We recommend: Paranormal podcasts with eerie episodes
Editor’s Note: The splainer team has made sure that you’re all set for October 31st. Here’s a list of podcasts perfect for Halloween—with ghost stories from folklore, Delhi bhoots and spousal hauntings on Tinder.
No Sleep Podcast: One of the most popular subreddits on Reddit is NoSleep. People post “scary personal experiences”, which are fictional but are written in a way that sounds authentic and real. David Cummings, in 2015, decided to take the top-rated stories from this community and turn them into carefully crafted audio-dramas.
Each episode is a horror story picked from the NoSleep subreddit, which is then produced as a scary and spooky auditory experience—complete with a cast of voices, background music and great storytelling. The show is entering its 19th season, so there are lots of episodes to start off with. We’ll recommend the first ever episode, ‘Little Lost Amy’, and the ‘Devil’s Dice’.
Lore: This is a cult favourite and has millions of listeners. Each episode explores a scary and haunting tale from the past, but with a twist: every story is true. It is a deeply researched show that goes deep into folklore from history and what people believed to be true. Spoiler alert: these are frightening. We would recommend listening to their older episodes first. You can start with ‘Rope and Railing’, ‘In the Woods’ or ‘Dinner at The Afterglow’.
Ghost Huns podcast: A man matches with his dead wife’s ‘ghost’ on Tinder. On episode 14 of the Ghost Huns episode comedians and horror enthusiasts—Hannah Byczkowski and Suzie Preece—deep dive into an eerie experience of the protagonist receiving messages on the dating app from an account in the likeness of his late wife such as: “Are you home? Let me in, please.” as the front door of his house closes on its own. The Tinder messenger also uses a pet name that was only known between husband and wife. Listen in to the rest to know the real mystery behind the quirky match and messages.
Bhoot Bhulaiya: This podcast is for the Hinglish speakers. Produced by Kommune and hosted by an established voice artist Anuj Gurwara, the episodes are short stories based on a New York-based consultant Jatin Bhasin’s viral tweets. He has also authored ‘The Haunting of Delhi City: Tales of the Supernatural’. The episodes are about 20 minutes long and focus on a particular area of Delhi from the 1980s. It is commendable that even with minimal audio cues, the atmosphere created is pretty scary. The show has 11 episodes in total and makes for a good weekend binge. Our favourites: ‘Staff Quarter No. 13’ and ‘Unsolved Mystery of Khan Market’.
Rotten Mango: This podcast series is a long-standing one, hosted by Youtuber Stephanie Soo. She collects all sorts of true-crime stories, unsolved mysteries and horrible acts committed by humans and narrates them in a casual, conversational style as though you were listening to a friend. The podcast has over 300 episodes and they are super long—averaging over an hour. We suggest playing them in the background and believe me, you would want to hear the entire episode. You can start by listening to the latest one.
