After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
Episodes
Glencoe Massacre: Hell in the Scottish Highlands
13 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the 13 February 1692, Scottish government troops slaughtered between 30-40 members of Clan MacDonald in their home in Glencoe, in the Scottish High...
Peasants' Revolt: Medieval Rebellion
10 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
1381, England, the world turned upside down as the commoners rise up and dismantle the mechanisms of power. They're angry about taxes, serfdom, about ...
Final Days of the Romanovs (Part 2)
06 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(2/2) We join the captive Romanovs as they are moved from The Alexander Palace to Siberia and then to Ekaterinburg, where their dreadful murder awaits...
Sweating Sickness: Deadly Tudor Plague
03 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's a medical-history-mystery: the Sweating Sickness. Things get clammy as Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling ask what was this deadly disease? What h...
Final Days of the Romanovs (Part 1)
30 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(1/2) As Russia collapses, the Romanovs find themselves trapped by delusions and failed ideals; by revolution and Russian geography. Helen Rappaport j...
Typhoid Mary: Original Super-Spreader?
27 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Mallon aka "Typhoid Mary" is a macabre figure who spread disease and death everywhere she went. But there's a lot more depth and humanity to Mary...
Is the Devil Dead?
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(2/2) What does the resurrection of a hanged woman have to do with the Devil? Did the Enlightenment kill Old Nick or is he still a part of our world t...
Final Days of Henry VIII
20 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You could smell Henry VIII's rotting legs from three rooms by the end. He was in constant pain, barely able to move. Yet he never loosed his grip on t...
Origins of the Devil
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(1/2) How has the devil been depicted through history? What are his origins? And why should he be portrayed as beautiful?In the first part of a two pa...
Great Fire of London: Mobs, Firestorms, and Revenge
13 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(2/2) As the Great Fire of London worsens mob rule begins to appear and a hunt for a scapegoat takes over. Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the sto...
Final Days of Mary Queen of Scots
09 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The moment Mary Queen of Scots set foot in England, she became Elizabeth I's prisoner. Mary was fleeing from war and misogyny, hoping for help from he...
Great Fire of London: Who started it?
06 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
(1/2) London's Burning! London's Burning! Disaster strikes in 1666 as the dense, mostly wooden, city of London begins to burn. Who started the fire? W...
Final Days of Rasputin
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic, survived multiple assassination attempts on the same night. He was poisoned, he was shot, he was drowned in a freezi...
Is the Loch Ness Monster real?
30 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What lurks beneath the dark waters of Loch Ness? The legendary monster? A piece of Celtic folklore? A warning of the Nazis' rise to power? A fraudster...
Mystery of the Ghost Ship: Mary Celeste
26 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1872 the ghost ship Mary Celeste is found sailing across the Atlantic without a single crew member left on board. Theories over what happened on th...
Who was the "Elephant Man"? Joseph Merrick's True Story
23 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The life of Joseph Merrick, the man they dared to call "The Elephant Man", will fill you with pain and anger. He was treated so cruelly by society tha...
Inside the Foundling: London's First Orphanage (Part 2)
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
(2/2) We find out what life inside the Foundling Hospital was like as we complete the heartbreaking and heartwarming history of London's first orphana...
Lost Children of Georgian London (Part 1)
16 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today Anthony and Maddy look into the heartbreaking history of the Foundling Hospital, now London’s saddest museum. Starting in the 18th centur...
Predicting Death: Strange History of the Premonitions Bureau
12 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Can we see beyond the veil, glimpse the future before it arrives? John Barker, a psychiatrist with a fascination for the unexplained, thought maybe we...
Ireland's First Witch: Medieval Murderer? (Part 2)
09 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
(Part 2/2) Anthony returns to his hometown of Kilkenny to conclude the tale of the first person to be executed for witchcraft in Ireland. Set 700 year...
History's Greatest Ghost Hunters: the Warrens
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ghost hunting couple Ed and Lorraine Warren transformed twentieth century America into an enchanted land dotted with haunted houses, cursed objects, a...
Ireland's First Witch: Medieval Murderer? (Part 1)
02 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
(Part 1/2) 700 years ago, in 1324, the first person to be executed for witchcraft in Ireland died in Kilkenny. This is the story of a successful busin...
Most Haunted House in America: The Amityville Horror
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville (Long Island) is arguably the most haunted house in America. Inside its walls demonic forces were, allegedly, unleashed...
English Village Sacrificed to Plague (Part 2)
24 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
(Part 2/2) They could've run, but they stayed. In 1665 plague arrived in the idyllic English village of Eyam. What followed was a story of suffering a...
Ghosts of the Deep South
21 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Deep South is a haunted landscape where dark tourism thrives, supplying spine-tingling thrills to eager visitors. But is there a darker truth behi...
English Village Sacrificed to Plague (Part 1)
18 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
(Part 1/2) They could've run, but they stayed. In 1665 plague arrived in the idyllic English village of Eyam. What followed was a story of suffering a...
Queen Victoria's Funeral & the Cult of Death
14 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Queen Victoria was synonymous with grief and the Victorian cult of death. Yet her own funeral wasn't that at all. Today Dan O'Brien explains to Anthon...
Final Days of Captain Cook
11 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The violent death of Captain James Cook, British explorer, on a Hawaiian beach in 1779 has become the stuff of legend. Should we believe the story tha...
Ghosts of Hampton Court Palace
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The ghost of Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, screaming down a corridor. A nursemaid's spinning wheel clicking in the walls. Robed Tudor fi...
Titanic: The Final Hours (Part 2)
04 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Part 2/2. Iceberg, panic and lives changed forever. Loss, survival, and myth-making. Today is part two of the most famous maritime disaster in history...
The King's Witch Trial: North Berwick Witches
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Maddy and Anthony have a new TV documentary out all about King James VI of Scotland's witch hunts, available on History Hit TV.When James VI of Scotla...
Titanic: The Doomed Ship (Part 1)
28 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Part 1/2. Come on board the White Star Line's latest marvel, the splendour of the sea, the Titanic. Today we begin the story of the most ill-fated voy...
Irish Origins of Halloween
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Pumpkins, trick or treating and ghost stories are what we associate with Halloween, but what about turnips, fairies and a fortune-telling cake? Anthon...
Execution of Lady Jane Grey
21 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This Tudor's story is intense and tragic. She's known as Lady Jane Grey but we ought to change that to 'Queen Jane'. That's who she was, even though s...
Final Days of Anne Boleyn
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today we’re exploring the grim and heroic final days of the Anne Boleyn, the thousand day queen.We are joined by the one-and-only Dr Tracy Borman wh...
Ménage à Murder: 1920s Love Triangle Killers
14 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Edith Thompson was the model 1920's flapper girl. Her husband Percy was more suburban. When young Freddy Bywater entered the marriage home, things bec...
Bodies in the Walls: Postwar London's Darkest Crime
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
John Reginald Christie was the most notorious murderer of his era. On the outside he was every inch the Old Fashioned Englishman, respectable norms pe...
Who was Jack the Ripper? The Doctor (Suspect 4)
07 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Part 4/4. By looking at the men accused of being Jack the Ripper, we uncover dark truths about Victorian society - and our own. Why were these men, mo...
Burke & Hare: Scotland’s Most Notorious Serial Killers
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Discover the true story of Burke and Hare’s murderous rampage through the streets of Edinburgh, all to serve the needs of the city’s scientific mi...
Who was Jack the Ripper? The Artist (Suspect 3)
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Part 3/4. By looking at the men accused of being Jack the Ripper, we uncover dark truths about Victorian society - and our own. Why were these men, mo...
Wounds of Christ: Macabre History of Stigmata
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The wounds that Christ received on the cross - the stigmata - have had a strange afterlife, reappearing on the flesh of followers from St Francis of A...
Who was Jack the Ripper? The Barber (Suspect 2)
23 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Part 2/4. By looking at the men accused of being Jack the Ripper, we uncover dark truths about Victorian society - and our own. Why were these men, mo...
Ned Kelly: Australia's Notorious Outlaw
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ned Kelly is a murdering, bank-robbing, Australian folk hero. What is the true history of this mythic figure? And how did an outlaw - or bushranger - ...
Who was Jack the Ripper? The Prince (Suspect 1)
16 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Part 1/4. By investigating the men accused of being Jack the Ripper, we uncover dark truths about Victorian society - and our own. Why were these men,...
Lost Colony of Roanoke: Mystery of England's First American Settlers
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The colonists of Roanoke Island in the 1580's were the very first English people to try to establish a permanent settlement in America. They completel...
Myth of the Minotaur: Half Man Half Bull
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The myth of the Minotaur has endured thousands of years for good reason... it's hard to forget! Today, Maddy Pelling tells Anthony Delaney the story o...
The Black Death: The Deadliest Plague
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It was beyond Biblical in its horror. Around half of all Europeans are estimated to have died in the Black Death. Death ravaged towns and villages, ca...
Macabre Death of Edgar Allan Poe
02 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Edgar Allan Poe was a poster boy for the macabre whose work thrilled readers throughout America and beyond. How did he end up in a gutter in Baltimore...
Corpse Medicine: Eating Egyptian Mummies
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A skull a day! People ate people in the name of medicine across Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Charles II kept powdered skull in a bag on his ...
Giggling Granny Serial Killer
26 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Picture a serial killer in your mind’s eye. What do you see... Is it your gran?Today is the story of one of America’s most notorious female serial...
Salem Witch Trials: Interrogation & Torture
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The second part of our story on the Salem Witch Trials. Anthony Delaney takes Maddy Pelling inside the courtroom as unbelievable stories of witchcraft...
Salem Witch Trials: Hysteria & Accusations
19 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
First of two episodes on the Salem Witch Trials. We begin the story as accusations are made throughout the town of Salem and a climate of fear is p...
Harry Houdini: the Original Ghostbuster
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Harry Houdini was the greatest magician that ever lived. He was also the greatest ghostbuster ever, exposing countless spiritual mediums as frauds. Wh...
"The Elephant Man": Joseph Merrick's True Story
12 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The life of Joseph Merrick, the man they dared to call "The Elephant Man", will fill you with pain and anger. He was treated so cruelly by society tha...
American Serial Killer Family: Bloody Benders
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When a series of mysterious disappearances and gruesome murders happened on the American Frontier in the 19th century, fingers started to point in the...
Innocent or Axe Murderer? Lizzie Borden
05 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's one of the most infamous trials in American history, Lizzie Borden's story is breathtaking even today. In 1893 she was accused of using an axe to...
New York Morgue's Dark Secrets
01 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The unclaimed dead of New York City's streets and rivers were once brought to the notorious New York Morgue. It's a history that has never been studie...
The Final Days of Marie Antoinette
29 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How did Marie Antoinette, last Queen of France, spend her final days before the guillotine took her head? Did she ever really stand a chance? Anthony ...
Slenderman & Mothman: Origins of Internet Horror
25 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The internet is full of dark and wicked things" said a police chief after a shocking crime by two children claiming to be acolytes of the Slenderman....
Victorian Teen Who Murdered Her Baby Brother
22 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1860 Britain was rocked by the brutal murder of 3-year-old Francis Kent inside his family home. Scotland Yard sent their finest but when a teenage ...
Real History of the Illuminati
18 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There really was a secret society called the Illuminati that aimed to create a New World Order. This is true story of the Illuminati and how they were...
Royal Murder: 1810 Death in St James's Palace
14 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1810 a valet called Joseph Sellis was found dead in St James's Palace. All eyes turned to his master the Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George II...
Tutankhamun's Curse
11 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Untimely deaths followed the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb by Howard Carter. Coincidence or ancient curse? When the tomb of King Tutankhamun was seale...
Bell Witch of Tennessee: America's Greatest Ghost Story
07 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's America's greatest ghost story: the 1817-1821 haunting of a rural family by a mysterious entity—sometimes violent, sometimes mischievous, even ...
Real Life Crime in Victorian London
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"You've got to pick a pocket or two" says Fagan to Oliver Twist about the foggy streets of Victorian London where poverty and oppression abounded. Tod...
Public Executions: A Day At London's Hanging Tree
30 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Would you have gone? Would you have drunk with the condemned? Paid your way into their prison the night before? Public executions in London were big b...
Spooky Origins of the Ouija Board
26 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do you dare try? The Ouija board was invented in 1890. It was an idea lifted from Spiritualist devices for communicating with the dead. Find out the s...
Ghost of Marie Antoinette
24 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What if a leisurely visit to the Palace of Versailles transported you back to the court of Marie Antoinette — would you believe it or question your ...
Last Witches of England
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is the dark history of the last people to be executed for witchcraft in England. In 1682, Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles and Susannah Edwards, f...
The ‘Genius’ Killer
17 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The so-called 'Genius' Killer was a murderer who seemed to be both philosopher and psychopath, whose brain was one of the largest ever recorded. But w...
Prison Hulks: Floating Hells for Convicts
13 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Convicts, illegal dissections, disease, all taking place on ships described as "Wicked Noah's Arks" where conditions were even worse than in notorious...
Enfield Poltergeist: 1970's Suburban Horror
10 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Enfield Poltergeist is Britain's most infamous haunting - set in the late 1970s on the outskirts of London, it continues to be told and retold. Mo...
The Witch of New York: 1840's Murder Trials of Polly Bodine
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On Christmas night 1843 a mother and child were found murdered inside their burned out home. Suspicion fell on one Polly Bodine. Over the next three y...
The Real Mutiny on the Bounty: Revenge in Paradise (Part 2)
03 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mutineers, manhunts, uninhabited tropical islands and...SHIPWRECKS! The second part of the story of the Mutiny of the Bounty is even wilder than the f...
Real History of the Knights Templar
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why are the Knights Templar surrounded by myths and legends? Is there any truth to the tales of the Holy Grail or that the Knights survived? Why does ...
Victorian Thames Torso Murders
27 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At exactly the same time as Jack the Ripper, another serial killer terrorised London. Just like Jack the Ripper, all their victims were women - their ...
Hidden History of Garden Gnomes
23 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Garden gnomes have a secret life all of their own. If you don't believe us, then go ask Paris Hilton.Today we discover the hidden history of garden gn...
Great Irish Famine: Coffin Ships & the Dark Truth (Part 2)
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
1847 was the darkest year in the spiralling horror of the Great Irish Famine. It is known in Ireland as 'Black '47'. The British Government withdrew i...
Oliver Cromwell's Decapitated Head & Charles II's Revenge
15 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
***Warning: today's episode contains graphic description of violence***In 1661 Oliver Cromwell was hung and beheaded...the only problem was he'd been ...
The Great Famine: Ireland’s Darkest Chapter (Part 1)
13 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
One million people died. Two million emigrated. The Great Irish Famine was the world turned upside down. The darkest chapter in Ireland's past.It is n...
Harry Potter Monsters: The Ancient Origins
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
***Spoiler Alert: this episode contains spoilers for the Harry Potter books and films***Giant snakes, winged horses and hooded demons. The world of Ha...
True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty (Part 1)
05 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Violence, sex, betrayal, death and ... SHIPS! This is the story of how a voyage that began with scientific aims and a regimented daily routine ended i...
Execution of Charles I
01 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1649, Charles I had his head chopped off for treason. It's a unique, divisive moment in English history. Was Charles a tyrant or a martyr? Was his ...
1811 Ratcliffe Highway Murders: Birth of True Crime
29 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Horror struck the East End of London twice in December 1811. Two brutal sets of murders within a few days of each other. It became ground zero for Tru...
Cannibalism in Scotland: Legend of Sawney Bean
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
According to legend, Sawney Bean and Agnes "Black" Douglas raised a clan of cannibals in a remote Scottish cave. They killed and ate unlucky traveller...
What is the Yeti?
22 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Did you know legendary mountaineer Edmund Hillary found evidence of the Yeti? Or that David Attenborough is on board with the idea it exists? Today we...
The Georgian Husband with Fourteen Wives
17 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Hamilton allegedly had fourteen wives according to the newspapers, but the headline was that Charles used to be called Mary. In the 18th centu...
Bigfoot: the Origin Story
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our second episode examining the very real history of Bigfoot. This time we're looking at ancient Native American rock art and meeting the extinct (or...
Deadly Dancing Plague of 1518
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When people think of Medieval diseases, hysterical dancing is not usually what first comes to mind. Yet in 14th and 15th century Germany, dozens of or...
Bigfoot: Hunt for the Truth
08 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Does Bigfoot really walk among us? Today we start a three-part mini-series exploring the very real histories of Bigfoot and the Yeti.We begin with Big...
Jack the Ripper
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What is it about this case that holds the imagination after all these years? When did that fascination with it begin? How early on did the myths of Ja...
Medieval Mass Murdering Monk: Malmesbury Abbey
01 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire was an institution of national significance from the late seventh century until the dissolution of the monasteries in 15...
The Murdering Midwife of Covent Garden
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
‘If only walls could talk’ is a phrase which feels particularly relevant to mysterious murder cases throughout history. And in today’s episode, ...
Who is the Real Dracula? The Bloody History
25 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is the incredible history of Dracula, from medieval ruler Vlad the Impaler, to Bram Stoker and the Victorian theatre world. Get ready for a very ...
England's Worst Witch Trial: Pendle Witches
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Inside the heavy walls of Lancaster Castle, the darkest & deadliest of English witch trials played out in 1612 - the Pendle Witch Trials. By the end t...
St Patrick: Pirates, Snakes and Goatees
17 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
He wasn't Irish. He didn't wear green. There were no snakes. So who was the real St Patrick? How did his myth grow? And how did he invent the goatee?P...
Medieval Torture: The Dark History
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This episode contains descriptions of execution and torture.To be Hanged, Drawn & Quartered. Put on the Rack. Impaled on a spike. This list paints a v...
'Black Widow': Serial Killer of Victorian England
11 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Ann Cotton is known as the first British female serial killer. A trail of bodies, many her own children, followed her through life. Bodies she ha...
Pirate Queens: Mary Read & Anne Bonny
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Read and Anne Bonny are legendary female pirates from the golden age of piracy. Raised as boys, they sailed with captain Calico Jack and fought t...
The First Alien Abduction
03 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1961 Betty and Barney Hill became the first people ever to be abducted by aliens. Their story of being taken and examined by extraterrestrials on b...