 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. If you're new here, welcome to the show, and while you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, to enter contests, to 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, fold your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. History is filled with many mysteries of ships and a sea. But of all of the ships in history, none has a more haunting reputation than the infamous Mary Celeste, a vessel from which the entire crew inexplicably vanished and was never seen again. Discovered floundering in the waters of the North Atlantic in December 1872, the ship soon became an enigma, a much talked about puzzle that still intrigues historians and sailors well over a century later. Most consider it the greatest nautical mystery of all time, one that will never be solved. On the chilly afternoon of December 4, 1872, the British Brigantine Digracia cut through the waters of the North Atlantic. She was on a course from New York to Gibraltar and the weather promised smooth sailing with sunny skies and a good wind. Suddenly, a two-masted square rigor appeared over the horizon. The ship's course was unsteady and as the wind veered, the vessel shifted aimlessly. The strained ship was under short canvas in the brisk wind, yawing heavily while lurching along at only two knots. Two of her sails were missing and the lower four top sails hung slackly at the corners. The captain of the Digracia, David Reed Morehouse, could see no one at the helm. He ran up a signal, but there was no reply. Captain Morehouse, along with his first mate Oliver Duvaux, raised their telescopes for a look. He recognized the ship as the Mary Celeste, but could see no one on board. Morehouse was stunned. He knew the captain of this ship, Benjamin Spooner Briggs, and in fact had a passing friendship with him. The two men had dined together less than a month before when their ships had been loading cargo at neighboring piers in New York. The Mary Celeste had set sail for Genoa, Italy on November 5, eight days before the Digracia had left port. Duvaux pointed out that there had seemed to be no distress signal. As the two ships approached within healing range, Captain Morehouse broke out his speaking trumpet. Celeste ahoy, he called out. Can you hear me? There was no reply from the other ship, only the creaking and flapping of plank and canvas. Morehouse called again, but nothing stirred on the ship. The captain could see that the Mary Celeste was on a starboard tack, but the jib sail was set to port. To the experienced seaman, he knew this meant only one thing. The ship was out of control, and the crew was either incapacitated or dead. He ordered his first mate to take two men with him and board the ship. Find out what's amiss, he instructed Duvaux. A boat was lowered, and the first mate and the two crewmen cast off toward the silent ship. The dinghy was tied up to the Mary Celeste, and the three men climbed aboard. What they found has remained a mystery ever since. The deck was empty. No crew member came forward to meet them. They shouted, but no one answered. The wheel stood unattended, spinning idly as the waves slapped the rudder. The only sound was the groan of wood and rope. The silence was uncanny. They searched the ship from stem to stern, but there was no one on board. The vessel was absolutely deserted, but if the crew had abandoned her, they had left everything behind. The hull, masts, and remaining sails of the Mary Celeste were all sound. The cargo, which consisted of 1,701 barrels of industrial alcohol, was all intact, except for one barrel which had been opened. There was a six-month supply of food and water. Sea chests and clothing lay dry and undisturbed. In the galley, a meal was being prepared and still hung over a dead fire. The bed was unmade in the captain's quarters and the table had been set for breakfast and then abandoned. There was porridge on one of the plates and the remains of eggs on another. Next to one plate was an open bottle of cough medicine with its cork and spoon lying beside it. In the deck, the skylight stood wide open and rain and seawater had soaked the bedding and clothing, forming large pools on the floor. The ship itself was sea-worthy and most things were in their proper place. It looked as though the entire crew had suddenly winked out of existence. Whatever had occurred, the searchers realized had taken place a short time before. None of the food had rotted and none of the metal surfaces had rusted in the sea air. Everything on the ship, including money and valuables, was intact. The only things that seemed to be missing were the ship's chronometer and the lifeboat. Duvaux knew that the Maryselast had carried a boat lashed to the main hatch and now that spot was empty. A piece of railing parallel to it had been removed apparently in order to launch the craft. The crew had seemed to managed to leave the ship in a single lifeboat and they must have done so in a feverish hurry. Not only had they left behind their personal belongings including their pipes and tobacco, which most sailors did not abandon unless in fear of death, but the ship had a disturbed look about it that suggested possible violence. Rope and canvas was scattered about on the deck. The ship's compass had been smashed to pieces. In one cabin, they found a cutlass that was smeared with what could have been blood. They found similar stains on the starboard deck rail near a cut that looked as though it had been made with an axe. On each side of the bow were strips of wood that had been cut from the deck. The strips were six feet long but why had they been cut was anyone's guess. The windows in the captain's cabin had been boarded up with canvas and heavy planks. Had the crew abandoned ship in fear of an attack or some other calamity? If so, how had they escaped? It was unlikely that everyone on board could have fit into the single lifeboat. There had been a crew of seven on the ship along with 37-year-old Captain Briggs, his 30-year-old wife and first cousin, the former Sarah Elizabeth Cobb and their two-year-old daughter Sophia Matilda. The Briggs other child, 7-year-old Arthur, had been left at home with his grandmother so he could attend school. Duvall checked the ship's log and found that the last entry was dated for November 24, 10 days before. At that point, the Mary Celeste was passing north of St. Mary's Island in the Azores, which was more than 700 miles away. If she had been abandoned after the entry, then the ship had sailed itself unmanned and unsteered for more than a week and a half. Such a feat seemed impossible. Duvall believed that someone had to have been on the ship for at least several days after the final log entry. But who had it been? And where had everyone gone? Were they stricken with disease, madness, or had something far more sinister happened? Duvall returned to the Adiagracia and made his report to Captain Morehouse. Although saddened by the disappearance of his acquaintance and his family, Morehouse saw an opportunity and money to be made. He ordered Duvall to return to the Mary Celeste with two crewmen and then follow the Adiagracia to Gibraltar. He would claim the ship as salvage, which would bring him a sizable reward. Both of the ships arrived in the Gibraltar harbor one week later. Instead of salvage money, though, Morehouse was met with an official order from the British Admiralty's office to seize the Mary Celeste for an immediate investigation. The Mary Celeste had always been known as an unlucky ship. Originally called the Amazon, her first captain died just 48 hours after his appointment. On her maiden voyage, she collided with a fishing boat off the coast of Maine and damaged her hull. During the repairs, a fire broke out below decks. Her third captain managed to run into another ship off the Straits of Dover. Her fourth captain ran the ship ground on Cape Breton Island and she was wrecked nearly beyond repair. After all that, the Amazon was salvaged and repaired. She was given a new name and an experienced captain in Benjamin Briggs and was put back into service. At that point, the ship not only had a reputation for being accident-prone and therefore unlucky, it was probably considered to be even more unlucky due to the name change. Among sailors who tend to be a superstitious lot, changing a ship's name is thought to bring bad luck. The investigation in Gibraltar uncovered little more than theories as to what had become of the Mary Celeste's crew. They considered mutiny, or perhaps some plot by the American crew, to steal the ship's cargo or to sink the ship and collect the insurance. Finally, mutiny was thought to be the solution. The Admiralty believed that the crew had murdered the captain and his family and then had escaped in the single lifeboat. There was no explanation as to why valuables, including jewelry and an expensive Italian sword, were left behind on the ship. The American merchant navy was angry over the finding of mutiny. Captain Briggs was not only a fair and decent man, he was well liked by all of the men who served with him. He also ran a dry ship. The only alcohol that was aboard the Mary Celeste was the cargo and it was crude alcohol and impossible to drink. To do so would cause severe cramps and possibly even blindness. Finally, in March 1873 the British Admiralty admitted that they had no solution to the mystery. It was the first time in history that the court had failed to come to a definite conclusion over maritime law. The owners of the Diagracia were awarded one-fifth of the value of the Mary Celeste as a salvage fee and the ship was returned to her owner. He wasted no time in selling the cursed ship. Over the next decade no new evidence was unearthed about the abandonment of the ship. No one from the crew was ever seen again and finally interest in the story began to fade. However, in 1882 the strange story of the Mary Celeste took an unusual turn. A seemingly unrelated event occurred in England in the small town of Southsea. This event was the moment that a newly licensed doctor named Arthur Conan Doyle put up a name plate on the wall outside of his office where he hoped to specialize in ophthalmology. Doyle would then spend days and weeks waiting for patience and prosperity only to find neither one. Instead, he would discover a love of writing and would chase away the boredom of his lackluster medical practice by penning stories. Doyle would go on to become a prolific writer of mystery and horror novels, the creator of the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes, and an outspoken proponent of the spiritualist movement. In those days, however, he was simply a penniless doctor with a strange taste for strange tales. In the fall of 1882, he would pen one of these strange stories and it would go on to not only create a sensation, but would also earn a unique place in history. In fact, Doyle's harmless story would jumble the facts of the Mary Celeste mystery so badly that many believe that the blame for the case never being solved rests squarely on Conan Doyle's shoulders. The story, titled J. Habakkuk Jeffson's Statement, appeared in the Cornhill magazine of January 1884. The tale was not only one of Doyle's best early tales, but he used a fictional setting to create a theory about what happened to the crew of the real-life Mary Celeste. To do this, he created an entirely different scenario. In the first sentence alone, he changed the location of where the ship was found, the circumstances behind her discovery, and even the name of the ship itself from Mary Celeste to Marie Celeste. The public and the popular press immediately seized upon the story. It was published anonymously and accepted as truth with the fictional Jeffson claiming to be on board the Marie Celeste when she is taken over by a black radical leader with a hatred for whites. No one seemed to notice the obvious changes that Doyle had written into the story. It was taken very seriously and debated by people as the true story of the real Mary Celeste. The adventures of Jeffson created a storm of controversy for the British Admiralty. The chief investigator in Gibraltar, Frederick Sully Flood, in his role as Queen's Council was so outraged by the story that he sent a flurry of public telegrams denouncing Jeffson's true account as an outrageous lie. He followed these rather embarrassing telegrams with an official report to the Admiralty, pinpointing each of the mistakes in the account. Needless to say, when the real details of the fictional story were learned, the press was delighted, as was Conan Doyle. The story would go on to launch his literary career. In addition, the story turned out to be a catalyst for a new wave of interest in the mystery of the Mary Celeste. In the years that followed, a number of other hoax accounts for the last days of the ship, none as successful as the first, emerged. Nothing was ever heard from any known member of the ship's crew again, and there was a steady surfacing of Mary Celeste's survivors, whose names, somehow, had been left off the ship's register. They popped up all over the world with stories that ranged from the impossible to the ridiculous. Charles Fort, an avid collector of newspaper accounts, of odd occurrences, and the author of several books on anomalous phenomena, suggested that the missing passengers and crew could have been whisked off the ship by what he called a selective force, which left the ship itself untouched. In 1926, Adam Bushey claimed that the Mary Celeste had been dematerialized and routed, but when it returned to solid form, the crew did not return with it. Other weird stories emerged of strange accidents, giant squids, crackens, time warps, and abduction by aliens. Countless serious theories were also expressed as to the fate of the ship's crew. James Briggs, the brother of the ship's captain, was convinced that the solution to the mystery lay in the ship's last log entry. It stated that the wind had dropped after a night of heavy ocean squalls. If this is correct, it could have meant that the ship lost speed and drifted toward the rocks of Santa Maria Island. The ship's hull may have been breached, explaining the pools of water that the Egracia First mate Duvaux found below decks. The crew may have believed that Mary Celeste was sinking and abandoned ship. Another explanation claimed that the ship was struck by a waterspout. This would explain the water below decks and the damage done to the sails. Or the crew may have panicked in the storm and abandoned ship. There is one feasible explanation for what happened that takes into account everything that was discovered by the Egracia crew. There was no structural damage to the ship, and yet it had apparently been abandoned in great haste. For this reason, it seems that the evacuation was not carried out because of something that had already happened, but because of something they were afraid was going to happen. The only potential for danger on board the Mary Celeste was her cargo. Captain Briggs had never carried crude alcohol before and was likely unfamiliar with its chemical reactions. He had come from the cold weather of New York to the much warmer region of the Azores, and the barrels shaken by stormy weather may have started to leak fumes into the hold. It is possible that Briggs feared that the vapors could either poison the crew or that the barrels might explode. One of the barrels, it will be remembered, was opened, probably during an inspection. If the inspection had taken place by candlelight, the open flame could have caused the fumes to burst into flame, which may have convinced the captain that the entire ship was in danger of exploding. Terrified for the safety of his men, not to mention his wife and daughter, he may have ordered everyone into the lifeboat. In all likelihood, Briggs intended to stick close to the ship so that they could get back on if no further explosion occurred, but it would not have taken much wind to send the Mary Celeste sailing away from the lifeboat, abandoning the crew at sea. The crew almost certainly would have tried to catch up with the ship, but rough seas may have prevented them from doing so, and the crew and passengers of the Mary Celeste were lost forever. This theory was first offered by James Winchester, the ship's owner, and it has since been considered by several authors. Somehow, it has never been generally accepted, perhaps because pirates, sea monsters and time warps are much more exciting than an ordinary yet fatal accident. So what became of the Mary Celeste after the court of inquiry was finished with her? Her owner sold the ship as soon as he arrived back in New York, some say at a great loss, but perhaps the most unlucky person in the deal was the man who bought her. The Mary Celeste was rumored to be jinxed from the beginning, and the events that followed the vanishing of her crew continued her run of terrible luck. The new owner loaded the ship with a cargo of lumber and sent her to Montevideo. During a storm that occurred while en route, the deck, cargo and a good amount of the ship's rigging was lost. The voyage turned out to be a total loss. On the return trip carrying a load of horses and mules, most of the animals died in the hold, and a few days later the new owner followed suit. From that point on, the Mary Celeste changed hands so quickly and so frequently that it became almost impossible to keep track of who owned her and when. She continued to sail up and down the American coastline, slowly falling apart. Then in 1884 she was purchased by an old seaman from Massachusetts named Gilman C. Parker. For most of his 61 years, Parker had dabbled in almost every kind of illegal activity on the sea, except for outright piracy. He and some of his friends concocted a scheme to make some money off the notoriously unprofitable Mary Celeste. They loaded her with a cargo of junk, worth less than a few hundred dollars, but ensured the cargo as being worth nearly 27,000. After that, Captain Parker took the ship on her death voyage to the Caribbean. In Haiti's Gulf of Genève is a coral reef called Rochelois Bank, which had proven fatal to scores of ships over the years. Parker set a course for the reef and the brigantine was grounded on the razor-like coral. With the waves crashing around her, the ship began to settle. There was no immediate danger and the crew had plenty of time to row the cargo ashore. When everything worthwhile had been salvaged, Parker ordered kerosene poured onto the decks and then he lit a torch. The Mary Celeste burst into flames. By evening, she was nothing but a charred skeleton. Back in Boston, Parker and his associates filed their insurance claim. The company was suspicious and dispatched detectives to question the crew. The sailors, who were not getting a share of the money, freely talked about what they had seen. Soon after, Parker and his partners were in federal court, facing a charge of baritry, an act of gross misconduct committed by a master or crew of a vessel which damages the vessel or its cargo. In those days, this was a hanging offense. The jury was unable to reach a verdict, however, and Parker and the other conspirators were set free. They never collected their claim and the notoriety of the case killed their reputations. Eight months later, Parker died in disrepute and poverty. One of his friends was confined to an insane asylum and another committed suicide. Even after she was destroyed, the Mary Celeste, the most famous cursed ship in history, was still bringing bad luck to anyone connected to her. Weird Darkness continues in just a moment. Remember staying up late on a Friday or Saturday night, either at home or at a friend's house and watching your local TV stations horror host presenting a terrible B-movie with aliens, monsters, ghosts, alien monster ghosts, vampires, werewolves and all other kinds of crazy creepy characters. Those were fun nights, weren't they? That's what the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com has to offer all day every day. Thanks to our friends at the Monster Channel, you can visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Watch Party right after listening to this episode and immediately be entertained by a horror host and horrible movie, or should I say horror-ribble movie. And not only can you watch the B-movies and horror hosts streaming there 24-7, but once a month we all gather together to watch a movie and talk about it in the chat room on that same page. Get your frights and funnies on the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com. Nothing says holiday cheer like a horned demon who likes to torture little kids. December 5, which is St. Nicholas Eve, is also known as Krampus Snot in some parts of Europe. Krampus is a sort of demon who accompanies St. Nicholas on the eve of December 6. On that night, St. Nicholas visits the homes of good children and leaves small gifts in their shoes. Those who have misbehaved in the past year, however, get punished by his helper, Krampus. He might take back the gifts that St. Nicholas left for the children and leave them a lump of coal instead. He might give them a birching with the switch he carries with him. Really bad children might even get carried off in his sack. Krampus is actually a pagan fertility god. Another great example of how the church managed to co-opt the pagan holidays, who has a long tail, fur, rattling chains, a birch branch, and a big black bag. He was worshipped by the pagans and turned into St. Nicholas's cohort when the area became Christian, subtly turning a god into the lackey of a Christian saint. On Krampus Day, children and adults traditionally go to the village square and throw snowballs at him to scare him off during a parade in his honor. Some people dress up as Krampus and a special cookie is even baked for the day, and bread is baked in the shape of St. Nicholas or Krampus. On St. Nicholas Eve, children place their shoes on the window sill or outside their bedroom door to be filled with fruits, nuts, and sweets. Sure makes that creepy elf on the shelf seem tame by comparison, doesn't it? This is the story of a ghost-hunting trip to the old abandoned Elgin Mental Hospital Cemetery. I first heard about it online where I read stories of the former groundskeeper hearing chilling sounds and heard it said that there may be three bodies in every grave. For over 100 years, the hospital operated as the Illinois State Institution for the Insane. The unwanted were sent there to die and many horrific experiments were performed during the early years of treating mental diseases. Over a thousand people are said to be buried in the cemetery and it has a long-held reputation of being haunted. We initially had a hard time finding the place and we were about to give up when suddenly we found it. Immediately we could feel the sadness, intense sadness. Some of these people were apparently buried with others and they were mental patients. Being sensitive to the paranormal, I could feel their pain and suffering. The following night we performed our first investigation. Mind you, it is private property and I do not recommend going there after dark. When we went back for the first investigation, it was night and the atmosphere had changed from lost and sad to pain and anger. We immediately felt watched as if something was staring right at us or many things were staring at us. So we stood outside the car, took some pictures and left. We caught orbs and a face in the pictures. We returned a week later and finally went into the cemetery. We recorded an EVP in which, clear as day, my wife's name was said, truly haunting. After about 15 minutes, we started to hear sirens, thinking it was the police we ran back to our car but no cops ever showed up. When we played back the EVP however, we realized that it was an old ghostly ambulance sound that we had heard. When we arrived back at headquarters and had the time to review the EVP further, we also found that we had caught a demonic sounding dog barking and its chains rattling. Based on this, we then planned another investigation and two weeks later my team and I returned. We left an EVP recorder in the middle of the cemetery and we all walked to the other side of the site where we found an old rotten wooden hearse. As I and my fellow investigator headed back to pick up my EVP recorder, we saw a white light start to hover in the distance. We took photographs and continued to walk towards the light. It turned out to be a police officer. Luckily for us, the officer is very cool and allows us to stay in extra 10 minutes or so. The EVP again contained dog barks and also breathing sounds. That night we also saw shadows that seemed to run back and forth across the cemetery. Funny, I felt welcome there as if the spirits were pleased to be visited as opposed to being forgotten. I've been back many times during the day and have even taken flowers because those folks deserve to be remembered. It is undoubtedly haunted but the worst thing that ever happened to me there was a few scratches which I put down to a ghostly guard dog doing his job. Good dog. My apartment is a duplex that has the living room and the kitchen on the first floor, the two bedrooms on the second floor and an internal staircase to go from the first to second floor. I returned from my office around 8pm, cooked dinner for my pop and myself which we enjoyed. Then we watched TV and went to bed around 11.30pm. I sleep heavily but that night, around midnight, I heard the doorbell and I woke up. My bedroom's door was locked and when I checked, I saw my pop was in his room sleeping. Wondering who would visit us so late, I rushed downstairs to open the door. While running down the staircase, I banged into something and instead of tumbling down, I was pushed backwards. Instead of falling, I landed in a sitting position on my stairs where I saw a bright white smoking figure. I guess it was the thing I heard ringing the doorbell. It was there standing in front of me for about five minutes and then it vanished into thin air. The experience can't be explained in words. I still haven't understood what it was. Could I have been visited by a ghost or spirit and putting this horrible event into words? Until now. I've lived in the same house for a long time. From time to time, we hear someone walking upstairs, even when I know that no one is awake or even home. My dog barks at nothing and I promise you that it isn't something the dog heard outside. No, it's whoever or whatever is in my house. Actually, there is more than one entity in my home. I've created a nickname for the one that I think is a younger spirit, maybe a teen. His name is Phil, or at least that's what I call him. He'll mess with my mom as she hears bangs and walking. I always tell her to ignore it and it'll stop, which it does. But as soon as you speak of him or my mother freaks out or I'm on my phone listening to things like weird darkness, the activity just skyrockets. Mostly I think he just messes with me. Recently I was walking up the stairs and I heard my name called. It was right in my ear as if someone whispered to me. Another time I really did get freaked out is I had to use the bathroom so bad and he was so active that I really didn't want to move. I stayed in the same spot until I couldn't hold it anymore and then I ran to the bathroom, did my business and ran back to bed. Phil is also a prankster and he moves things around. I've just started a new job and had been provided with an ID badge. For the life of me, I swear I put it down, went to wash up and when I came back, it wasn't there. I searched for it for ages and eventually gave up. Later when I came back, I find the ID badge sitting right on the bed. It's not the first time I've been pranked and it won't be the last. The nice spirit really doesn't bother me, but whatever else is in my house. The dark man I call him, the darker entity, that is what scares me. It scared me so badly that I blocked the experience out until now. I haven't thought about the darker spirit in a long time. I had it stored away in my head, far, far away. But then I've been listening to weird darkness and that has started it back up. The reason I forgot about the dark spirit is because I had blocked out an entire, horrific and terrifying paranormal experience. The cold spots in this house come and go, but with this spirit, it's not just a cold spot. It is a terrible feeling that the walls are closing in on you like hundreds of eyes are looking at you as if you are about to be attacked. I was about 13 or 14, I'm now 25. I was living upstairs at the time. I can remember it so vividly now. It was very late. I can remember feeling a strange feeling as if something was watching me. I look up and see a shadowed out man, not a shadow person, nor a man. It was a dark figure, but I could see his eyes and his face. The way it looked was not natural and I'd never experienced so much fear in my life. When it noticed that I had seen him, he turned and looked at me. I was frozen in shock with my hair standing up on the back of my neck. The worst part was I felt that this spirit could really hurt me and it wanted to. I pulled the covers over my head. It took what felt like hours for me to even gather enough energy to pull that blanket over me and even longer to lay down. Finally, I lay there, afraid to move, finding it hard to breathe, just praying and hoping that it would leave. Now, I feel the spirit getting closer, like that feeling you get when you can see a spider slowly sliding down its web towards you. I felt the dark spirit right by my face, with only the blanket separating us. I could hear it breathing right in my ear. He was breathing like he wanted to get me, as if he wanted me to be afraid. It felt like hours listening to that breathing right in my ear. I was so scared and so afraid I couldn't even produce a scream. I was too afraid to yell for help, as if this dark spirit was preventing me from doing so. I couldn't move. Apparently, I must have finally fallen asleep, and that was it. I had not remembered this experience until just a few days ago. It was so horrific that I had blocked it out of my memory. Whatever that dark spirit was, it was not the same spirit that pranks my mom and I. I don't know who or what it was. Now, I wait to see if he comes back. Luckily now, I'm not afraid. I guess Phil has kept the dark spirit away, maybe protecting me. I'm just waiting for the dark man to come back, and I'll be ready. More stories still to come when Weird Darkness returns No matter the time of day or season, sometimes you need to find a way to rid yourself of those ghostly chills that bring raised hairs and goosebumps to your skin. Other times, you're looking for those ghostly chills. Either way, it sounds like you need a mug of Weird Dark Roast coffee. Weird Dark Roast coffee has deep notes of cocoa, caramel, and a touch of sinister sweetness that will send shivers down your taste buds. This is an exclusive coffee that I selected specifically for you, my Weirdo family. Weird Dark Roast is not available in stores, coffee houses, mad scientist labs, or even the dark web, but you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. Weird Dark Roast coffee, fresh roasted to order so it's as fresh as it can be when it lands on your doorstep and knocks three times. Grab yours now at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. Weird Dark Roast coffee, it's not actually a knock on your door because it doesn't have arms or hands, so if you hear knocks at the door and no one answers when you ask who it is, it's probably paranormal, and you should just leave the door shut and locked. The Ancient Ram Inn is a Grade II listed building and a former pub located in Watton Underech, a market town within the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, England. It is believed to be one of the most haunted hotels in the country. This famous inn is owned by, and the home to, John Humphries. It has been owned by many people since 1145 to present date. Many people lived here either as tenants or overnight guests. This inn was said to have also been owned by the local St. Mary's Church when first built. The paranormal phenomenon reported to have manifested in the inn included spectral shadows, strange footsteps, inexplicable drops in temperature, mysterious tapping sounds, strange orbs of light floating around the inn after dark, furniture being moved around and people being pushed to the ground by an unseen force. The owner, John Humphries, even claims to have been a victim of an incubus assault, and the inn is said to have not one ghost, but several, including a phantom cavalier, a witch, a man and a monk. There have also been sightings of a mysterious black cat. The fact that the inn was built on an ancient pagan burial ground may have something to do with all the ghostly activity that has occurred there over the years. What is particularly scary about the hauntings at the inn is the fact that most visitors feel the spirits are profoundly malevolent. The atmosphere has often been described as brooding, oppressive and even evil. One room called the bishops room has the most notorious reputation. One night two men stayed there in the hope of witnessing some ghostly activity, and they had such a terrible night that they had to summon a vicar to exercise them. If you keep driving past New York City away from the blaring lights and sounds, you will eventually drive past the small town of Nyak, New York. There, at the end of a listless cul-de-sac, there stands a two-story rambling affair at the edge of the Hudson River. Inside, a dark history hides within the walls. The house on one LaVetta place has been a boarding house and a private residence since it was built in the early 1900s. When a couple named George and Helen Ackley moved into the house in the early 1960s, stories began to circulate around the town of strange goings-on inside the house, other worldly stories from Ackleys themselves. The Ackleys shared the house with their children and grandchildren and had been reporting to their neighbors phantom footsteps, knockings, doors opening and slamming, and beds shaking violently with no possible explanation. A decade later, the family decided to write about their experiences. Their article appeared in the May 1977 edition of Reader's Digest. In an article titled, Our Haunted House on the Hudson, the family described their decade-long life amongst the three benevolent spirits they claimed resided on one LaVetta place. He was sitting in mid-air, watching me paint the ceiling in the living room rocking back and forth. She said, I was on an eight-foot step ladder. I asked if he approved of what we were doing to the house, if the colors were his liking. He smiled and nodded his head. Mrs. Ackley said one of the other ghosts would waltz into her daughter's bedroom. We don't know whether or not she was the one who woke the children up by shaking the bed, she said. Ghost number three was a Navy Lieutenant during the American Revolution. My son saw him eyeball to eyeball outside the basement door, Mrs. Ackley said. Source, New York Times. The Ackleys claimed that these spirits would often give them strange items that would spontaneously appear throughout the house. A man who married into the Ackley family wrote about his knowledge of the paranormal activity in an article titled, Ghost of Nyak, Background About the House. This story deals with the house that my wife, Cynthia, spent her teen years in. The house is situated on the Hudson River at the bottom of a dead-end street. It was a 5,000-square-foot Victorian house with three levels plus a full basement and attic. Cynthia's parents, Helen and George Ackley, bought the house in the late 1960s. At the time, the big Victorian sat vacant and was in disrepair. Neighbor kids told them as they moved in that the house was haunted. It wasn't until later that the Ackleys found the truth. The ghosts and the Ackleys live at peace with each other. There was never an intentional scare to any of the Ackleys or their visitors. Nyak sits approximately 20 miles north of New York City on the west bank of the Hudson. Many people of the area know about the haunting of this house. As a matter of fact, the Hudson Valley is known for many haunted places, just straight across the river lays Territown. Just outside of Territown is the legendary Sleepy Hollow. This was made famous by Washington Irving's Halloween tale of the legend of Sleepy Hollow. Many of Irving's tales are based on legends of the lower Hudson Valley. The legend of the Nyak house made print in the Reader's Digest by an article submitted by Helen Ackley herself in May 1977. She told of various instances about the ghosts making their presence known to the family. Here are a few tales. One ghost would wake my wife up every morning for school by shaking her bed. When spring break came, my wife made a loud announcement before going to sleep that it was spring break, there was no school and she wanted to sleep in. Her bed did not shake the next morning. A few of the grandchildren received gifts from the ghost in the form of baby rings. All of a sudden they just appeared. My wife received a gift of a small silver sugar tongue. My wife's older brother's wife received coins. While painting the living room, Helen saw one of the ghosts looking in approval of the color. She always got the feeling that the ghost liked the renovation they had done on the house. I had two personal experiences with the ghosts. They both happened soon after I moved in with my future wife Cynthia and occurred about one month apart. The first happened on Christmas Eve. I was home alone due to various activities. I was playing Christmas Elf in the living room, putting gifts together. It was totally quiet in the house. After a while I kept hearing a muffled conversation coming from the dining room around the wall. I would get up and walk over and nobody was there. I felt like I was being watched. I had purposely turned on every light in the surrounding rooms. I was getting nervous. Then my future brother-in-law suddenly pounded on the door making me jump out of my skin and the talking stopped. The second incident happened in our bedroom on the third floor. It was a clear dark night. San had already fallen asleep and I was drifting. Then I heard the bedroom door creak and the floorboards squeak. My back was to the edge of the bed. Suddenly the edge of the bed by my midsection depressed down and I felt something lean against me. I went literally stone stiff. I was speechless and could hardly move. I was able to twist my neck around enough to see a womanly figure in a soft dress through the moonlight from the bay windows. I felt like she was looking straight at me. After about a minute the presence got up and walked back out of the room. I finally relaxed enough to shake my wife out of a sound sleep acting like a toddler who had just had a nightmare. Source ktransit.com Whatever you want to believe about the haunted house on the Hudson, know this. The story is mostly famous for sparking the infamous Ghostbusters ruling from the appellate court in New York. In the trial of Stambovsky v. Ackley the court held where as here the seller not only takes unfair advantage of the buyer's ignorance but has created and perpetuated a condition about which he is unlikely to even inquire enforcement of the contract in whole or in part is offensive to the court's sense of equity. Application of the remedy of resuscitation within the bounds of the narrow exception to the doctrine of caveat emptor set forth herein is entirely appropriate to relieve the unwitting purchaser from the consequences of a most unnatural bargain. When the house was put on the market, the Stambovsky's fought to keep their $32,500 deposit after they learned about the house's paranormal history a bit too late. The Ackleys and Realtor were found to be at fault for not disclosing the ghoulish details about the unwanted amenities. Built in 1840, the Sorrell Weed House in Savannah, Georgia is famous for its history and infamous for its ghosts. But is the legend surrounding the historic home true or is it near folklore? The Sorrell Weed House first belonged to wealthy shipping merchant Francis Sorrell. Though Francis was married, legend has it that a beautiful slave named Molly caught his eye. In fact, Sorrell was so enamored by the slave that he arranged for her to live in private quarters above the carriage house. There the two romped until Sorrell's wife Matilda discovered the sordid affair. Devastated by her husband's betrayal, Matilda leaped from a second-story balcony and died in the courtyard below. A few days after Matilda's death, servants discovered Molly hanging from a noose in the carriage house. Now the tragic women reportedly haunt the Sorrell Weed mansion. In 2005, the Ghost Hunters crew recorded an EVP which some believe is Sorrell's slave screaming in pain for pleasure. Here is a recording of that EVP. Other eerie events at the 175-year-old site include odd thuds and bangs, disembodied voices and shadowy forms. Many visitors also report feeling violently ill. Our investigation of the Sorrell Weed House in Savannah, Georgia, gave me a three-alarm hangover. Ghost adventurers star Zach Bagan writes in his new book, I Am Haunted. It was very similar to a real one, headache, nausea, dizziness, throbbing, memory loss, but weirder. I can usually gauge how bad my hangover is going to be by the interactions I have with spirits during a lockdown, but this one threw me for a loop. If the Sorrell Weed House is truly haunted, it's unlikely that Molly or Matilda are to blame. Census records show no proof of a slave named Molly ever living in the home, and there's no evidence of a Sorrell slave affair. And though Matilda Sorrell did leap to her death, records show that she did so next door, not at the home she allegedly haunts. Is the Sorrell Weed House truly haunted, or has the legend of Molly and Matilda led people astray? You decide. Thanks for listening. If you liked 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. And please leave a rating and review of the show in the podcast app you listen from. 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 all of my social media, listen to audiobooks I've narrated, shop the Weird Darkness store, sign up for monthly contests, find other podcasts that I host, and find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts. Also on Weirddarkness.com, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more on the website. All stories in Weirddarkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. Weirddarkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Romans 5, verses 6-8. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And a final thought. For every dream that you have, your week needs to match that dream. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.