Entertaining at times but only a pretend “documentary” or study. Highly produced and manipulated to make the listener “believe.” The “skeptic” never asks real obvious questions, such as the dynamics of a teen stepson in a blended family with a new baby being blamed for the “haunting” and kicked out of the house, and instead constantly falls back on “sleep deprivation.” The show accepts hilarious “historical lessons,” paranormal “experts” and theories with credulity. It is very fun to predict the next part of the story as it is completely similar to more famous tales.
I’m not a fan of this type of format for a podcast documentary, hosts comments interspersed with dramatization of “real” events. Is really annoying when the hosts act like something big has just been revealed (by actors reading a script of what supposedly happened 30 years ago.
SPOILER ALERT BELOW
The thing that made me think that the haunting did not occur was when the mother walks into her babies room and sees the old woman (ghost?) sitting in the chair. The mother and fathers reaction to this was to move the baby into their room. If you really thought there was a strange person, ghost or real, in your house with your baby, wouldn’t you get out of the house immediately?
This show is well produced technically, and does a great job at constructing a narrative that is entertaining. However, it is irresponsible in its treatment of conspiracy theories about spirits and spooks. Although it has skeptic who offers rational explanations for the phenomenon that are described, these explanations are routinely dismissed by the host, without the details of those explanations being fairly addressed. Then, a so-called expert who is really just a practitioner of the religion of Spiritualism is allowed to come on and make declarations of “truth” about what spirits are and what they do, without ever referring to any actual research to support those claims. This is an especially irresponsible thing for a podcast to do given the increasing influence of outlandish spiritual conspiracy theories in politics and government. The same kind of sloppy thinking that this podcast contributes to is behind the QAnon conspiracy theory in the United States. The BBC ought to know better.
Hello from Texas! I must confess- this podcast (and it’s sisters) are my absolute favorite. The blending between documentary style and theater is impeccable- it really transports you there. Please keep up the good work!!!
Please continue to make these wonderful podcasts! Each one has been absolutely fascinating, well acted, and thoughtful. I hope you will be willing to continue your investigations in many other locations!
If you’re looking for a spooky ghost story for Halloween this might do but don’t expect any real corroboration with other eye witnesses or evidence besides a big power bill. The actual person who experienced the haunting hardly gets to describe what happened to her. Instead they use voice actors to re-enact events and lay on heavy sound effects and music to make it seem scary. A real person’s story out of their own mouth of what they experienced would have been much scarier. Missed opportunity.
