Unexplained: Based on the 'world's spookiest podcast'

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The majority of the stories have been carefully selected and are indeed very spooky, but they are too long winded. The author could have got to the point much sooner, whereas I just feel the chapters are too long which resulted in me becoming disinterested. Apologies for going wanky, but there is a quote by philosopher Roger Scruton…which goes something like, “The consolation of imaginary things is not imaginary consolation,” and that’s one of the principles I’ve built the show on. Each chapter focuses on one tale of the supernatural, a supposedly true tale of the unexplained, i.e ghosts, UFOs, alien visitations, possession etc. Within the chapter the author tells the supposed tale of the incident and gives a brief mention to cases that may be alike. Alongside the tale is a commentary that is sometimes philosophical, and sometimes trying to be scientific. But the weird thing is (yes, weirder than the stories) that the author isn't using science to look sceptically at each tale, but is sometimes trying to justify the tale scientifically. He bring up a lot of different science, and I could understand his connections, but it was just too much of a stretch to even consider what he was saying. I can say that he didn't do too bad explaining some scientific concepts, but I could tell that he was making great leaps and didn't really have a deep understanding.

The stories of Annalise Michel and Elisa Lam, both now hugely famous because of their downright eeriness and video/tape recordings, deserve their places in the book, and are for sure chill inducing, But the story of the attempted murder of a girl committed by 2 of her young friends who purportedly did it for Slenderman, doesn’t belong in this book. This book has some really good thought provoking information, but sadly quite equally as much boring suppositions. Every Story is a Ghost Story: An account of the poltergeist haunting of Hannath Hall, which was a case I had no idea about! This is a rare thing for me now, so I read it with much fascination. It's a good, creepy, solid poltergeist story, and a good choice for the final chapter. There's a lot of discussion on the nature of hauntings, what it means to be haunted, the different expectations and experiences of such things, how everything could be said to be haunted... nice and eerie. I don’t know why I feel unable to award this more than 3 stars, because essentially it is a very informative and well written book - but I think that’s where the problem lies, it’s a little too well written. I really should read more ‘local’ books about my area. You often forget what a plethora of history and mythology can exist in an area you live in, and it was truely delightful to read some stories based solely around the region I have lived and grown up in for over 30 years (minus a year I spent living in Manchester). It’s made me fall in love with Teesside all over again.

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I skipped almost the whole chapter about UFO’s because I found it quite boring.... even though the Welsh village named in the book as being home to more than 14 UFO sightings is only 8 miles from my house.

Because these are ten very different chapters, I'll review each one briefly on its own, to avoid this becoming a huge wall of text that doesn't make much sense: Many of those vintage programs were stunningly effective for that reason, but I definitely wasn’t spoiled for choice—the art form was also pretty much dead until the emergence and subsequent explosion of podcasts as a medium for storytelling over the past decade-plus, providing artists a new venue to create horrors and pump them directly into our earholes. Smith:I really only have 3 criteria that a story must satisfy: one, that it has a human element at the heart of it; two, that it is actually a story and not just an event (for example, like just saying, “this person was abducted on this day, and that’s all they can remember”); and [third], that the unexplained mystery has never been sufficiently debunked. There are so many stories of this ilk flying around on the internet (where I spend a lot of time generally and researching for the show), but, surprisingly very few that are still genuinely still mystifying.Occasionally I’ll come across a story that sounds amazing (like the Fox sisters, for example,who claimed to have been psychically communicating with spirits), and you think “wow that is such a rich story, it has everything: fascinating historical context, atmospheric location, they’re sisters, etc,” but then before long, you find actually they confessed to making it up; so for me, that’s the end of the story in terms of including it in the show. I’ll still include it, but not in the context that it is one of the unexplained mysteries[.] Unexplained is a haunting story-based podcast in which host and creator Richard MacLean Smith explores a different unexplained mystery each week - often to terrifying effect.Usually books like this don't really bring much to the table. They go over the same old facts, and the only real difference (and therefore the level of enjoyment) is determined by how much detail there is. Sometimes a book will have come across another source, or a lesser-known story, and the writing will be engaging, and that's good! But it doesn't really bring anything new to the discussion. On the flip side, some books will lean too heavy on pet theories and only look at the evidence from that specific theory, and while sometimes that can be ignored, other times it's a bit much. Ha, funnily enough, they have never been less interesting (without fail they always end up being more interesting in one way or another), but, and it has only happened once, I did start a story that half way through I realized didn’t quite fit my three criteria. In the end, I had to work quite hard to smooth it out as it felt too late to start a different one. It actually ended up being one of my favorites — it was the story of the Russian submarine K-219, which I think having looked into, we can well assume was rammed by a US submarine. But I was really heartbroken by the story of the young Russian sailor — Sergei Preminin – who lost his life saving the other men so it was important to find a way to get the story to work to include that. I think I just about managed to get away with it, and it gave me an excuse to read some Lovecraft at the end, so it was all fine. All That We See: The Ariel School mystery, where a large group of schoolchildren witnessed the landing of a UFO and the alien beings piloting it. I had never heard of this incident before, and it was fascinating and incredibly unnerving. It's one of those accounts where I really cannot think of a rational explanation for what those children saw -- especially as their accounts have remained consistent throughout, and some of the children still show genuine trauma from the incident even as grown adults. Very unnerving. Into the Badlands: Skinwalker Ranch! I've been fascinated by this case for years, ever since I went down the rabbit hole to write a semi-popular blog post on the subject. I was excited to see it included here, and it did not disappoint. There were so many new details I'd never read about before, and it was more terrifying than I initially expected. This is probably one of my favourite paranormal accounts of all time, and I loved reading about it in all this detail. If you get this book only for this chapter and the previous one, you wouldn't be disappointed. As for the inspiration for the show, I am a huge fan of horror and science fiction, but also, like many people, unexplained mysteries — the more bizarre and impenetrable the better. Then, last year I was in a charity shop in Inverness and came across a book of magazines from the 80s called Unexplained. Someone had collected them and put them together and I just realised that was it right there! Weirdly, though, I’ve not used any of the stories from that series. I think many of them have been quite roundly debunked since…

We humans cling desperately to a sense of purpose. We have an almost pathological need to know and understand the why and wherefores. And nothing irks us more than a story with no end, a joke without a punchline, a jigsaw with a missing piece. TVOM:It seems like the “unexplained mystery” podcast is becoming incredibly popular these days. Why do you think that’s the case? And then on top of that all, the music kind of brings it all together, and although neither of these elements are particularly novel in their own right, something about the way they all come together makes the show what it is.Unexplained, based on a successful podcast of the same name, is a feast of the supernatural, paranormal and just plain weird that is known to have happened at various periods throughout the UK and is practically perfect for those drawn-in Autumn nights as we head towards Halloween. I am a fan of these often creepy stories from all corners of the globe and read them no matter the dale they're published, but I must admit that these had a bigger impact on me being both from this country and released at an inspired time of the year!