The Glenarma Tapes

The Glenarma Tapes begins with a series of cryptic and unsettling police interviews, where it becomes increasingly apparent that the woods of Glenarma, on the north coast of Ireland, hold a dark and sinister secret. In the spring of 2020, five students and two faculty members from the Mid Ulster College of Art embarked on a hike through these woods, but never returned home. Weeks turned into months with no sign of the missing group, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions and bewildered loved ones. Enter Detective Kieran, a seasoned investigator who is tasked with solving the disappearance of the seven missing individuals. As the investigation unfolds, Kieran begins to immerse himself in the aftermath of the incident, from scouring the woods for any sign of evidence to conducting extensive interviews with the victims' families and colleagues. One of the faculty members, Dr. Rachel Lennon, had been assigned to mentor the students on their project. She had promised them that this project would be their ticket to a scholarship and a bright future. Her dedication to the students is still evident in the ways the students mention her name with devotion. The enigmatic atmosphere and eerie surroundings start to raise suspicions about motives for the group's disappearance. It seems like Rachel may be torn between two worlds, with her professional obligations pulling her in one direction, and the emotional bond she shared with the students in the other. Rachel's motives, however, would turn out to be only the beginning of the investigation. As Kieran delves deeper, he encounters an impressive array of characters who become intertwined within the story. There is Connor, one of the missing students, whose personal life seemed perfect on the surface but concealed the turmoil he quietly endured. He becomes one of the primary narratives in the series of Glenarma tapes that are the focal point of Detective Kieran's investigation. The tape is presented by Connor to others in the initial stage of the mystery. Through the tape, the Detective uncovers the pressures he kept hidden including the push from Dr. Rachel Lennon as he was getting close to giving up, revealing Connor's deep dissatisfaction and frustration. Sarah, Rachel's close friend, may have some incriminating knowledge about the woods that the group went missing in and is seemingly distant about the event. However, it eventually seems possible that Sarah is hiding answers from Detective Kieran. Connor's student colleagues reveal tensions with Sarah causing him ongoing distress. Not far into the search for evidence and crucial leads, Kieran uncovers an unsettling series of messages from Connor, these messages disclose information that seemed of no consideration during a preliminary reading, such as threats and other unsettling information. He ends up obtaining recordings stored by the missing students on their tape machines. These audio files shed valuable insights and reveal numerous anomalies between initial assumptions based on public information and those who had got familiar with the wooded area close ahead of their disappearance. It appears that an unseen force had predestined the party's journey into one part of the woods, a path supposedly deserted with barely anyone nearby who recognized it. The group eventually finds themselves waylaid in a dense, eerie, and in those parts, wild, darker, uncharted region. In this isolated stretch, something absolutely out of ordinary was revealed, something the group wouldn't recall ever after.