 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. This is a Fireside Frights episode where once a month I come to you with no music or fancy production, it's just you, me, this campfire and stories emailed to me by you, my Weirdo family. If something paranormal has happened to you or someone you know and you'd like to share them for a future Fireside Frights, just visit WeirdDarkness.com and click on Tell Your 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 to enter contests, connect with me on social media, plus you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression or dark thoughts. 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. Our first email comes from C. They say, Hey Darren, I love your podcast and listen to it daily while working, it's there in my work. Though you can't see it, I often pinpoint what I was looking to just by looking at my work. I wanted to share a true story to show my appreciation for all the work you do for us listeners. My childhood was not a settled one and the family often moved. It was a volatile environment which may have led to my sensitivity to the paranormal. I have a few stories but I'll share one today that happened recently and connects to when I was about 13. I was 13 living in Japan. We had moved there three years prior in an unsuccessful attempt to escape a very bad situation. The area we lived in was a beautiful place. Lots of green hills and mountains surrounded us but it also had a horrific history. It was near the site where executions took place during the Sengoku era. Creepy? Yes. It was summer and unbelievably you were handed a ton of homework to finish during the summer break. On the last night before school started, I had been finishing up the last of said homework to submit the next day so I stayed up late. When I finished, I went into the bathroom right across from my room. As I crossed the hall, I looked to my right where you saw straight down to the living room. The kitchen is hidden in an alcove to the left just before the living area. It was dark as I expected but that's when I saw it. A glowy, translucent hand drifted out from the kitchen in a beckoning movement. I bolted to my room not wanting to find out what that was. I was shaken hoping it wouldn't come down the hall. I managed to sleep somehow but never forgot that hand slowly beckoning. Many things happened in that apartment and I wasn't the only witness. Both my brother and mother saw things and most were not good. Fast forward a couple of decades. I'm in a different country. I have a job and freelance so more often than not, I'd be sitting at my computer working in the night after the family has gone to sleep. Yes, I'm aware of the pattern. During these times, I would listen to your podcast or something similar. That is, until one night, something bizarre happened. As I was focusing on the task at hand, it was late, I think it was close to two in the morning when suddenly the atmosphere around me became very heavy. It was as if a very thick liquid had fallen onto the whole room and kept pressing down on me. Having had experience with the paranormal, I spoke, okay, I get it, I'm out of here. You have a party and I'm holding it up. As soon as I left the room, I was fine but went straight to bed regardless. Then another night with another deadline, I was working late again. This time I didn't have the creepy podcasts on. This was to avoid the terrible feeling I had the other night. But as I looked up from my screen towards the living area through the door just right at my desk, that hand appeared. It was the same glowy, translucent hand from my adolescent years. But instead of being down the hall, it was right next to me, beckoning. I turned off everything. I had to pass through the door terrified of what I might see. I cautiously went through but didn't see anything. Thank goodness. I went straight to bed. I don't like engaging with unknown entities and pray for my family to be safe in this house. But again, I'm not the only witness to some of the weird things. I sometimes speak aloud of a late night work session that will happen, as if letting everyone know. I don't feel or see anything when I do this. Thanks for reading. I hope to share more in the future. Your listener, C. That is a really great way of starting fireside frights. C. Thank you very much. It's interesting that now when you go into one of your late night sessions, you kind of give all the ghosts or whatever's in there a heads up saying, Hey, everybody, just want to let you know I'm going to be working here tonight. So don't mess with me. Okay. I'd appreciate that. Thank you very much. It's interesting. I don't need to know the very bad situation that you had when you escaped, when you tried to escape to Japan. I know that wasn't your doing. That was obviously your parents doing, but it's interesting that when I was reading that, it just brought me back to that thought. It's kind of a cliche nowadays that you just can't escape your past. You can't run from a bad situation. It's always going to find you no matter where you go, wherever you run to, there you are. So if you're part of the bad situation, there you go. But the scariest thing I think I found in, in your email, aside from that creepy hand, that is really, really creepy, especially that, excuse me, especially that it would happen in two different locations. So it's not like you're, it's not a haunted location. I mean, it may have been a haunted location, but that wasn't the specific reason you saw the hand, because it happened to you in two different places. So it's following you for some reason. Makes me wonder if there is something that you maybe picked up, either spiritually or maybe a physical item that has something spiritually attached to it, like maybe you picked something up while you were in Japan or something. I don't know, but that's what I first thought. But even scary, almost as scary as that, not, not even scarier, but almost scary as that is homework in the summer. I'm sorry. No, that's, that's, that's a, that's a note, that's a note for me. Homework in the summer ain't going to happen. That's when I draw the line. Okay. I'll take the creepy hands. I'll take the ghosts. I'll take the sleep paralysis, but homework in the summer. I'm sorry. You got to draw the line somewhere. Thank you very much. See, I appreciate the email. This one comes from, let's see, Michael. He says, first, I want to say it, that I thoroughly enjoy your narrations. This took place approximately 14 years ago. I've never really been a believer in cryptids, but I've been a believer in the paranormal since childhood. Anyway, at the time this took, I was working second shift, getting off work at around midnight. My baby brother was working for a bar at that time, and I'd go there and hang out until he got off work at around 2.30 a.m. to give him a ride home. Now, to be clear, I'm not and never have been a drinker, so this isn't a case of being drunk and misidentifying a known animal. I grew up in the woods, and I'm very familiar with the sounds of the local wildlife. One night after picking up my brother from work, we were deep in conversation as we arrived home, so instead of immediately getting out of my truck and going inside, we're sitting in the truck, finishing our conversation, when suddenly we heard something make this blood-curdling scream. I stopped mid-sentence and slowly reached to turn the radio off as I'm noticing the look of fear on my brother's face. Before I could say anything, he asked, did you hear that? Right at that moment, we heard what sounded like something very large and landed on the tree branch just above my truck and shrieked again. It was so ear-piercingly loud, we knew that it was just above us. Without hesitation, my brother flew over top of me and out the driver's door and into the house with me hot on his heels. We never saw the creature by the time we gained enough courage to look, the creature was gone. We dubbed the creature the monkey cat because that's the only way to describe the sound that it made. It sounded like a cross between the scream of a cougar and the scream of a monkey. The only thing I could say is that it is the most scared I have ever been. You don't say here, Michael, where this takes place. I don't think you do, so I really don't know what particular local cryptid might be a part of this. You say you don't believe in cryptids, so who knows what this might be. I was about to say it could be an animal that just makes that kind of sound, but you say that you're really familiar with the sounds of local wildlife. That would not be it. That wouldn't be like a fox because I guess I've heard, is it foxes that kind of have like a baby scream to them or I know owls have a certain screech to them, but you would be familiar with that. So I really don't, I have no idea on this one, not a clue. Cross between the scream of a cougar and the scream of a monkey, that's a new one on me. So I can kind of hear in my head those two combined and it would be terrifying. Monkeys are just freaky anyway. I've never been a big fan of monkeys and the scream of a cougar, especially if it's nearby, would scare the crap out of you. Those things are, that's something you do not want to mess with. So a monkey cat, that's an interesting way of putting it. I think maybe you've just created your own cryptid. There you go, Michael. Just start telling people about the monkey cat in your area. We'll see if maybe it ends up in the Weird Darkness podcast a couple of years from now as people start telling stories about it. This next one comes from Jane. She says, hi again. It's Jane from Erie, Pennsylvania. I do hope that you and your bride are doing well. I'm writing this time courtesy of my youngest daughter, Amber. I was listening to your latest episode of Friday Nights, or was it a fireside frights? Anyway, I think you meant fireside frights because you're sharing an episode that she had. I get the two confused as well, too, by the way. Every time I start to talk about friday frights, I really need to come up with a different name for those friday frights, I don't know what I'm going to do, and it's been a while since I've done one of those just because of my time schedule, but I've got to come up with a better name for that because they keep getting confused. Anyway, moving on, Jane continues saying, this experience happened in the house that we are now currently living in. The same house that I wrote to you about, the cue ball. There's currently 24 now, but at the time of her experience, she was in high school, so I think she was about 16 or 17 years old. She was in her bedroom asleep in her bed when she was awoke by knocking coming from a wall in the corner of her room. Not sure what was going on, she sat up in the bed hearing the knocking, she turned on her light. As soon as the light was turned on, the knocking stopped. Thinking it was probably nothing, turned the light off and lied back down in bed. The knocking started right back up again as soon as the light was turned off. So Amber sat right back up again and turned her light on again. Again, as soon as the light was turned off or on, the knocking stopped. This time she waited a few minutes, and when she heard no knocking, she turned her light off again and tried to lie down again. The knocking started again as soon as the light was off. But this time she looked over to the corner where the knocking was coming from, and she saw a skeleton hand coming from the wall. That did it for Amber. She turned on her light and came out to me. She told me what had been going on in her room, but I didn't see or hear anything in her room. She did end up back in her room, but she slept with the light on. The next morning when Amber was waking up, our cat Ford was in her room and was sitting in the corner of her room where the knocking was and where the hand was seen. Ford is usually a very sweet and cuddly cat, but when he was in this corner, he was crouched down looking at the corner and was hissing and snarling. Whatever he sensed or saw, he didn't like it. We never did figure out what was going on, but it has happened since. Thanks for letting me share. Hugs, Jane. Thank you, Jane. I appreciate that. You sign it, Jane and Amber, so I'm assuming that it's your daughter Amber. This is her story. Yeah, there it is, youngest daughter Amber. You did say that at the beginning. Sorry. Yeah, it's weird how pets react to stuff like that, isn't it? You could have no clue that your house is haunted or anything is going on, because you've not had any experiences, and yet your dog or your cat will be running across the house and suddenly they'll stop on a dime, stare at a wall or a corner or a ceiling or something, and just like freeze. And you're wondering what the heck are they looking at? And we can't see it, but they somehow sense it. I don't think they see it necessarily because I was reading just the other day about pets and paranormal and the pets, actually, and their eyesight really isn't exactly the same as ours. They can see a little bit better in the dark, but their eyesight isn't quite as fine-tuned as ours, but their senses of smell and hearing, I mean, those are just through the roof as compared to humans. So I think maybe they are sensing something in a certain area, rather than actually seeing it. But I really don't know. Speaking of paranormal pets, what I was actually reading was an article from Paranormality Magazine, and you've heard a little bit about Paranormality Magazine in the podcast already because I've been teaming up with them. But beginning September 30th, I will actually be doing a weekly podcast for Paranormality Magazine, and one of the stories in their podcasts happens to be Paranormal Pets. I'm recording those episodes now to get ready for September 30th, so that way you'll have a few to binge when they first come out, and then we'll come out with a new episode every Wednesday thereafter. So I'll be looking for that. It'll also be added into the Weird Darkness podcast, so if you're already listening to the podcast, you'll get those anyway. But if you want to maybe share it with your friends and tell them to check it out, the actual Paranormality Magazine podcast will be coming out September 30th. Alright, moving on to the next email. Let's see where this one comes from. This one's Michael, I think. Greetings, Darren. I hope this message finds you. The reason I pause, by the way, on the names is sometimes people will email me, tell me the story, and at the very end they'll say, by the way, don't mention my name. At which point, I've already read the email to you, and I've kind of failed them. So that's why it takes me a second sometimes, because I don't pre-read these. So it looks like this was okay. So Michael says, Greetings, Darren, Darren, I hope this message finds you and yours doing well. I want to submit to you a story that I finished today, and here it is. He calls it Recollections of a Ghost Hunter, August 20th, 2023. These two all parties seeking the unseen world, doorways leading into the unknown, and perhaps the macabre. My name is Michael Todd, and I am the founder and lead investigator of Spook Earth Paranormal. I became involved in the fascinating realm of the paranormal due to an incident in January of 1981, where I witnessed a tall, male shadow figure run in front of me. I lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and was working as a security guard at a defunct furniture factory called the Soto Furniture. This incident happened late in the night, while a heavy snow was falling and I was patrolling the upper floors of the massive 1900-era building. Needless to say, the incident caught my attention, opened up a lot of mind questions, and put me on a path of exploration to figure out what I had witnessed. Since 2008, after forming my own group, I have researched, tracked down, and investigated the unseen world of ghosts, poltergeists, and demonic entities. Unlike the big-name brands on television who sport black clothes, act so amazingly dramatic and usually show us questionable evidence, I simply walked into my first investigation with a Kodak 6MP camera and a Philips MP3 player. I was respectful, mindful of stirring up unnecessary trouble, and came away with solid evidence which would even open the eyes of the most hardened skeptic. I've been to private homes, big-name places like Waverly Hills Sanatorium, Fort Chaffee Military Base, and Kirksey Maternity Hospital in Mulberry, Arkansas. In late 2008, during the course of my first investigation, along with my late cousin Sue Wyndham and daughter Jennifer Coward, we traveled to the small home of Waldron, Arkansas. This former husband was an unfortunate drug abuser and even more unfortunate believer in the power of the devil. The ex-husband of the female client, now in a Texas prison for drug violations, read from the Satanic Bible consistently, even reading verses to a young child in the home. During Sepe's involvement in this case, the young female client, along with her newly married husband and two children, were subject to knocking sounds at all hours of the night, including a violent wrapping at the front door at 3 a.m. one morning. This particular incident involved the husband with a gun in hand to open the door expecting an intruder, but finding no one. He even notified the local PD, and a search of the neighborhood turned up nothing. Upon entering the home, my cousin, daughter, and myself all felt the unmistakable, heavy and hot water-soaked quilt over your body feeling, indicating the presence of a demonic entity. After speaking with the young client who agreed to remove the children from the home while we worked, we set about looking for answers. We spent close to seven hours recording, taking pictures inside and outside of the small-frame home and letting our bodies feel the heartbeat of the home's unseen visitors. I sat in the couple's bedroom listening to continuous knocking sounds coming from the closet door, bed's queen-size headboard, and to make sure I heard them, there was a violent rap on the frame of the bedroom's window sill. The recording yielded a frightening EVP, which, after being asked how many of you are in this home, I quietly inquired, are there two of you? Are there six, or are there more? The answer I received was, we don't know. I was determined at least three demonic entities had taken up residence there, and their presence was strong, and their will was turned to seeking trouble for the young family. We consulted with the local Baptist Church, and after three visitations with the clergy, prayers and cleansing, the home was finally cleaned. Since that time, I've had numerous run-ins with demonic, poltergeist attacks, and even had a ghostly hitchhiker in my car. I've been scratched, shoved through a doorway at a private home in Muldrow, Oklahoma, resulting in a serious injury to my right foot, whereupon I almost lost my right toe, and grabbed on my left arm, causing a series of bruises during an investigation at a defunct TB sanatorium in Booneville, Arkansas. I've had my hair pulled several times, cursed at EVPs where my German heritage was mocked and insulted. I was called a Nazi in one EVP, and was advised during an investigation at a private home in Dover, Arkansas, I was of the master race. I've seen shadows, tall shadowy black and seven-foot tall, or larger, casually strolled across a hallway, and even caught in entity on a camcorder, racing across an entrance to an old hospital, only to pause, look at me, and then vanish. I have captured demon figures hiding out in the shadows of an old tuberculosis sanatorium. Ghostly faces looking in at me through windows of the same location, and during audio work with updated cameras, good Sony and RCA recorders, I have been advised to F myself, go die. We are going to kill you. And a charming voice one night even mentioned to me, this is your devil. These are all clear Class A EVPs. Not scratchy and unable to understand, but clear spirit voices, demonic and otherwise, and were pointed at me like a loaded gun. The evidence, some of which I honestly believe rival and in some cases surpass the big-name TV shows which I have collected over the years, are stored on three computers, memory cards and reams of paper. I have over 43 videos on YouTube under the titles Haunting Real Life Evidence, The Saga, Part 1 to 43. Since 2008 I have had team members come and go, run into dry stretches where budget, COVID restrictions and other issues slowed me down, but the interest has never waned. I am now 64 years old and as I look back on the 15 years since I started delving into this search for the unseen, I have never wavered from my choice to be brave and walk into the darkness. From my beginnings, when I walked into that small house in Waldron, unsure of the outcome but determined to try my best to help someone find answers to perhaps the unanswerable, I kept up the hunt as quit is not an option. Thank you Darren Marlar and all the Weird Darkness radio listeners. I take the title weirdo with a great honor as it proves I do have a clue, LOL, of what I am doing. Have a great week and if you ever decide to seek the unseen, keep your eyes peeled and wide open. You might just find what you are seeking. Peace, my friends. That is some really good writing, Michael. Thank you very much for sending that in and I am going to have to check out your YouTube channel now because you say you actually put through a lot of this evidence that you say is better than the big name TV shows that you say it is up there. So haunting real life evidence, the saga. Alright, I'll look that up on YouTube when I get done here with Fireside Frights. I'll check out your stuff. Thank you. Alright, moving on. This one comes from... They didn't leave their name, I'm just going to call them J. Regarding your recent story about possible paranormal interactions with digital assistants, I suspect this was more of a technical glitch, but you may find it interesting. A few years ago I was sitting in my bedroom taking an exam on my computer for an online course. The TV was off and I wasn't playing any music because I needed to focus. This test was difficult. So it was dead quiet in my apartment. Then all of a sudden, the Google digital assistant on my phone wakes up and begins reading aloud the definition of the word booger. I have no idea what caused that. I already knew what a booger is. It has not happened since. Oh, that's that's great. Well, Google has a good sense of humor, apparently. That's awesome. All right, let's see. This one comes from Tim. Tim says, Hey, Darren, I wanted to start off by saying that I only just found your podcast last week, and I'm simply in love with it. You can call me Tim if you decide to post these two short, but very real stories. I only ask that you let me know before posting onto the stories. Well, sorry, Tim. I should have... I'll try to email you after this to let you know that it's being posted. That's all I can say. I have an odd knack for finding odd things at garage sales. From an authentic German World War Two gas mask for only $40 to my now 14-year-old dog later found to be illegally bred at said garage sale host house. With that said, I found a classic Ouija board and bought it on the sole reason of wanting to freak out my older sister. She's easily scared by the paranormal, especially Ouija boards. The strange part was where it appeared after I bought it. I set it on my bed and went to grab a drink only to return moments later and see the reluck no longer where I left it. Reluck? Reluck? R-E-L-U-C? Is that just another word for board, I guess? Anyway, I was a bit freaked out, but wasn't too worried because I hadn't even used the dang thing yet. So I, 13 years old, having a great sense for making poor decisions, looked around my house for it. I found it in my underwear drawer about 20 minutes later, completely perplexed. This is a good time to now say that I never opened the box to this game, but I continued to, but it continued to vanish and reappear in random places for the better part of five years. Going through high school, I found it in my new room, by my Xbox, in my pickup truck, in my bathroom, by my dog's toys and various other random places. Even stranger is that I was the only one who ever found it. I forgot to tell my sister about the board and never told my parents. We had a really busy house with friends and family coming and going all the time. I'd assumed somebody would find a Ouija board in a random spot, but no. I never heard of anyone else in my house finding it. In a way, I sort of got used to it. The random game appearing when I least expected it. Even laughed a few times. I decided to sell it at, ironically enough, my family garage sale the year I graduated high school. Five bucks. I never saw it again. I'm now 21 years old. The next event was a lot scarier, I'll admit, but a bit hard to quantify to an audience. I'll do my best to capture what made this so freaky, though. This was just about a month or so ago as I write this. I'm 21 years old and I just went to a heavy metal concert with some friends. The show was phenomenal and I had a blast, but alas, I needed to go home and prepare for work the following day instead of staying up with my friends. They dropped me off at my apartment when I go to my second-storey unit. For context, it's around 11 p.m. and I lived with my father, who is usually in bed by 9 p.m. Only the living room light was on, and I could hear him snoring from down the hall. But I also heard some sort of skittering from where my fridge would be. I assumed it might be before... I assume it might be my before-mentioned dog, Charlie, but it was a lot quicker, like a rodent running in circles. Maybe a dying mouse? I walk over calmly and see nothing. I shrug, assuming it's my ears adjusting to the dead quiet of my home after just being at an ear-destroying concert. I open the fridge and bend down to get water to bring to bed from the bottom drawer when a snap happens right next to my ear. There's nothing that could make that sound right next to me. An empty short kitchen and a window is about it, and the snap was right next to my ear. I get freaked out and have some trouble being tired from the nerves, so I decide to use the bathroom so I won't possibly awaken in the middle of my sleep soon to come. I go to my bathroom, do my business, hearing my dad snoring from the other side of the furthest wall from the toilet. I get out, and while in the doorway of my bathroom, I hear a sound from my dad's closed doorway. An unfamiliar voice says, Good night, my son. I froze. My dad's door is closed. He is snoring. There's a voice I don't recognize, and even worse, nobody in the family calls me son. I go by my name or other goofy nicknames like T-Man or Dumb Kid, but I'm never called son. I told my dad in the morning, and he believed me, but he had no good answers for me. Anyway, thanks for listening. Feel free to edit, grammar, or spelling as needed. I wrote this from my night shift warehouse job while on the clock. Being a full-time student and employee makes it difficult to send in scary stories, I suppose. One of your newest loyal fans, Tim from Minnesota. Well, Tim, you actually did a good job. There were only a few spelling mistakes that stumbled me, and the same thing happens to me, especially if I'm typing them up on a mobile phone, which I'm guessing is probably what you did because you were on the job. But I got the gist of everything. It was great. The Ouija board thing is funny and creepy at the same time. I'll admit it. I mean, when you find it in your underwear drawer for the first time, after just bringing it home, that's hilarious. I want to say that it was your sister who found it before you did, before you were able to play a joke on her, and she started playing the jokes on you. But you said you never told your sister about it, so either she was secretly doing this to you, or you had a Ouija board that was already messed up when you brought it home. And I'm equally... Either way, it's believable. I'll equally put weight on both of those, either your sister or a messed up Ouija board. If you bought it at a garage sale, it probably was used before, so who knows what somebody brought into that board when they were using it and didn't close it out correctly before boxing it back up and selling it in a garage sale. So you could have brought something pretty freaky home. I'm glad nothing dangerous happened out of it, but yeah, that would be... that would weird you out, knowing that the box could show up anywhere. It'd almost be like a strange game. But anyway, that's really good. And I was with you with the snap on the right ear when you got home after that concert. I was immediately thinking, okay, that's ear damage, because I went to a skillet concert not too long ago. I had that feeling of water in my ears for like four days, and I hear weird pops here and there. And I'm surprised when you got home, you could hear your dad snoring if your ears were that bad from the concert. But I never heard actual voices come to me through that. So I'm yes and yes, something weird was happening there, and your ears were not nearly as damaged as maybe mine were from the concert because you could hear your dad snoring. And you also heard that pitter-patter. Although I was thinking the pitter-patter could have been inside your ears as well, but you're hearing it from a distance. You're hearing it from a different location, not within your ears. So anyway, I hope everything is okay for you now that everything's going well and that you haven't had any issues since then. Okay, this next one comes from... Let's see here. They don't say. All right, we'll just call them RS. Hey, Darren. When I was three, we moved into a house that was built in 1901, and my parents remodeled it. We lived there for seven years, and it was the longest childhood home I had. As in any old house, I remember it feeling creepy from time to time. Doors would open or close by themselves, etc. Being a kid, all of this seemed completely normal to me as it was all I'd ever known, until my parents moved me into my own room, that is. The room was in the middle of the house, had no windows and bad ventilation. Almost as soon as I moved into it, our family cat adopted me as her person and watched me faithfully like some British nanny. At five or six, I stopped being able to sleep at night. I'd wake up and find myself sitting up in bed, eyes wide open and watering like I hadn't blinked for hours. Other times I'd wake up and stand in front of our big bay window that looked out onto the street, my joints aching and locked into place. My sister had been moved into the front bedroom that was always colder than the rest of the house. She'd get scared and make me sleep with her, but after a while refused to have me in her room at night. She told our mom that I'd wake up and she's just sitting there staring at me, unblinking. It's so freaky. For nearly the entire time living there, our family would see a man run by doorways or feel cold spots in the house. A friend of my dad's came for a late night Bible study one night and had to be walked to his vehicle because he saw a man peek around the corner at him at 1 a.m. When he asked my dad about it, he just shrugged and said, yeah, that's our ghost. He's cool though. That dude never came back to our house after that. It turns out the man who built the house had died in what became my sister's room. We still talk about him, and I missed that house like an old friend. I think the old man would take my body for a joy ride because I never slept walked again after moving away. My cat knew I was sensitive to those things and kept a watchful eye on me. She'd let me know where he was and if I should be frightened or not. I came to trust animals third sight like I trust gravity. It just is. Anyway, that's the haunted house I grew up in. Our family have a lot of funny memories from that home, and I'm glad that we got to cohabitate peacefully with Mr. Ghost. So not just regular sleepwalking. It could have been sleepwalking, but it's interesting that that stopped after you moved away from that house. Could have been your age, that maybe you just grew out of it, or maybe you're right. Maybe there was somehow this old man's ghost kind of taking the opportunity while you were asleep to step into your body and actually see the world with real living eyes. I don't know. But I'm glad nothing bad came of it. That's the important thing. This next one comes from Sandy saying, I've shared a story with you in the past regarding the house we used to live in, and we ran into a shadow person the day we moved out. I thought that was the only run in with a shadow person, but after thinking about it, it was not the only encounter. About eight years ago, we were at a location along Lake and Ontario in Western Central New York State with both of our children who at the time needed lots of attention. I'd been on my phone reading the news out of Buffalo, New York about a motorcyclist who'd been hit by a car. I made multiple attempts the whole ride home, about 20 minutes, to read the article without success. There was always an interruption. When we got home, the small one about a year old was put to bed without issue, and the five-year-old was at the neighbor's house with my husband around the fire. The houses were close enough together, the baby monitor was within range. I was still not comfortable with this, so I decided to stay at home while my five-year-old and husband went to the neighbor's house. I'd went down the hall, we lived in a ranch house at the time, and the small one was fast asleep. I walked down the hall back to the living room and looked toward the front door. That's when I saw this large, black shadow come up the front porch steps. I honestly thought, oh no, not today, and started to call my husband who had come through the back door at the same time. When he met me in the living room, his face was red and full of tears. I honestly thought something had happened to his grandfather, who was sick at the time. He said, I just received a phone call. John died today in a motorcycle accident. I told him when I saw it coming up the front steps, but when I looked, it had completely disappeared. That's when I quickly reached for my phone. I looked up the article about the man in Buffalo. It was John that died earlier that day. I also work in healthcare in the hospital and as an EMT. The ambulance company I work for has multiple places to post, that is places to go in between calls, that are actually buildings, which is nice, because not all companies are like this. On an overnight shift, my partner and I were posted in a suburb of Rochester, New York, and another crew was posted with us, as it was a slow night. So the four of us are in this building, and the ambulances were parked in the attached truck bay we could see through the door. It was only the four of us when we heard the distinct sound of an ambulance door closing, and then we waited, thinking another crew had arrived. Only nobody came into the building. We were all alarmed. My partner asked, you heard that too, right? We all answered yes, and walked into the truck bay single file. Someone with a broom, someone with a flashlight, someone with keys, and then me, talking out loud to scare whomever might be in there, like a bad episode of Scooby-Doo. We checked our rig, and the second rig, even the spare fly car. Nothing. We all went back into the living area after a thorough search that turned up nothing and went back to our business. My partner turned to me after a while and asked, we all heard that, right? I reassured him we all heard the distinct noise of the ambulance door closing, but it was never mentioned again. One more. I worked in a hospital as a respiratory therapist, doing the overnight shift, and had been for a while. This particular night my assignment was the ICU, which had 21 beds that weren't quite full, but I still had a fair amount of ventilation running that night, or ventilators that is, running that night. Usually overnight we keep people on settings to rest them. That way during the day they can try other methods to wean someone off the vent that takes more effort on the patient's part. I was in a room looking at the vent settings from the previous shift and had plans to check the notes. I had a younger RN come into the room to ask me what I was doing and what my plan was. There was a large opening in the room due to the double doors that were kept open, and the vent was always on the right side of the bed. And that's when the RN and I, and that's where the RN and I were located. As we were talking about what needed to be done, we both turned towards the door as if someone had come in. She nervously asked if I had felt someone come in the room and I stated, well, yeah, that's why we both turned around at the same time. I could sense that this had unnerved her and I calmly said, well, obviously someone has come in with other business and we can discuss hours later. Let's go so they can have their time and we will continue this outside the room. I later laughed it off because I had and have experienced this my whole life. I'll always remember the RN's face and her face later in the shift, but I don't recall saying her too much after that. Thanks. Signed Sandy. Great story. I'm glad that you remembered these, Sandy. Interesting that you sent me the shadow story one of the shadow person story and thought that was it. And then after thinking about it, you came up with these other ones that you had just completely forgotten about. That's that's pretty interesting. But I'm telling you, the motorcycle accident one, that is so it's it's sad. It's creepy. It's it's really strange that you would be reading about that, not knowing who it was. You were just reading the news article and then have that shadow person or whatever it was come up to the front. Door. And then your then your husband steps in and says that John died. And I mean, so you've got to wonder if maybe that actually was John, which is what I think you're you were also saying. That's really, really interesting. This next one comes from we'll just call her a hear her. Her, I think. Hello, Darren. I just found your podcast and I'm listening to the fireside frights episode number six. I have I got a story for you. For reference, I'm calling the person in this email D as I don't want to use his real name and you could refer to me as A. Thanks. I'll start off by telling you I've had a sixth sense all my life. I was born three and a half months early. So I'm guessing that has something to do with my abilities. My mom recalls times when I was not even six months old. She'd be changing my diaper and I'd be looking up and giggling. She knew she wasn't making faces or anything. So she turned around to see what I was looking at. Of course, nothing. And no one was there. I was always in the upper court. It was always in the upper corner of a room where the wall meets the ceiling. I hear what sounds like a radio that's not fully tuned to a station. I can hear voices. Just can't make out what they're saying. Other times I get flashes of scenes and I've put them together like a puzzle. It's like during a movie when they play the flashback scenes and they fade in and out. OK, now on to the good stuff. This story happened in the late 90s. A friend and I were bored one night so we decided to pull out the Ouija board that she had. Her son at this time was about 12 and doing homework in the other room. Everything was pretty quiet so she says to him, hey Dee, come over here a minute. Him being not amused or interested comes over. She tells him to close his eyes and tell us the first thing he sees. This is dumb mom. I don't see anything. Can I get back to my homework? She says, just wait a minute. After about two minutes he says, I see a kid chucking rocks into a river. She asks, what does the day look like? Weather. What is the kid wearing? Her son replies, he's wearing a white t-shirt and overalls. The day is cloudy, all I get just rained. She says, OK, thanks. Now go get back to your homework. The entire time he was recounting this, the planchette was barely moving. So we asked if that was the boy showing Dee how he died. The planchette whipped over to a real fast, yes. My friend calls her son over once again. Now he's really irritated because he has got homework to get done. He comes over, she tells him the same thing, close your eyes and tell us what you see. He does. This time, in a matter of seconds, he's saying it's two kids checking rocks into a river. The first time it was one kid. He pauses, laughs a laugh, neither her or I have ever heard, and then like somebody flipped a switch, this kid starts sobbing and yelling, someone help. Help him. You can't swim. Someone help. Tears are streaming down his cheeks. He's still standing there, eyes closed and now sobbing and yelling help over and over. Finally, I was like, OK, just stop. Stop showing him. If you want to show someone come to me. And just like that, everything stopped. Dee was quiet. No more tears. The planchette stopped moving. Even the candles we had burning the flames seemed to stop moving. After that, Dee was so shaken up by what happened, he finished his homework, and we had to play three games of Monopoly with him because he didn't want to go to sleep that night. We all ended up camping in the living room, because none of us wanted to be alone. The next day, my friend and I did some research because she was pretty sure a river used to run through the yard. Sure enough, looking through old plot maps, yes, a river did run right through the middle of what was her backyard. We then found the obituary of a child, about the same age as her son was at the time, who had drowned in that river. I was thinking about it more and told her, wait a minute, he kept saying he can't swim, so I think the friend of the boy who drowned was coming through instead. It's been many, many years since that night. They since moved far away from that house, moved on and forwarded with life, but to this day, Dee, now a grown adult, will not talk about it, refuses. If either his mom or I bring it up, he changes the subject. I'll never forget that night as long as I live. The way Dee changed from slightly irritated and probably feeling a little more than silly to completely sobbing, breaking down and yelling is a memory that is seared in my brain for life. Thanks for reading my story. Take care. A. C. Right here. This is why you don't mess with Ouija boards. Spirit boards, any of that stuff, this is exactly what this is the danger right here. I say it so often in the podcast, especially on Fireside Frights when I take an opportunity to comment on stories rather than just narrating them. But man, Ouija board stories, they hardly ever end in good news. Ugh, man. I feel so sorry for Dee. I really do. That had to have been obviously it was horrifying for him. You had a great kid there, 12 years old, wanting to do homework. Who has that for a kid? And taking and bringing him in from homework because you wanted to play a game and not just a game but a dangerous game and he's the one that gets hurt. That's just wow. Please, please. Hey, and everybody else is listening. Don't, don't play with Ouija boards. Please, please don't. Okay, moving on. This one comes from Monique. She says, I'm not sure if you can help, but I'm wanting to find out more about my childhood home. Growing up, I saw many things, felt a presence, and so on. I was always told that our house had a well that had been sealed up prior to my parents buying the home. My mom's always said that they bought the home from a man with a wife and three children. Yet the neighbors only saw the man pack up and leave. The neighbors noticed the house was quiet after a while till my family moved in. It was said, it was said when we would leave the house the former owner would go to the well pad and just sit there. I've always had experiences in that house. Our whole family did. My brother described a girl coming out of my bedroom that he thought was me. So he said, you better go to bed and the little girl turned around and put her finger over her lips and vanished. Growing up, I was in charge of cleaning the bathroom. Every Saturday, I'd clean the bathroom. All the furnishings were all the furnishings were white. I noticed after I cleaned an hour or so later I'd go in the bathroom and the tub would have streaks of like rusty color going down all sides of the tub stained. It was said that the previous owner of the house murdered his kids in the bathroom. These things happened all the time. The craziest thing was we had an iron that was broken and I wanted to play with it to iron my baby doll clothes. My mom said, okay, but first she cut the cord from it so I couldn't plug it in or anything like that. It was just the iron, no cord. I played with it. Days went by, nothing happened. I'd leave it, come back, finish playing nothing. This one particular day I was playing with my dolls and got sleepy. So I left the iron on the floor, done it before, many times, went to nap. When my mom runs into the bedroom, scoops me up, the room is filled with smoke. We went outside, the fire department came and looked at the iron. It had caught the carpet on fire and burned a perfect triangle shape in the carpet. The fire department could not find out how that happened. I could go on, but I'd like some help, advice as to where to even start looking to research about my home. Love the show, love the show, listen all the time, signed Monique. Monique, wow, you most definitely got something going on there. I honestly don't have any experience with this kind of thing. I'm just a voice actor who tells stories that others have written. And then I just toss in my two cents once in a while, like here on Fireside Frights. But that being said, have you looked to see maybe if your town or area has a historical society? That could be the first place that I would go. They might have information on the property, the people who owned it, any history on the house. If you don't have a historical society for your area, often libraries carry old newspapers. They used to be on microfish. I don't know if they still do that, if they've all been digitized now. I can't imagine they'd all be digitized because that would be a lot of history to digitize. But depending on how much of the archives they've been able to transfer over to the newer technology, you might be able to get some history on your house. Maybe in the old newspapers you could look up your home's address or maybe the name of the homeowner of your home just to see if there was anything newsworthy. That could give you some clues. Anyway, that's all I got. Keep me in the loop though. I would like to know if you do actually find anything about that. Let's see. This next one comes from Rod saying, Hello again, Darren. Thank you for telling my story I submitted last year. Like a lot of your listeners, I have a fair share of stories to tell. The one I'm about to tell to you just happened in March of 2023. The same time I became a Patreon member. Kind of suspicious. LOL. I want to tell you a little bit of my background of work so you'll understand a bit more of these events that happened back in March. I work for the largest railroad company in the United States. Yes, the yellow trains with the American flags on them. I work with a group of 30 employees that travel all around the United States replacing the rail the trains run on. Mostly curve rail. It's said eight days on six days off schedule with anywhere to 10 to 14 hour days. With that said, we work in a lot of desolate places especially in the state of Nevada. My story begins in a small town of Piyosh, Nevada. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right but Piyosh is what I'm going with. If you recognize the name you might already know about its haunted history which I will get to here shortly. We were actually working in a small town just 20 to 30 miles away called Caliente. Both towns are relatively small and only have a couple of hotels. With that said, the closest place to stay was in Piyosh due to the military renting out the majority of the rooms in Caliente and the only place that had hotel rooms available was the Overland Hotel and Saloon. Pretty sure a lot of you might know the history behind this hotel so you can just imagine what would be in store for us. Being a somewhat amateur ghost hunter myself, I was somewhat excited to book eight nights at this haunted hotel. I brought my regular ghost hunting gear, digital voice recorders, infrared camera and SLS camera. A couple of my co-workers got a room here as well at the time. I didn't know they were staying there until I noticed one of the three cars in the small parking lot and when I arrived to check in. Nice, I thought to myself I wouldn't be the only railroad or staying here and that gave me a little sense of ease. I knew a bit of history of this hotel mostly from a series Ghost Adventures which they did an investigation and the famous haunted hotel room number 10. So with this said I go to check in. I didn't know what room I was going to get but deep down I was hoping it was not room 10. I checked in, talked with the bartender who was actually the front desk person as well. She was very nice and handed me the key. Room 23. Yes, I said to myself that sounds perfect. I know what you're thinking about now. He likes to hunt ghosts but won't stay in the room that claims to be haunted? One night, sure but eight nights in a row I think not. So I turned in for the night in my small but nice room. It was a themed room. The bear's den. Yes, everything had the decor of bears. Lamps, light switch covers and bedding. It was very clean and comfortable. I fell asleep around 10 p.m. I woke up for work around 4 a.m. I was pretty tired the night before so I slept pretty good. I didn't hear a thing that night. You might say I slept like the dead. After arriving to work I talked to one of the three co-workers staying at the hotel. All three were staying in room 11. It was a three bedroom unit that was pretty big in size. The co-worker said he slept pretty good but the other two said they had a hard time falling asleep. I then asked the guy if he knew that the hotel was haunted. He had no clue. I laughed and told him to google it and check it out. Fast forward to night number three. On that night apparently in my co-worker's room number 11 the covers of one of the guys got pulled off of him. Then the bathroom door would open and shut on its own. Night number four in room 11. The covers on the other two co-workers beds got pulled off in the middle of the night and the door to the closet would open and shut on its own. All this time in my room number 23 nothing was happening. I had nothing on my voice recorder that was next to my bed. I actually went through the hallway of the hotel with my SLS cameras up, walked to the famous and walked up to the famous room 10. Nothing. The next morning at work one of the co-workers that was staying in room 11 asked me if I was getting anything any activity in my room. I told him I haven't heard or seen anything. He then asked you're staying in room 23 right? I replied yeah. Oh so you know the history of your room huh? Replied my co-worker. I then stopped him right there and told him I'm pretty sure that my room wasn't one of the famous haunted rooms. He told me I'd want to look more into the history of this building. After he told me that I got that pit in my stomach and I wanted to know what happened in my room. I was tempted to grab my phone and start researching this rumor he was telling me but I didn't. I had four more nights to stay there and there was no other hotels within 100 miles of the job site. I wasn't going to travel that far every morning and night. No way. So I just stuck to my guns and told myself not to check this out until after I check out on the morning of the 23rd. Night number 6 My co-workers in room 11 were sleeping with their light on. It's hard to believe that these toughest nails railroad workers have to sleep with a night light. After hearing this I wanted to google the information on what happened in my room but in a way I was too scared to find out so I didn't. Night number 8 The last night at around 3 am I was awakened by footsteps outside my hotel door. My room was at the top of the stairs and when someone came up the stairs and down the hallway I could hear them. My lights were out in my room but the hallway lights in the hotel were on and at the bottom of my door I could see the silhouette of someone standing in the doorway. I laid there still in my bed looking at the bottom of my door in disbelief. Two feet or boots pointed right toward my door. After about 30 seconds I got the courage to get up and turn my light on. Once I did this I couldn't see the shadow outside my door. I was awake now and wasn't going back to sleep for sure. I made myself some hotel coffee packed my bags and got the courage to open my door and check out. I had to check out anyway so it was just fine for me to leave to work a bit earlier. Once I got to the job site that morning I got on my phone and finally checked out what happened in room 23. Apparently back in the 50s and 60s a young man rented that room for a month. After several days the hotel staff noticed that they hadn't seen the young man for some time. They went to his room 23 and found him dead in his bed and on the 23rd day. After reading this I checked the date on my phone. March 23rd 2023 my checkout day. Thanks again Darren for letting me submit another story. As you can see I drive to most of my locations and listen to your podcast all the time making my drive time so much better. Thanks again and keep up the great work. Weirdo family member Rod Gardner Rod thank you what a great story. First and foremost thank you for being a patron for being a part of the darkness syndicate. I really really appreciate that I do not take that for granted there are so much so many other things better things you could probably be spending your money on but I appreciate you you put you throwing out just a little bit each month to support me I thank you very much for that. You got a great story here it's too bad it's the number 23 because there's already been a movie called 23 and I don't I don't is that even based on that maybe I'm gonna have to read the Jim Carrey movie 23 I'll have to go back and look at that it mean I have nothing to do with it but anyway that's really cool and I uh I applaud you for not looking into the history until you checked out it would be so tempting to do that well if you tell me that I can't do something and it's easy to do I'm gonna want to do it so oh goodness gracious that that's great kudos to you you I don't know I don't know how you kept yourself from from looking it up but that is a creepy story and the fact that you actually were checking out on the 23rd of the month in year 2023 in room 23 and it all matched well I mean the 23rd of the month that room 23 matched that kid that died in that room that's that's amazing all right one last story this one comes from somebody who did not sign their name let's just call them s Darren when I was a kid my friend and I decided to explore his attic this was a huge old New England home with six bedrooms dirt basement and a finished storage attic the attic spanned the length of the house divided into three separate storage rooms two ends and the center we entered the attic area which only had a few things stored in the main room at the far end there was a storage room with a half door for access the only light up there was a single low wattage incandescent drop light and what light came through the end vents we decided to look into the end room from the dust and cobwebs it clearly had not been opened in a long time there was little air movement once we opened the hasp it took considerable force to get the door to open it's probably swollen from moisture and scraped hard on the dusty floor when we got in there it was roughly eight feet by ten feet and there was nothing in the room but some old magazines in small boxes most likely from a previous occupant there were no other openings except for a small rectangular vent to the outside the floor was solid hard wood planks we could clearly see that the door was just a heavy solid wood door on hinges there were no wires or other mechanisms attached when we decided to leave I started pulling on the door and it didn't want to budge my friend said leave it because we were going to the lake soon we got maybe ten feet away suddenly the door slammed shut we scrambled out of there there was no explanation there was no one else in the attic and no other way to access that room no one went into that attic again and they ended up moving out not long after that well you don't ask that's obviously what happened there is somebody was really ticked off at you finding their magazines you don't say what kind of magazines that those are but I'm guessing they were probably nudie magazines and somebody was not thrilled with you finding them that's all that's just a guess and but that's what I'm going with thanks for listening folks if you like the show please share it with somebody you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories true crime monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do and you can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darron at weirddarkness.com Darron is D-A-R-R-E-N Weird Darkness is also where you can find any information on sponsors you might hear about during the show I 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 Church of the Undead and like I said earlier the Paranormality magazine coming soon you can visit the store for Weird Darkness merchandise and more WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or somebody you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts and on the website if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell for next month's fireside frights please email it to me just click on tell your story at weirddarkness.com all stories are purported to be true unless stated otherwise Weird Darkness is a registered trademark copyright Weird Darkness and now that we're coming out of the dark I'll leave you with a little light 1 Timothy 6 verses 17 and 18 teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money which is so unreliable their trust should be in God who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment tell them to use their money to do good they should be rich in good works and generous to those in need always being ready to share with others and a final thought from Frank Zappa a mind is like a parachute it doesn't work if it's not open I'm Darren Marlar thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness Hey Weirdos be sure to click the like button and subscribe to this channel and click the notification bell so you don't miss future videos I post videos seven days a week and while you're at it spread the darkness by sharing this video with someone you know who loves all things strange and macabre if you want to listen to the podcast you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com slash listen