 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 podcast, and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. If you're already a Weirdo, please share the podcast with others. Doing so helps make it possible for me to keep doing the podcast. And while listening, be sure to check out the Weird Darkness website so you can find me on social media and drop me an email. Like warning, if you happen to have an Amazon A-L-E-X-A device, you might want to turn her off while listening for the next hour or so, and you should probably know why after seeing the title of this episode. Coming up in this episode, I've seen some mighty pretty puppies and I want one. Those were the last words the mother of 8-year-old Kenneth Beasley would hear from her son. What followed was a disappearance, suspected kidnapping, and murder trial that made national news in 1905. Assaulting Ghost. Residents of East Jefferson Street, Disturbed. A thrilling story of the strange persecution of an old Mexican woman. That's what the Arizona Republic newspaper headline read on September 23, 1899, and I have the story. No one knew what the phone number was supposed to be for. No one knew the meaning of the bizarre recording they heard when calling the number. No one knew who owned the phone number or what they had done with it or why. It's the strange history behind a seemingly innocent 1-800 number that still has people baffled, especially those looking for improvement on their golf game. But first, people have used a wide assortment of devices to try and communicate with the dead. Weegebords, automatic riding, seances, ghost boxes, but it appears we might now be able to add Amazon's Alexa to that list. We begin with that story. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Throughout the history of spirit communication, people have used a wide variety of unique tools and methods to contact the deceased. From automatic riding using planchettes to mediums chatteling the other side during late-night seances, we have managed to develop quite the number of alleged ways to speak to the dead. The Weegebord 2 is an immensely popular form of attempted communication. In modern times, paranormal investigators have turned to radios and recording devices, like so-called ghost boxes, to capture electronic voice phenomena. Perhaps there is something else we can add to that list of tools in our supernatural toolbox now. Amazon's Alexa Amazon's plucky virtual assistant inhabits nearly everything they make. Their Echo smart speakers, their TV sticks, their fire tablets, Amazon has sold over 100 million of these Alexa devices as of January 2019. That means Alexa can be found in many, many households too in our household, in fact, fielding many, many spoken commands. But here is a question, can ghosts also speak to Alexa? If we are to believe that they can speak through recording devices and radios, as they allegedly did with Constantin's Rodive in the 1960s, there is no particular reason ghosts can't also speak through modern smart speakers. I'd imagine any spectral transmitting stations are already well-equipped to handle such technologies, wouldn't you? After all, Alexa is no stranger to strange things. For example, in 2018, there were several reports of Alexa spontaneously laughing, which Amazon dubbed a simple malfunction, though a creepy one. That said, can everything be explained away as simply a glitch or a misheard command? One Echo user experienced a number of odd activities surrounding their device. On one day in particular, after the passing of their grandmother, they truly began to wonder if spirits beyond were conversing with Alexa. My grandma passed away around that time, they said. A couple of days after her passing, the Echo turned on when I was alone and started playing Mandy by Boston. I'd never heard that song before and had never played it on the Echo. My grandma was the only one who called me Mandy. Is it possible that ghosts might be giving Alexa commands? In another case, a user's recently deceased grandfather may have asked Alexa to play a song. They said, My grandpa passed away a few months back, leaving my grandma to live by herself. She has an Amazon Echo, and one night when she was alone getting ready for bed, she heard a song start playing in the living room, in a house that was completely silent. Alexa was playing the song Lucille by Kenny Rogers, the song she shares her name with. The song was my grandparents' favorite song to dance to together. Perhaps it is an odd coincidence, but I stumbled across multiple coincidences then, including those I've just shared, of Echo users hearing very specific songs playing after the passing of a loved one, almost as if their ghosts were trying to send messages through these devices. One Redditor shared an account of an Amazon dot randomly playing a song that helped them deal with the loss of their father. Another report of a paranormal activity after a recent death also involved Alexa playing a specific song over and over again. Is there anything to the idea that ghosts are reaching out to certain individuals through Alexa and other smart devices? In one final example, an Alexa command seemed a bit more specific. Today, my mom was on her house phone with my grandmother. My mom left her cell phone at work an hour away. While she was talking, her Alexa came on, lit up green and said, Dad wants to talk. Dad wants to talk. And she repeated it again two more times. My grandfather, mom's father, passed away last Christmas. Of course, none of this proves anything supernatural. These are, after all, just anecdotes and sometimes weird things just happen. But consider this. Amazon reportedly employs thousands of people who sift through thousands of Alexa conversations every day to improve its voice recognition. That is a lot of data. Now, if otherworldly entities can communicate through recording devices, including Alexa, just how many of those conversations may have been with ghosts? Is it possible that some Amazon employees have actually listened to EVPs captured by these devices? They'd probably never even notice. How about you? Has your smart device, if you have one, ever done anything you'd consider unnatural? When Weird Darkness returns, I've seen some mighty pretty puppies and I want one. Those were the last words the mother of eight-year-old Kenneth Beasley would hear from her son. What followed was a disappearance, suspected kidnapping, and murder trial that made national news in 1905. And assaulting ghost, residents of East Jefferson Street, disturbed, a thrilling story of the strange persecution of an old Mexican woman. Let's put the Arizona Republic newspaper headline red on September 23, 1899, and I have the story. That and more coming up. You shut yourself in. The lights are out and you're listening to Weird Darkness. But suddenly you get that feeling you're not alone. You don't know what might be under the bed or in the closet or in the attic or in the room with you. You don't dare try to sleep now. You're too scared to. If you doze off, you might be vulnerable to the creatures who haunt your dreams. That's just one more reason to have Weird Dark Roast Coffee in the cupboard, because you just never know when you might need it. Weird Dark Roast Coffee contains deep notes of cocoa, caramel, and a touch of sinister sweetness. Each bag is fresh roasted to order by Evansville Coffee and delivery is free for your first order. Just use the promo code Weird, you can find a link to it at WeirdDarkness.com. Grab a bag before something else grabs you from the dark. In 1905, a family named Beasley lived on a beautiful and prosperous farm just outside the small town of Poplar Branch, Currituck County, South Carolina. They were what used to be called people of solid worth. The head of the household, Samuel Beasley, was a state senator and many believed he was destined for higher offices. His wife, Kerry, was admired as a kindly and accomplished woman. The couple had three children, 17-year-old Moran, 8-year-old Kenneth and Ethel, who was four. Kenneth was a handsome, gentle boy who did well at school. Other children liked him, adults loved him. Although the Beasleys were admired and respected in their community, there was one glaring exception to their popularity. If you were to ask Joshua Harrison what he thought of Samuel Beasley, the answer would likely be completely unprintable. Harrison was a tall man in his fifties with a formidable beard and a temper to match. He was such a hothead that in his younger days he had twice stood trial for murder, but in both instances he won an acquittal. Harrison supplemented his farming income by selling homemade wine out of his barn. It was said to be very good wine and judging by the frequent routiness emanating from his unofficial tavern, very potent as well. Many of the locals disapproved of his enterprise and foremost among them was the upright, sober and politically powerful Samuel Beasley. In 1903 he got a bill passed through the state legislature outlawing the sale of wine in Currita County. Harrison unsurprisingly was not pleased. The following year he happened to run into Beasley on the road between their farms and made his wrath known in no uncertain terms. I hear that 1903 legislation was for me, he scowled. If you heard that, Beasley replied calmly, you heard right, for you are the only person in Currita creating a disturbance and the people petitioned to legislature on the subject. I'll be damned if I don't sell it in spite of them, Harrison retorted. If I can't sell it in gallons I'll sell it in barrels and the people can come and get it. When they stop me from selling it they'll be damned sorry for it. After this exchange the two men avoided each other. Life appeared to return to normal. On the morning of February 13, 1905, young Kenneth Beasley dressed, had breakfast and began his walk to school. On his way out the door, the eight-year-old told his mother, I have seen some mighty pretty puppies and I want one. Little did she know those were the last words she would ever hear him say. Kenneth's day at school progressed in its usual uneventful fashion. By the time of the noon recess, the temperature had warmed enough for Kenneth to not bother donning his overcoat and gloves before going outside to play. At 1 p.m. the school bell rang summoning students for the afternoon session. All the children returned to the classroom except Kenneth. Young Beasley's cousin, Benny Walker, told a teacher that he'd been playing with Kenneth when the bell rang. Instead of heading back to school, Kenneth had turned towards the woods behind him saying, I'm going back farther. Benny did not see him after that. The truancy of this normally well-behaved boy was deeply puzzling. Even more so when the teacher saw that Kenneth's coat and gloves were still in the cloakroom. If he had planned to run away, surely he would have taken them with him, right? The schoolmaster sent another boy, Everett Wright, to go look for Kenneth. He returned with the news that Beasley was nowhere to be found. Then Benny Walker was dispatched to make a more thorough search. Walker scoured the woods, then made his way to a nearby store and asked the proprietor a Mr. Woodhouse if he had seen anything of the missing boy. Woodhouse immediately realized something very strange was going on. He locked up his store and accompanied Walker back to the school, where he advised that the school should be dismissed and a more comprehensive inspection made. The older boys were organized into search parties while Woodhouse went to gather neighbors. By 4 p.m., 150 people, all of them hunters familiar with the swampy timberland, were exploring the area. The search spread for miles without a single trace of Kenneth ever being found. The following morning, a telegram was sent to Samuel Beasley who was attending the legislative session in Raleigh. He left for home at once. By the next day, the search party had doubled in size. Hunting dogs were brought in, but the heavy rain and snow prevented them from picking up a trail. That night, a rumor emerged that a child had been crying for help from a lumberman's cabin deep in the woods. This cabin was said to be inhabited by a mysterious recluse. However, when searchers arrived at the cabin, there was no sign of the hermit or Kenneth. On February 24, the Raleigh News and Observer printed a letter dealing with Kenneth's disappearance. Neither the rider or the recipient of this letter were ever identified. He claimed the boy had been kidnapped. There was a strange man seen up about Varco Post Office and two more places by three different men. He was in a buggy drawn by a black mule and had the boy down between his knees, but the people saw him before they heard the boy was missing. These men say that they saw the boy was crying and seemed dissatisfied, but the man was talking to him rough. The writer pointedly added, Mr. Joshua Harrison went on Tuesday morning and never got back until Sunday. He claimed he had been to Pasqua Tank. On February 26, the search had been abandoned. It was universally believed that Kenneth had been abducted and the smart money had one chief suspect in mind. That same day, Joshua Harrison paid a call at the Beasley Home. It was the first time he and Samuel Beasley had spoken since their altercation over the wine. Harrison was irate over the News and Observer article. It's a batch of lies, he told Beasley. I want you to write to the paper and say it was a lie. If your son was kidnapped, some of the neighbors did it. Beasley coolly replied that despite what Harrison was clearly implying, he had not written that letter and would not bother the newspaper's editors. Harrison left, vowing that he could prove where he was when Kenneth disappeared. The Beasley family continued their sad search for the boy. Samuel and his son Moran spent days fruitlessly combing the woods. No clues emerged pointing to Kenneth's possible whereabouts until March when the family received a visit from a Shiloh resident named J.J. Pierce. Pierce had seen Kenneth once three years earlier and just recently on March 5, he thought he saw him again on a Norfolk streetcar. The child was with two young men who had appeared to be drunk. Pierce said that he addressed the boy but he did not answer. Joshua Harrison's daughter, Anna Gallup, kept a boarding house in Norfolk. Samuel went to Norfolk and asked around and no one claimed to have seen any boy resembling Kenneth. Other rumors and tips came in now and then and Samuel doggedly investigated them all with equally empty results. In September 1906, Beasley attended the opening session of Currata Courthouse's fall term. There, he was accosted by T.C. Woodhouse, brother of the shopkeeper. The man had quite an interesting tale to tell. Woodhouse stated that on September 2, Joshua Harrison met him on the road asking for a heart-to-heart talk. Harrison said, Sam Beasley has never offered enough reward when he does the boy will show up in as good a condition as he ever was. He then added, it was damned expensive to keep the boy in the way he is being kept. Beasley was stunned. He frantically told Woodhouse to tell Harrison that he would pay any amount of money for Kenneth's return, promising that no questions would be asked and he would not prosecute. A day or two later, Woodhouse told Beasley that Harrison denied having made his earlier remarks and refused to discuss the matter further. Then an AB Parker came forward. He told Beasley that a few days after Kenneth's disappearance, he overheard Harrison say that the boy wasn't lost, that he could put his hand on him any time he wanted him. Parker was asked the obvious question, why had he kept this fascinating news to himself? It was none of my business, he replied. The oddly long delayed revelations kept coming. A storekeeper named J. L. Turner now said that, on the day Kenneth vanished, he had seen Harrison driving a buggy pulled by a black mule, containing a boy with his head covered by a tarpaulin. One Millard Borsett claimed to have seen this same buggy, although he could not say he recognized either the man or the boy. A. W. E. Ansel spoke of seeing the mule drawn buggy with the tarpaulin covered boy. He could hear the child saying some complaining words and the man speaking to him reassuringly. He was certain the man's voice was that of Joshua Harrison. All these men promised Beasley that they were willing to tell their stories in court under oath. Beasley promptly got a warrant charging Harrison with kidnapping. When he was arrested, Harrison vehemently denied the charge. More productively, he hired a team of excellent lawyers. His counsel wisely obtained a change in venue. Clearly, Harrison's hometown had no great love for him and the trial was set to begin March 14 in Pasquatec County. The trial lasted six days. The previously mentioned witnesses gave their stories. Still, more witnesses corroborated their accounts. During the cross-examinations, the defense brought out a vital point. The road in front of the school house was completely open, lined with houses on one side and the sound on the other. It was a busy road and at the time Kenneth disappeared, the sound was full of fishing boats. Yet nobody in the vicinity claimed to have seen the buggy, the black mule, Joshua Harrison with his distinctive gray beard. How could Harrison have kidnapped the boy in such a public area without anyone noticing? The defense also offered testimony from Harrison's family and neighbors that at the time Kenneth disappeared, the defendant was at his home all day working in his stable yard. Anna Gallup testified that contrary to rumor, Kenneth had never been brought to her boarding house. The prosecution countered this with two witnesses who stated that they had seen Harrison in Norfolk late on the night of February 13. Faced with all of this contradictory witness testimony, the trial essentially hinged on which side was most successful across examination. The jury decided it was the prosecution. On March 19, they returned a guilty verdict. Harrison's lawyers appealed to the state Supreme Court, emphasizing the impossibility of their client having abducted the boy without anyone seeing him. They also pointed out the local prejudice against Harrison. The court denied the appeal and ordered that Harrison be arrested. That same day, as Harrison sat alone in a room of Norfolk's Gladstone Hotel, a city detective entered the lobby. He instructed the bellboy to summon Harrison. Harrison slammed the door in the bellboy's face. A moment later, a gunshot was heard from inside the room. When the bellboy and the detectives broke into the room, they found Harrison lying on the floor, quite dead. Next to him was a note he had written, proclaiming his complete innocence. The case was over, if far from resolved. Over the years, Currata County never really stopped wondering just what had happened to Kenneth Beasley. Among these armchair detectives was a solicitor named Hallott Ward. He was good friends with one of Harrison's lawyers, W. M. Bond, and the two often discussed the mystery. The two agreed that the case against Harrison had been extremely weak. Also, the people closest to Harrison had argued that while he may have been a hothead and even a vengeful man, he would never have been so depraved as to take out his wrath on an innocent child. In 1934, Ward and his family happened to pass through Currata County. They drove along the sound, stopping for a picnic lunch in front of the building where Kenneth Beasley had once attended school. As they ate, two elderly men walked along the road in front of them. Ward stopped them and introduced himself. He asked if they remembered Harrison's trial. They most certainly did. As they talked, Ward mentioned the recluse in the cabin and lamented the fact that law enforcement had never been able to find the man. The two men commented that the hermit had contact only with Joshua Harrison, from whom he bought wine. He also had kept dogs. Ward suddenly remembered Kenneth's last words to his mother, I've seen some mighty pretty puppies. He and the two men walked along the road where Benny Walker had last seen the boy. As they went deeper into the woods, Ward saw an old rail fence. One of the elderly men pointed to a path on the other side of the fence. That path, he said, led to the hermit's cabin. Ward contemplated this new information, so a path led to the cabin well out of sight of the main road. He formed a theory. Kenneth, he said, went up that path to that house to see those puppies. Harrison entered the gate in front of the house from the connecting road and picked the boy up at the house and drove on by the back road to the back gate and threw it to the sound road and onto Norfolk. Kenneth had no overcoat and it was a bitterly cold day. That night, he contracted pneumonia and soon died in whatever hideaway Harrison had arranged for him. Was Ward's scenario correct, though? Or, as seems more likely, did the anonymous hermit himself use the promise of a puppy to lure Kenneth to his cabin only to do something unspeakable to the boy? Did he then bury the body somewhere in those woods and flee? Or, on a more hopeful note, could those current-to-county folk who believed that Kenneth Beasley survived to be raised in another place under another name possibly be correct? We will probably never know. The following story, which appeared in the Arizona Republic on September 23, 1899, contains many of the same elements found throughout poltergeist literature. The suggestion that the outbreak was a kind of psychic revenge, the claim that one person was the clear focus of the stones, plus the observation that some of the stones were hot while others were ice cold, are all common themes. Here is the story, exactly as it was printed. Headline. Assaulting Ghost, residents of East Jefferson Street, disturbed, a thrilling story of the strange persecution of old Mexican woman. This is a weird ghost story. But all ghost stories are weird. This one is well-authenticated in that, though there have been scores of Phoenix witnesses, the hoax has not been discovered, if there be a hoax. About two weeks ago, a Mexican woman named Josefa Nunez, who now lives at 7th Street opposite the residence of Mr. Henry E. Kemp, applied to the county authorities for protection against persons who were throwing stones at her. She was not clearly understood, and while an officer visited her house now and then, he supposed that he was looking for an earthly stone-thrower whom he could see. But this is the story, until nearly a month ago, Senor Nunez lived near the eastern end of the streetcar line. Another Mexican named York Hides, a member of a Protestant church who had lived at her house for some time, was seized with a sickness of which he died. Fully before death, he begged for food and water, which his hostess for some reason did not give him. A night or two after his death, the stone-throwing commenced. Small stones hurled from an invisible source, broke the windows of the house, or rattled against the outer wall. Now and then, one struck Senor Nunez. Though they landed sharply, they brought no other pain than a scorching sensation. She picked the stones from the ground and found some warm, and others almost ice-cold. She thought she might avoid this ghostly persecution by changing her residence, so she moved to the place where she now lives. The change brought her no relief, and then she applied to the authorities who did not understand her. The neighbors heard of these strange visitations a week ago, but took no interest in the story until within the last two days. Yesterday, the interest grew so intense that until 9 o'clock last night, the hour when the stone-throwing ceases, more than 200 people visited Senor Nunez's home. Some of them saw the flying stones, heard them crash through windows or bang against the side of the house and fall to the ground. Many were picked up and carried off, so at least the stones have substance, though the thrower is disembodied. About 5 o'clock last night, the old woman was sitting in her house surrounded by not fewer than 40 visitors, American and Mexicans. A scarf or shawl was thrown over her head and she was trembling, mid-telling of the annoyances which were wearing her life out. Suddenly she put her hand to her jaw and, despairingly, screamed, Adios! Among those who were sitting near her were Officer George McClarity and C.S. Scott of the Herald. Officer McClarity saw a stone dropping on the old woman's shoulder and fall thence to the ground. He picked it up and it was warm. He gave it to Mr. Scott who testified to its temperature. Senor Nunez owns a small ranch some distance in the country. She visited it yesterday and she said that on her way home she was struck by one of these burning stones. Another story is told, though this is not authenticated, that a priest visited her home at her request. When he stopped in front of the house, still sitting in his buggy he was struck by a stone producing a burning sensation. It rebounded and hit his horse which sprang forward in terror. End of story After this article the case went pretty quiet, but there was an interesting follow-up in that same paper nine months later, June 9, 1899, reading, quote, headline, mysterious stone throwing recalled. The case of the mysterious stone throwing, of which an old Mexican woman was the victim, filled the local newspapers last summer. She lived in a house on East Jefferson Street. The windows of the house were broken by stones hurled by unknown hands and in the presence of many incredulous visitors rocks fell from the ceiling in the air upon the old woman. It was a puzzling case and though everybody who witnessed the manifestations believed there was a trick, it was never exposed. The old woman and her family moved to a hut in the neighborhood of the park and the matter was almost forgotten. It has recently come to the attention of the authorities that they are still living there in a ghostly sort of way and in an apparently destitute condition. They were visited by District Attorney Flanagan and Constable Joe Bales yesterday and it is probable that some action will be taken about them. When Weird Darkness returns, no one knew what the phone number was supposed to be for. No one knew the meaning of the bizarre recording they heard when calling the number. No one knew who owned the phone number or what they had done with it or why. It is the strange history behind a seemingly innocent 1-800 number that still has people baffled, especially those looking for improvement on their golf game. That story is up next. Please leave a rating and review of the podcast in the podcast app you listen from. Doing so helps the show to get noticed. In fact, we've set it up now so that if you listen to the podcast in the Spreaker podcast player, you can comment on individual episodes and I'll be notified so I can see your comments and respond to them. That's something I can't do in other podcast apps. You can find the free Spreaker podcast player in your mobile app store and thanks for helping to spread the Weird Darkness. If you happen to live in Canada in the 1990s, you may have heard about or maybe even called an unusual phone number. It wasn't unusual just for one reason though. It was unusual for a whole bunch of reasons. For one thing, the phone number which was officially 1-800-465-3847 had a memorable vanity title, 1-800-GOLF-TIP. For another, it was advertised via billboards in at least one city in Ontario, a large brightly colored sign featuring a gold ball, a golf club, grass, sky, and huge yellow writing spelling out 1-800-GOLF-TIP. But strangest of all was what happened when you actually called the number. You didn't reach a hotline for golf instruction, as you might have expected. Instead, you encountered rather an odd recording. You'd hear a male-sounding voice counting from 1-10 in English but with an accent of some sort over and over again, always pausing for a breath between two of the numbers. Exactly which numbers the pause occurred between depends on who you talk to. Though some people remember it being between the five and the six, others between the six and the seven, and still others between the seven and the eight. The recording seemed to be on some sort of loop, but if you let it play long enough, eventually you'd hear a loud screaming tone replace the counting. No one knew what 1-800-GOLF-TIP was supposed to be. No one knew the meaning of the recording. No one knew who owned the phone number or what they had done with it or why. Heck, for a long time after the number ceased being available for Canadians to call, no one could even say for sure whether the whole thing actually existed in the first place. It's spoken of on forums and message boards in the kind of tone we reserve for things that we're not certain we're remembering or maybe dreaming. Does anyone remember somebody might say? Did I just make this up? Somebody else says. What the heck was that anyway? Another posted. As it turns out, 1-800-GOLF-TIP does have quite the history behind it. A history as strange as the recollections of those who called it way back in the day. There are, as far as I've been able to determine, three parts to the story. But although these three parts were hard enough to tease on their own, even more difficult was figuring out the order in which the parts actually go. I'm fairly certain I've sorted it out, though. So here's the deal with 1-800-GOLF-TIP. By the way, don't call it. You don't want to hear what it has now. It's definitely adult-oriented. So buckle up, because the ride ends up being a lot wilder than I even expected it to be. The Canadian years of 1-800-GOLF-TIP are the most mysterious, in part because there's very little documentation of this period, and in part because most of what we do know about it is based on people's memories of it. A human memory is, after all, often imperfect. But we can still gain some valuable information about the phone number based on these memories and even confirm some parts of these recollections, including both its location and its timeframe. According to most people's memories, as recorded on various message boards and other forums across the web, it was common practice among kids and teens to call 1-800-GOLF-TIP in order to experience the number's strange recording in three specific cities, St. Catharines, Toronto, and Ottawa, all in Canada. Notably, three cities are located not too far away from each other, and all within the same Canadian province, Ontario. The city that seems to factor most prominently in the history of 1-800-GOLF-TIP is St. Catharines, the largest city in the Niagara area of Ontario. It has a population of around 133,000, roughly a third of Niagara's residents. I say St. Catharines is at the centre of the whole thing because that's where the billboard advertising 1-800-GOLF-TIP was located in the early 1990s. The question though is about precisely where in St. Catharines the billboard was. According to a 4chan thread from 2017, it was across from the old Bijou theatre. However, Reddit user OhaiGetJokes, who grew up in St. Catharines and has been on the 1-800-GOLF-TIP case for some time, described the billboard recently to YouTuber BarelySociable as across from the Lincoln Theatre that had a Bijou arcade in the ground floor. The Redditor also noted that the building was demolished some time ago, with a Wendy's slash Tim Horton's hybrid having gone up in its place. But then we've got this, you know you're from St. Catharines when, listicle 2, which includes the item, you remember the Bijou arcade in Lincoln Mall? Mall, not theatre. So where was it? The Bijou Theatre? The Lincoln Theatre? The Lincoln Mall? What complicates the situation is the fact that St. Catharines did once have both a Lincoln Theatre and a Bijou Theatre just not located where Lincoln Mall is. Also by theatre, we mean cinema in all cases here. We're talking about movie theatres, not live performance venues. Just, you know, for clarity's sake. The Lincoln Theatre, which was operated by famous players, was located at 386 St. Paul E Street, according to Cinema Treasures. Originally opened on May 16, 1939, it closed in 1980. Its current occupant is an upscale office space called the Lincoln. However, the Google Street View image history of the address, which dates back to 2007, tells quite a story. In 2007, the space looked vacant, although the theatre's old marquee bore a message about a soon-to-open vintage store. The store, however, seems never to have materialized. By 2009, it was vacant again, with a for rent sign in one of the windows. By 2014, the windows had been boarded up. By 2015, a strange message regarding three judges and a court filing had been posted on the marquee, and by 2018, work on the new Lincoln had begun. The current Street View image, which was captured in July of 2019, shows the completed space. There's also currently a chi-chi-looking restaurant called Dispatch in the building. Meanwhile, I discovered courtesy of a paper published in 2010 on Early Movie Going in Niagara by Paul S. Moore of Ryerson University that the very first picture theatre ever to arrive in St. Catharines was called the Bijou. Moore cites a 1976 article in the St. Catharines Area newspaper The Standard by journalist Henry P. Nicholson detailing his early memories of the theatre, which, according to Nicholson, via Moore, was across the street from the standard's offices on Queen Street. It's not there anymore. As Moore puts it, there is no trace of the Bijou except Nicholson's memories. But the information available allows us to take a guess about its former address. The standard offices have been located at 17 Queen Street since 1898. So if the Bijou was across the street, it likely occupied the space currently labeled on Google Maps as 1418 Queen Street. I've been unable to dig up much about the property's history other than the fact that it is zoned for retail but vacant right now. It does look like the sort of space that might once have played host to an old-time cinema. But I actually think these two former theatres are red herrings. You see, there was once a cinema at the Lincoln Mall, per big screen it was called the Famous Players Lincoln Mall, which I assume means it was operated by the same company that ran the Lincoln Theatre on St. Paul Street, and its official address was 525 Welland Avenue. If you plug Lincoln Mall, St. Catharines, Ontario into Google Maps, it brings you to the Lincoln Value Center, which is in fact a shopping plaza. And if you plug 525 Welland Avenue specifically, it takes you to a Wendy's slash Tim Horton hybrid. There are even a few billboards visible from that Wendy's Tim Horton's location today, which is not the case for either the old Lincoln Theatre or the spot where the Bijou Theatre once stood. As such, I'm fairly confident this is where the 1800 Golf Tip billboard in St. Catharine was located. Despite the discrepancies between recollections, there are enough common threads between them all to support the idea Lincoln, Bijou, a cinema, an arcade, it all comes together at 525 Welland Avenue. Of course, what we don't know is who put the billboard up or why. We'll talk about that more in a bit, but for now, let's stick with what else we know. Beyond St. Catharines, knowledge of 1800 Golf Tip has also been placed in Toronto. I found considerably less concrete information about this possible connection, but a tenuous link does exist. It's mentioned in the 4chan thread I mentioned. Also, I managed to dig up a post from a Redditor who vaguely remembered hearing about it in Toronto and, somewhat hilariously, it's currently listed as the phone number for a possibly defunct punk band based in Toronto on their Facebook page. The band's Facebook page updated their number to 1-800-465-3847 only recently though, September of 2019, so whether it was meant as a nod to the Canadian 1800 Golf Tip oddity remains to be seen. The reason I wonder whether the band is still active, by the way, is due to the fact that their last Facebook post prior to September's phone number change went up in March of 2018, nearly two years ago. Do with that what you will. But as tenuous as these links might be, one of them gives us a bit more information about the timeline. Several Redditors in the thread placing the number in Toronto remembered calling it in the late 1980s, so we're not just looking at a number that was available in the 1990s, it was available in both the late 80s and at least the early 90s. But the most significant part of this leg of the story is the part that situates it in Ottawa. The July 29, 1993 edition of The Charlottean, the student newspaper of Carleton University, which is located in Ottawa, included a small box on page 11 listing six things we like, three things we hate, and one thing we just don't care about. Number one on the list, presumably making it one of the six things the students of Carleton liked, was one 800 golf tip. No other context was given for the number, but it's likely that the reason it was included in the list is because it was just so weird that one couldn't help but love it. This piece of evidence, by the way, is the thing that I think points most clearly to the Canadian mystery portion of one 800 golf tips history, having occurred first in the timeline. It's the one primary document firmly dating the number's existence that both lines up with what Canadians who called it remember about precisely when it was a thing and fits in with everything that came afterwards. Here's the funny thing, following these early Canadian years, one 800 golf tip actually was a golf hotline for a brief period of time. It was based in the United States rather than Canada, however, since both the U.S. and Canada are part of the North American numbering plan for phone numbers and share the same 800 number dataset, we don't really need to solve the problem of how it jumped from one country to the other. All we need to know is that at some point the number changed hands, and when it did so, it went from a Canadian owner to a U.S.-based one. And that's when it became the USA Today PGA of America golf tip hotline for at least one year. On December 1, 1994, USA Today ran an article addressing a fact that probably seemed novel at the time, but which is kind of well-duh situation now. Sometimes people widely regarded as experts in a given field still seek out teachers from whom to learn even more about that field. In the case of the USA Today article, it was professional golfers with loads of titles and championships under their belts. It turns out that, yes, sometimes even these champs call up other golfers, coaches and trainers to get a few pointers on their game. The article was accompanied by a plug for a hotline that would allow readers to get answers from the experts, a hotline referred to as the USA Today PGA of America hotline. Quote, iron shots too often go astray, need to get a grip on your grip, spraying the ball off the tee, three-putting far too often, 1-800-GOLF-TIP, 1-800-465-3847. Today, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern Time, TTY Line 1-800-331-1706. As the pay phone project found, an article in the Florida newspaper, The Tampa Tribune, dated December 3, a few days later, further elaborated on the hotline's origin and purpose. Golfers nationwide can receive golf tips today and Sunday via a toll-free instruction hotline presented by the PGA of America and USA Today. The hotline featuring nearly 100 PGA members is being offered in conjunction for the Tommy Armour PGA Teaching and Coaching Summit in New Orleans, called 800 GOLF-TIP. And wouldn't you know it? A bit more digging reveals that USA Today and the PGA, the Professional Golfers Association of America, have collaborated on this golf tips hotline on and off since 1992. But interestingly, the number associated with the hotline has not remained the same that entire time. According to an archived press release from the PGA published in 2011, that year's hotline marked the 10th in a series that dates back to the 1992 PGA Teaching and Coaching Summit. Monty Laurel, then the managing editor for USA Today's sports section, said according to the press release, USA Today and the PGA of America have worked together since 1992 on the golf tips hotline, and the collaboration has provided wonderful information for our audience and for golf fans everywhere. Continue, Laurel. Through the hotline, PGA professionals have helped USA Today readers of all skill levels and answered all kinds of questions from swing mechanics to set up to equipment issues to the mental game. Per USA Today, the phone number that year was not 1-800-GOLF-TIP, but rather 1-888-PGA-PLAY. 2011 was also notable for expanding the scope of the hotline beyond just the telephone. In that same press release, then-President of PGA of America, Allen Ronowski, called that year's edition the PGA-USA Today Gold Tips Hotline 2.0. In addition to the phone number, folks could for the first time use email, Facebook, Twitter and Skype to get in touch with the pros offering their advice, thereby bumping the hotline up to the next level. By 2013, the most recent revival of the hotline I could find, the program had moved entirely online, removing the phone number completely and instead encouraged people to send an email, post a question on our Facebook page, or send us a message via Twitter. The way the hotline worked was simple. Anyone who wanted to get some advice on golf from a bunch of people who really, really know what they're talking about could call up the number, or in later years get in touch via email or social media, ask a question and get a response from a pro. It generally only operated for a day or two each time it resurfaced. In 1994, for example, it seems to have been a weekend thing, while in 2011, the hotline ran for only a single day, January 27th. In 2013, the day the experts were actually on call answering questions was January 24th. However, those who wanted to ask something could also send their message in advance via the previously noted online channels. For what it's worth, I did reach out to the PGA of America for confirmation on all of these specifics, as well as to inquire about any additional information available about the hotline program. Alas, I did not receive a response prior to publication. But of course, the lack of confirmation here leads directly to the question of what exactly happened to the 1800 golf tip number after its use in the 1994 USA Today PGA of America hotline program. Clearly, USA Today and the PGA of America relinquished the number later on, as evidenced by the fact that the golf hotline number was different by 2011, thus leaving 1800 golf tip free for somebody else to snap up. And that somebody ended up being a company called Mayfair Communications or possibly Primetel Communications. When you call 1800 golf tip now, you don't get the counting recording, nor do you reach the USA Today PGA of America hotline. Instead, you reach an adult hotline, which of course yields the following question, who sets up an adult hotline reached by dialing a number that spells out 1800 golf tip? It seems like an unexpected choice. But don't call the number. I have done it for you. Here is what you hear when you dial the number 1800 golf tip. Welcome to America's hottest hotline. Guys, hot ladies are waiting to talk to you. Press one now. Ladies, to talk to interesting and exciting guys free, press two to connect free now. Guys, press one now. There you go. That's it. And at that point, it hangs up on you. Apparently, if you don't click a button, it either assumes that you called the wrong number or not of age or something. As YouTuber Barely sociable found out in his recent exploration of 1800 golf tip, the number, which as a reminder is actually 1-800-465-3847, it's been owned by Philadelphia-based company Mayfair Communications since 1998. Like Barely sociable, I followed the trail of 1800 golf tip to Mayfair Communications and then from Mayfair Communications to another company called Primetel Communications. It's tricky to connect the two companies at first. Neither has their own website, although it appears that Mayfair Communications did once. It's just not operational anymore. And information about both companies is scarce. They are, however, both based in Philadelphia, and more notably, both pop up in tandem with some degree of frequency in user posts on various forums dedicated to documenting robocalls, toll-free numbers, and phone scams. And here's where things started to get really interesting. You see, Mayfair Communications wasn't bought by Primetel Communications. It is Primetel Communications, or part of it at least. And the person who owns both of these companies owns a lot more than just a couple of 800-number service providers. Primetel Communications is one of several hundred RESP orgs or responsible organizations operating in the United States and Canada. RESP orgs are kind of like the 800-number version of Internet domain registrars. They maintain the registrations for toll-free numbers listed in the SMS800 database, the database of all 800 numbers in North America and their current status. A RESP org can be a long-distance company, reseller and user or an independent that offers an outsourced service, according to the FCC. However, it seems to be a little difficult to actually get a number from Primetel. As one blog post on 800-number availability notes, the company doesn't ever give them up, meaning the company operates as the end user. Indeed, as BarelySociable noted, Primetel is mostly known these days for amassing tons of toll-free numbers and redirecting them to adult hotlines. These activities actually became quite the news story in 2011, with reports about the whole to-do appearing in a wide range of newspapers and other reputable media outlets. At the time of the reports, Primetel had seemingly been at it for around 13 years, according to records acquired by the Associated Press. That is, the activity dated back to 1998. Sound familiar? But the adult hotlines the 800 numbers acquired by Primetel were not just any adult hotlines. They were adult hotlines connected with one of Primetel's founders. According to a June 2011 report from the Philadelphia Enquirer, Primetel was created by Richard Cohen and Sandra Kessler, working out of Philadelphia in 1995. At the time, Cohen was mostly known for running a huge number of adult businesses, largely under the company name National A1 Advertising Inc. Websites, phone lines, you name it. After Primetel came into being, the company began buying up 800 numbers and redirecting them to adult hotlines that were part of Cohen's network. As of 2011, Primetel controlled 1.7 million numbers, about 25% of all 800 numbers in the United States and Canada. It is perhaps worth noting that Primetel has been accused of violating the Code of Federal Regulation's telecommunications for hoarding numbers and directing them to a single toll-free subscriber. But although a handful of complaints have been brought against them, they have all been thrown out. The FCC hasn't brought any action against them. According to one official that was quoted, although what Primetel is doing might be annoying, it isn't necessarily illegal. The plot thickens though, or at least it does regarding the ownership of 1.800 Golf Tip. According to a different earlier report from the Philadelphia Enquirer, published in October of 2010, Primetel actually had six resp orgs under its belt at the time. They all tended to be grouped under the single name of Primetel, and the full list isn't even hard to find. The six companies include Primetel itself, USA Broadband, Unlink Telecom, Wirestar Communications, Yorkshire Telecom, and Mayfair Communications. And there we have it. Mayfair is Primetel. Both are run in part by Philadelphia's biggest adult industry player, and 1.800 Golf Tip is currently part of that empire. To sum everything up, here's the timeline as I currently understand it for 1.800 Golf Tip. In the late 80s and early 90s, at least one billboard advertising 1.800 Golf Tip existed in Ontario. When people called the number, they heard a recording of a man counting from 1 to 10, and the whole thing was weird enough for people to share the number, thus allowing it to spread, urban legend-like, throughout at least three cities in the province and possibly through Canada more broadly. By 1994, USA Today and the PGA of America had acquired 1.800 Golf Tip for use in their Golf Tips hotline. But because the hotline was not an ongoing thing, or even an annual occurrence, they didn't hold onto it, or continue to pay for it for any extended length of time. Instead, they relinquished it when they were done using it. Then, in or around 1998, Mayfair Communications slash Primetel acquired the number, not for any particular reason, but simply because it was available. They redirected it to an adult hotline, and there it has stayed ever since. Although exactly what was going on with the number prior to 1994 is still a mystery, I'd argue that the context surrounding it allows us to take a reasonable guess about it. Here's what I think. I think that the number either wasn't owned by anyone at the time, or that it was owned by someone who intended to start a golf hotline and never got around to it. In both cases, I think it's likely that the recording of the man counting was simply a placeholder or a test, something to fill the silence and make sure the number still worked. In support of the recording being a telecom's test, we have reports of other 800 numbers playing either the same or a similar recording around the same time most memories place it with one 800 golf tip. Meanwhile, in support of it having belonged to someone who lacked follow-through, we have the billboard. The owner of the number could very well have prematurely taken out billboard advertising for their planned hotline and then failed to actually do anything with the number, leaving the billboard sitting there for years advertising a hotline that didn't exist. But here's something else worth pointing out. 800 numbers can be zoned such that they only reach specific businesses to collars from specific geographic areas. As phone service company Unitel Voice explains, there are a few different kinds of toll-free service providers, one of which rents vanity phone numbers, numbers like 1-800-GOLF-TIP, which are easy to remember and are customizable, to people in specific geographic locations. For example, notes the company's post on toll-free numbers, a dental office in Houston could use and advertise 1-855-DENTIST and at the same time, a dentist's office in Chicago could use and advertise the exact same business number. Customers who call the phone number from a Houston area code will be routed to the Houston dentist. Customers who call the number from Chicago will be routed to the Chicago-based dentist. That means it's possible for 1-800-GOLF-TIP to lead to different businesses depending on where you're calling from. In the United States, where I'm based, it leads to an adult hotline as I shared with you. In Canada, though, it might lead somewhere else. Heck, it might have led somewhere else in Canada while it was leading to, say, the USA Today PGA of America hotline in the United States. For what it's worth, a 2005 message board post at Tribe Magazine, which is Toronto-centric, by the way, noted that at the time, calling 1-800-GOLF-TIP from Canada yielded an automated message stating, the number you've dialed cannot be reached from your calling area. Given that Primetel slash Mayfair had already acquired the number by that point, it's probably safe to say that they zoned it only in the United States. But hey, more than a few years have passed since then. If you're Canadian and you want to give 1-800-GOLF-TIP a call and you don't mind incurring whatever fees might be associated with it, let me know what you get. I'm sure we'd all be interested to hear what you find. As for me here in the U.S., I have no need for an adult hotline. Thanks for listening. Feel free to drop me a note anytime with your comments or questions. You can email me at darren at WeirdDarkness.com. You can also find all of my social media on the contact page of the website. If you want to help the podcast, 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. But more important than anything, please share the podcast, tell someone about it, someone who loves paranormal 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. Ken Alexa, Speak with the Dead is by Rob Schwartz for Stranger Dimensions. Where as Kenneth Beasley was posted at Strange Company. The Burning Stones was posted at the Forty-N. And Canada's weirdest whole-free phone number was posted at The Ghost in My Machine. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Philippians 2 verse 14. Do everything without complaining or arguing. And a final thought from Henry David Thoreau. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. 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