Strewth - Australian True Crime and Mystery Podcast
Welcome to Strewth, where we uncover Australia's most captivating tales of true crime and mysterious happenings. Yarns so extraordinary they'll make you stop and say, "Strewth!" From the sun-scorched outback to the seedy underbelly of our biggest cities, Australia harbours some of the world's most perplexing mysteries. Stories so bizarre that even hardened detectives could only mutter that distinctly Australian expression of disbelief. Each episode takes you deep into extraordinary cases through atmospheric storytelling and meticulous research. You'll walk alongside the detectives, feel the frustration of families seeking answers, and experience the shock of communities torn apart by inexplicable events. Strewth reveals how these cases shaped Australian society and exposes the dark undercurrents flowing beneath the nation's beautiful facade. From colonial-era crimes to modern forensic breakthroughs, these are the stories that made headlines and left investigators scratching their heads. New episodes weekly. Because some stories are too strange not to tell.
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Red Eyes in the Mist - Australian Mystery
01/27/2026
Red Eyes in the Mist - Australian Mystery
On August 7-8, 1993. Kelly Cahill is driving home through Victoria's misty Dandenong Ranges when her car was surrounded by seven-foot tall beings with eyes that glowed burning red through the darkness. One hour of her life vanished. Within weeks, she discovered triangular burns on her body and was hospitalised with infections doctors couldn't explain. Then came the breakthrough that should have changed everything. This was the holy grail of UFO cases. Multiple independent witnesses. Physical evidence on multiple bodies. Medical documentation. Everything needed to be definitive. But there was a problem. This week on Strewth, the story of a terrifying encounter on a dark road, a woman who risked everything to tell her truth, and the evidence that could have proven her claims. When the investigation becomes the mystery, the questions matter more than the answers. Sources: Cahill, Kelly: Encounter. HarperCollins Australia, 1996. Chalker, Bill. "The Kelly Cahill Abduction." International UFO Reporter, Vol. 19, No. 5, September/October 1994. Chalker, Bill. Blog posts and case updates, 2002, 2016. Available through Australian UFO research archives. Phenomena Research Australia (PRA) statements through John Auchettl ABC Australia retrospective. "The Kelly Cahill UFO Encounter: 27 Years On." September 2020. Ferntree Gully Star Mail. "Kelly Cahill UFO Case Revisited." March 2022. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: Contact us:
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A Murderer Takes Tea - Australian True Crime
01/20/2026
A Murderer Takes Tea - Australian True Crime
October 15, 1977. Two police officers discover the body of Florence Broadhurst, a 78-year-old wallpaper designer whose patterns hung in palaces and penthouses around the world, beaten to death in her Paddington studio. The crime scene tells multiple stories and the investigation has spanned decades producing a mix of theories and suspects as eclectic as Florence's celebrated wallpaper designs. This week on Strewth, we analyse the crime, the suspects and celebrate the amazing life of Australia's wallpaper queen, Florence Broadhurst. Sources: Thomson, Katherine: Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst - Shand Adam: Australian Crime Stories (Season 2, Episode 4) "Killing Florence" O'Neill, Helen. The Laughing Hangman: The True Story Behind the Florence Broadhurst Murder. Sydney: Random House Australia, 2006. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: Contact us:
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Fisher's Ghost - Australian Mystery
01/13/2026
Fisher's Ghost - Australian Mystery
On June 17, 1826, Frederick Fisher, a convict-turned-successful farmer, vanished from his Campbelltown property. His neighbour George Worrall claimed Fisher had sailed back to England, but there was a problem. Fisher was still a convict, bound to the colony. Returning to England would mean hanging. Three months later, Worrall sat in gaol, arrested on suspicion of murder. But without a body, he couldn't be charged. Then, in October 1826, a farmer named John Farley reported seeing Frederick Fisher's ghost. The apparition sat on a fence rail, blood streaming from its head, pointing toward a creek. Following that direction, authorities found Fisher's body, skull crushed, buried in a shallow grave exactly where the ghost had pointed. It's Australia's most famous ghost story. A tale of supernatural justice. An apparition refusing to let murder go unpunished. This episode explores one of Australia's most enduring mysteries. We'll examine the meticulously documented murder trial, the brilliant tracking skills of Namut Gilbert and the dark possibilities surrounding John Farley's role in the case. Content warning: This episode discusses murder and contains descriptions of violence. Sources: Supreme Criminal Court transcripts, February 2, 1827 Chief Justice Forbes' original court notes (examined by Andrew Lang, 1903) The Sydney Gazette, September-November 1826 The Australian, November 1, 1826 The Monitor, November 3, 1826 Riley, James. "The Sprite of the Creek!" Hill's Life in New South Wales, August 1832 Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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Highway of Death Part 2: One Killer, or Many? - Australian True Crime
01/07/2026
Highway of Death Part 2: One Killer, or Many? - Australian True Crime
This is Part Two of our Highway of Death investigation. After hearing the victims' stories in Part 1, we now examine the hunt for justice, or rather, the spectacular failures of justice. The confessions that led nowhere. The corruption exposed by the Fitzgerald Inquiry that destroyed investigations and let killers walk free. The suspects who died before facing trial. The families who've waited fifty years for answers. And at the center of it all, one haunting question. Were these ten murders the work of a single serial killer who stalked the Flinders Highway for decades? Or multiple predators who independently discovered that isolation makes the perfect hunting ground? After fifty years, over $1.25 million in rewards, and hundreds of thousands of investigative hours, these cases remain unsolved. Content Warning: This episode discusses police corruption, systemic failures of justice, and the ongoing impact on families of unsolved murders. Sources: Fitzgerald Inquiry Report (1987-1989): "Report of a Commission of Inquiry Pursuant to Orders in Council" "The Hunters" - Channel 7 documentary (March 2025) Fisher, Ian (Coroner). (2002, February). Inquest into the disappearance of Anthony "Tony" Jones. Queensland Coroner's Court. Wilson, Nerida (Coroner). (2021). Inquest into the death of Jayden Penno-Tompsett. Queensland Coroner's Court. R v Arthur Stanley Brown (1999). Queensland Supreme Court. Trial transcript, October 1999. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: Contact us:
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Highway of Death Part 1: The Disappeared - Australian True Crime
01/06/2026
Highway of Death Part 1: The Disappeared - Australian True Crime
Between 1970 and 2017, at least ten people were murdered or vanished along the Flinders Highway, a 776-kilometer stretch of isolated Queensland outback. This episode tells their stories: two schoolgirls who walked to the bus stop and never came home. Hitchhiking art students one found with bullets in her head, one still missing. An 18-year-old who made a terrified phone call to her mother. Three motorcycle adventurers found executed in the spinifex grass. A young man who called home and then disappeared so completely his case changed how Australia handles missing persons. Ten names across forty-seven years. Bodies found in dry creek beds. Families left with questions that have no answers. This is Part One of our investigation into Australia's Highway of Death. Before we examine the suspects and the failures of justice, we remember the victims. Content Warning: This episode contains descriptions of violence against children and adults, sexual assault, and murder. Listener discretion is strongly advised. Sources: Fitzgerald Inquiry Report (1987-1989): "Report of a Commission of Inquiry Pursuant to Orders in Council" "The Hunters" - Channel 7 documentary (March 2025) Fisher, Ian (Coroner). (2002, February). Inquest into the disappearance of Anthony "Tony" Jones. Queensland Coroner's Court. Wilson, Nerida (Coroner). (2021). Inquest into the death of Jayden Penno-Tompsett. Queensland Coroner's Court. R v Arthur Stanley Brown (1999). Queensland Supreme Court. Trial transcript, October 1999. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: Contact us:
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Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler - Australian True Crime
12/30/2025
Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler - Australian True Crime
New Year's Day, 1963. Two bodies are discovered on the banks of Sydney's Lane Cove River. Dr. Gilbert Stanley Bogle, a brilliant physicist. Margaret Chandler, a young mother of two. Both dead. Both half-dressed. No detectable poison in their systems. The FBI is consulted. Scotland Yard investigates. Over a thousand theories tested. The wronged husband. The jealous mistress. Soviet spies. LSD experiments. All dead ends. For forty years, Australia's most baffling mystery remains unsolved. Then a documentary filmmaker asks a question nobody thought to ask. What he discovers is an invisible killer hiding in plain sight. An answer that just might explain everything but can never be proven. This is Strewth. Join us for Australia's most baffling New Years mystery. Sources: Who Killed Dr Bogle & Mrs Chandler?: Podcast series, Peter Butt Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler?, , 2006 DR. BOGLE AND MRS CHANDLER - DID HYDROGEN SULPHIDE REALLY KILL THEM? ABC Catalyst Story Archive, 23 November 2006, Peter Butt, Who Killed Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler?, Sydney: New Holland, 2012 Tracey Bowden,Two women may hold answer to how Dr Gilbert Bogle and Margaret Chandler died in 1963, ABC News, 2 September 2016: The Dictionary of Sydney: The Bogle-Chandler Mystery (2018) Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: Contact us:
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Three Witnesses: A Strewth Christmas Special - Australian Mysteries
12/23/2025
Three Witnesses: A Strewth Christmas Special - Australian Mysteries
This Christmas, we're doing something different on Strewth. The Victorian English had a tradition of telling ghost stories around the fire on Christmas night, long before it became all tinsel and shopping, it was a time for sharing tales of the unexplained. We're reviving that tradition with three spooky Australian accounts that never made it into our regular episodes. Over the past year, I've collected dozens of firsthand testimonies while researching cases, witness statements and personal experiences that didn't quite fit into the main episodes, but are no less fascinating for it. Tonight, you'll hear dramatised versions of three of these accounts: a teacher's terrifying encounter during a school hiking trip in the Victorian Alps, spiritualist Ben Davey's hair-raising experience at the infamous 1921 Guyra séance, and Bongo's disturbing radio call about what happened to him in the Pilliga Scrub in 1978. Three witnesses. Three encounters with the inexplicable. Three stories that'll remind you the Australian bush holds more mysteries than we like to admit. Sources: Bongo's radio call - Haunts of Brisbane - Ben Davey seance report - The teachers report - Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: Contact us:
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The Jenny Dixon Beach Hauntings - Australian Mystery
12/17/2025
The Jenny Dixon Beach Hauntings - Australian Mystery
Two ghosts haunt the same stretch of Australia's Central Coast. For fifty years, drivers on Wilfred Barrett Drive have reported picking up a young woman in white who vanishes from their back seat near Norah Head Cemetery. The legend says she was murdered by five men in the 1970s, and that all five died mysteriously afterward. It's one of Australia's most famous ghost stories. A second ghost seems to be from an earlier period, a time when shipwrecks were common along these treacherous shores. There is also real tragedy at Jenny Dixon Beach. In 1950, two sisters, Grace and Kathleen Holmes were brutally murdered near Tuggerah Lakes. Their graves went unmarked for 64 years. Their killer was never found. And while a ghost became famous, the real victims were forgotten. This is the story of how urban legend intertwines with actual horror. How shipwreck folklore mergew with a fabricated murder. And how the wrong victims ended up being remembered. The truth at Jenny Dixon Beach is stranger and sadder than any ghost story. Sources: Newcastle Herald - (February 2024) - Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings (1981) Jenny Dixon Beach - Full Movie - Goss, Michale. The evidence for phantom hitch-hikers (1984) True Hauntings Podcast - Episode 25 (April 28, 2021) Casefile True Crime Podcast - Case 32 - Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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Nullarbor Nightmare - Australian Mystery
12/10/2025
Nullarbor Nightmare - Australian Mystery
It's 4 AM on the most isolated highway in Australia. The Knowles family are driving toward a fresh start when they see a light on the road ahead. Within minutes, they're fleeing at speeds approaching 200 kilometres per hour, but the glowing object matches them effortlessly. Then something lands on their car roof with a heavy metallic thud. Faye Knowles reaches up to touch it and what she feels defies description. Black ash fills the cabin. Their voices distort impossibly. The dogs go into a frenzy. And then the car lifts off the road. Six days before Australia's Bicentennial, the Knowles family encountered something on the Nullarbor Plain that police took seriously, scientists struggled to explain, and witnesses never forgot. Physical evidence was collected. Independent corroboration emerged. But nearly forty years later, we still don't know what happened that night. Something real occurred on that desert highway. But what? Sources: A.T. Brunt The Skeptic, 1989 Keith Basterfield - UFO Research South Australia The Skeptic, Volume 8, No I (Autumn 1988) UFO Research Queensland - https://uforq.org/the-knowles-family-ufo-incident-1988/ Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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The Pyjama Girl Mystery: Part 2 - The Confession - Australian True Crime
12/05/2025
The Pyjama Girl Mystery: Part 2 - The Confession - Australian True Crime
In February 1944, after ten years floating in a bath of formalin, the Pyjama Girl finally got a name. Two teeth fillings mysteriously appeared at the bottom of her preservation bath, just as Police Commissioner William MacKay desperately needed to solve his department's most embarrassing cold case. Within weeks, Antonio Agostini, a recently released wartime internee working as a waiter, confessed to killing his wife Linda. But the confession didn't match the autopsy. The dental evidence was based on memory, not charts. And Agostini maintained until his death in 1969: "That's not my wife." This is Part 2 of our investigation into what may be one of Australia's most disturbing miscarriages of justice. Where a broken man confessed to a murder he may not have committed, and a woman was buried under a name that probably wasn't hers. Sixty years later, a criminologist would expose the case as police corruption and fabricated evidence. But by then, everyone involved was dead, and the truth was buried in an unmarked grave. Join us as we examine the suspicious 1944 "breakthrough," the trial that made no sense, the lenient verdict that suggests even the jury had doubts, and the modern forensic analysis that reveals how solving a case became more important than solving it correctly. Warning: This episode contains discussion of violence against women, wrongful conviction, and the unethical display of human remains. Sources: New South Wales Police: Original investigation files and witness statements (1934) Coroner's inquest: Death of unknown woman, Albury, NSW (September 1934) The Argus (Melbourne): Front-page coverage, September-December 1934 Sydney Morning Herald: Extensive reporting, 1934-1944 Evans, Richard. The Pyjama Girl Mystery: A True Story of Murder, Obsession and Lies. Deakin University Press, 2004. Gilling, Tom. The Pyjama Girl Mystery. Text Publishing, 2004. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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The Pyjama Girl Mystery: Part 1 - The Lady in Silk - Australian True Crime
12/02/2025
The Pyjama Girl Mystery: Part 1 - The Lady in Silk - Australian True Crime
September 1, 1934. A farmer walking his prize bull along a country road outside Albury catches the smell of kerosene. In a concrete culvert, he discovers a woman's body, shot, beaten with eight savage blows to the skull, and burned. What she's wearing shocks Depression-era Australia as much the violence. Silk pyjamas embroidered with a Chinese dragon. For ten years, her body floats in a bath of formalin at Sydney University while thousands file past hoping to identify her. Artists sketch her distorted features. Police make death masks and distribute doctored photographs. A £1,000 reward is offered. Filmmaker Rupert Kathner defies a police ban to create Australia's first true crime film about the case. But despite 125 women investigated as possible matches, despite a decade of intensive forensic examination, despite the grotesque spectacle of public display, no one can say who she is. This is Part 1 of our two-part investigation into the Pyjama Girl Murder, exploring the crime, the investigation, the ethical nightmare of preserving a body as public entertainment, and the institutional pressure that would eventually produce a convenient solution to an impossible mystery. Warning: This episode contains discussion of violence against women, graphic descriptions of murder, and the unethical treatment of human remains. Sources: New South Wales Police: Original investigation files and witness statements (1934) Coroner's inquest: Death of unknown woman, Albury, NSW (September 1934) The Argus (Melbourne): Front-page coverage, September-December 1934 Sydney Morning Herald: Extensive reporting, 1934-1944 Evans, Richard. The Pyjama Girl Mystery: A True Story of Murder, Obsession and Lies. Deakin University Press, 2004. Gilling, Tom. The Pyjama Girl Mystery. Text Publishing, 2004. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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The Pilliga Princess - Australian Mystery
11/25/2025
The Pilliga Princess - Australian Mystery
On March 20, 1993, a homeless woman named Clare Wibson was struck and killed by a truck on the Newell Highway through Australia's largest forest. The driver's official statement described her final moments in chilling detail: "She turned towards me, arms outstretched in a hugging-like gesture, and ran towards the truck. The last thing I saw was the white hair flaring out around her wild-eyed face and the expression was one of manic glee." Since that night, hundreds of travelers have reported seeing an elderly woman with white hair and a shopping trolley walking the same desolate 120-kilometer stretch through the Pilliga Forest. Truckers who've never heard the legend stop in nearby towns to report an old woman on foot in the middle of nowhere. Some describe hitting a trolley on the road, only to find no damage and no wreckage. Others speak of a figure that appears in their headlights, arms outstretched, before vanishing into darkness. This episode explores one of Australia's most persistent modern hauntings, from the 2006 ABC Radio Overnights broadcast that brought the legend to national attention, to the disturbing 1978 account by a caller named "Bongo" who claimed something far worse than the Princess walks the Pilliga at night. With over 2.5 million TikTok posts and countless witness testimonies spanning three decades, the Pilliga Princess has become embedded in Australian trucking culture and folklore. Is she a ghost? A collective hallucination born from highway hypnosis on one of the country's most isolated roads? Or something that defies easy explanation? Sources: ABC Radio Overnights broadcast (2006) - witness testimonies Daily Liberal and Central Western Daily - official accident reports (March 1993) Museum of Lost: "The Pilliga Princess" - comprehensive case documentation Coonabarabran Lawn Cemetery records - grave marker documentation True Hauntings Podcast, All Aussie Mystery Hour, Belief Hole Podcast - witness interviews "There's Something in the Pilliga" (2014, dir. Dane Millerd) - documentary evidence Content Warning: This episode discusses homelessness, mental illness, and fatal traffic accidents. Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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Disappearance at the Cuckoo: Part 2 The Suspects - Australian True Crime
11/20/2025
Disappearance at the Cuckoo: Part 2 The Suspects - Australian True Crime
When Willi Koeppen's blue Kombi was found abandoned with keys in the ignition, police initially dismissed it as a man running from his problems. By the time they realised it was murder, crucial evidence had vanished into the dense Dandenong Ranges. Part 2 follows the investigation that spanned five decades: the underworld confessions that couldn't be proven, the jealous lovers and mistaken identities, the mysterious vehicles seen in the pre-dawn darkness. But as detectives dug deeper, the most compelling evidence pointed not to criminals or strangers but to the tight circle of friends who surrounded Willi's estranged wife. A doctor who brought psychiatric drugs "just in case." A mysterious phone call at 3 AM that only a handful of people could have made. An anonymous tip-off about a potential burial location and witnesses who, nearly 50 years later, still refuse to speak. In 2018, a coroner finally ruled it homicide. Expert investigators agree the case is solvable, if those who know the truth would finally break their silence. But as witnesses age and die, time is running out for Willi's children, who have spent their entire adult lives searching for answers about what really happened that leap year night in the mountains. Content warning: This episode contains references to suicide, alcohol abuse, and suspected violence. Sources 2018 inquest finding by State Coroner Sarah Hinchey (July 11, 2018) "The Cuckoo affair: What happened to Willi Koeppen?" by Tammy Mills (July 13, 2018) Channel Nine "Under Investigation" "Where's Willi" episode (February 15, 2023) "Life and Crimes with Andrew Rule" Podcast - Episode on Koeppen case (October 3, 2020) Marrett Investigations - Case summary and ongoing investigation by Damian Marrett Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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Disappearance at the Cuckoo: Part 1 The Night in Question - Australian True Crime
11/19/2025
Disappearance at the Cuckoo: Part 1 The Night in Question - Australian True Crime
On a cold February night in 1976, Australia's first celebrity chef vanished from his Bavarian restaurant in the misty Dandenong Ranges. Wilhelm "Willi" Koeppen, the man who brought smorgasbord dining to Australia and hosted the country's first televised cooking show, left behind a blue Volkswagen Kombi with keys in the ignition and the door wide open. Part 1 reconstructs the final hours: a violent argument with his estranged wife, threats of suicide, hours of drinking with the local doctor, and a mysterious phone call at 3 AM. By sunrise, only his van remained, parked in the wrong spot, abandoned in haste. The window for his disappearance was just 90 minutes. Nearly five decades later, his body has never been found. But the secrets of that night, kept by those who saw him last, may finally be unraveling. This is the story of how a man can disappear in plain sight, and how the people closest to the truth chose silence over justice. Content warning: This episode contains references to suicide, alcohol abuse, and suspected violence. Sources 2018 inquest finding by State Coroner Sarah Hinchey (July 11, 2018) "The Cuckoo affair: What happened to Willi Koeppen?" by Tammy Mills (July 13, 2018) Channel Nine "Under Investigation" "Where's Willi" episode (February 15, 2023) "Life and Crimes with Andrew Rule" Podcast - Episode on Koeppen case (October 3, 2020) Marrett Investigations - Case summary and ongoing investigation by Damian Marrett Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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The Gatton Murders - Australian True Crime
11/11/2025
The Gatton Murders - Australian True Crime
Strewth - Episode 11 - The Gatton Murders On Boxing Day night 1898, Michael Murphy and his sisters Norah and Ellen were brutally murdered while returning from a cancelled dance near Gatton, Queensland. Their bodies were discovered arranged in a triangle, feet carefully positioned pointing west, a detail never repeated in Australian criminal history. What followed was one of the most incompetent police investigations ever recorded, featuring delayed responses, contaminated crime scenes, and a suspect who read Italian poetry. More than a century later, the Gatton Tragedy remains Australia's most baffling and gruesome unsolved murder. Sources: Bennett, Stephanie - The Gatton Murders: A True Story of Lust, Vengeance and Vile Retribution (2013) Bennett, Stephanie - The Killer with 300 Names: 1898: The Scandalous Escape of the Gatton Murderers (2014) Stevenson, Caroline & Sim, Jack - The Tainted Cross: The Oxley & Gatton Murders Unveiled Fagan, Cheryl - Murder and Misconduct (2020) "Gatton's Tragedy Claimed Three Lives in 1898" by C.S. Voll (December 7, 2021) Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: https://linktr.ee/strewthpodcast Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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The Guyra Poltergeist - Australian Mystery
11/04/2025
The Guyra Poltergeist - Australian Mystery
Strewth - Episode 10 - The Guyra Poltergeist On a freezing April night in 1921, something began attacking the Bowen family cottage on the edge of Guyra. Tremendous thumps shook the walls. Stones rained from nowhere. Windows exploded inward. And at the center of it all was twelve-year-old Minnie Bowen, with her dark, unsettling eyes. What started as a family's nightmare became a town's obsession. Eighty armed men formed cordons around the cottage. A police sergeant broke under the strain and became convinced of supernatural forces. Harry Moors, friend of Arthur Conan Doyle, investigated and declared it a genuine poltergeist. When they sent Minnie sixty kilometers away to escape, the phenomena followed her. The case had everything: credible witnesses, government involvement and physical evidence. Was it Australia's most convincing paranormal case? An elaborate hoax by a grieving child? Or something that defies explanation even a century later? Join us as we explore one of Australia's most thoroughly documented and deeply unsettling mysteries, a story where the dead might have been reaching for the living, and where truth remains more elusive than any ghost. Sources "Australian Poltergeist" by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper "The Guyra Ghost: Original Newspaper Accounts" by Patrick J. Gallagher Contemporary newspaper coverage: Sydney Morning Herald, April-May 1921 Guyra Historical Museum archives Title Music: Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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The Min Min Lights - Australian Mystery
10/28/2025
The Min Min Lights - Australian Mystery
Strewth - Australian True Crime and Mystery Podcast For over 130 years, mysterious glowing orbs have haunted Australia's remote Channel Country, following travelers for kilometres, splitting into multiple lights, and moving with apparent intelligence. First Nations peoples knew about them for millennia before Europeans arrived. Scientists have studied them. Thousands have witnessed them. Yet the Min Min Lights remain one of Australia's most enduring mysteries. In this episode, we journey into the vast emptiness of outback Queensland to explore a phenomenon that exists at the intersection of science and the unexplained. From drovers frozen in terror as lights pace their horses through the darkness, to modern researchers capturing footage on smartphones, the Min Min Lights continue to puzzle and fascinate. We hear from witnesses whose encounters left them genuinely frightened, or strangely privileged. We examine the groundbreaking scientific research that claimed to solve the mystery through atmospheric refraction. And we discover why even the scientist who explained the phenomenon admitted it was "literally hair raising" and that some aspects remained genuinely mysterious. Whether atmospheric mirage, ancestral spirits, or something else entirely, the Min Min Lights remind us that even in our technological age, some mysteries persist in the remote places where darkness still holds secrets. Sources: Pettigrew, J.D. (2003). "The Min Min light and the Fata Morgana: An optical account of a mysterious Australian phenomenon." Clinical and Experimental Optometry, March 2003. Research by Dr. Curtis Roman (Larrakia man, Senior Lecturer in Aboriginal Studies, Charles Darwin University) Dreamtime stories collected in "Gadi Mirrabooka" by June Barker D.B. O'Connor, "Light of the Min Min" (poem, December 20, 1934) Michael (December 2022, near Noorindoo - video documented and verified by journalist Ross Coulthart) Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Strewth Social Media Links: Contact us: strewthpodcast@gmail.com
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The Button Man - Australian Mystery
10/22/2025
The Button Man - Australian Mystery
A wildlife photographer wakes up at home, downloads his photos, and finds something impossible: a picture of himself sleeping in his tent, taken at midnight with his own camera. Someone entered while he slept, stood inches away in the darkness, and photographed him. Then they vanished into the Victorian High Country without a trace. Between 2008 and 2020, six people disappeared from Victoria's Alpine wilderness, all within sixty kilometers of each other. Two were found in 2024 when an airline pilot was convicted of murder. But four remain missing, their bodies never recovered despite massive searches using helicopters, drones, and cadaver dogs. Throughout every investigation, one name kept appearing: the Button Man. A hermit in his seventies who lives alone in the mountains for months at a time, hunting with spears, wearing buttons carved from deer antlers, appearing silently at campfires without invitation. He camps at The Crossroads, a high point where he can watch everyone entering his territory. He was the last person to see one victim alive. He knows every hiding place in thousands of square kilometers of wilderness. Hunters describe him materialising from morning mist without making a sound. Campers wake to find him sitting at their fire, uninvited, watching with a penetrating stare that makes experienced bushmen uncomfortable. Hikers report the persistent sensation of being observed from ridgelines they can't see. Hidden firewood supplies vanish, taken by someone who was watching when they were cached. Boot prints circle tents in patterns that appear and disappear without continuing. Is he a harmless eccentric transformed into a monster by fear and speculation? Or does he know exactly what happened to four people who walked into his wilderness and never came home? Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Sources -
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The Beaumont Children: Part Two - The Suspects - Australian True Crime
10/12/2025
The Beaumont Children: Part Two - The Suspects - Australian True Crime
February 2025. Excavators dig three meters into the former Castalloy factory site in North Plympton, Adelaide. They're searching for three children who vanished sixty years ago, based on testimony from the factory owner's son who claims he saw them enter his father's property and never leave, and two brothers who say they were paid to dig a grave-sized hole here days after the disappearance. Professor Maciej Henneberg works with archaeological precision. The soil reveals disturbed earth, a pit matching the exact dimensions describes. Evidence that something was buried here. After decades of searching, perhaps the Beaumont children will finally be found. But the excavation ends with no remains. Only questions. This is Part Two of our investigation into Australia's most haunting missing persons case. We examine three major suspects including millionaire Harry Phipps, who lived 300 meters from where the children were last seen. We explore why three excavations using cutting-edge technology found grave-like anomalies but no bodies. And we uncover a disturbing pattern: seven years after the Beaumont children vanished, two more girls disappeared from Adelaide Oval under strikingly similar circumstances. Sixty years of searching. Over one hundred suspects. Three children still waiting to be found. And uncomfortable questions about who was protected and why. Content warning: This episode discusses the disappearance and presumed murder of young children, and examines systemic failures in their protection. Sources - The Beaumont Children (Parts One & Two) Whiticker, Alan. Searching for the Beaumont Children (2006) Whiticker, Alan and Stuart Mullins. The Satin Man (2013) Mullins, Stuart and Bill Hayes. Unmasking the Killer of the Missing Beaumont Children (2024 edition) The Beaumont Children: What Really Happened (Channel Seven, 2018) Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay
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The Beaumont Children: Part One - The Disappearance - Australian True Crime
10/08/2025
The Beaumont Children: Part One - The Disappearance - Australian True Crime
On Australia Day 1966, three children boarded a bus to Glenelg Beach in Adelaide and never came home. Jane (9), Arnna (7), and Grant (4) Beaumont were seen by multiple witnesses playing with an unidentified man at the beach, laughing, comfortable, clearly trusting him. They were seen buying food with a one pound note their mother hadn't given them. Then they vanished completely. This is Part One of a special two-part investigation into Australia's most haunting missing persons case. We examine the events of that scorching January day, the witnesses who saw the children with a man they appeared to know, and the devastating realisation that three children had disappeared from a public place in broad daylight in front of dozens of people. How is that possible? And what happened in those crucial first hours when the investigation began? Part Two explores the decades-long search, the suspects, and a disturbing pattern that connects this case to another Adelaide tragedy seven years later. Content warning: This episode discusses the disappearance and presumed murder of three young children. Sources - The Beaumont Children (Parts One & Two) Whiticker, Alan. Searching for the Beaumont Children (2006) Whiticker, Alan and Stuart Mullins. The Satin Man (2013) Mullins, Stuart and Bill Hayes. Unmasking the Killer of the Missing Beaumont Children (2024 edition) The Beaumont Children: What Really Happened (Channel Seven, 2018) Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay
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Somerton Man - The Next Chapter - Australian True Crime
10/01/2025
Somerton Man - The Next Chapter - Australian True Crime
In 2022, scientists announced they'd finally solved Australia's greatest cold case. After 74 years, the Somerton Man had a name: Carl Webb. Case closed, right? If only it were that simple. Three years later, South Australian Police still won't confirm the identification. Webb's entire family somehow failed to recognize their missing brother when his face was plastered across Australian newspapers. His wife was living 89 miles from where he died, with no idea he was dead. And for eighteen months before his death, Carl Webb simply vanished from existence with no employment, no address, no trace. Here's the really unsettling part: knowing WHO he was has made everything else MORE mysterious. Why did he remove every identifying label from his clothing but leave items marked with his brother-in-law's name in his suitcase? How did an unlisted phone number end up in a book of Persian poetry found near his body? And if this was suicide, why stage it like an intelligence operation? Sometimes solving one mystery just reveals how many others were hiding underneath. Join us for "The Somerton Man: The Next Chapter" The code found in the Rubaiyat: WRGOABABD MLIAOI WTBIMPANETP MLIAOI IXOSMANE Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay
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Kalkajaka - The Mountain Keeps Its Dead - Australian Mystery
09/24/2025
Kalkajaka - The Mountain Keeps Its Dead - Australian Mystery
Strewth - Australian Mystery Podcast - Series 1, Episode 4 Deep in Far North Queensland rises a dark anomaly that has claimed lives for over 150 years. The Kuku Yalanji people call it Kalkajaka "the place of the spear" and have warned for forty thousand years that the mountain keeps its dead. When Charles Grayner vanished while tracking his horse into the granite boulder maze in 1872, it began a pattern of mysterious disappearances that would earn this geological formation a reputation as Australia's Bermuda Triangle. Ten years later, Harry Owens disappeared under strikingly similar circumstances. Then George Hawkins followed his own safety rope into the mountain's heart... and simply ceased to exist. Recent research by historian Bev Shay offers compelling explanations rooted in the harsh realities of frontier life. But questions linger. Why do the documented cases share such eerie similarities? What explains the mountain's persistent effects on visitors even today? Join us as we explore the documented disappearances, the rich traditional stories of the Kuku Yalanji people, and the ongoing mystery of a place where rational explanation meets enduring enigma. Sometimes the most honest answer is that we still don't know everything. Content note: This episode discusses historical disappearances and respects the cultural significance of Kalkajaka to traditional owners, the Kuku Yalanji. The site is protected and access is restricted for safety and cultural reasons. Social Media Links: Sources: ABC - This Place - Daily Mail (Bev Shay) - Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay
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The Westall UFO Incident
09/17/2025
The Westall UFO Incident
April 6, 1966. 11 AM. A suburban Melbourne school. Over 200 students and teachers witness a silver disc hovering above their playground, then shooting away at impossible speed. Within hours, men in suits arrive. Students are told to stay silent. TV footage mysteriously vanishes from network archives. Nearly 60 years later, the Australian government still blocks access to thousands of files about that day. The witnesses - now grandparents - have never changed their story. What flew over Westall High School? And why are authorities still covering it up? Dive into Australia's most compelling UFO mystery on the latest episode of STREWTH - where we explore the cases that still defy explanation. "Strewth" - where Australia's strangest true stories come to light. Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay
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Stranger than Fiction
09/10/2025
Stranger than Fiction
STREWTH - Episode 2: Stranger than Fiction A True Australian Mystery Podcast In 1930, struggling novelist Arthur Upfield sat around a campfire in the remote Western Australian outback, discussing with fellow workers how to commit the perfect murder, purely as a plot device for his detective novel. When three men subsequently disappeared and their remains were found burned according to the exact method Upfield had described, police didn't just investigate the obvious suspect, they investigated the author himself. Decades later, historians uncovered an even darker truth, transforming this tale of fiction inspiring reality into something far more sinister. This is the extraordinary case of the Murchison murders, where the line between imagination and reality, between individual crime and systemic brutality, becomes terrifyingly thin. Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Cinematic Mystery Piano by TheoJT - https://freesound.org/s/611048/ Sound effects Lultju Eve Atmos with Fire - Long Version by kangaroovindaloo -- https://freesound.org/s/396480/ Australia Outback Birds by EduFigueres -- https://freesound.org/s/562111/
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The Lady of the Swamp - Australian True Crime
09/03/2025
The Lady of the Swamp - Australian True Crime
STREWTH - Episode 1: The Lady of the Swamp A True Australian Mystery Podcast Before South Gippsland became infamous for a recent mushroom poisoning that made international headlines, this picturesque Victorian region harbored an even darker secret. In 1952, an elderly heiress known as "The Lady of the Swamp" vanished without a trace from her crumbling mansion, leaving behind one of Australia's most baffling unsolved murders. Margaret Clement's story is a haunting tale of spectacular wealth turned to devastating poverty. Born into a gold rush fortune worth millions in today's money, she watched her inheritance disappear as the swampland around her grand estate slowly reclaimed the property her family had called home. Living in isolation without electricity or running water, Margaret became vulnerable to a predator who saw opportunity in her desperation. When Margaret disappeared on May 21, 1952, police launched a 40-year investigation that uncovered sophisticated legal manipulation, suspicious financial profits, and a web of exploitation targeting one of society's most vulnerable members. The discovery of skeletal remains decades later seemed to promise answers, but forensic limitations of the era left crucial questions unresolved. Join us as we explore this chilling case of elder abuse, property fraud, and probable murder that shocked 1950s Australia. From the flooded ruins of Tullaree Estate to the courtrooms where justice was denied, this is the story of how predators exploit the vulnerable -- and how some crimes remain perfect despite decades of investigation. Warning: This episode contains discussions of elder abuse, exploitation, and violence. "Strewth" - where Australia's strangest true stories come to light. Title Music - by Jesse Frank from Pixabay Cinematic Mystery Piano by TheoJT - https://freesound.org/s/611048/
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