Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Few know of the original short story that inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic horror film, “The Birds” - but it’s that story that I’m sharing with you tonight.

THE STORY: On December 3rd the wind turns east and winter lands overnight on a Cornish peninsula, where Nat Hocken, a part-time farm worker living on a wartime disability pension, wakes to something tapping at the bedroom window. By dawn there are fifty dead birds on the floor of his children's room, and out in the bay the gulls are massing by the tens of thousands, riding the swells and waiting on the tide. Nat boards his windows and stuffs his chimneys while the wireless carries a Home Office statement, then a national emergency, then nothing at all; he works out that the attacks rise and fall with the flood tide, and measures his family's odds in bread, candles, and kerosene. Evan Hunter's screenplay moved the story to Bodega Bay and built new characters around du Maurier's title, keeping her unexplained attacks and little else. The original ends with Nat lighting the last cigarette in the packet and throwing the empty one on the fire.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-thebirds

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “The Birds” by Daphne du Maurier from the book, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents My Favorites In Suspense”: https://amzn.to/3knkjZ3

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 17, 2026

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

Philadelphia police have finally described, on the record, the video from 417 W. Chew Avenue in which Raymond Horsch tightens a zip tie around a handcuffed woman's neck; two more women who appear dead have turned up in his photographs, which puts seven women at the house with the FBI less than a third of the way through more than a million files.

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/HorschHouse20260916

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736


*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

Two men on a hunting vacation in the Adirondacks wake to find a small metal box sitting in their cabin doorway, a tag on top calling it a free promotional model of a brand-new kind of trap.

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “A Thousand Year Old Story” (September 29, 1978) ***WD
00:45:44.446 = X-Minus-1, “The Trap” (February 13, 1957)
01:07:38.102 = Appointment With Fear, “My Fate Cries” (December 04, 1976) ***WD
01:35:42.435 = Arch Oboler’s Plays, “Big Ben” (April 13, 1943)
01:58:28.249 = Barry Craig, “Ghost of a Chance” (December 19, 1951)
02:28:09.864 = BBC Radio 4/Radio 7 Ghost Story, “The Crowd” (December 30, 1986)
02:41:56.411 = Night Beat, “Jockey Brothers” (May 29, 1952) ***WD
03:11:11.673 = Nick Carter, “Legend of Shakespeare’s Ghost” (December 30, 1945)
03:40:48.518 = Box 13, “Hare And Hounds” (February 27, 1949)
04:08:16.744 = Calling All Cars, “The Spinoza Case” (March 28, 1934) ***WD
04:36:40.006 = Casey Crime Photographer, “Twenty Minute Alibi” (February 20, 1947)
05:06:08.757 = Show Close

(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.
CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0776

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

The staff of Thelma Todd's old café on the Pacific Coast Highway still see a blonde woman near the steps to the garage, which is the last place anyone saw the actress alive in December of 1935.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/ThelmaTodd

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/jmumccrt

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: She was sexy, she was flirtatious… then she was dead. Who killed actress Thelma Todd, and why does her ghost still linger in Hollywood? (Death Of The Ice Cream Blonde) *** A woman has been haunted by a dark, cloaked and hooded entity for the past eighteen years. And it’s real – because her husband has seen it too. (Followed By A Hooded Entity) *** Gary Heidnik didn't just kidnap, torture, and murder women in the basement of his house of horrors — he got one of his victims to help. (Gary Heidnik: The Inspiration for Buffalo Bill)

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:01:08.935 = Show Open
00:02:30.791 = Death Of The Ice Cream Blonde
00:31:17.830 = Followed By A Hooded Entity ***
00:35:54.210 = Gary Heidnik: The Inspiration For Buffalo Bill
00:46:42.618 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break




LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“Death Of The Ice Cream Blonde” by Troy Taylor: http://bit.ly/2XkqRZA
“Followed By A Hooded Entity” by Chaos 92 at YourGhostStories.com: http://bit.ly/2UIJcme
“Gary Heidnik: The Inspiration for Buffalo Bill” by Mark Oliver for All That’s Interesting: http://bit.ly/2UIO2Qw
(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: June 2021
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

The overnight crew at a small farm-town TV station spent two hours broadcasting a late-night talk show that nobody in their world had made.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-alternateprogramming

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “Alternate Programming” by Keith Conrad (Auditory Anthology, April 2025), https://www.auditoryanthology.com

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 16, 2026

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

A young engineer brings his pregnant wife home to the Philippine mountains, where his grandmother insists the only thing that will quiet his beheaded grandfather's ghost is the head of his wife's grandfather.

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Head Hunters” (September 27, 1978) ***WD
00:45:52.459 = The Saint, “Unhappy Homicide” (November 06, 1949) ***WD
01:09:54.844 = Theater 1030, “Trespassers Will Be Experimented Upon” (1968-1971) ***WD
01:38:42.359 = 2000 Plus, “Flying Saucers” (August 23, 1950) ***WD
02:07:49.317 = The Unexpected, “Solid Citizen” (1947-1948)
02:23:16.951 = Unsolved Mysteries, “Lizzie Borden Case” (1936) ***WD
02:37:06.346 = Dark Venture, “The Man In 206” (December 02, 1946) ***WD
03:06:26.739 = The Weird Circle, “Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym” (1943) ***WD
03:34:00.029 = The Whistler, “Escape to Danger” (May 28, 1945)
04:04:39.189 = Strange Wills, “Autograph Girl” (October 19, 1946)
04:35:23.151 = Witch’s Tale, “Mannequin” (September 11, 1933) ***WD
05:00:00.000 = Show Close

(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.
CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0775

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

Get the full story in my book, "Two Lost Hours: The Betty And Barney Hill UFO Abduction, 65 Years Later" at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HJY8N8CT

Sixty-five years ago this week, a Portsmouth couple drove home through the White Mountains and arrived hours later than they’d planned; the story of what happened in that gap became the template for the modern alien abduction narrative, and the psychiatrist who drew it out of them believed half of it.

LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: 
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: September 15, 2026
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

On the week of the sixty-fifth anniversary of the Betty and Barney Hill UFO incident, Weird Darkness retraces the September 19th to 20th, 1961 drive through New Hampshire's White Mountains that became America's first widely reported alien abduction account, from the light over Route 3 to the Project Blue Book file, the hypnosis tapes in Dr. Benjamin Simon's Boston office, the Zeta Reticuli star map, and the sixty-five-year fight over what any of it means.It opens at 10:05 PM in a Colebrook restaurant, as Betty and Barney Hill of Portsmouth start the last leg home from Montreal in a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air with their dachshund Delsey in the back seat. South of Lancaster, Betty spots a light below the moon that keeps pace with the car past Cannon Mountain and Franconia Notch, and two miles north of North Woodstock it comes down over the highway; Barney walks into a field with 7x50 binoculars and sees figures in shiny black uniforms watching him from a row of windows before he runs back to the car shouting that they're going to be captured. Two sets of beeps from the trunk bracket a thirty-five-mile stretch of road neither of them can remember, and the kitchen clock reads after five when they get home, two hours later than the drive should have taken.From there the episode follows the paper trail: Barney's scuffed shoes, a dozen shiny circles on the trunk lid that send a compass needle spinning, a torn dress dusted with pink powder, and Betty's September 21st call to Pease Air Force Base that produced Air Force Information Report 100-1-61, a document that never mentions the figures Barney saw. Hayden Planetarium lecturer Walter Webb interviews the couple for six hours for NICAP, two IBM men work out the missing two hours in November, and Betty begins five nights of dreams about small men with Jimmy Durante noses who examine her aboard a craft. Barney's health collapses into ulcers, hypertension, and a ring of growths on his groin, and in December 1963 the couple lands in the Back Bay office of Dr. Benjamin Simon, a Second World War Army psychiatrist who hypnotizes them separately over the following months while a tape recorder runs. Barney describes wraparound eyes that pushed into his brain and a cup placed over his groin; Betty describes a needle in her navel, a book of symbols, and a map of stars, which an Ohio schoolteacher named Marjorie Fish will later spend five years matching to Zeta Reticuli with beads and thread, until the Hipparcos satellite's measurements pull six of her fifteen stars out from under it.The episode closes with the case's long tail: folklorist Thomas Bullard's finding that the Hill account defines the typical abduction and that every later case is measured against it, the Boston Traveler leak of October 1965, John Fuller's bestseller The Interrupted Journey, the 1975 NBC film with James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons that aired sixteen days before Travis Walton vanished in Arizona, Barney's death from a cerebral hemorrhage at forty-six, and Betty's decades of skywatching in New Hampshire fields with a life-size alien bust named Junior in her house. Simon told the Today Show in 1975 that the abduction did not happen; Kathleen Marden, Betty's niece and the keeper of the hypnosis tapes, disputes one of his letters as a forgery; Martin Kottmeyer traces Barney's wraparound eyes to an Outer Limits episode that aired twelve days before his first session; and the dress, tested by chemist Phyllis Budinger, yields mildew and a protein residue nobody has explained. The Portsmouth Historical Society's betty & barney exhibition runs through November 2nd, 2026, two feature films are in development with Demi Moore and Colman Domingo attached to one of them, and the state's Historical Marker 224 on Route 3 in Lincoln still confines itself to what can be documented, and no third witness has ever come forward.

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

Test pilot Steve Weston chased something impossible at the edge of Earth's atmosphere and returned ten hours later – yet only with enough fuel for ten minute flight. He returns, convinced he has an urgent warning to save Earth. Is it delusion from his time in space – or something we must all pay attention to in order to preserve humanity? 

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-outerlimit

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “The Outer Limit” by Graham Doar (“The Saturday Evening Post” December 1949 / X Minus One)

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 15, 2026

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

A physicist who has spent five years and twenty million dollars chasing one missing equation leaves his attaché case in a highway diner, where the seventeen-year-old at the cash register reads the twelve pages inside and understands every line.

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Conversion Factor” (September 22, 1978) ***WD
00:45:12.953 = Radio City Playhouse, “Reflection” (January 01, 1950) ***WD
01:14:57.212 = Mercer McLeod’s The Man With The Story, “Blood On The Doorstep” (1946-1947)
01:29:08.386 = Sam Spade, “Missing News Hawk Caper” (July 18, 1948) ***WD
01:59:52.584 = The Sealed Book, “Broadway Here I Come” (June 17, 1945) ***WD
02:29:21.088 = The Shadow, “The Drums of Doom” (March 19, 1944) ***WD
03:00:16.061 = Sleep No More, “Conquerors Isle” (November 21, 1956) ***WD
03:28:50.328 = BBC Radio 4 Spinechillers, “The Boy Who Cried Woof” (December 24, 1984)
03:43:36.519 = The Strange Dr. Weird, “Devil’s Cavern” (April 03, 1945) ***WD(LQ)
03:55:30.259 = Strange, “Deja Vu in France” (1955)
04:10:23.699 = Suspense, “Dark Tower” (May 04, 1944)
04:39:06.093 = The Creaking Door, “Vagrant” (April 29, 1965) **WD
05:08:21.600 = Show Close

(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.
CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0774

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

Philadelphia homicide detectives are working through 50 hard drives pulled from a boarded-up house in Olney where a violent pornographer lived for two decades, and among the 70,000 videos is one they believe shows him strangling a woman to death – while five women tied to the address remain missing and not a single body has been found.

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/horschhouse20260911/

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736


*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.