Short Stuff: Edward Mordake

This episode dives into the fascinating true story behind the legend of Edward Mordake, a supposedly tragic figure with a second evil face on the back of his head that would torment him until his suicide at age 23. Josh and Chuck trace how this entirely fictional tale originated from an 1895 Boston Sunday Post article by science fiction writer Charles Loughton Hildreth, got copied as fact into a legitimate medical textbook by real doctors, and eventually went viral on social media with fake photographs, fooling hundreds of thousands of people. Along the way, they explore some genuinely rare medical conditions involving facial deformities and conjoined twins that actually do exist, making the made-up story just believable enough for the internet age to swallow it hook, line, and sinker.