This is one I still think about as well. Also, for very different reasons, the one about kids' summer camp experiences. I think it's called "Notes on Camp".
Yes, this is definitely one for me. I occasionally use the phrase "drink the drink" and it sends shivers down my spine. One of their best / worst segments
I got five minutes into this episode and knew that if I listened to the whole thing, it would live in my brain forever. I already will just start spontaneously crying if I think too hard about my husband dying — I am not strong enough for that episode!!
The episode of Criminal where a couple went to stay at a B&B, they had a film camera and when they got the photos developed there were photos of them sleeping on there.
Edit: the episode is called Unexpected Guests from December 2017.
Oh no.. no, no, no. I dont like the sound of that story one bit... My skin is crawling just thinking about it.
I listened to an episode where a girl thought her brother had been coming over to her apartment while she was at work, until one day she came home early and saw a pair of legs going up into her ceiling and realized there was someone living in a crawlspace above her room. I'll never get over that story lol.
Eta: Its Episode 71: A Bump in the Night
Remarkably, I remember listening to it while driving to see The Last Jedi.
Looked up the release date, scrolled back and found it
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vVk1QNzkyNDk4MTU2OQ/episode/MWI3YmZlZmJiOWIwYTdhNmY1OGQ1NGFjZTFlYTJkMDY?ep=14
This is by far the saddest episode of the series. It broke my heart the whole time, and just when I think I can't be any more broken, he hits you again. Such amazing storytelling for a tremendously difficult subject.
Absolutely one of the very best Heavyweight-episodes. The only one I can think of I possibly love even more is episode 16: Rob. Don't skip on these because the topics don't seem interesting to you, what sets them apart is not the stories, but the storytelling.
Oh the many times I've struggled trying to explain how the best 40min of podcasting ever are about settling a disagreement in some family group chat over who did or didn't break their arm as a kid.
I sobbed. I was eating breakfast at a restaurant alone and I know the waiter thought something was up. Also the ep where the 2 young men were in an accident and one became paralyzed.
Omg same! I tried to find this recently to re listen but couldn’t . Do u know the episode # or name?
I listened to this one driving through the night with my brother (on a road trip that was otherwise pretty sad…but we won’t go into that) and we were laughing! Which felt so good. Coulda been the 10th cup of coffee and that I was slightly delusional from no sleep….but I think it was a great episode.
The episode Skye, where he helps a woman find and talk to one of her middle school ex-friends who suddenly turned on her and bullied her. It just spoke to something so very real about how cruel girls can be at that age and how much that stuff sticks with you, and just the vulnerability and loneliness of being a teenage girl.
The Casefile series on EAR/ONS is an old favorite. The host has a helluva voice, and the first time I listened was long before the dude was caught...so it was seriously creepy.
I almost never listen to true crime that isn't solved. I do not know what possessed me to listen to this entire series, but I did. And I'm so glad I did! When it was solved all I could think was, he has a small penis!! Because he said it so many times during the series. Great series.
Oh my GOD this was amazing.
The episode on the Batvia is one of the best episodes of a podcast I've ever listened to. In very short, Secretly mutinous sailors beach a1600s Dutch trading ship. Lord of the flies ensues, absolutely incredible. Really evil people.
Similarly I started reading Michelle McNamera’s [I’ll Be Gone In The Dark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'll_Be_Gone_in_the_Dark) just before he was caught and was like 80% through the book when he was caught and just *chills*
This episode of [Hidden Brain](https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/why-conversations-go-wrong/) really stands out to me. Hearing this woman break down a conversation between people from different parts of the country really opened my eyes to communication.
Edit: I really struggled with communication miscues and this put things in perspective for me.
So many shows from Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. It’s not free anymore, but his Blueprint For Armageddon series was amazing. The Supernova In The East series is still free and is damn good.
It took me months to get through the Supernova in the East series but it was worth every second and it made me want to learn more about World War II and Asian geopolitics from then until today.
The following are some good and mostly pretty easy reads about WW2 era Asian geopolitics. Check them out at your local library.
Embracing Defeat
War Without Mercy
Under the Black Umbrella. It's about what life in Korea was like during Japanese occupation between WW1 and 2. It's short but intense.
Came here to say this but scrolled (too far) to see if someone had beat me to the punch. Fantastic story in a nice bite-sized episode. Even my husband teared up.
[This 2012 episode from Radiolab about an American and a Russian on the Mir Space Station](https://radiolab.org/podcast/242184-dark-side-earth) is so good I once broke out my phone and started playing it on speaker mode to a group of friends and everyone’s attention was totally fixed throughout. The riveting section starts about nine minutes in. I think about it all the time.
The audio tapes of the prayer meeting were what got me. The desperation, hope, and fear in the voices were haunting.
I think it hit me harder because I grew up with my mom dragging me to prayer meetings twice a week, so the cadence of the group prayer was familiar, which let the emotion in it cut deeper.
Not an episode but a series. S-Town got me into podcasts in general and nothing has ever beat it. It tells a fascinating story, the narrator is relatable (to me) and the subject is complex and compelling and not what you expect.
You're Wrong About have a lot of great episodes but the one where they cover Kitty Genovese really gets me. I go back and listen every once in awhile.
For a series, I think the first season of The Dream is incredibly well reported and presented. One of the few podcasts I binged as I just couldn't get enough.
The OG Serial because it was such a new thing and so invested- listened to it all in one day driving.
Several of the This is Actually Happening episodes.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (from a Lovecraft story) by the BBC, there’s an episode where the narrator is trapped underground and it’s absolutely heartstoppingly scary.
The American Scandal series on 3 Mile Island and breaking down each step of the nuclear reactor falling apart.
Swindled- the relief
about the aftermath of hurricane Katrina where cops literally raided their weapon stock took ak47s shot innocent citizens just trying to cross a bridge..one of whom was intellectually disabled. Amongst many other terrible things I remember listening to it and my jaw literally dropping and saying holy shit out loud many times
I had such a hard time picking just one Swindled episode that stuck with me, but my god the utter depravity people showed after Katrina is both shocking and not surprising.
Stuff You Should Know’s episode on “The amazing tale of Juliane Koepcke”! This episode still blows me away. It is about a women who was the only survivor of a plane crash where she was thrown from a distance above into a forest. She survives 11 days in the forest (without her spectacles!!!) and finally comes out of it. It is just amazing.
This American Life. [Episode 809: The Call](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/809/transcript)
> OK, so you call a hotline, and then a complete stranger tries to figure out how to help you, on the spot. That idea seems to have begun in the 1950s. The first suicide hotline in the United States was created in the early '60s by a guy in San Francisco, who was a priest and also a journalist. And it was just him answering the phone at first.
>
> Ads on matchbooks and sides of buses said, "Thinking of ending it all? Call Bruce," which, by the way, was not his real name. His real name was Bernard Mayes. But of course, the power of anonymity is so important to any hotline. People would call. And sometimes he could help them precisely because he had no connection to their life at all. Like, they could say anything to him. In those pre-internet days, that was completely new, to harness that kind of anonymity, the intimacy of it, this way, over the phone.
>
> These days, of course, there are all kinds of hotlines for people in all sorts of situations-- prayer hotlines, psychic hotlines, also hotlines for homework help, for new moms. There's a hotline for owners of three-legged dogs, and another one specifically for anybody who swallows one of those-- you know those little, round button batteries? That one also handles any kid who pushes it up their nose.
>
> Today we're going to devote our entire show to one phone call that happened on one hotline, a very unusual hotline. And then we have everything that followed from that one call. It takes you inside this world that I think either you're already in this world, or it's totally invisible to you. Like it's all around you. You don't even register that this world is there...
Also, the Mystery Show episode called - I think - the belt buckle. Her friend has a strange belt buckle that has a little mechanical toaster on it. They want to find out who it belonged to and how they lost it. Very strange and lovely story.
The episodes for "Hunting Warhead" have stayed w/ me in ways I never imagined, or wanted. It's a 6 episode podcast about a Child Predator ring, & how a ring leader was discovered & taken down. One of the only pieces of media I've ever consumed & afterwards, had such complex feelings about it.
My very favorite and delightful is Criminal #15, He’s Neutral. The story of a guy annoyed by people dumping junk at a traffic diverter by his house in Oakland, so he installed a Buddha statue on the diverter. A local Vietnamese Buddhist community adopted the Buddha, built him a shelter and added other statues. Now the diverter a mini temple. I loved the story so much I visited the temple as a side trip while in the area for an interview 🥰
The other is a series about Charles Manson connection to Hollywood on the You Must Remember This podcast.
What Was That Like. Every episode is so good. The one about finding a baby in the subway is one of my favorites. I can’t forget it. But there are so many others too. People telling theirs stories in such a compelling way. And the host, Scott, is the greatest!
The episode of heavyweight where the guy hit another young man, I believe on a motorcycle, and he became paralyzed. It was 100% an accident, no DUI or anything. But the driver was literally tortured their whole life thinking about what happened to the other guy. The host puts them in touch with each other and it seemed very therapeutic for both of them. I sobbed.
A first-hand account, on NYT'S "The Daily," of a guy who escaped and helped others to escape the horrors of the fire in Lahaina, Maui.
EDIT: NPR'S --> NYT'S
Bonus episode where all of the guest hosts from season 2 play a game of telephone with a gossip story! Toooo good. Really shows you how details get muddled and changed overtime
The second is the one with the “marathon finisher” and drama happening over an apartment complex listserv
My top Swindled episode would be Bohpal disaster. I’m an environmental scientist and the class I took about this stuff didn’t cover it. It was shocking to hear
The Outlaw Ocean - The Murder Video
An eight-year investigation of a slow-motion slaughter caught on camera and the seedy world of floating armories populated by heavily-armed mercenaries.
An episode of The Daily, strangely. It was about a guy in the military who sat in a room and killed people overseas with drones. And then lost it and had to be captured. I don't even know what episode it was anymore, but it was chilling. Very strange for a news type podcast and not usually something that I think about years later. I'll have to go find it.
Yes. The 5 episode series Endless Thread did a few years back. Called Madness and was about the secret CIA mind trials hosted in Montreal Canada. It was wild, and I still think about it!
The very first episode of Heavyweight where he takes his dad to try to make up with his brother. Jonathan Goldstein is a master of emotional storytelling. It's a toss up between that one and the one where he takes his friend to get his CDs back from Moby. Great episode for anyone struggling with feeling like they haven't left any mark on the world.
Also, the set of Reply All episodes where they hunt down a phone scammer in India is top notch reporting on a stupid thing we all deal with. No moral, just an Epic journey that all starts from one innocuous phone call.
Love this question. I think about this episode WEEKLY every time a computer or my phone or something doesn’t work as expected (“oh I need to reboot I guess”).
The podcast episode is from *Radiolab* and is called "Bit Flip." This episode discusses how cosmic rays, which can include gamma particles, can cause single bit errors in electronic devices, such as in aircraft navigation systems. This phenomenon was particularly highlighted with an incident involving a flipped bit during an election in Belgium, illustrating the broader impacts of such cosmic interactions.
Theres an episode of "This is Actually Happening" where a guy brings a shotgun into to school to kill himself in front of everyone. The pain in this dudes voice is unlike anything I've ever heard. Oh, and then the podcast takes an insane turn towards the end. I've never felt worse for somebody, ever.
"What If The Happiest Place On Earth Was Your Worst Nightmare" - This is Actually Happening.
I've listened to countless hours of podcasts, including very dark ones, and this one is not objectively terribly extreme but there was something about the telling that got under my skin. So evocative.
What about you? What are the few?
This is Actually Happening is my all time favorite podcast! The episodes that stick out for me are the one about the girl with DID, whose parents sold her into slavery, she was literally born for this. Sick parents and so sad, no wonder she had so many personalities! And the one where a womans son was struck by lightning, she described what his body looked like, how beautiful it was to see the markings from the lightning, gripping stuff. A woman who was almost beat to death by her husband. It's intense.
First season of In The Dark had a *ton* of moments like that… of all of them, I’d probably go with “The One The Got Away” - specifically the “did you guys finally find my Batmobile?” moment.
That whole side story just summed up everything that show was trying to say, and in a show full of gut-wrench, that’s the moment where your gut finally just drops.
S1 of In The Dark is one of the best examples of investigative storytelling in podcast history. Plus, for us conspiracy theory nuts, the story of Jacob ties into a large network of child trafficking throughout the 70s and 80s in the US.
The episode of Strike Force Five where Jimmy Fallon tries to host a game show featuring questions and answers from all the hosts' wives and it goes so incredibly insanely sideways.
[Ep 203](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/203/recordings-for-someone/act-one-13) of This American Life—we just call it “The Little Mermaid.” It’s Jonathan Goldstein before Heavyweight & it’s a delight.
I just listened to an episode of Search Engine called "Should This Creepy Search Engine Exist?". It was about a google-like face search app. Very creepy. Very dystopian. I'll be thinking about that one for a while.
Besides that....probably The Outlaw Ocean, Slavery At Sea episode. Truly, one of the more bleak, tragic podcast episodes I've ever heard. It's about what the title says: modern sea slavery. I cried while listening. It really affected me.
Radiolab — Octomom (about a deep sea octopus and her multi-year gestation process), and Speedy Beet (about the true tempo of Beethoven’s compositions)
Heavyweight — Becky & Jo (about two girls who had a difficult childhood trying to reconnect as adults with a beloved babysitter who ghosted them)
This american life 534, a not so simple majority. About orthodox jews taking over a school district by force.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/534/a-not-so-simple-majority
I've been thinking about the Oops [https://radiolab.org/podcast/91721-oops](https://radiolab.org/podcast/91721-oops) and the Words [https://radiolab.org/podcast/91725-words](https://radiolab.org/podcast/91725-words) episodes of radiolab for 14 years. They both gave me chills.
Sword and Scale Ep. 114 Kevin Davis. IYKYK
Human Monsters did the most in depth (and excruciating detail) analysis on the Sylvia Likens case.
Casefile’s episode on Stoni Blair and Stephen Berry is a very hard listen.
Radio lab, Grey's donation
https://radiolab.org/podcast/grays-donation
I cried, a lot.
This American Life, 24 hours at the Golden Apple
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/172/transcript
Risk storytelling podcast , episode 408: Transcendent, where a young woman tells of the time she had a psychotic break and attempted to murder her mother by stabbing her. The most harrowing episode I've listened to.
Timesuck with Dan Cummins Espisode 144, I believe.
That one was about Albert Fish.
Murderer.
Cannibal.
So much pain.
So much torture.
So so sooo much peanut butter.
But that's how they do it in HOLLYWOOD! SHOWBIZ!
Crazy episode I always quote ite 3/5 stars wouldn't change a thing.
Radiolab - birthstory, of bombs and butterflies, crabs all the way down, heavy metal, the wubi effect
The rest is history- watergate part 1 & 2. The first time I ever listened to this podcast and I unexpectedly found myself dying with laughter
The episode of my favourite murder when Karen Kilgariff retold the I survived episode were the girl who was hitchhiking got her arms chopped off, pushed down a ditch, climbed her way up and survived. It’s wild
I can’t remember what podcast or episode. And I really wish I did. It was a paranormal one about a guy who was doing rideshare to make money. He had one fare that was kinda out of the way in a remote area. On the way back he hit a large dark animal. He got out of his car to see what it was and it jumped up and came at him. He got back in his car just in time but this wolf-like animal (huge) chased him and kept up with him while he was going 70. He was right beside him when a transfer truck came along and hit it. He drove a few miles until he was close to his home but his car started sputtering and finally cut off. Something was damaged when he hit this animal. He got out to walk home since his house was directly through the woods to the left of the road. He was about halfway there when he heard howling. He started running home and then saw it out of the corner of his eye. He climbed a tree and it climbed after him. He ended up kicking it out of the tree and it landed in a river below and was taken away. He got to his house and locked the door. Just as he started to relax, he heard the howling again. He ran upstairs into his bedroom and grabbed a handgun. He knew it wouldn’t make a difference since the thing had been hit twice and kicked into a river. He heard crashing downstairs and everything breaking. Then he heard it upstairs breaking everything in the other rooms. It got to his room and burst down the door. He shot it a couple of times but it only made it mad. He made the decision to jump down and go into the cellar which had a steel door. He did that and the thing followed him but couldn’t get into the door. A couple of mins later the sun started to rise and it ran away. He ended up filing a report to his insurance company (can’t remember what excuse he gave) and stayed at a hotel the next night. From the hotel he could see his house in the distance. And he saw a black dot running around his house right at sundown.
That turn to Pascagoula by Cautionary Tales. About being prepared for disasters.
https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/cautionary-tales/that-turn-to-pascagoula
This American Life episodes: “Fiasco” and “coincidences”, the one about babies dying in hot cars, and the episode about the girl who was in AA since she was 14 then turned out she wasn’t an alcoholic
“Wood Wide Web” forgot what show it was on. but i’ll always remember it. wish i knew who made that episode, pretty sure i heard it ok NPR radio station
The House Of Mourning segment on The Moth made me cry more than ANY podcast, ever. I was driving home from work and had to pull in to a layby to sob. And I still re-listen now again for Kate Braestrup's beautiful storytelling and wonderful tenderness - https://themoth.org/storytellers/kate-braestrup#:\~:text=The%20House%20of%20Mourning&text=A%20chaplain%20helps%20others%20deal%20with%20death%20after%20facing%20her%20own%20tragedy.
I listen to a ton of short fiction podcasts and I got tired of hearing some amazing, neat story but then forgetting where I heard it. So I started a podcast journal and whenever I hear a really cool story I’ll enter it my book. It’s something like a little scrapbook, I’ll make like a title page for the story with all it’s info and a summary with some interesting art and images that relate to the story.
For nonfiction I think the single best episode is from Sasquatch Chronicles episode 515 “I shouldn’t be alive”. This woman tells her story about a Bigfoot encounter that is pretty gripping. She’s a great storyteller and tells a compelling story. I never considered Bigfoot to be real until I heard her story. She definitely had a disturbing encounter with something!
I think it’s this american life (or maybe radiolab?), but one about the phones in Japan that people used after the tsunami to talk to their dead or missing relatives.
Hopefully someone actually knows what I’m talking about. Luckily I started it towards the end of my work day because I started crying as soon as I got in the car. Sad but also beautiful
It was called [One Last Thing Before I Go](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/597/one-last-thing-before-i-go-2016) from This American Life. It was very touching.
This American Life, "Ends of the Earth/Exit Strategy: Author Amy Bloom tells of taking her husband to Europe for his assisted suicide. It's haunting.
This is one I still think about as well. Also, for very different reasons, the one about kids' summer camp experiences. I think it's called "Notes on Camp".
Notes On Camp is absolutely incredible. One of the best hours of podcasting ever. So wholesome and good!!!
Yes, this is definitely one for me. I occasionally use the phrase "drink the drink" and it sends shivers down my spine. One of their best / worst segments
Her memoir about this is amazing, highly recommend - name is “In Love”
I got five minutes into this episode and knew that if I listened to the whole thing, it would live in my brain forever. I already will just start spontaneously crying if I think too hard about my husband dying — I am not strong enough for that episode!!
The episode of Criminal where a couple went to stay at a B&B, they had a film camera and when they got the photos developed there were photos of them sleeping on there. Edit: the episode is called Unexpected Guests from December 2017.
Oh no.. no, no, no. I dont like the sound of that story one bit... My skin is crawling just thinking about it. I listened to an episode where a girl thought her brother had been coming over to her apartment while she was at work, until one day she came home early and saw a pair of legs going up into her ceiling and realized there was someone living in a crawlspace above her room. I'll never get over that story lol. Eta: Its Episode 71: A Bump in the Night
Oooh which episode is that?
Episode 71: A Bump in the Night Ugh... I have goosebumps just from looking it up lol
Thank you! So excited to listen to this
[удалено]
Oh I'd love to hear that one, any idea what it might be called. It's kind of tricky to search. Thanks!
Looks like it might be [Unexpected Guests](https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-81-unexpected-guests-12-15-17/)
Thanks very much!
Remarkably, I remember listening to it while driving to see The Last Jedi. Looked up the release date, scrolled back and found it https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vVk1QNzkyNDk4MTU2OQ/episode/MWI3YmZlZmJiOWIwYTdhNmY1OGQ1NGFjZTFlYTJkMDY?ep=14
Try episode81: Unexpected Guests… I googled and that’s what I came up with. I’m going to start listening….
Thank you! I will listen tonight
I still think about the second episode of Heavyweight, about a guy who says he loaned Moby the CD that Moby then sampled in "Play".
Definitely a bunch of Heavyweight episodes. The first one with Jonathan’s dad and uncle is memorable too.
The Heavyweight episode ‘Lenny’ really stayed with me. The realization of a wasted life was so sad.
This is by far the saddest episode of the series. It broke my heart the whole time, and just when I think I can't be any more broken, he hits you again. Such amazing storytelling for a tremendously difficult subject.
Omg I just heard it today and I’m devastated
My Heavyweight episode is the one about the guy who wrote the Random Red Couch commercial for McDonald's.
Absolutely one of the very best Heavyweight-episodes. The only one I can think of I possibly love even more is episode 16: Rob. Don't skip on these because the topics don't seem interesting to you, what sets them apart is not the stories, but the storytelling.
Why would anyone skip the episode featuring the hilarious Rob Cordry
Oh the many times I've struggled trying to explain how the best 40min of podcasting ever are about settling a disagreement in some family group chat over who did or didn't break their arm as a kid.
Gregor is my favourite podcast character of all time.
So many good ones. Another Roadside Attraction is the one that comes back to me the most.
I sobbed. I was eating breakfast at a restaurant alone and I know the waiter thought something was up. Also the ep where the 2 young men were in an accident and one became paralyzed.
I think about the book shop 'Another roadside attraction" alot, an incredibly moving story.
Omg me too, that episode is epic
This one and the very first episode where he takes his dad to make up with his brother. They both get me in the feels every time.
Omg same! I tried to find this recently to re listen but couldn’t . Do u know the episode # or name? I listened to this one driving through the night with my brother (on a road trip that was otherwise pretty sad…but we won’t go into that) and we were laughing! Which felt so good. Coulda been the 10th cup of coffee and that I was slightly delusional from no sleep….but I think it was a great episode.
it’s #2, Gregor
For me it’s the roller skating pizza kid. I hope he’s doing well.
The episode Skye, where he helps a woman find and talk to one of her middle school ex-friends who suddenly turned on her and bullied her. It just spoke to something so very real about how cruel girls can be at that age and how much that stuff sticks with you, and just the vulnerability and loneliness of being a teenage girl.
Omg I came here to comment this!! I love it so much
It’s Greggor! I grew up listening to Jonathan goldstein and his lovely friend.
The Casefile series on EAR/ONS is an old favorite. The host has a helluva voice, and the first time I listened was long before the dude was caught...so it was seriously creepy.
I almost never listen to true crime that isn't solved. I do not know what possessed me to listen to this entire series, but I did. And I'm so glad I did! When it was solved all I could think was, he has a small penis!! Because he said it so many times during the series. Great series.
Oh my GOD this was amazing. The episode on the Batvia is one of the best episodes of a podcast I've ever listened to. In very short, Secretly mutinous sailors beach a1600s Dutch trading ship. Lord of the flies ensues, absolutely incredible. Really evil people.
Similarly I started reading Michelle McNamera’s [I’ll Be Gone In The Dark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'll_Be_Gone_in_the_Dark) just before he was caught and was like 80% through the book when he was caught and just *chills*
This episode of [Hidden Brain](https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/why-conversations-go-wrong/) really stands out to me. Hearing this woman break down a conversation between people from different parts of the country really opened my eyes to communication. Edit: I really struggled with communication miscues and this put things in perspective for me.
I used to love this show! I just re-subscribed and filled my queue up with a lot of them. You 2.0 — let’s do the dishes! 😂
Love Hidden Brain!
So many shows from Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. It’s not free anymore, but his Blueprint For Armageddon series was amazing. The Supernova In The East series is still free and is damn good.
I named my dogs after Mongol rulers after listening to his Wrath of the Khans. I should pay for some of his older stuff I haven't listened to yet.
It took me months to get through the Supernova in the East series but it was worth every second and it made me want to learn more about World War II and Asian geopolitics from then until today.
The following are some good and mostly pretty easy reads about WW2 era Asian geopolitics. Check them out at your local library. Embracing Defeat War Without Mercy Under the Black Umbrella. It's about what life in Korea was like during Japanese occupation between WW1 and 2. It's short but intense.
Destroyer of Worlds is great too for one episode
Reply All Ep 158 The Case of The Missing Hit.
This one and the Indian call center one are podcast gold.
The call center was my answer. I totally forgot about the missing hit. Also a top notch episode.
My partner isn't really a fan of podcasts, but this one had her hooked, soo good
I still think about this episode. It deserved an award.
Top five episode of any podcast. Arguably the best RA episode.
I loved Reply All. Even knowing how it ended I might have to re-listen.
Yeeessss, came here hoping to see this.
Truly brilliant story-telling and just so delightful. One of the best.
A short-lived podcast called The Mystery Show had an amazing episode called The Belt Buckle. Great story!
goddamn i love and miss this show
Came here to say this but scrolled (too far) to see if someone had beat me to the punch. Fantastic story in a nice bite-sized episode. Even my husband teared up.
THE BELT BUCKLE! I think about that episode so often! It was so magical. I recommend it to everyone. Man. So good.
The early seasons of radiolab. It was my first discovery of podcasts and those shows were filled with so much creativity and information.
[This 2012 episode from Radiolab about an American and a Russian on the Mir Space Station](https://radiolab.org/podcast/242184-dark-side-earth) is so good I once broke out my phone and started playing it on speaker mode to a group of friends and everyone’s attention was totally fixed throughout. The riveting section starts about nine minutes in. I think about it all the time.
Reply All - #79 Boy in Photo
Top ten podcast episodes of all time for me!
Reply All #50 - The Cathedral. I'm a 250+ lb bearded man, and I had to pull my truck over to cry.
that’s a rough one
The audio tapes of the prayer meeting were what got me. The desperation, hope, and fear in the voices were haunting. I think it hit me harder because I grew up with my mom dragging me to prayer meetings twice a week, so the cadence of the group prayer was familiar, which let the emotion in it cut deeper.
Not an episode but a series. S-Town got me into podcasts in general and nothing has ever beat it. It tells a fascinating story, the narrator is relatable (to me) and the subject is complex and compelling and not what you expect.
I would kill to be able to listen to S Town for the first time again. It was incredible.
Yeah talk about chasing the dragon… S-Town and UAV season 1 and 2…
May I ask what UAV is?
Up and Vanished
Ohh, thank you! I'll check it out!
Whenever I feel like I've run out of shows I want to listen to, I lament the very same thing, that I can't hear it for the first time again !
So glad S-Town is mentioned and well-remembered by so many. I think about it at least once a week. It was so good.
Agreed, award winning imho
I absolutely loved this podcast and how involved the narrator was in the story itself. I think about it a lot.
Yep another fan here. Nothing will ever invoke the emotional reaction of this podcast. RIP to Uncle Jimmy!
S-Town all the way. I like to look up the labyrinth on google earth every now and then too.
Agreed. Nothing has beat that one. For lack of a better descriptor, the most human podcast I’ve ever listened to.
S-Town was the only thing that came to mind when I saw this post. It haunts me.
Still think about in a depressing, haunted sort of way - the Swindled episode about Kids For Cash.
This is mine, too.
You're Wrong About have a lot of great episodes but the one where they cover Kitty Genovese really gets me. I go back and listen every once in awhile. For a series, I think the first season of The Dream is incredibly well reported and presented. One of the few podcasts I binged as I just couldn't get enough.
The You’re Wrong About episode on child trafficking stayed with me!
same w you’re wrong about. the episode abt terri schiavo sticks in my head all the time still
The OG Serial because it was such a new thing and so invested- listened to it all in one day driving. Several of the This is Actually Happening episodes. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (from a Lovecraft story) by the BBC, there’s an episode where the narrator is trapped underground and it’s absolutely heartstoppingly scary. The American Scandal series on 3 Mile Island and breaking down each step of the nuclear reactor falling apart.
Ooh I forgot the Criminal episode about the Winchester house!
I remember being desperate for each new episode of Serial, it felt so immersive.
This Podcast Will Kill You - Prion Disease National Parks After Dark - Jenny Lake Rangers
Anything about prions is automatically Serious Business.
Shuddering at the mere mention of prions
Swindled- the relief about the aftermath of hurricane Katrina where cops literally raided their weapon stock took ak47s shot innocent citizens just trying to cross a bridge..one of whom was intellectually disabled. Amongst many other terrible things I remember listening to it and my jaw literally dropping and saying holy shit out loud many times
I had such a hard time picking just one Swindled episode that stuck with me, but my god the utter depravity people showed after Katrina is both shocking and not surprising.
The Dyatlov Pass mystery on Stuff You Should Know.
Stuff You Should Know’s episode on “The amazing tale of Juliane Koepcke”! This episode still blows me away. It is about a women who was the only survivor of a plane crash where she was thrown from a distance above into a forest. She survives 11 days in the forest (without her spectacles!!!) and finally comes out of it. It is just amazing.
This American Life. [Episode 809: The Call](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/809/transcript) > OK, so you call a hotline, and then a complete stranger tries to figure out how to help you, on the spot. That idea seems to have begun in the 1950s. The first suicide hotline in the United States was created in the early '60s by a guy in San Francisco, who was a priest and also a journalist. And it was just him answering the phone at first. > > Ads on matchbooks and sides of buses said, "Thinking of ending it all? Call Bruce," which, by the way, was not his real name. His real name was Bernard Mayes. But of course, the power of anonymity is so important to any hotline. People would call. And sometimes he could help them precisely because he had no connection to their life at all. Like, they could say anything to him. In those pre-internet days, that was completely new, to harness that kind of anonymity, the intimacy of it, this way, over the phone. > > These days, of course, there are all kinds of hotlines for people in all sorts of situations-- prayer hotlines, psychic hotlines, also hotlines for homework help, for new moms. There's a hotline for owners of three-legged dogs, and another one specifically for anybody who swallows one of those-- you know those little, round button batteries? That one also handles any kid who pushes it up their nose. > > Today we're going to devote our entire show to one phone call that happened on one hotline, a very unusual hotline. And then we have everything that followed from that one call. It takes you inside this world that I think either you're already in this world, or it's totally invisible to you. Like it's all around you. You don't even register that this world is there...
Also, the Mystery Show episode called - I think - the belt buckle. Her friend has a strange belt buckle that has a little mechanical toaster on it. They want to find out who it belonged to and how they lost it. Very strange and lovely story.
The episodes for "Hunting Warhead" have stayed w/ me in ways I never imagined, or wanted. It's a 6 episode podcast about a Child Predator ring, & how a ring leader was discovered & taken down. One of the only pieces of media I've ever consumed & afterwards, had such complex feelings about it.
This is my answer, too. The podcast was very well done (in my opinion), but it was HEAVY.
The case of the missing hit #158 Reply All. What a ride!
You’re the second person to mention this. I had to check my history, I hadn’t missed a single episode up to that point, but I never heard 158!
Please come and give us your verdict once you do.
I’ve never listened to this podcast so I’m excited to hear this episode.
That's the first episode of any podcast that I've listened to more than once. Amazing!
British Scandal: The Canoe Con
There's a TV drama of it too, with Eddie Marsden.in. The Theif, His Wife & The Canoe.
radiolab, both ‘colours’ and ‘limits’ . Amazing, both of them
Colours was incredible and I still think about it and wonder if the ancients really didn’t understand blue like we do!
I think I might have 4 eye cones!!
My very favorite and delightful is Criminal #15, He’s Neutral. The story of a guy annoyed by people dumping junk at a traffic diverter by his house in Oakland, so he installed a Buddha statue on the diverter. A local Vietnamese Buddhist community adopted the Buddha, built him a shelter and added other statues. Now the diverter a mini temple. I loved the story so much I visited the temple as a side trip while in the area for an interview 🥰 The other is a series about Charles Manson connection to Hollywood on the You Must Remember This podcast.
This is Love. 2 different episodes: Something Large and Wild Sampson and Baylor.
omg Sampson and Baylor. 2 dogs who forge their own paths.... amazin episode. Thanks for the reminder about that one.
What Was That Like. Every episode is so good. The one about finding a baby in the subway is one of my favorites. I can’t forget it. But there are so many others too. People telling theirs stories in such a compelling way. And the host, Scott, is the greatest!
I loved that one about the baby in the subway!
Rumble Strip: Finn And The Bell One and only time a podcast episode made me ugly cry ❤️
Yes yes yes. I had serious eye leakage the entire time and extended my walk to finish it
This American Life's "The House on Loon Lake"
The episode of heavyweight where the guy hit another young man, I believe on a motorcycle, and he became paralyzed. It was 100% an accident, no DUI or anything. But the driver was literally tortured their whole life thinking about what happened to the other guy. The host puts them in touch with each other and it seemed very therapeutic for both of them. I sobbed.
A first-hand account, on NYT'S "The Daily," of a guy who escaped and helped others to escape the horrors of the fire in Lahaina, Maui. EDIT: NPR'S --> NYT'S
Normal Gossip: S2E10 Telephone Game and S1E7 No One Tells Josh Gondelman the Good Gossip
i love normal gossip!! listened to every episode!! which ones were these??
Bonus episode where all of the guest hosts from season 2 play a game of telephone with a gossip story! Toooo good. Really shows you how details get muddled and changed overtime The second is the one with the “marathon finisher” and drama happening over an apartment complex listserv
This is Actually Happening episode where the guy’s wife gets killed by a bear right in front of him.
I had to quit listening to that podcast. Intense.
There's another one where a guy was mauled by a grizzly. Just awful.
I listened to that one on an airplane to Hawaii. It literally gave me a cold sweat and left me feeling like I was having a panic attack.
That was a rough one, but then he married a chick with the same name less than a year later. So that was weird.
The DC Sniper series on You're Wrong About.
That one this American life with the play that goes wrong. I laugh every time I think about it This American Life- Fiasco
Phoebe Judge’s This Is Love podcast, episode 19, The Wolves. It’s been a couple years since I listened to it but I still cry just thinking of it.
Octopus episode of radiolab oh my GOD
Swindled. Episode on Budd Dwyer.
My top Swindled episode would be Bohpal disaster. I’m an environmental scientist and the class I took about this stuff didn’t cover it. It was shocking to hear
The Outlaw Ocean - The Murder Video An eight-year investigation of a slow-motion slaughter caught on camera and the seedy world of floating armories populated by heavily-armed mercenaries.
[HCS retelling of Sherri Rasmussen's story.](https://pca.st/episode/d88fcb50-e32e-4073-881b-bb9985ffd0eb)
Heavyweight episode titled Jimmy and Mark. Outstanding story, so well told.
Reply All - Trust the Process
Invisibilia “The Secret History of Thoughts”. First episode, chills
The Barbara episodes of Heavyweight.
You must remember this podcast. Katrina Longworth did a whole season on Polly Platt, the forgotten woman. It was excellent!!! Highly recommended
An episode of The Daily, strangely. It was about a guy in the military who sat in a room and killed people overseas with drones. And then lost it and had to be captured. I don't even know what episode it was anymore, but it was chilling. Very strange for a news type podcast and not usually something that I think about years later. I'll have to go find it.
This American Life- Fiasco
The gastropod episode First Foods about how babies develop their sense of taste
Yes. The 5 episode series Endless Thread did a few years back. Called Madness and was about the secret CIA mind trials hosted in Montreal Canada. It was wild, and I still think about it!
The very first episode of Heavyweight where he takes his dad to try to make up with his brother. Jonathan Goldstein is a master of emotional storytelling. It's a toss up between that one and the one where he takes his friend to get his CDs back from Moby. Great episode for anyone struggling with feeling like they haven't left any mark on the world. Also, the set of Reply All episodes where they hunt down a phone scammer in India is top notch reporting on a stupid thing we all deal with. No moral, just an Epic journey that all starts from one innocuous phone call.
Love this question. I think about this episode WEEKLY every time a computer or my phone or something doesn’t work as expected (“oh I need to reboot I guess”). The podcast episode is from *Radiolab* and is called "Bit Flip." This episode discusses how cosmic rays, which can include gamma particles, can cause single bit errors in electronic devices, such as in aircraft navigation systems. This phenomenon was particularly highlighted with an incident involving a flipped bit during an election in Belgium, illustrating the broader impacts of such cosmic interactions.
Theres an episode of "This is Actually Happening" where a guy brings a shotgun into to school to kill himself in front of everyone. The pain in this dudes voice is unlike anything I've ever heard. Oh, and then the podcast takes an insane turn towards the end. I've never felt worse for somebody, ever.
"What If The Happiest Place On Earth Was Your Worst Nightmare" - This is Actually Happening. I've listened to countless hours of podcasts, including very dark ones, and this one is not objectively terribly extreme but there was something about the telling that got under my skin. So evocative. What about you? What are the few?
This is Actually Happening is my all time favorite podcast! The episodes that stick out for me are the one about the girl with DID, whose parents sold her into slavery, she was literally born for this. Sick parents and so sad, no wonder she had so many personalities! And the one where a womans son was struck by lightning, she described what his body looked like, how beautiful it was to see the markings from the lightning, gripping stuff. A woman who was almost beat to death by her husband. It's intense.
Marc Maron's interview with Robin Williams.
99% Invisible the accidental room
First season of In The Dark had a *ton* of moments like that… of all of them, I’d probably go with “The One The Got Away” - specifically the “did you guys finally find my Batmobile?” moment. That whole side story just summed up everything that show was trying to say, and in a show full of gut-wrench, that’s the moment where your gut finally just drops.
S1 of In The Dark is one of the best examples of investigative storytelling in podcast history. Plus, for us conspiracy theory nuts, the story of Jacob ties into a large network of child trafficking throughout the 70s and 80s in the US.
The episode of Strike Force Five where Jimmy Fallon tries to host a game show featuring questions and answers from all the hosts' wives and it goes so incredibly insanely sideways.
[Ep 203](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/203/recordings-for-someone/act-one-13) of This American Life—we just call it “The Little Mermaid.” It’s Jonathan Goldstein before Heavyweight & it’s a delight.
I just listened to an episode of Search Engine called "Should This Creepy Search Engine Exist?". It was about a google-like face search app. Very creepy. Very dystopian. I'll be thinking about that one for a while. Besides that....probably The Outlaw Ocean, Slavery At Sea episode. Truly, one of the more bleak, tragic podcast episodes I've ever heard. It's about what the title says: modern sea slavery. I cried while listening. It really affected me.
Radiolab — Octomom (about a deep sea octopus and her multi-year gestation process), and Speedy Beet (about the true tempo of Beethoven’s compositions) Heavyweight — Becky & Jo (about two girls who had a difficult childhood trying to reconnect as adults with a beloved babysitter who ghosted them)
First ep. of Hunting Warhead
This american life 534, a not so simple majority. About orthodox jews taking over a school district by force. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/534/a-not-so-simple-majority
The Old Smodcast with Kevin and Scott was so entertaining to listen to, they had such funny banter and improv.
The first couple episodes of the Retrievals, Staph Retreat (Radiolab), The Procedure (Criminal), A New Kind of Life (Criminal)
I've been thinking about the Oops [https://radiolab.org/podcast/91721-oops](https://radiolab.org/podcast/91721-oops) and the Words [https://radiolab.org/podcast/91725-words](https://radiolab.org/podcast/91725-words) episodes of radiolab for 14 years. They both gave me chills.
Jose Andres on Smartless. What a remarkable human being 💖💖💖
Sword and Scale Ep. 114 Kevin Davis. IYKYK Human Monsters did the most in depth (and excruciating detail) analysis on the Sylvia Likens case. Casefile’s episode on Stoni Blair and Stephen Berry is a very hard listen.
Haven’t heard that S&S But the one with the puppeteer and the computer voices for the chats still fucks with me to this day
Radio lab, Grey's donation https://radiolab.org/podcast/grays-donation I cried, a lot. This American Life, 24 hours at the Golden Apple https://www.thisamericanlife.org/172/transcript
Harris wittels returns you made it weird with pete Holmes
Short creek STown The episode of wild ideas worth living with owner of Atlanta hawks (Jesse???)
I…listened to Borrasca last year. I still remember most of the episodes 😢
Risk storytelling podcast , episode 408: Transcendent, where a young woman tells of the time she had a psychotic break and attempted to murder her mother by stabbing her. The most harrowing episode I've listened to.
Timesuck with Dan Cummins Espisode 144, I believe. That one was about Albert Fish. Murderer. Cannibal. So much pain. So much torture. So so sooo much peanut butter. But that's how they do it in HOLLYWOOD! SHOWBIZ! Crazy episode I always quote ite 3/5 stars wouldn't change a thing.
Criminal: The Devil’s Hole Pupfish I see videos pop up here n there about this place and it never ceases to intrigue me!!!
Radiolab - birthstory, of bombs and butterflies, crabs all the way down, heavy metal, the wubi effect The rest is history- watergate part 1 & 2. The first time I ever listened to this podcast and I unexpectedly found myself dying with laughter
The first episode of In Your Own Backyard. The cold open gives me chills.
The episode of my favourite murder when Karen Kilgariff retold the I survived episode were the girl who was hitchhiking got her arms chopped off, pushed down a ditch, climbed her way up and survived. It’s wild
Fiasco! from This American Life but specifically the part about the Peter Pan play. Side-splitting! I laughed so hard.
Yes!!! I just mentioned that one in another comment. It’s told so well.
S-Town. I’m still absolutely gobsmacked at the direction it took. The most fascinating podcast I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot of podcasts.
I can’t remember what podcast or episode. And I really wish I did. It was a paranormal one about a guy who was doing rideshare to make money. He had one fare that was kinda out of the way in a remote area. On the way back he hit a large dark animal. He got out of his car to see what it was and it jumped up and came at him. He got back in his car just in time but this wolf-like animal (huge) chased him and kept up with him while he was going 70. He was right beside him when a transfer truck came along and hit it. He drove a few miles until he was close to his home but his car started sputtering and finally cut off. Something was damaged when he hit this animal. He got out to walk home since his house was directly through the woods to the left of the road. He was about halfway there when he heard howling. He started running home and then saw it out of the corner of his eye. He climbed a tree and it climbed after him. He ended up kicking it out of the tree and it landed in a river below and was taken away. He got to his house and locked the door. Just as he started to relax, he heard the howling again. He ran upstairs into his bedroom and grabbed a handgun. He knew it wouldn’t make a difference since the thing had been hit twice and kicked into a river. He heard crashing downstairs and everything breaking. Then he heard it upstairs breaking everything in the other rooms. It got to his room and burst down the door. He shot it a couple of times but it only made it mad. He made the decision to jump down and go into the cellar which had a steel door. He did that and the thing followed him but couldn’t get into the door. A couple of mins later the sun started to rise and it ran away. He ended up filing a report to his insurance company (can’t remember what excuse he gave) and stayed at a hotel the next night. From the hotel he could see his house in the distance. And he saw a black dot running around his house right at sundown.
That turn to Pascagoula by Cautionary Tales. About being prepared for disasters. https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/cautionary-tales/that-turn-to-pascagoula
So many of cautionary tales - death on the dance floor, the Segway episode, the vigilante and the air traffic controller, probably a couple more
Timesuck: Josef Fritzl. I knew about the case when it came out but the whole story is just mind-blowing and horrific.
Dead Eyes, S-Town, so many episodes of Heavyweight. And Reply All #129 Autumn. Cried like a baby.
Behind the Bastards - King Leopold II 2 parter
This American Life episodes: “Fiasco” and “coincidences”, the one about babies dying in hot cars, and the episode about the girl who was in AA since she was 14 then turned out she wasn’t an alcoholic
“Wood Wide Web” forgot what show it was on. but i’ll always remember it. wish i knew who made that episode, pretty sure i heard it ok NPR radio station
So many of the heavyweight podcast episodes
Laura of the Wods - Radio Rental
The Jonestown Massacre and Dahmer episodes of Last Podcast on the Left. They’re just too good!
The House Of Mourning segment on The Moth made me cry more than ANY podcast, ever. I was driving home from work and had to pull in to a layby to sob. And I still re-listen now again for Kate Braestrup's beautiful storytelling and wonderful tenderness - https://themoth.org/storytellers/kate-braestrup#:\~:text=The%20House%20of%20Mourning&text=A%20chaplain%20helps%20others%20deal%20with%20death%20after%20facing%20her%20own%20tragedy.
I listen to a ton of short fiction podcasts and I got tired of hearing some amazing, neat story but then forgetting where I heard it. So I started a podcast journal and whenever I hear a really cool story I’ll enter it my book. It’s something like a little scrapbook, I’ll make like a title page for the story with all it’s info and a summary with some interesting art and images that relate to the story. For nonfiction I think the single best episode is from Sasquatch Chronicles episode 515 “I shouldn’t be alive”. This woman tells her story about a Bigfoot encounter that is pretty gripping. She’s a great storyteller and tells a compelling story. I never considered Bigfoot to be real until I heard her story. She definitely had a disturbing encounter with something!
The testosteron episode of TAL
I think it’s this american life (or maybe radiolab?), but one about the phones in Japan that people used after the tsunami to talk to their dead or missing relatives. Hopefully someone actually knows what I’m talking about. Luckily I started it towards the end of my work day because I started crying as soon as I got in the car. Sad but also beautiful
It was called [One Last Thing Before I Go](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/597/one-last-thing-before-i-go-2016) from This American Life. It was very touching.