 Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Welcome Weirdos, I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. If you're new here, welcome to the show, and if you're listening to the podcast or on YouTube, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. If you're already a Weirdo, please, take a moment and invite somebody else to listen too. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show, and while listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com where you can find all of my social media or drop me an email. Coming up in this episode. In 1947, Major Jesse Marcell was sent to a crash site near Roswell, New Mexico to investigate what happened. We all know the story from there, the strange metal, or not, the alien bodies, or not, the confiscated extraterrestrial technology, or not. The weather balloon story we initially believed and then didn't believe. Now, more than seven decades later, Jesse Marcell's grandchildren are speaking up about their knowledge of what happened at Roswell. If you look up the term water babies on the net, you might find something akin to swim classes for newborns and toddlers. But if you mention the term water babies near Pyramid Lake in Nevada, a much, much darker scene comes to mind. According to the Bible, no man knows the day that Christ will return, but that didn't stop William Miller from predicting anyway. Not once, but three times. And he was wrong. Three times. But first, the Chem Trail conspiracy theory posits the belief that long-lasting condensation trails, also known as con trails, are in fact Chem trails, consisting of chemical or biological agents purposefully left in the sky by high-flying aircraft, sprayed for nefarious purposes and undisclosed to the general public. The scientific community has dismissed the theory, but others insist the truth is simply being covered up. Who's telling the truth? What is the truth? We'll look at the controversy over con trails. We begin there. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. It was around noon on March 12, 2000 when ST. Brent, the late-night reporter for WMWV Radio, entered the kitchen of her country home in Parson Field, Maine. Her partner, Lou Auberchant, was puzzling over what he had seen in the sky half-hour before. The fat, puffy plumes arching up over the horizon were unlike any aircraft condensation trails he'd ever seen. Instead of dissipating like normal con trails, these intersecting sky trails grew wider and began to merge. Looking towards the sun, Auberchant saw what appeared like an oil and water mixture reflecting a prismatic band of colors. Ordinarily, con trails flare briefly in the stratosphere as hot moist engine exhaust flash freezes into a stream of ice crystals. These pencil-thin condensation trails are short-lived, evaporating into invisibility as exhaust gases cool quickly to the surrounding air temperature. As National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA meteorologist Thomas Schlatter explains, the formation of condensation trails requires temperatures lower than about minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity of 70 percent or more. Because the Federal Aviation Authority requires military tankers and transporters to cross continental airspace at altitudes below 30,000 feet, ensuring safe separation from airliners flying between 35,000 and 39,000 feet, these military flights should leave no con trails at all. But in late 1997, Auberchant began to notice thicker trails extending from horizon to horizon. Hanging in the sky, these expanding white ribbons would invariably be interwoven by more thick lines left by unmarked Air Force jets white or silver in color. As Brent glanced out the window, it looked like another gorgeous, cloudless day. But not quite. She spotted two jets laying billowing white banners to the north. Turning her gaze due west, Brent saw two more lines extending over the horizon. She called Lou. Within 45 minutes, the couple counted 30 jets. This isn't right, Brent thought. We just don't have that kind of air traffic here. While Auberchant kept counting, Brent started calling airports. Alerted by a call from Brent, Richard Dean, WMWV's Assistant News Director and the WMWV filed outside and counted 370 lines of persistent contrails in skies usually devoid of aerial activity. Brent found a number of air traffic controllers. They all stated that nothing unusual was going on. After several calls, Brent reached one ATC manager who offered a different story. He told Brent that his radars showed 9 commercial jets during the same 45 minute span. From her location, he said, she should have been able to see only one plane. What about the other 29? Brent inquired. The ATC official confided, off the record, that he had been ordered by higher civil authority to reroute inbound European airliners away from an airborne military exercise in the area. They wouldn't give me any of the particulars and I don't ask, he explained. The controller, who insisted on being identified only as Deep Sky, subsequently repeated his statements on tape before witnesses at the WMWV studio. On December 8, 2000, Terry Stewart, the manager for Planning and Environment at the Victoria International Airport, responded to a caller's complaint about the strange patterns of circles and grids being woven over the British Columbia Capitol. Stewart left a message on an answering machine tape, a message that later was heard by more than 15 million radio listeners. Stewart explained, it's a military exercise, a US and Canadian Air Force exercise that's going on. They wouldn't give me any specifics on it. Canadian forces base CFB Comox on Vancouver Island is Canada's biggest radar installation. CFB Comox is easily capable of tracking the US formations coming up from the south. When asked for a response to Stewart's statement, the base information officer at CFB Comox replied tersely that no military operation is taking place. Stewart later told the Vancouver Courier that his information had come directly from Comox. By the summer of 2001, pictures of contrails were being circulated by the Associated Press and the word Chemtrails could be overheard in coffee shop conversations across the continent. In an April 20, 2001 letter to a US Senator, Colonel Walter Washbaugh, chief of the Congressional Inquiry Division for the Secretary of the Air Force in Washington, called Chemtrails a hoax. Washbaugh blamed the increased number of contrails on significant civil aviation growth in the past decade. He is right on that score. A National Science Foundation study has found that in certain heavily trafficked corridors, artificial cloud cover has increased by as much as 20 percent. Colonel Washbaugh ascribed widely reported grid patterns to overlapping aircraft flying north-south east-west airways. The only thing wrong with his explanation, a Texas air traffic controller told me, is that US airways do not run north-south. The Colonel told the Senator, the Air Force is not conducting any weather modification and has no plans to do so in the future. In fact, the Pentagon has long been interested in using weather as a weapon of war. Attempts to steer hurricanes by spraying heat-robbing chemicals in their paths date from the 1950s. The recipe for creating Cirrus Shields was outlined in a 1996 US Air Force study subtitled, Owning the Weather by 2025. The report explained how weather force specialists were dispersing chemicals behind high-flying tanker aircraft in a process called aerial obscuration. Official denials reached new altitudes of absurdity when another Colonel claimed the US Air Force, USAF, does not conduct spraying operations over populated areas. Apparently, the Colonel had forgotten how USAF air tankers dispense thousands of tons of Agent Orange defoliants over the land and people of Vietnam. Meanwhile, the Internet was abuzz with chemtrail conspiracy theories ranging from aliens leaving messages in the sky to government agencies dumping mind-control chemicals on an unsuspecting populace. The only problem was none of the theories were plausible. In 1994, the Hughes Aerospace Company was issued a remarkable patent. The Wellesbach patent for Reduction of Global Warming proposed countering global warming by dispensing microscopic particles of aluminum oxide and other reflective materials into the upper atmosphere. This sky shield would reflect one or two percent of the incoming sunlight. The patent suggested that tiny metal flakes could be added to the fuel of jet airliners so that the particles would be emitted from the jet engine exhaust while the airliner was at its cruising altitude. Computer simulations by Ken Caldera at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL, calculated that employing Wellesbach's chemical sunscreen technology could stop warming over 85% of the planet, despite an anticipated doubling of atmospheric carbon within the next 50 years. LLNL estimated the cost of creating this so-called sky shield at a billion dollars a year, a cheap fix to avoiding threatening the massive profits of the oil industry. At the 1998 International Seminar on Planetary Emergencies, Edward Teller, the father of the H-bomb, presented his next big idea. Teller called for spreading reflective chemicals over the earth to act like a mirror shade. If it was possible to protect the entire planet, these chemical sky shields could at least be extended to cover allies who secretly agreed to allow this unprecedented geo-engineering experiment to be carried out over their territory. In the July-August 1998 Science and Technology Review, Teller argued that the sky shield offered a more realistic option for addressing global warming than drastic cutbacks in CO2 emissions. When asked if the technology was being pursued, Teller replied, To my knowledge, the answer is negative. My recommendation was a tentative one, depending on further evidence whether expecting global warming is realistic. In fact, the technology already exists. In 1975, the U.S. Navy patented a device for producing a powder contrail having maximum radiation scattering ability. The powder contained a mixture of .3 micron-sized titanium dioxide pigment particles coated with .007 micron hydrophobic colloidal silica and 4.5 micron particles of silica gel. The purpose of the apparatus was to generate contrails or reflective screens for any desired purpose. The Wellsbach patent proposed using very fine talcum-like powder of 10-100 micron-sized aluminum oxide to produce pure white plume in the sky. In a May 2000 draft report submitted to the International Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, an expert panel chosen from among 3,000 atmospheric scientists, concluded the Teller's scheme might work. But the IPCC warned against unpredictable upsets of the atmosphere. The panel also warned against angry populace's reacting to the associated whitening of the visual appearance of the sky. Caldera was so concerned that he went public. Deflecting sunlight would further cool the stratosphere, he warned, and this could intensify icy clouds of ozone-gobbling CFCs that could destroy the ozone layer, the Earth's already damaged solar radiation shield. Was Teller's sky shield experiment already underway? During his interview with WMWV reporters, DeepSky hinted that it was, where the tankers observed on ATC radars involved in climate modification. Our FAA source hesitated before responding and then said, that approximates what I was told. Similar military activities were ongoing in other regions, he stated. The internet buzzes with conspiracy theories about chemtrails being used as part of a secret government biological experiment. But after years of intense investigation, no undeniable proof that chemtrails constitute a deliberate biological attack has been found. To be effective, bio attacks must be conducted close to the ground and never in daylight in order to avoid ultraviolet sterilization of toxins. In the spring of 1998, rain falling through heavy chemtrails over Espanola, Ontario was found to contain concentrations of aluminum particles seven times higher than permitted by Canadian health safety laws. Provincial health officials ordered tests after residents began complaining about severe headaches, chronic joint pain, dizziness, sudden extreme fatigue, acute asthma attacks and feverless flu-like symptoms. The results of the tests were not released. The reports of illness all came from residents inside a 50-square-mile area who complained that they had been subjected to months of spraying by photo-identified U.S. Air Force tanker planes. The USAF denied the intrusions. On November 18, 1998, Canadian opposition party defense critic Gordon Earl petitioned parliament on behalf of the people of Espanola. Speaking on behalf of Canada's new Democratic Party, Earl stated, over 500 residents of the Espanola area have signed a petition raising concern over possible government involvement in what appears to be aircraft emitting visible aerosols. They have found high traces of aluminum and quartz in particulate and rainwater samples. These concerns combined with associated respiratory ailments have led these Canadians to take action and seek clear answers from this government. The petitioners called upon parliament to repeal any law that would permit the dispersal of military chaff or of any cloud-seeding substance whatsoever by domestic or foreign military aircraft without the informed consent of the citizens of Canada thus affected. The Harvard School of Public Health team determined that particulates with a diameter less than 10 microns, one tenth the thickness of a human hair, pose a serious threat to public health. On April 21, 2001, The New York Times warned, these microscopic motes are able to infiltrate the tiniest compartments in the lungs and pass readily into the bloodstream and have been most strongly tied to illness and early death, particularly in people who are already susceptible to respiratory problems. On December 14, 2000, The New England Journal of Medicine reported that inhaling particulate matter of a size 10 microns or smaller leads to a 5% increased death rate within 24 hours. Teller's sunscreen calls for spraying 10 million tons of talcum fine reflective particles of 10 to 100 micron sizes. On October 2, 2001, Representative Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, introduced the Space Preservation Act of 2001, H.R. 2977. It called for the elimination of exotic weaponry from space. Among the weapons to be banned were weather-modifying weapons such as HARP, high-frequency active auroral research program, and Chemtrails. Though H.R. 3616 was later amended to remove the section that would have banned Chemtrails, the original bill acknowledging the existence of Chemtrail technology remains on the pages of the Congressional Record. Sightings of oddly lingering plumes sometimes resembling rocket trails are not confined to North America skies. While on leave in Italy in the summer of 1999, the U.S. Navy's Kitty Chastain sat on her hotel balcony and watched aerial grids being laid all day just offshore over the Bay of Naples. In Spain, on April 27, 2000, American tourist John Hendricks dashed off a quick email from El Café de Internet. Were we surprised to see that the Chemtrails are as bad here as they are anywhere, both in Mallorca and in Barcelona? Add Sweden to the list, a Swedish resident wrote after spotting 8-10 parallel contrails. I know the commercial routes and we have a bunch of them, but not where these trails were. Chemtrail activity has been reported in at least 14 Allied nations, including Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Scotland, Sweden and the United States. According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, the only way to form artificial clouds in warm, dry air is to introduce enough particulates into the atmosphere to attract and accrete all available moisture into visible vapor. If repeated often enough, the resulting rainless haze can lead to drought. Patrick Minnis, an atmospheric researcher with California Environmental Resources Evaluation System, CERES and Ardent Chemtrails Critic at NASA's Langley Research Center, reports that CERES cloud cover over the U.S. is up 5% overall because particulates in engine exhaust are acting as cloud-forming nuclei. As the number of flights currently exceeds 15 million annually worldwide, artificial clouds will intensify as air travel continues to climb. George Barnes, a film producer about chemtrails, told Mystery Wire in 2015, he does not blame chemtrails on anyone in particular, and thinks different groups are doing it for various reasons. There was no evidence of these grid-type patterns in the sky prior to about 2006, he says. I don't know what happened, but after 2006 we started seeing it more and more frequently. The conclusion is, because it's unregulated, anybody could do it, Barnes told Mystery Wire, so anybody that's interested in experimenting with climate engineering, weather modification, has the right and the authority to test it. Contrails have been around since the dawn of aviation. The word is short for condensation trails. These contrails happen when humidity and temperature cause the moisture in the air to condense and form what we see as white clouds coming from the back of jet engines. Old war films show contrails from high-flying bombers. There's also a contrail in the background of the 1960 movie Spartacus and over Las Vegas in the 1971 James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever. And in 1999, in the Mojave Desert community of Paramp, Nevada, the owners of a fish pond said something fell from the sky during a rain shower. The owner described it as a white spidery webby-looking stuff. He said the web material dissolved in his pond and left a foam which led to hundreds of dead fish two days later. I have no idea of what people are finding that are claiming to find angel hair or cobweb-like material, said Kim Runk, meteorologist in charge at the Las Vegas National Weather Service office in 1999, but I can say that it has nothing to do with contrails they see in the sky. AboveTopSecret.com is considered one of the largest conspiracy-related websites in the world. The reality is there is 250% more air traffic today than 10 years ago, according to the creator of the website, Mark Allen. What happens is a lot of people step outside and see these criss-crossed contrails in the sky. To the average person, that would look pretty suspicious. Allen said his members vigorously debate and dissect all sorts of conspiracies, but their consensus is chemtrails are not real and what people are seeing is contrails. To think that there could be a global conspiracy, a conspiracy of aircraft technicians, military aircraft that are all keeping quiet about spreading chemicals up in our atmosphere, I'm sorry to say, but it's crazy, he said. Even some diehard debunkers admit there is aerial spraying happening, such as cloud seeding, crop dusting, and even military testing. However, the idea that a widespread secret effort to change the Earth's climate or sicken everyone is just not happening. McWest, a writer and controversial debunker, told Mystery Wire they really just basically ignored 70 years of science on the subject. People basically have this misconception that contrails don't persist, therefore they must be chemtrails. Coming up, in 1947, Major Jesse Marcell was sent to a crash site near Roswell, New Mexico to investigate what happened. We all know the story from there. The strange metal, the alien bodies, the confiscated extraterrestrial technology, the weather balloon story that we initially believed and then didn't. Well now more than seven decades later, Jesse Marcell's grandchildren are speaking up about their knowledge of what happened at Roswell. Plus, if you look up the term water babies on the net, you might find something akin to swim classes for newborns and toddlers. But if you mention the term water babies near a pyramid lake in Nevada, a much, much darker scene comes to mind. These stories and more when Weird Darkness Returns is a story about a family member who has a family member with Alzheimer's or dementia. Help for those in a crisis pregnancy, and more information about what depression truly is and how to identify it through our friends at ifred.org. There are resources for those who battle addictions, be it drugs, alcohol or self-destructive behavior, along with help for those related to addicts. The page has links to help you find a therapist or counselor, to find help for those who have a family member with Alzheimer's or dementia. Help for those in a crisis pregnancy and more. These resources are always there when you or someone you love needs them on the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. What you're about to hear was written by Jesse Marcell III, Denise Marcell and John Marcell. If you've been into ufology for any length of time, you know that name Marcell. Jesse Marcell III, Denise Marcell and John Marcell are grandchildren of Major Jesse Marcell, the man sent out to the scene to investigate the famous crash near Roswell. Here is the grandchildren's story. Our grandfather, Major Jesse Marcell, was a decorated intelligence officer in 1947, stationed at the 509th Bomb Group, at the time the only atomic bomb unit in the entire world. He played an integral role in planning the group's nuclear strike sorties over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and had an illustrious career guarding some of the most important secrets of the Second World War. In early July of that year, a mysterious crash occurred in the desert outside Roswell, New Mexico and he was chosen to investigate the crash site and report back to his superior, Colonel William H. Blanchard. What he found was remarkable and he believed that what he was examining was not made by human hands. We were told growing up that he broke protocol and a few orders by packing up some of the debris to share with his son and wife, our father and grandmother, before returning to the army base. This was an event that would change our father's life and our own forever. As they were examining the material, our dad clearly recalls grandpa saying that they were looking at pieces of a flying saucer. Dad would share with us many more details of that night, often at dinnertime with Star Trek playing in the background for effect. You talk about seeing foil sheets that were incredibly strong yet light as a feather. He would further describe beams with hieroglyphic-looking writing that he claimed would appear if you looked at them at an angle. In their book, Witness to Roswell, Thomas J. Carey and Ronald R. Schmidt spoke to eyewitnesses who said that they saw metal material, like that described by our father, that returned to its original shape no matter how much you twisted or tried to put a wrinkle in it. On summer trips to visit our grandfather in Louisiana, he'd add to the story. He told us that he had seen glass-like fiber optic materials strewn through the debris in the field and even what appeared to be an animal hit by the craft that had crashed. He described how it took five to six large two and a half ton six by six cargo trucks to transport all the debris back to the base. As we grew older, Grandpa would share more of the story with us, but was still very guarded when it came to telling us too much. Maybe out of concern that information that haunted him would come back to haunt us. We could see on his face that he was conflicted between the need to expose the entire story as he saw it and the need to honor the oath he had taken to his country. We would try to get him to tell us more, but with a career in intelligence, he knew how to record and keep a secret. As a military family, we moved to wherever our father was stationed at the time, and in the early 70s this was from the Great Lakes of Michigan to the rural town of Clancy Montana. In those days we had neither the internet nor video games, and on a good day we could make out three TV channels at best. One of our fondest memories was spending time with our father as he educated us in everything from physics to astronomy. When not in school we would stand side by side with Dad working on one of his many projects. One such project was using red powder to grind thick plates of glass into a parabola shape. This became the mirror for a telescope which he was building in the backyard. Once completed, we would spend all filled nights as Dad would show us many parts of the sky, including the rings around Saturn or the moons of Jupiter. The significance of the events that our grandfather was part of was instilled in us at a young age. The stories shared by our father and time spent with him are forever etched in our memories. Dad would always say that we humans are not alone in the universe, that when we were peering through his telescope, there was a chance that some other beings could be looking back at us. This belief was what led him to share his experiences handling physical evidence of the materials found at the Roswell site, which he believed were from a UFO and one of the reasons he built the telescope in the first place. People have asked where the debris ended up, or whether our grandfather kept a memento, and if so where is it? Although his own voice has been silent for almost three decades, people still refer to his comments from that time, and we have a diary found amongst his things after he died, which has not been shared with the public before. We've wondered whether buried in some of the private writings he's left us with a treasure map for discovering any secrets that have not been fully exposed to the world. One theory is that the diary was written in a kind of home-brewed coat and might point to places where crash debris still exists or contain other revelations our grandfather wanted the world to know. With our memories, documents, and our grandfather's unseen diary, a door is cracking open that was once thought closed. As a family, we aren't surprised about the continued interest in Roswell given the inconsistencies in the early explanations shared by the government along with a number of witness testimonies. Although the U.S. Air Force released reports in the 90s that stated the incident was not a cover-up and that the object that crashed was a balloon that was part of Project Mogul, a top-secret balloon project designed to monitor then-Soviet nuclear testing, there are many conspiracy theories and those who believe it is still an unsolved UFO mystery. Grandpa thought he was lucky to have been the right person, at the right place, at the right time, even though it came at a great cost, exposing him and our family to the world. With actions he took both at the time of the incident and leading up to his death, he believed he showed that he well understood the extraordinary uniqueness of the event. Today we live in a different era. It is widely accepted that we are not alone in the universe, although no one is certain what that truly means. Incidents like what happened in Roswell in 1947 have likely inspired scientists, astronauts, and a few grandchildren to look into the sky with hopes and dreams to someday meet with our celestial family. Grandpa would be pleased. The Americas are home to some pretty epic urban legends, abandoned ghost towns, haunted southern cities, and the like. But the tales that surround Nevada's Pyramid Lake is one that just might keep you up at night. Some believe that the stories that involve Pyramid Lake in the Great State of Nevada are just silly fables told to the children to keep them away from the water. Still, the allure of this scenic place is strong. It gets its name from the unusual pyramid-like shaped rocks that jut out from cool and tempting waters. These waters reach impressive depths of over 350 feet, but the eerie legends that surround this beautiful lake have more to do with what lies beneath. Every year a number of bizarre and unexplainable events occur, especially during the spring time, and include hearing the cries of the lost water babies and a countless number of fishermen that set out on these waters never to return home. There are a number of tales that try to give reason to the phenomena of the haunting sounds and the missing people. The most well known is the legend of the water babies, and it begins with the American Indian Paiute tribe who were said to have thrown malformed and premature babies into the dark and murky waters to drown in an effort to keep the tribe strong, keeping only the children who would grow to be capable and useful members of their tribe. And so the story goes that the shrieks and cries that are heard late into the night are the ghosts of the drowned babies from the Paiute tribe. A slightly different take on that same theme tells that when Native Americans inhabited the area, perhaps the Paiute but my source did not specify a tribe, there was a severe famine. It was so severe that the villagers got together and decided that there wasn't enough food to feed any new mouths. So as babies were being born, their mothers were forced to take them down to the nearby river and drown them, rather than have them live a life of constant hunger and starvation. Yet another legend, but tied to the previous two that I just mentioned, involves a Paiute tribesman and a mermaid from Pyramid Lake who fell madly in love, only to have the union rejected by the tribe. The heartbroken mermaid was exiled from the lake by the Paiute tribe, but not only did she not leave, she remained there in her growing fury, cursing the waters and seeking vengeance on any man that attempts to enter her lake. This of course would explain all the missing fishermen. Some believe that this version of the story was in fact concocted by the Paiute tribe themselves in an effort to repair their reputation and to cover up the savage and despicable actions of drowning their own babies. Although for what reason the babies were drowned, malformed or premature, starvation and famine, or some other unknown cause, this particular legend does not say. But another legend about water babies and how they came to be has nothing to do with babies or the Paiute, nor does it have anything to do with Pyramid Lake, Nevada. The Ute Indians told stories of a mysterious race of dwarves who lived in Utah Lake, a lake in north-central Utah that covers about 150 square miles. The Ute referred to these aquatic dwarves as water babies because of their clever tactics in luring people to their deaths. They would make sounds very reminiscent of crying babies. Concerned people would take off into the lake in an effort to locate and rescue the endangered babies within, only to be dragged down into the depths by the nefarious water babies. Even if one managed to escape the clutches of these devilish dwarves, they still wouldn't be safe. A huge, predatorial, man-hating monster also calls Utah Lake home. The first sighting of the monster by a European occurred just at the tail end of the Civil War, but a resident reported being chased to the shore by a 30-foot reptile, which then turned around, joined another huge beast and swam off. Shortly after, a different man claimed to see a huge reptile with the head of a dog patrolling the waters of the lake. In 1870, some fishermen found a large, strange skull with tusks protruding from it in the water. Sightings occurred steadily throughout the late 1800s through the 1920s when they died down. But water babies still make their presence known, even today. If you go to the lakeshores and sit for a while in silence, you'll begin to hear the unmistakable sound of babies crying. Is it the spirits of drowned babies looking for their mothers? Water dwarves enticing you to take a closer step to your doom? Or is it just your imagination, run wild with stories thanks to the legends you've heard growing up? Like all stories of this nature, the only real proof is to experience these places yourself. Perhaps they are made up tales to keep children safe and close to home. Or maybe the late night cries of drowned infants and the missing fishermen are real dangers that should be taken seriously. That being said, I for one do not want to test the theory. When Weird Darkness Returns According to the Bible, no man knows the day Christ will return. But that didn't stop William Miller from predicting anyway. Not once, but three times. And he was wrong. Three times. That story is up next. Do you keep a journal or diary? If not, maybe you should consider it. It's been shown that journaling can help you reduce stress, help relieve depression, build self-confidence, it boosts your emotional intelligence, helps with achieving goals, inspires creativity and more. In fact, my friend, S. N. Lanise has created a Weird Darkness-themed journal just for you. Full of blank pages for you to use as a diary, make notes for class or office meetings, jot down ideas for that novel you want to write. Use it for keeping a mileage long if you travel for business, whatever you want. In fact, she has numerous styles of journals to choose from. Along with the Weird Darkness journal, there's one for dealing with grief, or teachers' notes, for medical residencies, keeping track of your meds or health routine, and several others. Journals make a great gift for others, but it's also a great gift for yourself and your own mental health. No matter what you might want a journal for, my friend Anne has it. And you can see all of our journals, including the one for Weird Darkness, on the sponsors and friends page at WeirdDarkness.com. William Miller was never your typical doomsday profit. Born in Massachusetts in 1782, he was the son of a captain who had served in the American Revolution and spent most of his early life in Washington County, New York. Despite his solid Baptist upbringing, William Miller would later say that he always felt the need for a more personal connection with God, but was never quite sure of the form that relationship should take. After marrying and settling down to his life as a farmer, he likely would have had an uneventful life had it not been for the War of 1812 where he served as a captain. In 1816, likely as a result of his wartime experiences, Miller developed an obsession with the afterlife and the need to use the Bible to develop clear and accurate answers to all of the questions in life. He then spent the next 15 years in a careful study of the Bible where he quote, found everything revealed that my heart could desire and a remedy for every disease of the soul, unquote. Along with his Bible study, William Miller also followed news of the various millennial movements that were springing up throughout the United States at the time. It's hard to say why people were so receptive to the idea that the second coming was at hand in that part of the country. Whether it was due to anxiety over the worsening economic climate, the panic of 1837 had led to a terrible recession, political uncertainty, the tension that would lead to the civil war breaking out was already being felt, or lingering anxiety over New England's dark day, numerous religious figures came forward with their own message of coming doom and the need to repent. Religious figures such as Jemima Wilkinson and Lee and even the venerable John Wesley were proclaiming an impending day of judgment. Many of these inspirational preachers advocated post-millennialism with Christ returning after a thousand years of universal brotherhood and peace. Miller was deeply bothered by these teachings since he believed that the second coming of Christ would happen first with the millennium of peace following. In a statement of faith which he wrote to his brother, Miller said that Christ would come in the glory of God and the clouds of heaven with all the saints and angels, change the bodies of all that are alive on earth that are His and both the living and raised saints will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. As for the ones left behind, however, they would not fare so well. Miller maintained that the earth would be cleansed by fire, the elements will melt with fervent heat, the works of man will be destroyed, the bodies of the wicked will be burned to ashes. Not only would the wicked, that is, anybody who rejected the gospel, die but their spirits would be, quote, banished from the earth, shut up in the pit, unquote, and not be allowed to return to earth for a thousand years. Along with Isaac Newton and a host of other biblical scholars, William Miller examined apocalyptic works such as The Book of Daniel and Revelation to calculate when the second coming would occur. Working from Daniel 8, verse 14, until 2300 days, then shall a sanctuary be cleansed. Miller determined that the second coming because of that would occur March 23, 1843. Knowing full well that he would be mocked if he openly announced this to the world, Miller only told a few friends and likely would never have come to public attention at all if not for Joshua von Himes. Himes was the minister at Boston's Chardon Street Chapel and also a zealous evangelist. Convinced by Miller's message, Himes invited him to give a sermon in 1839 which led to numerous other invitations from other ministers for Miller to speak. Not only did this lead to Miller's message being heard by thousands of people, other ministers including Himes began preaching the message of imminent judgment as well. In addition to frequent sermons, Joshua Himes also published a series of magazines and pamphlets including The Midnight Cry and Signs of the Times. Though Miller and his followers gained countless supporters, there was considerable public scorn as well. Newspapers began reporting on Miller's appearances and the crowds that inevitably gathered. Editorials blaming Miller for cases of insanity or suicide that they attributed to his messages became common. The sighting of an extremely bright comet in 1843 set off new apocalyptic fears and William Miller had more followers than ever. Oddly enough, he largely ignored the comet since he felt that the Bible alone provided all the information needed. He certainly had no intention of founding a new religion. Why bother with converts when Judgment Day was just around the corner? Most of his teachings were perfectly consistent with what mainstream Christian preachers were saying in their own sermons, hence his frequent invitations to give guest sermons across much of the country. Despite Miller's reluctance to pin down a specific date for the Second Coming, he and his followers eventually settled on April 23, 1843, based on their careful calculations. As the date approached, the crowds attending his sermons swelled and newspapers were alarmed by his message. Newspaper editorials warned that widespread belief in Miller's message might lead to social and economic upheaval if farmers decided not to plant crops or if craftsmen stopped producing goods. When April 23 came and went with No Second Coming, William Miller went back to the Bible and started recalculating, concluding that he'd made a mistake by relying on solar years instead of lunar years. He recalculated the date as occurring in the spring of 1844. Despite their previous disappointment, the Millerites, as they were then known, decided to prepare for the new date in spectacular fashion. After purchasing an enormous tent capable of holding more than 2,000 people, they went on a grand tour through New York and Ohio. Rumors also began circulating that the Millerites had prepared ascension robes that they could wear as they rose into heaven. Though these rumors were likely exaggerated, some sources suggest that many Millerites prepared special robes for that reason, even though Miller never called for any special preparations. March 21 came and went with nothing remarkable happening. Undaunted, William Miller insisted that the Second Coming was at hand, but concluded that it would likely happen in the fall instead, though this time he was careful not to provide an exact date. Another Millerite, SS Snow, floated the suggestion that October 22, 1844 would be the correct date since it fell on Yom Kippur. William Miller had his doubts, but allowed his followers to convince him. At the same time, there was also a growing disenchantment with Miller and his followers. Many of the ministers who had invited him to speak to their congregations were now ignoring him completely. Even the newspapers were doing a little more than ridiculing the movement. Editorials predicting mob scenes and public disorder while many stores and shops were closed with signs saying, this shop is closed in honor of the King of Kings who will appear about the 20th of October. Get ready, friends, to crown him Lord of All. When October 22 came and went, the Millerite movement was essentially over, though William Miller and Joshua Himes took up a new cause, raising money for Millerites who had impoverished themselves by leaving their jobs and giving away their possessions. Thus began the period known as the Great Disappointment. While many Millerites tried to come up with varied explanations, perhaps Miller had his date wrong, Christ had arrived secretly, the anguish that many of the followers felt was immense. As one follower later wrote, our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. We wept and wept till the day dawned. Though the movement struggled on, William Miller was no longer part of it. Though devastated by the failure of his calculations, William Miller continued preaching until his eyesight failed him. He died on December 20, 1849, still convinced that the Second Coming would happen at any time. The Millerite movement might well have petered out completely if it had not been for Joshua Himes. Refusing to give up on the message of imminent salvation, Himes and his son established the Adventist movement and launched a series of publications, including the Advent Christian Times. Himes eventually abandoned the Adventists and rejoined the Episcopalian Church before dying in 1896, but by that time Adventist churches were well established with various offshoots, including the Seventh Day Adventists and Advent Christians. Though the Adventists who followed after Miller and Himes tended to downplay Miller's message of imminent judgment, there were several other false alarms involving Adventist predictions of Christ's return. These include Jonathan Cummings' prediction that Christ would return in 1854, and William Thurman's prediction that it would happen in 1875. Despite attracting a small following, neither of them had the impact that William Miller did. Miller's ultimate legacy was to discredit doomsday profits for at least another generation. Though other doomsayers would arise, it would be a long time before any of them would work up the nerve to have their predictions put to a public test and risk the same fate as Miller and his followers. The great disappointment would cast a shadow on evangelist movements for decades to come. Contact page of the website. If you're listening to the show via podcast or YouTube, be sure to subscribe if you haven't already done so, and leave a review of the show in the podcast app you listen from. And if you're already a Weirdo family member, take a moment today and share Weird Darkness with somebody you know who loves paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or mysteries like you do. Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Fact or fiction, click on Tell Your Story on the website and I might use it in a future episode. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. Waterbabies aren't as cute as they sound is by David Clark for Standard News and Weird U.S. Contrary Chemtrails is from Duncan Fennix for Mystery Wire and Earth Island Journal. The Roswell Grand Sheldron article came from Newsweek, and William Miller's Great Disappointment is by Dr. Romeo Vitelli for Providencia. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Second Chronicles 7, verse 14, If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. And a final thought, kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. you know who loves all things strange and macabre. If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com.