The Unexplainers

Somewhere in the depths of the internet, a secretive collection of audio files promises something extraordinary: the ability to rewrite who you are. They call it Bambi Sleep.For some, it's fantasy. For others, an escape. But for those who venture deeper, the lines between pleasure, identity and control can begin to disappear. Who created these mysterious recordings? What happens to the people who surrender themselves to them? And why do some claim they can never truly escape?In this first episode, we investigate the online Bambi Sleep community through personal accounts and expert perspectives. Listeners and contributors describe a range of experiences from relaxation, confidence, and consensual roleplay to concerns about pressure, dependency, lost time, and changes in their relationships or concentration.The episode also follows LS, whose two-week listening challenge gradually became a daily habit, and considers the broader questions around escapism, consent, identity, and online influence. It does not offer a simple verdict: it asks how to take reported harms seriously without reducing an unfamiliar community to a sensational story.SUBSCRIBE HEREFeatured expert voices:Amy R. Marsh, EdD, Author/Writer, Sexologist, HypnotistGiles Crouch, Digital and Cultural AnthropologistListener Support & ResourcesThe Bambi Trap explores sensitive subjects including psychological manipulation, sexual coercion, consent, identity and emotional distress. If you have experienced unwanted psychological influence, coercive behaviour, sexual exploitation or distress related to online communities, support is available.You do not need to identify your experience as abuse or establish that a crime occurred to seek advice or support.Canada: 211.ca | Crisis support: Call or text 988United States: RAINN.org | 800-656-4673 | Crisis support: 988United Kingdom: Samaritans.org | 116 123 | Sexual abuse support: 0808 500 2222 (England & Wales)Australia: 1800RESPECT.org.au | 1800 737 732New Zealand: SafeToTalk.nz | 0800 044 334If you are experiencing persistent anxiety, confusion, dissociation, memory difficulties or distress, consider speaking with a qualified mental health professional.If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services.The Bambi Trap and its producers are independent of the organizations listed above.

This episode journeys from a strange 1976 encounter near Winchester, England, to a baffling light spotted by diamond miners in Canada.John and Rhys revisit the reports of Joyce Bowles and Ted Pratt, who described a cigar-shaped craft, a silver-suited figure with piercing pink eyes, and a second encounter they struggled to remember clearly. They also discuss the case’s investigation and aftermath—including the unsettling phone calls Bowles said she received.Then Rhys shares a more recent sighting from Cabin Lake in Canada: miners Jonah Wishart and Alex filmed a luminous shape moving across the night sky. Could it have been an alien craft—or a rocket plume creating a “space jellyfish” effect? The hosts weigh the possible explanation, admire the witnesses’ very Canadian reactions, and make a few highly unscientific claims about UFO sightings in Winchester.

Coming soon! Producer Rhys has a new project! Subscribe here.Somewhere in the depths of the internet, a secretive collection of audio files promises something extraordinary: the ability to rewrite who you are. They call it Bambi Sleep.For some, it's fantasy. For others, an escape. But for those who venture deeper, the lines between pleasure, identity and control can begin to disappear. Who created these mysterious recordings? What happens to the people who surrender themselves to them? And why do some claim they can never truly escape?In this five-part investigative documentary, Host Rhys Waters follows a trail of anonymous creators, devoted listeners, disturbing testimonies and extraordinary claims into a world where reality and suggestion become difficult to separate. What begins as an investigation into an obscure internet phenomenon soon raises unsettling questions about consent, manipulation and the power of the human mind.Is Bambi Sleep an elaborate fantasy, a dangerous experiment in psychological control, or something we don't yet have the language to understand?There's only one way to find out. Put on your headphones. And listen.

The Unexplainers are back from their summer break with two Bigfoot mysteries. Rhys looks at unsettling noises recorded in the forest and asks whether they could be moose or elk rather than Sasquatch. Then his co-host shares a bizarre late-night story from a motorway service station near Reading, where strange sounds from the toilets left one question hanging: people, or Bigfoot?The main event is an extraordinary account from Ryan, a camper in British Columbia, who said he encountered a family of Sasquatch in the woods. The story involves a baby Bigfoot, alleged telepathic communication, “forest drugs,” and a night in a tent that’s unlike any ordinary camping trip. The hosts discuss the account’s strangeness and where it came from.

In this episode of The Unexplainers, John and Rhys dive into two classic cases of weird lights and weirder implications. First, they explore the eerie Longdondale Lights of Derbyshire: dancing orbs inside a car, pulsing globes over Shining Clough, and decades of sightings that baffle locals, mountain rescue teams, and skeptics alike. From Bronze Age mounds to “Devil’s Bonfires,” the valley’s folklore collides with modern UFO theories and failed scientific explanations.Then they head across the Atlantic to Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia—home to one of the most thoroughly documented government UFO investigations in history. With fishermen, pilots, and the Canadian military all involved, the case raises serious questions about what really crashed into the harbor that night.Along the way, John compares cosmic entities to kids frying ants with magnifying glasses, Rhys brings in sci-fi parallels from Three Body Problem, and the pair somehow arrive at exploding frogs, cocaine-smuggling lobsters, makeshift flamethrowers vs. bears, and a $5,000 John Candy leather jacket. It’s equal parts paranormal deep-dive, dark comedy, and existential musing on whether we’re just the bugs in someone else’s experiment.

In this delightfully bizarre episode, the Unexplainers return from a short hiatus to tackle two cryptozoological case studies with their trademark mix of skepticism and silliness. First, they dive into a wild Bigfoot tale from Angelo Ramsey’s Bigfoot Did What?, featuring a Kentucky man, a broken-down car, a “hairy toddler” in a tree, and an elderly woman who casually babysits a family of Sasquatch that love muffins and SpongeBob SquarePants.Then Rhys shifts to Canada’s own Loch Ness–style legend: Ogopogo of British Columbia’s Okanagan Lake. The duo unpack a 2022 photo of a strange horned shape in the water, debating whether it’s a lake monster, an upside‑down duck, a rogue dragon‑boat ornament, a decapitated moose head, or the result of an extremely unwholesome magical mishap. Along the way, they riff on grief hoaxes, paranormal coping mechanisms, and the basic “science” of goldfish turning into lake monsters.

Grab your metaphorical tea towel and whip it off, because this episode’s package contains:A psychic World Cup prediction where aliens might crash the 2026 final like it’s the galaxy’s biggest half‑time showA real-life UFO incident over a 1950s football match complete with falling “angel hair” that sounds suspiciously like vitamins from a health shopThe story of Nella Jones, a clairvoyant cleaner who helps Scotland Yard hunt down a stolen Vermeer using nothing but ironing, visions and sheer witchy stubbornnessA detour through Baba Vanga, Nostradamus, Bulgarian mysticism and a man who folds pizza boxes so fast it practically counts as a paranormal eventPlus: romantic-comedy pitches about psychic detectives, slobbering dogs, and a police officer who may or may not be sexually harassed by a St. Bernard

Late-night drives are creepy enough without a blood-soaked stranger staring you down from the roadside… or something clawing around in the bed of your truck. In this episode, John and Rhys dive into a chilling 911 call from rural North Carolina, where a terrified driver reports a bloody man on the highway—then realizes something unknown has jumped into his pickup.From there, they slam on the narrative brakes and swerve into 1980s Birmingham, where residents of Thornton Road endured years of bizarre, unexplained stone attacks. Windows shattered, roofs were battered, police hid in trees, clergy were called in, and still nobody could work out who—or what—was hurling those strangely clean pebbles.Along the way, John and Rhys compare these uncanny cases to their own brushes with the emergency services, runaway fuse boxes, and childhood stone-throwing mischief, ultimately proposing the most scientific theory of all: kids, government labs, and a misplaced bottle of invisibility juice.Expect creepy 911 audio, classic British tangents, dark humor, and just enough plausibility to keep you thinking about truck beds and garden stones the next time you’re out after dark.