Derek Hayes | Audioboom Studios
500 episodes listed below
Real callers, strange places, lingering dread.
Monsters Among Us is a long-running paranormal call-in show built from firsthand stories and local lore. Derek Hayes guides the program with warm curiosity, giving callers room to describe the strange thing they saw, heard, feared, or still cannot explain.
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Monsters Among Us is a listener-call-in paranormal show with a strong late-night-radio spine. The format is simple and durable: callers bring ghost stories, UFO sightings, cryptid encounters, haunted-place lore, and odd family memories, while Derek Hayes guides the program from one account to the next. It is now deep into Season 20, and that longevity shows in the rhythm. The show knows how to let a caller talk. A cemetery angel in Iowa can lead into local legend, family tragedy, and a second nearby statue with its own reputation. A Rhode Island story about Mercy Brown carries the old fear of tuberculosis, exhumation, and vampire suspicion. A Minnesota episode can move from a possible protector in a store to a young caller frightened by a Ouija board app. The Georgia installment pauses over restaurants, cemeteries, historic homes, doorway alarms, and the peculiar unease of watching a horror film too late at night. Not every account is polished. That is part of the appeal. The calls often arrive with hesitations, side details, family context, and the specific geography of where something happened. Hayes adds a steady editorial presence, offering background on locations, pointing toward show notes, and sometimes raising ordinary explanations without dismissing the caller. The show is credulous enough to remain fun and skeptical enough to avoid pure camp. Its best moments come when the everyday world tilts slightly: a door inches open, a figure leans over a bed, hunters return terrified, or a familiar place gathers a legend over time. State-specific episodes and Hometown Legends installments give the catalog a regional shape, turning folklore into a loose travelogue of haunted America. The mood is eerie but conversational. Stories can involve death, burial grounds, violence, illness, and family fear, yet the presentation stays measured rather than lurid. Monsters Among Us suits listeners who prefer paranormal stories told by regular people, with the guide acting less like a performer and more like a patient keeper of strange testimony.
Made for: For listeners drawn to ghost stories, UFO accounts, cryptid sightings, haunted landmarks, and regional folklore told in ordinary voices. It especially suits fans of call-in paranormal shows that leave room for doubt.
What sets it apart: Its strength is the caller-first structure: the show depends on firsthand accounts, then frames them with light context and calm curiosity. State-themed episodes and Hometown Legends segments give the strange stories a grounded sense of place.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Caller testimony meets careful context, turning unexplained encounters into a record of how fear, memory and local folklore reinforce one another.
Monsters Among Us gives the microphone to callers describing encounters they still cannot explain, then lets Derek Hayes supply context without forcing a verdict.
A midnight hotline where Derek Hayes lets the witnesses make the room feel suddenly less empty.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A small graveyard legend that stays eerie by keeping its focus tight.
This episode leans on a single Iowa cemetery legend, but that restraint works in its favor. The black angel statue and the family story around it give the conversation a clear center, and Derek's calm reactions keep the mood grounded instead of pushing it toward theatrics.
Regional ghost lore told with warmth, patience, and a light skeptical edge.
Monsters Among Us closes out its Hometown Legends run with the kind of eerie, familiar storytelling that suits it best. Derek Hayes keeps the delivery warm and steady as the episode moves from West Virginia's Devil's Tea Table to Rhode Island's Mercy Brown, giving the local…
Ordinary roads and old houses turn uncanny without losing their human texture.
Monsters Among Us leans into the late-night pull of people telling a strange story and trusting the room to carry it. Here, that means a dark drive toward Emory, a family story about night hunting that left people shaken, and a door that inches open on its own.
Minnesota stories where ordinary moments slip into something eerie.
Monsters Among Us keeps the Minnesota stop focused on small, uneasy details. Derek Hayes stays in curator mode, calm and measured, then lets the callers take over: one account about a possible protector in a store, then Bryce's Ouija-board experiment, which drifts into house…
A strange first-person account gets a direct, low-key introduction from Derek Hayes.
Monsters Among Us leans into a paranormal account from Arkansas: a figure appears beside the bed, with white, pulsating star-like eyes and an electric-blue aura, then breaks into six pieces before fading away.
A Georgia-focused episode builds to Chris from Atlanta's late-night alarm story.
Monsters Among Us uses Georgia as its guiding frame, moving from haunted stops in Atlanta and Madison to Chris from Atlanta's late-night alarm story.
Pennsylvania burial-ground lore and a ruined old house keep the segment moving, even with the ad breaks.
The Pennsylvania call-in gives the episode its best stretch. Cassidy's account of Tawanda, the Seneca name described as meaning where we buried the dead, lands with real weight, especially when it folds into family stories about bones turning up after houses were built on the…
A steady late-night run of strange encounters that stays eerie without tipping into parody.
Monsters Among Us opens with a jar of change launching off a mini fridge, then shifts to a transparent brother who seems to float, hush the narrator, and disappear through the door.
ABC Audio's Theranos fraud series that also introduces its other true-crime podcasts.
Patrick Radden Keefe investigates whether the CIA secretly wrote a Scorpions hit.
Jake Halpern and the Snowball team track a con artist who defrauded a family.
A city-by-city true-crime documentary, from Detroit's Kwame Kilpatrick scandal to mob confessions.
An Iowa cemetery brings the chill.
Hometown Legends returns.
A long night waits.
Minnesota gets its own night.
Derek returns after a long ad lead-in, welcomes listeners back, and sets up a fun night of weirdness.
Georgia gets the haunted-state treatment.
This episode of The Monsters Among Us explores a personal account of being followed in the desert by a football-shaped craft and encountering hairy creatures under the bed, delving into paranormal and unexplained phenomena.
A true crime podcast exploring real-life monsters, serial killers, and paranormal cases.
A podcast exploring real-life encounters with monsters and unexplained phenomena, blending folklore and personal accounts.
The host celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the podcast, reflecting on its humble beginnings and growth as a platform for listeners to share spooky stories.
A caller shares a story about doppelganger sightings in her family home, focusing on her daughter's ongoing experiences.
A true crime podcast exploring real-life accounts of monsters and unexplained phenomena.
A commercial for Four Seasons Heating, Air Conditioning, Plumbing, and Electric promoting furnace tune-ups and emergency services.
A podcast exploring paranormal encounters and monster stories from listeners.
Host introduces a paranormal show featuring listener stories about ghosts, monsters, and strange occurrences, starting with a caller from Texas sharing an experience in Redland, California.
A compilation of paranormal encounter stories called in by listeners from Utah.
Cassidy calls from rural northeastern Pennsylvania.
This episode continues a series on paranormal phenomena, focusing on a common ghostly experience reported by diverse global listeners as the podcast approaches its 10-year anniversary.
A listener named Jed shares a paranormal story from the 1990s about living in a ranch house in Mississippi, hinting at vocal ghosts, rock-rolling bigfoot, and an insectoid abduction.
This episode of Monsters Among Us features spooky stories from inside prisons, with a twist that each call has a unique element.
A caller from Idaho shares a mysterious personal story about a late-night drive in Seattle, possibly connected to strange phenomena like glowing hands and a man in a suit.
This episode explores paranormal phenomena involving white UFOs, mysterious figures, and strange occurrences in rivers, framed within a narrative about loss and comfort.
A jar of coins opens the night.
Derek builds the episode around voices, EVPs, disembodied voices, mimicry, and the strange space between them.
Host introduces a slate of paranormal calls including human taxidermy, guardian angels, and a seance, beginning with a caller named Maddie from Texas.
A promotional segment for Bentley University's graduate and executive business programs, emphasizing the integration of profit and purpose.
A compilation of the year's best listener call-in stories featuring unsettling and paranormal true crime accounts.
The host introduces the show about monsters among us, with a tone suggesting real-life horror and unexplained phenomena.
A re-release of a holiday special episode from a horror fiction podcast featuring monster-themed stories.
The host introduces a Thanksgiving episode featuring two aftershows from the show's previous season.
A promotional advertisement for Sodimac and Falabella offering discounts on home renovation products.
The host introduces a collection of scary listener calls, promising bone-chilling and hair-raising stories.
A podcast exploring conspiracy theories and paranormal mysteries, hosted by Dave Musial.
A podcast that delves into conspiracy theories and paranormal phenomena, questioning official narratives and exploring hidden truths.
A podcast exploring conspiracy theories and paranormal phenomena, questioning official narratives.