Why are we so drawn to stories of the strange and supernatural? Maybe we want to believe that there’s something bigger out there than our prosaic world with its humdrum chores and quarterly KPI reports. Maybe our imagination yearns for stories of the fantastical just out of sight because they explain things science can’t. Maybe we’ve just always had a sneaking suspicion that mom and dad were lying to us and there really was something nasty hiding out beneath our bed.
Whatever the reason, we’re obsessed with stories about UFOs, ghosts, demonic possessions and even stuff that can make all of the above seem positively quaint. Many of us love stories about those corners of the world where the rules of the universe seem to go a little haywire. And if we love those weird patches where reality gets a little strange on us, we really love those brave souls that go out and seek these curios out, bringing tales of the strange and bizarre to us with a mixture of curiosity and mania.
So, to celebrate the spookiest month of the year, we wanted to bring you a few of our favorite paranormal podcasts. Some of them are scripted fiction series that’ll satisfy your thirst for a world gone slightly mad and those trying to make sense of it all. Others are non-fiction shows that examine real stories of purportedly supernatural events. We can’t so-sign any conclusions about any real world phenomena that these podcasts might put forward, but we can guarantee that any of these six shows will be just the thing to keep you creeped out and entertained this Halloween season.
Uncanny
If you have an insatiable appetite for the strange and the supernatural, the BBC’s Uncanny is the show to listen to. Over the course of more than a hundred episodes, host Danny Robbins investigates real-life stories of the strange and the inexplicable, everything from UFO sightings to ghostly plumbing. What makes the show art - besides the excellent sound effects that transport you right to the site of each episode’s enigma du jour - is its thorough commitment to stress testing every claim, with skeptic experts brought in to rigorously examine each part of a story. The result is a show that can often feel like the best episodes of Reply All transposed to the realm of the paranormal: entertaining, witty, and endlessly curious above everything else.
Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature
If there was ever a show custom-made to turn you into a conspiracy theorist, Modes of Thought In Anterran Literature might be it. (And we mean that as a compliment.) This modern classic of fiction podcasting begins as a series of lectures about a non-existent ancient civilization. The material is presented with such care and loving detail that it’d be riveting if it stayed in that gear, but soon the show starts blurring every line between what is and isn’t happening, gesturing at spy networks and mystical possibilities and making you go, “Wait… what did I just hear?!?” (Again, complimentary.) Listen from the beginning, and keep the corkboard and string on hand while you do.
The Big Loop
Prolific fiction creator Paul Bae’s most quiet and personal series may also be his finest, and for this writer’s money, his spookiest. The tales hiding out in this RSS feed, all written by Bae and performed by an intimate stable of the Audio Fiction Renaissance’s greatest voices - are the kind of thing that make you curl up into a ball as you contemplate just how big the universe is and how small our tiny part in it can be. Not all of the anthology show’s stories deal with the supernatural (although when they do, watch out!) but each is suffused with the kind of existential dread that fuels any good paranormal investigation. Start with The Eye of the Lord or with The Fugue and let yourself sink into Bae’s haunting, poetic stories of wonder and terror.
Scared to Death
Half the fun of telling ghost stories with your friends is that you’re doing it with your friends – people you can be truly open with. For a show that captures this feeling, you can do no better than Scared to Death. Dan Cummins is a stand-up comedian, Lynze Cummins a long-time film costume and wardrobe stylist, the two are married and together run a show in which they take turns telling stories of the strange and unexplained in a years-long effort to creep the other out. It’s a simple set-up, but the hosts’ years of experience with storytelling and their absolutely infectious rapport raises the experience above simply being another creepy story collection and into the realm of fireside rapture. And with hundreds of episodes in their catalogue, there’s plenty of time to hang out with Cummins as they try to scare one another, make each other laugh, and live up to the show’s title.
Malevolent
If you are truly fearless… start listening to Malevolent without knowing anything about its premise. Just press play on Episode 1, trust me. Enjoy the shivers running down your spine. The fiction phenomenon’s story begins simply enough: private investigator Arthur Lester wakes up one day, blind and suffering from a small touch of total amnesia. His only guide through the hurricane of creepy crap that’s about to hit him? The eerie voice that’s taken up residence in his mind, offering up double-edged advice, and insisting that it’s “a friend.”
Harlan Guthrie’s one-man audio fiction odyssey (he produces, writes, directs, edits, and acts in the show) is an eerie, unsettling journey into a mundane world turned nightmare landscape, and the fact that the show’s audience gets to impact Arthur and the Entity’s journey through the feedback loop of polls on the show’s Patreon adds a fascinating personal dimension to the proceedings. Listen to this one with the lights off.
Belief Hole
If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “God, I wish there was a version of My Brother, My Brother, And Me where the hosts discussed real stories of odd, unexplained phenomena,” boy have I got a show for you! But even if you haven’t been hankering for a scratching post for that very particular itch, it’s worth tuning into the Parfitt Brothers’s show to hear them trading entries from their (alarmingly huge) catalogue of stories about bizarre occurrences and the unexplained sightings. The banter is easy and charming, the sound effects are well-chosen and immersive, and the brothers’ love for the paranormal practically pours out of them. It’s all too easy to believe that this is a life-long obsession for them, and after a few episodes in their capable hands, it might be for you as well!
