Unexplained : True Tales of Unexplained Mysteries with Bestselling Author Steph Young

Scores of young men have vanished without a trace, only to be found dead weeks or months later, in remote rivers or creeks, shallow ponds or canals, in areas that search parties have searched multiple times before; then later their bodies are discovered there, as though they have been placed there deliberately to be found. “They go directly into the shallow water. And then they are all gone….. no ghost, no memories.….as if they never lived in the first place. And then they stay there; awake and afraid.” “The evil is rampant and deep and widespread. He was tortured, taken to the river and killed. Then his body was ‘positioned.’’  “Loaded in cargo van. Paid in dollars green.”  “We take what we need and leave. Understand this: This is necessary. Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on death feeds on life….”  There is something very sinister happening to college-age men. It has been going on since the early ’90’s, and quite probably since before then. It isn’t stopping; it appears to be escalating. Young men attending college are going missing; the numbers are rising as they disappear in what can only be described as the most sinister and inexplicable circumstances.  Then they are found dead; always in water, often very shallow water. Very often however, they have not drowned. ‘He is screaming, pleading and growling in raw, animalistic agony. In the background, a voice interrupts his screams and calmly tells him, in a cold, emotionless, detached voice, “Stop it.” “I couldn’t get through to him. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t tell me where he was. 8 minutes into the call there was suddenly this ghastly screaming. I started crying.” How does a young man end up dead in water that is only a couple of feet deep? Why can’t he get out of that water, even though he is not drunk? Why can’t he be found in that water, often for weeks when it is searched multiple times? Why would he go to the most remote body of water, in the opposite direction to the one in which he was heading? Why did his cell phone suddenly go dead after he said something disturbing? Why do many of them make desperate phone calls just moments before something happens to them? Why are some of them in such a state of terror or horror when they phone their parents or friends? Todd Geib, Chris Jenkins, Joshua Guimond, Josh Szostak, Colin Ellis, Josh Snell, Brandon Swanson, the list goes on…. The Smiley Face Killers? Or just a Smiley Face Murder Theory? One gang….. or several… ? A group, or separate loners…. ? Serial Killers? or a Serial Killer Gang?

Scores of young men have vanished without a trace, only to be found dead weeks or months later, in remote rivers or creeks, shallow ponds or canals, in areas that search parties have searched multiple times before; then later their bodies are discovered there, as though they have been placed there deliberately to be found. “The evil is rampant and deep and widespread. He was tortured, taken to the river and killed. Then his body was ‘positioned.’’ “I couldn’t get through to him. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t tell me where he was. 8 minutes into the call there was suddenly this ghastly screaming. I started crying.” How does a young man end up dead in water that is only a couple of feet deep? Why can’t he get out of that water, even though he is not drunk? Why can’t he be found in that water, often for weeks when it is searched multiple times? Why would he go to the most remote body of water, in the opposite direction to the one in which he was heading? Why did his cell phone suddenly go dead after he said something disturbing? Why do many of them make desperate phone calls just moments before something happens to them? Why are some of them in such a state of terror or horror when they phone their parents or friends? Why does it always happen on a night out? How do they disappear from bars yet no-one sees them go? What are they seeing, in the final moments before their phone is cut off? Why are many missing one shoe? Why do few of them have any signs of injury or trauma on their body…? Who are The Smiley Face Killers ….?

It was late in the night when David Smith became separated from his friend, Heath Bullard. They had been running frantically in blind panic in the dark and when they reached a creek, Heath couldn’t go any further – he couldn’t swim, and maybe David didn’t notice, but David plunged headlong into the water, and their separation for a descent into surreal horror began.   It was August the 8th 1994, and it would be some days before Heath and David would be reunited, but the space in between would see them changed beyond all recognition from their former selves… 

music: Romance for Piano and Cello by Martijn de Boer (NiGiD)

In November 2009, in the middle of the night in a rural province in China, Mrs. Gu Denghui is having a disturbing dream. In her dream she sees a tall, thin man wearing a suit. He is walking through the old village where she and her family used to live and where they still owned an abandoned house. He is carrying a bag of some kind and she watches as he approaches their old house. She cannot see his face as he wears a hat like a trilby. It hides his face, but as he approaches the back door to their house he stops, and she catches a glimpse of his mouth. It forms a wide smile. There is something very sinister about this man. He is carrying a package of some kind….

To an old and ornate cemetery now, and ‘Is the secret to time travel lurking in an old London Cemetery?’ asked Helen Smith in the Daily News of October the 29th 1998. You see, there is a story that deep within the Brompton Cemetery in London is a time machine for teleportation or time travel. It sounds an extraordinary claim and there is much intriguing mystery to this story. This portal to another world is said to be within the Egyptian mausoleum of a spinster named Miss H. Courtoy and her daughters… Tales of Mystery Unexplained

It all seemed to begin when local man David Farrant wrote a letter to the Hampstead and Highgate Express on  February the 6th 1970, in which he explained that he had been passing the cemetery on Christmas Eve 1969 when he had glimpsed a fleeting figure. He said, “I had an awareness of some kind of presence. I decided to wait a minute to try to find some material thing, such as a tree moving in the wind that could have accounted for it. Staring into the blackness there was a distinct impression of something moving. What appeared one minute to be a solid black shape would suddenly alter its form. Suddenly something caught my eye and clearly visible was a tall dark shape. I wanted to assume it was someone wandering through the cemetery, despite that the figure appeared to be over seven feet tall, but this was soon dispelled when I saw two red eyes meeting mine. Those eyes were not human…’ The Tale of the Highgate Vampire…

It all seemed to begin when local man David Farrant wrote a letter to the Hampstead and Highgate Express on February the 6th 1970, in which he explained that he had been passing the cemetery on Christmas Eve 1969 when he had glimpsed a fleeting figure. He said, “I had an awareness of some kind of presence. I decided to wait a minute to try to find some material thing, such as a tree moving in the wind that could have accounted for it. Staring into the blackness there was a distinct impression of something moving. What appeared one minute to be a solid black shape would suddenly alter its form. Suddenly something caught my eye and clearly visible was a tall dark shape. I wanted to assume it was someone wandering through the cemetery, despite that the figure appeared to be over seven feet tall, but this was soon dispelled when I saw two red eyes meeting mine. Those eyes were not human…’ Tales of Mystery Unexplained Podcast – The Highgate Vampire

What was The No Monster Club?