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Bigfoot, Close Encounters, All Things Odd; Southern Oddities Podcasts Covers it All

By Andrew Edwards

Staff Writer

If you’re a fan of everything odd, interesting and scary, then there’s a plethora of podcasts in central Alabama just for you.

Started back in 2018, Holtville resident, Jared Ordis, began podcasting with the intent of highlighting scary and odd anomalies that take place over the southern portion of the United States. His inspiration came from his knack for entertaining people.

“I used to solely broadcast myself on Twitch, the video game streaming service. On there, I would play scary video games in front of a fairly large audiences,” Ordis said.

Playing scary games ultimately wasn’t enough for Ordis, and he eventually found himself doing something else that he loved even more – podcasting.

Thus, ‘Ordis Studios’ was born.

“I found that I had this passion to entertain people, but I wanted to do that on a different platform. So, me and couple of my friends got together and began brainstorming ideas for podcast shows. I used to listen to them all the time, but never had the thought of starting some on my own,” Ordis said.

A little over a year after he started streaming, Ordis created his first podcast ‘Talking Trash with Ordis’, which would feature different guests and have open dialogue about video games and movies.

Soon after, he started ‘Story Time’ and ‘Pasta Time’, which was more in line with his horror games. The podcasts would analyze strange and scary stories – some real and some not.

By episode 21, he dropped those two podcasts and created one of his more popular series ‘Even the Podcast is Afraid’.

Some of Ordis’ stories come from real life experiences, like his encounter with the legendary ‘White Big Foot’ that supposedly lurks around parts of Central Alabama.

“I’ve always had a fascination with the weird and strange since I was little. So naturally, I thought it was fitting that I would run into the White Bigfoot not once, but twice. The first time was out in Slapout, and the second time was driving on Highway 14 towards Tallassee. It was a frightening experience,” Ordis said.

Perhaps it was one too many close encounters, but Ordis recently decided to branch out and not focus solely on horror.

In November of 2020, he started the ‘Southern Oddities’ podcast which highlights strange stories and events that have taken place across south states – namely Alabama.

“We have stories that range from the history of Fort Toulouse to the wooden Indian that gave Hank Williams songwriting inspiration. We eventually want to do a story about the ‘haunted attic’ in the Wetumpka Chamber of Commerce,” Ordis said.

Ordis went on to explain that the Southern Oddities podcast, which currently consists of 32 episodes, is here to give insight into things in the area that you normally wouldn’t read in a history book.

“I do all the researching and come up with the writing for the stories in this podcast by myself,” Ordis said.

And he will soon have even more on his plate, as Orids is about to start four more podcasts – two of which he will be hosting. 

“We’ve had a lot of great reviews and compliments so far with how we’ve done with each individual podcast. We just hope that the success that we’ve seen so far will continue into the future,” Ordis said.

If you want to listen to any of the podcasts from Ordis Studios, check them out at

https://www.ordisstudios.com/ or listen to them on Apple Music, Spotify, or Amazon Music.