 ads heard during the podcast that are not in my voice are placed by third-party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Welcome Weirdos, I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode. The town's folk of Beaver County, Pennsylvania saw something very strange in 1966 and now, so many decades later, it's just as much of a mystery as it was the day the encounter occurred. Some are beloved favorites like The Wizard of Oz, others you may never have seen like Aituck, some are dark in tone like Poltergeist or heroic like the first Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve, but one thing all of these films and the others I'll share in this episode have in common is that they are all supposedly cursed. But first, some believe them to be ghosts, others feel they are creatures or even humans from a different dimension, still others believe they are demonic entities. Whatever the truth about what they are, the one thing everyone agrees about is that an encounter with a shadow person is undeniably terrifying. We begin there. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, to visit sponsors you hear about during the show, sign up for my newsletter, enter contests, connect with me on social media, listen to my other podcasts like Retro Radio, Old Time Radio in the Dark, Church of the Undead and a classic 1950s sci-fi style podcast called Auditory Anthology. Listen to free audiobooks I've narrated. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression, dark thoughts or addiction. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Appearing at the corner of your eye as you try to sit up and wake up from what you think is a nightmare, you suddenly see dark figures, darker than the darkness standing next to you, staring directly into your eyes. So-called shadow people are supposedly humanoid-like creatures often associated with a spirit or entity. Most of them appear to be male and some people have even claimed to see them wearing hats and long coats. They rarely communicate and seem eerily interested in human beings. There's truly no explanation for them or their reason for visitation, but even seem to share the same characteristics as the Night Hag Syndrome, such as night terrors, paralysis, even feelings of suffocation. Some people believe that shadow people come from another world, others think they might be demonic entities. No matter what the case is, shadow people will keep materializing all over the world and we may never know the reason for their existence. Some experiences that our friends at Animalian.com have gathered from around the net from people who claim to have been visited by these dark, shadowy bedroom watchers. From JL. One night I awoke paralyzed. I looked toward the window, my eyes being the only things that could move. Sitting on the window was a dark shape of a man who was watching me. Inside my head I could hear a faint voice saying, come with me. I could slowly feel myself dying or what I thought was the experience of dying. My breathing stopped and I could feel my heart beat slower and slower. I was terrified and with every ounce of energy I forced my body to sit up. The moment I sat up in bed, the apparition disappeared. I was completely drained physically. I noticed that the time on the clock was 3.15 am. This occurred a couple more nights during that month. The last time I almost gave in to the urge to follow him. The death sensation was scary at first but it was exciting at the same time, kind of like the first hill on a roller coaster. It's been a couple of years since this first meeting and I've been moving from place to place hoping to avoid contact with this being. It always seems to define me within a few months, no matter where I go. Sometimes I want to be left alone but this being and the other things that haunt me are always around. They don't understand how tired I can get at times. I was about 10 or 11 when I went into this house. It was daytime and the building was well lit. I looked into a few rooms and nothing out of the ordinary until I turned into a hallway and there it was, suddenly at the other end of the hall just looking at me, even though it had no eyes. The shadow person and I looked at each other for some time and I didn't think that it was real until it started walking towards me slowly. I turned around and he traveled about 7 meters in a split second. I finally made it out of the house and I looked again. It had stopped at the door, almost like he was unable to leave the house. Then he simply just turned away and walked back to where he had been, from cat bowl. A few months before my mother died, she and my sister were discussing strange happenings at our old home. My mother stated that she had seen a dark shape originate from the closet in her bedroom several times and she proceeded to describe this being as appearing to be wearing a dark cowl covering the upper torso. My sister was amazed by my mother's description of the shape that she had remembered as standing over her crib and poking her with a bony finger. They called me and asked me if I had had any sightings in the house and I told them of the shadowy being that constantly stood at the foot of my bed, leaving me with a fear of the night so strong that I would not go to sleep without my covers wrapped around my head, forming a blindfold for my eyes. But I could still remember sensing this thing and knowing if I looked out from under my makeshift blindfold that I'd see it standing there. My brother also told us of the little man that would come out of the closet just about every night and stay in his room. His shadow figure was even more viewable, even allowing my brother to describe that strange tam-like hat that being wore. All of us will admit to the fact that going up to our rooms a sense of anxiety would start at the base of your feet as you started up the steps, easing somewhat after you got to your room and checked out for the dark ones. But none of us would come down those steps alone and turn our backs to the landing. We would back down those steps, believe it or not. It still makes my skin crawl when I think about it. From KJM, the night before my experience, I'd been the target of poltergeist activity. I don't mean the mischievous kind of poltergeist. The presence in my room was downright evil. That's another story, but I do believe the events were related. The night I had my experience, I went out to the bathroom. This was in the middle of the night around one or two am. As I walked into the kitchen, the bathrooms connected to the kitchen in my house, go figure, I was still jumpy because of the previous night. Therefore, I turned on every light on my way to the bathroom. When I walked into the kitchen and reached for the light, a shadow oozed out of the sink. I told myself it was just my imagination until it turned around and came towards me. There were glowing red eyes glaring at me from the area the face should have been. The feeling I got was a definite presence of evil, again like the night before. I screamed and ran out of the room, then spent the rest of the night in my parents' room on the floor. I'm not ashamed to admit it, even if I was twenty at the time. From Francisco. It was probably ten years ago back in 1999. Recall the month when I was living in a rental home in Pleasanton, south of San Antonio, Texas. My ex-girlfriend and I experienced a shadow person in the form of a child. It was early in the morning around 3.30 to 4.15 am when my ex and I were in the living room sleeping on the floor. When all of a sudden, I just woke up. I opened my eyes and in front of me was a shadow that looked like a little boy. It was just a dark black that you can't describe. It had no physical appearance of clothing, but just pure blackness. It was phasing me for just a few seconds when it took off running to my right or down the hallway. The hallway light was on at the time and I could see the shadow very clearly. When it ran off, all I could hear were the footsteps being created as it ran down the hallway. The noise sounded like feet running across a wood floor, but the weird thing was that it was carpet with a vinyl plastic cover so we wouldn't get the carpet dirty. At that time I was so scared that when I saw it, I didn't move. Another weird thing about the experience was that my ex had woken up at the same time. When it ran off, all I heard was, did you see that? I knew I wasn't the only one that had seen it and that it wasn't just my imagination. After that, we both stayed awake the rest of the morning just trying to understand what had just happened. My ex would always tell me she would hear a scratching noise coming from outside, but I didn't believe her. But this had gotten my attention. After this, I never experienced another encounter with the shadow. A couple months later, we moved out. Coming up, the Townsfolk of Beaver County, Pennsylvania saw something very strange in 1966. And now, so many decades later, it's just as much of a mystery as it was the day the encounter occurred. That story is up next on Weird Darkness. Are you a member of the Darkness Syndicate? The Darkness Syndicate is a private membership where you receive commercial-free episodes of the Weird Darkness podcast and radio show. Behind the scenes, video updates about future projects and events I'm working on. You can share your own opinions on ideas to help me decide upon Weird Darkness contests and events. You can hear audiobooks I'm narrating before even the publishers or authors get to hear them. You also receive bonus audio of other projects I'm working on outside of Weird Darkness. You get all of these benefits and more, starting at only $5 per month. Join the Weird Darkness Syndicate at WeirdDarkness.com slash Syndicate. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Syndicate. Peering through bifocals at the sky over Northern Light's shopping center, Frank Pansonella sees nothing but a gray, cloudy suave and a stray bird or two. Bending off the chill of an early spring morning, he's wrapped in a brown leather jacket, his white hair tucked beneath a ball cap. He's standing on the smooth asphalt outside red carpet cleaners in Conway. It's exactly where he stood in the early hours of April 17, 1966. Then the cleaners was an Atlantic service station and Pansonella wore the navy blue uniform of a Conway police officer. Then when he looked toward nearby Northern Lights, the sky wasn't so uncluttered. It was over there. Pansonella says, repeating the story he has told his fascinated grandchildren many times, above the shopping center parking lot, he says in his deep, rumbling voice, that's where he saw it, the UFO. A half-football-shaped metal object beaming down an intense cone of light. It was about the size of a three-bedroom ranch house hovering about 100 feet off the ground. A thought flashed through Pansonella's head at the site. Gonna pretend I didn't see this. Nobody will believe me. But that option vanished as two patrol cars came racing southward toward him, smoke pouring from the balding tires of one car. They squealed to a halt beside the two gas pumps next to Pansonella. Three Ohio lawmen jumped out. Did you see that? They excitedly asked Pansonella. He said, see what? Then he reluctantly admitted that yes, he did indeed see it. We've been chasing it for 86 miles, the lawmen told him. Their pursuit started near Akron. At times they were rocketing up to 100 miles per hour, they said, and the thing seemed to be leading them along. The story they would tell is probably what inspired the nighttime police chase scene in Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It would lead to UFO infamy, another in a long line of government denials. The decision to chase the object from Akron to Conway also would dramatically affect the Ohio men's lives and possibly cause one to suffer a breakdown. But Pansonella, now an old man, still believes. Whatever we saw, the government didn't want people to know about it, Pansonella said. They had to cover it up. In a final full hour of darkness on the clear, mild morning of April 17, 1966, Portage County, Ohio Deputy Sheriff Dale Spauer, 35, radioed a dispatcher to report a remarkable sight, a huge silver object hovering 50 to 100 feet above the ground. Spauer had been driving car 13 with Sheriff's Deputy W. L. Barney Neff on a routine patrol of Route 224 near the rural town of Randolph, east of Akron. Shortly after 5 a.m., they had pulled over to investigate an abandoned red car. Examining the 1959 Ford, Spauer noticed walkie-talkies on the seat and on the outside was painted a triangle and lightning bolt emblem with the words, seven steps to hell. Moments later, Spauer heard a loud hum, much like an electrical transformer. Turning around, he spotted a flying object rising from the tree line. Neff, too, was out of the patrol car and the two men stood frozen as they watched the approaching object, which they later estimated to be 40 to 50 feet long and 20 feet high. Topped with a dome with what looked like protruding antenna, the object flew directly over them, beaming a cone-shaped shaft of white light so intense it made the deputy's eyes water. Spauer looked at his hands and clothes to make sure they weren't burning. After nearly a minute of standing motionless and disbelief, the deputies snapped to their senses, sprinted to their car and radioed a dispatch center in the Portage County seat of Ravenna. Dispatcher Bob Wilson confirmed similar sightings have been pouring in from residents near the Mogador Reservoir outside Akron and from six or seven police departments in Portage County and neighboring Summit County. Shoot it, advised Wilson, prompting Spauer to warily draw his gun before Death Sergeant Henry Schoenfeld got onto the radio worried the object might be a weather balloon. He ordered Spauer to lower his weapon and keep the object under surveillance until another officer could arrive with a camera. The UFO started to soar eastward, so Spauer slid behind the wheel and Neff piled into the passenger seat. The deputies began their pursuit. In April 18, 1966 front-page article in The Times and testimonies Spauer and Neff gave to an Air Force official a month later provide the following account. The object accelerated quickly, and soon the deputies were speeding 85 miles per hour southeastward on rural Route 14 in Ohio to keep pace. Spauer said the object didn't make any attempt to get away, and it followed the main highway almost as if it knew it, Times reporter Tom Schley wrote. Having heard Spauer's radio dispatches, East Palestine patrolman Wayne Houston was ready when the chase crossed Columbia County. Spotting the object 800 feet in the sky, Houston joined the pursuit following Spauer's car as the chase crossed into Pennsylvania down Route 51 through Darlington and Chippewa townships. Both drivers clocked the flying object at 103 miles per hour. The patrol cars got stuck behind slow-moving trucks during the Brady's Run Park entrance, and the lawmen didn't see the flying object again until they reached Bridgewater. Interviewed later, Spauer said it was as if the object had waited for the officers above Rochester, allowing them to catch up and continue the chase. By 6.25 am, the chase had reached Conway. The sheriff's car was running on fumes and balding tires, so Spauer screeched into an Atlantic service station where the deputies encountered Panzanella, the Conway policeman. With his shift nearly over, Panzanella, 33 at the time, had decided to take one more lap through town. Climbing 11th Street Hill, he spotted a strange light in his rearview mirror, which he suspected was the landing lights from a low-flying jet. Fearing a plane crash, he did a U-turn toward Route 65, pulling into the Atlantic station where he watched in bewilderment as the brightly lit object hovered above the Northern Lights shopping center parking lot. I rubbed my eyes three or four times but didn't say anything to anyone for the time being, Panzanella later told investigators. Told by the Ohio men of the high-speed chase, Panzanella radioed a police dispatcher in Rochester and asked him to notify the Greater Pittsburgh Airport Tower in Moontownship. By that time, the Ravenna Ohio dispatcher also had contacted a Youngstown airport. The police officers and deputies watched what appeared to be fighter jets soaring to intercept the flying object, which the men then estimated to be 3,500 feet high. Spower and Panzanella said they heard chatter on a police radio indicating military pilots were chasing the craft. Police officers in Salem, Ohio later reported they too had monitored radio reports of jets chasing a bright object toward Beaver County. But Air Force officials later insisted that no military planes had been dispatched. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder in Conway, Spower, Neff, Panzanella and Houston saw a plane they assumed had taken off from Greater Pitt fly about a thousand feet directly below the unidentified flying object. Meanwhile, peaked by Panzanella's radio report, economy policeman Henry Kwiatenowski drove to a hillside vantage point along Route 989 near Schaefer Road to see what was happening. Kwiatenowski spotted two commercial jets trailed by a squashed football-shaped UFO, as he later told investigators in a typed report. Spower, Neff, Panzanella, Houston and Kwiatenowski, five men representing four law enforcement agencies watched moments later as the UFO rose straight up and out of sight. The last time I saw it, it was the size of a pencil eraser, Panzanella said. It shot straight up in the air and that was the end of it. Only one of them would ever claim to see it again. The incident made national headlines, coming several weeks after a series of UFO sightings in Michigan and 18 days after the Pentagon and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara felt compelled to issue a formal statement saying that there weren't any flying saucers. As they did in Michigan, federal officials withheld comment initially, then a few days later without visiting the portage to Conway Chase Route, an Air Force leader announced his investigation had concluded a skyward object clearly was not visitors from outer space. From his desk at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, Major Hector Quintanella, head of Project Blue Book, the government's UFO Investigation Agency, said the deputies must have been chasing a routine satellite, or due to an optical illusion caused by atmospheric conditions had mistaken the planet Venus for a flying object. Nonsense, said Spower and Neff, who insisted to reporters the flying object had moved vertically and horizontally in a way a satellite simply couldn't. Portage County Sheriff Ron Dustman supported his men, reminding Quintanella that many residents also had reported seeing strange lights in the sky. Gerald Boucherte, the police chief in Manuta, Ohio, hoped to verify his fellow's officers' claims with three photographs that he snapped that April 17 morning. His photos turned out to be overexposed, except for one that showed a dark, disk-shaped object surrounded by a ring of light to the right of the crescent-shaped moon. Boucherte offered his film to the Cleveland FBI, which forwarded him to Quintanella and Dayton. At Quintanella's insistence, Boucherte sent the negatives to the Dayton Air Base, where Project Blue Book was opened in 1952. Quintanella wasn't swayed by the evidence, writing that Boucherte's film was severely fogged and the disk-shaped dot was a processing effect. Boucherte still believed he saw UFO, commenting to the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, I feel like an idiot saying this, but it looked like a saucer, two table saucers put together. With the public sniffing a government cover-up and the law enforcement witnesses sticking to their UFO claim, U.S. Representative William Stanton of Peansville, Ohio demanded the Air Force conduct a more thorough investigation. So Quintanella came to the Portage County Courthouse on May 10, and with a Norelco real-to-real tape recorder rolling, interviewed Spauer and Neff. Also present were Sheriff Dustman, radio dispatcher Wilson, Times reporter Schley, Ravenna newspaper reporter Carol Clap, and William Weitzel of an independent Washington D.C.-based UFO investigation agency, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. The recording of that Hour Plus interview, later put on cassette tape, is available from the Maryland-based Fund for UFO Research. Throughout that recording, Spauer and Neff sound lucid, displaying moments of self-deprecating humor, but remaining firm in their belief that what they saw was no satellite or planet. At the beginning, everyone but Quintanella and the lawman were asked to leave the room as the deputies recounted their story. Spauer chuckles and says, you're not going to believe it. Things like a three-bedroom ranch house. But the mood grows tenser and Quintanella sticks to his stance that the lawman initially had spotted a routine satellite and in the course of their chase had mistaken Venus for a flying object. I know damn well I wasn't chasing a satellite, Spauer, a former Air Force gunner says. As the interview formally ends, Weitzel, the UFO investigator, is let back into the room. With the tape still rolling, Weitzel, a Pittsburgher who nine months earlier investigated UFO sighting and Brighton Township implores Quintanella to reconsider the evidence. You seem to be skeptical about the physical reality of unidentified flying objects, Weitzel says. I'm not skeptical about anything, Quintanella says. I look at people's statements and the information that's given to me. Quintanella revealed that Project Blue Book listed more than 10,200 cases of misinterpretations of conventional objects and natural phenomena dating to 1947. Do you think there's a common denominator among the reports? Weitzel asks. No, there isn't, Quintanella replies. There is no parallel whatsoever. As Weitzel continues his pointed questioning, Quintanella says, look young fella, I'm finished with you, before leaving the room. It is incredible to me that anyone familiar with the details of the sighting could believe Major Quintanella's explanation. Weitzel, a philosophy instructor at the University of Pittsburgh, Bradford, later wrote in his NYCAP report. He either rejected or ignored portions of the testimony which makes a satellite or Venus explanation ridiculous. Weitzel's report included testimony from Northwestern University astronomer J. Allen Heineck who said Venus had risen at 3.35 am that day and thus would have been too high in the sky to have been mistaken for a flying saucer. Heineck, the founder of the Center for UFO Studies and the man who coined the phrase Close Encounters of the Third Kind to describe human contact with space aliens, was hired in 1977 by filmmaker Steven Spielberg to be the technical advisor for the same-named movie that includes an Indiana to Ohio police chase said to have been inspired by the Ohio to Conway chase 11 years earlier. Meanwhile, Spower and Neff bristled at Quintanella's ruling. He seemed to have his mind made up before he got there, Spower said after the interview, I don't believe for an instant that I was following Venus. But the deputies soon piped down, as did the other witnesses. Their lives would never be the same. Six months after the April 17, 1966, citing the Akron Beacon Journal published a story showing the heavy emotional toll suffered by the Ohio witnesses as public support turned to skepticism and then ridicule. Portage County Sheriff Deputy Neff refused to be interviewed. His wife said that he had stopped talking about the incident because he was tired of people poking fun at him. Also reluctant to talk was Bushert, the Mantua police chief who tried to play down the incident to the Akron Reporter. Shortly after the UFO sighting, Wayne Houston, a seven-year veteran of the East Palestine police force, turned in his badge, changed his name to Harold Houston, and moved to Seattle to drive a bus. Sure, I quit because of that, Houston said. People laughed at me and there was pressure. You couldn't put your finger on it, but the pressure was there. The city officials didn't like police officers chasing flying saucers. No one was more emotionally damaged than Portage County Sheriff's Deputy Spower, the driver of the lead chase car whose marriage and career crumbled. Two months after the sighting, Spower was on another routine patrol when he looked up into the nighttime sky and saw it again. Radioing the dispatcher, he whispered, Floyd's here with me. Floyd was the code name the Sheriff's Department had come up with if someone saw a UFO again, but didn't want to alarm citizens who might be listening to police scanners. Feeling Floyd's presence above his patrol car, Spower pulled over and lit a cigarette. He stared at the floorboard, reluctant to look out his window. After 15 minutes, he warily looked skyward, concluded the UFO was gone, and drove away, this time not in pursuit. Four months after that second sighting, newspapers nationwide published the Acron article written by John DeGroote, a future Pulitzer Prize winner for his coverage of the Kent State shootings. DeGroote described Spower as alone and bitter, subsiding on cereal and sandwiches in a Salon, Ohio motel. Having left the police force, Spower lost 40 pounds and had to walk 3 miles to his painter's job. Spower said he often awoke in a sweat, reeling from nightmares that relived that April 17 morning. My entire life came crashing down, Spower said. Everything changed. I still don't really know what happened, but suddenly it was as though everybody owned me. Unsolicited letters from around the world arrived at his house. Some offered advice on what to do if space aliens tried to contact him. Others urged him to stay away from flying saucers. Spower's wife, Denise, a waitress, said that she was never the same after the sightings and the chase. He came home that day and I never saw him more frightened, she told the Acron newspaper. He acted strange, listless. He just sat around. He was very pale. Then later he got nervous and he started to run away. He'd just disappear for days and I wouldn't see him. Our marriage fell apart. All sorts of people came to the house, investigators, reporters. They kept him up all night. They kept after him hounding him and he changed, she said. Spower reached his emotional breaking point on another night, soon after, when he returned home after an unannounced absence and allegedly grabbed Denise and began shaking her, deeply bruising her arms. She filed assault and battery charges and Spower was thrown into jail, which became a big story in their small town. The day he entered jail, Spower turned in his badge. In one of his last known interviews with DeGroote, Spower expressed regret about the morning of April 17, 1966. I have done in my life to everyone I am, Dale Spower, the nut who chased a flying saucer, he said. A few months after the sighting, Spower's father ended years of silence between the two feuding men by telephoning his son. Do you think he called me to ask how I was? Spower said, to say I love you son, to see if I wanted to go fishing or something. Hell no, he wanted to know if I'd seen any more flying saucers. Spower tried finding solace by going to a new church. The minister introduced me to the congregation by saying we have the man who chased a flying saucer with us today, Spower said. Looking on the troubled path his life had taken after the UFO sighting, Spower said, I would change just one thing, that would be the night we chased that damn thing, that saucer. Spower lived reclusively in subsequent decades. The great nephew Jody Spower of Portage County confirmed two months ago that Dale Spower moved to West Virginia a few years ago and dropped out of contact with family members. He is in poor health, said Michael Nelson, a former Portage County Sheriff's Deputy writing a book on the incident. Dale will not speak directly with the media, Nelson said. He was not dealt a kind hand by newspapers in the past. If Dale Spower wanted to vanish from public life, he achieved his goal. NF2 keeps a low profile in Northern Florida. He's out in the pasture right now, said his wife who answered the phone a few months ago. I'll tell him you called, but he probably won't want to talk about that, she said of the UFO incident. When that came out he went through a lot of ridicule. Indeed, NF never returned a phone message. The Cleveland scene, an alternative weekly, also failed two years ago to contact Spower or to get NF and Houston to share their thoughts on the UFO sighting. When I left Ohio I just got away from it all, NF told the scene. I just want to forget. Houston, the East Palestine officer, said the chief of police and I didn't get along and the incident didn't help. I really don't want to go further than that. Houston has since died. Quintanilla, the lead Air Force investigator, died in 1997 after a golf cart accident, whose shirt was still the Mantua police chief in 1986 when he died from a brain aneurysm. His son Harry took over the post and keeps a scrapbook of accounts from that April 17, 1966 incident. He believed he saw a UFO and always claimed that he did, Harry said, but he was glad when the incident was over. That leaves just the two Beaver County police witnesses who don't mind sharing their memories. I remember it pretty clearly, said Quintanowski, the former economy policeman. I saw a jet plane and something behind it that was shiny. For Quintanowski, whose name did not make the initial newspaper accounts, the matter soon died down, though not until he endured several weeks of razzling. There were some people there who were a little sarcastic. He thought you were a nut when that first came out, said Quintanowski, who later left police work for a railroad job from which he has since semi-retired. All these years later, he still wasn't sure what he saw in the sky. He could have told me it was anything. It could have been another plane. I don't know, Quintanowski said. Yes, he said it could have been a UFO. We've always wondered that, Quintanowski said. Everyone's wondered about that. With amazement and a touch of amusement, Panzanella, the former Conway policeman, has thought a lot about the incident lately, now that his granddaughter Sarah is mesmerized by the story. Now an old man and a shuttle driver for a friendship-ridged nursing home, Panzanella said a UFO remains the best possible explanation. I still think it was something from out there, he said. It's gotta be. Unless one of the other countries had something we didn't know about, he said, we weren't sitting too good with Russia then. The weeks after the incident were chaotic, Panzanella recalled. Strangers relentlessly tracked him down, even called his unlisted number to ask him about the UFO. Two nuns from Philadelphia mailed him a pin bearing a message that the Lord would take care of him. He wore it inside his police jacket. Air Force investigators came to his home in Ambridge twice to interview him. The second visit occurred unannounced at 2 a.m., with uniformed Air Force officials pounding on the door. I said, why'd you come here to ask me these questions again? said Panzanella, who by that time felt the government owed him some answers. Panzanella thinks they picked a time when he would be asleep, hoping he would groggily change his statement, which he never did. And while he long ago stopped being bitter about the government's skepticism, he said, I wish the heck I could have found out more. Like the Ohio deputies, Panzanella endured teasing, primarily from fellow policemen. But they also told him they believed him. Weeks after the incident, Panzanella tried to contact Spower at the Portage County Sheriff's Office, but the sergeant there sounded reluctant to leave the message, so Panzanella gave up and never spoke again to Spower. But he still thinks about Spower and feels sorry for him. He cracked up, said Panzanella, who many years ago refused to be interviewed for a book about the incident because the author didn't plan to give any proceeds to Spower. I said, if you can't give him some of the money, then I'm not going to do it, Panzanella said. Panzanella speculates that the razzing became too much for Spower to handle. Some people can't take it, Panzanella said. They take it to heart, and in his case, he cracked. As far as the federal government is concerned, the incident is over and done. The case was closed and never reopened, said Brian Cease, a paranormal researcher from Hopewell Township who includes the incident in his book Unexplained Events in Beaver County. In late 1966, Weitzel, the nightcap investigator assigned to the case, delivered his final report to his Washington, D.C. supervisor at Richard Hall. I personally hand-carried a copy of Weitzel's very thick and extremely well-documented report to Dr. Edward Condon, Hall recalled. Condon, a scientist, was in charge of a UFO study conducted by the University of Colorado under the sponsorship of the Air Force. Years later, I learned in my astonishment that he never turned over the case to his staff, and he gathered dust in his personal files, Hall said. And so, when the Air Force turned the Colorado report over to Congress, the Ohio-DeConway incident wasn't mentioned. Major Hector Quintanilla tried to pass it off as a sighting of the planet Venus and an Earth satellite, which was quite preposterous, said Hall, who wrote the UFO evidence, Volume 2, a 30-year report published in 2001. I think you may have changed it to an unexplained case later on. According to the files of a leading UFO researcher, Brian Sparks, the Air Force ultimately did categorize the case as unexplained and probably left it at that, Hall said. Project Blue Book files would show the final status of the incident, Hall said, but trying to get someone to share Project Blue Book's details isn't easy. The Feds closed Project Blue Book in 1972, ending at least publicly the Air Force's role as a UFO investigation agency. Representatives of the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency contacted recently, said documents from Project Blue Book are kept at the National Archives and Records Agency, though two representatives of that agency said that they couldn't confirm the status of the case, ultimately transferring a reporter's phone call to a third person who never returned the call. Getting someone from the government to talk is almost impossible, said Leslie Keane, an investigative reporter backed by Cable's sci-fi channel sued NASA under the Freedom of Information Act to see files on a UFO sighting December 9, 1965 in Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County. NASA maintains the fireball that dozens of witnesses spotted that night was a remnant of a Russian satellite that disintegrated after reentering the atmosphere. But official documents from that investigation were lost in the 1990s, according to NASA. As for the Conway sighting, Keane speculated the Air Force proclaimed that matter dead after Quintanilla's ruling or once the University of Colorado Air Force report didn't list it. UFO investigators claim that Air Force report was a totally bogus thing anyway, designed from the onset to debunk UFO theories, Keane said. In the first few years after Project Blue Book ceased, UFO sightings continued to crop up nationally, including a six-month span from 1973 to 1974 that included separate sightings in Center Township, Ohioville, and West Mifflin. Gradually the phenomenon faded away, and recent years have been devoid of similar sightings. The UFO sightings may have appeared to slow down, Cease said, but these may only be reported sightings. As a general rule, most people do not report what they observe. According to veteran UFO researcher Paul Johnson, the internet changed the way people report their sightings, Cease said. Instead of contacting the state police or local researchers, they can now send their reports directly to the internet and remain anonymous and not have to deal face-to-face with an investigator initially. The internet certainly has kept the portage to Conway incident alive. Dozens of sites, many suspecting a government cover-up, recount the morning of April 17, 1966. Meanwhile, the men who saw the flying object are left with their own unique perspectives. I don't know what I would have done if it had landed, Panzanella said. I don't know if I would have run or not. When Weird Darkness returns, some are beloved favorites like The Wizard of Oz. Others you may never have seen like Aituck. Some are dark in tone like Poltergeist or Heroic like the first Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve. But one thing all these films and the others I'll share in this episode have in common is that they are all supposedly cursed. Up next. If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, dark thoughts, or addiction, please visit the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. There, I've gathered numerous resources to find hope and solutions. For those suffering from thoughts of suicide or self-harm, there is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, as well as the Crisis Text Line. Both have trained counselors at all hours to help those in need. And the page even includes text numbers for those in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, and Ireland. Those struggling with depression can get help through the Seven Cups website and app. And there's information for anyone to read more about what depression truly is and how to identify it through our friends at ifred.org. There are resources for those who battle addictions, be it drugs, alcohol, or self-destructive behavior, along with help for those related to addicts. The page has links to help you find a therapist or counselor, to find help for those who have a family member with Alzheimer's or dementia, help for those in a crisis pregnancy, and more. These resources are always there when you or someone you love needs them on the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. A variety of films have been released that are thought to carry with them a curse due to the troubles faced by the cast and crew, either during or immediately following the film's production. These incidents range from the tragic, as in the accident that cost Superman star Christopher Reeve the use of his legs, to the simply unfortunate, such as Tower Heist director Brett Ratner's use of a homophobic slur costing him a gig as Oscar producer. What are some of the most well-known movie curses? Regardless of whether you believe these creepy stories about cursed films truly represent something supernatural or if they are simply regrettable coincidences, nevertheless the existence of so many such productions is uncanny and fascinating. Christopher Reeve played the titular hero in Superman the Movie and its three sequels. The actor was paralyzed from the neck down after being thrown from his horse in a cross-country riding event in 1995 and subsequently passed away in 2004 due to heart failure stemming from his medical condition. Reeve isn't the only person involved in the Superman films to face personal struggles though. Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane, suffered a bout of mental illness in 1996. She was found dazed and filthy, wandering the streets of Los Angeles. Richard Pryor, who appeared in Superman 3, passed from multiple sclerosis only a few years later. Believe it or not, this franchise wasn't the only troubled Superman series, spurring the nickname the Superman Curse. George Reeves, who played the Man of Steel in 1950s television program The Adventures of Superman, passed at the age of 45 in 1959. The official finding was that he had ended his own life but some believe he was a victim. The Conqueror A number of principles involved in John Wayne's The Conqueror succumbed to cancer in the years following the film's release. Director Dick Powell passed from cancer less than seven years after the movie's 1956 debut. Actor Pedro Armandárez was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the early 60s, filmed one last movie, the James Bond thriller from Russia with Love, to leave his family with money, then took his own life in 1963. Actress Agnes Moorhead passed from cancer a decade later in 1974. Thereafter, both principal stars John Wayne and Susan Hayward were diagnosed with cancer and passed within four years of one another. Combine this with the knowledge that above-ground atomic tests were run at Nevada's Yucca Flats, very near where the movie was filmed in Utah's Snow Canyon State Park, and it seems obvious what happened. It's speculated that the cast and crew were exposed to radiation while making the movie, a controversial take on Genghis Khan, by the way, which caused their cancers. This theory was dismissed as an urban legend, as the passings could likely be traced to either the unhealthy lifestyles or just coincidence. How's this for a statistic? Four actors who appeared in poltergeist films passed away within six years of the first movie's release. Dominique Dunn, who played Dana in the first movie, was slain by her former boyfriend at the age of 22. Julian Beck, who played Henry Cain in Poltergeist 2 The Other Side, passed in 1985 of stomach cancer at age 60. He had been diagnosed before he had accepted the role, though. Will Samson, who played Taylor, the medicine man in Poltergeist 2, passed away as a result of post-operative kidney failure in 1987 at the age of 53. Heather O'Work, who starred as Carol Ann Freeling in all three poltergeist films, passed away in 1988 at the age of 12 after being misdiagnosed with Crohn's disease. During the course of being treated for a disease that she didn't have, O'Work became ill and suffered cardiac arrest. Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente Hospital, which treated her for Crohn's disease rather than her actual condition, later found to be a bowel obstruction that in part led to her passing. The case was settled out of court. Rosemary's Baby Director Roman Polanski's deeply unsettling film about a pregnant woman who may be in the thrall of a satanic cult carries with it a number of unsettling stories from behind the scenes. Most famously, one year after the movie's release, Polanski's wife, actress Sharon Tate, was struck down by the Manson family. She was eight months pregnant at the time with the couple's first child. The film's producer, William Castle, suffered painful gallstones immediately following the film's production, eventually requiring a series of treatments and surgery. Composer Christoph Kometa passed from an unexpected fall. Castle later wrote in his memoirs that it felt like Rosemary's Baby was coming true in real life and that the cast and crew were being stalked by witches. The Wizard of Oz Actress Judy Garland became a cinematic legend playing Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, but her personal life proved rocky after the film, in large part due to the abuses heaped on her by the studio. She suffered four divorces, a string of infamous insecurities and neuroses, financial instability and addiction struggles before passing away from an overdose at the age of 47. Problems for the Wizard of Oz cast didn't stop there. Four months after the movie was released, Frank Morgan, who played the wizard, was involved in a serious car accident. Although he was left largely unharmed, his wife Alma suffered a crippling knee injury that would plague her for the rest of her life and his chauffeur perished. Morgan passed away in 1949, never seeing the film become a staple of television and an all-time childhood favorite. Uncle Henry and Auntie M met with bad luck following Oz. Charlie Grapewin, who played Henry, passed in 1956 just before the film debuted on television where it became a staple. Clara Blandek, who played Auntie M, ended her own life when she was 81 years old. The production of Wizard of Oz was similarly troubled as a number of notable misfortunes took place on set. Several actors playing flying monkeys accidentally broke the wires holding them up and crashed down to the set. Fortunately they did have a net set up to prevent grievous injury. The actress playing the wicked witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton, was badly burned while filming a scene in which she explodes into flames. When she took time off to recover, a stand-in tried to replicate the stunt in her stead, only to be burned in the same fashion. E-Tuck E-Tuck is so cursed it never made it to the screen, which might explain if you have never heard of it. The screenplay based on the satirical novel The Incomparable E-Tuck about an Eskimo who moved to New York City has been kicking around Hollywood since 1971 when producer Norman Jewison bought the book rights. Most major actors attached to the project have passed away. John Belushi passed a few months after agreeing to star in the film. Comedian Sam Kinnison signed to play the lead in 1988 and even filmed a few scenes but the production fell apart due to disagreements between the actor and, well, pretty much everyone else. He passed not long thereafter in a car accident. In 1994 John Candy was attached but passed away from a heart attack. A few months later, Michael O'Donohue, a friend of Candy's who, according to rumor, went over the script with the actor, passed unexpectedly of a cerebral hemorrhage. Chris Farley was attached when he passed of a heart attack and, according to unverified rumors, Phil Hartman was also interested in or attached to the script when his wife ended his life. The Exorcist While there's ultimately no logical reason to assume horror movies are more likely to be cursed than any other genre, seeing the Exorcist on a list of cursed movies is kind of like finding pickles in a pickle jar. During production the Exorcist was beset by a slew of problems. The set for the home in which most of the movie takes place burned down. Actress Linda Blair injured her back when some rigging failed and Ellen Burstyn was hurt so badly during a take the issue played her for decades after filming Wrapped. The scream when possessed Reagan or Linda Blair throws her mother Burstyn to the ground, that is real and she was hurt in that scene. Meanwhile the son of Jason Miller who played Father Karras was seriously harmed when hit by a motorcycle during production. Actor Jack McGowren who played Burke Dennings and actress Vasiliki Maliaros who played Father Karras' mother both passed shortly after filming Wrapped. McGowren of the Flu, Maliaros of Natural Causes. Linda Blair's grandfather and actor Max Vonsedow who played Father Marin his brother also passed away during production. The son of Mercedes McCambridge who voiced the demon felled his wife and two daughters before taking his own life after being accused of fraud in November of 1987. All told nine people associated with the movie passed violently, mysteriously or during or immediately after filming. Various problems plagued the exorcist upon its release. A woman at one screening broke her jaw and sued Warner Brothers. The case was settled out of court. The movie was banned for some time in the UK and American evangelists believed running the film through a projector would bring about demonic possession. Rebel Without a Cause Rebel introduced the world to a variety of young actors many of whom met grim fates in the years following the film's release. Most famously, star James Dean perished while racing his Porsche 550 Spider before the film's release at the age of 24. He became one of the most recognizable and beloved actors of his generation despite making only three films. Dean's co-star Natalie Wood drowned amidst unusual circumstances in November 1981. She, husband Robert Wagner and friend Christopher Walken had gone to Catalina Island for a weekend and were staying on a yacht. It's thought that Natalie Wood awoke at some point during the night and attempted to get off the boat causing her to slip, fall and drown. Her body was found floating face down nearby and she was wearing only a jacket, nightgown and socks. A witness from another yacht, however, later recalled hearing Wood calling for help only to be ignored by someone else on the boat. The incident was deemed an accidental drowning but suspicions of foul play have always surrounded the case and Wood's sister Lana has made attempts to get the L.A. County Sheriff's Department to reopen the investigation. Another Rebel Without a Cause actor, Salimoneo, passed five years before Natalie Wood did after being stabbed in an alley in West Hollywood. He was 37. Finally in a last bizarre twist on the Rebel Curse story, Beverly Hills orthopedic surgeon Troy McHenry fitted his own car with parts from the Porsche Spider in which James Dean passed. A year later, he perished when his Porsche Spider hit a tree. The Omen The Omen is a film about a couple raising a child who may in fact be the son of the devil, shades of Rosemary's baby. It's only natural that there would be some superstitious rumblings about this kind of production. But the making of The Omen was surrounded by genuine tragedy on all sides. Two months before filming even began, star Gregory Pack's son ended his own life. Later that year, when Pack was flying to London to make the movie, his plane was struck by lightning. A few weeks later, executive producer Mace Newfeld was flying to London and his plane was also struck by lightning. Newfeld's hotel was later bombed by the IRA as was a restaurant where a number of the cast and crew were planning to dine. A tiger handler on the site perished in an unlikely incident, while another plane hired to do aerial work on the film went down while working on another production, terminating everyone on board. Even after the film was finished, troubles and tragedies abounded. Eight months after working on the film, special effects consultant and designer John Richardson suffered injuries in a collision in Holland that dispatched his assistant, Liz Moore. A road sign by the incident read, Omen 66.6 km. Omen, O-M-M-E-N, is a city in the Netherlands. Richardson was in Holland working on the film, a bridge too far along with a colleague from the set of the Omen, stuntman Alf Joint. While performing a standard stunt on a bridge too far, jumping off of a rooftop onto a large inflatable cushion, Joint slipped awkwardly and was badly hurt. He later told friends that he felt like he had been pushed. Rumors of the curse of the Omen have abounded for years and director Richard Donner, Neufeld and others associated with the film eventually spoke in interviews about the superstitions. Actor Harvey Stevens, who played young Damien in the movie and Gregory Peck both refused to speak about the curse for the remainder of their careers. The Passion of the Christ. You'd think a movie about Jesus and the loving sacrifice he made so we all could enter paradise forever would be the last place you'd find a curse attached. But, well, here we are. Mel Gibson's retelling of the story of Christ's passing faced numerous challenges while filming and they weren't even related to the Gibson run-ins with the law. Jim Caviesal, who plays Jesus in the Passion of the Christ, suffered numerous injuries during the production, including being struck by lightning while on the cross. Witnesses reported seeing smoke rising from his head when it happened. He dislocated his shoulder while carrying the crucifix and he also had a portion of his flesh ripped off while being fake whipped, meaning he was real whipped at the time. The film's assistant director, Jan Michelini, was also struck by lightning twice on set. John Devney, who wrote the score, called the job the most difficult assignment of his life and claims he closely felt the presence of Satan in his studio while working on the film. The film's release also brought with it a slew of tragedies. On the movie's opening day, actor Carl Anderson, who played Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, passed away following a prolonged fight with leukemia. The film's Kansas advertising sales manager, Peggy Scott, passed away after suffering heart failure during the film's brutal crucifixion scene. The Crow The Crow starred Brandon Lee, son of the legendary martial arts star Bruce Lee as an anti-hero who was slain by gang members and then rose from the grave to seek revenge. Only eight days before the film was scheduled to wrap production, Brandon Lee perished after receiving an unintentional shot to the abdomen. A metal tip from a dummy bullet became lodged in a prop gun that was fired at the actor. The incident takes on creepy overtones when you consider the pedigree of Lee's father, Bruce, who passed at the age of 32 from acute cerebral edema due to a reaction to compounds present in the drug equi-jizic. Bruce had also been filming a movie when he passed, 1973's Game of Death. A variety of supernatural causes have been offered for the early demise of father and son. Many of these legends are tied to an early recollection of Bruce's which he describes as seeing a ghost, looking like a black shadow, which held him down and refused to release him. It's said that when Bruce Lee's father passed at the age of 64, Bruce had a premonition that he would only live to half his dad's age, 32 years. Some have speculated Bruce and possibly his son were targets of an underground organization. Brandon also believed that there was a curse on his family, which may have related to an incident when his grandfather became a target for shady China businessmen. Whether Apocalypse Now was cursed or plagued with bad decision making, worse timing, a mountain of drugs and an unfortunate series of coincidences is in the eye of the beholder. Suffice it to say it was such a mess that there is a documentary about it, Hearts of Darkness, which was famously dubbed better than Apocalypse Now on Community. A shoot has been called Hell on Earth and director Francis Ford Coppola has said, little by little we went insane. Things started going wrong from the get-go. Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino and Robert Redford all turned down the lead role. Then Harvey Keitel was fired shortly after being hired. Martin Sheen stepped in to take the part as his alcoholism spiraled out of control. The opening sequence in the film, during which Sheen has a drug-induced breakdown, was not staged. He was really losing it. At one point during filming, Sheen, who suffered a heart attack during filming, told friends in the U.S. the movie was filmed in the Philippines that he thought he was going to perish. Coppola, meanwhile, had a seizure, partly endured by stress from blaming himself for Sheen's heart condition. Pretty much everyone was high all the time. Dennis Hopper demanded cocaine as part of his payment, and Sam Bottoms was taking speed and LSD the entire time. The crew used real bodies rather than dummies in some scenes. Monsoons destroyed sets that took months to build, and months to rebuild after they were destroyed. Helicopters would zip away to fight guerrilla paramilitary groups in the middle of filming at the behest of the country's dictator. Tigers roamed the set late at night, and cast and crew members were stricken with a variety of tropical diseases. Perhaps a coincidence or a natural result of aging, the two actors most well known for doing copious amounts of drugs on the film's set, Sam Bottoms and Dennis Hopper, passed within two years of one another, the former of a brain tumor, the latter of cancer. Fitz Corraldo When German madman Werner Herzog elected to tell the tale of a similarly crazed man pulling a giant steamship over a mountain in South America to raise funds to build an opera house in the jungle, he thought it prudent to actually pull a giant steamship over a mountain in South America for the production. If that film, Fitz Corraldo wasn't cursed, then it's one of the greatest cases for Murphy's Law you will ever hear. Fitz Corraldo was in pre-production for two years, during which newspapers throughout the world ran stories on how indigenous crew members were being exploited, which seems not to have been the case actually. A production camp set up in Peru as a base for filming was abandoned and burned to the ground when a conflict broke out with neighboring Ecuador. Still, Herzog forged onward, completing nearly half the film with Jason Robards in the lead role. Then Robards contracted dysentery and was unable to continue filming, which rendered all of Herzog's footage useless. This was especially tough for Herzog because the footage featured what was apparently a great performance by Mick Jagger playing a retarded actor sidekick. Klaus Kinski replaced Robards and the film was completed, which required refilming everything shot with Robards. During the process, the production was caught in a tribal war and suffered two plane crashes as well as a drowning. Kinski, reportedly a deranged diva, was so difficult to deal with that the local tribesmen working on the film offered to slay him for Herzog. Roar Roar is an exploitation film about volatile wild animals made by people who elected to go whole hog and used actual wild animals. Despite bringing some serious problems upon themselves, the filmmakers were so beset by problems it's hard not to believe the film was cursed. In 2015 Roar was dubbed the most dangerous movie ever made. The lions used in Roar reeked to havoc. One scalped cinematographer Jean de Bont, who went on to direct the movie Speed. Another bit star tippy Hedron on the neck. Hedron, who starred in The Birds, broke a leg and suffered scalp injuries when she was bucked off an elephant. Melanie Griffith was mauled in the face by a lion. Director, writer and co-star Noah Marshall got gangrene after an attack and an assistant director had his throat ripped open. All told, 70 members of the cast and crew were harmed by animals and hundreds of stitches were sewn. Roar took 11 years to finish, during which a massive flood caused $3 million in damages to Marshall's ranch where filming took place. The film was a financial disaster during its European release and it didn't appear in theaters in the United States until 2015 because no one wanted to distribute it. Many of the real unfortunate incidences ended up in the film, making it as much a documentary of a disaster as it is a film about animal ambushes. A Man Who Killed Don Quixote. This film was so cursed it never came into being and you can watch the documentary Lost in La Mancha to see how it failed. The script follows the story of a 21st century ad executive sent back in time and mistaken for Sancho Ponza by Don Quixote. When writer-director Terry Gilliam first tried making the film starring Johnny Depp in 2000, the movie went back into production in 2017. Things went wrong from day one. On the first day of filming, Gilliam and crew realized their location was overwhelmed by deafening noise from a nearby NATO airbase, meaning sound would all have to be recorded in post-production for that location. Flash floods and hail damaged equipment and permanently altered the look of the landscape, meaning no footage recorded previous to the flooding could be used because it wouldn't match. Actor Gene Rookfort, who played Don Quixote, herniated a disc during production, which made it impossible for him to continue filming. This shut down the production for good. The screenplay ended up in the hands of the company that ensured the film, making it impossible for Gilliam to make the film without first getting the rights back. The House of the Devil and the Innkeepers. Writer-director Ty West had such a haunted experience while filming The House of the Devil, he based his follow-up film, The Innkeepers, on it. Both films were perhaps more haunted than cursed. No strange passings or serious harm sustained, but a whole lot of creepy stuff going down during production. Speaking with Indy Wire, West describes all the spooky things that went down at the hotel where the cast and crew stayed while making The House of the Devil. We would go and shoot this satanic horror movie nearby, but the weirder stuff would happen back at the hotel. The staff at the hotel believe it's haunted. The whole town believes it's haunted, so it has this kind of mystique to it. I'm a skeptic, so I don't really buy it, but I've definitely seen doors closed by themselves. I've seen a TV turn off and on by itself. Lights would always burn out in my room. Everyone on the crew has very vivid dreams every night, which is really strange. To recapture the cursed vibe of The House of the Devil, West filmed The Innkeepers. West filmed the latter at the same hotel the cast and crew stayed in for the former film. He recounts his experience returning to the hotel. The dreams came back the first day I walked in. The vibe was there. Ackris Sarah Paxton would wake up in the middle of the night thinking someone was in the room with her. Everyone has stories, but I was too busy saying, let's shoot this, we have 17 days. Tower Heist Tower Heist, originally conceived by star Eddie Murphy as an African American nod to the Ocean's Eleven films, opened in November to a disappointing first weekend, especially considering the All-Star cast. But the film's string of disappointments went beyond the financials. The film's director, Brett Ratner, lost his job as a producer of the Oscars telecast just days after the film opened. While promoting the film at a Q&A session, Ratner stated that he felt rehearsals are for a word that rhymes with bags, and the ensuing controversy over his use of the derogatory term led to his resignation from the Academy Awards show. Far more tragically, rapper Heavy D, who had a cameo in the film, was found in his driveway only five days after the movie was released. He'd suffered from a pulmonary embolism and perished. Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren at WeirdDarkness.com. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find information on any of the sponsors you heard about during the show. Find all of my social media, listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, sign up for the email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host, including Retro Radio, Old Time Radio in the Dark, Church of the Undead, and a classic 1950s sci-fi style podcast called Auditory Anthology. Also on the site, you can visit the store for Weird Darkness t-shirts, mugs and other merchandise. Plus, it's where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression, addiction or thoughts of harming yourself or others. And if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell of your own, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. All stories on Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find links to the stories or the authors in the show notes. Terrifying true stories of shadow people is from Animalion.com. The Unsolved Sighting in 1966 is by Scott Tatey for EllewoodCityLedger.com and The Beaver County Times. Infamously cursed films is by Randolph Strauss for Ranker. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark. Copyright, Weird Darkness. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. John 11, Verses 25 and 26. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection in the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? And a final thought, every day is a bank account and time is our currency. No one is rich, no one is poor, we've got 24 hours each. Christopher Rice. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Hey Weirdos, if you're a fan of my retro radio episodes or if you just love classic radio shows in general, you can binge listen even more of it with my new podcast, Retro Radio Old Time Radio in the Dark. These episodes have become so popular that I needed to create a separate podcast in order to offer more of it. Now I can post old time radio shows seven days a week, including single episodes of dark and mysterious shows, as well as marathon episodes that are several hours in length for binge listening to a creepy and macabre program. I'll still post one episode each Sunday in my Weird Darkness podcast, but if you want more old time radio content, visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Retro Radio. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Retro Radio. Or look for Retro Radio Old Time Radio in the dark wherever you listen to podcasts. 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