 Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. During the summer of 2003, events in the Northeastern United States involving a strange, human-like creature sparked brief local media interest before an apparent blackout was enacted. Little or no information was left intact, as most online and written accounts of the creature were mysteriously destroyed. Primarily focused in rural New York state and once found in Idaho, self-proclaimed witnesses told stories of their encounters with a creature of unknown origin. Emotions ranged from extremely traumatic levels of fright and discomfort to an almost childlike sense of playfulness and curiosity. While their published versions are no longer on record, the memories remained powerful. Several of the involved parties began looking for answers that year. In early 2006, the collaboration had accumulated nearly two dozen documents dating between the 12th century and present day, spanning four continents. In almost all cases, the stories were identical. I've been in contact with a member of this group and was able to get some excerpts from their upcoming book. A suicide note from 1964. As I prepare to take my life, I feel it necessary to assuage any guilt or pain I have introduced through this act. It is not the fault of anyone other than him. For once I awoke and felt his presence, and once I awoke and saw his form, and once I awoke and heard his voice and looked into his eyes. I cannot sleep without fear of what I might next awake to experience. I cannot ever wake. Goodbye. Bound in the same wooden box were two empty envelopes addressed to William and Rose and one loose personal letter with no envelope. Dearest Linney, I have prayed for you. He spoke your name. A journal entry translated from Spanish at 1880. I have experienced the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I see his eyes when I close mine. They are hollow, black. They saw me and pierced me, his wet hand. I will not sleep, his voice, and then some unintelligible text. A Mariner's log from 1691. He came to me in my sleep. From the foot of my bed I felt a sensation. He took everything. We must return to England. We shall not return here again at the request of the rake. From a witness, 2006. Three years ago I had just returned from a trip from Niagara Falls with my family for the 4th of July. We were all very exhausted after a long day of driving so my husband and I put the kids right to bed and called it a night. At about 4 a.m. I woke up thinking my husband had gotten up to use the restroom. I used the moment to steal back the sheets only to wake him in the process. I apologized and told him I thought he got out of bed. When he turned to face me he gasped and pulled his feet up from the end of the bed so quickly his knee almost knocked me out of bed. He then grabbed me and said nothing. After adjusting to the dark for half a second I was able to see what caused the strange reaction. At the foot of the bed sitting and facing away from us there was what appeared to be a naked man or a large, hairless dog of some sort. Its body position was disturbing and unnatural as if it had been hit by a car or something. For some reason I was not instantly frightened by it but more concerned as to its condition. At this point I was somewhat under the assumption that we were supposed to help him. My husband was peering over his arm and knee tucked into the fetal position occasionally glancing at me before returning to the creature. In a flurry of motion the creature scrambled around the side of the bed and then crawled quickly in a flailing sort of motion right along the bed until it was less than a foot from my husband's face. The creature was completely silent for about 30 seconds or probably closer to five it just seemed like a while just looking at my husband. The creature then placed its hand on his knee and ran into the hallway leading to the kids rooms. I screamed and ran for the light switch planning to stop him before he hurt my children. When I got to the hallway the light from the bedroom was enough to see it crouching and hunched over about 20 feet away. He turned around and looked directly at me covered in blood. I flipped the switch on the wall and saw my daughter Clara. The creature ran down the stairs while my husband and I rushed to help our daughter. She was very badly injured and spoke only once more in her short life. She said he is the rake. My husband drove his car into a lake that night while rushing our daughter to the hospital. It did not survive. Being a small town news got around pretty quickly. The police were helpful at first and the local newspaper took a lot of interest as well. However the story was never published and the local television news never followed up either. For several months my son Justin and I stayed in a hotel near my parents house. After we decided to return home I began looking for answers myself. I eventually located a man in the next town over who had a similar story. We got in contact and began talking about our experiences. He knew of two other people in New York who had seen the creature we now referred to as the rake. It took the four of us about two solid years of hunting on the internet and writing letters to come up with a small collection of what we believe to be accounts of the rake. None of them gave any details, history or follow-up. One journal had an entry involving the creature in its first three pages and never mentioned it again. A ship's log explained nothing of the encounter saying only that they were told to leave by the rake. That was the last entry in the log. There were however many instances where the creature's visit was one of a series of visits with the same person. Multiple people also mentioned being spoken to, my daughter included. This led us to wonder if the rake had visited any of us before our last encounter. I set up a digital recorder near my bed and left it running all night, every night for two weeks. I would tediously scan through the sounds of me rolling around in my bed each day when I woke up. By the end of the second week I was quite used to the occasional sound of sleep while blurring through the recording at eight times the normal speed. This still took almost an hour every day. On the first day of the third week I thought I heard something different. What I found was a shrill voice. It was the rake. I can't listen to it long enough to even begin to describe it. I haven't let anyone listen to it yet. All I know is that I have heard it before and I now believe that it spoke when it was sitting in front of my husband. I don't remember hearing anything at the time, but for some reason the voice on the recorder immediately brings me back to that moment. The thoughts that must have gone through my daughter's head make me very upset. I have not seen the rake since he ruined my life, but I know that he has been in my room while I slept. I know and fear that one night I will wake up to see him staring at me. Welcome, Weirdos. I am Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you will find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. If you are new here welcome to the podcast and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. If you are already a Weirdo please share the podcast with others. Doing so helps make it possible for me to keep creating episodes as often as I do. Coming up in this episode… Have you ever had a premonition while dreaming? Something that later came true in real life? What do you do with that information? What if you know it is not a normal dream but a real look into the future and if you don't do something a tragedy will take place? But then what if your dream warning is what actually leads to a real life murder? The ability to move something only with the power of your mind has been disproven by science time and time again. Telekinesis as much as we would like to think it is possible has been proven not to exist. Well except for those scientific studies that we have not heard about that say the exact opposite. Thousands of people in Finland experienced a UFO sighting one night in 1966. The incident however was obviously not taken too seriously as it was barely investigated despite the numerous reports. But those who lived through it say it was a night they will never forget. But first the number of Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, Jersey Devil, Rake and various other cryptid and creature sightings is astronomical if you really look at it. And while it is more than possible that most of these sightings are explainable by misidentification of existing wildlife or overactive imaginations, the sheer number of sightings couldn't possibly be waved off by such simple explanations. We will look at some true stories of people who have come across unexplainable creatures. We begin there. While listening be sure to check out the Weird Darkness website. At WeirdDarkness.com you can sign up for the newsletter to win monthly prizes. Find paranormal and horror audiobooks I have narrated. Watch old horror movies for free. Plus you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you are 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. Here it comes, my favorite part. Have you ever noticed that when George Bailey is on the bridge it doesn't start snowing again until after he says, aw man, the power is out? No problem, because you are prepared with the Patriot Power Generator from Four Patriots. While the rest of the city is dealing with the weather outside is frightful, you can have the power that's so delightful inside your home. Flip to switch and suddenly you're back to the TV and radio for weather updates, your space heaters are keeping you toasty warm, your phones and laptops are charged, your fridge is still running, and you're back to watching It's a Wonderful Life in time to hear out of Boy Clarence. 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I used to work at a cheese factory on the edge of a cornfield in southwestern Minnesota. There were a series of days in the summer of 04 or 05 where it was so hot that the milk being delivered to us in trucks would evaporate before we got it. It made work easy. The dearth of milk denied us any actual labor, but management wouldn't let us not come to work, so we would show up and mess around all shift. I was working nights at the time. It was 2 or 3 am and I was out on the loading dock watching bats fly around the floodlights because I liked being out in the cool night air. The corn was about as high as my shoulder, so about 5'10". As I was watching the bats, I looked down at the edge of the cornfield. Something was moving there. It was the size of a small child and very, very skinny. Peel with something that looked like a head of straight black hair. It moved in a sort of jerky gait like someone dancing the robot badly. It moved in chunks, legs, then hips, then torso, shoulders, neck, and finally head. It was looking back into the cornfield or, at least I felt like it was. I felt prickly all over. I didn't know what it was. I thought it was a heron or something at first, but it looked too much like a person. It didn't move like a person, though. Gradually, step by step, it moved toward me, letting my curiosity better my fear. I moved toward the edge of the dock, which was raised a few feet off the ground. When I got within a few feet of the edge, the thing looked at me. I was paralyzed. I could have run, but I was stuck somewhere between terrified and intrigued. It moved. Its face still pointed at me. It ratcheted its body in that disconcerting jerky movement toward the cornfield and went into it. I tried to watch where the field moved as it passed, but the corn remained perfectly still. I noticed that all the crickets were silent. After a few minutes, nothing happened. I stood out there for an hour, but it never came back. I never saw it again. The forest crept in, reported by Joanna H. My strange story took place on the 26th of September, 2009. My church was on a retreat in Indiana, in a forest. The place we stayed at was a small building in the center of the forest. We decided that evening to go out and play in the forest with the children, so we came up with a game to play. It was like police. The kids were the police, and we would pick an adult to be the hostage. So when we began the game, we had to find the adult hiding in the forest in the middle of the night. So we started going around the back of the building and we spotted a tall figure. It had to be at least six feet tall. It was running toward the trees where there was a small open area with tall grass that goes up to your knees. It ran with its arms at its sides, but it stopped at the edge of the tall grass, as if it was waiting for us to get closer. We chased after it, thinking that it was the adult. When we were finally a few yards away, it dove into the grass and started to crawl very fast, almost snake-like. We got weirded out, but stood there, staring at it. When it got across the tall grass, it began to climb a tree. It looked somewhat like a deformed cat-like animal when it was climbing, and then a few moments later a kid yelled, I see him! It was pointing in an opposite direction. We saw a similar figure running a couple of yards away, so we chased it, but then it vanished behind a tree. Turns out a few minutes later we found the adult hiding in the parking lot in front of the building the whole time. So who knows what we saw that night in that forest? At least 15 kids saw the thing with me, so I know I'm not crazy. The Prime Hook Swamp Creature, reported by Helen Jay. I was driving on Broad Hill Road in Broad Hill Beach, Delaware, around dusk in July 2007. This road borders a swamp area. Standing on the side of the road by the swamp, my daughter and I saw a creature like we've never seen before. It stood about two and a half to three feet tall with long legs, a tan body, a flat, almost pugish face, and a long tail. It had small ears and looked to be about 30 pounds. My other daughter and her friends also saw this same animal the year before, around the same area, except it was night, and it ran in front of their car. I asked the lady who owned the Broad Hill Beach store about it, and she said that she had seen it once when she was dirt biking with her dad in that area years before, and both her and her dad had no idea what it was, even though she was raised around Broad Hill. She said we were lucky to have spotted it, as few people have seen it. We went to the Prime Hook Reserve, this is what the swampy area is called. We went to the museum there and they had no idea what it could be either. I'm wondering if anyone else had seen it and what the heck it is? A Florida sea monster reported by Adam G. This story takes place, I think, in the summer of 1995, making me nine years old. Practically every other year, my family would take a trip to Florida. We would usually go to Disney World, but my mother was getting sick of that, so that year we actually didn't go to Disney World, to my sisters and my dismay. On one of these days we were on a beach. I don't remember what the beach was called, but the people sitting next to us mentioned it being the bottom tip of Florida. After a while of nothing happening, everybody was either in the ocean or sunbathing silently. A woman sitting to the left of us pointed past us to our right, asking, What is that? We all turned and looked to a surprisingly vacant corner of the beach. There were no people down there, but what was there was something really strange. We all got up to get a better look, very quickly forming a crowd around it. If I had to describe the creature we saw in one word, that word would be cartoonish. I would never forget what it looked like. It was green and looked like a ball of slime about the size of a basketball. It had tentacles resting on the ground around it with two longer tail-like tentacles sticking out of its back. The thing that was the most bizarre and made it look cartoonish were its eyes, which were on stalks that stood about a foot off its body. The eyes looked creepily human and just looked at us in an almost disinterested way. The other thing strange about it was its mouth, which never seemed to close, and where you'd expect teeth or tooth-shaped fleshy protrusions. No one, not even the creature, seemed scared, and after a while it lazily slithered back into the ocean. There were roughly ten witnesses to this thing, and we all spent most of our time talking about what it must have been. One idea was that it was a parasite organism for a much larger creature, one also possibly never identified. The Mothman reported by Scarlett. You will never believe what I saw one very cold, dry November night. My family and I moved into a new house upon a hill on a little back road in the very small town of Fort Gay, West Virginia. Fort Gay sits right on the east side of Kentucky. The population of my town then was probably just a couple thousand. My family and I were unpacking. We had not yet put the furniture in its rightful places, and everything was still in boxes. Overwhelmed with working all day, I retired around 11 p.m. Put my little brother on the couch, and I took his bed since my bed wasn't put together yet. His room faces the front of the house. His window is around 20 to 25 feet or so off the ground. I was looking out the window when I saw it. It stood about seven feet tall. I had no idea what it was, but I was frozen. I had never been that scared in all my life. All I could do was lay there and just stare at this thing. It was sitting in a tree about 50 feet or so off the ground, about 50 feet from the house across the yard. It felt like an eternity. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even blink. It had big, red, bright, glowing eyes looking dead into my face. I finally worked up enough courage to close my eyes and put my head under the covers when all of a sudden this thing smacked the window. I went through the house screaming, there's something outside. I was crying. My mom and dad looked at me and said, what's wrong with you? Looks like you've seen a ghost. My face was snow white. I said, I don't know what it was, but please, daddy, don't go outside. I begged and I begged. He came back in and said there was nothing out there. I kept screaming, saying, yes there is, yes there is. When I explained to them what I saw and how I felt, they said I was crazy, but to this day I will not go outside by myself and even in the day someone still has to watch me in my car. I've heard some pretty crazy things going on up on that road, but I never expected to experience anything myself. My husband and I went to the theaters and watched Mothman prophecies. I was reliving that night all over again. The way they described feeling and what they saw was remarkable. My husband looked over at me and said, isn't that what you described to me when we first started dating? I couldn't say a word. After that moment I knew what I saw. I believe in all heart of hearts I saw the Mothman. It's just a little weird. I only live about 80 miles south of Point Pleasant West Virginia where all of that took place 37 years ago. It was exactly 32 years to the month when I saw it. The Kitsun, or Fox Spirit, reported by Brian T. Back in September of 2004 I was hiking in the Arashiyama area outside of Kyoto, Japan. I had decided to leave the touristy area and set off alone in a random direction toward the mountains. I found myself on an old trail through the forest. After a while I encountered an old man with a long white beard. He carried a staff and was dressed in coarse blue robes, like a peasant out of a samurai movie. He saw me and told me to follow him. Being more curious than anything, I walked after him as he led me further into the forest. He spoke at length about the beauty of nature. Now people cut down forests and polluted the earth and told me that humans must learn to protect and respect nature. During the whole exchange he never spoke about himself or asked any questions of me. After a while he said he had to leave and showed me another trail, saying I should take it when I wanted to go back to the city. He then left by that trail. I happened to pass the same place on the way back that evening, so I took the trail the old man showed me. Only minutes later I ended up completely lost and couldn't even find the trail itself to retrace my steps. It was getting dark and as I showed my flashlight around I noticed an old white fox watching me from nearby. I could have sworn it was watching me with an amused look on its face, but as soon as I showed my light on it ran off into the bushes. I remember reading all sorts of old Japanese stories and legends about fox spirits that can take human form and I feel like I may have seen one that day. Invisible Sprinting Humanoids by Cassandra J. Working as a police motorway patrol woman in Portsmouth, England, I am frequently confronted with situations that are both bizarre and unnerving. However, the incident that occurred on the 25th of November last year is by far the most unusual of them. During a routine speed camera setup in the city, around 6.30pm at which time it was completely dark, our speed trap picked up random tracings of non-existent objects hurtling past at 30-40mph. The devices are not actually known to malfunction, so we trained the camera on the road surface to see what we picked up. Sitting in the back of the patrol van we were shocked to discover on the screen that the camera was picking up what can only be described as human figures running up and down the street approximately 40 feet away from the vehicle, only barely visible through the night vision filter. They were of average height, had a silvery hue, and were sprinting up and down the central reservation, the dividing surface between two opposite lanes on a motorway repeatedly and very fast. I admit I did not exit the vehicle to investigate, but apparently I didn't have to. Only about 10 feet away at the side of the road, one of these silvery entities just appeared on the screen. Female, approximately 6 foot and standing motionless facing away from the van. She was dressed in scantily clad clothing, not unlike that a young woman on an evening out might wear. But I was extremely freaked out, especially considering that leaning out of the window, there was absolutely no evidence of anyone standing that close to the vehicle. As the first vehicle, only 5 minutes from the first sighting drove past, all visible evidence of the entities had vanished. Nothing occurred from that time till the end of my duty at 9pm, and yet when I played back the footage from the camera, the silvery objects and the woman were not on the tape. Obviously I did not report the incident, but friends and fellow officers agree that it is highly unusual and none of them had experienced anything of the like before. A red-eyed roadside cryptid, reported by Britain J. The following happened in Vidor, Texas on June 20, 2000, around 1am. Just got off from work and was headed east. On this road there is a 90 degree turn, and at times you have to watch because cattle might be out and on the road. That morning that is what I thought had happened. No one else was on the road, but I saw red eyes that would look at the truck lights and look down over and over, and I knew something was not right. I was driving on the left side of the road, and when I got close I noticed that this red-eyed creature stood about 5 foot tall and sported black hair all over its body. I stopped the truck and got out my spotlight and shined it on the creature. It seemed like forever, but I know that it was only a few minutes. This creature raised its arm above its head and let out a terrible scream that I have heard before. It turned around and went behind a house and left. I have heard this sound before when I lived on Teal Road in Orange, Texas just a few miles from this location. I have traveled this road many times hoping to see this creature again and never have. I am told this creature is related to Bigfoot, a bizarre Australian creature reported by Jessica C. I am not entirely sure on the exact date of when this happened, but it would have been around 1999, maybe in spring or summer. Living in Australia you are bound to see strange things from time to time, although most have an explanation behind them. This is different. I was young at the time, probably 9 or so, and my family was having a barbecue in the backyard of our house. We were all sitting at this table on the patio, eating and talking, not really paying attention to anything surrounding us. Suddenly I heard a plop noise come from the leaf cover in the garden along the back fence. I immediately turned and looked to see what it made the noise. To my horror, I saw a small blue creature look at me then run into the shrubbery. It was about 15 cm or 6 inches tall on all fours. It didn't have any toes that I could see. Its face was vertically oval shaped with small black eyes, a long protruding nose and a grimacing mouth filled with almost needle-like teeth. The outer of the face was dark blue, sort of like a mane, but it looked hairless. The rest of the face and body was light blue. The best I could describe the body is like that of a lion except with short legs, no tail and less sculpted. I looked at my brother and he said, What was that? He had seen it too. When my mom called us down she took my brother and me to separate rooms of the house and got us to draw what we had seen. We both drew the same thing. I was terrified for the rest of the night. To this day I still don't know what the creature was that I saw, but it still gives me the creeps. Up next, thousands of people in Finland experienced a UFO sighting one night in 1966. The incident however was obviously not taken too seriously as it was barely investigated despite the numerous reports. But those who lived through it say it was a night they will never forget. That story and more when Weird Darkness returns. I was waiting and waiting and it has finally hit the website. Built Bar now has my absolute favorite flavor available for the holiday season. Candy cane brownie, but they have surprised me by coming out with two varieties. The original candy cane brownie bar which is chocolatey, chewy and truly does taste like a chocolate covered candy cane and now they have the new candy cane brownie puff which brings the whole holiday flavor to a marshmallow filled creation. Both bars are covered with candy cane sprinkles, but because these are protein bars, not candy bars, each one is only 150 calories or less and each has 17 grams of protein. So I could use these as a meal or as a low calorie dessert. Or in my case, both. I have no discipline. I've ordered enough to get me through the Christmas season and beyond because it is a limited release seasonal flavor. You can join me in the holiday taste festivities at WeirdDarkness.com slash Built. That's Weird Darkness.com slash Built and use the promo code WeirdDarkness all one word and you'll get 10% off everything in your cart. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Built promo code WeirdDarkness. It's beginning to taste a lot like Christmas. The following is an article written for Ideal UFO's magazine number one in March 1978 by Lawrence Gerald. Here's the article. When you talk UFOs with Bjorn Carlson, it's best to use a soft voice and broach the subject lightly. 50-year-old Carlson, a first officer with the Scandinavian airline system, SAS, looks like the gentlest of men, a pleasant featured fellow who might pet your dog or play with your kids. But beneath that kindly exterior, you get the impression that 230-pound powerfully built Carlson has the potential of a keg of dynamite waiting to be touched off. And the subject of UFOs touches him off. I don't like the damn things, he says, with just a trace of Swedish accent. They're spooky and they're scary and they could have killed us. When you talk about UFOs with Fairfax Virginia housewife Nina Boyer, it's better to take a consoling approach, reminding her that she isn't alone, that thousands of ordinary citizens have been threatened by flying saucers and that many have felt the fright she experienced. 53-year-old Mrs. Boyer is gentle too and has the inner strength to cope with being a UFO witness, but she doesn't get angry about it, she just wishes it had never happened. A lot of people who saw those things were more frightened than I was, she acknowledges, I imagine some of them still worry. We talk to both these people and many others over a period of several years seeking to unravel one of the great UFO mysteries of our time, the wave of sightings that took place in and around Helsinki, the capital of Finland, during a 14-hour period from dusk on October 13, 1966 until 8 am the following day. More than a decade has passed since this great Scandinavian UFO frenzy-alarmed witnesses excited scientists and made banner headlines in Helsinki, yet this giant UFO flap to our knowledge has never been reported in the U.S. and to the people who were there, the memory is as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. Briefly, here is what did happen. During that long night, people on vessels at sea and virtually the entire population of downtown Helsinki spotted low-flying blue-white lights which cavorted through the skies alone in small groups and in V-shaped formations of up to 12 or more. These brightly-colored airborne apparitions showed up on radar, disappeared radio broadcasts and buzzed at least three airliners including Carlson's. They evaded pursuit by Finnish jet fighters. They ruined film exposed by several photographers. They harried, harassed and annoyed as many as a million people for nearly 14 hours and then they completely disappeared. At least one person may have committed suicide as a result of this UFO frenzy and several persons whose stories can't be verified claim to have had psychic messages from even actual contact with aliens from space. We decided to look at this UFO incident not from the viewpoint of the far-out recipients of beamed messages but from the more conservative accounts of serious responsible persons. Three in particular. We interviewed airline pilot Carlson in the Plush cake lounge of the Marski Hotel in Helsinki only weeks after the incident. This rider was living in Helsinki at the time but had been out of town that critical night. We talked to Mrs. Nina Boyer in her Virginia apartment nine years later in late 1975 and spoke to another pilot, Harold Payton, in 1977. Because of his employment, Carlson's name is disguised slightly here. All other names in this anatomy of a UFO incident are real. The story begins at official sunset, 6.17 p.m. when Brigida Lindruss, a clerk typist for the Helsinki city government emerges from a coffee shop near the waterfront. She notices several persons clustered along a sea wall staring out at lengthening shadows on the water. The policeman points, gestures. Suddenly, I realized that six bright lights were skimming over the water. As we watched, they turned and climbed. They began moving back and forth through the sky and we watched spellbound. By 7.00 p.m., hundreds of persons throughout the Finnish capital were watching swarms of saucer-like craft maneuvering over their city. The big flap was underway. We were on a Six Nation tour which my husband Jack had awarded himself as a retirement present. We'd arrived in Helsinki that morning and were attending dinner at a well-known nightclub that gave a hone with the other members of our tour group. We'd begun an appetizer, the herring, the Finn's catch and the Baltic, and the band was assembling on stage. It was going to be one of the high points of our trip, a fine seafood dinner followed by music, dancing and conversation. Suddenly, we noticed that people at the other tables were standing up and clearing out of the place. People were shouting. Someone cried in English, flying saucer. There was a sense of panic. I can't say why, although I've often wondered if we were all affected by some supernatural force we didn't understand. I know I felt compulsion to hurry as we spilled out into the courtyard behind the nightclub. The air was chilly. Everyone was looking up. I peered up in time to see five brilliant flying discs passing directly overhead. I wish I could describe the ghostly appearance of these huge silent apparitions in the sky. These were great round objects, each of them maybe a hundred feet in diameter, perfectly circular and without any distinguishing features of any kind. They gave off an intense white light with bluish tinge and they passed over us in total silence. Nina and Jack Boyer, with several dozen other people, moved downhill to an open terrace to gain a better view of the startling objects in the sky. While this was happening, five more UFOs buzzed the Norwegian merchant vessel Christian Leader 125 miles away in an unusually rough Baltic Sea. At this time, Captain Bjorn Carlson was arriving at Copenhagen's Kallstrip Airport 580 miles away, preparing to take command of SAS Flight 6 to Helsinki. He was cautioned to expect high winds and unusual turbulence. A similar forecast was being received over the phone by 36-year-old Harold G. Hal Payton, an expatriate American preparing for a night flight 100 miles north of Helsinki at the newly opened Shavaskeila Airport. Payton remembers thinking, hold on here, the weather was supposed to be calm. Two hours after the initial sightings, two Vampire FB 52 fighter bombers bearing the blue and white insignia of the Finnish Air Force gave chase to a lone UFO heading east from Helsinki toward the Soviet coast, where the lights of Ledengrad shone in the distance. This was the first of several encounters between jets and the strange intruders. One of the pilots guessed the speed of the UFOs at 1300 miles per hour. He radioed unable to make contact, they are pulling away. According to reports, Major General R. R. Tola, Chief of Staff at the Finnish Air Arm, was telephoned at home. He immediately headed for his home in the drab, stressed concrete Defense Ministry building. For Nina Boyer and the awestruck members of her tourist group, the UFOs have become more distant now, but were putting on a spectacular light show that crisscrossed the skies of the city. Nina remembers that no one spoke of returning to dinner. It was like we were all held there by some force, completely absorbed by what we saw. The fast-flying UFOs, variously described by on-watchers as globes, disks and saucers, abruptly separated from each other, disappeared behind low clouds and appeared again, then rejoined into formations of six or more. No one who watched them reported hearing a sound. Their sudden turns, sharp dives and rapid changes of position, mixed with long periods when they glided gently, ruled out any thought that these were aircraft or any other known phenomenon. We watched them for over an hour. People were talking openly about spaceships, wondering if aliens were about to land the way it happened in that radio program, The War of the Worlds. Somebody wondered if the Finnish authorities would protect us for and tourists if it was an invasion. Jack and I both felt our lives were changed by this experience. The sense of sharing it with so many others, thinking about how we were all humans, altogether in the face of something that wasn't from our world, it had a special meaning. We were all a little afraid, and we suddenly realized how much we all meant to each other. Jack and I were to remain close friends with several of the other witnesses until Jack passed away eight years later in 1974. Nina Boyer has thought about that night in Helsinki ever since. Were she and her friends watching the arrival of a probe force of starships from another galaxy? I've often thought it could be something like that, she says. Around 10pm, just before the saucers left Helsinki skies for a brief period to return later, 17-year-old high school student Axel Lundgren leaped from the ninth story of his parents' apartment house and plunged to his death. Friends say Lundgren was disturbed, and the appearance of UFOs may have sent him over the brink. Hal Payton hails from the rugged Appalachian coal mining towns of West Virginia. He's tough, and he doesn't convince easily. As a U.S. Air Force lieutenant, he flew 55 combat missions in Vietnam and won several awards. He and his wife Linda jumped at the offer of a civilian flying job with an ore prospecting company in Finland. He was drawing top pay for piloting a de Havilland Otter light plane and towing a magnetic skintilometer to search for underground nickel deposits. When we talked to Payton, he still wasn't convinced that invaders from space were cavorting through the skies of Finland, but he did feel that something had happened which he didn't understand and didn't like. Somebody at the airport warned me they were spotting UFOs down in Helsinki. I figured the heck with it. I had scheduled a night hop in my otter to check out some equipment when I was determined to go. I've heard UFO stories throughout my flying career, some from impeccable sources, but I've never canceled a flight because of them. Hal Payton took off, leveled off at 5000 feet, and turned on a 180-degree heading for Helsinki. Suddenly, a blue and white light appeared on his tail. A friend of his writers in Finland claims to have unearthed a newsletter from an occult group telling of another man who spotted those blue-white lights. A 35-year-old watchmaker who stood on the roof of Sotman's department store in Helsinki that night, the man claims the UFO beamed him a telepathic message from his deceased great-grandfather. The message was, Tell the leaders of the world to stop experimenting with nuclear weapons. Apart from the fact that the nuclear test ban treaty had already taken effect three years earlier, this second-hand story strikes us as one that will have to be considered on its merits. Hal Payton's experience is something else. With this thing started following me, I decided to lose altitude, turn west and try to get a better look at it. I did, and it stayed with me. It seemed to hang in the air about 500 feet behind me in the night sky. When I turned, it turned. It happened to have the capability to abruptly change direction 180 degrees. It clung to me like glue when I began to have a trapped feeling. The original purpose of House Flight, an equipment check, was soon forgotten. The pilot suddenly wondered why he hadn't taken seriously the accounts of UFOs he'd heard from other pilots all these years. Twisting and turning above the dark Finnish mountains, the UFO drawing closer to him every moment, he faced an agonizing decision. If he tried to maintain course, the blue-white light might ram him. But if he continued taking evasive action, he might fly into a ridgeline. Hal chose to try to escape. Throwing a single-engine otter into a series of grinding, gut-wrenching turns, he realized he was getting lower and lower, dangerously close to the peaks that loomed around him. His senses were racing. Each new maneuver was more difficult. He was quickly becoming fatigued, and the persistent UFO kept getting closer and closer. During this hectic struggle for survival, Hal Payton was in a better position to get a clear look at a UFO than most men have ever been. At times, the great shimmering disc was only feet from his airplane. Yet Hal feels he can't contribute much to the knowledge accumulated by UFO researchers. What he saw was merkily defined a blur in motion. The craft was much larger than my otter, maybe 100 feet across. Its perfect, flawless round shape would seem to argue that it had to be artificial, constructed by some alien intelligence. It was the color of a gas flame in the upper temperature ranges. This glowing white hue laced with little streaks of blue. This would suggest that it was extremely hot for some reason, perhaps something to do with its energy source. But I saw nothing to tell me what it was. There were no markings, no blemishes, no appendages. It was simply a perfectly smooth round shape, not a clue as to what was inside or who was driving. And it was dogging me like crazy. This was close to midnight. The UFOs had reappeared in the skies in Helsinki, being viewed now only by night people and on-watchers who were too fascinated to go to bed. At Kallstrup Airport, SAS Douglas DC-6B registry number LNLMO, one of the last prompt-driven craft operated by the Scandinavian carrier, lifted into the dark sky, carrying 56 passengers and five crew. Pilot Bjorn Carlson had not yet heard of the UFO swarm over his destination, which he would not reach for another three hours. Hal Payton was just about certain he was going to meet with disaster when his tormentor suddenly broke away and disengaged. The UFO suddenly seemed back away from me and then soared upward into the night sky. I had a perfect planned view of its circular bottom as it climbed away. I leveled off again and just stared. It was leaving me. The craft receded into the distance, suddenly moving at much greater speed and in seconds it was gone. I got back to Javaskayla safely, telephoned my wife, and then spent a few minutes being sick. I no longer laugh at other pilots who talk of seeing UFOs. I may not be convinced they are alien starships, but I do know that whatever they are, they are a threat and I feel lucky to be alive. By one in the morning, only diehards among the Helsinki populace continued to watch the bright lights, which now appeared for only moments at a time, disappeared, and then showed up again. There was another inconclusive encounter with Vampire FB-52 jets of the Finnish Air Force. Years later, a woman in a suburb would claim that a saucer landed in her backyard and disgorged a stem-limbed creature with three eyes who told her that God was the only salvation. A high wind was blowing. Weather experts were puzzled by the freakish gusts, the sharp temperature drop of more than two degrees centigrade, and the stormy, white-capped seas. The strange weather, a phenomenon also associated with UFO sightings in the Bermuda Triangle, totally perplexed Captain Bjorn Carlson. His four-engine DC-6B LNLMO bored toward the Finnish coast. Carlson and his crew were informed by approach control radar that UFOs were being tracked near them. The UFOs appeared very suddenly. At first, we didn't have a clear view of them. They then began to circle us in the clear night sky seeking to harass us that began playing a game of aerial chicken darting in front of us and narrowly averting collision. At the controls of the airliner, tensed up by the actions of the persistent saucer-like objects, Bjorn Carlson was angry and frustrated. He couldn't take violent evasive action, not without scaring or harming his passengers. They were scared anyway, an older man began a frantic argument with the stewardess insisting that we should land immediately. She tried to explain that we were still over water, the Baltic. He was impervious to reason. The UFOs seemed to be taunting us. They were large, spherical craft giving off a yellow-white glow. My co-pilot insisted that he could see portholes along the rim of their saucer-like bodies. Another SAS employee aboard Carlson's DC-6B, the Flight Engineer, remembers the UFOs becoming more aggressive as the airplane approached the Finland coast. They were stalking us, they were trying to collide with us. The DC-6B began shaking on turbulence, which quickly became the most violent turbulence Carlson had ever encountered in his flying career. Struggling to keep his aircraft as steady as possible, he felt his temper rapidly coming to the surface. Finnish air controllers lost contact with Carlson for more than 20 minutes, another phenomenon for which there is no explanation. He didn't even notice at the time, he was too busy focusing on the brilliant lights that kept shooting past all around him. Carlson's experience was to be a prolonged one, but for people on the ground it would be even more prolonged. Sightings of the bizarre intruders would continue sporadically throughout the night. The last recorded contact seemed to have taken place long after sunrise, when a half-dozen saucers hovered briefly over the central downtown area of Helsinki. The headline on a Finnish language morning daily proclaimed, Invasion from the Skies. Around 2.10am, now crossing the coast, Björn Carlson was caught up in that invasion. While struggling with his controls and glancing quickly from one UFO to another, Carlson made a brief announcement intended to calm the passengers. He doesn't remember what he said. There was nothing to say, the damn things were all around us and we didn't know what they were doing. The encounters between Carlson's DC-6B and the flying saucers lasted 1 hour and 50 minutes. They had a profound effect on every person aboard. Some were afraid, some mystified, and several passengers would later write Carlson to praise him for his professional conduct. The incident may have been one of the most protracted air-to-air encounters of all time, yet in the end, it taught almost nothing about the origin and nature of UFOs. This is part of what steams me up, Björn Carlson told us, describing his weariness and frustration as the UFOs finally began to peel off and fly away just when he was lowering his gear and preparing to land at Helsinki. Carlson was exhausted far beyond what might normally be expected. He was mad, he had a disturbing sense of utility. He landed normally, despite high winds, and an airline flight which should have been routine came to an end. A few weeks later, Carlson told us he thinks the UFO could have caused his plane to crash and he simply not maintained course, the opposite action to that taken by Hal Payton. When we contacted Carlson again years later while preparing this article, he said that the passage of time had not calmed his rage. What happened that night to the citizens of Helsinki? To Nina Boyer, Hal Payton, Björn Carlson. Why the strange weather, the reports of psychic encounters, the loss of radio contact with Carlson's plane? Why did the UFOs attack civilian planes but flee from jet fighters? There are no answers. Did Finnish authorities investigate? No official findings have ever been released. The other big UFO flaps of recent history, the massive wave of sightings over Washington, DC in 1952, and the similar UFO storm over Tokyo in 1964 have challenged researchers, filled the literature of saucer buffs and provided not one single clue as to what UFOs are or where they came from. If Helsinki, Finland was being invaded by alien starships that night, their message didn't come across. As UFO sightings increase around the world, maybe some answers will be forthcoming. But despite arduous study of the great Helsinki flap, at this point the only conclusion we can offer is that it left some people mad, some mystified, and almost no one eager to have any further contact with the troublesome intruders. When Weird Darkness returns, the ability to move something only with the power of your mind has been disproven by science time and time again. Telekinesis, as much as we'd like to think it's possible, has been proven not to exist. Well, except for those scientific studies that we have not heard about that say the exact opposite. But first, have you ever had a premonition while dreaming? Something that later came true in real life? What do you do with that information? What if you know it's not a normal dream but a real look into the future, and if you don't do something a tragedy will take place? But then what if your dream warning is what actually leads to a real life murder? That story is up next. Do you keep a journal or diary? If not, maybe you should consider it. It's been shown that journaling can help you reduce stress, help relieve depression, builds self-confidence, it boosts your emotional intelligence, helps with achieving goals, inspires creativity, and more. In fact, my friend, S. N. Lenees has created a Weird Darkness-themed journal just for you. Full of blank pages for you to use as a diary, make notes for class or office meetings, jot down ideas for that novel you want to write. Use it for keeping a mileage log if you travel for business, whatever you want. In fact, she has numerous styles of journals to choose from. Along with the Weird Darkness journal, there's one for dealing with grief, or teacher's notes, for medical residencies, keeping track of your meds or health routine, and several others. Journals make a great gift for others, but it's also a great gift for yourself and your own mental health. No matter what you might want a journal for, my friend Ann has it, and you can see all of our journals, including the one for Weird Darkness, on the sponsors and friends page at WeirdDarkness.com. There are so many anecdotes of accurate premonitions of danger, either walking or dreaming, that we should probably accept this form of ESP as reality, in at least some cases. A strong premonition of this sort commonly induces the recipient to alter his behavior in order to avoid the danger. But what if there are serious consequences of such an action? What if cancelling your plane flight at the last moment means losing both the fare and the cost of your vacation? What if your boss insists you make the journey or risk losing your job? Worse still, how do you know that attempting to avoid the danger won't in fact be the action that makes it come true? There was a fascinating book by Catherine Crowe published in 1850 entitled The Night Side of Nature, or Ghosts and Ghost Seers, which you can download and read for free, if you wish. I've linked to it in the show notes. Chapter 5, or Warnings, tells of Dr. W., who dreamed that he was called to a patient several miles away, and while he was crossing a moor on horseback, he was attacked by a bull. Only by locating a spot inaccessible to the bull was he able to escape, and there he remained until some people discovered his plight and rescued him. The next morning he received a summons from that very patient. What an unusual coincidence, he thought. But as he was crossing the moor, lo and behold, there was a bull, the last thing you would expect on the commons. Need I say more? The action played out exactly as per the dream, and it was only because of the dream that he was able to find the safe site where he spent four hours held up. Obviously, if you receive a warning dream, it's a good idea to heed it. Or is it? The most disturbing story was one that Catherine Crowe called from a newspaper, although she did not provide a citation, only the text. Although the original story came from Germany, I presume she was quoting a Scottish newspaper because of the use of the term Bailey for a certain type of municipal official. A Hamburg locksmith called Claude Soler was approached by his apprentice, who related his dream of the previous night. He'd been murdered on the road of Burgstorf, a small town about two hours' journey away. This is presumably different from the modern town of Burgstorf, which is a long way off. We must imagine a frightened lad in his late teens. The locksmith scoffed at the boys' worries, it was only a dream after all, and to demonstrate his contempt for the idea, he immediately gave him a mission to Burgstorf. Soler's brother-in-law lived there, and since he, Soler, owed him 140 ricks dollars, which was no doubt a lot of money in those days, the apprentice was to take them to him. The poor boy begged and complained, but to no avail, so at 11 a.m. off he went. Halfway to his destination he came to the village of Bill Warder, now Bill Warder, an outer suburb of Hamburg, where the terror of his dream took hold of him. Seeing that Bailey, surprising some workmen, he told him of his dream and implored him, because he was carrying money, to allow one of the workmen to accompany him through a small wood and route, and the Bailey was happy to oblige. Next day, some peasants brought in the corpse of the apprentice. His cut throat, along with the blood-stained reaping hook found next to the body. The Bailey immediately recognized it as the instrument he had given to his workmen to trim the willow, the same workman he had appointed to be the apprentice's guide. It just goes to show you, you should never contemplate murder if you are completely stupid. The workman confessed and admitted it was the apprentice's story of his dream, which had put the idea into his head. There was a common motif in fiction, whereby attempting to outwit a prophecy actually causes that prophecy's fulfillment. But in real life, a premonition of danger usually allows the recipient to avoid it. However, in this case, the murder would never have taken place if the victim hadn't dreamed about it and then talked about the dream. Of course, it could have been just a coincidence, a bad dream with no psychic overtones, but which inspired two people to act it out anyway. I hope that's the case, because if it wasn't, it raises disturbing questions about causation, free will, and destiny. We all know our thoughts are powerful in many ways. What you think determines what you'll do and how you feel. Your thoughts can change the perception of reality. We should also not forget your thoughts can draw you closer to your greatest fears and have an impact on your dreams. But just how powerful are your thoughts, really? Are they powerful enough to move objects? It sounds absurd to even claim that thoughts alone can affect material objects without physical contact. Most scientists will say it's impossible to move objects using thoughts alone, but there are studies that tell a different story. In the interesting book The Physics of God, Unifying Quantum Physics, Consciousness, M Theory, Heaven, Neuroscience and Transcendence, which is available on Amazon, I've linked to it in the show notes, author Joseph Selby explains results of experiments that are against mainstream science are deliberately ignored by prestigious scientific journals such as the Physical Review Letters, the New England Journal of Medicine, or proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As an example, Selby describes how scientists from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, or PEAR, program conducted experiments for almost three decades, offering evidence of telekinesis, which is the ability to move objects at a distance by mental power or other non-physical means. Although the cases and results were thoroughly documented, the studies were rejected by scientific journals. In his book, Selby writes, PEAR was founded in 1979 by Robert G. Jean, Van Dean of the Princeton School of Engineering and Applied Science. Despite the pedigree of Princeton University and a Professor Jean, and despite the overwhelmingly high quality of the science conducted, not one paper based on PEAR's successful proof of telekinesis was ever accepted by a respected scientific journal. PEAR's methodical practice of science was impeccable. PEAR conducted experiments for 27 years to determine whether individuals could affect material objects without physical contact. Among their experimental approaches, PEAR developed a variety of what they called random events generators, or REGs, such as water fountains, cascading steel balls, pendulum and electronic systems. The REGs, or REGs, were rigorously developed to be impervious to all known outside influences, such as vibration, pressure, temperature and electromagnetism. No REGs were used in their experiments unless they had demonstrated precisely measurable results and maintained rock solid consistency when left in isolation. Once a REG was determined to have rock solid consistency, volunteers were then asked to try to alter its rock solid consistency by their thoughts alone. For example, volunteers tried without touching or influencing the devices in any physical way to make water flow in one channel of a fountain than the other, or to make more steel balls cascade to one side of advice than the other. PEAR conducted these experiments for almost three decades, using hundreds of volunteers in thousands of experiments accumulating billions of data points. The results of these experiments revealed that nearly every volunteer had successfully altered the baseline distribution of the REG. The change from the baseline was often minuscule but consistent, to an overwhelmingly statistically meaningful degree. The odds against the possibility that PEAR's experimental findings are merely the result of random events are several trillion to one. In other words, practically speaking, there is no chance at all that their findings could be wrong. The volunteers successfully affected the behavior of physical systems using only their minds. Yet no prestigious scientific journal ever published their papers. PEAR's findings by every objective measure were based on facts gathered in a stringently scientific manner, but because their findings fell outside scientific orthodoxy, they were not given any scientific legitimacy. In 2007, Robert G. John announced that Princeton Laboratory was closing after almost 30 years of disputed research on telekinesis and the ability of the mind to influence machines. For 28 years, we have done what we wanted to do, and there is no reason to stay and generate more of the same data, said the laboratory's founder, Robert G. John, 76, former dean of Princeton's Engineering School and an emeritus professor. If people don't believe us after all the results we've produced, then they never will. Princeton University made no official comment. Today, we still discuss the results of these controversial studies. To some, these experiments will always remain in the realm of science fiction, but there are also those who are convinced telekinesis is a real ability. If you liked the podcast and haven't already subscribed, be sure to do so now so you don't miss future episodes. And also, please, tell someone else about the podcast. Recommend weird darkness to your friends, family and co-workers who love the paranormal, horror stories or true crime like you do. Every time you share the podcast with someone new, it helps spread the word about the show and a growing audience makes it possible for me to keep creating episodes as often as I do. Plus, telling others about weird darkness also helps get the word out about resources that are available for those who suffer from depression, so please, share the podcast with someone today. Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Fact or fiction, click on Tell Your Story on the website and I might use it in a future episode. All stories in weird darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. I met a monster. True stories of cryptid encounters is from Steven Wagner for Live About. The dream that led to murder is by Malcolm Smith for Malcolm's Musings. The reality of telekinesis is by Cynthia McKenzie for Message to Eagle. Anatomy of a UFO Incident is by Lawrence Gerald for Ideals UFO Magazine No. 1, March 1978. And the fictional short horror story at the beginning of this episode, The Rake, is from Creepypasta Wiki and the author is unknown. Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Titus 3, Verses 4-7. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. And a final thought, God doesn't give you the people you want. He gives you the people you need. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.