Strange stories, handled with patience.
Mysteries and Monsters treats high strangeness as something worth sitting with, not just something to shout about. Across author interviews and case-led conversations, it moves from Bigfoot and haunted castles to mound builders, missing people, and Fortean television curiosities.
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Mysteries and Monsters sits in the territory where folklore, paranormal investigation, cryptozoology, and strange history overlap. It is an interview-driven show, and that shape matters. Instead of treating every case as a quick scare or a solved puzzle, the conversations tend to slow down around the details: where the story happened, who remembered it, what witnesses thought they saw, and why the account still has a hold on people. Bigfoot is a recurring presence. So are haunted places, Fortean television, New England legends, Wild West monster stories, missing-person searches, and the long fascination surrounding North America’s mound builders. The show is comfortable with the odd stuff. It is also interested in the ordinary human reaction to it. A sighting can become a question about fear, family, rural isolation, or what happens when a person sees something that does not behave like the expected animal. A ghost story can lead back to castles, lakes, English history, and the way legends attach themselves to specific places. A conversation about aliens can shift into presidents, religion, NASA, rocket launches, and childhood awe. That range gives the show a wider frame than a standard monster-of-the-week format. The pace is measured. There is banter, but it usually gives way to the story. Guests such as Jeff Belanger, John LeMay, Rob Kirkup, Mike Familant, Tim Pilleri, Lance Reenstiena, and Eric Fulford bring books, films, fieldwork, podcasts, and cases into the conversation. Paul Bestall’s role is less about pronouncing judgment than keeping the story moving, asking the natural follow-up, and circling back when a detail deserves another look. Some episodes are playful. Others are grave, especially when missing loved ones or violent history enters the frame. The common thread is curiosity with restraint. Mysteries and Monsters is for listeners who want their paranormal listening to feel companionable, case-rich, and rooted in people and places, rather than overproduced spectacle.
Made for: For listeners who like cryptids, hauntings, folklore, Fortean history, and unexplained cases presented through relaxed long-form interviews. It especially suits people who want context and conversation more than jump scares.
What sets it apart: The show’s strength is its humane pace: witnesses, authors, investigators, and filmmakers are allowed to explain why a strange story matters before anyone tries to pin it down. It treats mystery as culture, memory, and place, not just evidence to be won or lost.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Patient interviews connect paranormal screen culture to the witness accounts, investigations and contested histories behind its most enduring stories.
Paul Bestel gives Mysteries and Monsters its shape through patient guest interviews, following strange claims into the details that make them worth examining.
A kicked TV supposedly settles a poltergeist case; you get William Hall's argument against that verdict.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A warm, wandering television catch-up where late-night Channel 4 nostalgia leads into affection for Small Prophets.
Mysteries and Monsters brings Stu Neville and Ruth Morris of 14 Times back for a loose, genial catch-up with Paul Bestel, built around the odd pleasures of television memory.
A curious New England legends conversation that drifts from Wicked Strange into alien life and an Artemis launch window.
Mysteries and Monsters frames New England's monster lore, myths, and Fortean loose ends as a relaxed conversation with Jeff Belanger about Wicked Strange.
A steady Bigfoot discussion where eyewitness fear carries as much weight as the mystery.
Bigfoot anchors a measured discussion of fear, perception, and the uneasy point where a shape first read as a familiar animal begins to feel like something else.
A grounded missing-person discussion where search work leads into privacy, isolation, and shifting rural trust.
Missing-person stories can turn people into pieces on a board. This episode keeps its attention on the harder human terrain around the search.
William Hall revisits the 1974 Bridgeport poltergeist as a household disturbance that quickly becomes a public panic.
William Hall's account of the 1974 Bridgeport, Connecticut poltergeist keeps the scale tight at first, then lets the disorder spill outward. In conversation with Paul Bestel, the author and magician lays out a homecoming that turns sharply strange: Laura making dinner, Jerry…
A Hill family legacy, a contested star map, and a careful look at how certainty changes over time.
As the 65th anniversary of Betty and Barney Hill's event approaches, this episode has a clear question in view: how does a mystery change once fresh cultural and scientific context gathers around it?
Mysteries and Monsters host Paul Bestel interviews magician-author William J Hall about the Bridgeport, Connecticut poltergeist tied to Lindley Street in 1974.
Host Paul Bestel interviews Kathleen Marden, niece of Betty and Barney Hill, on the 65th anniversary of their 1961 UFO abduction case.
Mysteries and Monsters episode 399 brings back Stu Neville and Ruth Morris with Paul Bestel to review Fortean television, including Mark Gatiss, Joanna Lumley, Charlie Cooper, and Rolf Little and Will Mellor.
["Paul Bestall opens Mysteries and Monsters with Jeff Belanger around Wicked Strange, a book that covers all six New England states and features Frank Grace's photography.", "Belanger traces modern spiritualism to the Fox sisters' 1848 knocks in New York and says the Civil War made s\u00e9ances feel necessary to families waiting on soldiers.", "The conversation moves through Loch Ness, the Gloucester sea serpent, Salem, Roswell, and Area 51 as examples of stories that keep growing through repetition.", "Belanger's shorthand is simple: \"I don't know where the ghosts and monsters are.
John LeMay discusses his book 'Cowboys and Saurians Revisited', exploring cryptozoological tales from the Wild West.
Jason Pentrail discusses his book on the Adena mound builders of the Ohio Valley.
Author and paranormal historian Rob Kirkup discusses haunted locations and a gruesome figure from English history.
A hunter saw two Sasquatch, stopped hunting for 30 years, and Mike took him back to the exact spot.
Mysteries and Monsters Episode 393 with Tim Pilleri and Lance Reenstiena focuses on missing people, cold cases, and how families react when someone "disappears into thin air." Pilleri and Reenstiena, who host Missing, Crawl Space, and Empty Frames and sit on the board of Private Investigations for the Missing, describe how their work moved from curiosity to advocacy.
Host Paul Bestel interviews film director Eric Fulford about his new documentary 'Bigfoot Enterprises' focusing on the post-fame lives of Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin after their 1967 Bigfoot film.
Host Paul Bestor interviews MUFON's Brazilian director Tiago Tuchetti about the 1977 UFO attacks in Calaras, Brazil, known as Operation Saucer.
Host Paul Bestel interviews Jason Offutt about his new book 'Chasing North American Monsters', a cryptozoology guide covering creatures from Greenland to Guatemala.
An interview with Gabriel McKee about his biography of Gray Barker, a controversial figure in ufology known for the Flatwoods Monster and Men in Black lore.
An interview with cryptozoologist Ken Gerhard about his book on the Mothman legend.