Beyond Belief or just straight up bullshit?

It was very popular in German speaking countries, more so than in the US I think. It's still on every Sunday on one of the major German TV channels.

This one is apparently loosely based on Leona Helmsley.

They attribute the “true” content to Robert Tralins, who wrote a lot of pulp and science fiction. This is from his Wikipedia page: Tralins was evidently interested in fetish and related topics. His The Sexual Fetish describes agalmatophilia and frottage.[5]

It always annoyed me that they never referenced the Real stories so we could look them up ourselves. Most sounded like urban legends or accounts from unreliable witnesses.

Is that Riker?

Germany here, and yes, it's very popular, with all generations. It even managed to reach the now-teenagers. There are several reasons: mystery and creepypastas and unsolved mysteries are popular as it is, and right now, there seems to be a renaissance. The X-Factor was well-made and utterly undisturbing and harmless, ideal family TV. Then, very importantly, Jonathan Frakes is a great host, engaging and authentic. Everyone knows his face or are even familiar with his name in Germany, the ones who were young in the 90s (like moi) from "North and South" ("Fackeln im Sturm" in German), and of course Star Trek TNG which has never stopped being popular since the time it was first aired.

This was always a guilty pleasure of mine in Sci-Fi.

The stories all sound like campfire story nonsense. Robert Tralins wrote a book called, Strange events beyond human understanding. That is where the alleged true stories come from.

^^Is his book similar to the book Strangely Enough?

R9 SEBHU is just a collection of stories that read like urban legends and campfire tales. Tralins claimed the stories came from witnesses and that they were true. There isn’t a whole lot to go on, though. Information is scant at best.

A lot of the stories were based on urban legends. One story that can be confirmed to be true is the episode that had a segment on Morgan Robertson. He was the author of the novella titled The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility. The novella was about a large ocean liner ship that sank after hitting an iceberg. The novella was published fourteen years before the Titanic sank.

This article details some of the ones based on urban legends.

Weren’t all the lame cases the ones that were true?

This never gets old.

R7 Same with me. I did a rewatch of the show a couple of years ago and it was fun to laugh at the cheesy acting, bad props etc.

A somewhat similar show that was also guilty pleasure for me was Mostly True Stories? Urban Legends Revealed. It was on TLC and hosted by Natasha Henstridge

OMG! I thought I was the only one who watched these. I was a teen in the late '90s/early 2000s ad I lived for MOSTLY TRUE STORIES and BEYOND BELIEF. They scared mem sometimes, too. haha

R17 Yes loved watching this, Unsolved Mysteries reruns, and all those true crime docs.

I loved this show.

Brolin seemed uninterested, its good they replaced him with Frakes.

James Brolin acts like he has no clue what each segment is even about. H so clearly just there for the paycheck. Frakes serves up some camp.