Ghostwatch

Summary

Criminal Podcast: "Ghostwatch"

Host: Phoebe Judge
Release Date: October 31, 2025

---

Episode Overview

This Halloween-themed episode of Criminal explores the infamous 1992 BBC broadcast Ghostwatch, a faux documentary that ignited widespread panic by presenting a fictional ghost investigation as live television. The show’s impact—both immediate and long-term—is investigated through conversations with its creators, horror writer Stephen Volk and director Leslie Manning, as well as its cultural echoes in later media. The episode also juxtaposes Ghostwatch with other notorious broadcast hoaxes, including War of the Worlds and a famous Los Angeles radio prank, diving deep into the blurry line between broadcast fiction and perceived reality, the responsibilities of media, and the crucial matter of audience trust.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

---

1. The "Ghostwatch" Phenomenon: Creation and Broadcast

• Setting the Scene ([01:27]–[03:58])
  • On Halloween night, 1992, the BBC aired Ghostwatch, which purported to be a live investigation into a haunted house.
  • Real BBC journalists played themselves, lending authenticity.
  • Interactive elements included a call-in number, emulating popular live shows like Crimewatch.

“Tonight, television is going ghost hunting. In an unprecedented scientific experiment, we hope to show you for the first time irrefutable proof that ghosts really do exist.” — Michael Parkinson, as recounted by Phoebe Judge ([01:35])

• Conceiving the Format ([03:58]–[06:54])
  • Writer Stephen Volk drew on literary traditions—like Frankenstein and Dracula—which present fiction in a documentary style.
  • He sought to replicate this authenticity for television by mimicking TV's interview-driven, unscripted hallmark.

“Many, many literary ghost stories that you read begin, 'I'm going to tell you something that's quite unbelievable, but I really want you to know this really, really happened to me.' ... What is the television equivalent of telling that kind of ghost story with that kind of authenticity?” — Stephen Volk ([04:34])

---

2. Behind the Scenes: Making It Real

• Directing for Documentary Authenticity ([07:34]–[10:07])
  • Director Leslie Manning purposefully included real mistakes, unscripted moments, and handheld camera work.
  • Real BBC camera crew members were used instead of actors.
  • The show's low video quality and informal camera angles triggered concern with BBC higher-ups—the program "looked too real."

“The only thing that mattered was it had to look like it was happening before your eyes. And if it’s happening before your eyes, all those other considerations don’t really matter.” — Stephen Volk ([09:02])

• Warning or Deception? ([10:07]–[10:44])
  • A brief on-screen introduction at the start labeled it as fiction, but the warning was vague, and millions of viewers missed it.

---

3. The Broadcast: Unfolding Horror

• Uncanny ‘Live’ Events ([10:44]–[16:25])
  • Viewers saw supposedly "real" paranormal events unfold—objects breaking, girls screaming, figures glimpsed in shadows.
  • Audience interaction: viewers called in reporting they’d seen ghostly figures on camera, fueling the illusion.
  • The story escalated: possessions, unexplained noises, and the breakdown of the TV studio itself. The finale showed the host seemingly possessed as the screen faded to black.

“I love that idea. It’s an idea that’s purely television. ... it’s purely the relationship between the presenter and the audience making that moment work.” — Stephen Volk ([12:47])

---

4. Public Reaction: Panic and Outrage

• Outpouring of Calls and Complaints ([19:08]–[21:35])
  • Phone lines jammed, with an estimated 20,000 calls; even BBC staff were concerned.
  • Many viewers, especially children, were traumatized, unaware the show was fictional.

“Ruth [the producer] joined the rest of the crew at the party...by the time she got to us, she said, the phone system at the BBC was jammed. There were hundreds of complaints logged and it all went a bit crazy.” — Stephen Volk ([19:08])

• Breach of Trust ([20:03]–[21:03])
  • Viewers felt deceived, their trust in the BBC—known as "Auntie" for its reliability—shaken.

“There was this additional level of the trust that’s invested in the BBC to tell the truth, you know, and to be the nation’s protector...That’s why colloquially it’s known as Auntie.” — Stephen Volk ([20:03])

• Direct Consequences ([25:18])
  • At least one suicide was connected to the broadcast by the victim’s family.
  • The Broadcasting Standards Council criticized the BBC for not making the fictional nature more explicit.

---

5. Legacy and Comparison to Other Broadcast Hoaxes

• Media Hoaxes Before and After ([22:02]–[33:09])

  • The reaction to Ghostwatch was compared to two earlier hoaxes:
    • BBC’s 1957 "spaghetti harvest" April Fools segment—believed by many due to documentary realism ([22:02]–[24:45]).
    • Orson Welles's 1938 War of the Worlds radio panic—used the immediacy and trust in news radio to convince people a Martian invasion was unfolding ([30:04]–[33:09]).

• Influence on Later Horror ([26:31]–[27:52])

  • The found-footage mockumentary style became key to horror hits like The Blair Witch Project (1999), Paranormal Activity, and more.
  • The blurring of fiction and fact in television and film, mixing documentary techniques with dramatic storytelling, has become a central horror trope.

“So actors were being used in non fiction, and fiction was starting to look like documentary. So it’s a blurring of the edges between these things in the early 90s. And that was very much what we were playing with. You know, what is truth and what is made up.” — Stephen Volk ([27:52])

---

6. The KROQ "Confess Your Crime" Prank

• Radio's Brush with Broadcast Boundaries ([33:09]–[51:15])
  • In 1989, LA radio hosts Kevin Ryder ("Kevin & Bean") aired a fake on-air murder confession to spice up a faltering segment.
  • The ruse convinced listeners and authorities, resulting in police investigations, widespread media coverage, and the hosts’ eventual suspension.
  • The deception persisted for almost ten months before accidental exposure.

“It was felt like getting hit in a head on collision because that was 1 billion miles further than we had hoped. And I just remember being in a fog. Like one second we were in charge of everything, and the next second I didn’t know what was happening.” — Kevin Ryder ([40:43])

• Reckoning and Aftermath
  • The case appeared on Unsolved Mysteries and triggered hundreds of contacts from families of missing persons.
  • The hosts were required to pay back investigation costs and perform community service but were ultimately only reprimanded by the FCC.

“If there was one thing that I could edit out of my life, it would be that. I wish it—I wish it didn’t happen.” — Kevin Ryder ([51:15])

• Importance of Audience Trust
  • The story ends with a meditation on the preciousness of trust between a broadcaster and its audience, and the lasting impact of betraying that trust.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Documentary Illusion of Truth:

  • "Do you believe everything you see on television?" — Phoebe Judge ([10:09])

• On the Genesis of Faux Realism:

  • “What is truth and what is made up?” — Stephen Volk ([27:52])

• On the Price of Panic:

  • “Auntie had broken faith with the nation.” — Phoebe Judge ([21:03])

• On Media Responsibility:

  • “There are real definite lines that you do not cross. ... There are lines that you just don’t cross. And that’s one of them.” — Kevin Ryder ([46:01])

• On Audience Deception’s Emotional Toll:

  • “If there was one thing that I could edit out of my life, it would be that. I wish it— I wish it didn’t happen.” — Kevin Ryder ([51:15])

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:27]–[03:22] – Ghostwatch Introduction & TV Format
• [04:01]–[06:54] – Stephen Volk on the Literary and TV Inspiration
• [07:34]–[10:44] – Behind the Scenes—Directorial Philosophy and the Realism Gamble
• [11:00]–[16:25] – Ghostwatch Broadcast Plot: Haunting Escalates
• [19:08]–[21:41] – Viewer Response & BBC Panic
• [22:02]–[24:48] – Spaghetti Hoax: Past Broadcast Tricks
• [25:18]–[26:17] – Tragedy: Real World Consequences
• [26:31]–[27:52] – The Mockumentary Legacy: Blair Witch et al.
• [30:04]–[33:09] – War of the Worlds: The Precedent
• [33:09]–[51:15] – KROQ Confess Your Crime Prank and Fallout

---

Conclusion

Through the stories of Ghostwatch and other broadcast hoaxes, this episode critically examines the media’s power—and responsibility—in constructing and upholding public trust. The episode not only explores how fiction can masquerade as truth on the airwaves, but also the very real emotional and societal impact such blurring can cause. As Halloween tales go, none are quite as chilling as the ones that make us question our most trusted sources.

---

Transcript

[Kevin Ryder]

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint, finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is. With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Download Today, this world is dying. I've done a ton of research on this and discovered you. You know this is crazy.

[Kevin Ryder]

Focus Features presents Begonia.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

You're in an echo chamber.

[Kevin Ryder]

I know what you are, alien felw.

[Stephen Volk]

This fall, we have four days to save Earth. When the clock runs out.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

If you let me go, I have information you need.

[Kevin Ryder]

The truth will be revealed. You're not in control anymore.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

We are.

[Kevin Ryder]

Begonia matedor under 17 not admitted without parent. Now playing in theaters everywhere. The program you're about to watch is a unique live investigation of the supernatural. It contains material which some viewers may find to be disturbing. No creaking gates, no gothic towers, no shutter windows. Yet for the past 10 months, this house has been the focus of an astonishing barrage of supernatural activity.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

On Halloween night in 1992, at 9:25pm an unusual television show aired on the BBC.

[Kevin Ryder]

So welcome live this Halloween night to the first ever TV Ghostwatch. We're going to investigate one of the most baffling and fascinating areas of human experience. The supernatural. Tonight, television is going ghost hunting. In an unprecedented scientific experiment, we hope to show you for the first time irrefutable proof that ghosts really do exist.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

The host, a longtime BBC talk show host and journalist named Michael Parkinson, told viewers how the live investigation would work. The BBC's Sarah Greene would be spending the night at a house that was said to be haunted, with a small camera crew reporting live on whatever happened at the house. During the show, people at home could call a phone number broadcast on the screen and share their own experiences with ghosts and also to comment on whatever they were seeing on the show. This style of live broadcast was popular at the time. There was a show called Crime Watch that also had a call in element and one called Hospital Watch. This one on Halloween night was called Ghost Watch. The host, Michael Parkinson, introduced a woman in the studio with him as an expert on the paranormal who would help explain what was going on during the show. She said she had been investigating the haunted house, which was in London on a street called Fox Hill Drive. For months. We ran a computer program of all the haunted locations in the uk. And then we did a census of all the various investigators and they were all unanimous that Foxhall had more tangible phenomena on record than I was gonna say any place in the world, but certainly any place in the uk.

[Kevin Ryder]

What's the chance, do you think, of us seeing anything tonight?

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

I don't honestly know. Sometimes we saw nothing for weeks, and then other times things were coming through thick and fast. I mean, so much so that we had difficulty logging it all. I mean, some nights it was like being in a circus or a war zone.

[Kevin Ryder]

A war zone. What about Halloween? Will that make any difference, do you think?

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Yeah, I think it will. Certainly there are more reports on Halloween than almost any other night of the year, but maybe that's because people expect to see things.

[Stephen Volk]

I've always been interested in ghost stories.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

This is Stephen Volk. By 1992, when Ghostwatch aired, he had written a few horror movies. One of them was directed by the same person who directed the Exorcist. Another was a reimagining of the vacation to Switzerland that inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein. He'd been interested in the ways novels like Frankenstein or Bram Stoker's Dracula are constructed. Both novels are presented as nonfiction, a series of letters and journal entries.

[Stephen Volk]

And it struck me that many, many literary ghost stories that you read begin. I'm going to tell you something that's quite unbelievable, but I really want you to know this really, really happened to me. I know you're not going to believe me, but it really did happen to me. And being a television writer, I always thought to myself, what is the television equivalent of telling that kind of ghost story with that kind of authenticity? And it struck me that, well, what they would do in TV if they told a ghost story is just put a camera in someone's face and the person would tell you. This really happened to me. This is, you know, what non fiction TV is all about. You interview people straight to their face and they tell you the story.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

So Stephen decided to do just that. He wrote a ghost story and pitched the idea to the BBC. It would be a ghost story presented as an actual live documentary investigation. Everything was designed to look as real as possible, but it only aired once. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal. Stephen Volk was used to writing movies, but writing what was supposed to look like live television was something else altogether. Live TV was full of mistakes and interruptions and you never knew what would happen. He studied telethons and roving reporter pieces and shows in front of live audiences.

[Stephen Volk]

It was a bit of guesswork and I had, you know, for instance, in a movie, when you're writing a movie, you never put exposition on the screen. You never have someone saying, oh, I moved into this house and it was haunted and my kids were scared. You just don't do it like that. And of course, that's the complete reverse of what you do on television. You always thrust a microphone into someone's face and have them tell you a story or interview them and ask them questions straight. So I had to construct these kind of interview situations and question and answer sessions rather than the way I'd normally do it in a movie.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

And what was the reaction from the BBC when you first brought them this idea?

[Stephen Volk]

I don't think they quite got what it was trying to be, which was basically something that looked like something else. So when the BBC saw what we were up to, it was a bit kind of taken aback and kind of bemused. I remember the executive producer, Richard Brook, when he saw the first cut that Leslie, the director, presented to him, he was quite amazed that there was a shot where one of the technicians kind of moved in the front of the camera and the camera kind of wobbled. And he said, why on earth have you left that in?

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

One of the things that I love about live tv, or what I did love as a child watching live tv, are the mistakes. This is Leslie Manning, the director of Ghostwatch, to do credit to the story as written. I wanted to make, present it as close to live TV as I possibly could, Like Stephen. Leslie says she watched a lot of live TV to prepare. She says she also watched a lot of documentaries to see how she could direct the actors. She remembers telling them to dial back their performances. In addition to the actors, she included real people on camera talking about their own ghost stories. The Ghostwatch team also decided to use very well known and respected BBC hosts on the show. People viewers would be used to seeing, doing interviews or documentary programs.

[Stephen Volk]

It was a gamble because we were casting people like Michael Parkinson, who's kind of like a Larry King kind of character, I guess you would say, in terms of America, to kind of be an actor. And there was no guarantee that he was going to be able to do any of it, really.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Leslie says they also didn't want actors playing the camera crew. So we asked around the BBC if there was anybody, any of the studio.

[Stephen Volk]

Camera guys who actually were happy to be on camera. And we got two people back, one.

[Kevin Ryder]

Sam, one camera, and they got the job.

[Stephen Volk]

There was a lot of handheld camera. Leslie Tended to work out quite long takes so that the camera would be moving around the whole time. Upstairs, downstairs, you know, around the corner. And this kind of thing, which is not normally how you'd work on a movie, for instance, you know, you'd have hundreds of angles and hundreds of shifts of lighting in order to do one sequence or one scene. And it was lower quality. It was a video camera. I mean, I think that's what outraged the higher up people at the drama department, because they were used to something that was kind of well lit and kind of, in a way, kind of well acted and well presented. And, you know, the composition of every shot was considered. But because of the nature of this, none of those things really mattered. The only thing that mattered was it had to look like it was happening before your eyes. And if it's happening before your eyes, all those other considerations don't really matter.

[Kevin Ryder]

The point of it was really.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Do you believe everything you see on television? On the first page of the Ghostwatch script, Stephen wrote, I won't believe it until I see it on TV. On Halloween night, on the BBC's drama time slot, when they usually showed movies, a short introduction indicated that what viewers were about to see was fictional. But it was vague. It described Ghostwatch as a film, and the real BBC hosts in Ghostwatch as starring in it.

[Stephen Volk]

If you miss that, then goodness knows what you were expecting.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

According to the BBC, around 11 million people were watching on Halloween night. The program began with what looks like time stamped research footage from a few months earlier. It shows two girls sleeping in their bedroom. Then in the middle of the night, there's a loud banging sound and they start screaming. At one point, the light bulb in the bedside lamp bursts. Soon after that, the camera goes to what looks like a live feed of the reporter at the house, Sarah Greene, interviewing the two girls, Kim and Suzanne and their mother Pam, all played by actresses, about the problems they've been having at the house over the last 10 months. These terrible noises woke me. Coming from the walls. Like a thudding all around you? Yes, like the whole room was going to come apart. Did anybody else hear it? Yes, Suzanne. Kim heard it. Kimmy, if you heard it too, what sort of a noise was it? I was screaming, I was shouting. What is it? What is it? Well, I didn't know what to say. They were that terrified. So I said it was pipes, central heating. So afterwards, whenever Kim heard something, she'd say, it's pipes. Pipes is here in the studio. Someone had called into the phone line. The caller said they Saw something in the earlier footage of the girl's bedroom. You know, at the beginning when you showed the real footage of that haunted bedroom. Well, I know it was dark, but I was sure I could see a figure standing behind. Against the wall, just by the curtain. Yeah, Very, very vague, but definitely a figure there. Michael Parkinson asked to have the tape rewound so everyone could see it again. And then you could make out a figure standing by the curtains.

[Stephen Volk]

But the presenter, Michael Parkinson, says, I don't see anything, do you? Whereas it has been on screen. So I imagined everyone at home going, but I did see something. He's saying he didn't see anything. And I love that idea. It's an idea that's purely television. You couldn't do it in a movie, you couldn't do it in a book. It's purely the relationship between the presenter and the audience making that moment work.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

As the program continued, more calls came in about the figure.

[Stephen Volk]

Well, the strange thing is that we're.

[Kevin Ryder]

Still getting calls about that shadowy figure that was seen in the haunted bedroom, or people think they've seen in the haunted bedroom. Now, what's really weird is these are.

[Stephen Volk]

All tallying with the description. These are all different phone calls.

[Kevin Ryder]

They're generally all saying that it's an old man or a woman, bald, with a skull like head, dark eyes, or.

[Stephen Volk]

Some are just saying holes for eyes and wearing a black robe or a.

[Kevin Ryder]

Dress which is buttoned up to the neck.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Things got stranger and stranger at the house. There are cat sounds coming from the walls, and one of the girls suddenly has scratches all over her face. At that point, about an hour into the program, Michael Parkinson tells viewers that they're extending coverage beyond the scheduled window.

[Kevin Ryder]

I should tell you, if you joined to see the next program, that in fact, we're staying with what we have here from Fox Hill Drive because the events are. Are so remarkable and dramatic that we'll be staying with them for as long as we have to.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Things continue to escalate in the house. It seems as if at one point, one of the girls becomes possessed. Stop it. Stop it, Susie. Then the connection with the studio is lost. And after it comes back, the reporter, Sarah Greene, gets trapped in the small closet under the stairs with whatever is haunting the house.

[Kevin Ryder]

Sarah. Sarah.

[Stephen Volk]

Yeah. At that point, Ruth, the producer, always said, you know, everyone's going to realize it's a drama now, so we can do what we like. So. So we kind of went a bit crazy. In the last five minutes.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Back at the studio, unmanned cameras start rolling across the stage studio lights are exploding and Michael Parkinson seems totally confused.

[Kevin Ryder]

Whether or not we should put it in. I'm not going. Studio's completely dark, just blackness now. All the lights are filled, the powers gone off. We got some, some lights in the studio. I don't know. There's cameras, but I don't know which one's working. I mean that there are no, no cameramen. I mean, it's difficult to know even if anybody's still with us, but if they are, this is the scene in this studio, this totally deserted studio.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

He slowly walks towards the camera. Autocube's working and it becomes clear that he's become possessed by something as the camera fades to black.

[Kevin Ryder]

Round and round the garden like a teddy bear. Tiffany's A story about mother Sentence.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

We'll be right back to listen without Ads Join Criminal plus Support for Criminal Comes from Bombas if you're looking for new socks that are good for every summer activity, you might want to check out Bombus. If you're a runner, Bombas socks are built to keep you cool, help sweat evaporate quickly, and prevent blisters. They also have pairs specialized for hiking, tennis, golf and more. And if you have any plane travel ahead, putting on a pair of Bombas compression socks for the ride can help prevent aches and pains in your legs. Plus, if it's a wedding, you're headed to Bombas. Ruffle and dress socks will help you stay comfortable no matter how late you keep dancing. I've tried socks from Bombas myself for running, but also for getting dressed up. Thanks to Bombas, I finally have no show socks that don't slip down and that don't stretch out in the wash. You can head over to bombas.com and use code criminal for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M P A S.com code criminal at checkout bombus.com and use code Criminal Support for Criminal comes from Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to do holiday shopping your way. Whether you're looking for the right gift or the right outfit, Saks is where you can find everything from a Jimmy Choo bag for a sister who's hard to shop for to a Prada jacket for yourself to dress up for holiday dinner. If you don't know where to start, Saks.com will filter just for items that match your personal style so you can save time shopping and spend more time just enjoying the holidays. Make shopping fun and easy this season and find gifts that suit your holiday style at Saks Fifth Avenue. The night Ghostwatch aired, everyone who worked on it got together to have a party and to watch the show, in part so that no one would see Sarah Greene at a restaurant when she was supposed to be trapped in a haunted house. The producer, Ruth Baumgarten, was at the BBC studios to make sure everything was going well. She wanted to keep an eye on the phone lines. They'd posted the normal BBC number on the screen during Ghostwatch, both to give the illusion that the calls in the show were really coming in live and to allow viewers at home to call in and react. Towards the end of the night, Ruth joined the rest of the crew at the party.

[Stephen Volk]

She said that as she was leaving, the technicians were looking up at the big screen in the lobby, saying to each other, my God, what's going on in Studio one? And that was the first time she thought, oh, my God, even the technicians watching the thing go out are starting to worry about what's happening. And by the time she got to us, she said, the phone system at the BBC was jammed. There were hundreds of complaints logged and it all went a bit crazy.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Ruth and director Leslie Manning had prepared for some worried callers during the show. They had operators ready to tell anyone who called that the whole thing was fake, just a Halloween special. But there were too many calls and not enough operators. The BBC estimated that 20,000 people called that night.

[Stephen Volk]

The people that complained, there was quite a wide range of different reactions. Some people were genuinely scared, some people were outraged because they feel they were. They were made a mug like. Like someone had played a trick on them, you know, like a candid camera. And. And also that there was this additional level of the trust that's invested in the BBC to tell the truth, you know, and to be the nation's protector. In a way. BBC was the first television station and for decades the only television station. So all the way through the Second World War, both in radio and tv, the BBC was relied on for national news. So that's why colloquially it's known as Auntie, because the BBC is relied on as kind of one of the family, if you like, for reliability and trust, which I think added to their sense of outrage.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

The phrase that sort of stuck was that Auntie had broken faith with the nation. Director Leslie Manning. I was totally surprised by the whole reaction. The BBC show Points of View read letters from viewers after Ghostwatch aired. One person said the BBC should be locked up. Someone else said the show was brilliant and that it wasn't the BBC's fault. That people didn't understand that it was fiction. Another BBC show called Bite Back also responded.

[Kevin Ryder]

Hello, and welcome to Bite Back, the.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Program in which you, the viewer, take the program makers to task. And there are hundreds of you who are.

[Kevin Ryder]

Who want to do exactly that.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Following Halloween night, when the BBC pretended to investigate the supernatural in Ghostwatch, the switchboard was jammed with complaints. Reports that children were terrified, pregnant women had gone into labor, and intelligent people felt duped. Conversely, many of the 11 million who.

[Kevin Ryder]

Watched it thought it was a brilliant piece of television.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Well, what was it, a treat or a dangerous trick? This wasn't the first time the BBC had aired a hoax 35 years earlier. On April Fool's Day in 1957, the BBC aired a very short segment on a current affairs program about farmers in Switzerland who grew spaghetti after picking.

[Kevin Ryder]

The spaghetti is laid out to dry in the warm alpine sun. Many people are often puzzled by the fact that spaghetti is produced at such uniform lengths. But this is the result of many years of patient endeavor by plant breeders who've succeeded in producing the perfect spaghetti.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

A lot of people believed it, in part because not many people cook spaghetti at home in England in the 1950s, but also because the fake documentary looks real. Even the director general of the BBC tried to look up spaghetti in the Encyclopedia Britannica after he watched the segment, but the encyclopedia didn't even have an entry for spaghetti at the time. Some viewers called in to ask where they could get a spaghetti tree for themselves and whether it would grow in English weather. BBC operators had been coached to stick with the joke and say, place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best. One viewer said he thought the program had used trick photography because, quote, spaghetti grows horizontally, not vertically. But the BBC reported that most of the callers, quote, did not quite grasp what was going on, but somehow felt spaghetti does not grow on trees and that most of the people who called in took the joke well. The viewers of Ghostwatch were much more upset, even though the show ran after 9pm the publicized time when the BBC transitioned to content that might not be appropriate for children. Many children did watch it, and many of them were scared. One viewer on the bite Back program said she knew it was a spoof, but her son didn't. He reacted instantly. He was very distressed instantly to something very sinister in the presentation and nothing had actually happened. And I think you mentioned that you were anxious to put it against the ghost story against a contemporary background. I think it's that actually that made it Most sinister. Martin Plum, you want to make a point?

[Kevin Ryder]

I didn't know it was a drama. I've got three children of 14, 12 and 10 and I just thought that it was going to be a very safe. And were they frightened? Well, yes. I mean, to the degree that my youngest child, who was 10, rushed out of the room, vomited in the hall, was absolutely ashen faced, wouldn't even talk about the thing for two or three hours. It was at one o' clock in the the morning that I got her to talk about it and she wouldn't sleep in her own bed for two nights.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Five days after Ghostwatch aired in 1992, a teenager with intellectual disabilities died by suicide. His parents said the show caused their son's death. They said he had seemed hypnotized by the show and that when the pipes in their house made the same banging sound as the ghost in Ghost Watch, he became upset. He asked to move bedrooms and spoke to his parents often about ghosts. The note he left read, please don't worry if there are ghosts, I will be a ghost and I will be with you always as a ghost. His stepfather told reporters, in my own mind, I hold the BBC completely responsible for his death. His parents sent in a formal complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Council, which eventually concluded that the BBC had, quote, a duty to do more than simply hint at the deception it was practicing on the audience.

[Stephen Volk]

The BBC reaction was really to batten down the hatches and pretend the program never happened. I think a memo went round that nobody should ever mention it again.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Seven years later, the movie the Blair Witch Project used a similar documentary style approach. The movie was presented as found footage that had been shot by three film students who had decided to take recording equipment into the woods to investigate a series of murders rumored to have been committed by a witch. The students never make it out of the woods, but what they recorded eventually does. The way the movie was marketed made it hard to tell if it was real or not. It was 1999 and the marketing team used the relatively new Internet to create confusion. They posted missing persons photos in chat rooms and Even the movie's IMDb page made it seem like the cast was missing. Three years later, the British Film Institute released a 10 year anniversary DVD of Ghostwatch and many people were finally able to see it for the first time. Since then, the documentary style format has become popular in horror movies like Paranormal Activity. But Stephen says that when Ghostwatch came out, this kind of style wasn't so well known, and even people close to him who knew exactly what he was trying to make. Were still confused by the show.

[Stephen Volk]

Couple of weeks before Ed on Halloween, I spent some time with a friend of mine and said as I was leaving, oh, by the way, I've got this drama going out on Halloween night. Let me know what you think as one does. And I spoke to her after the event and she said, oh, I thought it was real. And I said, what do you mean you thought it was real? I told you I'd written it. And she said, oh, yeah, but when I saw Michael Parkinson, I thought, you must have got something wrong. And that maybe is the power of the kind of image of TV that however much you tell people it might not be real. You know, perceptually, it feels real. And that for me was the whole purpose of it is to actually get the audience to think, what am I looking at? What am I listening to? Do I believe this? You know, Can I believe my eyes? You know, one of the things that happened that was kind of part of our psyche, if you like, when we made Ghostwatch was it was during the time of the first Gulf War. We remember seeing some footage by cnn, would it be. Or NBC News footage of the bombing of Baghdad. And the news station had put music over it. And Ruth, the producer said, look at this. They put music over the bombing, and it's kind of like that's a drama convention, but they've used it on news, you know. And I was seeing, you know, like shows like Kill Street Blues or NYPD Blue, where documentary techniques like handheld cameras were being used and drama to make it look like documentary. And documentaries like Rescue 999 were using actors to reenact scenes that had happened to people. So actors were being used in non fiction, and fiction was starting to look like documentary. So it's a blurring of the edges between these things in the early 90s. And that was very much what we were playing with. You know, what is truth and what is made up.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Many publications have called Ghostwatch a descendant of of the most famous broadcast hoax. Orson Welles, 1938 radio drama adaptation of H.G. wells, the War of the Worlds. It was broadcast on October 30, just before Halloween. If you don't know it, The War of the Worlds was presented as breaking news about a strange object landing on a farm in New Jersey. And what happened after it opened.

[Kevin Ryder]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I've ever witnessed.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Wiggle. Someone calling someone.

[Kevin Ryder]

Something I can see coming out of that black hole through luminous discs. The eyes. It might be A face might be almost heavens, something wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now it's another one.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

And another one. And another one.

[Kevin Ryder]

They look like tentacles to me.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

During the rest of the broadcast, reports continue to come in about Martians invading New Jersey and New York and possibly the rest of the country. But the broadcast ends with an announcement from Orson Welles.

[Kevin Ryder]

This is Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen, out of character to assure you that the War of the Worlds has no further significance than as the holiday offering it was intended to be the Mercury Theater's own radio version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying, boo. So goodbye, everybody. And remember, please, for the next day or so, the terrible lesson you learned tonight. That grinning, glowing, globular invader of your living room is an inhabitant of the pumpkin patch. And if your doorbell rings and nobody's there, that was no Martian. It's Halloween.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

The next day. Newspapers are putting that listeners had really believed that there was a Martian invasion and had panicked. Orson Welles told papers that he didn't expect most people to believe the broadcast was real, but said that we can only suppose that the special nature of radio, which is often heard in fragments or in parts disconnected from the whole, has led to this misunderstanding. The FCC received more than 600 letters, telegrams and petitions in response to War of the Worlds, many of them asking it to do something to punish the people who'd made it, or something to prevent this from happening again. But many of the letters the FCC received also praised the War of the Worlds and warned against any move that might promote censorship. One letter from North Carolina read, if you take them to task over this, won't you also have to stop fairy tales and stories about Santa Claus? To keep a gullible public from becoming excited, the FCC conducted a formal investigation and in the end, they decided not to take any action and broadcast hoaxes continued.

[Kevin Ryder]

This is Kevin Ryder. I work at KLOS in the afternoon, and I was part of the Kevin and Bean morning radio show in Los Angeles at kroq.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

We'll be right back.

[Kevin Ryder]

Fox Creative.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

This is advertiser content brought to you by Botox Cosmetic on a botulinum toxin. A.

[Stephen Volk]

Okay.

[Kevin Ryder]

Does it sound okay?

[Stephen Volk]

All right, cool.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

My name's Orion Brown. I'm the founder and CEO of Black Travel Box. We're a personal care products company made.

[Stephen Volk]

Specifically for travelers of color.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Since 2023, Botox Cosmetic has proudly provided resources for skill development, mentorship and access to funding to women business owners through the Confidence Project Empowering Women Entrepreneurs Women like Orion we participated in the Confidence Project by Botox Cosmetic in 2023 and.

[Kevin Ryder]

Are Grant recipients from that program.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

When I first learned about the Confidence Project, I did not know how deep Botox Cosmetic was going to go to support us. Botox Cosmetic actually put real money on.

[Stephen Volk]

The table, but also they just kind.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Of opened their Rolodex to us.

[Stephen Volk]

We were placed in Oprah Daily because.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Of their agency partnering with Black Travel Box.

[Stephen Volk]

So those things were super impressive to.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Me and I don't think I've seen it in any other programs. Talk to your specialist to see if Botox Cosmetic is right for for full prescribing information, including boxed warning, call 877-351-0300. Learn more about the Confidence Project Empowering women [e-mail] realimpact this year's grant winners will be announced in October. The detective said missing kids usually come home. What happens when they don't?

[Kevin Ryder]

Based on a true story Police looking for John Gacy we discovered bodies. By the looks of it. The younger man, the things he did to those kids.

[Stephen Volk]

He's sick.

[Kevin Ryder]

The system failed these families. Devil in disguise John Wayne Gacy Streaming now only on Peacock.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Do you know how many there are?

[Stephen Volk]

Up to you to find out.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

In 1989, Kevin Ryder got his dream job as a radio DJ at KROQ in Los Angeles. He had DJed before, but this would be his first morning drive time call.

[Kevin Ryder]

In show, which was it's insanity to think that I got my first morning show in Los Angeles at a station like kroq.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

But for people who aren't from Los Angeles, what is kroq? How big of a station is it?

[Kevin Ryder]

KROQ is a legendary station mainly because of the it was really kind of a nothing station with a terrible signal. And people that got it started playing interesting music, like punk music in the late 70s that no one else in Los Angeles was playing. And then in the 80s came new wave and you've got Depeche Mode and you've got the Cure and no other radio station in Los Angeles was playing that either. And the impact that KROQ had through the years is it's impossible to measure. I mean, we were the first station to play the Ramones, first persons to play Van Halen. And from that standpoint, it was a monstrous station, even though it was run like a five and dime store.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Kevin says he wasn't qualified for the job, but there was no way he was going to say no. He hosted the show each weekday morning with another DJ, Gene Bean Baxter. Kevin says they got up around 4am every day to start getting ready. The format was they'd play four songs an hour and talk four times an hour. Sometimes it wouldn't be until the songs were fading that they'd come up with what they'd talk about. Kevin says that every day they try to find a way to get people to call in. And one day they came up with an idea. They called confess your crime.

[Kevin Ryder]

It started out as just everybody commits crimes, however small they may be. Maybe you go 56 and a 55 mile per hour, that's committing a crime. So you know, there's a whole scale of sizes of the crimes that you commit. So we thought it would be funny for people to call in and tell us the crime that they had done and most likely gotten away with. And you know, we thought it was, we thought it would be stupid stuff like I stole a car and I got caught the next morning because I was sleeping in it alongside the road, you know, or something like. It was, it was a very light hearted suggestion at first and it wasn't going incredibly well. You get that feeling when you're in the middle of something that it's not really what you hoped it would be.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Listeners called in to confess that they'd stolen bowling balls, that they'd run over a cat or that they were sleeping with their girlfriend's mother.

[Kevin Ryder]

The calls we were getting were really lame. You know, I parked in a no parking zone kind of stuff that's not interesting. And so, you know, we were screening for people and we were trying to get calls and it was really, it was really difficult because sometimes stuff just doesn't work. And then this person calls and says, I think I may have killed my girlfriend. 106.7 Kroc. It's KROQ. Wednesday morning, 10 till 9, we're doing confess your crime. We have some more on hold and let's go to those now. Hello. Hi. What's your name? Yeah, I'd really rather not say. You want to confess a crime this morning? Yeah, yeah, I heard you guys talking and I just kind of, you know, I don't know, I just, I just kind of felt like I should. I really needed to tell somebody about this guy's so serious. But what happened? Tell us, tell us about it. Well, I had this, you know, girlfriend for, you know, like about 16 years and we were right on the verge of getting married and all this stuff and I came home and, and I caught her with Somebody. You caught your girlfriend with another man? Yeah. Okay. And a good friend of mine, as a matter of fact. Oh, really? So what'd you do? And then.

[Stephen Volk]

I don't.

[Kevin Ryder]

Yeah, honestly, I don't. I don't know what happened. Really. I don't know if she's. Sir, what are you saying? Well, I don't know. She's. I don't. I don't even know if she's still. If she, if she made it through. Actually, sir, is there. Is there a chance seriously, that you might have killed your girlfriend? Yeah, I know I did. Sir, let us try to get you some help. Can you hold on the phone just a minute? I think I'd really better go. I mean, if you want us to get in contact with somebody. Hello? Hello?

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

The call was fake.

[Kevin Ryder]

We had called a friend of ours in Phoenix who we had known from working with him at a station there and woke him up. And we said, hey, we need to juice up this topic a little bit. It's not really going well, so can you, you know, we're doing something called confession crime. Can you just say something that's a little bit, you know, that's got something that gets people's attention? And we were talking to a guy who was just waking up while the song was fading. And we threw out, you know, you stole a car, you. You got in a fight, you did whatever. And somebody said something about hurting a girlfriend. And then when he said that on the air, he said, I think I may have killed my girlfriend. It was felt like getting hit in a head on collision because that was 1 billion miles further than we had hoped. And I just remember being in a fog. Like one second we were in charge of everything, and the next second I didn't know what was happening. And I couldn't process what was being said quick enough. So it felt like I was in a haze. I don't remember what we said back to him. I don't remember hanging up. I don't remember any of it. And then the TV stations wanted to interview us about it. The timeline that I remember is our producer coming into the studio and saying, I just got a call from KCBS and KNBC and all these stations want to interview you. And I remember, this is the first thing that I remember clearly is that I said to Bean, we have to go talk about this. And we went into the restroom. We made sure no one else was in there. And I said, look, yes, it was faked, but we'll get fired if we tell the truth. Also, we know For a fact that there's no crime, that it was something somebody made up on the phone. So, you know, the. The police could search for the rest of their lives. They would find nothing because there was nothing, because it was made up. So I said, because there's no crime for anyone to find. Let's just deny, deny, deny, and it'll go away.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

So they agreed never to tell anyone.

[Kevin Ryder]

And within, I don't know, five minutes, we had requests from all the major TV stations to do interviews about that call. And what did we know about it and how did it come about and did we know the person? And, you know, could we. Could we tell if it was true or not? And, you know, we didn't. We said we didn't have any of those answers. We said, we don't know. We don't know who calls us and if they're telling the truth or not.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Later in the show, they apologize to their listeners for what they'd heard on air and read some helpline numbers. Kevin says that when they finally finished their show, a sheriff was waiting for them in the station's lobby who was.

[Kevin Ryder]

Asking for a copy of the air check the tape. And they gave it to a voice expert who said that it was either real or the person deserves an Academy Award. And they started a. An investigation into exactly what was said and who could it have been, and does it match any of the cases that we're working on. And it just sort of started from there.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Why do you think he was so convincing in the call?

[Kevin Ryder]

I can tell you exactly because I've talked to him about it. It was. He was high, smoking marijuana, and had gone to bed two hours before that. So he was just in a complete haze. And he almost never answers the phone, but he saw it was us, and his room was dark, and he picked up the phone and he literally. I mean, literally had no idea what was going on. And we were probably talking a little too quickly because the song was fading and we needed him to do something, so that's. He was just out of it and was trying to help us out as.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

The days went on. And you realize now the police were taking this seriously and trying to investigate it. Did you and Jean continue to check in and say, maybe, maybe it's gone too? Maybe now we've got to say something.

[Kevin Ryder]

Oh, you mean with each other?

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Yeah.

[Kevin Ryder]

No, not really. I think we sort of had cast the die. We sort of had said, okay, well, this is going to be our response. And every time somebody brought it up in any way, I Wanted to crawl in a hole.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

And then the case was covered on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, which reportedly resulted in 400 people getting in touch with the police.

[Kevin Ryder]

One of the things that I said, the only thing that I remember saying, other than the line that we had created the whole time, which is, we don't know who calls us. We don't know if what they say is real. For some reason, I didn't feel like that was enough for Unsolved Mysteries, so I actually said the sentence. There are definite lines that you don't cross. And that's one of them. There are, there are real definite lines that you do not cross. Obviously everybody's, you know, trying to get ratings, trying to get noticed, trying to be this and that, but there are lines that you just don't cross. And that's one of them. I don't know that anyone could sit down and say, someone confessing to murder will make our ratings go up.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Then Gene comes in, you know, all.

[Kevin Ryder]

We could say is, you know what? The experts feel that this guy was legitimate. It's no one we know. And as far as we're concerned, you know, that that's his story. We certainly hope it's not true. You know, I trade whatever publicity we got from it, you know, for the story not to be true. Cuz it's pretty grim, really.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

For nearly 10 months, they kept up the lie. KROCK unknowingly ended up hiring the man who had called in, Doug Roberts. He had never told anyone either. And then one day, it all fell apart.

[Kevin Ryder]

During Doug's show, he called us off the air one time when he was doing a shift.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Kevin says during the call they talked about the murder confession. They thought it was a private conversation, but the way the studio was set up, two colleagues overheard them and one of them called a reporter at the LA Times.

[Kevin Ryder]

So she called our general manager, Tripp Reeb, and she said, tripp, I'm really sorry to have to ask you this, because I know this is. But is there any possibility that they faked it? And Tripp assured her that there wasn't. And she said, would you mind asking? And he said, yeah, I'll ask, no problem. So he called us in and Tripp said, was that phone call fake? And we said, yeah, yes, it was. And he had to call the LA Times back and tell them that it was fake. And then it all started again with the LA Times. The headline was, will KROC Get Away with Murder?

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

A morning DJ at another radio station was quoted in the article, Saying, I think that morning radio has gotten to be one giant trash bin that we need to examine a little bit. Another DJ said, to stoop to such a sleazy level to get another tenth of a ratings point spits in the face of everything Bob Dylan and John Lennon and the rolling stones and U2 stand for another said they couldn't have bought press like this. The general manager of another radio station told the reporter, I think they went so far and they couldn't get out. It's like a kid who steals. All of a sudden you tell a lie and you have to tell another lie to get out of the first lie. KROQ suspended Kevin and his co host Gene Baxter without pay.

[Kevin Ryder]

And the whole time we just were assuming that that was our KROQ career. That was it. We had the golden ticket, the great opportunity and we threw it away. And there was really nothing else to be done at that point.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Kevin and Gene weren't charged, but the company that owned KROQ told them to pay back the Sheriff's Department $12,170 for the money it had spent on the investigation and to do 149 hours of community service to compensate for the 149 hours the homicide detective spent on the case. The homicide detective told the LA Times that he'd had multiple people contact him about their missing loved ones, hoping the on air confession would be a clue. One woman whose daughter had been killed a couple of months before the prank call was quoted saying, the DJs have obviously never had anything serious or painful happen in their lives. The FCC launched an investigation into the hoax to determine whether management ever knew about it. If they did, the station could lose its license. The commission heard testimony under oath from multiple KROC staffers. Kevin and Gene were both at the.

[Kevin Ryder]

Hearing to beat and I this was the ultimate radio. This was the best radio station in the world. And it was devastating to think that this radio station that we worshiped might go down because we were idiots. It just felt like if this happens, I don't know how I'll ever get over that.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

In the end, KROQ received a letter of reprimand, the lightest punishment the FCC could give. Kevin and Jean continued doing their morning show for the next 28 years.

[Kevin Ryder]

And I do think since that happened, you know, we, that was 1991 when we went to court. I think we earned that trust back. But it took a while because people were a little hesitant and it took a while for us to, you know, help people understand that we're decent people that you can trust. And we're also idiots at times, but, you know, we're never going to be that level of idiot again. You know, you, one of the things that you, one of the only things that you have between a radio station and its listeners is trust. And that trust, when it's, you know, when it's betrayed like, that feels like, you know, you've been betrayed by a family member. And I just. If there was one thing that I could edit out of my life, it would be that I wish it. I wish it didn't happen.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Sajiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison and Megan Kinane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see [e-mail] and you can sign up for our [e-mail] Newsletter. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal. Plus, you can listen to Criminal, this is Love and Phoebe reads a mystery without any ads. Plus you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co creator Lawrence Bore talking about everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week, to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to thisiscriminal.com plus we're on Facebook at thisiscriminal and Instagram and TikTok at criminal underscore podcast. We're also on YouTube at YouTube.com criminal podcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast network. Discover more great shows@podcast voxmedia.com I'm Phoebe Judge, this is Criminal and Doug.

[Kevin Ryder]

Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera.

[Stephen Volk]

They see us.

[Narrator / Phoebe Judge]

Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com.

[Kevin Ryder]

Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Ferry Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates, excludes Massachusetts. This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month and Lifelock has tips to protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication, report phishing and update the software on your devices. And for comprehensive identity protection, let Lifelock alert you to suspicious uses of your personal information. Lifelock also fixes identity theft, guaranteed or your money back. Stay smart, safe and protected with a 30 day free [e-mail] podcast terms apply.