Unexplained

Some say the MV Joyita was always cursed, others laughed it off. What is beyond dispute, is that on one hot day in October 1955 the ship and its 25 passengers and crew set sail on a routine journey from Samoa to the Tokelau islands. And none of them were ever seen again. Written by Diane Hope and Richard MacLean Smith Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early hours of Tuesday 15th May 1979, 23-year-old David Booth awoke from a terrible dream, sweating profusely with tears in his eyes. In it, he watched as a silver American Airlines plane fell from the sky and crashed right in front of him. Then he had the dream again. And again. Soon he began to wonder, what if it wasn't just a dream? Written by Richard MacLean Smith Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The second and final part of Season 09 Episode 4: To Each Man His Castle We return to the Florida scrubland as Edward Leedskalnin embarks on his strange solitary mission to build a vast megalithic dreamscape carved from oolite limestone. Then the rumours begin; whispers of huge stones being moved about as if freed from gravity itself, and of a strange black box equipped with otherworldly powers... Written by Neil McRobert and produced by Richard MacLean Smith. Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the winter of 1923, Edward Leedskalnin, a small, sickly man, stepped out of the Florida sun and onto a patch of coral bedrock, as though he had finally reached the end of a long and mysterious pilgrimage. In time, he would carve that ground into a place so strange and improbable that—if the whispers are to be believed—could only have been built with the aid of otherworldly powers... Written by Neil McRobert and Richard MacLean Smith. Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Deep in the abandoned Alaskan cannery town of Portlock, villagers once whispered of something colossal stalking the fog—an unseen presence that left shredded camps and vanished men in its wake. Decades later, the forest is still silent… but the fear that drove an entire community to flee overnight has never truly gone. Written by Diane Hope and Richard MacLean Smith Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When a young woman in a small New Zealand town begins to act strangely, her family becomes convinced that something evil has taken hold of her. What follows is a chilling descent into fear and faith... Written by Richard MacLean Smith and James Connor Patterson Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Halloween night, 2001, a bright, Penn State student named Cindy Song vanished into the cold air of rural Pennsylvania after a night out with friends. Only a few scattered clues would ever surface, each stranger than the last. What happened after she left that club has haunted her friends, detectives, and an entire community for over two decades. In this episode of Unexplained, we go back to that night - and to the darkness that followed. Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 9 BEGINS FRIDAY OCTOBER 31ST Our final journey into the archive takes us to the remote Bavarian countryside in 1922, to a lonely farmstead and the family who lived there, where something unspeakable was about to unfold. It was a place where shadows seemed to linger a little too long, and where the boundary between safety and terror proved to be as fragile as a footprint in fresh snow. The word "tenebrous" means dark, shadowy, and obscure - and no word better captures what descended upon this isolated family in those final, terrifying days. What happened at their remote farm would become one of Germany's most notorious unsolved mysteries, a case so disturbing that it continues to defy explanation a century later… Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Unexplained returns for Season 09 on Friday October 31st at 17:00 GMT... See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 9 BEGINS FRIDAY OCTOBER 31ST This week's episode takes us to what to some were the unknown shores of a mysterious New World, but for others was simply home. It is the late 16th century - an age of exploration and discovery, when maps still bore the warning "here be dragons" and for ambitious Europeans the Atlantic Ocean stretched like an endless void between the known and the unknowable. On a remote island off the coast of what would one day become North Carolina, brave souls sought to carve out a new life in a land that seemed to exist beyond the reach of civilization. They carried with them hopes of prosperity and permanence, unaware that they were about to become part of one of history's most enduring enigmas… Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 9 BEGINS FRIDAY OCTOBER 31ST This week's episode takes us to Egypt's Valley of the Kings in 1922, where years of painstaking excavation were about to yield one of archaeology's greatest discoveries. For centuries, the ancient burial grounds had surrendered their secrets reluctantly, but one tomb had remained hidden, lying in the darkness beneath the desert sands... When that first crack of light pierced the burial chamber, it revealed wonders beyond imagination - golden treasures that had lain untouched for over three thousand years. But some believed that disturbing the eternal rest of the pharaohs came with a price, and that certain doors were never meant to be opened… Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 9 BEGINS FRIDAY OCTOBER 31ST This week's episode takes us to the forests of Arizona in November 1975, where a crew of loggers were finishing another hard day's work in the wilderness. It was meant to be routine - just another evening drive back to town through the darkening woods, a journey they'd made countless times before. But when the crew returned that night, one of them was missing. Travis Walton had vanished without a trace, leaving those left behind to relay a story so bizarre that it would divide not just his community, but the entire country… Travis, they said, had been abducted by an alien spaceship. Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 9 BEGINS FRIDAY OCTOBER 31ST What happens when ordinary people insist the familiar world around them has suddenly become something else entirely? When witnesses claim the present has slipped away, leaving them stranded in moments that shouldn't exist? In the 1950s, two separate incidents in Britain left ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell. A woman walking home alone on a winter's night would later claim she witnessed scenes that belonged to another age. While, three young cadets on a routine exercise would insist they stumbled into a world that seemed frozen between life and death... Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 9 BEGINS FRIDAY OCTOBER 31ST This week's episode takes us to a windswept island off the coast of Nova Scotia in Canada, where in the summer of 1795, three young men made a discovery that would haunt generations to come. What began as idle curiosity about a depression in the earth would ignite an obsession that has endured for over two centuries. Since that fateful day, Oak Island has drawn treasure hunters, engineers, and dreamers from around the world, each convinced they can succeed where countless others have failed. But the island seems to guard its secrets jealously, and those who seek to uncover them find themselves confronting something far more complex and mysterious than they ever imagined… Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 9 BEGINS FRIDAY OCTOBER 31ST This week's rerun is perhaps the most disturbing story I’ve covered on Unexplained. Back in the 1970s, in the quiet North English town of Ossett, an ordinary family found themselves drawn into a world that was anything but. What began as a struggle with doubt, faith, and the weight of daily life soon took on a darker shape, as strange behaviors and unsettling visions began to erode one man’s fragile sense of normality... Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Final episode of Unexplained Season 08. In the heat of a Bulgarian summer, a young German tourist stumbled into an airport medical clinic, bruised, panicked, and convinced he was being hunted. What happened next remains one of Europe's most unsettling modern-day mysteries... Written by Emma Dibdin and Richard MacLean Smith Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The small American town of Van Meter in Iowa is the kind of town that some might derisively describe as one that epitomises the fly-over states - a place of little importance or standing. They imagine nothing of interest ever happens. But not only would that do an immense disservice to its people - they would be very wrong. In 1903 something paid a visit to Van Meter, and its brief presence would mark the town forever... Written by Neil McRobert and produced by Richard MacLean Smith Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Something a little different this week... In a first for Unexplained, we hear a first hand account of strange and terrifying events said by one family to have taken place in their home in Christchurch, England, back in 1997... Thank you to Theresa and Shaun for sharing their story and to Diane Hope for finding it and recording Theresa's interview. Written and produced Richard MacLean Smith. Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the summer of 1963, three miners were trapped by a cave-in for days on end with no food or light. Some say it was a miracle that any of them survived at all. Others, that the true miracle was what they apparently experienced while they were down there... Written by James Connor Patterson and Richard MacLean Smith. Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They called it the most inescapable prison in the United States — a cold, isolated fortress surrounded by frigid waters and razor currents. Alcatraz. But in 1962, that reputation was obliterated in one of the most audacious prison breaks of all time. Or was it... Written by Emma Dibdin and produced by Richard MacLean Smith Find us at youtube.com/@unexplainedpod, tiktok.com/@unexplainedpodcast, twitter @unexplainedpod, facebook.com/unexplainedpodcast or www.unexplainedpodcast.com for more info. Thank you for listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.