do remember you loving it, for sure.

• 16:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  I know, it was an obscure one. I wasn't born until the late 70s.

• 16:07Rasha Pecoraro?

  I definitely went back in time, but it just makes me believe that Merlin and King Arthur were 100% real.

• 16:13Yvette Gentile?

  But I do have to say, many scholars say King Arthur never actually existed. If he did, then he owed a lot of his legacy to magic, including the spells performed by Merlin and the mystical protection of Stonehenge.

• 16:29Yvette Gentile?

  There's just one big issue with this theory. The timeline makes no sense. The truth is Merlin may have been a real person. If he existed, it was at a time when historical records weren't very thorough. It's said that he was very wise and may have been able to see the future or perform magical spells. Eventually, he became so well-known for his powers that he became an advisor to the king. However, Merlin supposedly lived in the 6th century CE and construction on Stonehenge ended in 1500 BCE, roughly 2,000 years before his birth,

• 17:15Yvette Gentile?

  meaning Merlin would have had nothing to do with the monument. It was already ancient by the time he came along. That calls into question the whole story about Stonehenge's history, including the details about the slaughter on Salisbury Plain, stealing the stones from the Irish giants, and everything else in between.

• 17:38Rasha Pecoraro?

  As sad as it makes me to think that Merlin didn't create Stonehenge, to be quite honest, before we started researching for this episode, I have always believed in this particular theory that we're about to talk about. And that theory is that Stonehenge was built by a different otherworldly species: aliens.

• 18:03Yvette Gentile?

  This is so true, Rasha, because I think about ancient Egypt, right? And we think about the pyramids and the hieroglyphics that, you know, archaeologists have found. And on those scrawlings, you see figures of aliens. So to me, it had to be a combination of the supernatural, of aliens, of humans, of everybody.

• 18:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  I absolutely agree. And, believe it or not, Stonehenge, to this day, is considered a hotbed for UFO sightings. Every year, dozens, or even hundreds of people, say they've seen strange lights or crafts in the sky above the stone arches. These reports exploded in the mid-2000s, mostly because that's when us ordinary people started carrying smartphones with them everywhere that we went. But it wasn't unheard of for people to snap photos of Stonehenge and then later find a UFO hovering in the distance in their photos.

• 19:12Rasha Pecoraro?

  One very famous UFO photo was taken on January 14, 2009. We don't know who snapped it, but this grainy, black-and-white image shows a tiny, dark orb hovering just over Stonehenge. Skeptics, of course, have argued that the object is just a bird, but true believers think it's evidence that something otherworldly or supernatural was also visiting the monument. At one point in the early summer of 2015, another anonymous tourist was photographing the site. And when they looked at their photo, they saw something even stranger.

• 19:54Rasha Pecoraro?

  It was a black disc shaped like a flying saucer. The photographer shared the image online, saying they believed the craft was roughly between 20 or 30 feet wide. But they refused to say anything else, like their name, the day and time that they'd seen the object, or if they'd noticed anything else strange that had happened when they took the photo.

• 20:18Yvette Gentile?

  Aside from those unidentified craft, crop circles have also been reported frequently on and around Salisbury Plain, sometimes very close to Stonehenge itself. Nobody knows who's creating these elaborate geometric patterns, but it's unlikely to be pranksters because the land is heavily guarded. Unauthorized people aren't allowed to wander around there after dark at all. In fact, the British government pays a lot of security guards to patrol Stonehenge day and night. And at some point during the COVID lockdowns, a guard was working in the area and he saw something in the skies that he couldn't explain.

• 21:03Rasha Pecoraro?

  His identity hasn't been made public, so we're just gonna call him Kevin. One day, while the sun was still up, Kevin was working near the monument when he saw a dark shape in the sky. It was drifting slowly, and based on its shape, he thought he was seeing a weather balloon. Then, as the object got closer to Stonehenge, the thing changed shape. It became very flat and very tall, almost like a kite whipping around in the wind. Then the object darted towards Stonehenge just to reverse direction at the last second. It looped around, approached the monument again, and then zipped away.

• 21:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  All Kevin could think was that he had to get this on camera. Otherwise, no one would ever believe him. So he pulled out his phone and he recorded the object for about 30 seconds. Unfortunately, he'd barely begun filming when the object suddenly vanished. It literally just disappeared into nothing. Kevin couldn't explain it, but he gave the video to a friend and asked that person to share the footage online. His friend then uploaded it to TikTok. Naturally, a ton of people watched the video, and many of them agreed. Kevin had clearly seen an alien vessel while it was visiting Stonehenge.

• 22:30Yvette Gentile?

  There are countless newspaper stories about UFO sightings appearing near or at Stonehenge, and lots of people were curious about what that could mean, including, apparently, the British Ministry of Defense. They actually launched an investigation into UFOs in Salisbury Plain a few years before the photo of the saucer-shaped object went public. And in 2013, they released those findings. They said, "None of these strange lights and unexplained craft, quote, "has ever revealed anything to suggest an extraterrestrial presence or military threat to the UK."

• 23:13Yvette Gentile?

  In other words, they said these crafts weren't from another planet, but they refused to say what they actually were. They didn't even try to cover it up with stories about tricks of light or pranks or balloons. But right after this statement, the Ministry of Defense shut down their UFO investigation program for the whole country. They said it was too expensive and hadn't found anything usable. For the believers, this had all of the obvious signs of a cover-up. It seemed like the government had discovered more about the lights over Stonehenge, but didn't want to share what they found.

• 23:55Yvette Gentile?

  In fact, there are plenty of people out there who say aliens aren't just visiting Stonehenge for the heck of it, but maybe keeping tabs on it. Why, you ask? Because they were the ones who originally built it, or at least helped the humans build it. After all, we can't explain how these ancient people managed to get these massive, big boulders to the construction site, especially when many of those rocks were mined more than 100 miles away. But if they had the help of some sort of alien technology,

• 24:39Yvette Gentile?

  well, Stonehenge's construction seems a lot more possible. It's also a bit suspicious when you hear there's a few top-secret military bases in the area surrounding Stonehenge, where the Ministry of Defense conducts all kinds of experiments and operations. This includes a scientific lab where the Ministry of Defense does some kind of biological testing, but we can't say what, because it's all top-secret. There's a state-of-the-art urban warfare facility.

• 25:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  And finally, there's a Royal Air Force base known as MOD Boscombe Down, also on Salisbury Plain, where officially pilots and engineers test new kinds of aircraft, which could explain some of the objects people have spotted over Stonehenge. But the military might be up to something even stranger, considering that the area has been nicknamed "England's Area 51." What's even more suspect, Salisbury Plain is supposedly a terrible location for an air force base, specifically because of Stonehenge. Early in the past century, a smaller airfield called the Stonehenge Aerodome

• 25:59Rasha Pecoraro?

  was built to train bomber pilots. But many of their airplanes had to fly very low to the ground as part of their operations. And the stone arches were tall enough to be in the pilots' way sometimes. So, Royal Air Force leaders reportedly considered tearing Stonehenge down so it wouldn't be such an obstacle. Thankfully, they decided not to go forward with the plan. The monument had too much historical significance. But it makes you wonder, why build a base near one of the world's most iconic and beloved structures if you know it's going to be a problem?

• 26:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  Unless, there's something about Stonehenge that's worth controlling, studying, or monitoring. Because some say the truth is even more mysterious than alien visitors. Instead, Stonehenge might be a portal to another universe.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  And I'm Britt. And if you're on the edge of your seat, listening to this show, Crime Junkie needs to be your next listen.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Every Monday, I dive into a new true crime case that our reporting team has been on the ground looking into. From lesser-known disappearances to the most chilling cases hitting the headlines. And I'm gonna walk you through it the way I tell my best friend, because, well, that's what I'm doing.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's me. And I'm right there with you as we listen together, react to every wild detail, and of course, I ask all the questions.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna have the answers, because we have case files. We're talking to detectives and family members, and we're gonna stay focused on the facts.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  So if you're not already listening to Crime Junkie, what are you waiting for? There are over 300 episodes available right now.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  And you can listen to new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 28:05Rasha Pecoraro?

  There's a body of water that runs very close to Stonehenge, called the River Avon. And ancient legends say it connects the world of the living to the world of the dead. People built a lot of monuments along the Avon throughout history, one of which looks an awful lot like Stonehenge, except it's made of wood blocks instead of stones. For that reason, researchers now refer to it as Woodhenge. It stands about two miles upriver from Stonehenge. It's impossible to say exactly what it looked like when it was first constructed, because the wood rotted away a millennia ago.

• 28:49Rasha Pecoraro?

  But researchers think it was laid out a lot like Stonehenge, with wooden posts arranged in circles. Except it was a bit bigger, about 141 feet wide, compared to the stone monument, which was just 108 feet wide.

• 29:06Yvette Gentile?

  Both structures were built at roughly the same time, though. And according to some theories, Woodhenge is supposed to represent the world of the living, because it was literally made of living materials like wood. But Stonehenge represented the world of the dead, because its stones were like those that you find in a tomb. Researchers have studied ancient practices and beliefs, and they believe the people of Salisbury Plain used to regularly meet at Woodhenge. They hold a religious service, then walk along the river even to Stonehenge, and complete a ritual there. Academics say this practice was meant to link

• 29:50Yvette Gentile?

  this world and the afterlife. And perhaps it makes it easier for souls to come back into our reality and be reborn.

• 30:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  But the spirits of the dead might not be the only ones traveling between worlds. For centuries, there have been rumors and folktales about strange beings coming into our world through Stonehenge. Local lore says fairies were often spotted amongst the stones. Most recently, a local woman named Nixie went public with her story. Nixie's very open about her spiritual beliefs. In her free time, she dabbles in witchcraft and reads tarot. She also claims she can sense magical energies that other people just can't perceive. And she lives close enough to Stonehenge that she can visit it often.

• 30:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  She tries to go every year during the solstice and equinox. She claims it's the perfect way to honor Mother Nature and recharge her own mystical powers. Well, one year, Nixie and some friends were at the monument for the summer solstice. Everyone was waiting for the sun to set, so they lounged around in the grass, meditating. Which was hard to do, because Stonehenge is always super-popular during solstices.

• 31:13Rasha Pecoraro?

  The area was crawling with tourists. But at one point, Nixie looked around at all these other people. And a particular couple caught her eye. They were unusually short, almost child-sized. But they had adult features. They were also wearing very unusual, very distinctive outfits. Nixie didn't describe what their clothes looked like exactly, just that they didn't seem contemporary. Strangest of all, no one else seemed to even notice these two people. It was like they were invisible to everyone but Nixie. So at that point, she turned to her friends and asked if they saw this odd couple. But her friends had no idea what she was talking about.

• 31:58Rasha Pecoraro?

  Sure enough, Nixie turned around to point the pair out, but they were gone. They'd vanished in the few seconds Nixie had turned away. From that day onward, Nixie was convinced that she had seen elves. They'd left their own land, a universe filled with magic, to visit our world during the solstice. And perhaps they did it by traveling through Stonehenge's portal.

• 32:28Yvette Gentile?

  That reminds me of another one that I came across in my research, from a blogger named Eden Gordon. Eden grew up in England, and one day, when she was young and in school, she took a trip to Stonehenge. Eden was very interested in stories about magic and mysticism. So of course, she'd heard a lot about the monument. But this was the very first time she ever got to see it in person. The moment she got off the bus and set foot on the ground at Salisbury Plain, this wave of emotion washed over her. It felt like the air was crackling with energy and potential. Eden could tell she was somewhere special.

• 33:10Yvette Gentile?

  This reminds me of when my husband Gino told me about his story, actually going to Stonehenge when he was 18. He said that he was so moved that it was really hard to explain how he felt, but he just felt this wave of absolute awe that he was, basically, that he was standing amongst giants. He could feel the power of the stones, and he was also so moved, just like Eden. And for Eden, an idea popped into her head. She had read lots of novels about people going through portals into other universes, and she just knew, somehow, in the depths of her soul,

• 33:55Yvette Gentile?

  that there was a similar gateway here. She couldn't find any hard evidence to back up that theory, but her intuition was screaming at her that there had to be some way to open the door. The feeling stayed with Eden well into her adulthood. She became a blogger sharing her ideas and insights online, and she wrote about how she spent years studying ancient monuments, legends about traveling to other worlds, and cutting-edge science about magnetism and black holes. In 2019, she wrote a post admitting she still didn't know how to activate the portal at Stonehenge, but she also believed it was possible.

• 34:37Yvette Gentile?

  And maybe, any day now, researchers would find the solution.

• 34:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  If you go digging around the internet today, you'll see lots of theories about how to activate Stonehenge. And some believe the key lies in sound. Stonehenge is laid out in just the right way to block noises from the outside. Meanwhile, the arches amplify noises made inside the circle. So if you sing, talk, or clap your hands inside, that sound wave will ricochet from one arch to the next, until they're all vibrating together.

• 35:18Yvette Gentile?

  Or to put it in scientific terms, they're in resonance, making the sound fuller, louder, and even more pleasurable. Researchers have also found that you can create resonance by just hitting the rocks with smaller hammerstones, like striking a gong or a bell.

• 35:36Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yes. So those facts have inspired rumors, which have been repeated all over social media and various blogs, that Stonehenge's magic can be unlocked through music. The idea is that if you tap on the rocks in just the right order, following just the right beat, they might all vibrate at just the right frequency to open the gateway. Then you could walk through it and discover a whole other world. If there's one specific song that activates the portal, sadly, it's been lost to time. Nobody knows exactly what it used to sound like or how to recreate it.

• 36:21Yvette Gentile?

  Ultimately, we may never know what Stonehenge is supposed to do or be, but it hasn't stopped people from studying it and trying to understand it. In just the past two decades, scientists have made lots of new discoveries, which have laid the groundwork for newer theories. In 2008, excavations of the area found the remains of at least a couple dozen people in and around Stonehenge. They weren't fully intact skeletons, but burned bone fragments and teeth. Archaeologists had long suspected that Stonehenge was a cremation burial site,

• 37:03Yvette Gentile?

  perhaps for some very important, select few individuals, but only for about 100 years, between 2700 BCE to 2600 BCE.

• 37:15Yvette Gentile?

  Now, the new findings showed that it was used for burials for about 500 years. Those 2008 excavations also supported the theory that Stonehenge was a healing center, as multiple human remains in the area showed signs of physical ailments. In 2022, one British archaeologist discovered Stonehenge may have also been a very elaborate ancient calendar, which I just have to say, my personal opinion, at first looking at it, that is what I thought it would have been, like some type of...

• 37:53Rasha Pecoraro?

  An ancient calendar?

• 37:55Yvette Gentile?

  Calendar, yeah, yeah.

• 37:57Rasha Pecoraro?

  I can see that.

• 37:58Yvette Gentile?

  Researchers already knew it aligned with the sunrise and the sunset during the solstices, but this archaeologist realized certain arches also lined up with the sun at the beginning of each month, not our months, but the ones the ancient people of Salisbury Plain used. Three years later, in late 2025, a different archaeologist from the University College of London published a paper. In it, he claimed Stonehenge was basically the ancient world's version of the Statue of Liberty. He said the people of Salisbury Plain may have imported stones from far away to show their cooperation with other communities.

• 38:41Yvette Gentile?

  He suggested the huge structure served as a symbol of unity during the influx of foreigners, especially from modern-day Netherlands and Germany. There are also researchers who think the arches didn't just align with the sun, but with the moon as well. And these studies are ongoing, so we'll just have to wait to see if their theory pans out, but it is so fascinating, so cool, that there are so many new discoveries being made about this ancient monument.

• 39:14Rasha Pecoraro?

  Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And that might be part of why we're all so fascinated with Stonehenge. But it's important to know that Stonehenge is not unique. The UK is full of ancient stone structures. Some are arranged in circles. Some are much bigger or even older than Stonehenge. In fact, right on the outskirts of Salisbury Plain, there's a structure called Avebury. It doesn't get talked about nearly as much as Stonehenge, and yet it's the largest stone circle in the entire world and as much as 1,000 years older than Stonehenge.

• 39:58Yvette Gentile?

  There's also a tomb in Kent, England that was built around 3,800 or 3,900 BCE, which again is much older than Stonehenge. The grave holds the remains of roughly 17 people. And archaeologists are still studying it to learn about long-lost cultures and burial practices. At least 60 of these old, mysterious monuments are still standing in England today. There are even more in other countries, and who knows how many others have been lost to time?

• 40:34Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, let's be realistic. None of those other structures are as iconic or as famous as Stonehenge. But why is that? What has kept this iconic stone structure in the forefront of our minds for so long? That alone says Stonehenge is a very special and sacred place, not just to the ancient people who may have labored for more than a millennium to build it.

• 41:01Yvette Gentile?

  But as we know with this show, not every question is meant to be answered pristinely. Not every story comes with a final chapter we can read and file away. Stonehenge resists that. It lingers, it invites us in, and then it keeps us just out of reach. And in doing that, it becomes more than a monument. It becomes a mirror of our human story, reflecting our need to understand, to belong, to trace meaning across time.

• 41:36Rasha Pecoraro?

  So maybe we won't solve the mystery of Stonehenge. Maybe it's enough that thousands of years later, we're still standing right in front of it, waiting patiently for it to reveal its true purpose.

• 42:06Rasha Pecoraro?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original, produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at sosupernaturalpodcast.com. Join Yvette and me next Friday for an all-new episode.

• 42:27Rasha Pecoraro?

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 42:32Speaker 04

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.