What It Was Like

When the Captain Abandoned Ship, the Musicians Took Charge

In 1991, cruise ship performers Moss and Tracy Hills found themselves on a sinking ship. As the MTS Oceanos floundered, passengers waited for the crew to take charge. Fin

I Got Stuck on a Cruise Ship When COVID Hit (Preview)

This week's subscriber episode takes us back to February 2020, where Kent Frasure found himself confined to his cabin on the Diamond Princess due to COVID. It was a previ

The Strange Story of Tasmania’s Ninja Cult

Through the 1990s, a group of men in Australia’s southernmost state began training as ninjas. It was a kind of proto-manosphere that slowly became part cult, part domesti

How Cults Take Over Your Mind And How to Escape (Preview)

How do ordinary, intelligent people end up in cults, and how do they get out? In this subscriber ep preview, we talk to Ingo Michehl, who spent six years in the Moonies b

I Fell in Love (and Had a Baby) With My Dad

Sophia Greenwood was adopted as a baby. She had no contact with her birth parents, until she met her biological dad in her 20s. They both experienced a sense of profound

Why Some Adoptees Become Attracted to Their Birth Parents (Preview)

This week’s story will likely be hard for many listeners to wrap their heads around, which is why we're unpacking the science behind it in this week’s subscriber episode.

I Was Abducted at Gunpoint During Running Practice

At 15, Maggie Malloy was abducted at gunpoint during running practice near her home in Galion, Ohio. A few hours later, she was found with multiple gun shots to the head,

The Hurricane That Swallowed a Cargo Ship (Classic)

This week we are revisiting one of our favourite stories. In 2015, Hurricane Joaquin roared over the Bahamas and sank a cargo ship called the El Faro, drowning all 33 peo

The Strange Condition That Made Me Write Constantly

When Alice Weaver Flaherty’s twins died at birth, she developed an overwhelming compulsion to write about the experience. Soon, Alice had developed hypergraphia, a rare c

My Childhood Bully Killed My Friend

In 1990, 14-year-old Tyler Pelke was home alone in Altona, Canada, watching a movie with a friend. Then the local bully, Earl Giesbrecht, showed up at the door. Hours lat

He Slept on His Daughter’s Dorm Room Couch and Built a Cult

In 2010, fraudster Larry Ray got out of prison and started sleeping on a couch in his daughter’s college dorm. Within weeks, he was mentoring her friends. A year later, h

I Joined a Cult That Demanded Human Ears

"Bring me their ears." That was the order from cult leader Yahweh ben Yahweh, who admitted new members of the Nation of Yahweh into his inner circle only after they'd kil

I Traced a Mystery Stalker Back to eBay’s Corporate Headquarters

In 2019, David and Ina Steiner began receiving mysterious packages at their Massachusetts home. Local police sergeant Jason Sutherland was called in to investigate, and e

How a Bunch of Australian Teens Invented 'Urban Exploration'

Today, "urbex" (urban exploration) is a global phenomenon with millions of videos online. But few people know it all traces back to a group of teenagers in Melbourne. In

The Day My Daughter Got Abducted (and How I Got Her Back)

In 2018, Brittany Todd was a mother of five living in South Carolina. Then one day she came home to find a stranger inside her house who beat her unconscious and abducted

I Pulled the Largest Prison Break in UK History

In 1983, 38 IRA prisoners escaped Northern Ireland's Maze Prison by hijacking a truck and driving through multiple security gates to freedom. Ringleader Gerry Kelly expla

I Somehow Survived the Darkest Years of AIDS

AIDS devastated America's gay communities through the 1980s. In major cities, up to 50% of gay men were living with the virus, with the median survival rate after diagnos

The Discovery of the Ebola Virus

In 1976, a mysterious illness started killing people in Central Africa. Virus expert Joseph McCormick was flown in to work out what it was and how it spread. This is how

How I Lost Everything to Leonardo DiCaprio

In 1995, Dale Wheatley had just written and produced Don's Plum starring his friends Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. The film was quickly snapped up for a 3-picture

I Escaped an Abusive Polygamist Cult… and Became a Millionaire

Pamela Jones was born into a fringe splinter group of Mormonism. By her early 30s she had nine children, while her husband had five other wives. But one day something ins