A "non-fiction" collection of "real-life supernatural stories for uncertain times." The non-fiction adjective describes where this book can be found in a library or bookstore, and the "uncertain times" description on the front of the book hints that this author will be trying to explain how the spooky tales in this book can relate to our inner lives, technological advancements, scientific developments, ETC.

I really should read more ‘local’ books about my area. You often forget what a plethora of history and mythology can exist in an area you live in, and it was truely delightful to read some stories based solely around the region I have lived and grown up in for over 30 years (minus a year I spent living in Manchester). It’s made me fall in love with Teesside all over again. And then on top of that all, the music kind of brings it all together, and although neither of these elements are particularly novel in their own right, something about the way they all come together makes the show what it is. I having trouble trying to decide what this book was meant to be. I know it is inspired from the author's podcast which the blurb tells me is very successful. If this book was just meant to be a podcast in book form, I guess it succeeded. But I don't think it was what I was looking for.We humans cling desperately to a sense of purpose. We have an almost pathological need to know and understand the why and wherefores. And nothing irks us more than a story with no end, a joke without a punchline, a jigsaw with a missing piece. I don’t know why I feel unable to award this more than 3 stars, because essentially it is a very informative and well written book - but I think that’s where the problem lies, it’s a little too well written. To Morn Names: The unidentified man found dead on a beach in Australia. The mystery is well laid-out, and the speculation and narrative done respectfully. This is one of those unsolved mysteries I think about from time to time -- as frustrating as it is to still be without answers, it was nice to see this story included with the same meticulous care as the other accounts.

The first history of the boy/man who remembered being shot down in combat and dying was the only 3 or 4 star in this book, IMHO. Into the Badlands: Skinwalker Ranch! I've been fascinated by this case for years, ever since I went down the rabbit hole to write a semi-popular blog post on the subject. I was excited to see it included here, and it did not disappoint. There were so many new details I'd never read about before, and it was more terrifying than I initially expected. This is probably one of my favourite paranormal accounts of all time, and I loved reading about it in all this detail. If you get this book only for this chapter and the previous one, you wouldn't be disappointed. The writing was in parts a little dry for my tastes, but Smith's retellings are apparently all true and set in different years and different places throughout the UK. What particularly makes this book stand out against the rest in the genre is that the author doesn't just tell the stories, he actually uses scientific and philosophical principles to try and explain why these events may have taken place and how. This adds a different facet to them and was right up my street! Highly recommended for chills, thrills and spills! But I sped read after that section. Because it's full of tangents about the author himself, and also strange "eyes" to almost a negation of any true questioning for the events at the same time. Yes, some suppositions but not disciplined inquiry in most of these cases.The Introduction is 1 star. It was the most ridiculous and lengthy circumvent for modern "me" experience with podcast and other horror, occult, alien drama? Sincerely, I don't know. It was on par with watching a 1/2 hour of TMZ if you didn't know what media was or came from another planet. Or didn't know enough about Earth modern entertainment. As if you thought Snoop Dog might be an animal species. In other words, I couldn't even connote 2/3rds of what he was discussing at length about his career, life experience. Smith:As I mentioned above, I think partly it’s the way I have attempted,[when]possible, to reveal the story of the events as they unfolded in real time, but also that on the one hand I don’t approach the subject with any kind of hysteria, but then on the other I don’t dismiss anything out of hand either – I just tell the story with all the facts that we have to go on.The point being that many, if not all of the people who are featured in the episodes, I think, aren’t trying to mislead anyone; I think they saw what they saw, or heard what they heard, whether there is anything ‘unnatural’ or untoward about what has happened is not for me to decide. I think this tone is important to the show also. Each chapter focuses on one tale of the supernatural, a supposedly true tale of the unexplained, i.e ghosts, UFOs, alien visitations, possession etc. Within the chapter the author tells the supposed tale of the incident and gives a brief mention to cases that may be alike. Alongside the tale is a commentary that is sometimes philosophical, and sometimes trying to be scientific. But the weird thing is (yes, weirder than the stories) that the author isn't using science to look sceptically at each tale, but is sometimes trying to justify the tale scientifically. He bring up a lot of different science, and I could understand his connections, but it was just too much of a stretch to even consider what he was saying. I can say that he didn't do too bad explaining some scientific concepts, but I could tell that he was making great leaps and didn't really have a deep understanding.

Unexplained, based on a successful podcast of the same name, is a feast of the supernatural, paranormal and just plain weird that is known to have happened at various periods throughout the UK and is practically perfect for those drawn-in Autumn nights as we head towards Halloween. I am a fan of these often creepy stories from all corners of the globe and read them no matter the dale they're published, but I must admit that these had a bigger impact on me being both from this country and released at an inspired time of the year! Usually books like this don't really bring much to the table. They go over the same old facts, and the only real difference (and therefore the level of enjoyment) is determined by how much detail there is. Sometimes a book will have come across another source, or a lesser-known story, and the writing will be engaging, and that's good! But it doesn't really bring anything new to the discussion. On the flip side, some books will lean too heavy on pet theories and only look at the evidence from that specific theory, and while sometimes that can be ignored, other times it's a bit much. Smith:I really only have 3 criteria that a story must satisfy: one, that it has a human element at the heart of it; two, that it is actually a story and not just an event (for example, like just saying, “this person was abducted on this day, and that’s all they can remember”); and [third], that the unexplained mystery has never been sufficiently debunked. There are so many stories of this ilk flying around on the internet (where I spend a lot of time generally and researching for the show), but, surprisingly very few that are still genuinely still mystifying.Occasionally I’ll come across a story that sounds amazing (like the Fox sisters, for example,who claimed to have been psychically communicating with spirits), and you think “wow that is such a rich story, it has everything: fascinating historical context, atmospheric location, they’re sisters, etc,” but then before long, you find actually they confessed to making it up; so for me, that’s the end of the story in terms of including it in the show. I’ll still include it, but not in the context that it is one of the unexplained mysteries[.] This book has some really good thought provoking information, but sadly quite equally as much boring suppositions. Because these are ten very different chapters, I'll review each one briefly on its own, to avoid this becoming a huge wall of text that doesn't make much sense:I skipped almost the whole chapter about UFO’s because I found it quite boring.... even though the Welsh village named in the book as being home to more than 14 UFO sightings is only 8 miles from my house. But more than just a show about unnerving and spooky stories, Unexplained is a series that takes Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to heart, always asking the unsettling question: you might well think you know what is or isn’t true, but can you ever be entirely certain? Out of the Trees and on into Dark: The story of the UFO sighting at an RAF base in Suffolk, England. I had some vague knowledge of this, but because UFOs aren't my main thing, I didn't really know that much about it and nor did I think I would be that interested. I was totally wrong. The detail in this account is phenomenal, and the atmosphere is beyond eerie. The fact that there seems to be no rational explanation for the sightings (that lasted several days) and the fact that most of the witnesses were reasonable military men who are unlikely to mistake aircraft for UFOs... it really is a strange case. TVOM:To start off, tell me a little bit about yourself and about how you got the idea for Unexplained. Were you inspired by other podcasts, or did the inspiration come from somewhere else?

Unexplained is a haunting story-based podcast in which host and creator Richard MacLean Smith explores a different unexplained mystery each week - often to terrifying effect. This book fell into neither trap. The selected stories were fascinating, covering both classic incidents and ones that even I hadn't heard of; even the ones I had heard of had lots of new information that I was reading about for the first time. As I've said previously, I'm not usually into UFOs as much as I am ghosts and cryptids and other paranormal elements -- this book had me absolutely hooked on a straight-up UFO story, because it was so engaging and such an interesting case. Following each meticulously researched story was a lot of really interesting information, speculation, and context. The incidents were put into their social context; there was a lot of philosophising that asked questions about the nature of such things, about why we might be drawn to them, about what could have potentially caused them and why we might be open to them. Especially fascinating was the discussion regarding the internet's role in such things; the book went into detail about creepypasta and the rise of internet folklore, and it's the first time I've seen this subject touched upon in a book like this and I was thrilled, considering that's one of the subjects I'm fascinated by. There were lots of interesting things to say about it. This is 1000 words to say what 100 would do. And at times what 10 done WELL would suffice even more.

Unexplained Podcast’s tracks

TVOM: It’s clear from the beginning that a ton of research goes into the topics that you discuss in the podcast. How do you go about choosing a topic, and what’s that research process like?