What It Was Like

Why do Some Pilots Become Mass Murderers?

The recent effort by a FlyDubai co-pilot to crash his own plane is not the first case of its kind. In 2015, Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz flew a plane into the Fren

I Think I Know What Happened to MH370 (Preview)

In 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished on its way to Beijing with 239 people on board. It remains one of aviation’s greatest mysteries. In this subscriber ep prev

My Manic Life as a Bipolar Art Forger

In 1980s New York, Andy Behrman was an art dealer forging his clients’ paintings. He was also living with undiagnosed bipolar disorder, which he believes fueled his crimi

I Spent 20 Years Catching Art Thieves (Preview)

Robert Wittman founded the FBI’s Art Crime Team and spent 20 years going undercover to recover stolen art. In the full subscriber ep, Bob tells us how he catches art crim

Years Later, I Discovered the Truth About My Abduction

In 1983, 11-year-old Kristine Conyers was abducted at gunpoint by a serial killer. She survived, but those four hours changed her life. It’s a story about the ripple effe

I've Spent Decades Helping Abused Children Heal (Preview)

This show often features people who’ve survived unimaginable horrors as kids, which begs the question: how do people move on? In this episode preview we put this question

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