The Mystery Machine

**The Mystery Machine** is an investigative journalism podcast produced by Red Hook Stories and hosted by Matthew Heawood and Kennedy Fisher. The format of the podcast is to investigate real-life mysteries, both historical and present-day, whereby each season is committed to the investigation of a single story. As of 2023, *The Mystery Machine* had run at least five seasons.

## Series Overview

In 2018, Heawood and Fisher investigated the disappearance of five women in Nottingham in the 1890s along with their possible connection to Wayne Dawson. Two seasons were then released at the start and end of 2019. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward investigated the 2017 disappearance of a man, Ward, from a secure psychiatric hospital just outside Providence, Rhode Island, along with a murder committed by Ward’s doctor, Jonathan Willett, the following year. The Whisperer in Darkness focused on the 2019 disappearance of Henry Akeley and his possible involvement in the Rendlesham Forest Incident in 1980. The Shadow over Innsmouth, which was released in 2020, explored the connections between various events in the two previous seasons and a possible wider conspiracy. The podcast was on hiatus due to the disappearance of Heawood, documented in the events at the end of Shadow over Innsmouth, returning on the 16th of October 2023 with The Haunter of The Dark.

## Format

By the time the podcast started to investigate The Case of Charles Dexter Ward in 2019, the format of the podcast was that Heawood presented the podcast and did most of his recording from the studio, while Fisher as the roaming investigator did most of her recording out in the field, later edited into the episodes by Heawood. This format changed in later seasons as Heawood was required to, like Fisher, work more in the field.

## Contributors

Throughout the various seasons, Heawood and Fisher have utilised the services of a number of subject and field experts, including:

* Dr. Eleanor Peck - a lecturer in Early Modern History and expert on the history of witchcraft and the occult in the Western world. (TCoCDW, TWiD, TSoI, THotD)
* Dean Perry - a ufologist who has written extensively about the Rendlesham Forest Incident. (TWiD)
* ‘Slide’ - a cybersecurity expert used mainly by Kennedy Fisher when she needs something “that's technical, but not technically legal.” (TWiD, TSoI, THotD)
* 'Jasper' - a military intelligence operative based in Iraq, among other places, who Heawood knows from his university days. (TWiD, TSoI)
* Charlotte Davenport - an audio archivist based at the Cambridge University Audio Lab. (TWiD, TSoI)
* Alice - a librarian/archivist based in New England who has an interest in genealogical research. (TCoCDW, TSoI)
* Aramis Levesque - the owner and director of the Levesque Institute of Paranormal and Parapsychological Research in Paris. (TSoI, THotD)

## Development and Release

### Release

Before the release of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the BBC acquired the rights to release that and future seasons of the podcast on its BBC Sounds app.

### Funding

The Mystery Machine’s launch was initially funded, like the rest of Red Hook Stories, by the seed money from initial investors lobbied by Heawood. However, to maintain its operation, the podcast uses a listener-funded, Patreon-style model of monthly donations. During the Charles Dexter Ward season, the nature of that investigation meant it was particularly expensive and Heawood’s inadvertent appeals for more funding led to a particularly generous donation from a single anonymous source.

By the start of the following season, the increasing popularity of the podcast, along with presumably the licensing agreement with the BBC, meant the financial security of the podcast was no longer in doubt.

### Name Change

While earlier seasons of the podcast were produced under the title of The Mystery Machine, Red Hook Stories ceased to use the name by the start of The Whisperer in Darkness season, instead choosing to market the podcast by the names of the individual seasons. While Red Hook Stories have not given any clear confirmation of why this happened, there is some speculation that it was done in an attempt to avoid copyright issues with an earlier, pre-established use of the name by another intellectual property.

## References

1. ↑ TCoCDW: "Episode 1"
2. ↑ TCoCDW: “Episode 3”
3. ↑ TCoCDW: “Episode 4”