 Ads heard during the podcast that are not in my voice are placed by third-party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. True unexplained stories about prank phone calls and mysterious harassers have always been the bread and butter of horror movies. But what happens when an unnamed creep starts making scary prank calls in real life? What about a loved one calling you from the site of a train crash where they died moments before calling you, a dead girlfriend sending you a private message on Facebook or an email from a deceased friend? 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, phantom phone calls and DMs from the deceased. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, to enter contests, to connect with me on social media. 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. Mysterious phone calls from the dead make for excellent horror movie plots, but this eerie phenomenon also happens in real life. Many stories of unexplained phone calls show that they're not just the result of grief-stricken imaginings. Although people do try to explain these odd occurrences by blaming malfunctioning cell phone technology, reports of phantom phone calls go back to at least 1967. Charles E. Peck's Metrolink death is one of the most prominent and creepy stories about phone calls from dead people since author Dean Kunze's deceased mother phoned him to give him a warning, which we'll tell you about later in the episode. Peck was killed instantly in a horrible 2008 Metrolink commuter train accident, where a total of 25 people died in 135 were injured. But before anyone knew Peck was dead, his family members received 35 calls from his phone for several hours following the disaster. Whether it was due to phone damage or the train rider reaching out from beyond, we may never know, but it's nice to believe that even those who have passed are only a phone call away. 49-year-old Charles Peck worked for Delta Airlines. He was considering leaving his job in Salt Lake City International Airport for a job at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles to be closer to his fiance, Andrea Katz, and he had an interview there. Although the couple was ready to get married, the fact that they didn't live in the same state was an issue. And then the disaster occurred. Katz was on her way to pick him up from the train station when she heard the news of the accident on the radio. Peck had three children from a previous marriage, one of whom was on his after-life phone call list. Andrea Katz heard about the crash on the radio as she was driving to pick up Peck from the train station and was relieved when she received a call from his phone. Other friends and family members of Katz were in the same position. After the crash, Peck's phone placed calls to his son, sister, brother, and stepmother. In all, about 35 calls were made during the 11 hours that followed the accident. According to one source, the final call from Peck's phone came at 3.28 a.m., about one hour before his body was found. Charles Peck was a passenger on a MetroLink commuter train traveling through the San Fernando Valley in California on September 12, 2008. It collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train at 83 mph when the conductor failed to stop at a red light. The impact was devastating and of the 225 people aboard the MetroLink, at least 25 died and more than 100 were seriously injured. The engineer sitting at the front of the train was killed instantly as well. The freight train was carrying only three crew members, but it was demolished in the accident. The disaster later became known as the Chatsworth train crash and it still considered the worst commuter train accident in the history of California. At first, Peck's loved ones must have been excited when they saw his name pop up on their phone screens. As the calls continued, they had hope that he was still alive and trapped within the rubble of the crash. Unfortunately, they were unable to actually talk to him. All they heard when they answered his calls was static. However, Andrea Katz used the opportunity to communicate with her fiancée and to let him know that she was with him, shouting messages of encouragement like, hang in there baby, we're going to get you out, you're going to be okay. Other people who claim to have received phone calls from beyond also report hearing static or a voice that seemed very faint and far away. Before rescue workers discovered Charles Peck's body in the wreckage, they had no reason not to believe the calls placed to his family meant he was still alive. As it became clear they probably weren't going to find any survivors in the crash, their rescue efforts turned into a mission to recover bodies. But when yet another call came from Peck's phone, they decided to trace it to find its location. Unfortunately, they discovered his body and knew that he had died on impact. Police never revealed if Peck's phone was found. Although rescue teams were excited because the phone calls might mean Charles Peck was still alive, that wasn't the case. They discovered Peck's body an hour after the last phone call was placed. According to anecdotal sources like forums and unsolved mysteries sites, the coroner was unable to find signs that Peck had survived for any amount of time after the crash, confirming the calls were not made while he was still alive. Anyone who had ever butt-dialed a number knows it is possible to make a phone call accidentally. Perhaps an object was sitting on top of Peck's phone, causing it to make random calls. The phone was most likely severely damaged during the disaster so it may have malfunctioned. Peck's broken phone may have called his speed dial list. When his story was posted on Reddit, several users shared their own creepy stories of malfunctioning phones and posted eerie phone activity stories on online forums. The possibility that Peck's phone suffered from technical issues shouldn't be overlooked. Although rescue workers were able to locate Charles Peck's body successfully, his phone was never discovered. It's possible that it was completely destroyed in the disaster or damaged to the point of malfunctioning, but why it made calls to several of the people Peck was closest to we may never know. Perhaps he was reaching out to tell his loved ones not to worry or say goodbye. Maybe he took it with him into the afterlife like ghosts who were seen in the clothes they were wearing when they passed. Since the rescue team was able to trace the calls to locate his body, maybe Peck was simply leading them to it. No one will ever know for sure, so this story may forever remain a mystery. Investigators believe the conductor of the Metrolink train was responsible for the crash after he failed to stop at a red light. The commuter train was running on the same track as the freight train and was directly in his path. It's likely that the conductor was distracted by his phone and was too busy texting to notice his mistake. After the disaster, a teenager came forward and admitted that they had received a text from the conductor immediately before the crash. The last text sent from the conductor's phone happened 22 seconds before the impact. Intrigued by the many stories of people receiving phone calls from the deceased, PSI investigators D. Scott Rogo and Raymond Baylis did research and they published a book about their findings in 1979. Their research was recently continued by another paranormal researcher, Callum Cooper. While some people have reported seeing the name or number of a deceased acquaintance appear on their caller ID, others claim to have spoken to someone they later discovered passed away before the call was made. According to lists of true accounts by a paranormal researcher, someone named Crystal S. shared, I was at my mom's house and I was calling a friend who lived nearby. She was at her cousin's house, so I looked up the number in the phone book. It was the only Owens in the phone book, so I knew it was my friend's cousin's number. I called it and it didn't even ring, but an old lady answered. She said, Hello. I asked, Is Amelia there? Amelia is my friend Jessica's cousin. The old lady said, No dear, Amelia isn't here. I should be expecting her any minute now. So I thought nothing of it and hung up. I told Jessica about it and she said, Amelia's grandmother is dead and we were there all day long. We were sitting right by the phone. It never rang all day. In another anecdote from the same list, a salesperson named Mary B remembers, I made a sales call to Pennsylvania. It started just like any other call. Yes, I need to speak to Mr. or Mrs. B, the woman identified herself as Mrs. B and I continued on with a normal sales call. She seemed very interested and asked a lot of questions, but when I came to the decision making, she quickly stopped me insisting that I had to talk to her husband. Her objections were the same every time I attempted to close. She also quickly pointed out that since his retirement, he spent a great deal of time fishing and was not easy to get in touch with and it would be best to try early in the morning before he left for his favorite hobby. On the callback, the husband did answer the phone. I introduced myself in the normal fashion and explained that I had been talking to his wife the previous day and she had suggested that I speak to him. You can imagine the shock and horror when he stated to me distraught, Lady, I don't know who you were talking to, but my wife died and I'm not in any mood to speak to anyone. With that, he quickly hung up the phone. We've all had our fair share of wrong numbers. More often than not, they're pretty harmless. You tell the other person they made a mistake and then you go about your day. But sometimes you get a phone call that sticks with you the rest of your life. The kind of phone call you can't explain. You know, the ones you can only describe as phone call creepypasta or perhaps even cell phone creepypasta Well, the good news is you're not alone. There are tons of people who got creepy phone calls and chances are theirs have been just as bad, if not worse than yours. Up next on Weird Darkness. There are very few among those with a love for the supernatural who don't also have a passion for Edgar Allan Poe. Poe wasn't simply a melancholy author who wrote about premature burials, sinister black cats and talking ravens. He was much more. If you've ever read a modern mystery or horror novel, you can thank Poe. Poe invented the modern mystery story, mostly invented science fiction and was the first writer to take the horror stories of the gothic era and set them in modern times, starting a trend that continues today. With a lifelong interest in Poe, Troy Taylor decided to take his own look at the mysterious and macabre writer, his tragic life, unexplained death and lingering hauntings. He invites listeners along to delve into the strange and bizarre world of Edgar Allan Poe, from his early life to his tragic marriage, his insane grief, his dramatically failed career, his links to an unsolved murder and the mystery of what happened to the writer in the five days before his unexplained death. Even more than a century and a half later, no one knows what happened to Poe before he was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland or what killed him. Why did he disappear and then show up in an incoherent state wearing another man's clothes? Where did he go when he vanished and who was the mysterious Reynolds that Poe whispered about in his dying breath and perhaps strangest of all? Does he haunt the mysterious graveyard where his body is buried? Nevermore, the haunted life and mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe, written by Troy Taylor, narrated by Darren Marlar. Find a link to the book on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. Several Reddit users shared their tales of the creepiest phone calls they have ever had over the years. These are the phone calls that have kept people up at night for weeks or even years. Were they real people? Ghosts? Versions of people from a parallel dimension? We'll never know, but it sure is creepy to think about. One Redditor wrote, A few years ago my brother would get a call on his cell phone around two or three a.m. every night. He would answer it and it was this hellish sounding noise, like static mixed with screams. He changed his cell phone number after a month of this and it stopped. Then after a week or so it began again, the exact same noise, exact same time. Finally one day he decided to back dial the call. It was an old man that had no clue what he was talking about. Still the calls persisted. If he didn't answer it would call a few more times. No messages were left. He decided to say screw it, ended his contract with his phone company, switched to a new one and then got another new number. You guessed it, the screaming static calls continued after a short delay. By this time he was terrified every night. Unsure why this was happening, he back dialed the number again and got a different person. Around this time he lost his job and his phone. The calls stopped of course. His phone was disconnected now. So one day my mom asks me to listen to this weird message she got on our home phone. It was the static screaming. We showed my brother and he was freaking out. He back dialed the number again and it said the number was disconnected this time. Never heard from it again after that. From another editor. When my sister was young my parents got her a personal phone, a landline so that she could feel special. Yes she was extra spoiled. It was a prepaid landline though so basically no one could call in or out if she ran out of credit. Much like a mobile phone. Anyway, every night at 3am her phone would ring. She said there was a man on the other line and she'd get really scared and come running to my room. It escalated to the point that I asked her to please disconnect her phone before going to sleep because it was becoming extremely annoying to get woken up every single night by this person that called her. Eventually she just got rid of the phone. A few years ago we were talking about it and she confessed that her phone continued to ring even after she disconnected it which is why she said that she didn't want it anymore. She has no recollection of what the person on the other end was saying or maybe she has just completely blocked it out. Another redditor had this to tell. About a couple of weeks after I was born my dad's best friend Jim died. They were really close and one of the last things he wanted was to hold little me before he passed. His wish was filled and some short time after that he was gone. Fast forward seven years I'm now a happy seven year old with a five year old brother and recently born sister. One day the phone rings and with my mom out and dad in the washroom I thought it was going to be ignored as we kids were still too young to answer the phone. No call display. We didn't know if there would be a stranger. But my brother broke the rules and he answered hello. At this point my dad is out of the washroom and is asking my brother to hand in the phone. He ignores him and keeps listening to whoever is speaking. Before my dad could ask for the phone a second time my brother hangs up looks at him and says Jim says hi and he misses Skywing Nova and then he goes back to playing. The look of shock my dad had is what I remember most about this. Another writer said when I was a child we would frequently get calls for a woman named Tanya. Didn't seem like a big deal. She had the same last name as us although it's quite a common one around here. When we moved across the city and phone books stopped being the go to for finding somebody's number the calls for Tanya gradually stopped. Those days seemed to have ended and we carried on forgetting about the mysterious Tanya. It was about four years ago that she popped up in our lives again. I was driving home from work one afternoon and was greeted by a pretty grisly car wreck at the turn of my house. Two cars had collided and one had wrapped itself around the signage pole that had house numbers and directions on it one of which was my house number. Several days later we get a call from the police. They asked if Tanya was at this residence. Her car was found wrapped around a pole down the street from my house and she was nowhere to be found at the accident site. Haven't heard anything about her since. In 2007 there was a Washington family that was terrorized by an unknown entity and they had no way to fight back. They were allegedly receiving death threats from unknown numbers but when the police investigated the calls the family's teenage daughter became the number one suspect. Creepy stories about prank phone calls especially ones involving restricted callers they are not really hard to find. However the story of the furcrest Washington restricted caller is absolutely terrifying due to the lengths to which the mysterious caller went. The anonymous person was haunted and harassed multiple families on the same block while casting suspicion onto the very people he or she was harassing. This creepy story about a restricted caller will definitely change the way you look at your cell phone the next time a restricted call comes in. In 2007 the Cuckindall family was living in furcrest Washington near Tacoma when one of their daughter's phones started sending text messages on its own. 16 year old Courtney claims that the phone would message her friends of its own free will. At the time of the initial reporting there were no claims as to what the text messages said. After the texts a series of phone calls from someone with a scratchy voice started coming from a number that read restricted. The calls would describe what the family was doing at that moment and even what they were wearing. Cuckindall's neighbor Andrea McKay who said that she was also a victim of the restricted's harassment claims that one day when she was cutting limes in her kitchen a mysterious call came through and the voice on the other end told her that it preferred lemons. The initial wave of phone weirdness prompted the families to immediately contact the police. They showed the cops how their phones would send text messages on their own, turn themselves on and how the ringtones would appear to change themselves. But it wasn't until the phone calls started coming in that the police were able to actually do anything. The furcrest police attempted to trace the calls but they just went back to the families on phones. The weird part about it was that this would happen even when their phones were turned off. The calls from the scratchy voice escalated from the level of juvenile pranks to serious threats within a short period of time. Heather Cuckindall claimed they say you're going to die. We hate you. We're going to murder you. The family also reported that calls would come at all hours threatening to murder everyone that they knew including their pets. The most terrifying call came during the day to the McKays, another family being harassed by the restricted. They claimed that while their kids were in school the voice called and told them that there was going to be a school shooting. It's unclear whether or not the family followed up on this threat and contacted their children's school. A member of the McKay family told ABC News the level of fear went from this is a pain to an uncontrolled fear and anxiety level. The families all claim that after making a series of death threats against them the restricted calls seem to exist solely to make them paranoid. Calls would come in from the mysterious person telling what they were wearing and what they were doing. The family claimed that some of the calls didn't feature the scratchy voice at all, but rather a playback of a private conversation between family members. One call allegedly featured a recording of a conversation between one of the families and a detective. The Cuckindalls said they tried to end the harassment by changing out phones and switching their numbers, but the calls kept coming. All over the country law enforcement was still warming up to the idea of cyber crime back in 2007, so the fact that the furcrest PD approached this case with the sincerity that it did is fascinating. At the time of the case, the police told ABC News that if the caller was actually harassing the family and not conducting in elaborate hoax, the person was actually violating multiple federal laws. However, the furcrest PD admitted that they were in the weeds in terms of actual investigation. Furcrest Police Chief John Cheeseman, who claimed to have known the Cuckindalls prior to the calls, said, We're almost dumbfounded. We've never seen anything like this. The local police reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, and they even looked at 16-year-old Courtney Cuckindall as a suspect. A furcrest detective noted, At this point, we're not saying it's someone inside the family, but it's someone that is close enough to them to know this much about them. It seems like it's someone who is tied into the group, a family member, a friend, or an enemy, which is a very roundabout way of saying that the caller is a person who knows the people they're calling. After dealing with a lengthy police investigation, swapping out phones and installing a security system in their home, surely the Cuckindalls must have figured out who was stalking them, right? No one seems to know. The entire story seems to have evaporated after its first reporting. The Cuckindalls and the other impacted families have kept their social media presence low. In fact, it says if they all fell off the radar completely. If there ever was a harasser, he or she was not likely caught since it was never reported. Phone hacking or phone freaking has been going on since the 1950s. Phone freaks explore the mysteries of the phone system by hacking payphones and learning how to impersonate phone operators in order to make free calls. If a phone freak was talented enough, they could definitely wiretap someone and while phone freaks don't necessarily exist in the 21st century or exist in the same way that they did in the 1950s and 60s, the desire to game the phone system and find technological workarounds is still there. The calls to the Cuckindalls were coming through in 2007, the same year that the iPhone was released. This means that the digital technology required to tap into someone's phone would have been easy to find. At that time, all you needed to listen to someone's voicemail was their four-digit passcode, which is easy enough to guess. In addition, with the right software, you could track a person's every movement due to GPS technology. If you weren't already paranoid about people listening to your phone calls, now may be the time to get out your tinfoil hat. Even though cell phone technology is always changing and improving, it would seem that the ability to clone a cell phone or tap into a phone's security is rarely a step or two behind. Methods for tapping a phone involve everything from getting your hands on the device and manually cloning it to using software in order to keep an eye on someone from a distance. The proliferation of articles about how easy it is to hack into a phone makes it all the more plausible that someone who lived near the Cuckindalls decided to have a little phone fun before things got out of hand. Despite there being some evidence to the contrary, it's not out of the question for the Cuckindalls to have made the whole The Restricted character up. The three families or members of those families who were subject to the calls could have absolutely worked together to clone their phones and sent messages, making it appear that there was an all-seeing hacker messing with them. The fact that the police actually looked into the texts and recorded phone conversations shows that these anonymous messages could have actually occurred, but it's not enough to debunk the possibility that it was all just a hoax. The idea that the Cuckindalls, the McKays, and a third family wove an elaborate plot to make themselves the center of police attention feels like it could be too complicated to be true. The police never found a culprit, or if they did, no charges were pressed. In fact, the whole case seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. There's a small group of people online who have their own theories about this case, but each theory, be it an unknown neighbor, Courtney, or multiple youths, all have holes in them. The most plausible theory is that someone was just trying to have a little fun and got carried away. However, there is a possibility that the restricted is still in Furcrest, Washington, waiting for the right person to call. Famous horror author Dean Koontz is more than familiar with all things scary, but not just from his imagination. He once received an ominous warning from his mother, 20 years after she died, and she probably saved him from being murdered by his own father. That story is up next on Weird Darkness. 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. Intomb 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. We've all heard stories about heroic dogs saving their owners, but how many of us know a real-life tale about ghosts saving people? Yes, I said ghosts. Many have had moments in their lives when something extraordinary occurs with no rational explanation for these unexplained paranormal encounters. I'd also venture to assert that we have all received the occasional creepy phone call from one prankster or another, but very few of us can honestly claim that the phone call was also our paranormal experience. That is, unless your name happens to be Coontz and you are a best-selling horror novelist. Dean Coontz's dead mother called him with a warning to be careful after 20 years of silence just days before being attacked by his own father. In September of 1988, author Dean Coontz was working in his office when the phone began to ring. Coontz answered the receiver and heard a weak, far away voice on the other end of the receiver. The voice warned, please be careful. Coontz asked the person's identity, but they did not respond to his inquiry. Instead, they repeated their warning three additional times before the line went silent. Coontz was in shock. The voice sounded just like his mother, except that his mother had been dead for nearly 20 years. Coontz's phone number was an unlisted number. Unlisted numbers or private numbers are telephone numbers which are intentionally not listed in phone books. If you have a private number, you usually do not have to worry about getting calls from telemarketers, prank calls or being contacted by people you do not know. The fact that Coontz did not have a listed phone number makes the phone call all the more interesting. Of course, it could have been a case of a person calling the wrong number, but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. The warning that the woman gave him on the phone could very well have been about an incident that occurred only two days later. Two days after Coontz's strange phone call, the retirement home where his father was staying contacted him. His father Ray would often cause problems at the facility, but the problems were escalating and he became violent, punching another resident. Nurses at the facility were concerned and asked Coontz to speak with Ray and try and calm him down. When Coontz arrived at Ray's room, his father wasted no time and proceeded to grab a knife from a drawer which he attempted to use to stab his son. Coontz had to fight off his father and he eventually was able to get the knife away from him. Police arrived and they took Ray to a psychiatric facility which everyone felt was the best place for him. It took Coontz a long time to talk about what he justifiably feels was a fateful phone call. Once he felt comfortable sharing his story, he did what he does best and wrote about it. In a book titled Beautiful Death, The Art of the Cemetery by photographer David Robinson, you see morbid yet beautiful photos of tombstones and cemeteries. You will also see that the introduction is written by none other than Dean Coontz. In the introduction, Coontz writes an essay about his phone call experience, sharing the book's theme of exploring death. Florence Coontz had severe health problems throughout her life. The stress of her horrible marriage with Ray didn't help matters. Florence passed away in February 1969 at the age of 53. While on her deathbed, Florence explained to her son that she had some information about his father to share with him and that it would be life-changing. Florence ended up dying before she could ever share the secret with her son. Coontz has often wondered if his mother was going to tell him Ray wasn't actually his father. He contemplated getting a DNA test to see whether Ray was his biological father, but decided he'd be unhappy to learn Ray was actually his father. Ray Coontz was 35 years old when his son Dean was born. Coontz does not recall any happy memories regarding his father. Throughout his entire life, he remembers his father drinking and abusing him and his mother. When his father would arrive home from a night out drinking, his mother would promptly send him to his room so he wouldn't be able to see or hear how his drunken father would behave. Later in life, Ray Coontz would be diagnosed as schizophrenic. Coontz's father attempting to kill him while in a retirement community was actually his second attempt to kill his son. One can only imagine that sharing facts of your father trying to kill you multiple times would be rather uncomfortable, and Coontz has not been forthcoming with many details of the first attack. The incident occurred in 1987 when the author was 42 years old. The two were arguing when his father pulled a knife on his son. The police were not notified regarding the first attack. Coontz grew up very poor and refers to his mother as a saint and his father as a sinner. By all accounts, Coontz had a miserable childhood, but he doesn't appear to let that bother him. In fact, Coontz took his negative life experiences and turned them into something positive. He's quoted as saying, I've said sometimes that I would not have had my career if not for my father because that's where all the creativity comes from, Coontz said. When I write about sociopaths, I'm writing from the trenches. Coontz could have easily been led down the same path as his father, not just because of the shared environment, but also because mental illness can be hereditary. Instead of living a brutal and violent life like his father, though, Coontz thrived and used his bad experiences as a creative outlet, going on to write horror novels that sell by the millions each year. Coontz took care of his father until he died from degenerative alcohol syndrome in 1990. Even though Coontz would regularly visit his father and arrange his health care and living situations, he never forgave Ray for how he treated his wife and son. He did not dwell on his father's violence and actions, but he never forgot them either. Unlike his parents, Coontz and his wife have a dependable and loving marriage, which they have been very dedicated to for over 50 years. Coontz and his wife have no children. Coontz never received another strange phone call from the woman who sounded like his mother. Perhaps a mother's love never dies and when she saw danger heading in his direction, she did whatever she could to warn him. The fact that he hasn't received a call since could just mean that he has nothing to worry about. No one is trying to kill him and he is safe. Although Coontz cannot say with certainty that the ghost of his mother called him that day, it seems as though someone, somewhere, was looking out for him. People who've passed on aren't limited to phone calls or hauntings in the modern age. They often use email and social media sites such as Facebook to contact their loved ones. For instance, Jack Fries' sudden death at the age of 32 shocked his friends and family and done more Pennsylvania, but not as much as the emails mysteriously sent from his account since then. Fries died of a heart arrhythmia in June 2011, but nearly six months later in November, some of his closest pals like childhood friend Tim Hart and cousin Jimmy McGraw received mysterious emails from his account according to the BBC. Even stranger, the messages were about things Fries discussed with his friends in their last conversations, such as the message Hart received with the subject heading, I'm watching. The text to the message itself read, Did you hear me? I'm at your house. Clean your effing attic. I turned ghost white when I read it. It was very quick and short, but to a point that only Jack and I could relate on, Hart told the BBC, adding that shortly before Fries' death, he privately teased Hart about the attic's messy state. Hart later sent a reply to the account, but has yet to get a response. McGraw also received a posthumous email from Fries, warning him about an ankle injury that occurred after his cousin's death. I'd like to say Jack sent it just because I look at it as he's gone but he's still trying to connect with me, trying to tell me to move along to feel better, McGraw said. Fries' mother, Patty, told the man just to accept the mysterious emails as a gift. I saw they made people happy, they upset some people, she said, but I see it as people were still talking about him. Although the source of the emails is unknown, Hart doesn't mind, even if it turns out he was the victim of a cruel prank. Somebody's joking around, I don't care, because I take it whatever way I want, he said. People sometimes claim their deceased friends have liked their posts on Facebook or sent them messages, like the viral Reddit thread about messages a deceased Emily allegedly sent to her boyfriend. For most of us, death is the end of our time here on this wonderful planet, but for some reason, Emily seems to have gotten caught in Facebook limbo. In related news, if Facebook limbo is a thing, it's officially the worst way to spend an afterlife. Obviously, it should go without saying that this could and very likely is a story that has been fabricated to freak people out. If that's the case, Nathan has done a wonderful job in creating a thoroughly unsettling story. Nathan's story was posted on No Sleep, a corner of Reddit that has been carved out for those who wish to share their true ghost stories that aim to raise the hairs on the back of your neck and send shivers down your spine. Within two days of Nathan posting his story, it blew up, gathering an impressive 3,800 upvotes within just a few days. The whole thing started on September 4, 2013, when Emily returned to Facebook. It's worth mentioning that according to Nathan, only he and Emily's mom share admin privileges of Emily's Facebook account. They decided not to memorialize the page because that felt too final. I can certainly understand that. Nathan soon realized that the messages Emily was posting were sourced from old chats the two of them had shared back before the accident that claimed her life. Then in February, things got really creepy. Emily had started tagging herself in photos. That's just not right. If this is real, then… dang. But if somebody is messing with Nathan, I'm pretty sure that individual has no soul. This kept going on, with Emily randomly tagging herself in photos and posting messages comprised of words that she had typed when she was among the living. She did this until May 8, when Emily used her first original word, freezing. In his post, Nathan says this is the message that turned his growing anger and frustration toward a person he assumed was trying to mess with him into terror. He was no longer able to sleep, and when he did, he was plagued by nightmares in which Emily is trapped in an ice cold car, frozen blue and gray, and I'm standing outside in the warmth screaming at her to open the door. She doesn't even realize I'm there, sometimes her legs are outside with me. Part of me believes, even hopes, that this is a story Nathan made up to get his 15 seconds of internet fame because if that's not the case, if it is real, this is one of the most eerie stories I've ever heard. No one should have to go through the pain that comes from losing a partner and then endure something like this only a few years later when the wounds are probably only just beginning to scab over. That is not right. The story goes on. Nathan ended up memorializing Emily's page and that actually stopped her messages. Until July 1, the day before he took to Reddit to share his story. 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. And please leave a rating and review of the show in the podcast app you listen from. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find all of my social media, listen to audiobooks that I've narrated, shop the Weird Darkness store, sign up for monthly contests, find other podcasts that I host, and find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts. Also on WeirdDarkness.com, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more on the website. 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. Dead Train passenger calling was written by Aaron McCann. Stalked by a restricted caller is by Jacob Shelton. Email from the underworld is by David Moy. Facebook message from dead girlfriend is by Adam Dodd. Creepy phone calls is by Aaron Edwards. And Dean Coots' warning from the other side was written by Jessica M. Thomas. Again, you can find links to these stories in the show notes. WeirdDarkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Matthew 7, verse 12, So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. And a final thought. Never forget who was with you when you had nothing. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. 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 QuickSand. 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 8pm Eastern, 7pm Central, 6pm Mountain and 5pm Pacific. You can watch a trailer for the film, and watch horror hosts and schlocky B-movies any time, day or night, on the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com. 1950s, QuickSand, starring Mickey Rooney and Peter Laurie. Friday, February 9th on the Weirdo Watch Party page.