1. Welcome to Nightvale

I started listening to Welcome to Nightvale ( WTNV ) almost three years ago and have listened to all 95 (for far) episodes multiple times. This podcast is presented as a community news broadcast for a mid-western desert town where all major conspiracy theories are real and commonplace. Shadow governments, secret police forces, angels, and five-headed dragons. If you can imagine the lovechild of The X Files and The Twilight Zone, you've got WTNV. Not to mention Cecil Baldwin is a narrator like no other - his voice is like warm caramel and...uh - check it out for yourself!

2. Lore

I have followed Lore obsessively since its inception. Aaron Menke is a master of both story crafting and story telling. Menke retells legends and folklore (hence the name), usually centered around a main idea or theme (vampires, witches, and zombies galore!). Every episode is punctuated by Menke's slow, calming cadence and musical accompaniments that put listeners in the perfect mindset for a spooky story or two. Lore's popularity has skyrocketed so much that Menke now is developing a TV show with the producers of The Walking Dead. If it's anything like this highly rated podcast, it'll be a hit.

3. Sword and Scale

True crime junkies rejoice! If you're looking for something a little R-rated with just enough 911 phone calls to give you goosebumps, Sword and Scale is your cup of murder tea. Mike Boudet is a narrator you'd want to grab a beer with - he puts in a huge amount of research to recount some fascinating and gruesome murders while throwing in a well-placed joke or two to keep things from getting too dark. His background with sound editing is evident in this polished and high-quality podcast; there are over 70 episodes so far so you have more than enough to keep you busy.

4. Alice Isn't Dead

One of the creators of Welcome to Nightvale (Joseph Fink) teamed up with one of their voice actors (Jasika Nicole, you may remember her from the show Fringe) and their baby is Alice Isn't Dead - a podcast following a truck driver searching for her missing wife, Alice (who, as you may have guessed, isn't dead). This brings in the intensity of a first-person narrative as you experience everything in time with the narrator including her run-ins with some half-human but full-on creepy serial killers, towns that don't experience time, and some of the joys that come with following a truck driver. C'mon people, just use your turn signals!

5. My Favorite Murder

Take a few stories about serial killers and add in two California comedians and one really loud cat and you've got My Favorite Murder. Hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark pick a few infamous murders each week and retell them to an audience they tend to forget is even there. Both ladies are comedic geniuses, usually when they don't mean to be, and they make stories about murder, well, fun! Their rise to popularity has been fast - they're usually sitting high on the comedy iTunes podcast list. Come see what the fuss is all about, we promise you'll love it and call yourself a Murderino before you know it.