BBC Radio 4 for BBC Sounds

 Ghosts from the future?

“My brain has quickly told me that there is nobody there. But the weight of the emotion told me there was. The remorse and the sadness for this poor person that I felt like I’ve killed.”

It’s the sci-fi genre crossover you never knew you needed. The pitch? Ghosts, but make it time travel.

Before we delve into this head-scratcher of a case that takes Uncanny into a new area of investigation, we have a round-up of further questions, insight and evidence on past cases. We are indeed all Uncanny, and it feels good. If for any reason you haven’t listened and you stumble across this review, dive in, it’s a welcoming community. There’s something for sceptics and believers to enjoy in these updates, and this consistently even-handed approach remains at the heart of its success.

Amanda, this week’s witness, viscerally describes the sensation, emotion and trauma of fatally colliding with a person in a vehicle you’re driving. The horror, the guilt and cataclysmic impact on your (and their) life. However, Amanda’s not talking to Danny from a prison cell, because she didn’t actually kill anyone.

That jarring vision sounds nasty enough, and could possibly be explained away, but it gets worse, and this case has fried my synapses. There is a fatal collision that took place on that same spot but if this is a ‘stone tape’ type of case, and the ground absorbed the ‘negative energy’ of the disaster only to replay it, then someone’s running the tape in reverse.

Uncanny has touched, in its trademark balanced way, upon paranormal cases that seem to involve both light and dark; and (from the point of view of a believer) entities or spirits in other and their apparent impact on our physical world. If you believe there are other planes of existence, then might time behave differently in them? Might that explain it? That’s a rabbit hole that, if you fall down it, could do a number on your little grey cells.

On the subject of this case’s ability to haunt your mind, listen out for the tale of the girl from Aberfan and the dream she described… and try to get to the end without your heart breaking, I dare you.

My take on case 12: The only reason I can fathom for a ‘pre-haunting’ like this is if ‘The Bad Thing’ can be stopped. For what reason was someone allowed to experience an ‘echo’ of an awful event in advance, if this didn’t give enough information for said awful event to be prevented? Am I over thinking this? Does there need to be a reason? My head hurts.

Verdict: Uncanny keeps it fresh with a new kind of case that raises some existential questions that will keep you awake, if the nightmares don’t. 8/10

Claire Smith