Dark Korea — Korean True Crime & Mysteries

The crimes and mysteries Korea won't talk about — deeply researched and respectfully told. Each episode reconstructs a Korean true-crime case, unsolved disappearance, cult, or disaster: what happened, how, and why.

Dark Korea — Korean True Crime & Mysteries is a true crime podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 43 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Dark Korea — Korean True Crime & Mysteries, a true crime show with 43 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #40

  Episode 40: Silmido Incident (Unit 684)

  Aug 22, 202624 min

  In 1968, South Korea took thirty-one civilians, put them on an uninhabited island in the Yellow Sea, and trained them to kill the leader of North Korea. Then the politics changed, and the mission was quietly shelved — and the men were left on the island anyway. For three years and four months, no letters, no leave, no visitors, and — after the first few months — no pay. Seven of them died there, and not one of those deaths was what the paperwork said it was. On the morning of August the 23rd, 1971 — fifty-five years ago today — the twenty-four who were left killed their guards, crossed to the mainland, and hijacked a bus toward the presidential palace, because it was the only way anyone would ever hear them. Almost all of them died on that bus. Officially, for thirty-five years, they had never existed at all. Silmido Incident (Unit 684) · 1971-08-23 · Silmido Island, Jung-gu, Incheon — ending at Daebang-dong, Seoul

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  Episode #39

  Episode 39: Iri Station Explosion

  Aug 21, 202619 min

  Thirty tons of explosives sat in a freight car in the middle of a Korean city for a day and a half. It should never have stopped there at all — the rulebook said explosive cargo passes straight through a station, no waiting. But it did wait, and Korean investigators concluded it waited because of an envelope: the informal fee that made trains move in 1977, and that the man guarding this one could not pay enough of. On the night of November 11th, 1977, that man went into the dark freight car, lit a candle, stood it on a box of dynamite, and climbed into his sleeping bag. At 9:15 p.m., the middle of the city of Iri stopped existing. Fifty-nine people died. And for the first few minutes, everyone who survived thought the war had started again. Iri Station Explosion · 1977-11-11 · Iri Station, Iri City, North Jeolla Province (now Iksan Station, Iksan, Jeonbuk State)

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  Episode #38

  Episode 38: Korean Air Flight 801 Guam Crash

  Aug 20, 202617 min

  It is twenty minutes past one in the morning, over the Pacific. A Boeing 747 is coming down through the rain toward an island runway, and the man flying it says three words into the dark cockpit: "eh… really… sleepy." Behind him, two hundred and fifty-three people are asleep, or watching the lights of Guam come up out of the water, or thinking about the beach in the morning. In twenty-one minutes, most of them will be dead. What makes this crash so hard to look away from is that nothing about it was sudden. The airplane was fine. The engines were fine. Three qualified men sat in that cockpit and watched it happen — and by the time one of them finally said the plain sentence that would have saved everyone, the airplane was seven seconds from the trees. Korean Air Flight 801 Guam Crash · 1997-08-06 · Bijia Peak, Nimitz Hill, Asan-Maina, Guam (flight from Gimpo, Seoul)

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  Episode #37

  Episode 37: West Sea Ferry Disaster (Seohae Ferry Sinking)

  Aug 19, 202613 min

  October 10th, 1993. A gray Sunday morning on Korea's west coast. A small white ferry pulls away from a fishing island, packed with weekend anglers heading home — so packed that people are standing shoulder to shoulder on the deck, sitting on crates of fish sauce, wedged between gravel sacks and fishing gear. The boat is licensed for 221 people. It is carrying 362. Thirty minutes later, it is upside down in the Yellow Sea, and 292 of them are dead. And then the country does something almost as cruel as the sea: it turns on the captain. Newspapers say he swam away and fled. Prosecutors put him on a wanted list. For five days, police hunt a dead man — while his body waits inside the sunken ship, in the one room that proves he never left his post. This is the story of the Seohae ferry. West Sea Ferry Disaster (Seohae Ferry Sinking) · 1993-10-10 · Off Wido Island, Buan County, North Jeolla Province, South Korea

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  Episode #36

  Episode 36: Daeyeonggak Hotel Fire (대연각호텔 화재)

  Aug 18, 202612 min

  Christmas morning, 1971. Seoul's Daeyeonggak Hotel is full — more than three hundred guests and staff inside a gleaming twenty-two-storey tower in the heart of the city. At ten minutes to ten, a propane gas cylinder in the hotel coffee shop explodes. Within about ninety minutes, fire has climbed all the way to the sky lounge on the twenty-first floor. The tallest fire ladder in the country reaches the seventh. The rooftop door is locked. Before the day is over, at least 163 people are dead — and more than half a century later, it is still the deadliest hotel fire in recorded history. This is the story of the day Korea watched a skyscraper burn on live television, and what that day exposed. Daeyeonggak Hotel Fire (대연각호텔 화재) · 1971-12-25 · Chungmuro, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea

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