 Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. One type of very unusual phenomenon that seems to span the disparate worlds of ghosts, aliens and cryptozoology is that of enigmatic, often utterly perplexing, humanoid creatures of all types. These beings can take a wide range of sizes and shapes, but they all have some things in common and that they are more or less human-like in basic form, and they all lie well out in the fringe of the weird. Mysterious reports of encounters with bizarre humanoid entities come in from all over the world, from people of all walks of life, and the nation of Japan also has its fair share of such tales. I'm Darren Marlar, and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weirdos! This is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. If you're new here, welcome to the podcast, and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. If you're already a Weirdo, please share the podcast with others. Doing so helps make it possible for me to keep creating episodes as often as I do. Coming up in this episode... Most news reporters would relish the opportunity to cover the story of a flying saucer sighting, but one case in 1987 left one radio newsman wishing he had never heard of the letters UFO. A Weirdo family member shares her story of some creepy sensations. In Victorian England, some women had the responsibility of taking in young, unwed pregnant girls and caring for them until they gave birth. Baby farmers, as these ladies were called, were in their positions because of their love for children and the desire to see them start life with hope. But Amelia Dyer was so sinister, she was rumored to be responsible for the deaths of 400 children. But first, one was reported as wiry and slightly muscular, and around six feet tall. It might have been humanoid in shape, but there is nothing else human-like about these bizarre entities being encountered in Japan. We begin with that story. While listening, be sure to check out the Weird Darkness website. At WeirdDarkness.com, you can sign up for the newsletter to win monthly prizes, find paranormal and horror audiobooks I've narrated, watch old horror movies for free. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. In November of 2015, there was a rather odd encounter with some sort of unidentified humanoid just outside the beautiful historic former capital city, Kyoto, known for its numerous traditional temples and ancient shrines. According to cryptozoology news, 36-year-old teacher Toriki Watanabe had a rather surreal experience as he was driving from Tokyo to Kyoto for his brother's wedding. At around 10 p.m., he claims he stopped at a small roadside shop and stepped inside to have a cigarette before hitting the road again. The surrounding area was said to be forested, and as he had his cigarette and admired the view, he says he noticed something quite odd in the form of a slouched humanoid figure lurking off in the brush around 200 feet away. Whatever it was moved in a distinctly odd way, and as Watanabe looked on, he could begin to make out some of its features and came to the conclusion that this was no person at all. It was described as being wiry and slightly muscular, and around six feet tall with a bent over posture and covered in gray skin. No clothing was visible, and as it walked it remained hunched over with its unnaturally long arms dragging along the ground. Although the witness could not see the thing's face clearly, he did notice the strange detail that it seemed to emit a faint yellow or white light coming from behind it just around its lower back. The startled man called out to it, but it did not respond, and he stared at it as whatever it was meandered off into the forest. Although it's hard to tell what this bizarre entity could have possibly been, Watanabe has his own thought, suggesting it was an actual specimen of a type of folkloric creature known as a shirimi. This creature was said to be a mischievous, impish thing that liked to scare travelers in the region around Kyoto. Very bizarrely, the creature depicted in folklore is having a huge, glittering eye where its anus should be, and indeed, shirimi literally means, buttocks eye. Too bad the witness couldn't see an eye back there, leaving us to speculate as to whether this was an anus-eyed mythical creature, an alien, an interdimensional traveler, or just a weird-looking naked guy running around in the woods. Whatever it was, it is a weird report to be sure. Kyoto has in later years been the location for other similar strange sightings as well. In 2016, a woman living on the outskirts of the city claims that she was startled when she heard her normally quiet dog start barking uncontrollably. Wondering what was going on, she claims to have looked outside to see the animal cowering against a fence, smashing up against it as hard as it could, as if trying to push itself through the barrier and away from something there in the yard with it. When the woman looked to see what it was so afraid of, she was met with the sight of a skinny, gray-skinned creature hunched over the dog's food bowl, apparently eating the contents with relish and ignoring the barks and whines of the dog nearby. She says that the odd creature was humanoid but gray and hairless, very thin and sinewy like a greyhound and with long arms that ended in tiny clawed hands. At first she could not make out its face as it was concentrating on eating, but then it seemed to sense that it was being watched and whipped its head up to look straight at her in surprise. She would save its face and what happened next, thus. It had a small triangular face with huge yellow eyes that took up most of its face and seemed to faintly glow. The ears were small and pointed. As it licked its lips, I could see that it had sharp, jagged teeth. It looked at me for a second with a sort of startled expression and then it leapt right over the fence in a single bound. What was this being and why did it want that dog food so much? Who knows? Even more recently is a report from the same city from March of 2018 and it involves an out-of-town tourist who was staying in Kyoto at a place that he had found on Airbnb. On the evening of March 11th, he claims that he had been on his way back to his place at around 11.40pm as he passed a darkened shrine. There were two bizarre creatures that jumped over the wall right in front of him, seemingly coming from the shrine's courtyard. At first, he thought them to be children, but as he approached he could see that they were something altogether different. The creatures were described as being three to four feet tall with bodies that were as white as snow, long, thin arms and legs, and heads with pointy ears and large, triangular black eyes. When they saw the witness, the beings seemed startled and began to run away. The witnesses said, they ran with arms behind them. They went behind a corner of a wall. As I walked towards there, one of them looked back at me and made eye contact. I was feeling terrified. I didn't want to get too close. I lost sight of them as they turned a corner. What could these diminutive creatures have been? While the exact origins of these particular creatures are unclear, another strange and rather frightening humanoid report from another area of Japan seems to suggest bizarre creatures which can only be described as aliens. On February 23, 1975, two 7-year-old boys named Masato Kawano and Katsuhiro Yamahata were out roller skating in the early evening hours in Kofu City, Yamanashi Prefecture, where they claimed that they saw in the sky a pair of luminous orange lights that flickered and made a strange ticking sound. As they looked on in amazement, one of the lights apparently moved off toward the distant mountains while the other started to descend towards the ground nearby. The boys claimed that they went off to investigate and saw the strange craft come down to rest in a small vineyard behind an old abandoned estate. The craft was described as being a domed disc around 15 feet in diameter and 7 feet high which rested upon three ball-shaped legs. The surface of the strange object was silver-coloured and appeared to have characters or letters of some sort etched upon it. The loud ticking sound of the craft was very pronounced as they drew closer, sounding somewhat reminiscent of a Geiger counter. As the two boys pondered what they were seeing, a hatch purportedly opened on the side out of nowhere and a ladder extended towards the ground, after which a strange-looking being climbed out. The creature stood around four feet tall and was wearing a reflective silver suit of some sort. The being's skin was allegedly a dark brown in colour and it was covered with thick wrinkles that were so pronounced as to make most of its facial features indiscernible, save for two pointed ears and prominent and intimidating two-inch-long silver fangs that jut it out from the folds of where its mouth might be. In its hands it held some sort of device whose purpose could not be fathomed but which looked somewhat like a rifle. Another of the creatures could be seen sitting within the craft huddled over some sort of flickering control panel. Whatever it was seemed to have completely ignored the two young boys standing there gawking at it as it proceeded to carefully examine the surrounding terrain. After a few moments of this, it suddenly seemed to become aware of the boys after which it approached them and patted one of them, Yamahata, twice on the shoulder while issuing a sound that sounded like a tape recorder running backwards. Upon being tapped, Yamahata allegedly slumped to the ground and was unable to move, paralysed by some inscrutable force. This pushed Kawano into action and he quickly scooped his friend up onto his shoulders and ran from the area as fast as his legs could carry him. When he got home, Yamahata came too and they supposedly told their parents what had happened who would grudgingly follow the boys out to the estate outside to see the strange orange light coming up in the sky for themselves. The light would then emit a burst of blinding light and vanish. Later school officials would descend upon the area in daylight to examine the site and would allegedly find two sturdy concrete posts that had been pushed over by some powerful force as well as a ring pattern etched into the ground nearby. Authorities of the Civil Aviation Bureau of Transportation Ministry would later get wind of the story and dismiss the lights as merely from normal aircraft in the area. No word on what they thought the fanged humanoid could have been. Another account from the same area was related to me that seems to involve some sort of gnome-like creatures that are really hard to classify. The witness says that this happened in the summer of 2011 out in the wilds of Yamanashi Prefecture. The man claims that he had been hiking out along a remote trail in the middle of nowhere when he heard what sounded like singing coming from somewhere up ahead. It seemed odd as this was a rarely used trail and he had not passed anyone or seen anyone out all day. He stood and listened and the ethereal singing continued, the voices high-pitched like those of children. Curious the witness continued on his path and the singing got louder and he slowed down and quietly approached what seemed to be the source which was a forest clearing up ahead. As he peeked through the brush into the clearing he could now see the origins of the singing which were no children. He explained that there were seven to ten tiny beings in the clearing, measuring only about two or three feet in height and wearing what looked like some sort of white robes. The faces seemed to be a bright red in color and they were all dancing about and singing in some language the man could not understand. Most bizarrely of all they were making huge, lofty bounds about the clearing, gracefully arching up into the air to come floating down as if they were defying gravity somehow. The witness claims that at some point they realized they were being watched and abruptly stopped their singing, dancing and bounding about. At this point they all turned in unison and stared at the intruder and he could see that their red faces held smallish, beady black eyes, large noses and that they had tiny mouths without expression. For a moment they merely stared at each other and the witness said he could feel a certain feeling of dread and foreboding as if he was not supposed to be there and described the sense he got from the entities as somewhat malevolent. Then without a sound the creatures suddenly and silently dispersed into the surrounding forest, totally without sound and without so much as a snap of a twig or rustle of branches. It is a confounding report that defies any easy classification and one wonders just what in the world these entities could have possibly been. This sense of baffle-bent is a common thread running through all of these reports and we are left to speculate of what the nature of any of these perplexing beings could have been. Considering their unearthly humanoid nature it seems unlikely that any of these things could have been any sort of undiscovered cryptid in the wilds of Japan. Could they have been spirits of some sort? Were they visitors from another world? One possibility is that they could have been visitors from some other dimension, so-called ultra terrestrials, who have for whatever reason managed to somehow punch through into our reality. Is that what these were? It is curious to note that in some cases the creatures have seemed to be just as surprised as the witnesses, as if they are baffled as to how they could be seen. What possible significance does this have, if any? These are questions were likely to be left without the answers to, and these reports served to merely add to the very bizarre literature on strange humanoid sightings reported from all over the world. Up next, most news reporters would relish the opportunity to cover the story of a flying saucer sighting, but one case in 1987 left one radio newsman wishing he had never heard of the letters UFO. And in Victorian England some women had the responsibility of taking in young, unwed pregnant women and caring for them until they gave birth. Baby farmers, as these ladies were called, were in their positions because of their love for children and their desire to see them start life with hope. But Amelia Dyer was so sinister she was rumored to be responsible for the deaths of 400 children. These stories and more when Weird Darkness returns. Attention Weirdos! Our next Weirdo Watch Party is Saturday, March 12th, when horror host Tim the Enchanter brings us a moldy building with 1932's The Monster Walks. People in an old, dark house on a stormy night are menaced by a killer chimpanzee. Wow, even the premise of this film is terrible. Watch the film with me and other Weirdo family members as we jump into the chat during the movie and discuss the story, the sets, the acting, the music, poke fun at those elements that deserve it. You'll want to join us for The Monster Walks. Critics raved, Coventry's review said, Low, lower, lowest budget. Theo Robertson commented, Any entertainment is unintentional. Rainy Dawn called it, Slow and corny. Red Barracuda said of The Monster Walks, A ridiculous but not unenjoyable flick. Callan Bass's review reads, Absolutely terrible horror mystery that's painfully dull with laughable dialogue and wooden performances. And Art22 says it's a horror film that doesn't scare but will have you roaring with laughter at its ineptness. How can you not watch a film with such amazing reviews like those? The Weirdo Watch Party is always free, so grab your movie popcorn, candy and soda and join us Saturday night, March 12th as horror host Tim the Enchanter brings us 1932's The Monster Walks. The fun begins at 7pm Pacific, 8pm Mountain, 9pm Central, 10pm Eastern, 4pm in Hawaii, 3am for Greenwich Meantime. You can see those times again for your local area and learn more about the event on the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com and we'll see you there Saturday, March 12th. Hey Weirdos, right now through March 13th everything in the Weird Darkness store is up to 40% off. Normally the best prices are up to 35% off but we're doing an extra special this time with savings up to 40% off. You can save big on t-shirts, phone cases, hoodies, wall art, buttons, totes, clothes for your kids and more. Start shopping at WeirdDarkness.com slash store and if you don't like what you see on the Weird Darkness store page, use the search function to find what you do like. There are hundreds of thousands of designs to choose from and no matter what design you choose, every single dollar profit I receive is donated to organizations who help people struggling with depression. So grab your Weird Darkness merchandise, help those struggling with depression and save up to 40% at the same time. Start shopping by clicking on store at WeirdDarkness.com. Or the sale ends March 13th, 2022 WeirdDarkness.com slash store. Reports of men in black date back to at least the 1940s. Described as dressing in all black suits and black hats, the shadowy figures are said to deliver veiled threats to those who dare to discuss publicly the existence of UFOs and aliens. Who They Are is a mystery, with speculation ranging from government-backed agencies charged with keeping extraterrestrial secrets out of the hands of ordinary citizens to extraterrestrials themselves, intent on observing those with connections to alien activity. In early October 1987, Danny Gordon, a radio journalist for the country music station W-Y-V-E, heard a local report of an unidentified flying object in his hometown of Whiteville, Virginia. The news came from the Sheriff's Department and stated that four police officers, three of whom were sheriff's deputies and former military men, had witnessed a strange object in the sky the previous night. Being a very skeptical newsman, Danny decided to report the story as a ha-ha piece, something to conclude his news segment on a light-hearted note. What he could not have anticipated was the response from his listeners. Reports of similar UFO sightings flooded in, so much so that Danny set up a special call-in program for the following week. Discussing the call-in program on the 25th anniversary of the sightings, Danny Gordon described it as a lightning-rod moment. After that, every day, the phone would ring off the hook. The people of Whiteville had not only witnessed similar sky anomalies as the police officers, but were willing to share what they had seen. "'Well, it kind of looks something about like an egg shape to me,' said one caller. "'What we could see was red, green and white, sort of flashing lights. We saw a plane go by with, you know, red, red flashing lights. We know it wasn't a jet of any sort,' said another caller. Determined that there was a rational explanation for these strange sightings, such as an experimental military aircraft, Danny felt the situation would resolve itself in time and the sightings would ebb away. He was wrong. Local residents continued to witness strange lights in the sky with their suspicions raised when rumors spread about town that the local military had unconvincingly explained the sightings as planes simply refueling mid-air above residents' houses. To help clarify the situation, Danny states that he called the Pentagon and talked to the Air Force General there who told him that under no circumstances would refueling occur under 13,000 feet, and that the reported sightings of strange lights and aircraft, which were spotted no more than 5,000 feet above the ground, were simply not the U.S. Air Force. With the sightings still unexplained, Danny and his friend Roger Hall decided to investigate further. They headed out to the location of one of the sighting hotspots one evening. After a fruitless search, on their return to town about a quarter to nine, they saw a very unusual object coming across the horizon. Alarmed, Danny stopped the car and both men jumped out. In a later interview, Danny described seeing a craft which was very large. It had a dome-shaped top and no wings. It had a dome-shaped top and no wings and what it appeared to be a strobe, putting out multi-colored lights on the right side. Roger Hall stated that the object was probably less than 1,000 feet away and 1,000 feet high at the maximum. You guessed it at being at least two football fields in diameter, said Roger Hall. You could see three huge, looked-like picture windows in the back of it that were lit from the inside out. Danny Gordon said, as I watched the sky from the left came a red ball. As a big mothership went into a small skip of clouds, the red ball docked with the craft. Dumbstruck by what they were witnessing, neither man was able to photograph the object, despite having gone out that night armed with cameras. The following evening, the men went out again and this time managed to photograph the anomaly. When they were developed, they only showed vague streaks of light in the sky. Ready to share his findings with his audience, Danny arranged a press conference. The night before, he received a phone call from somebody who refused to identify himself. Eerily, the stranger warned Danny that the CIA and the federal government were very much interested in Wythe County UFOs and that it was something that he needed to leave alone because it was not his place to be messing in defense matters. The following night, after the press conference, Danny returned home to discover his house had been broken into. Nothing was missing, however, it seemed as though someone, whoever had broken in, had been searching for something. I started to wonder what I had stepped into and my wife was urging me to back off to leave it alone, Danny said. Far from being over, reports of UFOs continued to flood Wythe County. Six weeks after the press conference, Danny Gordon caught sight of strange objects in the sky for a third time. He, his wife and daughter, were leaving the shopping center when everyone in the area stopped to look up. Danny recalls a group of school children pointing and shouting at the sky. Supposedly, there were four different aircraft flying in formation that made no sound. According to Danny's estimates, there were 200 people who watched them fly over. Once again, Danny was able to photograph the crafts in four separate shots. We looked very quickly and saw what I thought was a large object, which later appeared to be four flying disc shapes. As soon as the objects were photographed, they disappeared from view. When the pictures came out, they had a lot of grain, but they showed definite four shapes of objects in the sky. But the most impressive point in the four photographs, the objects appeared to change shape or light formations within one click of the camera. They go from a teardrop shape to a round ball shape, then they go to a flying saucer-like disc shape and then they go to an egg shape as they go out of sight, Danny Gordon said in an interview. Three months after the initial sightings, and Weith County now had more than 1500 reports of UFOs. Something was clearly going on. Danny once again phoned the Pentagon and pushed for answers. The response he allegedly received was shocking. Speaking with the spokesman for defense at the Pentagon, he was told, we do not deny UFOs exist. The government confirms they exist, but we deny they pose a threat to the populace of Weith County. When Danny asked how the spokesman could know such a thing, he was bluntly told that no further information could be given. Danny continued to investigate the UFOs, which plagued Weith County. However, one night after receiving yet another strange phone call, he began to wonder if he was making the right decision. He claims to have been contacted by a retired military intelligence officer who asked Danny to record their conversation so that if anything happened to him, it was on record that he had been forewarned. The man told Danny that he too had been researching UFOs to a tragic end. What I'm telling you Danny, he said, is I've been pursuing this thing for many, many years, and like I said, I saw my son die of leukemia. The man claimed that because of his research, his son had been targeted. What I'm telling you, he continued, is they'll try to hit you if they think it's advisable for their purposes to keep you from further investigating this thing, and then most likely it'd be done through skin contact chemicals. It'd be something on the door knob of your car or on the steering wheel. They could also come up with something or do something to your children. Segments from the original tape conversation were publicly broadcast during an episode of NBC's Unsolved Mysteries. Understandably, the conversation left Danny shilled. Regardless, he felt he needed to continue his research and uncover the truth behind the mass UFO sightings. Less than a month later, two strange men in black arrived at his home, supposedly journalists wishing to write an article about Danny and the UFO for their newspaper. The men stayed for about 45 minutes, one interviewing Danny and the other wandering around the house taking photos. As they left, they said they would send Danny a copy of the article when it was published. When it did not arrive, Danny contacted the newspaper they claimed to work for. However, it had no record of the journalists stating that the two men did not work for them. So who they were, I don't know, but they were in my house, Danny said, saw my pictures, saw my negatives, talked to my family, took pictures and then left, and they were not with the newspaper. It was some time after this meeting that Danny realized the negatives of the photos he had taken outside the shopping center were missing. Someone had taken the original images of the four UFO photographs. I felt like maybe there was something in those photographs that I was not seeing, he said. So I took the photographs to some other people to look at. We used magnifying glasses, we measured angles, trying to find out why these photographs were so important, and we're yet to discover why anyone would want to steal that one specific set of four in a series of photographs of UFOs. By now, Danny was living alone. His wife and daughter had moved out, exhausted and living in fear of what may happen to them as Danny continued his research. Two months later, Danny had a stress-induced heart attack. He had to stop his investigation. By the time he left Wythe County, he had collected 3,000 sightings from telephone calls and conversations with people in the street. Speaking years later, Danny spoke of his regrets and how he handled the case. If I had the choice, he said, I'd not report the UFO story again. It's just been too hard on my life and created too many problems. Amelia Dyer may have started her career as respectfully as a baby farmer could, but her care soon transformed into terror for the poor infants she took under her wing. Years passed before the so-called caregiver was finally exposed as the ogre of reading, by which point she had claimed a shockingly high number of young lives. In Victorian Britain, unmarried mothers strived to stay afloat. With the passage of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, fathers of illegitimate children no longer had a financial obligation to their offspring, which left unmarried mothers struggling to find any income. It was difficult to bring up children during Victorian society. Single parenthood and illegitimacy were looked down upon. This led to the practice of baby farming. While many businesses were set up to take in young women and care for them until they gave birth, some on-slavery operations had other plans. There could be lucrative financial gain if the baby had well-off parents. Sometimes a newborn was sent away in secret, hiding a scandalous or unwanted pregnancy. However, those who desperately needed the services were primarily impoverished women. During the 19th century, adoption, foster care and out-nursing were normal practices across England. Mother and families paid these institutions to take in and care for their newborns. Often this was done out of desperation. Impoverished new mothers unable to afford long-term child care would pay the comparatively lower charge to send away their child. Yet wealthier families also paid for other similar services. Sometimes newborns were sent to nearby villages to be cared for in their early years, returning to the family when they were toddlers. In a rather well-known example, Jane Austen's family was accustomed to sending their children to a wet nurse in a nearby village for the beginning months of an infant's life. Jane spent a fair amount of time with her parents in the beginning, but was in the care of a nurse for the first two years of her life. These wet nurses were reputable, even a part of the family in many ways, and her mother and father visited regularly. Later, James Edward Austen, Jane's nephew, would write disapprovingly of this practice, though he recognized the value in the out-care system. Many babies who were provided for by a credible wet nurse would survive infancy in a time when this was not typical. But not every institution was on that level. Infants who ended up at baby farms were frequently lost in the system. Others died of neglect or were worse. Once again, working-class and single mothers were most likely to fall victim to these disreputable operations. Often, they could afford no other option. Enter Amelia Dyer, one of the most infamous baby farmers of Victorian England. Amelia was born in a small village near Bristol in 1838 as Amelia Hobley. She was the daughter of a successful shoemaker and was privileged enough to learn to read and write at a time when the majority of women were illiterate. Despite her relative privilege, young Amelia had a difficult childhood due to her mother's mental illness. From a very young age, Amelia was obliged to watch her mother's violent fits and care for her. In 1848, despite Amelia's best efforts, her mother died. After her mother's death, Amelia moved in with an aunt for a while. She eventually found an apprenticeship with a corset maker. In 1859, her father passed away and she became estranged to a few of her siblings. Later, she was trained as a nurse and soon began her adult life as a nurse and midwife. At age 34, she married William Dyer, a brewer's laborer from Bristol. William was her second husband, her first much older husband had passed away in 1869. The Dyers had two children together, Mary Ann, who was better known as Polly and William Samuel. Though she eventually left her husband and not much is known about her son, Polly became something of Dyer's assistant. Her life as a midwife proved to be an arduous one and Dyer was not keen on continuing it. It did, however, lead to her next business venture. Her friend and fellow midwife, Ellen Dane, put an idea into Dyer's head. Charging families to care for their infants was far easier and more lucrative than bringing the newborns into the world. Working under numerous aliases, Dyer put out ads in the newspaper offering a nice family with no children, quaint country home, 10 pounds. Unwed desperate mothers responded to this seemingly respectable Mrs. Harding as Dyer called herself in these ads and were thrilled to find a good home for their children. Dyer wrote back, assuring the mother that she would do her duty by that dear child, I will be a mother as far as lies in my power, she said. Once the mothers were put at ease, the baby and adoption fees were handed over. Regardless of what the mother wanted, Dyer always insisted on a full adoption with no further contact. Many a desperate mother relented. It is unclear just when Dyer's operation turned deadly. Records indicate she initially tried to care for the newborns she adopted. At some point, however, whether intentionally or not, the babies under her care began to die. A cruel math then materialized. The quicker a newly adopted infant died, the less money Dyer spent on care and the more profit went into her pockets. Where Dyer once assisted in the process of welcoming life, she soon felt more content in her role as an angel of death. Eventually, however, one too many death certificates were issued to Dyer. A doctor grew suspicious and authorities were alerted. In 1879, Dyer was arrested. At the time, she was charged with allowing children to die by neglect rather than manslaughter or murder. She was sentenced to six months of hard labor, an experience she later claimed left her mentally ill. Once released, Dyer went in and out of mental hospitals. There is evidence that Dyer began abusing alcohol and opium-based products early on in her baby farming career. At one point, Dyer drank two bottles of laudanum in a suicide attempt. However, her long-term abuse had built up her tolerance to opium products. She soon revisited her deadly trade. In 1890, the illegitimate baby of a governess was put under Dyer's care. When the mother returned for a visit, she realized something was wrong. The governess grew suspicious and, upon further inspection, decided to strip the baby to locate a birthmark on one of its hips. The baby was missing the birthmark and an enraged mother began to question Dyer. This led to Dyer having, possibly, feigning a breakdown and entering a mental asylum. Having served as an asylum nurse, Dyer knew how to behave to ensure a comfortable environment during her time as an asylum inmate. Eventually, she also returned completely to baby farming. This time around, she took extra care to cover her tracks. She no longer called for death certificates. Bodies were wrapped in bags, weighted down with bricks and tossed into bodies of water. Dyer and her family frequently moved through Bristol, Reading, Cardiff and London, never remaining in one place for too long, never leaving a trace, until that is one cold March day in 1896. A bargeman sending cargo up the Thames in Reading noticed a box lying along the riverbank. Upon further investigation, he discovered the body of an infant within. The bargeman called police. They confirmed that the body was that of a little girl between 6 and 12 months old. They also discovered faint writing on the box that pointed to one Mrs. Thomas and a barely visible address. Detectives were and had been onto Dyer, but there was no strong evidence to link her directly to the crimes. They had collected additional evidence from witnesses and more information from Bristol Police but were unable to find any conclusive details. That is when detectives decided to use a young woman as a decoy in order to secure a meeting with Dyer to discuss her services. Whether it was designed to link Dyer to her new business or as a certain opportunity to arrest her, the plan worked. On April 3, 1896, Dyer was expecting a new client. She was instead greeted by detectives outside her home. They entered and raided the home. Upon entering, authorities were apparently hit by the stench of death, though no bodies were actually discovered on the premises. What they did find, however, was a mountain of evidence, telegrams about adoption arrangements and letters from concerned mothers inquiring about the health and safety of their children, receipts for newspaper adverts and pawn tickets for children's clothing, and edging tape used to strangle babies to death. Authorities estimated that upwards of 20 children had been in the care of this Mrs. Thomas within the last few months alone. All told, the death toll may have been as high as 400. Amelia Dyer was arrested, charged with murder and brought to Newgate Prison where her plea for insanity was rejected. After a jury meeting of just four minutes, Dyer was condemned. On June 10, 1896, Amelia Dyer was hanged outside Newgate Prison. Dyer's disturbing story dominated headlines and soon led to stricter adoption laws. Unfortunately, the baby trafficking did not cease completely after this horrifying case. Polly, Dyer's daughter who got off scot-free from any charges after her mother testified that she had never been involved, was rumored to continue baby farming after Amelia's hanging. A number of advertisements by a Mrs. Stewart for adoptable babies said, quote, the little one would have a good home and a parent's love and care, unquote. Many observers believed that Mrs. Stewart was Polly's pseudonym, following in a ghoulish family business she knew so well. When Weird Darkness returns, a Weirdo family member shares her story of some creepy sensations. You shut yourself in. The lights are out and you're listening to Weird Darkness. But suddenly, you get that feeling you're not alone. You don't know what might be under the bed or in the closet or in the attic or in the room with you. You don't dare try to sleep now. You're too scared to. If you doze off, you might be vulnerable to the creatures who haunt your dreams. That's just one more reason to have Weird Dark Roast Coffee in the cupboard, because you just never know when you might need it. Weird Dark Roast Coffee contains deep notes of cocoa, caramel, and a touch of sinister sweetness. Each bag is fresh-roasted to order by Evansville Coffee and delivery is free for your first order. Just use the promo code Weird, you can find a link to it at WeirdDarkness.com. Grab a bag before something else grabs you from the dark. When I got married 24 years ago, my husband and I bought a small three-bedroom apartment. We loved it and redecorated it with our own hands. Our two children grew up in that apartment and we spent many happy days there until we moved after my husband got a job overseas. But even now, many years later, I can't help but think that we were not alone in that apartment. You see, I always had a very strong sensation that someone was with us there, watching us. I tried to check about the former residence, but with no result and since this presence didn't disturb or harm us, I went along with my life. A few years after we moved into the apartment, a young couple bought the apartment above ours. They were an established duo and they decided to do a huge makeover to their apartment in plans to raise a family there. The renovation work took a couple of months. I was invited to see the results and it looked beautiful. A few weeks later, I ran into my new neighbor. He looked distracted and somewhat angry. Hi, neighbor, I called him and he answered, well, unfortunately, not everyone. Why? I said, you just finished the work on the apartment. To which he answered almost apologetically, my wife left and went to her mother. She says she won't spend one night in this apartment since it's haunted. So what was there in our building? Did I and my neighbor's wife both imagine it or was there something there visiting us uninvited? the show and a growing audience makes it possible for me to keep creating episodes as often as I do. Plus, telling others about Weird Darkness also helped get the word out about resources that are available for those who suffer from depression, so please share the podcast with someone today. Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Fact or fiction, you can click on Tell Your Story on the website and I might use it in a future episode. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. Creepy humanoids in Japan was written by Brent Swancer for Mysterious Universe. The Wytheville UFOs and Men in Black is from Paranormal Scholar. We Were Not Alone was submitted anonymously to WeirdDarkness.com. The Ogrous of Reading is from Janie Vogert for the lineup. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Psalm 27 verse 1, The Lord is my light and my salvation, Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? In a final thought, the only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible. Charles Kingsley. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. You also receive chapters of audiobooks as I narrate them, even before the authors and publishers hear them. But more than that, as a patron, you're also helping to reach people who are desperately hurting with depression and anxiety. You get the benefits of being a patron and you also benefit others who are hurting at the same time. Become a patron at WeirdDarkness.com.