Paranormia

Are you ever awake in the cruellest hours of the night, when the world is quiet, but your mind isn’t? That’s where Paranormia begins. Hosted by journalist and parapsychologist Elizabeth McCafferty, Paranormia is a weekly storytelling podcast where true crime collides with the supernatural, the psychological, and the macabre. Each episode explores real cases where belief in something unseen becomes dangerous, cursed objects drive people to violence, psychic visions predict tragedy, cults where worship turns deadly, and hauntings blur into guilt, obsession, or faith. Elizabeth blends rigorous research with cinematic storytelling to uncover what happens when reason falters and fear takes hold. Because these aren’t just ghost stories, they’re stories about us: about the human need to explain the inexplicable, to find meaning in the dark. Paranormia: where paranoia meets the paranormal. Subscribe, and stay awake with us. If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at paranormia@alwaystruecrime.com. For more true crime that you'll be obsessed with head to AlwaysTrueCrime.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. Cropsey: The Boogeyman of Staten Island

    HACE 5 DÍAS

    Cropsey: The Boogeyman of Staten Island

    For decades, children on Staten Island grew up hearing the same warning. Don’t go near the abandoned buildings. Don’t cut through the woods. Because Cropsey was waiting. Cropsey was a boogeyman said to have escaped from the ruins of the Willowbrook State School, a story parents used to keep children away from a place they didn’t know how to explain. For years, it was just folklore,  a cautionary tale meant to turn geography into safety. Then children began to disappear for real. In the 1970s and 1980s, several young people vanished during ordinary routines, sent on short errands, leaving apartment buildings, walking home. When one child’s body was later found on the grounds of Willowbrook, attention turned to a former employee who had slept in camps nearby and would later be convicted of kidnapping. As fear spread, the boundary between myth and reality collapsed. Cropsey stopped being just a story told to children and became a way a community tried to make sense of loss and danger. This episode examines the real cases behind the legend, the history of Willowbrook, and what happens when folklore collides with true crime. revealing how easily fear can turn tragedy into myth. *** If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at paranormia@alwaystruecrime.com. Paranormia is an Audio Always production. Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty. Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani. Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    43 min
  2. The Cecil Hotel

    28 ENE

    The Cecil Hotel

    In January 2013, a 21-year-old Canadian student named Elisa Lam checked into a budget hotel in downtown Los Angeles. She was travelling alone, documenting her journey online, and calling her parents every day. Then the calls stopped. Weeks later, her body was discovered in a rooftop water tank above the hotel where she’d been staying, after guests complained that the water pressure was low, and the tap water tasted strange. Days earlier, police had released surveillance footage of Elisa behaving erratically in a hotel elevator. The video went viral, transforming a missing person investigation into a global obsession. The building was the Cecil Hotel, a place with a long history of violence, suicide, and notoriety, sitting at the edge of Skid Row. As the internet rushed to fill the gaps with theories of ghosts, conspiracies, and foul play, the facts of the case became harder to hear. This episode examines what actually happened, how a tragic death became mythologised, and what the story reveals about mental illness, internet culture, and our collective hunger for mystery. It’s a story about how fear distorts understanding, and how easily a real person can be lost inside a legend. Support note: This episode discusses mental illness, suicide, and distressing themes. If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. UK & ROI: Samaritans — call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org US: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988 Canada: Talk Suicide — call 1-833-456-4566 Australia: Lifeline — 13 11 14 Or visit findahelpline.com for local support worldwide *** If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at paranormia@alwaystruecrime.com. Paranormia is an Audio Always production. Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty. Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani. Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    41 min
  3. The Case at Dyatlov Pass

    21 ENE

    The Case at Dyatlov Pass

    In February 1959, nine experienced hikers disappeared in the northern Ural Mountains. When searchers found their tent weeks later, it was cut open from the inside. Boots were left neatly behind. Food sat untouched. Footprints, some barefoot, led into the snow. Over the months that followed, the bodies were recovered in stages. Some had died of exposure. Others suffered catastrophic internal injuries with almost no external wounds. Two were missing their eyes. One was missing her tongue. The Soviet investigation closed the case with a single, unsettling phrase: “an insurmountable force of nature.” In the decades since, the Dyatlov Pass Incident has become one of the most debated wilderness tragedies in modern history. Theories have ranged from avalanches and extreme weather to military testing, folklore, and outright conspiracy. Each explanation reflects not only the evidence, but the era, and the fears that produced it. This episode traces what is known, what remains disputed, and how a remote mountain became a canvas for grief, secrecy, science, and myth. It’s a story about limits: of survival, of certainty, and of how easily unanswered questions harden into legend. If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at paranormia@alwaystruecrime.com. Paranormia is an Audio Always production. Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty. Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani. Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    57 min
  4. The Witch Killers of San Francisco

    7 ENE

    The Witch Killers of San Francisco

    In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Michael and Suzan Carson drifted through the American West, moving between communes, shared apartments, and marijuana farms. They changed their names, adopted a patchwork belief system of mysticism and religion, and came to see themselves as warriors in a hidden war. Between 1981 and 1983, three people were killed. A young woman found stabbed and bludgeoned in a San Francisco basement. A co-worker shot and buried in the woods of Humboldt County. And a man who stopped to help two hitchhikers, shot on the side of a California highway. The Carsons insisted their victims were witches. They held a five-hour jailhouse press conference, spoke of visions and holy missions, and framed murder as religious duty. Decades later, they have never renounced those beliefs. This episode traces how an ordinary couple built a shared delusion powerful enough to justify killing, the damage it inflicted on children and families left behind, and why the story has been remembered as something occult rather than what it was: a case study in belief, control, and the human capacity to turn ideology into violence. If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at paranormia@alwaystruecrime.com. Paranormia is an Audio Always production. Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty. Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani. Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    35 min
  5. The Hurricane Lovers

    31/12/2025

    The Hurricane Lovers

    In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans became a city stripped to its bones. Power was gone. Tourists vanished. And for a brief moment, life in the French Quarter felt suspended outside of time. Zack Bowen, a former soldier, and Addie Hall, a poet and bartender, chose to stay. They scavenged food, cooked in the streets, drank beneath darkened skies, and were photographed by national media as symbols of defiance; young lovers riding out the end of the world together. A year later, Addie was dead. Dismembered in an apartment above a voodoo temple. Zack would take his own life days later, leaving behind a confession and one of the most disturbing crime scenes New Orleans has ever seen. This episode traces the arc from disaster romance to domestic horror, from Katrina’s strange, intoxicating aftermath to addiction, untreated trauma, and a relationship collapsing under the return of ordinary life. It asks why this story became framed as a “voodoo murder,” what we miss when we reach for supernatural explanations, and how catastrophe can amplify the quiet damage already living inside people. If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at paranormia@alwaystruecrime.com. Paranormia is an Audio Always production. Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty. Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani. Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester. *** Support & Resources: This episode discusses suicide, domestic abuse, addiction, and trauma. If you or someone you love needs support, help is available: United Kingdom: Samaritans - Call 116 123 (24/7) or visit samaritans.org  National Domestic Abuse Helpline - Call 0808 2000 247 (24/7) or visit nationaldahelpline.org.uk  United States: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline - Call or text 988 (24/7) or visit 988lifeline.org  Veterans Crisis Line - Call 988, then press 1, or text 838255 National Domestic Violence Hotline - Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or visit thehotline.org  Australia: Lifeline Australia - Call 13 11 14 (24/7) or visit lifeline.org.au  1800RESPECT - Call 1800 737 732 or visit 1800respect.org.au  Global: International Association for Suicide Prevention Find local helplines at findahelpline.com  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    41 min

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Are you ever awake in the cruellest hours of the night, when the world is quiet, but your mind isn’t? That’s where Paranormia begins. Hosted by journalist and parapsychologist Elizabeth McCafferty, Paranormia is a weekly storytelling podcast where true crime collides with the supernatural, the psychological, and the macabre. Each episode explores real cases where belief in something unseen becomes dangerous, cursed objects drive people to violence, psychic visions predict tragedy, cults where worship turns deadly, and hauntings blur into guilt, obsession, or faith. Elizabeth blends rigorous research with cinematic storytelling to uncover what happens when reason falters and fear takes hold. Because these aren’t just ghost stories, they’re stories about us: about the human need to explain the inexplicable, to find meaning in the dark. Paranormia: where paranoia meets the paranormal. Subscribe, and stay awake with us. If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at paranormia@alwaystruecrime.com. For more true crime that you'll be obsessed with head to AlwaysTrueCrime.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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