Between 1939 and 1950, a Greek monastery that promised free tuberculosis treatment and spiritual salvation became a house of horrors where Abbess Mariam Soulakiotis—dubbed "Mother Rasputin"—systematically tortured and murdered wealthy converts who had surrendered their fortunes to join her religious sect.

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ABOUT WEIRD DARKNESS: Weird Darkness is a true crime and paranormal podcast narrated by professional award-winning voice actor, Darren Marlar. Seven days per week, Weird Darkness focuses on all thing strange and macabre such as haunted locations, unsolved mysteries, true ghost stories, supernatural manifestations, urban legends, unsolved or cold case murders, conspiracy theories, and more. On Thursdays, this scary stories podcast features horror fiction along with the occasional creepypasta. Weird Darkness has been named one of the “Best 20 Storytellers in Podcasting” by Podcast Business Journal. Listeners have described the show as a cross between “Coast to Coast” with Art Bell, “The Twilight Zone” with Rod Serling, “Unsolved Mysteries” with Robert Stack, and “In Search Of” with Leonard Nimoy.
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IN THIS EPISODE: On a dark October night in 1989, the crew of the USS Memphis watched in horror as a colossal boomerang-shaped craft emerged from a blood-red sky, circled their nuclear submarine with impossible precision, then vanished at incomprehensible speed—triggering a military cover-up that scattered the crew and erased all official records of the encounter. *** When exhausted British soldiers retreating from the Battle of Mons in 1914 reported seeing towering angels holding back the German army, it sparked a century-long mystery that blurs the line between divine intervention, mass hallucination, wartime propaganda, and one of the most enduring supernatural legends in military history. It’s the true story of the Angels of Mons. *** A Greek monastery abbess known as "Mother Rasputin" systematically murdered at least 177 people between 1939 and 1950, luring wealthy women and tuberculosis patients to surrender their fortunes before torturing them to death in one of Europe's most horrific cases of religious manipulation and mass murder.

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Lead-In
00:02:13.068 = Show Open
00:04:19.659 = Mother Rasputin
00:19:16.308 = Witness of Mons (Historical Fiction)
00:26:07.226 = Angels of Mons
00:55:48.801 = USS Memphis Incident
01:09:28.836 = Show Close

SOURCES AND RESOURCES FROM THE EPISODE…
“The Mother Rasputin”: https://emadion.it/en/homicides/serial-killers/serial-killer-women/mariam-soulakiotis-the-killer-nun/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariam_Soulakiotis, https://www.historicmysteries.net/p/sent-from-the-devil-mariam-soulakiotis
“Angels of Mons: When Heaven Intervened On The Battlefield”: https://historyhub.info/the-angel-of-mons-from-myth-to-fact, https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-angel-of-mons-and-other-strange-supernatural-stories-from-world-war-i,https://spartacus-educational.com/FWWangelsmons.htm, https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/20834758.grandfather-said-saw-angel-mons/
“USS Memphis Incident”: https://medium.com/%40oliviero65/the-uss-memphis-enigma-when-a-submerged-ufo-challenged-the-u-s-navy-b475ef905a47, https://anomalien.com/huge-ufo-stopped-a-us-nuclear-submarine-the-uss-memphis-incident/, https://www.ufoinsight.com/ufos/close-encounters/uss-memphis-underwater-ufo-presence,https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2025/05/Another-Layer-of-Nuance-to-the-UFO-Mystery-Baffling-Otherworldly-Encounters-with-Military-Naval-Vessels-/, https://amzn.to/3HoxeaI=====
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Originally aired: June 03, 2025
NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is NOT an AI voice. (AI Policy)
EPISODE PAGE at WeirdDarkness.com (includes list of sources): https://weirddarkness.com/MotherRasputin