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

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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. But I sped read after that section. Because it's full of tangents about the author himself, and also strange "eyes" to almost a negation of any true questioning for the events at the same time. Yes, some suppositions but not disciplined inquiry in most of these cases.

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. 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. 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: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… 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[.]

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. 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. TVOM: It’s clear from the beginning that a ton of research goes into the topics that you discuss in the podcast. How do you go about choosing a topic, and what’s that research process like? This is a mixture of various supernatural stories, ideal for this time of year. There’s reincarnation, UFOs and possession. All of the tales are unexplained, a little bit creepy, and the author goes into great depth about the history behind the mythology, and provides a very comprehensive analysis. It’s clearly well researched and told with enthusiasm for the subject. I just found that at times the writing style was a little dry and hard going. Sometimes the attention to detail also detracted from the storytelling rather than enhance it, and I found it difficult to really get into - which was a shame as the potential and passion is clearly there.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.

Unexplained is a bi-weekly podcast about strange and mysterious real life events that continue to evade explanation. I tried. But verbosity to this extent would never have grabbed me, even if the proofs and voices were better, more authentic. Stringy and roundabout writing, filled with circling redundancies and asides. I have no idea what he means by "uncertain times" either. Regardless, that's a quirky slant to describe these episodes. Nor is it accurate, IMHO. 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. TVOM:It seems like the “unexplained mystery” podcast is becoming incredibly popular these days. Why do you think that’s the case? Introduction: Containing a fascinating personal story from the author, the introduction does a good job of setting out the reasons for writing the book and the sort of questions that will be explored, and the book remains true to these intentions throughout. It was really interesting to see a story from the author's family, too -- and such a remarkable one, at that.Slender Man siedzi w lesie, dzieci spotykają kosmitów, matki wyrzucają noworodki przez okna, staruszki wkurzone wojną przywołują demony, a ja jestem zirytowana.