Demystified
54 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingGhost ships, lost cities, unsolved crimes and mysteries, ancient mythology, disappeared explorers - if it’s a historical mystery, it’s going under the microscope. History has always been fascinating, but more fascinating than what we know is what we don’t; in this podcast Ashleigh Stiles looks into famous and obscure episodes of folklore, unexplained circumstances, and unsolved mysteries from around the world and throughout time. Taking a modern lens to these ancient puzzles, she uses all the evidence and findings to try and piece together what really happened, or as close a picture as we can get, to both entertain the listener, and inspire interest in these lesser-known chapters of the human experience. So sit back and listen along, and join us in pondering the great unsolved questions of history.
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Episodes
White Winds Blowing
June 23, 2021 02:00 - 49 minutesWe've arrived out our final story in the frozen saga of the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration - we've talked about our subject before, many times; he participated in more expeditions than anyone else, and led three himself! An open-ocean voyage of 800 miles, across the worst seas in the world, with almost no shelter and the lives of dozens of men depending on you. Imagine that pressure! No small surprise that the saying goes "Give me Scott for science, Amundsen for speed, but when all has g...
The Silent Ranges
June 16, 2021 02:00 - 53 minutesAmundsen. Shackleton. Scott. A veritable triumvirate of famous Antarctic explorers. But for all those others in the Heroic Age who made great strides in the fields of science, and whose stories of adversity are rivalled only by legends of Greek heroes, one stands tall above them all. An Australian who was seemingly made of titanium, whose resolve was matched only by his tenacity and ingenuity, but a man who has somehow evaded the history books... why is that? And what did it cost him, as well...
There Can Be Only One
June 02, 2021 02:00 - 55 minutesIt's come to this - a final race to decide, once and for all, the man who'll go down in the history books. The two contenders have their own impressive resumes, but very different ways of doing things. One prefers what he knows, the other is a bold experimenter willing to try new ideas. In the end though, there can be only one... or is that too simplistic? Is that just the mindset that led to disaster? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Going South
May 26, 2021 02:00 - 53 minutesWhat was almost a false-start has now begun a race, the prize being a place in the history books. Last week's look at the Belgica may have started off on a bad foot but today we look at three expeditions that would set the tone going forwards. Whilst the race to the Pole is the main event, we need to understand why it happened the way it did, and these stories will give some much needed context; we're looking at three stories of record breakers, and the trends that were set going forwards. Be...
Disposable Heroes
May 12, 2021 02:00 - 44 minutesThe Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration by its very name promises a lot. Our popular conception of it seems to deliver, too - frozen heroes in big coats frozen stiff as they trudge through a blizzard, some stiff-lipped soldier making a heroic sacrifice to save his fellows, and flags planted in places that are generally hard to reach. All of that is true... but there's a whole other side to the story that never gets told, names you won't recognise from any history class. Today, we begin with o...
De la Mancha: An Interview with Ruta Sepetys
March 24, 2021 03:00 - 34 minutesThis episode of Demystified is something a little different: together with Penguin and Carnegie-winning author Ruta Sepetys, we're taking a look into the history of the Spanish Civil War, and life under the rule of General Franco. The latter half of the episode is an interview with Ruta about her book The Fountains of Silence, the period of Francoist rule, and writing historical fiction - enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
De la Mancha: An interview with Ruta Sepetys
March 24, 2021 00:00 - 33 minutesThis episode of Demystified is something a little different: together with Penguin Publishing and Carnegie-winning author Ruta Sepetys, we're taking a look into the history of the Spanish Civil War, and life under the rule of General Franco. The latter half of the episode is an interview with Ruta about her book The Fountains of Silence, the period of Francoist rule, and writing historical fiction - enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Once More, With Seoul
March 10, 2021 03:00 - 53 minutesWhether you stan the worldwide phenomenon of K-Pop, or just really like Kimchi, one might be familiar with some of the cultural exports of the country of South Korea. What one might not necessarily think of, depending on your knowledge of East-Asian political scandals, is Cults. But rest assured, Korea has some major cult scandals that put places like the United States to Shame: for the final time on this season of Demystified let's do it once more, with Seoul... Learn more about your ad choi...
Big In Japan
March 03, 2021 03:00 - 43 minutesThings are easy when you're big in Japan - fans of the show will know I love my musical references, but this isn't just a trite opportunity here. When you're the leader of a cult that extorts and assassinates every opponent in your bid to start a world war and end the world, it's up to you how easy things end up being, it seems. It may seem like Deja Vu, you've just been in this place before, but now we're running in the 90's... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Grand and Golden
February 18, 2021 01:00 - 59 minutesHome, home on the range - where 'never is heard a discouraging word'. Today's episode may make you rethink that, as whilst the history books would tell you that so-called Range Wars are a thing of the past, the events of a small town in Oregon in the 1980's would make you think otherwise. Mass-poisoning, attempted murder, and immigration fraud abound; who's ready to achieve enlightenment? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Down The Hatch
February 04, 2021 03:00 - 53 minutesHow does a man go from a well-respected, well read, likable and popular civil rights activist, to a drug-addled psychotic cult leader who murdered over 900 people in the jungles of South America? An interesting question with an interesting answer that's relevant to this day - drinking the Koolaid is still the fashion, it seems... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Helter Skelter
January 27, 2021 18:42 - 38 minutesWhen I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide. For those who don't know what it is, a Helter Skelter is a theme-park ride, a massive tower where you go up, and then slide down, then climb back up again ad infinitum. It also has a far darker connotation, though the repeating nature of things has a way of creeping up on you; time is, as they say, a flat circle. Settle in for Season 3 of Demystified, where the theme of the season is: Cults. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit me...
Ahead By A Century
November 25, 2020 04:00 - 44 minutesGord Downie really did say it best, didn’t he? "No dress rehearsal - this is our life". Apt words from an inspiring man, but that’s been the proverbial rub for most humans throughout all of time - we don’t get a dress rehearsal, and opening night starts before we’re even aware that the curtain has come up. But what if we could peek at the script, see the plot twists of our stories coming? Many have claimed this ability, but have any of them proven it? Is there such a thing as... a Secret Path...
Hard To Swallow
November 04, 2020 04:00 - 35 minutesYou are what you eat - or so they say. And everyone has their own preferences... some might even give an odd look to those who actually *enjoy* Marmite or Vodka (heaven forfend both at once)! But how should we look upon those whose tastes are a little less... conventional? Those who literally can’t stop eating... When an Old Fashioned isn’t your cup of tea, perhaps you’ll enjoy Turpentine and Methanol? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Seeing Double
October 28, 2020 04:00 - 33 minutesPeople love to share things - and most things are better shared! You go out for a meal and get the sharing platter, a round of drinks, and the bread - to share. You watch a film, read a book, or see a tv show you love and say to your friends “You’ve *got* to try it”! We share things because we want other people to see what we’re seeing. But what if the things we’re seeing aren’t really there... and our friends start seeing them too? Stare into the mirror too long, and you may end up seeing do...
Up In Flames
October 21, 2020 04:00 - 34 minutesFire - to destroy all you’ve done. Fire - to end all you’ve become. Morbid words in a rather jaunty tune, but it’s true; fire has that capacity. It’s been with us from the dawn of time, and has been so central to basically all of human existence since that time that how we came to possess it has been the subject of myths and legends from all over the world and across history. Some say that we stole it from the gods - others that some higher being gifted it to us. But what if the fire was insi...
A Demystified Announcement
September 30, 2020 04:00 - 14 minutesThings are changing at Demystified, and Ashleigh Stiles gives you a sense of what's to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We Built This City (Part 2)
September 02, 2020 04:00 - 24 minutesWay down deep in the jungle, there lies a city of such unimaginable splendour that to even conceive of it is to dream one’s wildest dreams. There also lies a wealth of danger, tropical diseases, wild animals, and an endless sea of rainforest. Would you brave the latter to find the former? Or, dream and speculate about what treasures might be hiding away? How about both? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We Built This City (Part 1)
August 26, 2020 04:00 - 33 minutesImagine an event so devastating, so terrifying, so utterly world shaking that not only does it help to hasten the decline of your civilisation, but thousands of years later the association people may draw from it would be your depiction in popular culture as a people who live underwater. Perhaps it’s not all bad though; it’s better, down where it’s wetter... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Snowblind
July 29, 2020 04:00 - 35 minutesThe great outdoors - there's nothing like it, is there? Everyone’s got a bit of that exploratory spirit in them, that drives you to the very edges of what you know and what you don’t. We’ve talked before about people that go off the edge of the map, but what happens in those strange incidents where people thought they were in control of their situation, but soon found themselves going downhill very quickly..? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Walkers In The Wastes
July 15, 2020 04:00 - 32 minutesTall, larger than a bear or man, rising up out of the woods. The shapeless mass that walks behind the snowdrift, howling in the deep. Out in the outback, or in the deep jungles, these man-beasts walk, sparking our imaginations and launching a thousand amateur photographers into the wilds to catch a glimpse of the last great thing undiscovered. The missing link. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Smoke and Mirrors
June 24, 2020 04:00 - 30 minutesDeep in the jungles of Central America stand towering monuments - wide streets, tall towers, pyramids to rival those of Ancient Egpyt - and they all stand abandoned. But it wasn’t always this way. So how did these great and powerful cities go from centres of civilisation to little more than ruins? Their names might give you a clue - a little bit of smoke and mirrors... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Going In Circles
June 17, 2020 04:00 - 27 minutesSince time immemorial, the people of the world have marvelled at it. Large chunks of earth, taken from a far away land through great effort, and assembled in such a way as to track the movements of the stars, heal the sick, and produce a sound unlike any other. Why was it built? It would have been helpful had the stone-age people who made it left a tiny hint when they built this giant labyrinth of stones... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Beyond The Forest
June 10, 2020 04:00 - 29 minutesOf all the classic Hollywood movie monsters - the wolfman, the mummy, the creature from the black lagoon - there’s one that stands head and shoulders above them all. From edgy teenagers to billowy symbols of romance, to icons of pure horror, they’ve infiltrated pop culture. And behind them all, in a place past the forests, rests the story of a man so sinister, he’s been immortalised as a monster... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Up From The Wolfpit
June 03, 2020 04:00 - 28 minutesThere are some accounts in history that simply baffle you - the incident itself is fairly self-contained; it happens, then it stops. But the implications of these small, short-lived mysteries can go far beyond their own lifespans. Let's go back to Medieval England, a time of great upheaval and greater superstition, where the arrival of two strange guests to a quiet village in Suffolk threatened to upturn their worldview. It ain’t easy being green... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit meg...
Blue and Gold
May 20, 2020 04:00 - 32 minutesSome secrets lie buried, hidden. Some are right under our noses, some are half a world away. When we dig and dig and dig some more, and we finally find them, it can be elating - at last, uncovering wonderful things that haven’t seen the light of day for millennia! But sometimes we get more than we bargained for, and what first seems like a blessing can soon turn out to be quite the curse... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Top Dog
May 13, 2020 04:00 - 37 minutesIn every field and vocation, there exists someone whose shadow eclipses everyone else's. Someone who looms so large, you can’t envisage the world without them. They’re a kingpin, a captain of industry, a big kahuna, a true titan in every sense of the word. And then, one day, they’re not. And they never are again. Get in the car, we’re going for a little drive... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Deus Ex Machina
May 06, 2020 04:00 - 33 minutesInventors are a cornerstone of human civilisation. Our greatest gift is the ability to create, to teach, to learn, and to pass our inventions down to our descendants. Leonardo Da Vinci, Nichola Tesla, Ada Lovelace - all titans of human invention. Our subject of today’s discussion is none of them. He was an inventor, of sorts, but his ideas were so strange that even those who followed him couldn’t fully grasp it. It’s up to you to decide whether it’s possible to bring an automaton to life, wit...
Rapa Nui
April 29, 2020 04:00 - 34 minutesFar in the distant mists of the pacific ocean, miles out from any land, sits a rocky outcrop - an island. The island is bare, no trees, little vegetation, sparse animal life. But what it does have boggles the mind - constructs that are so large, and so strange, they warrant a very good explanation. It’s a shame there’s so few people left to give us one. We could ask the statues of course, but getting anything out of them is like getting blood from stone... Learn more about your ad choices. Vi...
Leather Apron
April 22, 2020 04:00 - 42 minutesPlease Note: This content includes references which may not be suitable for young listeners. Listener discretion is advised. It’s finally time for us to peel off the cover on one of the most gruesome crime sprees of all history... one that would burn the name of it’s perpetrator into popular culture for all-time, and would inspire countless copy-cat crimes and come to define the dark side of modernity. There is a silver lining to be found in this story - it’s just that looking for it involves...
All That Glitters (Part 2)
April 15, 2020 04:00 - 22 minutesWelcome to part two of the two-parter... Last week we explored what happens when a gold rush gets out of hand. But most people forget there was another place famous for it’s gold rushes, one whose cultural history was just as shaped by outlaws and mining towns. This time, we go to the other great frontier, where it rains on the rock and there’s golden soil in a red centre. You’d better run, you’d better take cover. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
All That Glitters (Part 1)
April 08, 2020 04:00 - 19 minutesWelcome to the two-parter... We all love a good Western - Sergio Leone’s ‘no name’ trilogy propelled Clint Eastwood to new stardom, and Tarantino’s modern adaptations make great films. But what’s at the centre of any good Western? Old weathered prospectors panning the rivers and traversing deserts for it, desperados and gunslingers duelling over sacks of it, bank robbers carrying it off in big bars... you’d be surprised how far people really went to find it. Learn more about your ad choices. ...
An Antique Land
April 01, 2020 04:00 - 28 minutesStraight roads, bathhouses, sewers and plumbing, fresh-water readily available, underfloor heating, city-planning, and public works. If those all sound like the trappings of modernity, or at the very earliest the Roman Empire, you’d be right at first glance. But what if an apparently pacifist society had all these things thousands of years before Rome was a gleam in the eye of Romulus? And that all of this had disappeared, with no explanation, centuries before Augustus left his brick city one...
We Float
March 18, 2020 04:00 - 23 minutesIt’s no surprise that ships are the source of so many mysteries. As Eric Idle famously quipped: worse things happen at sea y’know! We sail off into the mists, with a song in our hearts and holds full of cargo, and our loved ones pray for our safe return. Well, sometimes you’ve got to be careful what you wish for, because you might not like the way it comes true... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Night Lights
March 11, 2020 04:00 - 28 minutesSteven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, James Cameron - all directors whose visions of life from other worlds captivated us and inspired us to think bigger. Alien fiction goes all the way back to the turn of the 20th Century, where H.G. Wells horrified us with visions of tripods and heat-rays. Nowadays aliens are mostly consigned to theoretical science - they certainly exist, but likely as bacteria. But for a brief moment in a New Mexico desert at the start of the Cold War, they’d never been more rea...
Hell-Hound
March 04, 2020 04:00 - 27 minutesDogs are a man's best friend for good reason - loyal, brave, loving, empathetic. But many young children are scared of dogs, and it's stories like this, deep in the dark forests of enlightenment-era France, that show you exactly why. They’re serving man, in more ways than one... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Crossroads
February 26, 2020 04:00 - 33 minutesDeath is a natural part of life. On a cosmic scale, it’s believed the universe will one day collapse in on itself, and be reborn in another big bang. On a smaller scale, we humans are born, live our lives, and then die. It’s a cycle so old and ubiquitous that many cultures have even enshrined it as a part of their mythology. So what happens when that cycle is reversed - when the dead come back to life? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A Scandal In The Court
February 19, 2020 04:00 - 28 minutesAh, the court of a king. Nobles in all their finery, servants waiting on hand and foot; grand castles and splendid balls. But behind that facade of civility lies a dark underbelly of backstabbing and politics - so dark in fact that some would even turn to what they would consider sacrilege to get ahead. En amour comme à la guerre, tous les coups sont permis... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Night Fever
February 12, 2020 04:00 - 27 minutesThere are many occurrences in history that may make you take a second look. Some things are worth a double take, they seem so strange that it makes it almost impossible to believe. Sometimes you've just got to put on your red shoes and dance the blues - but what about when a whole city of people spontaneously decides to do just that, for no discernible reason, to the extent that it’s considered a plague? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Cold and Hungry
February 05, 2020 04:00 - 27 minutesThe winds whip down from the north, biting at the edge of the small cabin. An emaciated man sits at a table, the lone candle flickering. In the darkness, his stomach starts to growl. And in his mind, a demon starts to take hold. Or so they say - to some, it’s madness; to others however, the hunger isn’t just a metaphorical monster, it’s a literal one. And what happens when that age-old monster comes face-to-face with the modern world? Some hungers can never be satisfied... Learn more about yo...
Salt and Spray
January 29, 2020 07:00 - 26 minutesThere are many places in the world that stand apart - literally. They’re isolated, completely cut off from the rest of the world. To some, that seems like heaven; no noisy neighbours, just peace and quiet. To others though, it’s a nightmare - you’ve heard hell is other people, but it’s often the other way around. And because of how far they are from civilisation, the rest of us are left to pick up where they left off when they don’t come back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone...
The Ninety Nine
January 22, 2020 07:00 - 38 minutesEveryone has a hero, whether we admit it or not. Someone we look up to, someone who we aspire to be like and emulate. Oftentimes they’re people who’ve indelably made their mark on human history - pioneers, the first of their kind. Sadly though, we don’t always get closure on their extraordinary tales - sometimes they fly straight off the page of the history book, and into the unknown, never to return. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Big Bang
January 15, 2020 07:00 - 23 minutesHumans, in general, like explosions - they’re cool! Fireworks are a pivotal part of celebrations across many cultures. Sometimes, however, that event is out of our control; sometimes it flattens thousands of kilometers of forest without warning, an explosion over 1,000 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb, right out of nowhere then gone in a flash. Kaboom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Northwest Orient, Flight 305
January 08, 2020 07:00 - 40 minutesAudacity is a word that gets tossed around a lot. We call people who wear something unusual ‘gutsy’ and someone who haggles in shops has ‘bravado’. So what do you call a man who uses what might have been a fake bomb to hijack a plane, then parachutes out, at night, in the rain, with the equivalent of a million dollars in ransom money, never to be seen again? I am serious. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ciphers
December 18, 2019 07:00 - 32 minutesHumans like to think we can solve every mystery - that’s partly why I do this show! We have an obsession with patterns, codes, and strange symbols. Evolutionarily it meant seeing the tiger in the long grass, now it mostly means magic-eye books. But what happens when a mystery we think is solved, turns out not to be? When we go back on our original solution, for a new one? Again... and again... and again... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Hidden City
December 11, 2019 07:00 - 25 minutesWriters will often borrow a concept from mythology for their work - there’s no copyright on a culture, even if it isn’t yours. But sometimes people take these things a little too far. Some people become so obsessed with these mysterious foreign ideas that they spend millions organising genuine expeditions to prove their veracity. After all, who doesn’t want to live forever? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Bird's Eye View
November 27, 2019 07:00 - 24 minutesArt is interesting - it tells us about the person who made it. Where they came from; what they’re interested in; how they see the world. Some art is grand in scale, so grand that you can’t help but stand back and marvel. Some art however is so grand that you need to stand *really* far back. At the top of a mountain, say. It’s all about perspective... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nothing Beside Remains
November 20, 2019 07:00 - 27 minutesThe greatest legends of ancient civilisations are steeped in the trappings that come with a story told and retold. Larger than life characters, brave heroes and evil villains, great battles and wars that never end, with the gods themselves personally invested. But in all these great stories, there’s always a kernel of truth - something that actually happened; or a city that really stood, and fell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Run Through the Jungle
November 13, 2019 07:00 - 30 minutesSome people are driven by a singular purpose - creating, building, discovering, and much more. Those who are driven by the singular desire to explore are often those who we remember the most, but this legacy comes with a certain amount of danger. Because sometimes that drive to go out means you don’t come back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Croatoan
November 04, 2019 07:00 - 32 minutesKeeping in contact is important - as someone who’s lived overseas from my family before, I can attest to that. It helps us keep track of those who mean the most to us, our friends and families. When we lose contact it can make us anxious; when we lose *all* contact, we’re simply left in bewilderment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices