Unexplained: Based on the 'world's spookiest podcast'

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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. Apologies for going wanky, but there is a quote by philosopher Roger Scruton…which goes something like, “The consolation of imaginary things is not imaginary consolation,” and that’s one of the principles I’ve built the show on.

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. TVOM:It seems like the “unexplained mystery” podcast is becoming incredibly popular these days. Why do you think that’s the case? Ha, funnily enough, they have never been less interesting (without fail they always end up being more interesting in one way or another), but, and it has only happened once, I did start a story that half way through I realized didn’t quite fit my three criteria. In the end, I had to work quite hard to smooth it out as it felt too late to start a different one. It actually ended up being one of my favorites — it was the story of the Russian submarine K-219, which I think having looked into, we can well assume was rammed by a US submarine. But I was really heartbroken by the story of the young Russian sailor — Sergei Preminin – who lost his life saving the other men so it was important to find a way to get the story to work to include that. I think I just about managed to get away with it, and it gave me an excuse to read some Lovecraft at the end, so it was all fine. This is 1000 words to say what 100 would do. And at times what 10 done WELL would suffice even more.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.

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. 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. I’ve really enjoyed doing the show how I‘ve done it so far, but I feel like it needs to evolve somewhat to keep me and the listeners interested; so, you may see something a bit more ambitious in the next season. I won’t say too much, but the basic premise will be [that] instead of doing tenshort individual stories, I’m going to take one and make that the whole season. I’m not quite sure if it will work, but that’s the plan for now[.]

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Introduction: Containing a fascinating personal story from the author, the introduction does a good job of setting out the reasons for writing the book and the sort of questions that will be explored, and the book remains true to these intentions throughout. It was really interesting to see a story from the author's family, too -- and such a remarkable one, at that. Then we get the pontificating at the end. This is what I was here for. This was the thing I wanted. Smith was going to look at, say, reincarnation (chapter one) and ask what reincarnation stories tell us about what it is to be human. Instead, I got a piece of prose that jumps all around the place asking what it is to possess a body and whether we'll be able one day to upload our brains to computers. What that has to do with reincarnation I don't know but each chapter end was similar, looking at vague bits of science or news tangentially related to the topic instead of trying to grapple with what the topic means about us as humans. It was, frankly, disappointing. The majority of the stories have been carefully selected and are indeed very spooky, but they are too long winded. The author could have got to the point much sooner, whereas I just feel the chapters are too long which resulted in me becoming disinterested. With each episode, MacLean Smith leads the listener on an atmospheric journey through the strange and eerie, taking in everything from bizarre tales of supposed time-slips, vanishings and UFOs to chilling unexplained deaths and dabblings in the occult.

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.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.

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. The best part was the tales. If the author had just went full blown telling the tale like it was true it would have been entertaining. If the author had instead examined each tale by being scientifically critical and giving references in-between that would have been great too. But the whole trying to fit science to explain the tale irked me. This is a mixture of various supernatural stories, ideal for this time of year. There’s reincarnation, UFOs and possession. All of the tales are unexplained, a little bit creepy, and the author goes into great depth about the history behind the mythology, and provides a very comprehensive analysis. It’s clearly well researched and told with enthusiasm for the subject. I just found that at times the writing style was a little dry and hard going. Sometimes the attention to detail also detracted from the storytelling rather than enhance it, and I found it difficult to really get into - which was a shame as the potential and passion is clearly there.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.