Crime at Bedtime

On 2 July 1937, the world's most famous female pilot vanished over the Pacific Ocean. Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were attempting to circumnavigate the globe when they disappeared searching for tiny Howland Island. Her final radio transmission—"We are on the line 157 337"—came at 8:43 a.m., then silence. The United States launched the most expensive search in history, covering 150,000...

In 1992, Ecuador captured its youngest serial killer. Juan Fernando Hermosa was just 15 years old when police arrested him after a violent shootout that killed his mother. Over four months in late 1991, he'd murdered 22 people across Quito—8 taxi drivers, 11 gay men, and others—all shot with the same 9mm pistol. The crimes terrorised northern Quito, with weekend killings creating panic among drive...

On 10th October 2024, 35-year-old Dustin Kjersem set up camp in the Montana wilderness to spend the weekend with his girlfriend. He pitched his tent, gathered firewood, and prepared for a peaceful night under the stars. A stranger arrived at the campsite. Dustin, known for his generosity and kindness, welcomed him. Offered him a beer. Invited him to sit by the fire. Within hours, Dustin was dead—b...

On 7th August 1994, at 3 a.m., something strange fell from the sky over Oakville, Washington. It wasn't rain. It wasn't hail. It was gelatinous blobs—translucent, jelly-like masses the size of rice grains that covered twenty square miles. Within hours, people across town were violently ill. Animals died. Officer David Lacey could barely breathe. Dotty Hearn collapsed and was hospitalised for three...

On 23rd February 2008, firefighters responded to a garage fire in Lake Barrington, Illinois. Beneath a white pickup truck, they found a badly burnt body. The wallet identified the victim as Ari Samuel Squire, 39. It looked like a tragic accident. A jack failure. A fire. A life lost. But dental records didn't match. The body was too young—about twenty, not forty. The tattoos were wrong. The body wa...

On 6 April 1966, in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton South, more than 200 students and teachers claimed to see a silver, saucer-shaped object hover over a school before darting away at incredible speed. Minutes later, mysterious men arrived and the incident was hushed up. Decades on, the witnesses are still searching for the truth. This is the Westall UFO mystery. Become a Patreon or Apple + subscr...

On December 5, 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo bombers known as Flight 19 took off from Fort Lauderdale on a routine training mission over the Atlantic. But somewhere over the sea, things began to go terribly wrong. The pilots reported bizarre compass malfunctions, shifting skies, and confusion over their location. Then… silence. Flight 19 vanished and no trace of the aircraft or the crew mem...

In 1966, the bodies of two men were discovered on a remote hill outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They were lying side by side, dressed in matching suits and waterproof coats. What made the scene truly eerie were the lead masks covering their eyes, like homemade radiation goggles and the cryptic handwritten note found nearby: "Be at the agreed place at 16:30. Take capsules after the effect, protect...

In 2011, 32-year-old Jack Froese died suddenly from a heart arrhythmia in Pennsylvania. But just months after his funeral, emails began arriving from Jack’s account, sent to close friends and family. These weren’t generic messages. They were deeply personal , referencing private conversations and recent events that occurred after Jack’s death . In this episode of Mysteries at Bedtime , we explore...

On a cold Christmas Eve in 1975, experienced pilot and former RAF serviceman Peter Gibbs took off in a light aircraft from the Glenforsa Airfield on Scotland’s remote Isle of Mull. The runway was unlit, the skies dark, and no one expected him to fly but he insisted. Minutes later, he disappeared into the night. What followed is one of Britain’s most baffling aviation mysteries. Four months later,...

Beneath the opulent halls of The Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia lies one of America's best-kept Cold War secrets a massive underground fallout shelter built in the 1950s, known as Project Greek Island . For over 30 years, this covert government facility remained hidden in plain sight, ready to house every member of the U.S. Congress in the event of nuclear war. But when the existence of the bun...

In the quiet village of Dodleston, Cheshire, a bizarre and baffling mystery began unfolding in 1984. Ken Webster, a schoolteacher, was working on a BBC Micro computer when strange messages began to appear—written in an archaic form of English, and allegedly sent by someone living in the year 1541 . The messages continued over the following months, becoming more elaborate and unnerving. Later, new...

On a stormy night in November 1980, 32-year-old Granger Taylor left a hand-written note for his family saying he was going on a journey “aboard an alien spaceship” and then vanished without a trace. A self-taught mechanical genius from Vancouver Island, Granger had spent years rebuilding old engines, trains, and even a World War II aircraft in his backyard. But in the months leading up to his disa...

In 1968, an amateur sailor named Donald Crowhurst set out from England in a homemade trimaran to compete in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race—the first ever solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the globe. But what began as a bold quest for fame and fortune soon turned into one of the most baffling mysteries in maritime history. With an untested boat, limited experience, and mounting financial press...

In the early 2000s, a young Scottish boy named Cameron Macaulay stunned his family and baffled researchers when, at just five years old, he began speaking in vivid detail about a life he claimed to have lived before. Cameron described a white house overlooking the sea on the remote Isle of Barra, a black-and-white dog, siblings, and a father named Shane Robertson. He insisted he had once lived the...

In September 1994, at a small private school in rural Zimbabwe, 62 children ran into their classrooms—terrified. What they described to teachers and later to UFO investigators would go on to become one of the most compelling mass UFO sightings in modern history. In this episode of Crime at Bedtime , we revisit the Ariel School encounter: the strange beings, the eerie messages, and the decades-long...

One of the last things Brandon Swanson ever said was a sudden exclamation during a 47-minute call with his father… then the line went dead. What followed was a search that would stretch over years, with no remains, no phone, and no solid leads. In this emotionally charged Crime at Bedtime episode, we delve into the night Brandon vanished, the disturbing gaps in geography, and the haunting possibil...

In 1975, 22-year-old Travis Walton vanished in the Arizona woods after a terrifying close encounter with what witnesses described as a flying saucer. When he reappeared five days later, shaken and disoriented, his story of being taken aboard an alien craft shocked the nation. In this immersive Crime at Bedtime episode, we examine the strange details of Walton’s account, the corroborating witness t...

When six-year-old Joanna and eleven-year-old Jacqueline Pollock were killed in a car accident in 1957, their parents were shattered. A year later, they gave birth to twin girls — Gillian and Jennifer — who would grow to eerily mirror the sisters they'd never met. From shared birthmarks and identical personality traits to memories of toys, places, and even the tragic accident itself, the twins' sto...

It began in a modest council house on East Drive, in the sleepy Yorkshire town of Pontefract. What followed would go down as one of the most aggressive and disturbing hauntings in British history. The Pritchard family reported levitating objects, phantom footsteps, and a sinister figure in a black cloak who appeared in hallways, bedrooms, and even photographs. With over 30 witnesses and years of d...

Born in Louisiana in 1998, young James Leininger shocked his parents with terrifying dreams of dying in a fiery plane crash. But when those dreams led to real names, real aircraft, and real history, their search for answers uncovered a mystery no one could explain. Was he remembering a past life? Become a Patreon or Apple + subscriber now for ealry and ad free access from as little as $1.69 a week...

In the late 1980s and early '90s, thousands of Belgian citizens—including police officers, air traffic controllers, and military personnel—reported seeing large, silent, triangular UFOs in the skies. With radar-confirmed sightings and an official military scramble, the Belgium UFO Wave remains one of the most credible mass sightings in UFO history. In this episode of Mysteries at Bedtime , we revi...

In 1959, nine experienced hikers vanished in Russia’s Ural Mountains under circumstances that defy explanation. Found dead in the snow with crushed ribs, missing eyes, and radiation on their clothing, their story sparked decades of conspiracy theories. Was it an avalanche, a military experiment, or something far stranger? In this immersive episode of Mysteries at Bedtime , we unravel the full stor...

In 1978, a young Australian pilot vanished mid-flight over Bass Strait after reporting a strange object hovering above his aircraft. His final radio transmission? A metallic scraping sound… and silence. No wreckage was ever found. In this chilling episode of Mysteries at Bedtime , Jack Laurence unpacks the disappearance of Frederick Valentich one of aviation’s most enduring UFO mysteries, backed b...

In December 1980, strange lights were spotted near a U.S. Air Force base in Suffolk, England. What followed became one of the UK’s most compelling UFO cases. Military officers reported a landed craft, radiation readings were taken, and an official memo would later confirm something truly unexplained occurred. In this immersive episode of Mysteries at Bedtime , we walk through the nights that chang...