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 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUjtoXMAvKs

Haunts of Brisbane - Ben Davey seance report - https://hauntsofbrisbane.blogspot.com/2012/05/guyra-ghost-australias-very-own.html

The teachers report - https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/comments/vl306f/does_anyone_have_any_stories_about_the_button_man/

Title Music: by Jesse Frank from Pixabay

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