 Welcome to Paranormality Magazine. Each week, Paranormality Magazine explores all 40 subjects from phantoms to UFOs and every cryptid creature in between. Each week, you are treated to a collection of well-researched and investigated stories, interviews and reports on cutting-edge paranormal projects and topics they know you crave. And here in the podcast, I share stories from the magazine to give you just a taste of what you receive in every issue. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Paranormality Magazine. In 2003, forums erupted with an astounding story. A man named Andrew Carlson had been arrested on Wall Street after quickly amassing over $350 million through highly successful stock trades. When questioned by authorities, Carlson offered an astonishing explanation. He was a time traveler from the year 2256. Immediately the imaginative tale ignited public intrigue. But all these years later has any credible evidence emerged to verify these extraordinary claims? Initial sources spreading the dramatic tale remained questionable at best. Some traced back to tabloid magazines known for running fanciful stories without fact-checking. Despite rampant speculation online, no verified news reports from the early 2000s exist documenting Andrew Carlson's alleged arrest or financial windfall. Conventionally, all documentation confirming his identity has purportedly been confiscated by the SEC and FBI preventing any future follow-up or validation. Since his first emergence, variations on Carlson's story continue to evolve. Believers often cite supporting evidence, a Harvard diploma dated 2088 or an aging photo, without realizing all artifacts first appeared on websites years after his initial 2003 debut. Their origins remain murky, hinting at international internet falsification. Several self-proclaimed insiders have emerged online retelling the tale with added embellishments not present in earlier iterations. Mainstream journalists and fact-checkers have widely debunked the Andrew Carlson legend as nothing more than an imaginative fiction. No credible documentation exists showing either Carlson's sudden massive stock acquisition, his arrest or any government seizure as initially claimed. Law enforcement has no record of his fingerprints. Financial entities possess no trading data under his name and social security number. Johns Hopkins confirmed no enrollment past or present. Like chasing shadows, every lead that could verify his identity dead ends. While the prospect of time travel undoubtedly tantalizes the imagination, the universal physics community agrees such technology remains impossible given current scientific knowledge. Any fast movements at subatomic levels could disturb delicate relativity and causality, and researchers believe human physiology lacks the protective capacity to endure warping space-time continuum. Of course, the absence of current confirmation hardly disproves an otherwise entertaining fiction. After all, verifying the identity of a man supposedly from 200 years in the future poses understandable difficulty. But as journalists, scrutiny remains necessary when separating and grossing speculation from reportable truth. Until substantive credible proof emerges, Andrew Carlson remains categorized as nothing more than colorful internet lore. While open-mindedness extends to even the furthest possibilities, facts and evidence serve as the central pillars for honest reporting. For now it appears Carlson's extraordinary tale leads nowhere beyond the fanciful dream of science fiction and online legends. The search continues for any definitive truth. In the way that all things old become new again, sometimes older urban legends and ghost stories return and make the news cycles again. This is especially true with the internet and forums such as Reddit and YouTube. It becomes very possible for a ghost or paranormal story that may have died years ago to be kept alive and passed down and gaining new audience 50 years after a story's first popularity and exposure. This is certainly the case with the Bay Area's Haunted Toys R Us. What are the most famous and popular ghost stories in the Bay Area? Possibly it is the juxtaposition of a ghost in a toy store that continues to draw people to the story of the Haunted Toys R Us years and years later. Or maybe it's the nostalgia and reconnecting with a chain from many people's childhoods that it was hard to see close. Whatever the case, the story of the Haunted Toys R Us, a story that started in the early 1970s, continues to draw followers and investigators. A quick internet search finds Instagram posts seeking the ghosts of the Haunted Toys R Us and seeking YouTube videos of ghosts of the former toy store. However, when you do a little digging into the origins of the story and separate truth from possible fiction or imagination, parts of it become just that. A story. The Haunted Toys R Us story seems to be one of those urban legends that currently exists in the modern collective vernacular and consciousness. When you talk to many people and ask them if they have heard of the Haunted Toys R Us, many people will say that they have heard of it and that they know that there is a Haunted Toys R Us somewhere. In terms of knowing the generalities of the story without the details, the Haunted Toys R Us story resembles the hook urban legend and other vague stories that are passed down. However, the Toys R Us that became famous for being the Haunted Toys R Us is a very specifically located building that still draws the occasional paranormal investigator and psychic located in the Bay Area City of Sunnyvale, California. In the latter half of the 20th century, Sunnyvale saw the construction of its Toys R Us toy store. Like many areas in the Bay Area, as urban sprawl grew into suburbs, farmland was built over and converted into modern amenities and homes. We can begin the Haunted Toys R Us story with the fact that the building was actually built upon farmland that belonged to California pioneers Martin and Mary Murphy. This really isn't too much of a stretch, though, since the town that is Sunnyvale was built upon the Murphy's former ranch. So how did ghosts of the ranch begin haunting a toy store specifically? Well, those ghosts can thank 1980s television and psychics for their fame. Shortly after the Sunnyvale Toys R Us was built in 1970, more employees began reporting experiencing a variety of paranormal experiences and problems. After closing, the employees would say that they would see toys being thrown off of shelves. They also saw toys being played with in the aisles and other items moving around. The story of the Haunted Store began to spread and eventually got the attention of the television show That's Incredible. In 1981, That's Incredible aired an episode with a segment investigating the ghosts of Sunnyvale's Toys R Us. To complete a full paranormal investigation, the That's Incredible team enlisted the help of psychic Sylvia Brown. Brown's investigation and the segment included some questionable reenactments along with Sylvia hosting a seance. Unfortunately, it is Brown's involvement and her findings that have frustrated historians and modern investigators because they have allowed her errors and misjudgments to overshadow the experiences that the employees were having, which led to the attention from the TV show to begin with. When Sylvia Brown held her seance, she claimed to be in touch with a traveling Swedish preacher who occasionally worked on the Murphy ranch in exchange for his room and board. This traveling preacher was named John or Johnny or Jan Johnson. According to Brown, John fell madly in love with the Murphy's daughter Elizabeth. However, Elizabeth was terrible to him and did not love him back and eventually Elizabeth eloped with another man to the east coast. Heartbroken, John remained on the Murphy farm and died when he was chopping wood and brutally hacked into his own leg and bled to death. Sylvia was so convinced in the reality of John that she spoke of and wrote about his story many times, including in at least one of her books. Unfortunately, John Johnson and his affair with Elizabeth Murphy is all a work of fiction. Many researchers have looked into census records and while there were men by that name in the Bay Area at the time, none of them fit that description and none of them were working as traveling preachers or farmers in what is now the Sunnyvale area. Also, there are absolutely no records of any farmhand dying from axe wounds. Second, Brown got the dates completely wrong. She claimed that Johnson was working on the farm and fell in love with Elizabeth during the 1880s. The Murphys did have a daughter named Elizabeth, but she died in 1875 and had never run away to the east coast. In fact, Elizabeth married a San Francisco dry goods merchant and their marriage was seen as the uniting of two of the biggest and most influential families in the area. The thing is, just because the names and dates and specifics from Brown's say-once are wrong, there definitely were some very traumatic deaths on the Murphy Ranch that could have led to hauntings in the area. Mary and Martin's eldest son died young on the property of consumption. Elizabeth and her husband William died young also on the Murphy Ranch since they had been gifted many acres as a wedding present. One of the strangest deaths is that of Fred Hoffman, a relative by marriage. Fred died on the property in 1894 while working on a pump in a well. What Fred didn't know is that the pump was right next to a leaking gas tank and Fred was later found dead of gas asphyxiation. The wildest part of Fred's story is the person who was searching for him was doing so by lit match and ended up blowing up the well. However, that individual survived. Clearly, Sunnyvale's Toys R Us was a victim of the closure of the toy chain. When the store closed in 2018, many in the area wondered what would happen to the ghosts in the building. Luckily, they didn't have to worry for recently. REI has purchased the building and the formerly haunted Toys R Us is now an REI store. Paranormal investigators continue to go to the location seeking the ghosts that made the location famous. However, it would be wise to look a little deeper than the stories that were on TV. Clearly something was going on in the store in the 1970s. Maybe we can set aside the stories told by a psychic and a television show and as this story is renewed and revived, look at it from new angles and with open minds. Want more paranormality? Subscribe to Paranormality Magazine and each month get it delivered digitally or via mail in our print version. Paranormality Magazine is a collaborative endeavor featuring works from people like you who have a passion for all things mysterious and unexplained. Our goal is the pursuit of knowledge gathering captivating stories from our own team of writers, researchers and investigators, as well as from writers such as yourself. Each monthly issue also includes a list of paranormal, horror, UFO and cryptozoology events around the country, incredible paranormal themed artwork, articles and writing sent in from our readers, suggested books and podcasts to consume, and more. Visit ParanormalityMag.com and subscribe today for as little as $3.99 a month. That's ParanormalityMag.com. ParanormalityMag.com Paranormality Magazine contributor LC Lod tells us about the spirits that tricked her into buying a haunted house. Here's her story. In 2021, I decided I wanted to buy a boarding house. I found a house that I felt compelled to have. It had seven bedrooms and was in a cute gold rush town I'd been to a few times. After two weeks, the selling agent called back and agreed to meet at the house that day. The house is on Main Street. As I'm on the wraparound porch waiting for the agent, I see a horse-drawn wagon go past me with a dog in the back and I thought this must be a sign that I need this house. I walk in and the house buzzes with excitement. She tells me that the house used to be a brothel and a boarding house and now I want it even more. I see that there is definitely work to be done, but I know this is the house. The house waited on the market for me for 18 months. This was fate. The home inspector showed up, called me and said, you don't want to buy this house. I told him I did, but he really didn't want to do an inspection. I told him that I was going to buy the house no matter what. I just needed to know what costs I was looking at in the future. I showed up a few hours later and the first thing he said to me was, what if it is haunted? To which I casually responded, I don't care. I saw my first ghost at seven when my cousin and I were on the swings and saw a shadow figure of a man in a hat walking from behind a pile of firewood next door. As young adults, that same cousin and I lived together and we noticed lights would turn on by themselves and other innocuous things happened. So when I think a house is haunted, this is what I think of. I never expected to have to change all of my plans because of ghosts. The day of the final walkthrough came and my real estate agent, handyman and I had to walk through every room. Upon entering the last bedroom, I looked at them and said, I don't like this room. There's a girl in the closet. They looked at me like they thought I was deranged. After closing, I spoke to a woman whose family owned the home for over a half century and asked if there were deaths or ghosts and she said there had not been. I had never been on a paranormal investigation, but a friend happened to know some investigators they had offered to stop by. I sat on the sofa and watched as a half dozen people walked in. One of the investigators went into that bedroom, came out and said, I don't like that room, there's a girl in the closet. This one sentence changed a lot for me. There was so much validation in that one sentence. They brought out equipment and we caught EVPs, people heard whispering or breathing in their ears. People were touched. There was just a ton of activity and it was 2 p.m. They had planned on doing an investigation at a local haunted hotel. I now know the whole area is haunted, but they were so excited about the activity that they cancelled that and asked if they could come back that night. That night there were three separate paranormal groups converging at the house. Again, we experienced touching EVPs, someone heard a ball bouncing and we left knowing that this house was indeed haunted and likely by more than one entity. Probably the worst of it was that the spirit in the tiny bedroom cussed at us and told us to get out so not the best first night in the house. I had my first tenant move in who I warned the house was haunted. She said that she would hear footsteps upstairs when no one was home. Doors would close on their own, banging and would hear what sounds like a bouncing ball. A baby-sized footprint appeared on the stairs. Then a few weeks later, a child-sized handprint showed up on a stainless steel fridge. The video would show balls flying out the wall and items moving when I wasn't there. I struggled to find more tenants, the one I had moved out about three months after moving in. I think the only reason she made it that long was that she worked nights. I was unable to find any more tenants, so about that time I decided perhaps I should turn it into an Airbnb. It's a great area and I thought maybe people were willing to stay in haunted places maybe for a weekend but not for a year. I spent most weekends at the house working on restoring furniture, painting walls and decorating. The apartment had such a homey feel to it but I did not want to be upstairs at night. As the sun started to go down and the energy shifted, I would get everything I needed for my projects and would head downstairs. Even with the motion-activated lights I put in the hallway, I did not want to be upstairs at night because you felt watched. One night the construction workers had to stay late to get my water turned back on. They mentioned the shift in energy and would tell me about their experiences of doors closing, supplies moving and how freaked out they were at being there at night. I was able to get the deeds and start learning more about the house. I met a woman at the county office who is also a paranormal docent at a local haunted reformatory school. She came over one night and we kept hearing noises in other parts of the house. We went down to the basement and she turned on the Necrophonics, a spirit box type app, and she said, Hi, my name is Marcy, what's your name? And we heard, Steve. I went through the names of the owners in my head and the longest owner was named Stefano. She asked what her name was and we both heard clearly, It is Marcy. I was so glad I had put cameras in the basement after a recent flood to catch this. I spoke to Steve's daughter again who this time did admit that people had seen her dad in the basement after his death. Now that I had another name, I went delving into the newspapers and finally found a plethora of information, bootlegging, gambling parlor, conspiracy to sell stolen gold to the government. I already knew his brother had been chief of police when the state's attorney general raided the town to shut down the brothel and gambling houses in the 1950s but to finally know who was in the basement and more about him actually made me feel more comfortable. I learned about murders, drownings, and that the first owner died in her early 40s and also had a son that didn't live to be three. The house saw the death of a few of its mining residents. The Argonaut and Kennedy Mines were pulling out gold until World War II and saw plenty of deaths and tragedies. On the third call to Steve's daughter, she admitted that her parents, sister, and brother-in-law were there and that there was a border she knew had died in the house. I've since learned about some other borders dying. One drowned, that makes three drownings, she thought by suicide, but the neighbor thought that it was suspicious. We've gotten some names of the other spirits, including the first owner's husband, a man named Sam, but the grumpy ghost in the small bedroom is still harder to pin down. That room now inhabits an uncomfortable Victorian couch and lots of creepy dolls to help encourage people to not linger in her space. I have had guests leave within minutes, sometimes even in the middle of the night. Reviews mention full body apparitions, footsteps, banging, different smells, perfume, cigarette smoke, campfire, body odor. Most people close the door to the room with the dolls. If the guests are noisy, messy, or they annoy me, the spirits mess with them more, even hiding one man's keys when he showed up on a Christmas two hours early, causing me to stop cooking for my family to change the locks. I have made friends with these spirits, acknowledged them, by them presence, and they seem to let me know when there is a problem. One of the spirits, Sam, actually follows me now. I have not seen any other wagons drive down Main Street since that first day, except the annual wagon train that comes through every April. I wonder if that wagon was just another way that the spirits tricked me into buying a haunted house. No one can deny the terror of witnessing an unseen force move objects with ease. Still, the true horror lies in the possibility that it could harm a living being, and in the case of the Jabotakabal poltergeist, that fear became a grim reality. With a head full of long brown hair and bright brown eyes, Maria Jose Ferriera bounced through the bustling streets of Jabotakabal, a small town in Brazil. She lived with her parents at a modest house just down the road from the local Roman Catholic diocese. The village was predominantly Catholic, and Maria's family followed the traditions closely. They attended mass every Sunday at the beautiful church on the corner of their street. Maria loved to admire the colorful stained glass windows. The town's name had roots in the Tupai language, a reminder of the indigenous people who once inhabited the land before Portuguese settlers colonized it. Although only eleven years old, Maria had a strong sense of her cultural identity and was proud to call Jabotakabal her home. However, on a December evening in 1965, Maria sat with her family in their cozy living room. Suddenly, a loud crash jolted them out of their seats as a brick materialized out of thin air and smashed through the open window. Maria's heart pounded with panic as she watched the object fly across the room as if someone had thrown it through the air like a missile. Little did she know this was just the beginning of a series of terrifying events that would haunt her for years to come. At first, they laughed off the brick being thrown into their living room. After all, they had a stack of identical looking bricks in their backyard. But as the days passed and more bricks came flying down, some weighing up to eight pounds, they realized it couldn't be a prank. The pile of bricks outside remained untouched, adding to the mystery and fear growing inside the family home. As Maria spent evenings cowering in the corner, bricks seemed to materialize out of thin air and hurl themselves toward her violently. They shattered windows, destroyed furniture, and left deep gouges in the walls. But it wasn't just the bricks that attacked her. She felt sharp nails scratching her skin, open-palmed slaps on her face, and painful bites on her arms and legs from the unseen attacker. Her body was covered in bruises as she desperately tried to defend herself from the relentless assault. It was clear that she was the sole target of this inexplicable violence. In a frantic rush, the family called the local police station. The officers searched high and low, knocking on doors and questioning neighbors, but their efforts yielded no results. Maria sat in her room, shaking and trembling, unable to offer any answers about who or what was responsible for the bricks being thrown at her window and the physical attacks that she endured. The fear and confusion in her eyes said more than any words could ever convey. With shaking voices, the family traveled to the church and visited their local priest, begging for help as they believed an evil force was infesting their home. The priest arrived, dressed in his traditional robes and carrying a cross. He recited prayers and performed an exorcism, but it seemed only to anger whatever malevolent spirit was present. The furniture began to shake violently and objects flew across the room. Clearly, this wasn't a simple haunting. Many believed it to be a powerful poltergeist reeking havoc on the family's home. The phenomenon of poltergeists has long been a source of fear and fascination for many. Originating from the German words polter meaning noise or racket and geist meaning spirit, these entities are believed to be disembodied spirits or supernatural forces that cause disturbing and often malicious occurrences. Poltergeists have been blamed for various unsettling phenomena, from inexplicable noises to sudden wild movements and even breakage of household items. Some tales even claim that they are responsible for violent attacks such as throwing stones or setting fire to clothing and furniture. It is commonly believed that poltergeists focus their activities on one family member, typically a young adolescent. Their goal? To torment and harass and in rare cases even cause physical harm. Interestingly enough, these unexplainable occurrences seem to halt when outsiders are present. The town of Gippodakabal was in a state of panic as the entity focused on Maria. She couldn't escape its constant attacks, even in broad daylight. Passers-by would scream and run in terror as they saw her clothing burst into flames. Her screams drowned out by the crackling fire. But no one dared to help her, fearing they too would become victims of this terrifying entity. Following the failed exorcism, the Fiera family turned to their neighbor, Joao Volpe for help. A tall man with piercing eyes, he was known in the community as a skilled dentist and a powerful spirit medium. As he sat down with the family, he could feel the heavy presence of dark spirits lingering in the room. He closed his eyes and let out a low chant, his hands moving in intricate patterns. After a few minutes, he opened his eyes and spoke with conviction. At her past life, Maria was a witch, he said, and now she is paying the price for her actions. The souls of those she harmed seek revenge. The tormented spirits of those she had condemned to their deaths in earlier lifetimes were there as dark forbidden magic swirling around her, their ghastly forms looming in the shadows. They hungered for retribution, their anguished wails and whispers filling her mind with terror. Each one bore a twisted visage, distorted by pain and hatred as they clamored for revenge. One evening, the spiritualist watched stones materialize out of thin air and flew around the house, ricocheting off walls and furniture. One colossal stone crashed through the ceiling, splitting into two perfectly symmetrical pieces as it fell. They miraculously fused back into one solid stone when picked up and pressed together. Jean couldn't help but notice that the two halves seemed to be magnetized, pulling towards each other with strong force. Volpe led Maria down a dusty path towards his small cottage on the outskirts of town to stay with him so he could study her further. Inside, he lit candles and spread out his cards. As they sat across from each other at a wooden table, Volpe could sense the presence of several spirits surrounding the young girl. Through their conversation, he realized that Maria had a natural connection to the spirit world and encouraged her to embrace it. In fact, Maria learned to reach out to some of the more friendly spirits. She carefully approached the flickering candles in the dimly lit room on one occasion. The girl whispered a request for a sweet treat. She watched as colorful, glistening candles appeared at her feet. The spirits were not all malevolent after all. Volpe's voice quivered as he recited an incantation, commanding the spirits to loosen their grip on Maria. For several days she slept peacefully and the house was calm. The peace would not last long. Maria could hear the familiar sound of shattering glass and the crashing of kitchenware from the other room. She huddled in fear as furniture flew through the air, narrowly missing her. Just when she thought it couldn't get any worse, a cup appeared out of nowhere and pressed against her face, suffocating her. It was just another terrifying night living with an abusive unseen spirit. As she slept, tiny pinpricks of pain jolted her awake. She reached for the light and that's what she saw them sewing needles, sticking out of her skin like quills on a porcupine. She had no idea how they got there or who put them there, but they seemed to multiply every night. When she was taken to the doctor, 55 needles were carefully extracted from her body, each one leaving a red mark behind. Despite bandages and gauze, the wounds never seemed to heal fully, as if something was constantly tearing them open again and again. Bandages placed to cover her wounds were always torn off. For a year, Maria lived with Volpe and a spirit clinging to her despite her desperate attempts to rid herself of it. With each passing day she grew more exhausted and hopeless. Finally, she traveled to Brazil's most renowned medium, Chico Xavier. He placed his hands on her head and closed his eyes in concentration. Soft murmurs and prayers filled the room as he passed a magnetic hand over her body. After months of treatment, Xavier opened his eyes and proclaimed that the spirits had been successfully removed from Maria's presence. She felt a weight lift off her shoulders and tears of relief streamed down her face. After so long, Maria, now 13 years of age, was finally allowed to return home. She walked through the front door to her family, breathing in the familiar scent of her own bed and feeling relieved yet anxious to resume her everyday life. Sadly, this was not the end of her story. The poltergeist wasn't finished with Maria. Three days later, her stiff body was discovered in her bedroom, covered in vomit and surrounded by empty bottles of pesticide. The autopsy revealed that she had ingested a deadly concoction, ending her life in what was officially deemed a tragic suicide. The sudden eerie knocks on the walls and objects flying across the room stopped after Maria Jose Ferreira's death. It was as if the poltergeist that had tormented the poor child for years had finally found peace, along with Maria's soul. If you have a paranormal podcast, you can add it to our website so our readers can find your show. Artists, if you'd like your work to be featured in our magazine or on our back cover, contact us. Again, our website is ParanormalityMag.com. I'm Darren Marlar and I'll have more paranormal for you next time from Paranormality Magazine. 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.