Weekly Spooky | Scary Stories for Spooky Season

The USS Indianapolis sinking remains one of the most devastating naval disasters of World War II. On July 30, 1945, Japanese submarine I-58 torpedoed the heavy cruiser in the Philippine Sea after it completed a secret mission delivering components for the Little Boy atomic bomb to Tinian.

Indianapolis sank in about twelve minutes. Nearly nine hundred sailors and Marines reached the water alive, but only 316 of the nearly twelve hundred people aboard survived. For more than three days, the survivors drifted across miles of open ocean with little food, almost no fresh water and failing life jackets. They endured burns, injuries, dehydration, hallucinations, exposure and real shark attacks whose exact death toll can never be known. No rescue force had been sent to find them. The Navy's movement-reporting system failed to recognize that an entire warship was missing, and patrol pilot Wilbur Gwinn discovered the survivors only after a faulty antenna drew him to a hatch above an enormous oil slick.

In this episode of Terrifying & True, we follow the secret atomic mission, the attack by Mochitsura Hashimoto's submarine, the twelve-minute sinking, the desperate work of men such as Lewis Haynes, Thomas Conway and Edward Parke, and the dangerous open-ocean landing by PBY pilot Robert Adrian Marks. We also examine the court-martial of Captain Charles McVay, the campaign to clear his name, the 2017 discovery of the wreck, and the way Quint's famous Jaws monologue transformed a complex institutional disaster into a shark legend.

Inside this episode:
USS Indianapolis and the secret Little Boy atomic bomb mission 
Japanese submarine I-58 and commander Mochitsura Hashimoto 
The twelve-minute sinking and nearly nine hundred men in the water 
Sharks, dehydration, hallucinations and more than three days at sea 
Wilbur Gwinn, Robert Marks and the accidental rescue 
Captain Charles McVay's court-martial and eventual exoneration 
How did a decorated American cruiser vanish between major bases without triggering an immediate search - and why did it take fifty-five years to correct the blame placed on its captain? 

We're telling that story tonight.

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🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com

Unknown Broadcast returns with a full night of classic old time radio horror, vintage radio suspense, OTR mystery, Golden Age radio drama, and eerie anthology storytelling from four legendary radio programs: CBS Radio Mystery Theater, Escape, Suspense, and The Whistler.

Tonight’s transmission features “A Choice of Witnesses,” “Leiningen Versus the Ants,” “The King’s Birthday,” and “Patients for the Doctor” — four classic radio dramas about blackmail, murder, moral corruption, survival horror, killer army ants, Nazi-occupied Europe, hidden resistance, psychological suspense, medical horror, and a lonely mountain doctor whose patients may not be there by accident.

📸 “A Choice of Witnesses” — CBS Radio Mystery Theater / Henry Slesar
Gordon Bailey is a respectable married man with one secret mistake in his past. Unfortunately, a blackmailing photographer named Kellerman has proof — and he is not blackmailing Gordon alone. When another victim proposes the “perfect” murder, Gordon is pulled into a nightmare of guilt, conspiracy, eyewitness testimony, and the deadly question at the heart of every great CBS Radio Mystery Theater thriller: if murder could solve your problem, would you still say no?
🐜 “Leiningen Versus the Ants” — Escape / Carl Stephenson
One of the most famous survival thrillers in old time radio history. Deep in the Amazon jungle, plantation owner Leiningen refuses to flee when a massive army of ravenous ants marches toward his land. The district commissioner warns him that nothing can stop them, but Leiningen believes human intelligence can defeat any force of nature. What follows is a tense Escape radio drama of jungle terror, siege warfare, fire, water, courage, obsession, and millions of crawling killers.
👑 “The King’s Birthday” — Suspense / Louis Pelletier
Suspense takes us to Nazi-occupied Denmark, where Kronwald Castle becomes the stage for a strange and dangerous act of resistance. Anonymous notes claim that Count Victor will kill himself on the night of the king’s birthday, turning a private threat into a political weapon. With the Gestapo watching, a Nazi Gauleiter circling, and the Danish underground moving in secret, this vintage radio thriller becomes a story of betrayal, patriotism, false appearances, and one unforgettable midnight deception.
🩺 “Patients for the Doctor” / “Patience for the Doctor” — The Whistler
High in the Snoqualmie Mountains, Dr. James Harris lives with his wife Mary in an isolated cabin at the end of a dangerous road. When a storm, a landslide, and a sick traveler bring strangers to his door, they discover that something is terribly wrong with the doctor’s house, his welcome sign, his missing bridge, and his desperate need for patients. The Whistler turns medical duty into psychological horror, revealing a disturbing tale of obsession, injury, pyromania, and madness.

This episode is perfect for listeners searching for old time radio horror, classic OTR suspense, CBS Radio Mystery Theater, Escape radio show, Suspense radio drama, The Whistler, E.G. Marshall, Henry Slesar, Carl Stephenson, Leiningen Versus the Ants, William Conrad, Dolores Costello, Martin Kosleck, George Zucco, Ian Wolfe, vintage horror radio, classic radio mystery, noir radio drama, supernatural suspense, psychological thriller, and Golden Age radio anthologies.

Four dramas. Four traps. A blackmailer takes the wrong picture, a jungle plantation faces a living flood of ants, a castle hides the truth behind a patriotic legend, and a doctor waits in the mountains for patients who may never leave.

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join

📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
Facebook: facebook.com/WeeklySpooky
Email: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com

Four scary animal horror stories unleash killer hippos, a rage-fueled werewolf, a shape-shifting monster dog, and a demon-possessed cat. Celebrate Summerween and Halloween in summer with a complete horror fiction anthology filled with supernatural creatures, deadly animal attacks, cursed pets, survival horror, and dark comedy.

A documentary crew travels deep into the Colombian jungle to investigate Pablo Escobar’s infamous cocaine hippos—but the expedition becomes a blood-soaked fight for survival when the enormous animals attack. Then former Malibu model Dani Boy returns to Strickfield carrying a werewolf curse that transforms her whenever her anger becomes uncontrollable.

A horror writer moves his family into an isolated house where scratching inside the walls leads to thousands of rats, supernatural creatures, and the disturbing transformation of the family dog. Finally, an aging calico cat develops glowing red eyes, unnatural aggression, and a demonic condition that may be capable of passing into a new host.

This Summerween horror compilation features:
“Stay Hungry” by David O’Hanlon
A killer animal survival story about documentary filmmakers, an infamous poacher, and Pablo Escobar’s cocaine hippos running wild in the Colombian jungle.
“Wolf Rage” by Rob Fields
A supernatural werewolf story set in Strickfield, Ohio, where a former model discovers that anger—not the full moon—awakens the monster inside her.
“My Dog, Doug” by David O’Hanlon
A darkly funny creature feature about a shape-shifting dog, a haunted new house, an enormous rat infestation, and vicious supernatural brownies.
“Feline Troubles” by Douglas Waltz
A demonic cat story in which a family pet becomes violently possessed and begins hunting the children inside an isolated farmhouse.

These terrifying tales combine werewolf horror, killer animal attacks, cocaine hippos, jungle survival, demonic possession, cursed cats, monster dogs, shape-shifters, haunted houses, supernatural pets, creature features, body horror, dark comedy, and Strickfield horror.

Perfect for listeners searching for scary stories, animal horror stories, horror audiobooks, horror fiction podcasts, werewolf stories, killer animal horror, demon stories, possessed pet stories, monster stories, supernatural thrillers, Summerween entertainment, and Halloween podcasts.The summer night is warm, the moon is rising, and the animals are beginning to behave strangely.

Halloween may still be months away, but something hungry has already escaped into the darkness.

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join

📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
Facebook: facebook.com/WeeklySpooky
Email: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com

As Halloween season creeps closer, Terrifying & True begins the descent into darker stories with a special compilation of disappearances, ghost ships, lost colonies, missing people, wilderness mysteries, and unexplained cases that still haunt history.

This is Vanished Without a Trace — a chilling collection of scary true stories about the places where people entered the dark and never came back.

Inside this special Terrifying & True compilation:
The Lost Colony of Roanoke — An entire English settlement vanishes from early America, leaving behind one haunting clue and centuries of theories.
The Lost Franklin Expedition — A doomed Arctic voyage disappears into ice, starvation, fear, and one of exploration history’s most disturbing mysteries.
The Mary Celeste — A ship is found drifting across the Atlantic with its crew gone, its cargo intact, and no explanation that fully satisfies the imagination.
The Disappearance of Angela Hammond — A late-night phone call turns into a terrifying missing-person case that still chills those who hear it.
The Bennington Triangle — A quiet stretch of Vermont becomes linked to a series of strange disappearances, eerie folklore, and wilderness dread.
Dyatlov Pass Mystery — Nine hikers die in the Ural Mountains under circumstances that have fueled decades of fear, investigation, and speculation.
The Vanishing of Brandon Swanson — A young man disappears while speaking to his father on the phone, leaving behind one of modern true crime’s most haunting unanswered questions.
The Alaska Triangle — A massive wilderness region becomes infamous for vanished planes, missing travelers, strange legends, and stories that feel tailor-made for the Halloween season.

Together, these stories form a journey through real mystery, dark history, eerie folklore, and the unsettling truth that sometimes the scariest thing is not finding a body, a killer, or a confession. 

Sometimes the scariest thing is finding nothing at all.

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join

📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
Facebook: facebook.com/WeeklySpooky
Email: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com

Hungry Ghost Month runs August 13 through September 10 in 2026, with the fifteenth-day Hungry Ghost Festival falling on August 27. Why do some getai and wayang performances in Singapore and Malaysia leave the entire front row empty?

Thursday Thrills explores the Chinese ghost folklore, religious traditions and regional beliefs behind seats reserved for unseen guests. Henrique traces the differences among the seventh lunar month, the Daoist Zhongyuan Festival, Buddhist Yulanpen or Ullambana observances, ancestor remembrance and offerings for wandering spirits. We also examine food, incense, joss paper and documented Ghost Month taboos involving roadside offerings, nighttime swimming, reserved seats and major life events.

From Taiwan's water lanterns and Hong Kong's Yu Lan traditions to Singaporean getai, this respectful supernatural folklore journey separates living cultural practice from sensational internet horror - and asks who a performance is really for when its best seats are left empty.

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

🎉 Unlock exclusive bonus episodes and support the show on Patreon!
👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join

📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!
Twitter: @WeeklySpooky
Facebook: facebook.com/WeeklySpooky
Email: WeeklySpooky@gmail.com

🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com