 Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. In the weird world of the paranormal, there are certainly a lot of strange, often eyebrow-raising things that are reportedly seen and encountered. From ghosts to aliens, UFOs, bigfoot, demons, angels, and everything in between, there's no shortage of bizarre things that people claim to see. Yet these are all perhaps pretty small time compared to the sheer, utter outlandishness that is Santa Claus sightings. I'm not making this up, and I'm not talking about saying a fat, bearded guy dressed up like Santa at the mall or something set in jest or to encourage a small kid waiting for the big guy. I'm talking about actual, real reports from otherwise seemingly perfectly sane and sober people who insist that they have really actually seen or even encountered none other than Santa Claus, and it's all every bit as bizarre as it sounds. Fasten your seatbelts, because we're going for a whirling ride to some deeply weird reports and onto theories that lie on the very fringe of the paranormal world. I'm Darren Marlar, and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar, and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved, and unexplained. Coming up in this episode, many of us are familiar with the flip side of Father Christmas, the darker entity who visits and kidnaps bad children, Krampus. But when it comes to true fear, even Krampus would run in terror at the sight of Iceland's Grilla, the Christmas Witch. With roots dating back to the 13th century, Grilla is not to be messed with. It was Christmastime, 1938, and 19-year-old Margaret Martin had just graduated from Wilkes Bar Business College with honors and was eager to secure a secretarial job. Her eagerness would lead to her disappearance. Ask anyone over the age of 12 what they think about the existence of Santa Claus and you'll most assuredly get the same answer. But that has not stopped people of all ages reporting sightings of the jolly old elf, and some of the stories are downright creepy. But first, two murderers committed in the same house during the holidays of 1928 appear to have resulted in the spirits of Christmas past haunting the place today. 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. Recommending weird darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com where you can send in your own personal paranormal stories. Watch horror hosts present old scary movies 24-7. Shop for Weird Darkness and Weirdo merchandise. Listen to free audiobooks that I've narrated. Sign up for the newsletter to win free stuff I give away every month and more. And on the social contact page, you can find the show on Facebook and Twitter and you can also join the Weird Darkness Weirdo's Facebook group. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. On December 12, 1928, two murders were committed in a historic home in Carbondale, Illinois and those who've lived and worked into place since that time have come to believe that the spirits of the dead still linger within its walls. The legend of the house claims that you can bury the bodies in Oakland Cemetery, but you can't make them rest there. Such stories are spread about a myriad of allegedly haunted houses in the state of Illinois, but few of them have seen the kind of carnage and violence that occurred in the Hunley House in 1928. John Charles Hunley was a prominent wealthy citizen of Carbondale at the time of his death. He had been the mayor of the city in 1907 and 1908 and enjoyed many friendships and business acquaintances throughout the area, but Hunley's life had not always been perfect. In fact, in 1893, he had committed murder. At that time, Hunley had killed a music teacher in town but was acquitted by a jury after pleading the unwritten law, meaning that he had murdered the man who had been sleeping with his wife. The incident led him to divorcing his wife, which caused bitter feelings between him and his son, Victor. Although the problems between them had supposedly been settled years before the elder Hunley's death, some witnesses would later claim that the quarrel continued. This led to Victor becoming the chief suspect in the murder of his father. Hunley remarried a few years later and in 1915 he and his wife Luella purchased a lot at the corner of Maple and Main Streets and constructed what became their sprawling and luxurious home. Luella Hunley was the daughter of Ruffin Harrison, one of the founders of the city of Heron and the owner of numerous coal mines in the region. She was the sister of George Harrison, president of Heron's First National Bank. She was said to have been an accomplished musician and very involved in local charity work. Perhaps for these reasons, she was regarded as having no enemies, which made her murder all the more puzzling. The lives of the Hunleys were destroyed just before midnight, Wednesday, December 12, 1928. Investigators believed that Mr. Hunley was murdered first. His body was found in an upstairs bedroom, dressed only in a night shirt and socks. He had been shot six times from behind by a .45 caliber revolver. His face had been ripped apart as the bullets exited his head. Mrs. Hunley was killed downstairs. She had been shot twice in the back of the head and once in the heart. She had been shot in a rear stairway, up which she had apparently started to climb in order to aid her husband. Her body had rolled into the kitchen and a pencil was resting next to her left hand. An unfinished letter on the table in an adjoining room was mute evidence of what she was doing when she was alarmed by the shots that killed her husband. According to newspaper reports, police officers called by neighbors across the street to heard the shots being fired arrived at the scene of the crime within minutes. Chief of Police Joe Montgomery told the press the following morning that robbery seemed to be the most likely motive for the murders, even though the house was not disturbed when officers arrived. The only evidence that pointed to a robbery of the house which contained valuable artwork, expensive furnishings and a large amount of cash was the discovery of an empty pocketbook on the floor near Luella Hunley's body. Neighbors told police they believed the purse was kept in a writing desk downstairs. For this reason and others still to be discovered, the police soon began to believe that there were other, darker motives for the crime. On the morning of December 13, police investigators thoroughly searched the Hunley house. Tracking dogs were brought in and placed on the trail of the killer and four times the dogs led their handlers straight to the home of John Charles Hunley's son, Victor, a prominent co-dealer in the city. Investigators believed that the killer might have been known to Mrs. Hunley because it appeared that she had opened the door and led him into the house as she would have done even at that late hour for her stepson. Victor also seemed to have a motive for the murders. At an inquest that was held that afternoon, Job Goodall, a friend of the Hunleys and the last person to see them alive, testified that the elder Hunley had recently told him that he planned to make a new will and disinherit Victor because, quote, he was no good, unquote. A bitter feud had long existed between father and son and while allegedly patched up, it had possibly flared into existence again. If this was the case, then Victor Hunley stood to lose a great amount of money if his father changed his will. Within a state worth more than $350,000, Victor would be left with only his trust fund, which amounted to less than $15,000. Goodall also told the coroner's jury that the Hunleys had been in excellent spirits when he visited them on the night of the murders. They were planning a motor trip to their winter home in Florida and they planned to leave on Sunday. Goodall left the Hunley home around 8 p.m. on Wednesday evening and stated that Mrs. Hunley had locked the rear door behind him. Officers who arrived at the house four hours later found this door unlocked. Another neighbor, Olga Kasper, who lived next door to the Hunleys, testified at the inquest that she had heard the fatal shots fired and had seen the lights in the house turned off immediately after. She said she heard someone running past her home, coming from the direction of the Hunley house and toward Victor's house a short time later. The person was so close to the house she said that they stumbled against a radio ground wire. Investigators from the Jackson County Sheriff's Office searched the route described by Mrs. Kasper and followed it to Victor Hunley's home, which was just 200 yards away. Along the path, officers found several slips of paper that were presumed to have been lost in flight. One paper, dated December 5th, was a notice of the termination of partnership of Mr. and Mrs. JC Hunley with Victor Hunley in his cold business. Another paper was a bank deposit slip, the back of which bore notes that figured out the interest on a loan that amounted to $532. The note was in Luella's handwriting and at the top of the paper was written Vic. Victor Hunley was brought in for questioning and subjected to seven hours of interrogation by Sheriff William Flanagan and his investigators. His house was also searched and a bloodstained khaki shirt was discovered. Hunley claimed that he had been wearing the shirt when he was told about the crime. Police officers awakened him and told him that his father and stepmother had been murdered and asked him to come to the house. While he was wearing the shirt, Hunley said he had picked up the body of his stepmother. According to investigators, Hunley had never touched the body though, so the blood had to have come from somewhere else. Suddenly, Victor recalled that he had been wearing the shirt while quail hunting and that was where the blood had come from. Victor denied that there was any trouble between him and his father. They had gone through some troubles in the past, he admitted, but that was all over. He told investigators that on Wednesday night he had been home all evening reading and playing with his son. He had gone to bed early and was awakened by the police. Hunley also admitted that he owned a .45 caliber revolver, but he claimed that he had recently loaned it to his father. A search of both of the Hunleys' houses failed to turn up the gun. To this day, it has never been discovered. After hours of exhausted questioning, Victor broke into tears and cried out, Oh my God, this is terrible. He again swore that he had nothing to do with the murders. He was taken home but was placed under house arrest as the investigation continued. On December 15, immediately following the funeral of the Hunleys, Victor was arrested for their murders. While the coroner's jury was unable to name the killer, Fletcher Lewis, the state's attorney, believed that he could prove that Victor was guilty in a court of law. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work out that way and on December 31, Lewis was forced to let Victor go. He filed a motion during Hunley's preliminary to dismiss the case due to insufficient evidence. The judge sustained the disappointed prosecutor's motion. Lewis made a statement to reporters after the hearing. While the facts and circumstances learned from the investigation amply justified the holding of Victor Hunley and the filing of a complaint charging him with murder, I have decided to prosecute this particular case no further, he said. And then he added, I feel quite sure that the atrociousness of this crime will compel the conscience of the person who committed it to someday make public his guilt. But Lewis was wrong. No one ever came forward and the killers of J.C. and Luella Hunley were never found. The case languished in limbo for a time and then was relegated to the unsolved section of the city's law enforcement files. There were many who believed that Victor Hunley had gotten away with murder but they could never prove it. Victor never spoke of the crimes again and he continued to live on in the Carbondale area for the rest of his life. Eight decades later the murders of Carbondale's former mayor and his wife remain unsolved. And perhaps for this very reason many have come to believe that their spirits do not rest in peace. The Hunley mansion at the corner of Maple and Main Streets remained empty for two years after the murders. The only physical reminder of the horrific crimes that occurred there was a bullet hole in a wall near where Luella's body had been found but the memories of that night remained in the minds of people in town. The house remained vacant until 1930 when it was purchased by Edwin William Vogler Sr. He bought the house and all of its contents from the Hunley estate. It remained in the Vogler family until 1972 when it was sold to a family named Simons who converted the huge residents into a gift shop with apartments upstairs. In the year 2000 it was sold again, this time to Victoria Spray who ran the gift shop for five years before selling it to make more time for her young son. It was later turned into a bed and breakfast for a time. Rumors that date back many years claim that the Hunleys still haunt this house. A number of the past owners and tenants in the building have had strange encounters that they are unable to explain. One former resident told of loud knocking sounds that reverberated in her room at night and the faint sound of the downstairs piano as the keys tinkled by themselves. Her family also recalled hearing footsteps going up and down the stairs as if perhaps the killer of the Hunleys was doomed to repeat his walk to JC Hunley's bedroom again and again. Former owner Victoria Spray said that whenever she was alone in the house lights would turn on by themselves as if someone were watching over her. She said that she believed that Luella's ghost followed her home from work on at least one occasion. Walking into the empty house she heard pots and pans clanging and noticed that lights were on in the kitchen. However, she noted that it was not like a scary presence, it was a very peaceful vibe. Perhaps it is not a scary presence but it could be unnerving. Spray was sometimes bothered by a door that opened by itself and by footsteps that she heard walking on the stairs. The same stairs were a previous family also reported disembodied steps. Tenants who lived in apartments on the upper floor also told stories of the creaking stairs and what definitely seemed to be the sound of boots or heavy shoes clomping on the wooden risers. One tenant laughed and stated this was only the sound of the old house settling and then lost his grin when he admitted that he had never heard of a house that settled in just that way. Victoria Spray's daughter Nina Bucci Arelli also recounted odd incidents in the house like the front porch swing that would move by itself even when there was no wind. Spray's husband had also noticed this odd occurrence. Nina had her own explanation for the swing's strange movement, though. At night, if you drive by the porch swing, it's just swinging away. I think Mr. and Mrs. Hunley still like to swing at night, she said. And perhaps she's right because if the stories of the past decades are to be believed, the Hunleys have not yet departed from the house they called their own and the place where their lives were taken away too soon. Up next, ask anyone over the age of 12 what they think about the existence of Santa Claus and you'll most assuredly get the same answer. He doesn't exist. But that has not stopped people of all ages reporting sightings of the jolly old elf and some of the stories are downright creepy. That story and more when Weird Darkness returns. By far, the most in-depth collection of supposedly real Santa sightings has been compiled by a paranormal researcher named Stephen Wagner who has long been collecting serious reports from seemingly otherwise sane and rational people who truly believe that they have seen the Christmas icon in the flesh. These reports run from the wondrous to the frankly creepy and one was told by a woman named Kerry Kay who claims that in 1961 she went to bed on Christmas Eve and was awoken by her bedroom door slowly creaking open to allow the light from the night light in the hall to trickle in and illuminate quite a bizarre sight indeed. She says of what happened next. I was so astonished however at who opened the bedroom door. I found myself looking at a man dressed in a red suit. He had white trim around his waist like fur, a long white beard and was wearing a Santa hat. He had red pants and black boots. If I close my eyes I can still see Santa standing in my door. It made such an impression on me. He stood there and looked at me for a few seconds then closed the door. I pulled the blankets over my head for a while. I was so scared. Finally I looked out but no one was there. The next day I asked my mother if she or my father had been out of bed the previous night. My mother said no. In fact my sister was only four months old and my mother said that she had slept through the night for the first time and neither of my parents had gotten up. They were tired and they both slept. So I don't know who or what looked in my bedroom that night. I told my mother I saw Santa and she got really mad at me and told me that I did not. But I know what I saw. It was Santa Claus and I swear this story did happen. I know I wasn't dreaming. There is also the perhaps even stranger account given by a woman named Sarah A. who says that her sighting happened at a very young age but that it has stayed with her into adulthood as clear as day. On this evening Sarah was sleeping on the floor and her aunt had been visiting and taken her bed. Because of this she was unable to really get into a deep sleep and at around 2.30 am she noticed a faint glow coming in from the crack under the door. She got up and wandered to the door, opened it and looked out into the hallway saying of what she saw next. When I fully opened my eyes I could see that Santa was standing in my door with a mystical magical glow around him. It was silver and gold and glittery. Santa looked right at me and without moving his mouth he said to me now you know you are supposed to be asleep while I am here don't you. I told him that I knew I was supposed to be asleep but how could I? He told me close your eyes and at least pretend. I was shocked. I knew this could be a dream but I knew that I was awake. People have told me maybe it was my father and maybe it was. How he got the hallway to glow with glitter would be beyond me but as far as I am concerned it was 100% the spirit of Santa Claus. It was the beautiful golden glow around the man in the big red suit that told me it couldn't possibly be my father. It was glittery like a parade but the pieces were not falling to the ground. I am now 41 years old and still believe that I saw him. There is also a report from a witness who tells of how one Christmas Eve when he was 8 years old he woke up at midnight mostly out of sheer excitement because of the coming joyous day. It was then that he heard something out in the hall which sounded like quiet footsteps as if someone were trying to stealthily creep down the hallway. The witness says he then got up, cracked open his door and peeked out to see something very strange indeed. Of which he says, Slowly a man in boots carrying a sack looked into my room, my parents room and then my brothers room. I am absolutely 100% positive I was awake too. I could see him fairly well because we had a night light on across the hall in our bathroom. I remember hiding my entire face under the covers with a small portion of my eyes to see. He then walked away quietly and he was gone. Of course I told my parents and brother in the morning about my sighting and of course they thought I was crazy. To this day, I am 28 now, I asked my parents if they had anything to do with this and they still deny it and say that I was dreaming. I strongly believe I saw a spirit or some kind of entity of Santa. Some people have even claimed to have had multiple encounters with Santa. Such as is the case with a witness called Claxton Colmback. The witness says that the first sighting happened in 2002, followed by additional encounters in 2004 and 2007. He explains the strange series of experiences as follows. It was Christmas Eve of 2002 in New York City. My parents had invited some friends and relatives over for dinner, sort of like a Christmas Eve celebration. After that I decided to go to my room to watch some television but there was nothing good to watch. I then found myself pacing back and forth in the hallway. My house is big so there was no one with me. Everyone was in the living room watching a movie that I wasn't interested in. About seven minutes into my pacing I saw a tall, fat figure scurry away about 20 feet from me. It was crouched down too. He was even wearing some sort of Santa Claus suit. I didn't believe in Santa but this just freaked me out. There was a strange man in my house. I quickly ran to where my parents were and told them all about it. They grinned at me and said jokingly, maybe it was Santa Claus. I didn't believe that so I just sat down in the living room with my family and everybody else. Then it occurred again on Christmas Eve 2004. I remember it more vividly than the last one. I was lying on the couch in the living room. My parents were in the kitchen having a conversation about a business blog or something. Suddenly I saw a huge man about seven or eight feet tall crawl underneath the tree and just vanish. Before it disappeared it looked at me and said, shh. Very strange so I went into the kitchen and sat with my parents. Similar happenings occurred the following Christmases. I recall one in 2007. It was daylight this time and I just happened to see another tall figure with a Santa hat trudged by me for two seconds. Then it was gone. This really happened. Some encounters sure do have a rather creepy aspect to them that make them seem almost menacing. One witness named Anna says her encounter happened when she was just five years old. On this evening she crept downstairs after hearing something moving around down there and to her surprise was met with the sight of Santa Claus standing there in the living room complete with red, black and white outfit and snow white beard. Only there was nothing jolly or jovial about this Santa and indeed he seemed to emanate a certain sense of creeping dread. Anna says of her experience, he must have felt my presence because he turned around and looked at me. He didn't look jolly or kind and happy like you would expect Santa Claus to look. He looked kind of eerie like he was staring into my soul. Automatically I ran into my parents' room and hid under the covers. I don't know why I was so scared at the time but I wrote it off as a dream for a while before I forgot about it completely. Years later I remembered it. I thought it could have been a burglar but when I asked my parents nothing was ever missing from that apartment. The only time we were ever robbed was when we moved later on. The only explanation I have now is that it was some kind of apparition. Another rather spooky account comes from a 37-year-old witness who was certain that he saw Santa one evening as he was walking outside his apartment complex on the chilly evening. He explained what happened as follows. Being 37 at the time I was a little old to believe in Santa. I had the faith he existed and felt in my heart he was real but not physically real until I was in our parking lot dumping trash in the dumpster. Walking on the sidewalk next to me was a chubby old man with long, snow white hair and a long white beard, round glasses, wearing a green flannel shirt, blue jeans and red suspenders. He said, Hello Richard as he passed. I said hi and he kept walking. It wasn't until a few seconds later I realized I didn't know him yet he knew my name. We did not wear name tags or anything. He wasn't a customer but he knew. I watched him as he continued down the street and as he came to the intersection he didn't stop to wait for the light to change. It just turned green and he walked down the site. Weird? Yes but it changed my mood knowing I wasn't nuts. There have been a surprisingly large number of accounts like these. Hundreds of such sightings in fact many of them collected by Wagner and others posted on forums and sites like Reddit and at first it all seems rather ridiculous. After all, Santa doesn't really exist. Sorry folks. He's a piece of pure lore and obviously does not really come to houses to leave presents and yet the sightings and encounters persist from people who seem to very seriously believe they saw what looks like the actual Santa Claus. In some cases even seeing him riding in his sleigh through the sky complete with a compliment of reindeer. So what's going on here? How can they be seeing Santa Claus when we know there is no Santa Claus? One possible key that can be found is the fact that even in some of the reports I have covered here and others like them the witness mentions that they felt that what they saw was something that looked like Santa which is quite different than saying it was the actual Santa. In one report I've mentioned the witness says it was a spirit or some kind of entity of Santa. And in another the witness says it was some kind of apparition. Herein could lie a possible answer in that these people are not really seeing the literal Santa at all but rather something merely taking on that appearance and pretending to be Santa. Lloyd Auerbach, a parapsychology professor at Atlantic University in Virginia gives his thoughts on this possibility thus. I've never even heard of people seeing Santa. The Grim Reaper, yes but not Santa. The only possibility of this being real is if it's an alien or a ghost pretending to be Santa. We can't investigate that. There's nothing we can do with that. It's unclear as to just what sort of entity would do this or why. For some it's demons, for others aliens or ghosts. And one prominent theory is that these could be some sort of interdimensional interlopers or trickster spirits that appear as whatever the witness is most expecting to see. In this line of speculation these very same entities could be behind some of the more bizarre paranormal encounters to be found including gnomes, unclassifiable entities, demons, angels, impossible animals, or even more traditional phenomena such as Bigfoot, ghosts, aliens, UFOs, the Loch Ness monster but in this case Santa Claus. All of them connected and coming back to these tricksters who are the same thing in each case merely appearing differently to different people for inscrutable reasons we do not yet understand and perhaps are not meant to understand. The prominent paranormal researchers John Keel and Jacques Valais devoted much time to discussing this possibility in their works. Another report of a Santa sighting from a Reddit poster called Person 1031 included the witness's own suspicion that this might be the case. He claims that he was about seven years old and he'd woken up at night and came across a very strange sight saying, as I opened my door standing there blocking my path was Santa Claus. He was dressed exactly how I'd imagined him. He looked like the typical Coca-Cola Santa. Down to his white, woolen trimmings, thick black belt with a golden buckle and red nightcap he had small circular gold rimmed glasses, a white curly beard, blue eyes and liver spots on his cheeks. I froze and looked up at his eyes. He had what I took to be a stern expression on his face almost glaring at me. Just after we made eye contact he bent his head down towards me slightly in a manner that suggested, what are you doing up? You shouldn't be awake. Go back to bed. I gasped, took a few steps back and then jumped into bed, turned my back to the door, closed my eyes and then fell asleep, despite my state of shock. I remember thinking at the time, Santa doesn't like kids being awake because he can't drop off the presents otherwise. So it was as if I knew that I should go back to sleep. The song about Santa Claus comes to mind. He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you are awake. I didn't get a menacing feeling from him. I didn't feel that I was in any danger. I felt maybe that I was in a bit of trouble for seeing him, that he was annoyed at me. He didn't seem joyful or loving either, just neutral I guess. It seems par for the course so far, just as bizarre and absurd as any of the other reports we've looked at. But there's an interesting comment made by this witness that hints at his sense that he did understand that this couldn't be the literal Santa, but was rather something merely masquerading as Santa. The witness continued, I do not still believe in Santa as I know he is a completely fabricated character. I think Coca-Cola actually created his modern image, the image of him that I saw. I believe what I saw took the shape of Santa. Over the years I've thought that maybe what I saw was possibly a spirit or some form of apparition. I still have no idea how or why this event occurred. It appeared to me that Santa was just wandering around our house, checking things out. He didn't seem to have an objective. The biggest mystery to me of this entire story is the fact that I fell asleep so soon after seeing him. That is just unnatural. I didn't pass out from shock, and I didn't feel him touch me. I've read other stories on the internet to people who have apparently seen Santa. Some of the people explained seeing Santa and then immediately falling asleep, just as I did. Many others report seeing a red light or orb. I know this all sounds ridiculous, but I know what I saw. I know the difference between a dream state and a conscious state. What could this mean? Another possibility much discussed by Kiel was that some of these truly outlandish manifestations could have their origins with the human mind, with apparitions called tulpas. These are basically a type of thought projection. Images from the mind conjured up into actual existence by the pure strength of belief of a person or group of people, often without there even being aware they're doing it. Far from just an illusion, these tulpas are said to actually manifest into reality, emerging of the mind and the physical world. With more potency and permanency, the more strength the belief there is fueling it, which can make them free roaming entities. According to the lore, they are then able to act independently with enough power and can appear as almost anything. What of Kiel's inspirations for this idea? A Belgian explorer named Alexandra David Neal once wrote of the mysterious tulpas in his book Magic and Mystery in Tibet, saying, Once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to free itself from its maker's control. This, say, Tibetan occultists happens nearly mechanically, just as the child when his body is completed and able to live apart leaves its mother's womb. If any of this were true, then one could easily see the collective belief in Santa Claus of so many people perhaps invoking him into reality in a sense, a real seemingly solid phantom figure acting of its own volition. In addition to shape-changing entities and tulpas, there is also of course the idea that people are just seeing things and that their imaginations are running wild. Yet there are some problems with this idea. In every case, the witness truly believes this is what they saw and that they saw Santa, regardless of how absurd they realize that must be or sane they are. To perfectly healthy people with no mental issues and who are not on any kind of drugs at all hallucinate something so potently vivid that they truly believe it to be real and tangible, completely unhinged from their ability to distinguish fantasy from reality, does this happen even with strong convictions? Is this really a thing? It seems to me that it would be easier to believe they just made it all up and of course that is a possibility as well. There is no doubt that the idea that the actual literal Santa Claus, with his North Pole workshop, elves and magical reindeer driven sleigh actually exist is untenable, completely outrageous to the extreme. Let it be clear that I am in no way trying to support the notion that Santa Claus is actually real and indeed most witnesses don't seem to think he is real either. Yet these real non-ironic sightings continue to come in, so considering that we know a literal Santa Claus is not real, just what in the world is going on with these very seriously presented accounts of Santa Claus encounters? Is it all just tall tales, hoaxes and urban legends every bit as ridiculous as they sound or is there perhaps something more mysterious at work here? Are there perhaps forces from beyond the outer fringes of what we know behind such sightings, whether those be demons, interdimensional travelers, tulpa thought forms, or something else? There is no way for us to know, but it is intriguing to think about the deeper phenomena that could possibly lie under what on its surface appears to be just about the silliest thing imaginable, and it is scary to think that those Santa Claus entities could be something even stranger than the real thing. Up next, true stories of Santa sightings are creepy enough, but many of us are familiar with the flip side of Father Christmas, the darker entity who visits and kidnaps bad children, Krampus. However, when it comes to true fear, even Krampus would run in terror at the site of Iceland's Grilla, the Christmas Witch. With roots dating back to the 13th century, Grilla is not to be messed with. Plus, it was Christmas time, 1938, and 19-year-old Margaret Martin had just graduated from Wilkes Bar Business College with honors and was eager to secure a secretarial job. Her eagerness would lead to her disappearance. These stories are coming up on Weird Darkness. Those who prefer the darker side of the holiday season have had it pretty good lately, thanks to the fast-growing popularity of Krampus. Once a mythological character on the fringes of Christmas lore, the horned and hoofed Germanic monster has gone mainstream in the U.S. There are Krampus parades taking over the streets of major cities, an influx of merchandise bearing his long-tongued creepiness, and a horror comedy film about him starring Adam Scott and Tony Collette. While Krampus may be king of holiday scares, his fans might be overlooking an equally nasty, much more formidable queen, a Christmas monster who lives further north in the frigid climates of Iceland who goes by the name Grilla, the Christmas witch. This tough ogreess lives in a cave in Iceland's hinterlands in a matriarch of a family of strange creatures launching attacks on nearby townships, snatching up misbehaving children and turning them into delicious stew. You don't mess with Grilla, says Terry Gunnell, the head of the folklorists department at the University of Iceland. She rules the roost up in the mountains. Tales of the ogreess began as oral accounts with the earliest written references found in the 13th century in historic sagas and poems throughout the region. One reads, here comes Grilla down in the field with 15 tales on her. While another describes, down comes Grilla from the outer fields with 40 tales, a bag on her back, a sword or knife in her hand, coming to carve out the stomachs of the children who cry for meat during Lent. In Iceland, the midwinter holiday known as Yol, a version of the old English and old Germanic word Yol, which describes this time of gathering together, feasting and celebrating and which evolved into modern Christmas, is generally darker than in the U.S. and not just because the sun barely comes out during that time of year. According to Genel, the earliest celebrations of the season were viewed as a time not only to bring together relatives living and deceased, but also elves, trolls and other magical and spooky creatures believed to inhabit the landscape. Sometimes these figures would visit in the flesh as masked figures going around to farms and houses during the season. Grilla, whose name translates loosely to Growler, would be among these, showing up with a horned tail and a bag into which she would toss naughty children. She was certainly around in about 1300, not directly associated with Christmas, but associated with a threat that lives in the mountains. He never knew exactly where she was, says Genel. Long poems were written about her and her husband, but he didn't last long, as Genel explains. She ate one of her husbands when she got bored with him. In some ways she is the first feminist in Iceland. Other bits of folklore describe a second troll-like husband and a giant man-eating yule cat known to target anybody who doesn't have on new clothes, making a new pair of socks or long underwear and imperative for any Icelandic holiday shopper. Filling out what Genel calls this highly dysfunctional family are Grilla's mob of large adult sons, the Thirteen Yule Lads. Each of these troublemakers visits Icelandic households on specific days throughout December, unleashing their individual types of pestering. One is partial to slamming doors, another eats any leftovers from pots and pans, and yet another lives up to his nickname of Sausage Swiper. Grilla did not get connected to Christmas until around the early 19th century, when poems began to associate her with the holiday. It was also about this time when the Yule Lads and the Yule Cat, which had been standalone Christmas characters with no connection to the Christmas which then became part of her big creepy family. Prior to that, she was really a personification of the winter and the darkness and the snow getting closer and taking over the land again, according to Genel. Not only did she represent the threat of winter, she was seen as actually controlling the landscape. Genel explains that the Icelandic people understood themselves to be more like tenants of their harsh environment or glaciers, volcanoes and earthquakes dominate and would view mythical creatures like Grilla as the ones who were really running the show. Krampus only wishes he had such power. Grilla is the archetypal villain and the fact that she is a matriarch makes her somehow more frightening, says Brian Pilkington, an illustrator who has drawn some of the definitive depictions of Grilla and the Yule Lads. In the 20th century, as American Christmas and its depiction of Santa Claus proliferated through Europe and beyond, attempts were made to santify the Yule Lads. Their bellies widened, their troll-like whiskers grew a bit busier and they acquired red and white fur costumes. They also, like Santa, began leaving gifts rather than taking sausages, snacks and so on. The Dutch tradition of children leaving out their shoes to find chocolates and treats the next morning also influenced this shift. Some critics tried to snuff out Grilla altogether, attempting to sideline the scary character with more family friendly fare, one popular Christmas song describes her death. In more recent years, Iceland as a whole, led by the National Museum of Iceland, have worked to return the Yule Lads to their pre-Santa roots, trying to get them dressing in 17th and 18th century ragged clothes, bringing them back to the browns and the blacks, the local wool colors, as Ginal puts it, looking like aged Hell's Angels without bikes. The characters appear in person, with adults dressing up like them to entertain and sing with the children who visit the National Museum. It's a little bit like hanging on to the language and traditions of that kind. To avoid the global Santa image, even if it has the same roots to the past, they'd rather hang on to their Icelandic version, says Ginal. Pilkington, working alongside the National Museum, has worked to do this in his illustrations, including the Yule Lads, the celebration of Iceland's Christmas Folklore, a kid's book about the characters that is ubiquitous around Iceland during the holidays, in both English and Icelandic. Likewise, Greela has proven a tough figure to dislodge, with her likeness found throughout the capital city of Reykjavik and beyond, sometimes in the flesh. Children are truly terrified of Greela in Iceland, says Pilkington. I visited children's play schools to demonstrate drawing skills, and if I draw Greela, then two or three terrified children have to leave the room because it's too strong for them. This is living folklore. Ginal agrees. She has never stopped being embraced here, he says. As a living figure, you see her all around. She's never really gone away. On December 17, 1938, 19-year-old Margaret Martin vanished from her hometown of Kingston, Pennsylvania. She had just graduated from Wilkes Bar Business College with honors, and was eager to secure a secretarial job. Her eagerness would lead to her death. It was the promise of a job interview that led her to meeting with a strange man that morning. His identity remains unknown after all these years, but it's believed that the sandy-haired, overweight man was Margaret's killer. Leaving her home that Saturday morning, Margaret was last seen getting into a brown or black Plymouth sedan. Aside from the scant details mentioned already, no solid description was ever found for the man behind the wheel, and no one noticed the auto's license plate number. But one thing is sure. That was the last time that Margaret was ever seen alive. Later that evening, after Margaret had failed to return home from her interview, her parents called the police and reported her missing. The authorities were notified, but no one else had any idea that she had vanished. The local press was on strike that winter, so it was never reported. Most people in the community had no idea that she had disappeared. Four days later, Anthony Rosikowski, 19, was hunting for muskrats in the woods of Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, about 25 miles northwest of Kingston. A friend, Stanley Shalkoski, 19, had come along on the outing. As the two young men crossed a creek, they noticed a lumpy, burlap bag floating in the water below a nearby bridge. They prodded it with a stick until they managed to get it open. Inside, they found the naked, brutalized body of a young woman. It was soon confirmed as the body of Margaret Martin. According to the autopsy findings, she had been dead for at least 24 hours before the hunter's founder. Her body showed signs of torture and she had been sexually assaulted before her death. Police believed that the murder had occurred at a nearby mill. They also believed it was likely that he planned to dismember the body and destroy it in the mill's firebox but was spooked by the mill's owner who had recently scared off a trespasser. Unfortunately, he had not gotten a good look at the man so he was little help to detectives. On Christmas Eve, Margaret's family held an evening funeral service for their daughter. Hundreds of people from the community gathered for the service along with plainclothes detectives who hoped to spot the peculiar actions of Margaret's killer in the crowd. Nothing was learned from their surveillance and in fact no solid leads have ever materialized in Margaret's case. Local rumors pointed fingers at several suspects, including a Wyoming county undertaker, a teacher at the college where Margaret had studied, a local assistant pastor, and a teenager who had a crush on the young woman. But there were no clues, no evidence, and nothing solid that could be used as an excuse to investigate anyone. The murder of Margaret Martin was cold from the very beginning. But a small, very small glimmer of hope remains in this unsolved murder. Pennsylvania authorities never closed the cold cases in their files. Unsolved murders are reopened and reviewed every year. Police are skeptical that Margaret's killer will be caught after eight decades, but stranger things have happened. Thanks for listening. If you like the show please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. And you can find the show on Facebook and Twitter, including the show's Weirdo's Facebook group on the Contact social page at WeirdDarkness.com. Also on the website you can find free audiobooks that I've narrated. Watch old horror movies with horror hosts at all times of the day for free. Sign up for the newsletter to win free prizes. Grab your Weird Darkness and Weirdo merchandise. Plus, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. The strange world of true Chris Kringle sightings was written by Brent Swancer for Mysterious Universe. Iceland's Christmas Witch is by Alex Palmer for Smithsonian Magazine. And the murder of Margaret Martin and the Hunley murders were both written by Troy Taylor. Again you can find links to all of these stories in the show notes. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright Weird Darkness. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Gen 12 verse 46, I have come into the world to be a light. No one who believes in me will stay in darkness. And a final thought from Charlotte Brant. From my part, I am almost contented just now and very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion. It fills the heart, but not to bursting. It warms it, but not to fever. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. 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 slash listen.