Mysteries at Bedtime

High on a hillside above the River Esk in Cumbria stands one of the oldest occupied houses in England. Muncaster Castle has been home to the Pennington family for over 800 years. A king once sheltered here after losing his throne. A cruel jester named Tom Fool once stalked its grounds. A young carpenter was beheaded in its stables. A housemaid was murdered on the road outside its main gate. And in a quiet room at the end of a first floor corridor, where dark tapestries hang from the walls and iron fire dogs shaped like devils' heads guard the fireplace, an academic named James Cartland heard something in 1988 that he would never be able to explain. The sound of a child crying. The soft voice of a woman singing. And the slow realisation that the room he was sleeping in had once been a nursery, where a little girl had died over a century before.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello legends, Jack here, host of Mysteries at Bedtime. I'm currently travelling to the US because my other show, One Minute Remaining, was lucky enough to be nominated for an award. I’ll be back very soon, but while I’m away, I’m diving into the vault to bring you some fascinating and mysterious stories from Crime at Bedtime.These are stories focused on people who have vanished under mysterious circumstances, and today we look at the case of Asha Degree — a young girl who disappeared on a rainy night in 2000, last seen clutching her backpack and walking off into the darkness.She has never been seen again...On a rainy February night in 2000, nine-year-old Asha Degree vanished from her Shelby, North Carolina, home. Clutching her backpack, she walked into the cold darkness, never to return. Twenty-three years later, her case remains a haunting mystery with more questions than answers. Why did she leave? Where was she going? And what clues did the few items left behind reveal?Join me as we unravel the known facts and chilling details surrounding Asha’s disappearance, exploring the theories, hopes, and the enduring search for answers in one of America's most perplexing missing child cases.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In June 2025, a 19 year old woman in Lyon, France, was placed into a medically induced coma. For the next three weeks, she lay still in a hospital bed, kept alive by machines while her body healed. But inside her mind, something extraordinary was happening. Clélia Verdier was falling in love. She was getting married. She was giving birth to triplets she named Mila, Maïlée, and Miles. She was burying the little boy who died shortly after birth. She was watching her two daughters grow from babies into seven year old girls with distinct personalities and bedtime stories and walks in the park. When Clélia finally opened her eyes, the first thing she did was ask the nurses where her children were. And when her parents arrived, she told them they were grandparents. What happens to a woman who lives an entire life inside her own mind. Who grieves children no one else can remember. And who has to find a way back to a reality that no longer feels real.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michele Diane "Shelly" Miscavige was once one of the most powerful women in the Church of Scientology—the wife of its leader, David Miscavige, and a commanding figure within the organisation's elite Sea Org division. But in August 2005, Shelly vanished from public view following a reported confrontation with her husband. For years, no one outside Scientology's inner circle saw or heard from her. Her disappearance sparked intense speculation, celebrity involvement, and even a missing person's report filed by actress Leah Remini in 2013. The Church insists Shelly is alive, well, and working at a secret Scientology compound in California—but she hasn't been seen in public for nearly two decades. This is the story of Shelly Miscavige—a woman who rose to the heights of power within one of the world's most secretive organisations, only to disappear without a trace.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

February 27, 2026. Albuquerque, New Mexico. Retired Air Force Major General William McCasland left his home between 11:10am and 12:04pm. He took his wallet, hiking boots, a .38-calibre revolver, and a red backpack. He left behind his phone, glasses, and wearable devices. Seventeen days later, despite helicopters, drones, search dogs, and 700 homes canvassed, there was no trace of him. But McCasland was not the first. Six months earlier, government contractor Steven Garcia walked out of his Albuquerque home carrying only a handgun. He left his phone, wallet, keys, and car behind. He was never seen again. Monica Reza disappeared whilst hiking in California. Anthony Chavez vanished from Los Alamos. Melissa Casias was last seen walking on a highway, her phones wiped clean. By April 2026, the list had grown to ten. Ten scientists, government contractors, and military experts. All connected to America's most classified nuclear and aerospace programmes. All disappeared or dead under mysterious circumstances. And on April 16, 2026, the White House announced it was investigating. This is the mystery of the vanishing scientists.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2016, a 13-year-old genius named Max Loughan went viral with an extraordinary claim: CERN destroyed our universe. Not with an explosion—but by shifting us all into a parallel reality. When scientists at CERN's Large Hadron Collider smashed particles together in 2012 and discovered the Higgs boson, Max believed the sheer energy tore a hole in spacetime, sliding humanity into a neighbouring universe almost identical to our own. Almost. The proof? The Mandela Effect. Millions of people remember Kit Kat having a hyphen. It never did. They remember C-3PO being all gold. He's always had a silver leg. They remember the Mona Lisa with no smile. She's always been smiling. They remember the Monopoly Man wearing a monocle. He never has. Are these false memories—or scars from our original universe? Max's theories spread across the internet, educating millions. Then, in 2018, he vanished. Social media went silent. No interviews. No updates. Some say he simply grew up and chose privacy. Others wonder if he knew too much. Did CERN's experiments break reality? Are we living in a parallel universe? And what happened to the boy who tried to warn us?You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On a snowy December night in 1949, 68-year-old James Tedford boarded a bus in Vermont, heading home to the Bennington Soldiers' Home. Fourteen passengers and the driver saw him sleeping peacefully in his seat at the last stop before Bennington. But when the bus pulled into the station, Tedford was gone—his luggage still in the rack, an open timetable on his empty seat. No one saw him leave. No one heard the door open. He had simply vanished.Three years earlier to the day, a college student had disappeared on a hiking trail in the same area. A year before that, an experienced hunting guide had vanished in the same mountains. This was the Bennington Triangle—a remote corner of Vermont where people seemed to slip out of reality itself.Skeptics point to conflicting witness accounts and sightings in nearby Brandon. They note Tedford's severe depression and his statement that he "never intended to return." But how does a man disappear from a bus full of witnesses? And why has no trace of him ever been found in seventy-five years?Did James Tedford walk into the wilderness in a moment of despair? Or did something far stranger claim him on that winter night in the mountains?Tonight, we explore the mystery of the man who vanished from a moving bus.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In August 2016, the entire Tromp family—Mark (51), Jacoba (53), and their three adult children—fled their Victorian farm without phones, passports, or cards, convinced they were being hunted. Over five days, they drove 500 miles, split up one by one, stole cars, and were found across two states. One daughter was discovered catatonic in a truck bed. Police called it "the most bizarre case in 30 years." The family never explained what they feared. Full story of folie à plusieurs (shared psychosis) with crisis resources.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

19-year-old Jason Jolkowski left his Omaha home at 10:45 AM on June 13th, 2001, walking to Benson High School to meet a coworker for a ride to work. He never arrived. Last seen by a neighbor walking down his street - then he vanished. No witnesses after 10:45 AM. No body, no belongings, no evidence of struggle. Never appeared on school surveillance cameras. His car stayed in the shop. His final paycheck was never collected. No bank, phone, or social security activity in 23+ years. Jason was 6'1", 160 lbs, brown hair, brown eyes. Last seen wearing black dress pants, white Cubs shirt, blue Cubs cap, black shoes, carrying red Fazoli's shirt. His mother Kelly founded Project Jason to help families of missing persons. Jason's Law created Nebraska's statewide missing persons database. If you have information: contact Omaha Police (402) 444-5818 or (402) 444-5690. Case remains open after two decades.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On 7th August 1994, at 3 a.m., something strange fell from the sky over Oakville, Washington. It wasn't rain. It wasn't hail. It was gelatinous blobs—translucent, jelly-like masses the size of rice grains that covered twenty square miles.Within hours, people across town were violently ill. Animals died. Officer David Lacey could barely breathe. Dotty Hearn collapsed and was hospitalised for three days.Scientists tested the blobs and found human white blood cells and bacteria from the digestive tract. Microbiologist Mike McDowell concluded they were man-made "carrier systems."Then all the samples vanished.Over three weeks, the blobs fell six times. Witnesses reported military helicopters. Men from Fort Hood questioned residents. Anonymous letters claimed government experiments.Then, in April 2025—31 years later—it happened again in nearby Rochester.Tonight on Mysteries at Bedtime, we examine one of America's most baffling unsolved phenomena.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 In 1995, a 21-year-old electrical engineering student named Mike Marcum called into Coast to Coast AM with an extraordinary claim: he'd built a device that could make objects travel through time. He'd thrown a metal screw into an electromagnetic field and watched it vanish for a full second before reappearing several feet away.Mike's ambition was bold. He wanted to scale up the device, make it big enough for a person to step through, and travel to the future to get winning lottery numbers. But he needed powerful transformers—so he stole six from a local power station, causing a massive blackout. He was arrested and spent 60 days in jail.After his release, radio listeners sent him parts and money to build a bigger machine. In 1996, Mike announced he was 30 days from completion. Then, in 1997, he vanished.Tonight on Mysteries at Bedtime, we investigate what really happened to "Madman" Mike Marcum.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On March 8th, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 departed Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing with 239 people on board. Less than an hour into the flight, the Boeing 777 vanished from radar screens—and seemingly vanished from the face of the Earth.What followed was the largest and most expensive search operation in aviation history, spanning years and covering vast stretches of the Indian Ocean. But despite cutting-edge technology, international cooperation, and countless theories, the question remains: what happened to MH370?This is the complete story of modern aviation's greatest mystery. From the last routine communication with air traffic control to the bizarre sequence of events that followed—the transponder going dark, the dramatic turn off course, the silent flight for hours into the southern Indian Ocean. We examine the evidence, the satellite data, the debris that washed ashore years later, and the heartbreaking search that consumed nations.Was it mechanical failure? Pilot suicide? Hijacking? A catastrophic decompression? Or something else entirely? We explore every major theory, the facts that support them, and the questions that still have no answers.Over a decade later, MH370 remains one of the most baffling disappearances in history—a modern aircraft with sophisticated tracking systems that simply ceased to exist, leaving behind only fragments, theories, and the anguished families still searching for truth.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On 24 November 1971, a quiet man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked Northwest Orient Flight 305, collected $200,000 in cash and four parachutes… then stepped out of a Boeing 727 into the night over the Pacific Northwest. In this episode of Mysteries at Bedtime, we walk calmly through the hijacking, the strange decisions Cooper made, the ransom money found in 1980, and the 2016 FBI decision to suspend the case.You can get early and ad free access to this show and more here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.