SOUNDS PECULIAR

BRIAN J ROBB PRESENTS THE FORTEAN TIMES PODCAST COLUMN

It is often the lure of the mystery that keeps us coming back

Asa medium, podcasts have been enjoying something of a boom over the past few years. The democratisation of quality media production through high-specification computer equipment has allowed a plethora of previously marginalised voices their own access to what were once quaintly called ‘the airwaves’.

In the past, broadcasting (reaching a wide audience from a single source) was heavily regulated and controlled, mainly through frequency scarcity: only those authorised or licensed to have access to the airwaves were allowed to broadcast. In UK terms that, initially, meant the BBC, with commercial stations coming along in the 1960s.

In terms of radio, there have been amateurs since the invention of the medium, reaching a crescendo with the offshore ‘pirate’ pop stations of the 1960s that ultimately led to the BBC launching Radio 1. For the longest time, Radio 4 (or NPR in the US) has been the default home of quality ‘spoken word’ content, whether that was drama, current affairs, or documentary radio.

Now, anyone with a microphone and an iPad, laptop, or computer and the right software can produce a decent podcast and launch their work onto a waiting world. Not all of them are good, while many are far better than you might expect, sometimes surpassing the productions of ‘legitimate’ broadcasters like the BBC or NPR. When it comes to fortean topics, there are a host of podcasts out there, ranging from the polished and compelling to the amateurish and downright weird. SOUNDS PECULIAR is your insider guide to the best of the current podcasts dealing with fortean topics: all you have to do is sit back and listen... Podcast: Unexplained (www.unexplainedpodcast. com/) Host: Richard MacLean Smith Episode count: 28 Format: Solo voice, reading Established: January 2016 Frequency: Bi-weekly Topics: Mysterious real-life events that evade explanation

Against a background of self-composed electronic music, Unexplained presenter Richard MacLean Smith tells stories of mysteries that have no easy explanation. He describes his podcast as “a show that explores the space between what we think of as real and what is not. Where the unknown and paranormal meets the most radical ideas in science today...” There are no answers here, just mysteries, explored in surprising detail given the podcast’s tight running time, and the trim length makes for an easily digested regular listen. The lack of answers is part of the point, according to MacLean Smith: “Sometimes, when something is inexplicable, that mystery in itself can become the story. In many ways, it is often the lure of the mystery that keeps us coming back for more.”

He puts his interest in weirdness down to childhood viewings of television shows such as The Twilight Zone, the oft-forgotten Eerie, Indiana,

The X-Files, and especially the original Twin Peaks: he claims to “trace his fascination with the strange and mysterious directly back to the night his mum let him stay up to watch the pilot episode…” His podcast deals with far more troubling real-life mysteries.

MacLean Smith kicks things off in the first episode with a compelling treatment of the mysterious fate of 30-yearold Netta Fornario, an occult practitioner who died alone on the island of Iona in Scotland in 1929. He recounts how Netta, a member of a group spun-off from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and dubbed ‘Alpha et Omega’, travelled to the island in search of a gateway to the land of faerie. She wandered from her lodgings in bad weather, only to be found two days later wearing only a thin black cloak, lying dead atop a cross carved into the grass with a dagger (which lay under her body).

The death of Netta Fornario was never solved, but MacLean Smith does run through some of the theories, including the possibility that she simply was not prepared for the harsh Scottish climate, with her official cause of death put down to ‘exposure to the elements’. Alternatively, maybe she was searching for a way to journey to the ‘world’ beyond death and, in fact, succeeded in making the transition (MacLean Smith paints in a background for Netta that makes that plausible). Then there is the other explanation offered by her fellow occult fans: that her death came about due to an attack by a ‘psychic telepath’ who struck out at Netta from hundreds of miles away.

Later episodes broaden out to tackle the Heaven’s Gate cult suicides, reincarnation, the Pontefract Poltergeist, the supernatural theories of ‘Victorian ghostbuster’ Sir William Barrett, the exorcism of Michael Taylor, a two-part exploration of the Dyatlov mountain mystery, a 1978 UFO encounter in Melbourne, the Hexham Heads mystery, timeslips, the Pollock reincarnation story, the real-life inspiration for the The Exorcist, and a live episode from the London Podcast Festival on the haunting of 1 Byron Street.

Some of the episodes have ‘Extra’ instalments that delve deeper into aspects of the story, one of the best being the 10th episode’s additional podcast (‘Who Aiwass’), exploring the mystical life of Aleister Crowley and following on from ‘The Spaces That Linger’, which focuses on Crowley’s connection to Boleskine House, once owned by Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and recently burned down in a mysterious fire.

There is, perhaps, too strong a sense of each piece having been written, with the pseudoliterary prose coming across as a bit contrived in the reading. The music contributes much to the atmosphere, and MacLean Smith’s avoidance of the more obvious subjects – Crowley aside – is to be welcomed. From the launch of Unexplained in 2016, the podcast has been streamed over four million times (hitting #2 in the iTunes chart, just behind Serial), proving that the human desire for mystery remains insatiable.

Strengths: Richard MacLean Smith has a perfect voice for podcasts, and he makes the most of it in his presentation…

Weaknesses: …However, he does have a tendency to get ‘deep’ and philosophical, sometimes without much justification.

Recommended Episodes: S01E01 ‘Opening the Gate’; S01E05 ‘What Hides Beneath’ (the K-219 incident); S02E01 ‘Whispers in the Trees’ (the old wych elm tree skull); S02E02 ‘Time Out of Joint’ (mysterious timeslips).

Verdict: Well produced and presented podcast exploring lesser-known mysteries, short enough not to devour your time.