 This episode is dedicated to the men and women of our armed forces and first responders. Whether you are currently serving or have served in the past, you are appreciated. It is because of your courage and sacrifice that we enjoy the freedoms and liberties we hold dear. And I for one, appreciate every single one of you for protecting what many of us take for the planet. So thank you. Welcome, Weirdos! I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness Radio, where every week you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up this hour... Two friends sipping soda and playing pool find the green table stained blood red, with no warning whatsoever. Malta, Italy is known for its splendid ruins, historical monuments and ancient sites, but one of these places stands out, a mysterious underground complex that holds within it many enigmas and oddities that remain unsolved to this day. Weirdo family member Robert Foster tells of a creepy incident that happened to him while working security at an army depot in Oregon. Imagine opening up the newspaper and reading this paragraph. If anyone doubts this story in the least, they are reliable men who would under no circumstances lend their names to an untruth. Newspapers just do not stand by their sources this unwaveringly, at least not anymore, and especially if the subject of the article is a haunted house. But first, David Parker Ray is believed to have tortured and killed more than 50 women inside his soundproof trailer, a trailer he referred to as his toy box. We begin with that story. If you're new here, welcome to the show. And if you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen in with you. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to visit WeirdDarkness.com and click on Contact Social to follow Weird Darkness on social media. And also on the website, you can find the daily Weird Darkness podcast which comes out seven days per week. You can enter monthly contests, find Weird Darkness merchandise and more. You can even send in your own true story of something paranormal that has happened to you or someone you know. You can find it all at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. David Parker Ray, the toy box killer, is believed to have tortured and killed more than 50 women inside his soundproof trailer. On March 19, 1999, 22-year-old Cynthia Vigil was hooking in a parking lot in Albuquerque, New Mexico when a man claiming to be an undercover cop told her she was under arrest for solicitation of sex work and put her in the back of his car. He told me I was under arrest and he put handcuffs on me, Vigil said. The man was David Parker Ray and he brought Vigil to his nearby soundproof trailer, which he called his toy box. He then chained her to a gynecologist-type table in the center of the trailer and over the next three days, raped and tortured Vigil, with help from his girlfriend and accomplice, Cindy Hendy. The two of them used whips, medical instruments, electric shock and sexual instruments to torture Vigil. Before her torture, Ray would play a cassette tape with a recording detailing exactly what she would be forced to endure. On the cassette, Ray explained that she was to refer to him only as master and the woman with him as mistress and never to speak unless spoken to first. He went on to explain exactly how he would rape and torture her. The way he talked, I didn't feel like this was his first time, Vigil said in a later interview. It was like he knew what he was doing. He told me I was never going to see my family again. He told me he would kill me like the others. On the third day, while Ray was at work, Hendy accidentally left the keys to Vigil's restraints on a table near where she was chained while she left the room. Seizing the opportunity, Vigil lunged for the keys and was able to free her hands. Hendy attempted to stop her but Vigil stabbed her in the neck with an icepick when she approached. She ran out of the trailer naked, wearing only a slave collar and padlocked chains. In desperation, she knocked on the door of a nearby mobile home. The owner of the house brought Vigil in and called the police, who promptly arrested both Ray and Hendy. David Parker Ray was born in Belen, New Mexico in 1939. Little is known about his childhood outside of the fact that he was mainly raised by his grandfather but regularly saw his father who beat him. As a kid, Ray was bullied by his peers for his shyness around girls. These insecurities drove Ray to drink and abuse drugs. He served in the U.S. Army receiving an honorable discharge at the end of his enlistment. Ray was married and divorced four times. It is believed that Ray began his killing spree sometime during the mid-1950s which only came to light with the escape of Vigil. After arresting Ray, the police gained a warrant to search his home and trailer and what they found shocked and disturbed them. Ray's toy box contained a gynecologist-type table in the middle with a mirror mounted to the ceiling so his victims could see the horrors delivered upon them. Littering the floor were whips, chains, pulleys, straps, clamps, leg spreader bars, surgical blades and saws as well as numerous sex toys. There was a wooden contraption used to bend over and immobilize Ray's victims while he and his friends would rape them. On the walls were detailed diagrams showing different methods and techniques for inflicting pain. In the trailer of the toy box killer, the police also discovered a videotape from 1996 showing a terrified woman being raped and tortured by Ray and his girlfriend. With the publicity surrounding the arrest of David Parker Ray, considering the disturbing circumstances of his crime, another woman came forward with a similar story. Angelica Montana was an acquaintance of Ray's who, after visiting his house to borrow cake mix, had been drugged, raped and tortured by Ray before being left by a highway out in the desert. There she was found by police, but there had been no follow-up on her case. Ray would often use drugs that would induce amnesia and memory loss in his victims like sodium pentothal and phenobarbital so they could not properly remember what had happened to them. With this stronger case, with two victims testifying to the crimes, the police were able to press Hendy, who quickly folded and began telling what she knew of the murders. Her testimony led the police to discover that Ray had been helped in the abductions and murders by his daughter Glenda Jesse Ray and friend Dennis Roy Yancey. Yancey admitted to participating in the murder of Marie Parker, a woman who was abducted, drugged and tortured for days by Ray and his daughter before Yancey strangled her to death in 1997. After releasing some details about the woman in the video, she was identified by her ex-mother-in-law as Kelly Garrett, a former friend of Ray's daughter. On July 24, 1996, Garrett, after getting into a fight with her then-husband, decided to spend the night playing pool at a local saloon with Jesse. Jesse roofied Garrett's beer and she and her father placed a dog collar and leash on her and brought her to his trailer. He then raped and tortured her for two days, keeping her on date rape drugs the whole while. After these two days, Ray slit her throat and dumped her on the side of the road. Miraculously, Garrett survived the encounter, but no one, neither her husband nor police, believed her story. In fact, her husband, believing she had cheated on him that night, filed for divorce that year. Due to the effects of the drugs, Garrett had limited recollection of the events over those two days, but remembered being raped by the toy box killer. These drugs as well as the socioeconomic standing of many of the women involved made it difficult for their testimony to be readily accepted by jurors. Though he was able to beat two of the cases put against him, the toy box killer was ultimately sentenced to 224 years in prison for numerous offenses involved in the abduction and sexual torture of these three women. Jesse Ray received a sentence of nine years, and Cindy Hendy was given 36 years in prison. David Parker Ray died of a heart attack on May 28, 2002, a mere three years into his sentence. In their investigation of David Parker Ray's trailer, police found evidence of several more killings, including diaries written by Ray where he detailed the murder of at least 50 other women. Despite the evidence, the authorities were unable to create cases for them. Though Hendy and Yancey both identified areas they believed Ray disposed of these bodies, police found no human remains in any of these locations. It is believed that a serial killer who put this amount of effort into his horrifying toy box and who killed numerous women over many years would likely have had a greater number of victims. The many unidentified personal effects and jewelry found in his trailer also point to a greater number of victims for the toy box killer. We are still getting good leads, FBI spokesman Frank Fisher said about the toy box killer in 2011. As long as we are getting those leads and as long as the exposure in the press keeps generating interest in the case, we are going to keep investigating this. It is still ongoing to this day. When Weird Darkness returns, two friends sipping soda and playing billiards find the green table stained blood red with no warning whatsoever. No matter the time of day or season, sometimes you need to find a way to rid yourself of those ghostly chills that bring raised hairs and goosebumps to your skin. Other times you are looking for those ghostly chills. Either way, it sounds like you need a mug of Weird Dark Roast Coffee. Weird Dark Roast Coffee has deep notes of cocoa, caramel, and a touch of sinister sweetness that will send shivers down your taste buds. This is an exclusive coffee that I selected specifically for you, my Weirdo family. Weird Dark Roast is not available in stores, coffee houses, mad scientist labs, or even the dark web, but you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com Weird Dark Roast Coffee. Fresh roasted to water so it's as fresh as it can be when it lands on your doorstep and knocks three times. Grab yours now at WeirdDarkness.com. That's WeirdDarkness.com. Weird Dark Roast Coffee is not actually a knock on your door because it doesn't have arms or hands, so if you hear knocks at the door and no one answers when you ask who it is, it's probably paranormal and you should just leave the door shut and locked. I'm Darren Marlar, welcome back to Weird Darkness. You can stay up to date on everything Weird Darkness and also maybe win some cool prizes at the same time by signing up for the email newsletter. It's free and often I'll draw a random name to win a cool, creepy prize. Sign up for the Weird Darkness newsletter for free at WeirdDarkness.com slash newsletter. Thomas H. Jones, aged 21, was planning to leave Brooklyn on October 5, 1880 to start a new life in San Francisco. The night before his planned departure he went to say goodbye to his friend George Secor and the two young men went to a lager beer saloon run by N. Debrowski on Atlantic Street to play billiards. Between games they went to the bar for some soda water. As they were placing their order, John J. Dwyer entered the saloon, extremely intoxicated. He stood next to Jones and Secor and said, I'll take whiskey for mine. Neither man knew Dwyer and they ignored him. Debrowski told him that he had no whiskey. Jones and Secor finished their drinks and returned to the billiard table. Dwyer followed them and watched them play for a few minutes. Then without provocation he said, I'm the sucker, am I? Dwyer picked up an 18-ounce ash billiard cue and struck Jones behind the right ear with the butt end of the cue, with enough force to break the cue into two pieces. He picked up the butt end and started chasing Secor who ran out of the saloon screaming for help. Officer McCormick of the first precinct rushed to the saloon, followed by officer Riley of the third precinct who saw Jones on the floor and sent for an ambulance. Jones died before it arrived. John Dwyer was a 27-year-old plasterer known as Dr. Dwyer in South Brooklyn. He was a strong, powerful man weighing over 200 pounds, known to become ugly when drunk. He'd been looking for a fight all evening and had been thrown out of a cigar store before going into Debrowski's saloon. Dwyer had sunk into a drunken stupor when the policemen arrived and the officers decided to take everyone involved down to the station to sort things out. They arrested Dwyer, Secor, Debrowski and Debrowski's wife and began hurting the group to the first precinct station house. They had only gone a short distance when Dwyer snapped out of his stupor and began a desperate struggle for his liberty, biting, sliding, and kicking the whole way. Sergeant Eaton who jumped in to aid the officers received a kick in the stomach which nearly disabled him. Another officer was knocked down by a kick to the eye. The officers finally managed to subdue Dwyer and put him in a cell. John Dwyer was indicted for second-degree murder. At his trial the following January, Dwyer said that he could never remember what happened when he was drunk. While this was seldom an effective defense, in this case Dwyer was found guilty of manslaughter in the fourth degree and sentenced to two years in the penitentiary. Lying just off the southern coast of Italy is a small archipelago of islands that comprise the island nation of Malta. The country has a unique and colorful history, first settled in 5900 B.C. and then passed through a succession of rulers over the millennia including the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Sicilians, Spanish, French, and British due to its naval importance, and finally becoming a British colony in 1814 before gaining independence in 1964. With such a long history spanning back for millennia, Malta is known for its splendid ruins, historical monuments, and ancient sites. But one of these places stands out, a mysterious underground complex that holds with it many enigmas and oddities that remain unsolved to this day. The place known as the Hypogeum was found quite by accident when in 1902 some workers were digging cisterns at a housing development in the town of Paola when they broke through into what seemed to be an immense chamber of some kind. This chamber seemed to be part of some larger structure that had sat down there in the darkness away from human eyes for a very long time, but for some reason the workers decided to cover up their discovery, meaning that the true extent of this bizarre place would not be uncovered until much later. When word got out that there was a mysterious subterranean complex of unknown origin lying down there right under the town, archaeologists were quick to swarm to it, and it would soon prove to be one of the most important and interesting archaeological discoveries of the century. Dated to as old as 4000 BC, it was and still is thought to be the oldest underground complex in the world, and here was a neolithic structure that held temples, shrines, altars, vast warrens of tunnels that meandered off into the dark. Burial chambers, all painstakingly cut directly into the surrounding rock and littered with countless objects such as statues, figurines, pottery, stone, and clay beads, shell buttons, annulets, ax heads, and many, many others. Yet perhaps the most notable and macabre discovery down there in this ancient place long buried and forgotten down in the bowels of the earth were the remains of an estimated 7000 individuals, along with numerous burial tools leading to the theory that this massive complex was meant as an acropolis or basically a city of the dead, a giant tomb. It was already all a mystery as to who had built this place, how it had remained hidden for so long, and why it was packed with thousands of dead people. But these were by far not the only mysteries awaiting discovery in this dark forgotten place. By far one of the most well-known mysteries of the Hypogeum is the discovery of numerous very anomalous skulls scattered amongst the many remains found there, and uncovered at what appears to be a sacred well adorned with statues of a goddess. The skulls in question were immediately striking and that they were abnormally elongated and larger than normal human skulls, and further analysis showed that some displayed some kind of mysterious genetic abnormality, while others held evidence that their skulls had been intentionally bound to make them that way, similar to a practice among priests in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and South America. A few of the skulls are very odd indeed, showing an inconsistent pattern of and in one case a complete lack of the cranial knitting, a line across the skull denoting the fusing of cranial plates, also called the Fossum median, which are the plates of the skull that are separate in infancy and later joined together into adulthood. This baffled the researchers who looked at them as there is no known genetic abnormality or mutation in humans. Most of the strange skulls also demonstrated evidence of having undergone some mysterious surgical procedure with three small holes drilled into the head for unknown reasons. These bizarre skulls prompted wide speculation at the time and still do. More about Malta's cryptic catacombs When Weird Darkness Returns Terror began in January by the light of the full moon. The first scream came from the snowbound railway man who felt the werewolf's fangs ripping in his throat. The next month there was a scream of ecstatic agony from the woman attacked in her cozy bedroom. Now, scenes of unbelievable horror unfold each time the full moon shines on the isolated main town of Tarker's Mills. No one knows who will be attacked next, but one thing is sure, when the full moon rises, a paralyzing fear sweeps through Tarker's Mills for snarls that sound like human words can be heard whining through the wind and all around are the footprints of a monster whose hunger cannot be sated. Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King Hear the entire novel absolutely free on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. If you have a true paranormal story that has happened to you or someone you know, you can share it by clicking on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com and I might use it in a future episode. We're talking about Malta's cryptic catacombs and some of the elongated skulls that have been found. Why did these individuals have these mysterious elongated skulls and what was its significance? One of the earlier ideas was that these remains represented a whole new race of humans or a new mutation, while others suggested it had some religious implication or was some sort of a sign of status. There was also the idea that these could have been settlers from Egypt where the elongation of skulls was a documented practice or were descendants from an unknown Maltese tribe or lost civilization. Other more far out theories have been that these are the remains of ancient aliens or interdimensional travelers, while others say that they were attempts to enhance physical abilities or even that they were the remnants of the displaced population of the lost continent of Atlantis. It's hard to say for sure because the skulls themselves have been so little studied and remain cloaked in shadow. After their discovery, eleven of the bizarre skulls were put on display at the Archaeological Museum in the Valletta, after which they were suddenly removed without explanation, with access strictly limited, making it nearly impossible for anyone to adequately study them. Indeed, some of the only evidence that we have that they ever even existed at all are some photos and records by Maltese researchers Dr. Anton Mifsid and Dr. Charles Savona Ventura. Adding to the mystery is the fact that apparently several of the skulls have gone missing over the years, with only six of the original eleven remaining. What happened to the others? No one knows, and it's added a layer of dark government conspiracies and cover-ups upon the whole thing. As a result of all of this, the weird skulls of Malta have remained hotly debated and their exact origins unknown. While we don't know exactly where they came from or why they were there, these skulls are not even the most outlandish mystery of the Hypogeum. In the 1930s, a worker from the British Embassy by the name of Lois Jessup came forward with a truly bizarre account from down in the depths of the Hypogeum. She claimed that she'd been exploring the ancient subterranean tunnels on a guided tour by candlelight when she came to a burial chamber with a steep drop that plunged down into the murk. When she used her candle to look down through the darkness, she claims that she saw something very strange down there in the abyss, and she looked down there as someone held onto her sash to keep her from falling and would explain of what happened next. I held my candle higher and peered down into the abyss, thinking that with this dangerous drop it was better not to go on further without a guide. Then I saw about twenty persons of giant stature emerge from an opening deep about twenty to twenty-five feet since their heads came up about half way on the wall on the opposite side of the cave. They were covered in long white hair, combed downward and shaggy looking. They walked very slowly, taking long strides. Then they all stopped, turned and raised their heads in my direction. All simultaneously raised their arms and with their hands beckoned to me. The movement was something like snatching or feeling for something as the palms of their hands were turned down. Things get even spookier a few weeks later when Jessup claimed that there had been a group of thirty students and some teachers had gone down into the very same chamber, only to mysteriously vanish after the cave collapsed behind them. Screams and cries for help could purportedly be heard echoing out from somewhere within for days, even as search parties looked and failed to find them before finally giving way to silence. Their bodies were never found. After this the government then supposedly went in and boarded up the tunnels, closing them to the public. Jessup's tale was published in the publication The Journal of Borderland Research, but her veracity has been controversial since she would go on in later years to express an intense interest in UFOs and even became the head of a UFO research organization. What's her account true? And if so, what did she see down there? Who knows. Other onities of the Hypergeum have been uncovered in recent years as well. For instance, it's been found that the cave consistently produces sound frequencies that fall within the range of 110 to 111 Hertz, which is known to have physical and mental effects, and it's too consistent to have been an accident. It's thought that this place was specifically chosen and designed for this effect, and that it served some as yet unknown purpose for these people or beings. With its air of mystery, unclear origins, unidentified remains, mystical features and its otherworldly skulls, the Hypergeum of Malta, which managed to remain hidden from civilization for thousands of years, just may hold many of its enigmas for thousands of years more. I worked security at an Army Depot in Eastern Oregon from 2003 to 2009. The base had been a munitions depot, meaning they stored, processed, manufactured or shipped munitions all over the country until it came down on the base closure list under President Clinton. The munitions had been moved out and most of those operations had been stopped. The reason the base wasn't totally shut down was because it also stored chemical weapons that couldn't be moved and were to be destroyed on site. When I was hired on the demilitarization or demail plant was being built. What occurred happened on either 2005 or 2006 on a Saturday, about 3 p.m. in the afternoon. The day was a pleasant spring day. One of the duties I had for my patrol was to check the depot's perimeter twice during the shift, once near the beginning and once toward the end. The perimeter was about 25 miles all the way around and I remember thinking that I'd check it, then the guard shacks and then get ready to go home. I'm checking the perimeter which consisted of looking at the outer fence and gates for breaks, etc. The roads were paved except for a small section that passed by unused warehouses, except for two being used by the demail plant to store parts and the rain security used for qualifying. As I made my way around this area and back on the main road I saw a mechanics truck in front of me about 50 yards ahead that I didn't see previously. On the weekends there was no reason for it to be there, as the government employees didn't work and if the demail plant had sent somebody out to their warehouse they'd usually call our dispatch sergeant first and they drove little Chevy love trucks, not trucks with tool compartments. I called my dispatch and asked if they knew of anyone with the truck's description being in the area. When he came back with no I told him where I was and that there were two individuals in it and I was going to stop them. On this road there was nowhere to turn off, just sandy loose desert for about three miles. I turned on my red and blues and gave pursuit. I sped up and could not gain on this vehicle even though they did not seem to be going faster and seemed oblivious to my presence. I might add this truck looked boxes like a truck from the 80s, not new. At one point during my pursuit I found myself doing 85 miles per hour and still couldn't get any closer to this truck. I backed off and we still maintained the same distance until they came to a paved road leading to the chemical plant. In the meantime the sergeant and the shift lieutenant had set up on this road about a tenth of a mile from the turn off in a wedge formation with their vehicles. When this truck started to turn the corner it was like I popped a bubble and was finally making headway. As the truck turned the corner I lost sight of it. It passed a huge juniper bush at that corner. I turned that corner thinking we had them and I had visions of ripping the driver out and putting him on the ground. Matching my surprise when I made that corner only to be met by the lieutenant and sergeant looking as confused as I felt. This truck which I was following and giving updates of location etc. had disappeared. I was perplexed and tried to explain what I had seen and was told the only vehicle they had seen come around the corner was me. My lieutenant told me don't worry, it happens sometimes out here. He later related to me that years ago when he was a patrol officer at the base that on night shift one night he had chased a little red civilian vehicle with four people through the storage area where civilian vehicles were banned. He chased them down a road and it came to a dip in the road. He briefly lost sight of it as he went down the dip. When he went down the dip that car had disappeared. There was nowhere for it to turn off and he didn't see its headlights or anything, it was just gone. The place was haunted too but that's for another time. When Weird Darkness returns, imagine opening up the newspaper and reading this paragraph. Quote, if anyone doubts this story in the least they are reliable men who would under no circumstances lend their names to an untruth. Newspapers just do not stand by their sources this unwaveringly, at least not anymore, and especially if the subject of the article happens to be a haunted house. 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 am 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 am narrating before even the publishers or authors get to hear them. You also receive bonus audio of other projects I am 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 I am Darren Marlar and welcome back to Weird Darkness. If you like what you are getting here on the show and you like even more, you can check out the free audiobooks I have narrated at WeirdDarkness.com. I have free audiobooks there by Stephen King, HP Lovecraft, Charles Dickens, Robert Heinlein and many more. You can listen to all of the free audiobooks that I have narrated on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. That is WeirdDarkness.com slash audiobooks. Here is the tale of a ghost who apparently just wanted to be left alone. It comes from the Philadelphia Times and if the language seems a tad strange to you, it could be that it was printed May 16, 1897. They were so proper back then, you know. Here is the newspaper article. The most extraordinary case of haunts is reported from what is known as the Old Bailey House, located about two miles north of the village of Dunville, in Casey County, Kentucky. If this house is not really haunted and if it hasn't good cause for being visited by the departed spirits of troubled souls, the testimony of William Cravens and family and William Turner and family, all of whom have recently been forced to vacate the premises, is worthless. And along with their depositions must go the reputations for reliability of Captain Edward Pelley, merchant, and Thomas Shelf, tavernkeeper of Dunville, and James Shelton, corner of Casey County. A signed statement from Pelley and Shelf will be found below. The story of the Bailey House and the developments of the past month have aroused the deepest interest among the people in all the country around the ancient structure. The Bailey House is on the Old State Road between Somerset and Jamestown. The building is a very old one. The time of its erection is more remote than anything remembered by the oldest men in the neighborhood. It is said to have been a wayside inn many years ago when the state road was the main thoroughfare through that country into Tennessee. Before the region near Dunville was as thickly populated as it is now, the Bailey House was in a lonely place, just at the end of a deep and dark ravine which winds between two giant spurs of the Green River Mountains. The house had always borne a good reputation so far as its occupants were concerned, but at one time its early history, either the Bailey House or one in its immediate vicinity, was occupied by a gang of men who were known to be counterfeiters and who were believed to be robbers and highwaymen. It was during this period, some of the good people of that portion of Casey County now believe, that the Fowl Deeds were committed which resulted in the present nightly visitations of departed spirits. It is also believed that at least three Fowl Crimes were committed in or near the Old Bailey House, for three graves were found beneath its floors. The ghostly manifestations complained of and still in nightly evidence began some six weeks ago. The house had been vacant for some time when William Turner and family moved into it. Trouble began the very first night they slept there. Along toward twelve o'clock, Turner's eldest son was aroused by singular noises. He listened a while and became thoroughly frightened at the uncanny sounds from unknown sources. He heard groans and moans and sounds of persons moving about in adjoining rooms. He awakened his father, but the old gentleman could not be made to take in the situation before the noises ceased. He then laughed at the boy's story and went back to sleep. The following night, Mr. Turner himself not only heard ghosts but saw them. He was rudely awakened along toward midnight and being a man of nerve listened carefully and tentatively for a while to see if he could detect some natural cause of the disturbance. In this he was disappointed. He heard just as his son had described, heart-rending groans and blood-curdling moans and presently cold chills began to run up and down his body. But he was as destined to soon see and hear more than this. Glancing toward the door, the sight which met his eyes almost froze the blood in his veins. Standing there was a tall figure dressed in white, apparently a woman. It pointed its finger at Turner, uttered one word, move, and disappeared. Turner moved the next day. He said he wouldn't spend another night in the house for a cool $100,000. The story of the ghosts spread rapidly through the community and a party of young men from Dunville went out to the Bailey House a few nights after the removal of the Turner family to see if they could locate the ghosts or get a glimpse of one. They went quietly into the bedroom which Turner had occupied and began their vigil. The understanding was that no noise should be made and nothing done calculated to disturb the spirits in their midnight revels. The watchers had been on duty about an hour and were beginning to lose hope of seeing even a small ghost when suddenly the still night air was rent by a most unearthly yell which seemed to come from beneath the floor where the young men sat. This was followed by a series of groans, moans, and other expressions of grief and terror which at once surprised and amazed the silent sentinels in the house. There was a sudden cessation of the noises, a moment's pause, and then they recommenced with renewed fury. One dark figure arose from the floor and shot through the half-opened door. Others followed in rapid succession and soon the detecting party was en route to Dunville at a 240 gate. The next day when the young men told their story in the village, an old citizen said he had heard many years ago that three travelers had been murdered somewhere near the old Bailey House and he proposed that another party go there, this time in daylight, and make a minute investigation of the premises. His suggestion was acted upon and in an hour the search was begun. The old house was ransacked from first floor to Garrett but nothing was found to excite the suspicions of the most credulous. Finally, someone proposed that as there was no cellar to the house it would be well to examine the ground underneath the floor. Several planks were pried up and then was the mystery explained. A searching party found three excavations, all of them about six feet long by two wide and from a foot to a foot and a half deep. They had evidently been the temporary resting places of dead bodies but there after having been killed and robbed and afterward removed for final disposition. There were other evidences of foul deeds committed and Coroner Shelton, when notified of the discovery, at once summoned a jury to look into the case. The jury, after careful investigation, expressed the opinion that three unknown men had met their deaths there at the hands of unknown parties but of course no further action could be taken. The coroner's investigation and the developments incident to it coupled with the stories told by the Turner family created a profound impression throughout that section of Casey County and people began to fear the Bailey House, many of them refusing to pass it at night. It remained vacant for some time until William Cravens of Russell County arrived to Dunville in search of a house. He was told that the Bailey House was unoccupied but at the same time informed that it was haunted. Mr. Cravens said that he was not afraid of any haunt that ever stalked at midnight and that if he could get the place at a satisfactory price he would take it. Cravens leased the house. The first night that Cravens family spent there passed off peacefully. Neighbors casually dropped in next day to see how things had progressed during the night. Mr. Cravens simply smiled and said he knew there was no such thing as haunts and that he wasn't to be frightened by them if there were. But the second night brought trouble. About 12 o'clock Cravens was aroused by screams, yells and moans. He listened to them a few minutes until they finally died away and succeeded in convincing himself that it was all imaginary and fell asleep. In a short time he had a similar but more thrilling experience. Just as he opened his eyes a cold, clammy hand passed over his face and a white object flitted across the floor and through the door. Mrs. Cravens was also awake this time. When she heard her husband gasp she whispered, terror stricken, did you see that thing? It stood by my bed and told me to move. Cravens moved. Next day. If anyone doubts this story in the least he is not only referred to the appended endorsement of the facts as related but requested to write to the gentleman whose names are there to attached. They are reliable men who would under no circumstances lend their names to an untruth. Dunville, Kentucky, April 2nd. To whom it may concern. The undersigned Ed Pelly merchant and Thomas Shelf Tavernkeeper of Dunville certify that they know the Bailey House which is said to be haunted. That they know the Cravens and Turner families moved from it on account of curious disturbances at night which they could not account for and which terrorized them and that a party of which Mr. Shelf, one of the undersigned accompanied to the house to make inquiry into the singular things reported became scared and left because of a recurrence of things described by Cravens and Turner. We know further that the three graves were found beneath the floor of the old house. That coroner Shelton investigated the case and that the people in the neighborhood of the Bailey House are many of them afraid to pass it at night. Signed Captain Ed Pelly and Thomas Shelf. Thanks for listening. If you missed any part of tonight's show or if you'd like to hear it again, you can subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcast app at WeirdDarkness.com. Also in tonight's podcast episode, True Tales from Graveyard Shift Security Workers. Those who work nights are already in the creepy position of working what's called the graveyard shift so you've got to expect something to go wrong. That's only in the podcast version of the radio show tonight which you can subscribe to wherever you listen to podcasts. You can follow Weird Darkness on social media by visiting the contact social page on the website and please tell others about Weird Darkness who love the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do. Doing that helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. If you'd like to be a part of the show, you can send in your own paranormal experiences by clicking on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com. You can also email me anytime at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. All stories in 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 which I upload to the Weird Darkness website immediately after the night's show has ended. The toy box killer was written by Christina Skelton. Murder at the pool table is by Robert Wilhelm for a murder by Gaslight. Malta's cryptic catacombs is by Brent Sponsor from Stereos Universe. The phantom truck is by Weirdo family member Robert Foster and the ghost told them to move is from Strange Company. 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. Jeremiah 17, verse 7, Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord whose confidence is in him. And a final thought, talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful. John Wooden. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Hey Weirdos, keep listening. Hour 2 of the Weird Darkness radio show is coming up. 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. Road dogs, billy big rigs, big strappers, flatbed cowboys, freight shakers, trucklets, 18-wheelers, deadheads, yard dogs. You got your ears on? Whatever you call yourselves or whatever call sign or moniker is thrust upon you. This episode is dedicated to all you truckers driving the boulevard, keeping our bellies full, shelves stocked, septics cleaned, and brains entertained with what you're hauling. In the eyes of this ratchet jaw and I'm honored to have you listening. Maybe once in a while grab your C.B. head to Sesame Street and tell other drivers how to join this weirdo convoy. Appreciate it. May your brake checks be for you, your shutter trouble be absent, and your bare bites non-existent. Keep it cool on the stool. This is Spooky Santa and I'm 10 and on the side. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness Radio, where every week 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... When you think of human sacrifice, you might picture Aztec or Mayan ceremonies, or maybe a satanic cult standing in a pentagram with a naked woman on an altar, possibly even a volunteer. Personally, I picture Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. While civilizations and groups such as these certainly did and maybe still do their share of brutal sacrificing, they are by no means the only ones that conduct death rituals. Some will most certainly surprise and possibly disturb you. A shadow person is a humanoid figure that you perceive in a patch of shadow. Some believe that they are supernatural spirits or extra-dimensional beings. What are they, though? Paranormal researchers have a theory. Neuroscientists have another theory. An astronomy professor says we should begin focusing on space archaeology, starting with our own moon. Why? Well, he believes E.T. might have left a clue there of his existence. And what if we were to discover that there were aliens on the moon still living and that they were meddling in our affairs? How would you feel about that? But first, thousands of years ago, people were performing a form of surgery that involved boring holes through a person's skull. Why on earth would they do such a thing? We begin with that story. If you're new here, welcome to the show. And if you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen in with you. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to visit WeirdDarkness.com and click on Contact Social to follow Weird Darkness on social media. And also on the website you can find the daily Weird Darkness podcast which comes out seven days per week. You can enter monthly contests, find Weird Darkness merchandise and more. You can even send in your own true story of something paranormal that has happened to you or someone you know. You can find it all at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. For a large part of human prehistory, people around the world practiced trepanation, a crude surgical procedure that involves forming a hole in the skull of a living person by either drilling, cutting, or scraping away layers of bone with a sharp implement. To date, thousands of skulls bearing signs of trepanation have been unearthed at archaeological sites across the world. But despite its apparent importance, scientists are still not completely agreed on why our ancestors performed trepanation. Anthropological accounts of 20th century trepanations in Africa and Polynesia suggest that, in these cases at least, trepanation was performed to treat pain, for instance the pain caused by skull trauma or neurological disease. Trepanation may also have had a similar purpose in prehistory. Many trepaned skulls show signs of cranial injuries or neurological diseases, often in the same region of the skull where the trepanation hole was made. But as well as being used to treat medical conditions, researchers have long suspected that ancient humans performed trepanation for quite a different reason. Ritual The earliest clear evidence of trepanation dates to approximately 7,000 years ago. It was practiced in places as diverse as ancient Greece, North and South America, Africa, Polynesia, and the Far East. People probably developed the practice independently in several locations. Trepanation has been abandoned by most cultures by the end of the Middle Ages, but the practice was still being carried out in a few isolated parts of Africa and Polynesia until the early 1900s. Since the very first scientific studies on trepanation were published in the 19th century, scholars have continued to argue that ancient humans sometimes performed trepanation to allow the passage of spirits into or out of the body or as part of an initiation rite. However, convincing evidence is hard to come by. It is almost impossible to completely rule out the possibility that a trepanation was carried out for medical reasons because some brain conditions leave no trace on the skull. However, in a small corner of Russia, archaeologists have turned up some of the best evidence for ritual trepanation ever discovered. The story begins in 1997. Archaeologists were excavating a prehistoric burial site close to the city of Rostov-on-Don in the far south of Russia, near the northern reaches of the Black Sea. The site contained the skeletal remains of 35 humans, distributed among 20 separate graves. Based on the style of the burials, the archaeologists knew that they dated to between approximately 5,000 and 3,000 BC, a period known as the Chalcolithic or Copper Age. One of the graves contained the skeletons of 5 adults, 2 women and 3 men, together with an infant aged between 1 and 2 years and a girl in her mid-teens. Finding multiple skeletons in the same prehistoric grave is not particularly unusual, but what had been done to these skulls was unusual when Weird Darkness returns. Nothing goes better with chocolate than vanilla, and nothing goes better with the darkness than vampires. So we've combined all of them into a new blend of Weird Dark Roast Coffee called Very Vampilla. This bloody good blend combines a medium dark roast coffee with hints of chocolate, vanilla, and just a tad bit of dried cherry, too. So good, you'll want to sink your fangs into the fresh roasted bag itself. Weird Dark Roast Very Vampilla, the only thing at steak, sorry, not sorry, bad pun, is your dissatisfaction with your old coffee. Sip it while the sun is down if you're one of the undead, or when the sun is up if you just feel dead and need a bit of a boost. Get your Weird Dark Roast Very Vampilla at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. If you like Weird Darkness and you like to spread the word in a unique way, you might want to check out the Weird Darkness t-shirts, buttons, hoodies, office supplies, clothes for your kids, stickers, magnets, coffee mugs, and more in the Weird Darkness store. If you're a weirdo and proud of it, that's the place to go. Dozens of designs to choose from and a variety of colors to match your personal style. Grab some weirdo merchandise for yourself or maybe as a gift for the weirdo in your life by clicking on Store at WeirdDarkness.com We were talking about trepanning and archaeologists were excavating a prehistoric burial site close to the city of Rostov-on-Don in the far south of Russia. One of the graves contained the skeletons of five adults, two women and three men, together with an infant aged between one and two years, and a girl in her mid-teens. Finding multiple skeletons in the same prehistoric grave is not particularly unusual, but what had been done to their skulls was. The two women, two of the men and the teenage girl, had all been trepanned. Each of their skulls contained a single hole, several centimeters wide and roughly ellipsoidal in shape, with signs of scraping around the edges. The skull of the third man contained a depression which also showed evidence of having been carved, but not an actual hole. Only the infant's skull was unblemished. The job of analyzing the contents of the grave fell to Alina Bativa, an anthropologist now at the Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. She immediately recognized the holes as trepanations and she soon realized that these trepanations were unusual. They had all been made in almost exactly the same location, a point on the skull called the obelion. The obelion is on top of the skull and toward the rear, roughly where a high ponytail might be gathered. Less than one percent of all recorded trepanations are located above the obelion point. What's more, Bativa knew that such trepanations were even less common in ancient Russia. As far as she was aware at the time, there was just one other recorded case of an obelion trepanation, a skull unearthed in 1974 at an archaeological site remarkably close to the one she was excavating. Clearly, finding even one obelion trepanation is remarkable, but Bativa was looking at five, all of them buried in the same grave. This was, and is, unprecedented. There's a good reason why obelion trepanation is uncommon. It is very dangerous. The obelion point is located directly above the superior sagittal sinus, where blood from the brain collects before flowing into the brain's main outgoing veins. Opening the skull in this location would have risked major hemorrhage and death. This suggests the copper age inhabitants of Russia must have had good reason to perform such trepanation procedures. Yet none of the skulls showed any signs of having suffered any injury or illness, before or after the trepanation had been performed. In other words, it appeared as if all these people were trepanned while they were completely healthy. Was their trepanation evidence of some sort of ritual? It was an intriguing possibility. However, Bativa had to give up the trail. She had many more skeletons to analyze from all over southern Russia and could not afford to get sidetracked by just a few skulls, however enigmatic. Before she gave up, Bativa decided to search through Russia's unpublished archaeological records in case any more strange obelion trepanations had been discovered but not reported. Surprisingly, she got two hits. The skulls of two young women with obelion trepanations had been discovered years earlier, one in 1980 and another in 1992. Each one had been unearthed less than 31 miles or 50 kilometers from Rostov-on-Don and neither showed any signs of having been trepanned for a medical reason. This gave Bativa a grand total of eight unusual skulls, all clustered in a small region of southern Russia and potentially all about the same age. A decade later, even more came delight. In 2011, an international team of archaeologists was analyzing 137 human skeletons. They had recently been excavated from three separate Copper Age burial sites around 310 miles or 500 kilometers southeast of Rostov-on-Don in the Stavropol Crye region of Russia, close to the modern-day border with Georgia. The archaeologists had not set out to discover trepanations. They were there to learn about the general health of the prehistoric inhabitants of the region. But among the 137 skulls, they found nine with conspicuous holes. Five of them were standard examples of trepanation. The holes have been made in a variety of different locations around the front and side of the skull and all of the skulls showed signs of having suffered a physical trauma, suggesting that the trepanations had been performed to treat the effects of the injuries. But none of the other four trepanned skulls showed any signs of damage or disease. What's more, all four had been trepanned exactly above the Obellion Point. Quite by chance, one of the researchers, Julia Greski, an anthropologist at the German Archaeological Institute, the AI, had already read Bativa's paper describing the unusual trepanations from the Rostov-on-Don region. Now Greski, Bativa, and other archaeologists have teamed up to describe all 12 of the Obellion trepanations from southern Russia. Their study was published in April 2016 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. The 12 skulls would have been remarkable discoveries wherever they had been found, but the fact that they were all discovered in the same tiny corner of Russia meant that a connection seemed likely. If there was no link, the odds that a batch of such rare trepanations would turn up exclusively in southern Russia would have been exceedingly low. Greski, Bativa, and their colleagues argue that while this idea is difficult to prove, the clustering of these unusual trepanations suggests that southern Russia may have been a center for ritual trepanation. Maria Mednikova of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow is an expert on Russian trepanation. She believes that trepanations in specific dangerous areas of the cranium may have been performed to achieve transformations of some kind. She suggests that by trepanning in these places, people thought they could acquire unique skills that ordinary members of society did not have. We can only speculate as to why these 12 apparently healthy people were trepanned in such an unusual and dangerous way, but thanks to the trepanation holes themselves, we can infer a surprising amount about the fate of the people after they received their trepanation. One of the 12 skulls belonged to a woman under the age of 25 who had been buried at one of the sites near Rostov-on-Don. It showed no signs of healing, suggesting that she died during her trepanation or shortly afterwards. However, the owners of the other skulls seemed to have survived their operations. Their skulls showed bone healing around the edges of the trepanation holes, although the bone never completely re-grew over the holes. Three of the 12 skulls showed only slight signs of healing around the trepanation hole, suggesting that their owners only survived between two and eight weeks after the operation. Two of these individuals were women between 20 and 35 years of age. The third was an elderly person between 50 and 70 years old whose sex could not be determined. The other eight skulls showed more advanced healing. Based on what we know about bone healing today, these individuals probably survived for at least four years after their operations. These eight survivors included all five of the people from the mass grave near Rostov-on-Don, whose bizarrely trepanned skulls first attracted Bativ's attention almost 20 years ago. The two men, two women, and one adolescent girl had all survived with their obelion holes for years. The girl, who based on her skeleton was between 14 and 16 years old, must have been trepanned when she was no older than 12 and possibly much younger. It is still possible that these 12 people were suffering from diseases or head injuries. In that case, the trepanning operation may have worked for at least eight of them. But it is also possible that Bativa and her colleagues are right, and these people were trepanned for a ritual purpose. If that is true, we can only guess at what benefits they received or believed they had received throughout the rest of their lives. The Shadow Man Anyone who has been interested in the paranormal has undoubtedly heard the stories of shadow people, entities seen out of the corner of your eye, or brief glimpses of humanoid forms very much like shadows that bring a feeling of dread or fear and dissipate or flee when approached. A humanoid figure that you perceive in a patch of shadow. Some believe that they are supernatural spirits or extra-dimensional beings. Most encounters with shadow people, those smoky person-shaped entities that move around in the dark, are fleeting glimpses. They are seen out of the corner of your eye swiftly passing across a wall or ducking around a corner. You may wonder if the rational explanation for these quick glimpses are that they are imagined or just ordinary shadows of some kind. Maybe they are real, maybe they are not. Another kind of shadow person encounter, a close encounter of the second kind to borrow Jay Allen Heineck's UFO classification system, is rarer and more compelling. The witness sees the shadow entity for an extended period, not merely a passing glance. It could be for half a minute, a few minutes or even more. The witness can often also detect human-like movement, the raising of an arm, the turn of a head, or walking. The witness gets a pretty good look at the thing and is able to describe it in some detail. Very often, these detailed descriptions compel the witness to ascribe an intelligence to the specter. It is not just a shadow, it seems to be an entity that moves and even reacts with purpose. A shadow person encounter of the third kind is rarer still. Contact. In this case, the witness actually is touched or otherwise affected physically by the entity. We'll look more at shadow people when Weird Darkness returns. You can get more Weird Darkness seven days a week through the Weird Darkness podcast, which you can find wherever you listen to podcasts. Or visit WeirdDarkness.com slash listen. There have been monsters among us lurking in the darkest corners of America, preying on children since the first settlers arrived on our shores. They have always been with us, stalking the innocent from the days of the original colonies to the gilded age, the depression, and beyond. These monsters are not the stuff of fiction. They are bloodcurdlingly real and they still walk among us, always looking for their next victim. In the Chilling Book, Suffer the Children, Troy Taylor shines a light on the darkest tales of horror and hauntings from American history and presents a terrifying collection of dark crimes perpetrated against our most tender victims, our children. His most disturbing book yet includes nightmarish tales from the 19th century, when the good old days were never good. Like the Monster of the North Wood, the Pocassette Horror and the Girl in the Cellar, and continues into the modern day with accounts of the Clarkson Woods, America's first school massacre, Wineville Chicken Coupe Murders, Babes of Englewood, Suzanne Degnan, the Girl Scout Camp Massacre, the Perfect Murder of Bobby Franks, and many more. Be warned, this is not a book for the faint of heart. These are tales containing brutal, agonizing, and terrifying scenes of horror. Suffer the Children, American Horror's Homicides at Hauntings, Deadman, Do Tell Tale Series, Book 15, by Troy Taylor. Hear a free sample on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. We're talking about shadow people, and now we're going to touch on how they might be connected to sleep paralysis. These perceptions of shadow people often occur when you awaken partially and are in the stage of REM sleep paralysis. You are semi-conscious, but your vivid dreams from REM sleep continue, and you can experience hallucinations, including that there is an intruder in your bedroom. During this phase, you are unable to move or speak, but your senses seem to be clear. Neuroscientists say at least 20% of the population experiences these sleep paralysis episodes. Researchers have reproduced these feelings by stimulating a sight in the brain's left hemisphere. When you're fully awake but hyper-vigilant, such as when walking alone at night, you might become fearful of any shadowy movement and imagine a threat. Heidi Hollis wrote a book on shadow people, The Secret War, The Heavens Speak of the Battle, which I've linked to in the show notes, and she's appeared often on Art Bell's coast-to-coast AM radio show to discuss the topic. She believes they are aliens and gives advice on warding them off. Shadow people have been the topic of horror movies and a 1985 Twilight Zone episode. Michael W. tells of his close encounter in the fall of 1998. It has many typical characteristics, including that his perceptions happened when he awoke during the night. He just purchased a home and spent the day painting it before moving in. His friends left for the night, but he decided to sleep in a beanbag chair. He awoke in the middle of the night feeling thirsty and went into the dark kitchen for a glass of water. That's when I got a distinct feeling that someone was watching me. There, at the top of the basement stairs and in front of the light switch, I could distinctly make out the figure of what I automatically assumed was my good friend Larry. He called out to the figure, which didn't respond. I was still absolutely convinced that I was looking at a living person. My guard went up with the dangerous possibilities of who it could be. He took out his pocketknife in case he needed to defend himself. Then, in an instant, the shadow moved forward in my direction. I lunged forward with the knife extended outward. I saw the shadow move into my arm as if deliberately trying to impale himself on my weapon, and it kept on coming. He screamed, and the entity continued straight through his body. I spun around in a circular motion 180 degrees. I saw the shadow moving at an almost leisurely pace away from me. It proceeded through the large kitchen into the adjoining dining room and finally through the wall that would have led outside if it were a door. He finally turned on the light switch. Wide awake now, he searched the house and found nothing, and evacuated to his old apartment for the rest of the night. He never had a repeat of that encounter while living in the house. Of note, he said he wondered whether he was thirsty due to the paint fumes. A rational explanation would be that those could have been an influence, as well as an episode of a hallucination associated with sleep paralysis. He wondered if it might be associated with the address ending in 666 and that the house was aligned with Magnetic North. Humans have always had a dark side. Maybe when you think of human sacrifice, you picture grand and graphic Aztec or Mayan ceremonies. While civilizations such as these certainly did their share of brutal sacrificing, they were by no means the only ancient civilizations that participated in death rituals. From ancient China to England to Egypt, civilizations throughout history developed quite a few human sacrifice methods. Mostly these were religious human sacrifices, though sometimes they were carried out as punishment or as a part of local traditions. Those who sacrificed humans used a number of brutal techniques to do so, including decapitation, strangulation, whipping, burning, cannibalism, and burying victims alive. If anything, this list demonstrates the disturbing creativity of human bloodlust. The ancient British left no written historical records of their own, so much of what we know about ancient Britain is based on Roman writings. Julius Caesar wrote that druids built massive wicker men, loaded them with human and animal sacrifices and lit them on fire. Others suggest this is Roman hyperbole, designed to make the British appear savage. Whether or not human sacrifices actually happened in wicker effigies, evidence does exist of human sacrifices in ancient Britain. Bodies found in bogs show evidence of ritualistic slaying, possibly undertaken as offerings to the gods. One of the most powerful empires in Chinese history, the Shang dynasty, lasted for more than 500 years and is the first recorded period in ancient Chinese history. It was also home to brutal techniques focused on ripping apart the bodies of those who were sacrificed. Shang human sacrifice victims were burned, split into halves, beheaded, or chopped up. The most common ceremonies were pit, foundation, and interment sacrifices. For pit sacrifices, young men were ripped apart and buried without their possessions. Foundation sacrifices involved children and infants, while interment sacrifices focused on young women. Some of the people sacrificed were captives, others criminals. The Shang also made sacrifices to various gods. Early Tahitian invaders of Hawaii practiced a number of human sacrifice techniques, victimizing descendants of the Polynesians who initially settled the Hawaiian Islands. Those sacrificed were mostly captives, though some were tribe members who broke laws or committed taboo acts. Sacrifice techniques included strangulation, bone breaking, and the complete removal of the intestines. Early Hawaiians practiced human sacrifice to appease ku, the god of war and defense in order to ensure victory in future battles. Captives from enemy tribes, especially chiefs, were sacrificed in sacred temples through a variety of means, including being hung upside down, bludgeoned, and bled. They were then disemboweled and the remaining flesh either cooked or raw was eaten by the priest and the chief of the tribe. In the golden age of ancient Egypt, pharaohs were buried with effigies of their retainers, servants and other followers, but pharaohs of the First Dynasty were buried with their actual living retainers, in a practice known as retainer sacrifice. These servants and sometimes high-ranking officials were sacrificed in accordance with religious beliefs. According to these beliefs, servants were meant to continue serving their rulers after they perished. Essentially, rulers were so important that they needed an entourage in the afterlife. As the First Dynasty ended, retainers managed to convince pharaohs that they could better serve if left alive to continue carrying out the will of the pharaoh on earth. Like the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, the royals of ancient Mesopotamia were buried with the rest of their household. This included some members of the royal court, such as soldiers, handmaidens, and servants. Human remains found at an archaeological site in Ur, now Iraq, attest to more than 2000 people being sacrificed in this way. In an innocent near past, experts believed victims of sacrifices in Mesopotamia were poisoned peacefully before burial. Recent discoveries suggest a more brutal practice. Analysis of skeletal remains suggest that the victims were struck in the head before burial. Some have speculated that targets may have been struck in the head to end them, because the poison wasn't enough, thus preventing them from being buried alive. However, the truth about why they were dispatched in such a way remains unknown. Many probably think first of the Aztecs when they hear ritualistic human sacrifice, and with good reason. Human sacrifice was widespread in Aztec culture, and sacrificial techniques were ruthless. The Aztec worshipped a pantheon of gods that they believed they had to appease through blood sacrifice, both animal and human. Archaeologists estimated that a few thousand people were sacrificially slain each year for this purpose. While some came from the Aztec community, many were prisoners of war. During sacrificial rituals to the sun god, the victim was forced to walk up the many steps of a temple. At the top, a priest cut the person open from throat to stomach. The heart was then removed and offered to the god. The person was then pushed from the top of the temple down the stairs to the bottom, where they were dismembered or taken away. In ancient Fiji, the traditions of some indigenous groups required that a widow be strangled shortly after her husband's passing. This ritual was carried out because Fijians believed all women should accompany their husbands in the afterlife. These widows were referred to as the carpeting of his grave. It was common in most tribes for the widow's brother to strangle her, or at least oversee the act. Australian anthropologist Lorimer Fyzen reportedly overheard the following between a sister and a brother while studying the tribe's in question. O Mette Kimbao, the wife, cried, Milani is dead. Take pity upon me and strangle me today. All right, her brother replied, go now and bathe yourself and put on your ornaments. You shall be strangled by and by. Ain't family love grand? It's what Hanu was an annual celebration in Dahome, an ancient West African kingdom located in present Daigana. The ceremony consisted of many things, including the sacrifice of slaves to honor deceased kings. The preferred method of sacrifice was decapitation. So many sacrificial victims were beheaded that the ceremony's name translates to yearly head business. One source states that thousands of people were sacrificed under the leadership of one king. The Mayans were a highly religious people known for hosting elaborate ceremonies. One of these ceremonies included the seemingly brutal practice of throwing human sacrifices into large limestone pits called sea notes, which typically had water at the bottom. These huge natural sinkholes were believed to be portals to the spiritual realm. Therefore, people were pushed into them as divine sacrifices. The Japanese practiced an honorary form of self-sacrifice called sapuku, often referred to as harikiri in the West. The Japanese typically referred to it as sapuku. This practice was one of the many ritualized aspects of the life of samurai in feudal Japan. Samurai committed sapuku for a variety of reasons, as punishment for a crime, to restore their honor, or to show solidarity with a recently deceased lord. The ritual had several steps. First, the warrior ate his favorite meal, dressed in his best robes, drank sake and wrote, then recited a death poem. Next, he thrust a dagger into the left side of his own abdomen, believed to release his spirit, drew the blade laterally to the right, and then turned the blade upward. The end of the ceremony required an assistant, called a kaishikunin, to finish the sacrifice by decapitating the samurai. Over the course of hundreds of years, ending in 1830, an organized crew of dangerous outlaws known as thugs, or thuggy, brutally sacrificed more than 30,000 people throughout India. Considered a cult of religious assassins by some, the superstitious thugs found targets by following natural phenomena they believed to be omens. They ended their targets in a variety of ways, including strangling them with handkerchiefs. The sacrifices were meant to honor Kali, the goddess of creation, preservation, and destruction. Thugs would disguise themselves as travelers, merchants, or soldiers to gain the trust of their targets. Despite its bloody activities, the cult had a strict code of ethics. According to one source, they were prohibited from sacrificing bakirs, musicians, dancers, sweepers, oil vendors, carpenters, blacksmiths, maimed or leperous persons, Ganges water carriers, and women. However, they would sometimes slay women if it was necessary to maintain the cult's secrecy. When Weird Darkness returns, could there be evidence of extraterrestrials on our moon? We'll discuss the possibility. Do you keep a journal or diary? If not, maybe you should consider it. It has been shown that journaling can help you reduce stress, help relieve depression, build 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 long 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, for teachers' 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 Anne 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. Is there any evidence of extraterrestrial's presence on our Moon? A Harvard astronomer suggests our satellite may offer proof of extraterrestrial life. While astronomers keep looking and listening to the stars attempting to locate alien life, there could be other options we haven't yet considered. Dr. Averham Avi Loeb, a professor of astronomy at Harvard, thinks we should focus more on space archaeology. That's a fascinating but neglected science field. By mapping sites from space, we can expect to find the unexpected. There are certain ruins and artifacts scattered all across our own planet. Could such ancient sites not be present on alien worlds? Could not extraterrestrials have built monuments and left behind evidence of their existence? Our current space technology doesn't allow us to explore distant regions of the universe, but why not take a closer look at the Moon? The Moon is interesting for two reasons, Professor Loeb explains. One, the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere, so anything that impacts the Moon will not burn up. Moreover, the Moon also doesn't have geological activity. Our Moon's surface doesn't recycle materials the way our planet does. Basically, it means that anything that has come into contact with our Moon, be it microbial life or single-celled organisms, could remain in some capacity on the surface. This is of course a good thing if we want to find traces of extraterrestrial life. We shouldn't dismiss the possibility that while exploring the Moon, our scientists can discover technological or biological material that is of extraterrestrial origin. Such alien material can come from another planetary system. Professor Loeb likens the Moon to a mailbox. If we never checked that mail, we would never know that we received the message. The message that extraterrestrial life exists. We have to remind ourselves that actually going places, going to another star takes a long time. If you use the current rockets that we have and you want to reach the nearest star, it will take a hundred thousand years, Professor Loeb says. Establishing a lunar base would allow scientists to create archaeological sites and start looking for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Seth Shostek, a senior astronomer at Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, SETI, is approaching Professor Loeb's theory with caution. I think it is good that he stimulates some thought on these things, said Shostek. On the other hand, you know, we've also got almost nothing on the Moon, so we don't really know. Professor Loeb is not the only scientist who has proposed evidence of extraterrestrial life may be much closer than we think. One of the reasons we have not found such alien artifacts is because we have not looked in all places. Scientists have previously made clear that extraterrestrial artifacts in our solar system could exist and observe us. Extraterrestrial artifacts may exist in the solar system without our knowledge simply because we have not yet searched sufficiently, said Jacob Hock-Misra, Rock Ethics Institute, and Ravi Kumar Kapparapu, Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. The surface of the Earth is one of the few places in the solar system that's been almost completely examined at a spatial resolution of less than three feet, that Hock-Misra and Kapparapu. But even as humans have spread across the solid surfaces of the Earth, there are still caves, jungles and deserts as well as the ocean floor and subsurface areas that have not been explored. The Moon has been searched to a small extent, and we simply don't know what's there. Space archaeology can bring us a long-awaited confirmation that we are not alone in the universe. While we're on the subject of aliens, the May 2023 issue of Paranormality Magazine has a short column entitled What Does It Mean to Dream About Aliens? This is what it says. Dreaming about aliens can be a perplexing and intriguing experience. The idea of extraterrestrial life and the possibility of contact with beings from another world has fascinated people for centuries. However, what does it mean when you dream about aliens? Is it simply a reflection of or a fascination with the unknown? Or is there a deeper meaning to these dreams? One interpretation of dreaming about aliens is that it represents our subconscious fears and anxieties about the unknown. Our dreams often reflect our waking life experiences, and the idea of encountering something we cannot explain or understand can be a source of anxiety. In this case, dreaming about aliens may be a manifestation of these fears. Another interpretation of dreaming about aliens is that it represents our desire for connection and communication. Humans are social creatures, and the idea of communicating with beings from another world can be seen as a way to satisfy our need for social interaction and a sense of community. In this case, the aliens in our dreams can be seen as symbols of our need for connection and the search for a sense of belonging. Alternatively, dreaming about aliens can also represent our curiosity and thirst for knowledge. As humans, we are naturally curious beings and are always seeking answers to life's big questions. The possibility of extraterrestrial life and communication with aliens can be seen as an opportunity to gain knowledge and learn more about our place in the universe. It is important to note that the interpretation of dreams about aliens is highly subjective and can vary greatly depending on the individual's personal beliefs and experiences. For example, someone who firmly believes in the existence of extraterrestrial life may interpret their dream differently than someone who is skeptical of this idea. If you have been having weird or reoccurring dreams and are interested in exploring its possible meaning, the best thing to do is to keep a dream journal that can help you identify any patterns or recurring themes in your dreams, including dreams about aliens. We were to discover that there were aliens still living on the moon and they were meddling in our affairs. How would you feel about that? That's in our Sudden Death Overtime content tonight, which you can find in the podcast version of tonight's show at WeirdDarkness.com. You can follow Weird Darkness on social media by visiting the Contact social page on the website and please tell others about Weird Darkness who love the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do. Doing that helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. You can like to be a part of the show, you can send in your own paranormal experiences by clicking on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com. All stories in 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, which I will upload to the Weird Darkness website immediately after tonight's show is ended. Trepanation, I need that like another hole in the head, was written by Robin Wiley for the BBC. Sadistic Sacrificing of Souls is by T. L. Perez for Ranker. Contact with A Shadow Man was written by Steven Wagner for Live About. Extraterrestrial Evidence of the Moon is by Cynthia McKenzie for Message to Eagle. And what does it mean to dream about aliens? It's from Paranormality Magazine. 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. Jeremiah 32 verse 17, Ah Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. And a final thought, there is no greater wealth in this world than peace of mind. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Don't go anywhere, weirdos, because sudden death over time is up next. Sometimes you feel a bit nutty, especially if you're a weirdo. If that feeling transfers to your taste buds as well, I've got some great news for you. Weird dark roast nutty mummy coffee. Wrap your taste buds around this medium dark roast blend with shrouds of almond, honey, and chocolate. Each bag of nutty mummy is exclusive to Weird Darkness and is roasted to order. Then bandaged, I mean bagged specifically for you to ensure a maximum freshness for you, your mummy, and anyone else you share it with. Entomb your old coffee and bring your taste buds back from the dead with Weird Dark Roast Nutty Mummy at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. Spooky tales from security guards who work the night shift are unexpectedly diverse. The creepiest night shift stories shared on Reddit from guards who have worked everywhere from a brewery to a nursing home feature laughing clowns, screaming nuns, and wild animals that become bold when the sun goes down. Anyone who works a graveyard shift when all is dark, quiet, and a little foreboding might be prone to weird work encounters. Security guards like prison guards get a double whammy because they're in charge of actually looking into the weirdness. Some of the strangest stories from security guards after dark are also the most entertaining. And though these harrowing tales often start out like the opening of a horror film, some do have a happy ending. 3. From Redditor Exauxa I work third shift security at a brewery. My first week of working here, something just felt off. I dismissed it as being a new work environment plus me being alone at night. There are two main buildings, the brewery and the bar about 200 feet away on the same property. The third shift guards hang out in the bar at night since it has a good overlook of the facility. The lights automatically turn off and come on with motion. I was coming back from a patrol around the facility. The lights in the main room and the back room were off, but the door to the back room was open. I walked into the bar, like normal, and the lights came on after I took a few steps inside. Then I froze. In that doorway, there was a thing, humanoid but not quite. Its arms were way too long and its hair covered most of its upper body. The doorway was almost too small for it to get through, but after a few seconds I blinked and it was gone. Apparently I'm not the only one who's seen it. After asking around a bit, a few of the day shift guys seemed to know what I was talking about, but most refused to talk about it. Over the next few weeks I had a few more run-ins with him, but only in the bar. I thought he couldn't leave it. One of the main public areas inside the brewery has a set of two doors, the outside and inside doors, kind of like an airlock. When you scan your access card after hours, the doors automatically open then close after about 30 seconds. The outside door has a tendency to get stuck though, so I stood in that airlock space, looking outside, waiting for the door to close. The inside door closed first, behind me, then the outside door closed. As it did, I see in the reflection the thing standing right behind me, towering over me, staring down, long arms hanging at his side. I no longer stand in that space when I wait for the doors to close. I go inside, turn the lights on, then turn around and wait for the door to close. From Redditor, Narbutta. I used to work security for a ski resort. I was swing shift, 4pm to midnight. After every shift, I had about a 20 minute walk down a dark mountain road through the woods to reach my bus stop. Also, there were no street lights. After a week or so, I started getting stalked by a pack of coyotes. One coyote isn't terribly impressive, like an ugly medium sized dog. Two coyotes aren't super intimidating either, but three or more is a different story. Once it's a proper pack, they get bold. The first couple nights it was just one or two. I could see their eyes shine about 40 or 50 yards in the woods. They checked me out, then run off. After a week or two, more started showing up. Four or five at a time. Once I counted eight. The thing is, once there were three or more, they didn't run off. They'd follow me from the treeline. Every once in a while, crossing the street in front or behind me. They also stopped keeping their distance. They'd come as close as 20 feet or less. Seeing eight pairs of glowing eyes is creepy, but the noises they make, holy crap. I carried bare mace at the ready during my walks to the bus stop for the whole season, from Redditor Ole Robin. I was the last overnight shift watch on a naval air station in a building that did advance maintenance on planes, but was not a hanger. Around 2 a.m. on my rounds, I hear people talking from the mechanic shop. No big deal, as sometimes those guys pull all nighters or are asked to come in early. I go down there because I'm bored, but all the lights are off and it's empty. Weird. I tell the senior watch on duty in the front of the building and he says no one's signed in and it's just the two of us. About an hour later, I hear it again, while walking around and I investigate. Lights out, no one's there. Getting weirder. The third time it happens, it's about 4 a.m. and the senior watch and I are sitting up front watching TV in both clearly hear tools being thrown around the mechanic shop, clanging on the floor and a hollow banging against an engine that was in there. He tells me to go see what's going on and I tell him no way. My discharge is in about a month and he could go look himself. He shrugs it off and goes back to watching TV. I check in with the mechanic guys the next day and they said their tools have not been moved and no one had been in overnight. From Redditor, LambNinja28. During my time as a sheriff's deputy, I worked as a nightguard for a local branch of a massive investment firm for extra cash, the 4 p.m. to 12 a.m. shift on weekends. There were only two guards on shift at any time. The facility was three buildings across a four acre property, gated and on the tail end of an industrial park on the border of a really rough neighborhood. One night I was on guard during December and a lot of the desks were covered in Christmas decorations and wrapping paper. The other guard was a fellow soldier with me in the National Guard so we both knew we were trained and had each other's backs. Suddenly my radio lit up and my buddy tells me the cameras in one of the cubicle areas was feeding black and he thinks the lights went out. My job was to walk over there and reset the breaker and get the lights back on. I turned around and began to walk down the hallway. It was absolutely pitch black. No service lights, no door lights, no faint glow of computers left on, nothing. The air felt cold and my flashlight felt darker than normal. Something wasn't right. My heartbeat began to speed up as I remembered the breaker room was all the way in the back near the server and I had to walk down nearly 40 rows of cubicles to get there. I kept hearing this odd clicking sound as I began to slowly walk through the cubicle row. Suddenly I saw a silhouette crouched down between the two cubicles in the back. I pinged the radio twice to signal my buddy to get 911 on standby and began to slowly walk toward it issuing verbal commands. Stand up! Face me now! I yelled at the silhouette wondering why it wasn't moving. As my flashlight hit it, it was a clown statue holding a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I laughed. My hands were shaking, I was sweaty, I genuinely was happy I didn't have to use force or possibly take a life that night. I felt so relieved. I walked up to it planning to move it back inside of a cubicle to get it out of our way. Suddenly it lit up and laughed loudly and sharply. I took off running. The thing absolutely caught me off guard and scared the living crap out of me. Nothing scared me as much as that clown laughing at me. Eyes and nose glowing red. I ran all the way back to the front desk and made my buddy get the lights on in there. I'm not even scared of clowns normally, but that one in particular that continued to creep me out the rest of the time I worked there. From Redditor Sean Eyre. I worked the third shift at a long-term care place for retired nuns and priests in Ohio. I could tell you some stories about how the clergy act when they start to slip at old age, but overall there was a good job with good people in it. I would only have a desk light on in between rounds and would often spend my nights reading. One night after my second set of rounds I looked up to see one of the sisters who rarely ever got out of bed, let alone speak, she had severe dementia standing in her nightgown directly in front of her door, pointing out the window in the common room I was in. She started screaming, Omega, Omega! I was 24 at the time and straight up almost lost it. There really is no way to describe the sound, but it was some serious next level silent hill never sleep again stuff. One of the nurses came over and helped her back to her bed and when she came back out she must have seen my face. She politely told me Omega was her sister's name. It was a solid two hours later when I finally got calmed down enough to ask myself, who names their kid Omega? From Redditor Voter 1126. Back in the 80s I worked security to pay for college. I got put at a closed hospital. It was about 20 floors. They wanted you to walk each floor at the start and middle of the shift, which took about two and a half hours. It was like the set for one of the old horror movies. Most of the lights did not work and there were ceiling tiles hanging down all over the place. It was still full of unwanted equipment and since it was winter and the steam heat was on, there were noises on each floor. One night I was on the 15th floor and I heard a loud crash down on the side corridors that freaked me out. Turned out a pipe and the ceiling was leaking and 10 ceiling tiles all let go at the same time. Probably the creepiest was walking through the 18th floor because it had these all tiled operating rooms that had observation windows around the top and all the operating tables and other equipment was still there. I only went to the 20th floor one time. I don't know if they did cancer treatments there or what, but when I walked through there were boxes with radiation symbols so I just decided the 19th floor was good enough. From Redditor Shag1257. I worked nights at a hotel so have seen some stuff. Once I had a guy come in and just stare at me like no blinking, hands resting, shoulder with the part, he was just very broad-shouldered and he said nothing, just stared. I asked if I could help him like three times but every time nothing. Eventually his friend came in, grabbed him by the shoulder and ushered him out the door and apologized to me. I had to get on the closed circuit television afterward to make sure I wasn't suffering sleep deprivation. Either the guy was tripping or just a weird guy. Either way I'll never know. From Redditor Stormstalker. I used to work as a security officer. For a while I was posted at a summer camp. This camp was set way back in the woods so between that and the huge amount of food and garbage the campers left scattered all over the place we occasionally had problems with bears. One night I was doing my patrols around 2am or so and I noticed one of the doors to the kitchen was open. This was one of those big, industrial size kitchens so I figured somebody snuck in to get a snack. I figured I'd catch them in the act for a bit of fun. I rushed through the door quickly and turned my very bright flashlight on but didn't see a camper or a counselor. Nope. I saw a huge black bear trying to break into one of the coolers where they kept the fruit. This bear was probably a good 400-500 pounds and he did not appreciate my interrupting his snack time. I immediately lowered my flashlight and slowly backed away to try to give him space but he started to follow me out the door. I'd gotten probably 50 feet away from the kitchen when he came out the door but instead of running away he just turned and sort of eyed me up. I was trying to keep backing away slowly when he began displaying signs of aggression, swaying his head and snorting, laying back his ears and such. I took an aggressive posture, made myself as big as I could and started yelling and clapping and stomping at him. Usually at this point they'll just run off. They typically only act aggressively if they're scared and they normally back away if you confront them. Not this dude. He bluff charged at me and continued to act aggressively so I shined my flashlight directly at his face and tried to make as much noise as I could. Finally he retreated a bit but then he turned back around and kept watching from a distance. No matter what I tried I couldn't get him to flee the area. I was afraid some kid might come out of their bunk and end up getting mauled so eventually I had to put out an emergency call. The camp director and the rest of the staff were woken up and they came down in their jeeps. Believe it or not even driving toward this bear in a jeep with super bright banjo lights and the horn blaring didn't really faze him. He'd waddle away a few yards and then turn back to watch us again. We ultimately had to call the game warden and keep all the kids and counselors inside their bunks until the warden could come and trap the bear to move him to a different area. From Redditor Grundle Turf. In the winter we get homeless people sleeping in our stairwells so I have to kick them out. One time I went down and something leaped at me. I went, whew, just a cat. Then I remembered the horror movie trope and realized the real scare is coming up next. So I skipped checking the stairwells that night. From Redditor Sperry Monster. I was working a double shift and my work allowed us to have a personal computer at certain sites during the night since ultimately they just didn't want you sleeping on the job. The only real stipulation was that you couldn't have headphones on so you could maintain your situational awareness. At the time I was writing daily research reports on security issues for another internship I had. It involved a lot of news research. I'd still have to get up regularly and do routine patrols which would always get you a little paranoid during a night shift. Anyway, one night I'm back from patrol and I suddenly hear randomly some guy speaking in Arabic. I freaked out at first because this post had a radio so I thought somebody had hacked into our comms. Turns out it was just a video on autoplay on a background news tab that must have taken a while to load so I never noticed it. I know it's not the scariest stuff for other people but there's nothing quite as freaky on a shift as sound when there should be silence. From Redditor Jamon Madrid. I was working the night shift on a university campus. It was my first time working the Christmas break. Generally most students go home unless they have permission to stay. I was performing lock up that night and after I finished my buildings they wanted me to patrol the upper floors of the dorms to look for signs of water leaks in the hallways. The dorms are supposed to be mostly empty so I'm not expecting to see anyone. I get to the first dorm and ride the elevator to the top floor. The elevator opens into the common area. Little do I know on either side of the elevator are mirrors on the wall. I step off the elevator either looking straight ahead or at my phone. I notice something moving out of the corner of my eye so I turn my head to look and yell out son of a took me a second to register that it was me in the mirror. From Redditor Outsider on the inside. I was a security guard at a college that had these huge old mansions on campus. Those became halls for classes. They were locked up at night and just flat out gorgeous. The lawn around it was massive then hit a dense wood line. I was a big ex files fan so I thought the worst when I saw a pair of eyes glowing in the woods. I then hit the brights on my truck and there were 20 or more pairs of eyes staring back. I flipped out and stupidly started heading toward them with my flashlight. When I was about 50 yards away I realized they were just deer, not monsters. From Redditor Hattix. I'm night security in December at a British woodland. They were doing work on the paths and walkways and I was guarding the equipment. One night I heard a blood curdling scream. It didn't echo but sort of filtered around the trees. Then I heard it again. It was a woman screaming but at the same time it maybe wasn't. Whatever it was it pierced the silent darkness like so many well-aimed arrows. I had no lighting, only a flashlight. We didn't have 3,000 lumens of LEDs in our pockets in 1999. I had to find out what this was and to me the key was lighting up the forest. I got 15 5 watt halogen bulbs designed a circuit to run them and used four D-sized NIM cells to power it. It'd last maybe 10 minutes but enough to see what was making that noise. I'd get maybe 1,000 lumens out of it. For comparison, the headlights on my current MTV is 3,000 lumens and uses four 18650 lithium ion cells to last around 4 hours. Being 1998 I used CB radio. I got talking to a friend who was a groundskeeper at a nearby stately home. I mentioned this god of all flashlights I was building and why and he laughed at me. Sounds like a vixen in heat. They sound like that. They're not dangerous. The girls will be even more skittish than usual when they're in heat. All you're going to do is terrify them and you won't see them in the undergrowth anyway. From Redditor, Jackson. I worked the 12 hour night post. I was tired and had to go to the bathroom after doing nothing but look at a fence for hours, eat pop tarts and down coffee like my life depended on it. Luckily it was like 4am and foggy so I walked over to a tree a couple of feet behind our vehicle, still wearing my gear. I left the door on my vehicle open. Anyway I've finished up, still bored, but it was pop tart time again. I walked back to my seat and something moved directly in front of me on my seat maybe 8 inches away. There was a fat raccoon stealing my half eaten pop tart directly in front of my face. This guy managed to sneak in with the driver a foot away and all our defenses were useless against his cunning creature of the night. Instinctively I jumped back as fast as I could shouting expletives of course. The little guy sprinted off with what remained of my pop tart clutched in his two front people hands running on his hind legs like a demon out into the mists. Gone. After I made the discovery that there were night demons in our ranks I was determined to find where they came from. They came down from the trees. We debated hunting them, instead we befriended the creatures of the night. We made trails of pop tarts leading back to us and eventually lured them in to drink little cups of coffee creamer. It was adorable and much less boring than watching fences. One night I was working in Porter Ranch, California. It was an outside job. It was about 3 am and I looked up to my left and there was what I could only describe as a giant cigar shaped black blimp in the sky. It was so huge and it looked so close my heart dropped and I just stared in awe. I was convinced I just observed aliens. I would tell this story to my friends and family for years and they would literally always laugh. Sometime later I came across an article that showed something like what I saw and apparently it was a military blimp. It was much fatter in a sense to where what I saw was elongated. Winter has Louisville in its grip and former FBI agent Dallas Powell has his hands full with car trouble, cat trouble and trying to keep the derby city branch of true blood investigations and security ink solvent. When a juicy insurance job comes his way he jumps at it but the discovery of a decades old murder spawns a veritable blizzard of violence and Dallas finds himself right in its path. Winter Wonderland, a Dallas Powell mystery by T. Lee Harris, narrated by Darren Marlar. You're a free sample on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. This is a hypothetical scenario that should serve as food for thought. Let's assume that extraterrestrials do exist and an advanced alien race is in close vicinity of our planet watching us. They can have probes observing events taking place on the earth. Let's also assume these extraterrestrials are very advanced and could help humans solving a variety of problems like for example finding a cure for COVID-19. The question is, should extraterrestrials interfere in human affairs if they can help us? Do we deserve their compassion and gift of knowledge? Some will say every sentient being who possesses adequate means is obliged to help those who require assistance. Empathy makes us human, but why should we assume this is also an extraterrestrial personality trait? We don't know anything about alien logic, intelligence or emotions. Many will argue humanity doesn't deserve help from extraterrestrial intelligence. Our history books offer proof we are a violent and destructive race. A quick look at our planet today shows we disrespect other life forms and destroy our nature. Perhaps extraterrestrials observe us and think that we don't deserve to call this beautiful planet our home. If you're a fan of Star Trek, you'll remember how Seven of Nine described humans in the episode Scorpion. Seven of Nine said, When your captain first approached us we suspected that an agreement with humans would prove impossible to maintain. You are erratic, conflicted, disorganized, every decision is debated, every action questioned, every individual entitled to their own small opinion. Could this be how extraterrestrials see humanity? Ufologist and former Ministry of Defense UFO investigator Nick Pope warned that humans are totally unprepared for an alien invasion. Who could argue with that? We have successfully demonstrated we are unprepared for a pandemic outbreak so it's unlikely our world could handle a superior alien force that has hostile intentions. In most science fiction movies, extraterrestrials are presented as the bad guys and they are part of a hostile invasion force. For some reason these highly advanced alien beings travel several light years with the goal to destroy earth and humans. Many of the extraterrestrial invasion scenarios make a good movie plot but how realistic are they from a scientific point of view? An astrobiologist has examined five possible extraterrestrial invasion scenarios and his conclusions are more optimistic and show us we shouldn't be afraid of our alien visitors. Most alien invasion scenarios are simply unrealistic. A while back researchers suggested that extraterrestrials are deliberately waiting for the right moment before they reveal themselves to earthlings, which I also covered in the episode Invisible Aliens and Self-Replicating Robots, which I'll link to in the show notes. If aliens wait and hope humans will evolve spiritually then they may have to wait a very long time. Returning back to Star Trek, many will remember that the Prime Directive prohibits its members from interfering with the internal and natural development of alien civilizations. The Prime Directive applies particularly to civilizations which are below a certain threshold of technological, scientific, and cultural development. It prevents starship crews from using their superior technology to impose their own values or ideals on them. So if an advanced alien race wants to help another alien culture it cannot do so without breaking the rules. Even if many think this way of reasoning is unethical, the Prime Directive is an ethical guideline for how to treat cultures based on a policy of egalitarianism and trust. It ensures every culture is given the opportunity to develop on its own without interference. Could extraterrestrials watching us be prohibited in interfering in our development? Another possibility is that we have reached a stage when we can apply for membership in the Galactic Club, also covered in the Invisible Aliens and Self-Replicating Robots episode. According to David Schwartzman, a biochemist at Howard University in Washington DC, aliens are out there, but there are several things we must accomplish before planet Earth can be initiated into the Galactic Club. Our world will change completely once we enter the Galactic Club. I submit that if we want to enter the Galactic Club, the challenge lies in reconstructing our global political economy. A few minor side benefits should result like no more war, no more poverty, a future for all of humanity's children with a substantial proportion of biodiversity intact. We should not expect the Galactic Club to save us from ourselves, Schwartzman said. Even if extraterrestrials are out there and they're unwilling to help humanity, it's still in our best interest to save our planet and do what's right for future generations. Maybe one day in the future humans will explore beautiful, exotic alien worlds. Right now, planet Earth is our home. Our only home. Henry and Mad Marty are presenting 1950's Quick Sand, starring Mickey Rooney and Peter Laurie. In the film, a man takes $20 from his employer to go on a date, planning to replace the money the next day. But he falls increasingly into more disastrous circumstances and further in need of more money, and it spirals out of control. Join us Friday, February 9th for Quick Sand. It's free to watch online, and you can chat along with the rest of us weirdos as we watch the movie together. The show begins at 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Central, 6 p.m. Mountain, and 5 p.m. Pacific. You can watch a trailer for the film and watch horror hosts and schlocky B-movies anytime, day or night on the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com. 1950's Quick Sand, starring Mickey Rooney and Peter Laurie. Friday, February 9th on the Weirdo Watch Party page. Hey Weirdos, be sure to click the like button and subscribe to this channel, and click the notification bell so you don't miss future videos. I post videos seven days a week, and while you're at it, spread the darkness by sharing this video with someone you know who loves all things strange and macabre. If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com.