RIP Howard Hughes and The Unexplained

The greatest broadcaster and the finest show I have ever heard

Pic: Fans of The Unexplained with Howard Hughes Facebook Group

I’m not really someone who has heroes, but I’ve been aware for some years that if something ever happened to my favourite radio presenter of all time, I would feel it.

And now it has.

And yes, I am feeling it.

I have listened to Howard Hughes’s incredible ‘The Unexplained’ show since it first launched in 2006 as a podcast. I have listened to every single episode of that and the radio show which was even better when it debuted on Talk Radio in the spring of 2016. That is such a dreadful station, certainly in its later Talk TV incarnation, that I couldn’t believe it could host such an unusual and great programme but maybe they took chances mainstream stations didn’t. The radio show was so exceptional I stayed in every single Sunday night for 8 years until the show went off air through Howard Hughes’ ill health. I needed to listen live, and if I was out gigging, I always sought to go on early so I could catch the start of the show and would listen on the way home on my old school transistor radio.

From 2016 to 2022, before Talk Radio made the staggeringly bad decision to transition to TV (effectively YouTube) and shave off an hour of HH’s show, the work HH produced every single week was of the highest order. He only ever missed one week through illness in early 2020 (Covid, probably because he sounded awful) and even when he was away, he would still pre-record something. Not many presenters are dedicated enough to do that and he was doing it for a pittance.

We had a few communications over the years. Howard would give me advice on tech and mics for my own recording work and I regularly told him his show deserved to be bigger and that I was one of thousands that would financially support a streamed show so he could make the money he and the work deserved. And I would have. He was that great.

During the pandemic, when I isolated alone for 13 months, there were times where Howard Hughes really did feel like my only friend.

I will always miss his voice and the show. He had the greatest broadcasting voice I have ever heard and was the most underrated presenter I’ve ever come across. I will never regret staying in for all of those Sundays to listen to a master at work. I have never really been a big believer in the paranormal, nor a disbeliever. I just loved ‘The Unexplained’ because HH made every single episode riveting and I was always aware I was listening to a master at work.

RIP Howard. I hope wherever you are, you are getting the answer to all those mysteries you ever talked about.

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