A window into our world, through in-depth storytelling from the BBC. Investigating, reporting and uncovering true stories from everywhere. Award-winning journalism, unheard voices, amazing culture and global issues.
From China’s state-backed overseas spending, to on the road with Canada’s Sikh truckers, to the frontline of the climate emergency, we go beyond the headlines.
Every week, we take you into the minds of the world's most creative people and explore personal approaches to spirituality. And we bring together people from around the globe to discuss how news stories are affecting their lives.
A new episode most days, all year round. From our BBC World Service teams at: Assignment, Heart and Soul, In the Studio, OS Conversations and The Fifth Floor.
Global investigations from the BBC. Uncovering gripping stories from around the world and telling them episode by episode. Delve into a World of Secrets.
Latest season: The Child Cancer Scam. Your child is critically ill. It’s the worst news you can get. But to make the situation even more awful, you struggle to afford the care they need. So when someone tells you a foreign sponsor can help raise the money, you’ll do anything. You make a video: your child begs for help from strangers online. But it comes to nothing. You wait and wait for the cash that was donated. It never comes, and all the while your child is fighting for their life.
Previously on World of Secrets:
Death in Dubai. A woman falls from a tower block and her name starts trending. But behind the online rumours lies an even darker reality.
The Abercrombie Guys. Investigating sexual exploitation claims against the former CEO of fashion giant Abercrombie & Fitch.
And Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods. Women accuse Mohamed Al Fayed of rape.
From the creator of the chart topping Crime at Bedtime comes Mysteries at Bedtime -
Step into the unknown with Mysteries at Bedtime — a podcast that takes you deep into the world’s strangest unsolved mysteries, eerie disappearances, and real-life encounters with the unexplained.
Each week, journalist and storyteller Jack Laurence guides you through immersive, true stories of UFO sightings, missing persons, paranormal events, government secrets, and historical oddities. Told in a calm, captivating style perfect for late-night listening, Mysteries at Bedtime is your weekly ritual for drifting off to stories that chill, intrigue, and mesmerise.
So relax take a minute, unwind and let me tell you some fascinating stories.
Mysteries at Bedtime is hosted and created by Jack Laurence.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
It’s the early 1970s, and a young British family is attempting to sail around the world when catastrophe strikes.
The Robertsons have sold everything they own to embark on this trip. But their epic odyssey soon turns into a desperate fight for their lives in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Dougal and Lyn, their teenage son Douglas, 12-year-old twins Sandy and Neil, and young hitchhiker Robin find themselves hundreds of miles from land, with few supplies, no radio contact, and surrounded by sharks.
Drifting in the vast emptiness, they must rely on their instincts and harness the elements to survive. Yet even with deadly predators circling, they discover that sometimes their worst enemy is...themselves.
Adrift is an Apple Original podcast, produced by Blanchard House. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.
apple.co/Adrift
From ghostly phantoms to UFOs, Danny Robins investigates real-life stories of paranormal encounters. So, are you Team Believer or Team Sceptic?
Written and presented by Danny Robins Editor and Sound Designer: Charlie Brandon-King Music: Evelyn Sykes Theme Music by Lanterns on the Lake Produced by Danny Robins and Simon Barnard
A Bafflegab and Uncanny Media production for BBC Radio 4
The Telepathy Tapes is a podcast that explores the origins of consciousness and the unexplained abilities of ESP through science, verifiable experience, formal testing, and human story. In Season One, non-speaking individuals with autism reveal striking telepathic abilities that challenge everything we thought we knew about the mind. In Season Two, the lens widens to extraordinary experiences that invite us to rethink reality itself. From near death experiences to telepathic communication with animals, energy healing to plant intelligence, and the origins of creativity to sudden savant abilities -- each episode offers a rare glimpse into the vast terrain of consciousness beyond the brain.
Short documentaries and adventures in sound presented by Josie Long.
America through the looking glass - enter a world where nothing is as it seems.
As America heads into a presidential election, Gabriel Gatehouse dives back into the labyrinthine rabbit warren of American conspiracy culture. Whilst liberals across the world worry about a possible return of Donald Trump, millions of Americans are convinced that their democracy has already been highjacked - by a sinister Deep State cabal. How did this happen? And who is behind it? That's the story that Gabriel Gatehouse is investigating in this series of The Coming Storm.
The search for the origins of this story takes Gabriel inside a paranoid political group that tried to build its own Deep State during the Cold War, now back in fashion in the conservative backwaters of western mountain states. Gabriel meets the January 6 rioters running for office who see their detention as political imprisonment in gulags, and the militia men convinced the CIA and FBI are working against the American people. In the background lurk the tech utopian ideologues, using their vast wealth and power to fund conspiracy flavoured content as they work to create sovereign states free of all government control. And online, amateur finance bros foment distrust of government, central banks and giant financial institutions to millions of followers.
What were once fringe ideas have burst into the mainstream. Conspiracy theories have become central planks of Trump's Republican Party, while Democrats run on dark warnings about the end of democracy. With both sides convinced the other is an existential threat, what are the prospects for the survival of the American political system?
Raynor Winn’s memoir The Salt Path was a bestseller and literary phenomenon with millions of people captivated by this true story of financial ruin, terminal illness, and healing through nature. Raynor Winn has since published two more books and The Salt Path has been adapted for the big screen, starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson.
At its heart it is a simple tale, of a couple embarking on a 630 mile trek in the face of stark adversity. When faced with nothing, they chose to walk.
But when reporter Chloe Hadjimatheou received a tip-off that the memoir may not be the "unflinchingly honest" account it claimed to be, suddenly things began to unravel. And the questions, about what is and isn't true, began mounting.
How far can you bend the truth before it begins to break?
Episode 1 will be available to listen on Tuesday 13th January.
Subscribe to Observer+ on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to binge listen to all 7 episodes on Tuesday 13th January.
Subscribe to The Observer today and get access to:
Click here to subscribe today for just £1 for your first month.
Reporter - Chloe Hadjimatheou
Producer - Matt Russell
Music supervision and sound design - Karla Patella
Sound design - Rowan Bishop
Podcast artwork - Lola Williams
Executive producer - Jasper Corbett
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.