These Top 8 paranormal podcasts will take you on a journey to the heebie-jeebies - and they’re perfect for a spine-tingling Halloween road trip.
While horror movies have the potential to scare, sometimes the spoken word can be even more powerful.
And here Select Car Leasing has hand-picked some of the most unnerving podcasts available, with episodes covering everything from true life tales of the supernatural to historic deep-dives into some of the world’s most famous cases.
Nothing is off limits - from demonic possession and insidious entities to blood-curdling monsters and even Bigfoot himself.
Graham Conway, Managing Director at Select Car Leasing, explains: “There’s nothing like a good scare at Halloween. And the great thing about podcasts is that they make the perfect accompaniment to a long car journey.
“So hit the ‘play’ button, try not to grip your steering wheel too tightly, and if you get too scared, make sure you pull over for a coffee to clear your head!”
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2021 and then turned into a BBC Sounds series, the Uncanny podcast sees enthusiastic host Danny Robins examining listener-submitted stories.
Episodes cover the full spectrum of paranormal weirdness, including a haunted cabin in the woods, phone calls from the dead, and a road collision involving one victim who simply disappeared into thin air.
A panel of experts - including acclaimed psychologist Ciarán O'Keeffe - analyse stories from all angles. So, are you Team Believer or Team Sceptic?
Episode to check out: Series 1 Case 12: Fatal Collision in which a delivery driver is involved in a terrible accident…
Genial American host Jim Harold is a pioneer of paranormal podcasting, having first begun way back in 2005. While his ‘The Paranormal Podcast’ sees him interview leading figures in the world of the supernatural, including lots of authors on the subject, it’s his ‘Campfire’ off-shoot that’s often the most disturbing.
Here listeners share their own apparently real-life stories with jaw-dropping results. Some tales of contact with the deceased provide comfort to those left behind. Other encounters chill to the bone.
Episode to check out: Campfire 669. It’s a ‘Best Of’ episode that aired in August this year and boasts some of the spookiest submissions.
You might already be familiar with Monsters Among Us host Derek Hayes, as he also presented Discovery’s Paranormal Caught on Camera TV series.
Here Derek asks his listeners to record themselves talking about their eye-witness encounters before the audio is broadcast in full.
One of the great things about Monsters Among Us is that Hayes always casts a critical eye on claims and will delve into the evidence to find alternative explanations for any supposed paranormal interactions.
Episode to check out: Sn.7 Ep.15 - The Mirrored Men Special Episode. Hayes has long chronicled so-called ‘Mirrored Men’ encounters, strange entities said to cause missing time.
If you like exhaustive, multi-part deep dives into some of the most famous cases of high strangeness, Astonishing Legends is the podcast for you.
US-based hosts Scott Philbrook and Forrest Burgess leave no stone unturned in their pursuit of the truth and there are plenty of interviews with experts and authors.
All the biggies are covered - Mothman, Skinwalker Ranch, Bigfoot and so-called Black Eyed Kids. But there are also cases you’ve probably never heard of, including lots of British hauntings.
Episode to check out: Episodes 123-126 in which Scott and Forrest go ghost hunting at the ‘Sallie House’ in Atchison, Kansas, US, with horrifying results.
Before Danny Robbins unleashed Uncanny (see above), he cut his teeth on Haunted, a podcast where he asked ‘Do ghosts exist? If not, why do we see them?’
Here you’ll find truly blood-curdling tales of vengeful spirits, shadow entities, and a disturbing two-parter about a supposedly haunted hospital.
The punchy 30 minute episodes rarely pause for you to take a breath and are perfect for binge-listening.
Episode to check out: The 100 mph Ghost. Is former Surrey race circuit Brooklands (now a museum) haunted by a famous former racing driver?
Peter Laws is a UK author, journalist and church minister, which perhaps gives him a unique view of spooky goings on.
Laws, a horror movie aficionado, initially joined the podcast world on the Frightful series before going it alone with Into the Fog, which features hauntings, ghosts, aliens, possessions, cryptids and other scary mysteries.
Episode to check out: Paranormal Mysteries in Wookey Hole Caves. As if caving wasn’t already frightening enough…!?
British author Richard MacLean Smith tackles both disturbing true crime and intriguing tales of the supernatural in this long-running podcast series.
Smith has an eye for the theatrical and tells these stories as if you’re reading the script of a Hollywood movie, which makes them all the more engaging.
Nothing is off limits, from cases that are hundreds of years old to stories from much more recent history.
Episode to check out: Season 07 Episode 23: The Box. Here Smith lifts the lid on the famous case of the Dybbuk box, which ultimately formed the basis of 2012 horror flick The Possession.
Documentary maker and TV star Shannon LeGro has been podcasting about the paranormal for almost a decade.
And while she’ll cover pretty much anything spooky, there’s a strong lean here towards run-ins with monstrous creatures, from Sasquatch to Dogmen.
She also scores high profile interviews with other supernatural filmmakers and authors and there are plenty of British stories to savour.
Episode to check out: Episode 398 - Scottish Paranormal, in which you’ll hear tales of black masses, strange creatures in fields, and poltergeist-like activity.
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