 ads heard during the podcast that are not in my voice are placed by third-party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. 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, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode. We all love cute pet photos, so often those photos almost make our furry friends look human, even smiling in some cases. But one particular type of photo being shared via email, a photo of a smiling dog would never be described as cute, as it drives some people literally insane. Is it real or just another cyber-located urban legend? Being kidnapped by gypsies is a somewhat negative stereotype towards those who truly live the lifestyle. They don't typically go out of their way to snatch people away. But in one particular circumstance it truly did happen and it created an incredibly strange tale. Penhurst Asylum was shuttered in 1987, but that doesn't mean there aren't any souls still residing there. But first, Albert Koh's story sounds more like a Steven Spielberg film as opposed to a true story. But Koh insists it really did happen that he saved the life of an extraterrestrial and it resulted in them becoming lifelong friends. We begin with that story. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, to visit sponsors you hear about during the show, sign up for my newsletter and our contests. Connect with me on social media. Listen to my other podcasts like Retro Radio, Old Time Radio in the Dark, Church of the Undead and a classic 1950s sci-fi style podcast called Auditory Anthology. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression, dark thoughts or addiction. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. The modern era of UFO contactees is most often said to have begun in the late 1940s when George Adamski encountered Orthon, a blonde-haired blue-eyed Nordic-looking entity in the California desert. Adamski would go on to make a career writing and lecturing about the aliens with whom he was in contact, thus the term contactees. But in a recent repackaging of a book about another classic contactee case called Starfall I Saved the Life of a Space Alien, publisher Timothy Green-Beckley has pushed the beginnings of the contactee phenomenon back to more than two decades prior to Adamski to 1920, to be exact, and offers the story of the very first contactee, one Albert Koh. Koh writes about his experiences in The First Person, autobiographical manner, finally revealing what he had promised his alien friend that he would keep a secret. The author's experience has been lost to time and space, Beckley explains, with Koh having passed away several decades ago. But we are determined to provide a legacy for him. This is his story. His cosmic adventure began when he was enjoying some fishing in a remote section of the Canadian woods. He happened to stumble across an alien in distress with a very badly injured leg. Koh himself writes that, �I was climbing up the side of an outcropping of rocks. Near the top I heard a muffled cry for help. I looked around, but could see no one, for the area was thickly overgrown. So I climbed up over the edge and let out a yell. Slightly to the right and ahead of me came an answer. Oh, help, help me!� Within minutes, Koh came face to face with an alien who looked as human as any one of us. The alleged alien was called Zret, a reworking of the letters in Mr. X spelled backwards and shortened. The alien was close to death and extremely grateful to be lifted out of the narrowing crevice in which he had been trapped. Koh told the alien that he was canoeing in the area with a friend and planned to rejoin him soon. Zret told Koh that he was not himself canoeing but had come to the area in a plane which was parked at a clearing three or four hundred yards downstream. When Koh offered to help Zret go back to his plane, the offer was declined. Zret finally gave in and agreed to have Koh help him but on the condition that Koh promised not to divulge to anyone, not even his fishing buddy, anything that had taken place or whatever he might see. Zret then told Koh a complete fabrication, saying his father had developed a new kind of plane that was still in the experimental stage and highly secret. As a sort of test, Zret's father had permitted him to use the plane for this fishing trip. With Koh half supporting and half carrying Zret over some rough spots, they finally made their way to a small clearing. The clearing was not more than seventy or eighty feet wide, Koh writes, and near its center stood his plane. I have been trying to figure out how to get a plane in or out of there without hitting a tree or protruding rocks. What secret gimmick could launch one without a runway? I fully expected to see some type of conventional aircraft and the reason for the reluctance in my accompanying him became crystal clear. For what I was looking at astounded me. A round silver disc about twenty feet in diameter was standing on three legs in the form of a tripod without propeller, engine, wings, or fuselage. He said, surprised? That wasn't actually the word for it, but I did not press him with questions, realizing he was suffering a great deal of pain. Zret then boards the ship. He lifted a few feet above the ground and paused with a slight fluttering and then swiftly rose with effortless ease and was gone. Koh headed back to camp to join his friend. He was left with an uneasy feeling of witnessing something that did not actually exist, an impression of disconnected sequences only found in dreams. During the fishing trip rescue incident, Zret had asked Koh for his name and address. Six months later, Koh received a letter from Zret, inviting him to lunch. Thus began a lifelong friendship between Koh and Zret in which the alien answered Koh's numerous questions and provided him with an alien's perspective on mankind and our struggle with life on earth. For example, Koh asked Zret about the nature and reality of God. The glimmerings of present religious beliefs or philosophies on your planet, Zret told him, stretch into its dim, unrecorded mists of ten thousand years but did not become an obsession of the mind until about eighty-eight hundred years ago. But its fragmentary principles were nurtured on greed, fear and a lack of complete understanding that eventually developed the mental hybrid which has given life to the millions of gods, totems, images and charms. Each of the myriad groupings of men contributed an imaginative piece of this mysterious puzzle of creation and the personification of energy as Godhead to which he endowed his own exclusive emotion of love and its opposite. Mankind attempted to control his environment through a cajoling or appeasement of these fearful and incomprehensible forces of nature in the supplication of prayer or ritual or sacrifice. Each tribe or race created its own true God or complex of true gods and although they all worshipped the same true essence in the deity, selfishness led to the narrow-minded chaos of intolerance and brutality as each sect had fought to defend or impose on others its own conception of this divinity. According to Zret, Christian doctrine combines several branches from earlier cosmologies, notably Magi, Egyptian, Babylonian and Hebrew, along with the findings of later Greek philosophers in their diligent search for the primal stuff from which everything is made. Zret seemed to foretell our present struggles with global warming and ecological pollution. I cannot but wonder, he said, How long is heritage of beauty that nature so lavishly entrusted to the custody of earthmen will endure? I have watched the green mantles of her hills and forests converted into the green of dollar bills, her sparkling waters thoughtlessly desecrated by pollution of population and industry because it is a convenient and economical means of disposal, the birds and magnificence of her wildlife on land and in the sea decimated for profit or sport. Zret ponders the possibility that nature in bringing forth man may have created one of the greater potentials of destructive force in the universe if sadistic motivation is coupled to mental genius. Coe was also told of an early pioneering flight to planet earth that Zret's ancient ancestors had made. At one point, shortly after landing, Zret's people met a group of six earth children. They came forward slowly, hesitantly, Zret recounted, with several backward glances, six small light blue skinned female children with brown eyes and straight black hair. All were naked and although they were very cautious, they seemed a bit more curious than frightened, like a little flock of birds ready to take a wing at the first sign of danger. Curiosity must have collectively outweighed their fear because shortly 130 men, women and children came out of the woods. All of them blue skinned and scantily clad. Once it was established that both the aliens and the earth men had friendly intentions towards one another, the aliens spent the next two weeks with the primitives, developing a kind of sign language that permitted them to communicate. The primitives were basically nomads without any basic code of law, merely the rule of right by might, just as the more powerful bull of the animals let his herd. There was no religion, but they lived in constant fear of spirits, and everything had a spirit with very little differential between the living and the dead. Their perception of the world wavered between reality and hallucination. Due to negative thinking, their sleep was plagued with dreams and nightmares, the swift lunge of the animal, the hiss of the snake, the howling winds and storms, falling trees and rocks to crush them, and the agonizing screams of dying comrades filled their nights. They actually gave more credence to the so-called spirit world than to reality, but the objective was something with which they could cope. The earth people held the craft of Zret's ancestors in awe and wonder and would touch it each time they passed by. We tried to explain that we'd come from one of the stars in the sky, Zret told Coe, and this completely mystified them, but they did consider us all the good spirits rolled into one. It came time to move on, and they were very reluctant for us to leave, but we told them to watch the sky, for we would return with many of our people to teach and to free them from fear, strife, and want. Up next, we all love cute pet photos, so often those photos almost make our furry friends look human, even smiling in some cases, but one particular photo being shared via email, a photo of a smiling dog, would never be described as cute, as it drives some people literally insane. Is it a real thing or just another urban legend? Plus, being kidnapped by gypsies is a somewhat negative stereotype towards those who truly live the gypsy lifestyle. They don't typically go out of their way to snatch people up, but in one particular circumstance, it truly did happen, and it created an incredibly strange tale. Those stories and more, coming up on Weird Darkness. Sometimes you feel a bit nutty, especially if you're a weirdo. If that feeling transfers to your taste buds as well, I've got some great news for you. Weird Dark Roast Nutty Mummy coffee. Wrap your taste buds around this medium dark roast blend with shrouds of almond, honey, and chocolate. Each bag of nutty mummy is exclusive to Weird Darkness and is roasted to order. Then bandaged, I mean, bagged specifically for you to ensure a maximum freshness for you, your mummy, and anyone else you share it with. Entomb your old coffee and bring your taste buds back from the dead with Weird Dark Roast Nutty Mummy at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. How many people can resist looking at a picture of a cute dog? I can't think of any. Even if you're not a dog person, I'm guessing their pictures still make you go I think it's safe to say that if you got an email with the subject Smile, you'd probably open it, especially if you knew who that was from. The email has a short message and an attachment. Smile.jpeg. Opening the picture, it's just a dog. Well, sort of. It looks like a Siberian husky, but its mouth is wrong. The dog has a wide grin featuring two rows of very white, very sharp and very human looking teeth. While still a college student, a man known as Mr. L was interested in the story. He'd heard about Smile.jpeg, also known as Smile.dog when he was still in high school. Now in college, his interest was sparked once again. You see, Mr. L was an amateur writer interested in gathering information for college assignments and possibly some pieces of fiction. In the story, people's reaction to the image is one of contempt. The image is considered truly ridiculous. Some people even refuse to acknowledge the existence of the photo, whether out of fear or disbelief is unknown. Regardless, according to the story, a woman by the name of Mary E. had encountered the image and, though it's believed that at least 400 people had seen the image, she was the only one to ever openly speak about it. The rest remained anonymous, or worse, dead. So we had to interview her. Alas, the interview never happened when Mr. L showed up at her home. She locked herself in her bedroom and refused to come out. About a year later, Mr. L received an email from Mary. In this email was an attachment, Smile.jpeg. So what is Smile.jpeg? Well, Smile.jpeg is supposedly a haunted image dating back to the beginnings of the internet. It's believed that those who look upon it are driven insane. The image appears innocent enough. As mentioned before, the dog, or dog-like creature, appears to be a Siberian husky with a wide grin containing two sets of very white, very sharp, very straight human looking teeth. But that's not all that's in the image. The dog is illuminated by a camera flash. The room is dim or dark and the only detail that can be seen is a human hand reaching out. The hand is empty, but it's described as beckoning. Not a single description of the photo has been given immediately after viewing it. However, the account that's given is a recollection from memory. All the victims have a similar, if not same description. The image, though it may have only been looked upon once and possibly only briefly, remained in the viewer's mind, making them see it almost constantly. It's believed that there's a correlation between seeing this image and epileptic seizures. However, the causation is not yet understood. Since Barry's experience, others have seen the picture and have spoken out. Not only do they see the image in their mind's eye, but they believe they have been visited by the dog as well. When they sleep and dream, they are subjected to the dog, listening while it tells them that the only relief they will ever get is if they spread the word. Not long after these dreams, the person receives a piece of mail containing removable media which contains another copy of the smile.jpg file. The mail has no return address. Smile dog is a patient creature, waiting, wearing down its victims until they give in and give him what he wants. Once they do, he backs off and leaves them alone, though some accounts claim that he is capable of murder and dragging their souls to hell. Now to the truth of it all. Smile.jpg is not real, at least so far as we know. It's what we would consider a creepypasta, and so far, the original author of the story is still a mystery. I first met in person with Mary E. in the summer of 2007. I'd arranged with her husband of 15 years, Terrence, to see her for an interview. Mary had initially agreed since I was not a newsman but rather an amateur writer gathering information for a few early college assignments, and if all went according to plan, some pieces of fiction. We scheduled the interview for a particular weekend when I was in Chicago on unrelated business, but at the last moment Mary changed her mind and locked herself in the couple's bedroom, refusing to meet with me. For half an hour I sat with Terrence as we camped outside the bedroom, listening and taking notes while he attempted fruitlessly to call on his wife. The things Mary said made little sense, but fit with the pattern I was expecting, though I could not see her I could tell from her voice that she was crying, and more often than not her objections to speaking with me centered around an incoherent diatribe of her dreams, her nightmares. Terrence apologized profusely when we ceased the exercise and I did my best to take it in stride. Recall that I wasn't a reporter in search of a story but merely a curious young man in search of information. Besides, I thought at the time I could perhaps find another similar case if I put my mind and resources to it. Mary E. was the systems operator for a small Chicago-based bulletin board system in 1992 when she first encountered Smile.jpeg and her life changed forever. She and Terrence had been married for only five months. Mary was one of an estimated 400 people who saw the image when it was posted as a hyperlink on the BBS, though she is the only one who has spoken openly about the experience. The rest have remained anonymous or are perhaps dead. In 2005, when I was only in 10th grade, Smile.jpeg was first brought to my attention by my burgeoning interest in web-based phenomena. Mary was the most often cited victim of what's sometimes referred to as Smile.dog, the being that Smile.jpeg is reputed to display. What caught my interest, other than the obvious macabre elements of the cyber legend and my proclivity towards such things, was the sheer lack of information, usually to the point that people don't believe it even exists other than as a rumor or hoax. It is unique because though the entire phenomenon centers on a picture file, that file is nowhere to be found on the internet. Certainly many photo-manipulated simulacra litter the web, showing up with the most frequency on sites such as the image board 4chan, particularly the X-focused paranormal subboard. It is suspected that these are fakes because they do not have the effect that the true Smile.jpeg is believed to have, namely sudden onset temporal lobe epilepsy and acute anxiety. This purported reaction in the viewer is one of the reasons the phantom-like Smile.jpeg is regarded with such disdain, since it is patently absurd, though depending on whom you ask, the reluctance to acknowledge Smile.jpeg's existence might be just as much out of fear as it is out of disbelief. Neither Smile.jpeg nor Smile.dog is mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia, though the website features articles on such other, perhaps more, scandalous shock sites. Any attempt to create a page pertaining to Smile.jpeg is summarily deleted by any of the Encyclopedia's many admins. Encounters with Smile.jpeg are the stuff of Internet legend. Mary E.'s story is not unique. There are unverified rumors of Smile.jpeg showing up in the early days of Usenet, and even one persistent tale that in 2002 a hacker flooded the forums of humor and satire website Something Awful with a deluge of Smile.dog pictures, rendering almost half the forum's users at the time epileptic. It's also said that in the mid to late 90s that Smile.jpeg circulated on Usenet and as an attachment of a chain email with the subject line Smile, God loves you. Yet despite the huge exposure these stunts would generate, there are very few people who admit to having experienced any of them, and no trace of the file or any link has ever been discovered. Those who claim to have actually seen Smile.jpeg will often weakly joke that they were far too busy to save a copy of the picture to their hard drive. However, all alleged victims offer the same description of the photo. A dog-like creature usually described as appearing similar to a Siberian husky, illuminated by the flash of a camera, sits in a dim room, the only background detail that's visible being a human hand extending from the darkness near the left side of the frame. The hand is empty, but it's usually described as beckoning. Of course, most attention is given to the dog, or dog creature, as some victims are more certain than others about what they claim to have seen. The muzzle of the beast is reputedly split in a wide grin, revealing two rows of very white, very straight, very sharp, very human looking teeth. This, of course, is not a description given immediately after viewing the picture, but rather a recollection of the victims who claim to have seen the picture endlessly repeated in their mind's eye during the time they are, in reality, having epileptic fits. These fits are reported to continue indeterminately, often while the victim sleeps, resulting in very vivid and disturbing nightmares. These may be treated with medication, with some more effective than others. According to Mr. L, Mary E. I assumed was not on effective medication. That was why, after my visit to her apartment in 2007, I sent out feelers to several folklore and urban legend-oriented news groups, websites and mailing lists, hoping to find the name of a supposed victim of Smile.jpg, who felt more interested in talking about his experiences. For a time, nothing happened, and at length I forgot completely about my pursuits, since I'd begun my freshman year of college and was quite busy. Mary contacted me via email, however, near the beginning of March 2008. Here's the email. To me from Mary E. The subject, Last Summer's Interview. Dear Mr. L, I am incredibly sorry about my behavior last summer when you came to interview me. I hope you understand that it was no fault of yours, but rather my own problems that led me to act out as I did. I realized that I could have handled the situation more decorously, however, I hope you will forgive me. At the time I was afraid. You see, for 15 years I have been haunted by Smile.jpg. Smile.dog comes to me in my sleep every night. I know that sounds silly, but it is true. There is an ineffable quality about my dreams, my nightmares, that makes them completely unlike any real dreams I've ever had. I do not move and do not speak. I simply look ahead, and the only thing ahead of me is the scene from that horrible picture. I see the beckoning hand, and I see Smile.dog. It talks to me. It is not a dog, of course, though I am not quite sure what it really is. It tells me it will leave me alone if only I do as it asks. All I must do, it says, is spread the word. That is how it phrases its demands, and I know exactly what it means. It wants me to show the photo to someone else. And I could. The week after my incident I received in the mail a Manila envelope with no return address. Inside was only a three and a half inch floppy diskette. Without having to check I knew precisely what was on it. I thought for a long time about my options. I could show it to a stranger, a co-worker, I could even show it to Terrence as much as the idea disgusted me, and what would happen then? Well, if Smile.dog kept its word I could sleep. Yet, if it lied, what would I do? And who was to say something worse would not come for me if I did as the creature asked? So I did nothing for 15 years, though I kept the diskette hidden amongst my things. Every night for 15 years Smile.dog has come to me in my sleep and demanded that I spread the word. For 15 years I have stood strong, though there have been hard times. Many of my fellow victims on the BBS board where I first encountered Smile.jpeg stopped posting. I heard some of them committed suicide. Others remained completely silent, simply disappearing off the face of the web. They are the ones I worry about the most. I sincerely hope you will forgive me, Mr. L, but last summer when you contacted me and my husband about an interview I was near the breaking point and decided I was going to give you the floppy diskette. I did not care if Smile.dog was lying or not. I wanted it to end. You were a stranger, someone I had no connection with and I thought I would not feel sorrow when you took the diskette as part of your research and sealed your fate. Before you arrived I realized what I was doing was plotting to ruin your life. I could not stand the thought and in fact I still cannot. I am ashamed, Mr. L, and I hope that this warning will dissuade you from further investigation of Smile.jpeg. You may in time encounter someone who is, if not weaker than I, then wholly more depraved someone who will not hesitate to follow Smile.dog's orders. Stop while you are still whole. Sincerely, Mary E. Terrence contacted me later that month with the news that his wife had killed herself. While cleaning up the various things that she had left behind, closing email accounts and the like, he happened upon the above message. He was a man in shambles. He wept as he told me to listen to his wife's advice. He had found the diskette he revealed and burned it until it was nothing but a stinking pile of blackened plastic. The part that most disturbed him, however, was how the diskette had hissed as it melted, like some sort of animal, he said. I'll admit that I was a little uncertain about how to respond to this. At first I thought perhaps it was a joke, with the couple belatedly playing with the situation in order to get a rise out of me. A quick check of several Chicago newspapers online obituaries, however, proved that Mary E. was indeed dead. There was, of course, no mention of suicide in the article. I decided that, for a time at least, I would not further pursue the subject to Smile.jpg, especially since I had finals coming up at the end of May. But the world is odd ways of testing us. Almost a full year after I'd returned from my disastrous interview with Mary E., I received another email. To me from Elzahere82. Subject, Smile. Hello. I found your email address through a mailing list. Your profile said you were interested in SmileDog. I have saw it. It is not as bad as everyone says. I have sent it to you here just spreading the word. Happy face emoji. That final line chilled me to the bone. Just spreading the word. According to my email client, there was one file attachment called, naturally, Smile.jpg. I considered downloading it for some time. It was most likely a fake, I imagined, and even if it weren't, I was never wholly convinced of Smile.jpg's peculiar powers. Mary E.'s account had shaken me, but she was probably mentally unbalanced anyway. After all, how could a simple image do what Smile.jpg was said to accomplish? What sort of creature was it that could break one's mind with only the power of the eye? And if such things were patently absurd, then why did the legend exist at all? If I downloaded the image, if I looked at it, and if Mary turned out to be correct, if Smile.dog came to me in my dreams demanding I spread the word, what would I do? Would I live my life as Mary had, fighting against the urge to give in until I died? Or would I simply spread the word, eager to be put to rest? And if I chose the latter route, how could I do it? Whom would I burden in turn? If I went through with my earlier intention to write a short article about Smile.jpg, I decided I could attach it as evidence, and anyone who read the article, anyone who took interest, would be affected. And even assuming that Smile.jpg attached to the email was genuine, would I be capricious enough to save myself in that manner? Could I spread the word? Yes. Yes, I could. Whenever children uncountably disappeared in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was common for people to instantly suspect that they were kidnapped by gypsies. These suppositions were generally proven false, to the extent that stories about such alleged abductions are now thought of as vintage urban myths. However, on at least one occasion, this conjecture was apparently proven to be correct, and the case only got weirder from there. Our story opens on October 21st, 1896, in the small northern New York town of Sissonville. At about 6 p.m., a seven-year-old boy named Frederick Rousseau was seen playing on a bridge near the lumber mill where his father John Rousseau worked. The boy often waited there in the evenings to meet his dad and walk home with him. That was the last time anyone saw Frederick. Almost immediately, the entire community turned out to look for the child. The mill was shut down and carefully examined. The local river was dragged, and the surrounding countryside diligently searched. Not a trace of little Frederick could be found anywhere. The frustrated townspeople could only assume that the boy had drowned, and his body had become lodged on the river bottom. The years passed, with the tragic mystery becoming nearly forgotten by everyone except the Rousseau family. Then, in August 1913, the puzzle of Frederick's disappearance appeared to be resolved, and in an entirely startling way. On a boat traveling along the Ottawa River, a young man approached one of his fellow passengers, a Catholic priest. He explained that many years before, when he was a small child, he'd been abducted by Gypsies who had treated him with great brutality. He stated that the Gypsy caravan had taken him through a number of foreign countries as they spent each winter abroad, or still, the Gypsies had stolen a number of other children. The boys were used as virtual slaves, and the girls were sold for large amounts of cash. He had just now managed to escape from his captors. The caravan was still in Canada, with one kidnapped child, a girl, still in their possession. All the youth could remember about himself was that, although the Gypsies insisted on calling him Patrick, he knew his real name was Frederick, and he had come from some place in Northern New York. The priest, convinced the young man was telling the truth, brought him to a Trappist Monastery in Oka, a village in Quebec. In an effort to discover the stranger's true identity, the little information he was able to provide about himself was broadcast in the local news media along with a photo. The monks contacted a father, Maren, who lived in Northern New York. Perhaps he would have some clues suggesting who the young man really was. By a remarkable coincidence, one Kate Perry, a sister of Frederick Brousseau's mother, lived in Montreal and saw the newspaper articles about the mystery man. She was intrigued enough to visit the Oka Monastery, carrying with her a photograph of Frederick taken shortly before he disappeared. When she compared the photo to the as yet unidentified young man, she became convinced he was her long-missing nephew. She immediately shared the astonishing news with the Brousseaus. Mr. and Mrs. Brousseau, along with one of their other sons, Frank, and Father Maren, immediately headed for Oka. Upon their arrival, the parents immediately recognized the stranger as their son. It was established that the young man had the same distinctive birthmark on his arm that Frederick had had. Plus, he so resembled Frank Brousseau that the two could have passed as twins. The Canadian police immediately went in search of this caravan of kidnappers. The authorities were forced to instruct the newly discovered Frederick Brousseau to remain on the monastery grounds, as he would be a crucial material witness when the gypsies were caught and put on trial. His parents had no choice but to return home without their long-lost son, but at least they now had the assurance that before long they would be reunited for good. Unfortunately, a new danger soon emerged. The widespread publicity given to the return of the long-missing boy ensured that his former captors also learned where he was. It was reported that the gypsies made a number of attempts to steal the young man back from the monastery, but the monks managed to foil all their evil plans. Or so they initially thought. Just days after his joyful meeting with his family, the newly identified Frederick Brousseau vanished from sight once more. On August 22, 1913, he was seen in the monastery's courtyard, talking to a stranger. Frederick seemed worried and upset. A few minutes later, he was gone. What had happened? It was presumed that the gypsies had somehow threatened or coerced him into returning to their custody, but no one could say for certain why the young man made a second disappearance. Soon after Frederick vanished from the monastery, someone matching his description was seen boarding a train from New York in the company of a woman claiming to be his mother. Was this the missing man? No one could say. Was this enigmatic youth even the real Frederick? The Montreal Chief of Police, for one, was skeptical. He had information suggesting that the mysterious young man was, in reality, one Patrick Sailor, a barber who had been living in Montreal for years. The police chief was convinced the man identified as Frederick was either delusional or a sick practical joker. Who really was this man? Why did he vanish so suddenly and oddly? Was any of his bizarre story true? And if he was an imposter, what happened to the real Brousseau boy? We'll never know the answers to any of these questions, because this time Frederick Brousseau never did come back. When Weird Darkness returns, Penhurst Asylum was shuttered in 1987, but that doesn't mean there aren't any souls still living there. Microtarrers, 10 scary stories for kids. Volume 1 is now available. It includes 10 stories originally heard on the podcast, including The Creeping Ghost, Space Monster, Computer Crash, Starved for Detention, and more. Plus, two horrific tales written by young Microtarrers listeners. Microtarrers, 10 scary stories for kids. Volume 1 is available on Kindle or in paperback at Microtarrers.com. The Penhurst State School in Asylum originally called the Eastern Pennsylvania Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic was authorized for construction in 1903. It was conceived as a state-funded and operated facility to house any individual deemed feeble-minded and thus unable to function in normal society. This included physically and mentally disabled persons, individuals with abnormalities, physical or psychological, and mute, deaf, and blind people. It also included those with offensive habits and imperfect speech. When admitted, patients were classified physically as either imbecile or insane, classified mentally as healthy or epileptic, and classified dentally as having teeth either good, poor, or treated. As time went on, the institution would be pressured to also house and hold immigrants, criminals, and orphans. It became the solution for ridding society of all undesirables. In fact, the institution's campus functioned as a self-contained city with residents completing all the tasks necessary to run their small society. It was a collective fear of the other that created the need for a place like Penhurst. In 1913, legislature created a commission for the care of the feeble-minded, which declared that disabled individuals were both unfit for citizenship and a menace to the peace. It called for such people to be taken into custodial care by the government. This served to keep disabled people away from the general population, for everyone's safety, as well as to keep them from reproducing. Even more disturbing than the fact that such a facility existed is that it existed for so long. By the 1960s, Penhurst was home to about 2,791 people, almost 900 more than maximum capacity. In 1968, a young reporter did a short TV series on Penhurst, which was the first that most people had ever even heard of the institution. Many were appalled by the images they saw on their TV sets, including individuals chained to adult-sized cribs and children in cages. Allegations of abuse surfaced in the following years. It wasn't until 1987, however, that the facility was finally closed. The closure came about after Penhurst lost a large legal dispute filed by a former resident who reported intense physical, emotional and psychological abuses suffered at the hands of her nurses and caregivers. Apparently, those in positions of power were not only hurting the patients and residents themselves, but also arranging for patients to bully and assault each other. If there's a silver lining to Penhurst, it's that the horrors suffered there led to sweeping reforms. Its dark legacy changed the way the American legal system, as well as society, treats those with special needs. Of course, today the asylum is shrouded in ghost tales and reports of paranormal activity. As of 2010, one building was partially reopened as the Penhurst Asylum haunted house. Some visitors claimed to hear voices, shrieks and murmurs of pain from former residents and inmates of the facility. The hauntings are terrifying for multiple reasons. Aside from the typical fear of the paranormal, the ghosts of Penhurst serve as a collective reminder of just how cruel society can be toward its own members. Here's a story by one of our weirdo family members. It's called The Old Farmhouse, written in by Marissa Harrington. When I was two or three years old, my parents, sister and I went to an old farmhouse in upstate New York. My dad was a long-haul trucker and my mom was a secretary at a hospital. My parents went to be a rental listing for this old farmhouse literally right across the road from the house we were currently living in. After my mom got on the porch, she stopped, looked at the landlord and asked him, is this place haunted? She hadn't even crossed the threshold yet. The landlord said he never had any experiences, so they decided to rent the house, which was huge, and from what I remember, the floorboards were painted olive green. The first night we stayed in the house, my dad and sister had run to the store and my mom was giving me a bath. My mom said that as she was getting me out of the bathtub, I grabbed her arms as hard as I could and said in a shaky voice, there's someone coming down the stairs. They heard on the back of her neck, stood up. She said that she told me that there was no one but us at home, but I was adamant. After she got me out of the tub, we went into the living room, which when we went to the bathroom for the bath, our TV was on and there was that static snow still on the screen. But when we got to the living room, the TV was off and my dad and sister weren't home yet and we hadn't lost power. A few months into living there, my dad was getting ready for work. It was the middle of the night and he was awake alone. As he was tying his work boots, he said that he'd heard a woman scream upstairs. He ran up the stairs and checked on all three of us girls and we were all fast asleep. He went back downstairs to continue getting ready for work and he heard the scream again, so he ran back upstairs and saw that we were all still sleeping. He went back down the stairs and was finishing up getting ready when he heard a third scream, which after he heard it a third time, he grabbed his stuff and headed right out the door. Another instance happened where my mom was taking a shower because we had somewhere to go that day and it was just me and her again. While she was in the shower, she told me the phone rang and she heard my little voice say, I'll get it and then the padding of my feet over to get the phone. She said the conversation, on my end anyway, went like this. Hello? Okay, okay, okay, okay, bye. My mom came out of the bathroom and asked who it was. I told her that it was my friend Cheryl. She asked who Cheryl was and I told her, she looks like you, mommy. I assumed that I meant that she was an adult. She asked me what she wanted and I told her that Cheryl said that she was coming over. Naturally, she panicked and reminded me we had plans as she grabbed the phone and hit redial. When she hit redial, she got a wrong number tone and a pre-recorded message that said the number you've dialed is not in service. Following that, I told my mom she was already at the house. My mom checked the front yard and there was no other cars in the drive and no one was there. She assured me that no one was there and then I scared the piss out of her. I looked at her and said, she didn't come through that door, mommy, she came through that door and pointed to our closed and locked laundry room door that had a swing latch. I was far too short to reach that latch. She told me she really didn't want to open the laundry room door but she did and there was no one there. Then one night I was asleep in my room and was woken by something. I honestly can't remember who or what woke me. But I stared into my closet which my mom would not go in after dark and apparently saw something because I asked, who were you? But I don't remember if I ever got an answer. The last thing that happened at that house that I remember is my parents were downstairs watching TV and all of a sudden my mom said my sister was coming down the stairs, her eyes wide open, her right arm twisted back behind her and up, talking like a zombie saying, mom, mom, mom. My sister was diagnosed with a seizure disorder while we were living in that house. I'm not sure if the spirit there saw that she was about to go into one and guided her down to my mom or if my mom hated the room that was designed as our playroom and would never go in there after dark either. Both my mom and I have tried to look up the history of that house and could not find anything. But something bad happened there. If I had to guess, my old friend Cheryl must have been murdered either on that land or in that house, specifically the playroom and whoever caused it hung around too. I have other ghost stories. My family on both my parents' sides must attract them or something. Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren at weirddarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. Weirddarkness.com is also where you can find information on any of the sponsors you heard about during the show. Find all of my social media. Listen to audiobooks I've narrated. Sign up for the email newsletter. Find other podcasts that I host, including Retro Radio, Old Time Radio in the Dark, Church of the Undead, and a classic 1950s sci-fi style podcast called Auditory Anthology. Also on the site, you can visit the store for Weirddarkness t-shirts, mugs, and other merchandise. Plus, it's where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression, addiction, or thoughts of harming yourself or others. And if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell of your own, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more at Weirddarkness.com. All stories on Weirddarkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find links to the stories or the authors in the show notes. I Saved E.T.'s Life is by Swartz for SpectralVision.com. Kidnapped by Gypsies is from Strange Company. The Living Dead Asylum is written by Elizabeth Tilstra for the lineup. And Smile Dog is from theScareChamber.com, and although written as a true story, I believe it's fictional. Weirddarkness is a registered trademark. Copyright Weirddarkness. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. James 4, verse 7. Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. And a final thought. Always end the day with a positive thought. No matter how hard things were, tomorrow is a fresh opportunity to make it better. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weirddarkness.