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The Ghost In My Machine

Stories of the Strange and Unusual

The Best Creepy Podcasts On The Internet, January 2016 — And Why They’re Worth Your Time

January 11, 2016 by Lucia

Like many people, I like to listen to creepy podcasts while I’m at the gym. Working out in and of itself isn’t something I particularly enjoy doing — mostly I just do it because I know I should — so I make it bearable for myself by listening to some cracking good stories while I do it.

A cassette tape on the ground

I’m less interested in podcasts that consist of people shooting the shat about particular topics; scripted pieces of storytelling are more my speed, whether they’re fictional or true (or whether they walk the line between the two). What I love so much about the format is that, suddenly, the kind of aural storytelling that fell out of favor after the arrival of the television and the subsequent end of the Golden Age of radio is super hip again — and content creators are doing some really terrific things with it. The beauty of it, too, is that even if the show isn’t actively in the middle of a season, the archives are always available to listen to.

[Like what you read? Check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available from Chronicle Books now!]

Here are what I think are some of the best creepy podcasts on the Internet. Listen happily, my friends.

Things I’ve Listened To:

This is what I have regularly queued up in my playlist:

The Black Tapes Podcast

VHS

The Black Tapes Podcast was one of my favorite discoveries of the summer. Serial-esque in format, but fictional, and also weird stuff like Oujia boards with an extra layer of danger and urban legends about murdered prom queen ghosts with their faces transplanted upside down? Heck, and yes.

What I think makes Black Tapes so successful is the organic way in which the story grows: The setup is that host Alex Regan originally planned to do a podcast focusing on people with unusual jobs and stories, but when she stumbles upon the enigmatic anti-ghost hunter Dr. Richard Strand’s “black tapes” — cases the noted skeptic has been unable to satisfactorily explain yet — she and her producer, Nic Silver, opt to make the tapes the focus of the entire podcast. Gradually it becomes apparent that the cases found on the tapes are all connected in some way, and listening to Alex follow the story as it develops is truly delightful.

The Black Tapes podcast has been on hiatus since October, but season two is just about to kick up — on Edgar Allen Poe’s birthday, no less.

Tanis

After the success of The Black Tapes Podcast, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the same team set to work on a few more projects. Tanis, which puts Nic Silver in the driver’s seat, is a little more…  elusive than Black Tapes — and by “elusive,” I mean that, seven episodes in, I’m still not totally sure what Tanis is. What I do know, though, is that in the world the show has set up, the word “Tanis” itself — the name of a city in ancient Egypt, included in the title of an obscure short story, something involving a cult of some sort — wends its way through history in some bizarre and seemingly inexplicable ways. The podcast is attempting to unravel why that is — and what it all means.

For the seasoned listener, part of the fun of Tanis is the real life mysteries and phenomena that pop up in it — the elevator game, the Markovian Parallax Denegrate, and more. And for the unseasoned listener? Let’s just say it’ll provide tons of wacky new things for you to research.

Limetown

abandoned bed

Limetown is similar in format to Black Tapes and Tanis in that it takes the investigative reporting angle, capitalizing on the success of Serial. Here, the mystery surrounds the disappearance of over three hundred people — men, women, and children — from a town in Tennessee called Limetown, with host Lia Haddock attempting to get to the bottom of what happened to them. Lia has a personal connection with the mystery as well: Her uncle was one of the people who disappeared.

Limetown is a little less successful to me than Black Tapes, largely I think because Lia becomes a part of the mystery herself a little too quickly; the podcast could have stood to draw out the suspense a little more. It’s still an interesting and entertaining listen, though, so it’s worth a shot.

Season one concluded on December 14; I’m not sure if there are plans for a second season, and if so, when we can expect it to hit the Internet, but here’s hoping there’s more to the story.

Serial

Like most of the podcast-listening world, I got a little obsessed with the first season of true crime show Serial during 2014. Sarah Koenig’s investigation of the 1999 murder of Maryland high schooler Hae Min Lee, the conviction — possibly wrongful — of her ex boyfriend, Adnan Syed, for the crime, and, indeed, of the initial investigation of the case itself brings up tons of fascinating and important questions — about the criminal justice system and how cases like this are investigated, yes, but also about other things: How we consume real people’s lives as entertainment, for example, and, as Jay Caspian King pointed out in an excellent piece for The Awl, about white reporter privilege.

I haven’t started listening to season two yet, which covers the Bowe Bergdahl case — admittedly I’m a little less excited about it; what drew me so much about the first season’s case was how intimate it was, whereas the Bergdahl case is comparatively massive in scope — but I’ll get to it as soon as I’ve worked my way through what remains of my Tanis backlog. It debuted on Pandora on December 10 and hit iTunes shortly thereafter.

Welcome to Night Vale

I’m a little behind on Night Vale right now, but the great thing about it is that it’s kind of like an old friend: It’s always there for you. For those of you who have not yet experienced the joy of Welcome to Night Vale, I’d almost describe it as David Lynch by way of Parks and Rec — it takes the form of the dispatches of Cecil Palmer, host of a show on the public radio station of a tiny little desert town called Night Vale. In Night Vale, it’s perfectly normal for a faceless old women to secretly live in your home and where street cleaning day is a day to be feared, so that should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect. It’s creepy and funny all at once, and really, everyone should be listening to it.

But whatever you do, don’t go in the dog park.

There are no dogs in the dog park.

The NoSleep Podcast

abandoned bed 2

The premise of The NoSleep Podcast is simple: It takes the best stories from the r/NoSleep subreddit and dramatizes them. Now in its sixth season, it’s been running for almost as long as the subreddit itself. The archive is pretty big, so if you’re not sure where to start, allow me to point you in the direction of the Penpal series. Written by Dathan Auerbach, who later expanded the series into a novel, it’s one of the defining stories of both the subreddit and the podcast — in short, it’s everything a good NoSleep story should be.

Things That Are On My “To Listen” List:

The next couple of podcasts are ones I haven’t actually listened to yet — but similarly to October’s examination of good (as opposed to godawful, of which there are plenty) horror movies on Netflix, they’re ones that I have on my To Listen list:

The Message

From what I can tell, The Message is kind of a sci-fi version of podcasts like Black Tapes and Limetown: A serialized drama told as an investigative report, this time geared towards ­deciphering an alien signal from deep in outer space.

Lore

book

Sometimes I think that if I’d decided to become an academic, I probably would’ve focused on folklore with a specialization in urban legends. That’s what Lore taps into — the true roots of the spookiest pieces of folklore out there. It sounds kind of like the podcast version of documentaries like Killer Legends; I’m definitely planning on tackling it soon.

Mystery Show

Like a little bit of armchair detective work? Mystery Show sounds like it’ll be right up your alley. It’s described simply as, “A podcast where Starlee Kline solves mysteries”; you can submit mysteries in your life you’d like solved, as long as they follow one rule: “Your mystery can’t be found by just Googling.” It’s perhaps not spooky… but it still sounds pretty fantastic.

***

Support The Ghost In My Machine on Patreon for behind-the-scenes access and bonus content. You can also follow on Twitter @GhostMachine13 and on Facebook @TheGhostInMyMachine.

[Photos via Patrick Feller, I’m Fantastic, Jeremiah John McBride, Tim Evanson, Brett Levin Photography, Patrick Feller/Flickr] 

Filed Under: Tales Tagged With: podcasts

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Annastasia says

    September 28, 2016 at 9:59 pm

    Night Vale is awesome. Everyone needs a floating office cat.

    Reply
  2. Welcome Little Stranger says

    July 18, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    I was searching for more dark and creepy podcasts to add to my subscriptions and found this great post. I’m going to check out Limetown and The Message. Both Lore and Mystery Show are fantastic!

    If you like dark and strange history and music, you might enjoy our podcast, The Most Wonderful Wonder. We connect strange bits of history and folklore in unexpected ways, and intersperse the stories with our own covers of related folk and roots music songs, as well as our own originals.

    Reply
  3. Breanne Boyd says

    June 20, 2016 at 11:30 am

    I like most of these but Mystery Show I struggled with enjoying. I struggled with the women’s voice, it annoyed me which made it impossible for me to listen to. NoSleep is my go to now, I can’t listen to it once the sun goes down. I find Black Tapes creepier for the most past but NoSleep is a great filler when I’m waiting for a new Black Tapes episode to be released.

    Reply
  4. Will says

    June 3, 2016 at 6:10 pm

    I would recommend Knifepoint Horror, Pseudopod, Criminal, And Re:sound

    Reply
  5. Ashley says

    May 25, 2016 at 4:42 pm

    Limetown is amazing I can’t wait till season 2! The message was also very well done. We’re Alive is by far my favorite. I listened to it for two months straight! I am so happy they came back last month with We’re Alive LOCKDOWN! Also Sword and Scale was awesome, I just finished all of 67 episodes. Serial of course made my list as well as one of my favorites. the leviathan chronicles was also very good. I love audio dramas. I am sad though because I was listening to the Second season and I couldn’t seem to find the rest of the second season episodes.

    Reply
  6. Chanelle Bonnici says

    April 4, 2016 at 5:01 pm

    I was on the hunt for a replacement for Serial and Limetown and I happened to stumble onto here.

    I devoured Limetown and immediately contacted the creators who have confirmed that Season 2 is in the works.

    I’m not sure if you’ve kept up with the latest news from Welcome to Night Vale, but they have created a new (unrelated) podcast called Alice Isn’t Dead, and even though there’s only 2 episodes out (the 3rd is out tomorrow), I think I like it more than Welcome To Night Vale. It’s a woman’s search for her wife as she drives across the USA with all of Night Vale’s creepiness, but none of the humor. There’s something impossibly eerie about Alice Isn’t Dead, and I would strongly encourage you to bump it to the top of your list.

    I think I’ll be starting Tanis, since the mysterious element intrigues me. You’ve got a fantastic taste in podcasts.

    Reply
    • Lucia says

      April 4, 2016 at 5:08 pm

      Excited to hear there’s a season two on the way for Limetown! I’ll also definitely have to check out Alice Isn’t Dead — I’m almost done with Lore’s archives right now and Black Tapes and Tanis are on hiatus, so I’m in the market for a new gym listen, and I suspect this one will fit the bill nicely. Thanks so much for the suggestions!

      Reply
  7. Meg Griffin says

    January 11, 2016 at 5:50 pm

    The Message is a quick listen — 3 hours total tops. It sounds odd at first, but totally great by the end. I kept meaning to review it, but alas.

    I love love love the Black Tapes. The end of the first season was such a tease, but I am so glad it’s coming back! And so soon, thank god.

    I listened to 3 episodes of Tanis, and have it on hold. It’s so jumpy — so much in your face info, that I need to sit down with paper and map it out, but I liked what I listened to.

    Mystery Show and Sword and Scale are going on my list. The rest I’ve listened to in some form or fashion, especially as I wait for Serial to have enough episodes to just marathon.

    Can I also recommend We’re Alive? It’s a Zombie podcast with a bit of a twist. It’s technically done, though there is a side project going on with it. It’s 4 seasons and more of an audiobook like story.

    Reply
    • Lucia says

      January 11, 2016 at 8:04 pm

      Ooo, I’ve heard good things about We’re Alive! I’ll definitely have to check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!

      Reply
      • Shawn says

        April 19, 2016 at 6:50 pm

        Actually we’re alive had another podcast coming out soon called Lockdown. I can’t wait!!

        I have listened to almost all of these shows except for Limetown. I did subscribe so I am looking forward to listening!

        Reply

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