Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Five months after Nancy Guthrie vanished from her Tucson home, the FBI now believes none of the ransom notes tied to her disappearance are genuine — including the two her family thought were real.

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/guthrie20260701

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.

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

A search of a Budapest apartment turned up skulls, a severed hand, a lower leg, and a heart in a jar — and the hospital orderly who lived there told police he had prepared and eaten human body parts.

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

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.

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

A man who met a woman through online video gaming flew from Canada to Salinas, hid a set of knives and restraints inside a fake Amazon box, and knocked on her door just before ten at night.

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/salinas-amazon-attack

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.

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

A tough-talking builder tells his psychiatrist that a man he's never met keeps killing him in his dreams — and then she starts having the same dream.

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, “You Tell Me Your Dreams” (March 02, 1978)
00:46:35.785 = 2000 Plus, “Alone” (January 15, 1950)
01:17:02.267 = The Unexpected, “Handle With Care” (November 19, 1948)
01:29:00.817 = Unsolved Mysteries, “Toll Bridge” (1936) ***WD
01:43:27.147 = Dark Venture, “Coverup” (February 24, 1947)
02:13:12.987 = The Weird Circle, “Red Hand” (May 06, 1945)
02:40:35.083 = The Whistler, “Death Marks The Double Cross” (March 12, 1945)
03:04:49.517 = Strange Wills, “Emeralds Come High” (August 24, 1946) ***WD
03:34:32.610 = Witch’s Tale, “Rats In a Trap” (May 16, 1932)
03:57:52.622 = X Minus One, “Reluctant Heroes” (December 19, 1956)
04:26:25.428 = Zero Hour, “White Flame Burning Bright” (May 20, 1974) ***WD
04:43:23.629 = ABC Mystery Time, “Four Time Loser” (1957) ***WD
05:07:22.865 = 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/WDRR0702

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

A roadside stop near Independence Mall led Philadelphia police and the FBI into an Olney basement stacked with chemicals, a 55-gallon drum plumbed into the ground, and an unsigned letter that name-checks Ted Bundy — inside a house tied to two women who vanished years apart.

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

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.

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

When the supernatural seeps into our world, it doesn’t just leave behind fear—it can also leave sickness. From shadowy visitors to ominous dreams, some eerie paranormal encounters suggest that the price of witnessing the unknown may be paid in flesh and blood.

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

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/hp3ua63c

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: When the supernatural intrudes into our lives, it's not just our minds that are affected. We’ll delve into a few bizarre cases where individuals fell gravely ill after brushes with the paranormal. Is it coincidence? Or something more sinister? And could these illnesses be due to the paranormal literally draining us of life? (Supernaturally Sick, Paranormally Poisoned) *** Helen Duncan made a living from conducting séances—until her uncanny knowledge of classified World War II tragedies spooked British authorities. (Britain’s Last Witch) *** Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher whose ideas about mortality and utility extended beyond death. Bentham's wish for his body to be preserved and displayed as an "auto-icon" – so it could be seen publicly by all. And while his wishes were granted, it came with a few hiccups along the way… mostly with his poor head. (The Strange Story of Mr. Bentham’s Corpse) *** Annie Dorman was discovered lifeless with a gunshot wound, sending shockwaves through her tight-knit community. Suicide seemed improbable, leaving detectives baffled and family perplexed. Was it a crime of passion, an accident, murder… or truly suicide? In a similar case, just a few years later, in the serene countryside of Greenwich, New York, the lifeless form of Maggie Hourigan is found, floating in a tranquil pool, speculation runs rampant. Were these cases suicide, as hastily concluded, horrible accidents… or sinister murders? (The Mysterious Deaths of Annie Dorman and Maggie Hourigan) *** AND MORE!

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:02:11.442 = Show Open
00:04:40.830 = Supernaturally Sick, Paranormally Poisoned
00:21:39.741 = The Mysterious Deaths of Annie Dorman and Maggie Hourigan ***
00:34:55.265 = Britain’s Last Witch ***
00:43:19.651 = The Strange Story of Mr. Bentham’s Corpse
00:54:21.727 = Eccentric Habits of History’s Elite ***
01:04:25.454 = 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:
“Supernaturally Sick, Paranormally Poisoned” by Nick Redfern for Mysterious Universe:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/6bu93dju
“The Mysterious Deaths of Annie Dorman and Maggie Hourigan” by Robert Wilhelm for Murder By Gaslight:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/meu37k4m; https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4y9mn9a4
“The Strange Story of Mr. Bentham’s Corpse” by Melissa Sartore for Weird History: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yt6uetju
“Britain’s Last Witch” by Parissa Djangi for National Geographic: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8by87t
“Eccentric Habits of History’s Elite” by John Munoz for ListVerse: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/bdh2dw3x
(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: April 17, 2024

Weird Darkness gathers five accounts in this episode: people who fell gravely ill within days of a paranormal encounter, two unsolved deaths of young women in the late nineteenth century, a wartime medium jailed for witchcraft, a philosopher who arranged to have his own corpse put on permanent display, and the private oddities of history's most famous figures.It opens with the argument that anemia and anorexia-like wasting can follow a paranormal encounter within hours or days. The Franciscan monk Joseph McCabe, who died in 1955, catalogued dozens of people who developed anemia soon after nighttime visits he blamed on the Mesopotamian demons Lilu and Lilitu. Albert Bender, the Bridgeport, Connecticut man who launched the Men in Black mystery in the early 1950s, endured migraines, stomach pain, memory lapses, and sharp weight loss after three phantom figures ordered him to drop his UFO research, then recovered, married, and lived to 94. In 1982, a fourteen-year-old named Robbie watched a flat black shadow crawl across his bedroom ceiling in Beckenham, Kent, was hospitalized with meningitis, and months later collapsed from acute anemia. Jim Harpur opened his door to two black-eyed children outside Orlando, Florida in March 2008 and was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes three weeks afterward. In Nova Scotia, Michelle came down with severe ulcerative colitis two days after a vivid Slenderman dream in January 2017. The longest case belongs to Alison, a seventeen-year-old in Texas who shed roughly twenty pounds in six weeks in 1998 while a tall, pale Woman in Black appeared at her bedside each night, starting days after she and two friends used a Ouija board; sea salt and sage spread through the house ended the visits, and she recovered.From there, the episode turns to two deaths that juries could not explain. Maggie Hourigan, a 19-year-old servant in Greenwich, New York, was found floating face-down in a roadside pool on October 20, 1889; a first autopsy by Dr. S. Walter Scott ruled drowning and suicide, but a second team found a head wound inflicted before she entered the water, and Dr. Scott later sued the New York Sun for libel over its coverage and won a $6,000 settlement. Eight years later and a state away, 18-year-old Annie Dorman was found shot dead in her half-brother John Dorman's farmhouse near Cobb's Creek, Philadelphia, on September 1, 1897; the rusty pistol that killed her sat unused on a high shelf the five-foot-tall victim could not reach without standing on furniture that had not been moved, it had been fired five times, and the coroner ruled she was shot by a person unknown.Next comes Helen Duncan, the Scottish medium nicknamed Hellish Nell, who produced ectoplasm and channeled spirit guides named Peggy and Albert at séances across wartime Britain. In May 1941 she announced the loss of the H.M.S. Hood before the public knew, and that November she described the sinking of the H.M.S. Barham, which the government withheld until January 1942. Authorities arrested her at a Portsmouth sitting and tried her at London's Old Bailey beginning March 23, 1944 under the 1735 Witchcraft Act; a jury convicted her on April 3, and she became the last person imprisoned under that law, serving her sentence at Holloway Prison while Winston Churchill dismissed the case as obsolete tomfoolery.After that, the episode examines Jeremy Bentham, the English philosopher born in 1748 who asked that his body be dissected, preserved, and displayed as what he called an auto-icon. Dr. Thomas Southwood Smith carried out the dissection three days after Bentham died on June 6, 1832, but his attempt to preserve the head with sulfuric acid and an air pump left it leathery and discolored, so a wax replacement by the French artist Jacques Talrich was fitted to the seated skeleton. The figure went on display at University College London, where students stole the real, shriveled head in 1975 and returned it after the university paid £10 against their £100 charity demand; the head later served as a soccer ball before being moved to a climate-controlled storeroom in 2002.The episode closes with ten eccentric routines of the wealthy and famous. Howard Hughes wore tissue boxes over his feet and wrote a manual instructing employees how to prepare and serve a can of peaches; Nikola Tesla fed pigeons in New York parks and called one white pigeon his muse; Salvador Dalí napped in a chair holding a key over a metal plate so its clatter would wake him; Marlon Brando dropped ice into hot coffee to drink it at once; Queen Elizabeth I whitened her skin with a mix of white lead and vinegar; Andy Warhol ate McDonald's nearly every day for two decades; Benjamin Franklin sat naked by open windows for what he called air baths; Michael Jackson traveled with a pet elephant named Gypsy on his Bad tour; Charles Dickens walked miles through London at night to feed his writing; and Albert Einstein gave up socks because his shoes already covered his feet.

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

A gigantic cigar-shaped craft shadowed a NATO airliner over the Atlantic in 1963, the same year similar motherships appeared over Australia, Canada, and the skies of a Britain overrun by headless creatures and desecrated churches.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/1963DarkForces

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p87kmst

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: A “gigantic cigar-shaped UFO” is spotted over the Atlantic in 1963, but the witness is so terrified by her experiences that it takes her twenty years to come forward to tell her story. And in that same year, elsewhere in the United Kingdom, people were dealing with dark, paranormal, even satanic forces - with numerous events that still remain unexplained.

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:01:18.783 = Show Open
00:02:35.157 = The 1963 Atlantic UFO – Part 1
00:16:32.034 = The 1963 Atlantic UFO – Part 2 ***
00:32:15.933 = 1963: Dark Paranormal Forces Invade The UK – Part 1 ***
00:50:26.206 = 1963: Dark Paranormal Forces Invade The UK – Part 2 ***
00:56:44.362 = 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:
“The 1963 Atlantic UFO Encounter” by Marcus Lowth for UFO Insight: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/z2j2zp88
“Dark Paranormal Forces Invade The United Kingdom” by Marcus Lowth for UFO Insight: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p93a79s
(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: January 05, 2022


This episode of Weird Darkness opens over the north Atlantic in May 1963, where a NATO English-language secretary based in Paris, flying on a near-empty DC-8 carrying fifty staff from Orly Airport to ministerial meetings in Ottawa, looked from her window and saw a dark grey, torpedo-shaped object six to seven thousand feet below the plane — its rear cut off sharply and squarely, with no wings, windows, or visible propulsion — before it vanished into cloud and the aircraft dropped into violent turbulence. Terrified and certain no one else aboard had noticed, she said nothing for almost twenty years, until a 1980 letter to Flying Saucer Review brought the account to light and the magazine published it the following year. The segment threads her sighting into a longer record of cigar-shaped craft: Melvin Vagle Jr. and his wife spotting a windowed object hovering over a plowed field near Grafton, Nebraska on November 22, 1961; Miss Footner tracking a silver, hundred-foot craft over Saanich Mountain near Victoria, British Columbia in early 1960; Reverend Lionel Browning and his wife photographing a grey mothership over Cressy, Tasmania on October 4, 1960 as smaller discs darted out of the clouds and explosions later shook nearby houses; RCMP Constable James Blackwood watching a cigar-shaped object near Clarenville, Newfoundland on November 26, 1978 mirror his patrol car's flashing lights for nearly two hours; a couple camping at Hexham, New South Wales in late December 1984 seeing discs swarm a lit craft that seemed to carry a helmeted figure; and an anonymous Swedish driver on Route 55 near Orsundsbro in June 1985 stepping out of her car to study a windowed craft she first mistook for a police helicopter.From there the episode crosses to England, where the night of November 16, 1963 brought four teenagers walking home from a dance past Sandling Park near Hythe, Kent face to face with a human-sized, headless creature with wings on its back; seventeen-year-old John Flaxton and eighteen-year-old Mervyn Hutchinson had first watched a bright gold oval descend behind the trees, and Flaxton felt a sudden, unexplained cold as the thing came at them through the woodland. The same evening in Saltwood, Tony Harrison and three companions saw a glowing oval and a figure in a scarlet cloak holding a flickering lantern, and within days John McGoldrick discovered three giant footprints, each roughly two feet long, near the spot where Keith Croucher had reported an identical object over a football field. The story then opens out into a year-long British wave: a flying saucer interfering with a woman's car headlights near Bluebell Hill in Kent; two men setting up a tripod that fired colored lights into the sky over the Britannia Barracks in Norwich; a market researcher named Joelle in Castleton encountering men who claimed to be extraterrestrials with bases on two of Jupiter's moons; and a dome-shaped craft that reportedly landed at RAF Cosford on December 10, washing the base in green light before vanishing. Stranger creatures shared the year — the Surrey Puma and other big cats stalking Shooter's Hill in London from July 18, a half-man, half-horse centaur seen in Sefton Park by witnesses including a police officer, a bulldog-headed monster rising beside two fishermen on Loch Ness, and a dinosaur-like animal that scattered seals along Cardigan Bay and left a half-eaten carcass behind. The episode closes on a darker thread of occult activity: two children found playing with a human skull taken from the ruined St. Mary's Church at Clophill in Bedfordshire, where Maltese crosses, cockerel feathers, and six tampered women's graves were uncovered; six decapitated horse heads and a cow, their jaws wrenched apart, discovered in Bluebell Woods at Caddington; clay effigies pierced with thorns and a sheep's head studded with thirteen thorns nailed up at Castle Rising in Norfolk; and a group of self-styled Devil worshippers interrupted mid-ritual at an active church in Westham, Sussex on December 7 — all set against a 1963 that began with one of the worst winters on record, claimed Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell and the poet Sylvia Plath, saw Ian Brady and Myra Hindley begin the Moors murders, and ended weeks after the assassination of President Kennedy.

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

Short-staffed and well past midnight, a young nurse accepts an overnight shift in the one hospital room everyone else refuses to enter — and she experiences something unlike she has before.

IN THIS EPISODE: “Silent Ward” by Keith Conrad

MORE Stories Like This: https://www.auditoryanthology.com

Originally aired: June 29, 2026

EPISODE PAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/SilentWard

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

I was hacked last night and EVERYTHING I used Gmail for (which is a heckuva lot), I've been locked out of. I am receiving NO emails from anywhere, I can't get into YouTube, I can't recover my account in a timely manner because the hacker has changed the login information, the password, and even the recovery phone number. I was finally able to use a different email address to try and recover, but now I have to wait 48 hours for Google to determine if I'm even who I say I am. I will probably be out of commission for a couple of days at least.

Decades of alien encounters may not point to other worlds at all, but to a ruined future Earth — where the last survivors of humanity travel back to our present, disguised as the aliens we expect, to harvest the DNA that might save their dying species.
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HOUR ONE: A Virginia pilot encounters a mysterious golden orb during a skydive flight! *** For those who claim to have spoken with extraterrestrials, they are told the aliens arrive here from other worlds. But what if the so-called aliens aren’t really aliens at all – what if they are humans, visiting from the future? We begin with that story! (Aliens: Us From a Future Time?) *** Horror and Sci-Fi author and Weird Darkness fan J.D. Buffington doesn’t believe in such things as ghosts. If Houdini couldn't reach his wife from the other side, then certainly no one else could, either, right? But that being said, J.D. has had some weird stuff take place in his life. (My Many Ghostly Encounters) *** Soon after moving into a sprawling Denver mansion, Russell Hunter sensed he wasn't alone. I’ll share true events that inspired the film, “The Changeling”. (The Real Life Haunting That Inspired “The Changeling”)
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HOUR TWO: Colorado’s best urban legends! *** A pitch black room at an inn, yields to a strange glow. (Comfort At The Comet Inn) *** Each year, hundreds of people simply disappear from parks and forests. What happened to them – and where are they? (People Are Vanishing Into Thin Air In Our National Parks) *** A series of unexplained incidents took place in the early 19th century at the Chase Vault, in the cemetery of the Christ Church in Oistins, Barbados. Each time the vault was opened to bury a family member, all coffins but one had changed position. (The Chase Vault)
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SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME: Known as California's Freeway Killer, William Bonin used a Ford van to lure in teenage hitchhikers to rape and ruthlessly murder. (California’s Freeway Prowler) *** A couple is haunted by a slain rooster! (Cock-a-Doodle BOO!)
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SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM TONIGHT’S SHOW:
“Virginia Pilot Encounters Mysterious Golden Orb During Skydive Flight” by Brandon Grimes for Paranormality Magazine: https://paranormalitymag.com/?ref=5714
“Aliens: Us From a Future Time?” by Nick Redfern for Mysterious Universe: http://bit.ly/2JptCDF
“My Many Ghostly Encounters” by J.D. Buffington from his Circus Sized blog: http://bit.ly/2YvapqF
“The Real Life Events That Inspired ‘The Changeling’” by Orrin Grey for The Line Up: http://bit.ly/2xwnMLa
“The Forgotten Epidemic” by Troy Taylor: http://bit.ly/2RUIA8M
“Comfort At The Comet Inn” by Jubelee from YourGhostStories.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/93sauh8b
“California’s Freeway Prowler” by Giselle Ruiz from All That’s Interesting: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3hrvrs8z
“The Chase Vault” from Ghost-Story.co.uk: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2dzwvsjk
“Cock-a-Doodle BOO!” by James McGuinness: (link no longer available)
“People Are Vanishing Into Thin Air In Our National Parks” by an unknown author: (link no longer available)
“Colorado’s Best Urban Legends” from Paranormality Magazine: https://paranormalitymag.com/?ref=5714
==========
(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for material I use whenever possible. If I have overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it immediately. Some links may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)
==========
"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46
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WeirdDarkness®, WeirdDarkness© 2026
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More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.