 Road dogs, billy big rigs, big strappers, flatbed cowboys, freight shakers, trucklets, 18-wheelers, deadheads, yard dogs, you got your ears on? Whatever you call yourselves or whatever call sign or moniker is thrust upon you. This episode is dedicated to all you truckers driving the boulevard, keeping our bellies full, shells stunked, septics cleaned, and brains entertained with what you're hauling. In the eyes of this ratchet jaw, I'm honored to have you listening. You once in a while grab your CB, head to Sesame Street, and tell other drivers how to join this weirdo convoy. Appreciate it. May your brake checks be few, your shutter trouble be absent, and your bare bites non-existent. Keep it cool on the stool. This is Spooky Santa, and I'm 10 and all on the side. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar, and this is Weird Darkness Radio. Here, you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved, and unexplained. Coming up, whenever we see a pirate ship on television, cinema, or in comic books, we also see an extremely ancient symbol, the skull and crossbones. This however was not always a symbol of death, at least not in the beginning. And if we have time, I'll share about Nazi camp guard Maria Mandel, who sent half a million women to their deaths and loved every minute of it. And the dragon is one of the most well-known creatures in ancient mythology, and many cultures have this creature or one of its related forms in their folklore. One of the lesser known dragons is that of the Zmahj, a dragon that can be found in Slavic folklore. If you're new here, welcome to the show, and if you're already a member of our Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen in. Recommending the Weird Darkness Radio show to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to follow Weird Darkness on Facebook and Twitter, and visit WeirdDarkness.com to find the daily Weird Darkness podcast. Watch streaming B horror movies and horror hosts 24x7 for free. Listen to free audiobooks that I've narrated. Tell me your own true story of something paranormal that's happened to you or someone you know and more. You can find it all at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. The Skull and Crossbones It was an image that has kept cropping up in my researches, whether Masonic or Templar, or even as the symbol that the Christian Jesuits found themselves being inaugurated on, and so I decided that I needed to look deeper into the mysterious rise of this peculiar image. Many researchers of Templar and Masonic history have pointed out the links between the Skull and Crossbones and the ones used by the Knights Templar on their ships. If we take into account the fact that the Templars had the world's biggest fleet in the 13th century and that they were well-known for acts that we would call today piracy, then today there is no wonder. The latter Knights of Malta were also well-known for piracy, and we find that these Maltese Knights were in fact the very same as the Templars, having been formed or joined by the remnant of dissolved Templars. These new Templars, or Knights of Malta, were accused on several occasions of piracy, and henceforth we have tales of piracy on the high seas. There is a direct link, therefore, between the creation or use of the Skull and Crossbones by the Knights Templar and our modern-day idea of it being a symbol of piracy. But I wondered, what explanation did the Knights Templar give for using the symbol to begin with? Where did they get it from? I found a strange tale that is told by most Templar researchers to link the symbol to them, and this tale surprisingly involves the number 9, a Mother Earth image at a Skull. In the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Bejent Lee and Lincoln tell the tale, a great lady of Maraclea was loved by a Templar, a Lord of Sidon, but she died in her youth, and on the night of her burial, this wicked lover crept to the grave, dug up her body, and violated it. Then a voice from the void bade him return in nine months time, for he would find a son. He obeyed the injunction, and at the appointed time he opened the grave again, and found a head on the leg bones of the skeleton, Skull and Crossbones. The same voice bade him guard it well, for it would be the giver of all good things, and so he carried it away with him. It became his protecting genius, and he was able to defeat his enemies by merely showing them the magic head. In due course, it passed to the possession of the Order. In another version, this Lord of Sidon actually ritualistically marries the corpse. I told this tale to several colleagues in order to judge the response, and in each case the response began with horror and disgust, and ended with a lot of head scratching and bewilderment, the reaction that the story in fact was intended to provoke. Now such stories are naturally seen as macabre, and the hidden message therefore still evades us, which is the idea. But as I was to discover, what is really being conveyed in these stories is the importance of the union or balance which creates a state of enlightenment akin to that spoken by the Gnostics, Alchemists and Mystics. But before I decided this to be the case, I wanted to delve deeper and found myself in an ancient world of symbolism and secrecy. There were more nuggets of information in this text, which needed investigation, and I decided that it was about time the code was broken. I turned firstly to the main character in the tale, the infamous Lord of Sidon. As a titular metropolis of Panfilia Prima, Sidon dates as far back as Neolithic times. In the 10th century BC, Sidon had its own coinage that bore the head of Athena, also Minerva, a serpentine feminine deity linked with healing. I found that Athena was indeed the patroness of the city, even though its peoples were sometimes termed a piratical horde, and Constantine called Sidon a nest of pirates. However, the place did go on to play host to one of Alexander the Great's garrisons for a while, which was used to subdue this piratical element for Alexander's own purposes. Under his successors, Sidon became known as the Holy City of Phoenicia and enjoyed relative freedom, with games and competitions attracting people from far and wide. In 1111 AD, the crusader Baldwin, who was later to become King Baldwin of Jerusalem, besieged the city, and it was later to become one of the four baronies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was a very commercial and in fact warlike city, with a powerful navy, something the Templars looked up to and emulated. From early on, Sidon was a rendezvous for pirates, and even the slave trade continued after the fall of slavery elsewhere. However, by the 14th century and following the downfall of the Templars, Sidon was on the way out as a player on the world market. The lack of water and resources added to Turkish invasions led to lack of interest. Sidon was not yet dead in the water, though, and flourished again briefly in the 17th century when it was rebuilt by Fokrendin of the Second, the then ruler of Lebanon. Under Fokrendin's guidance, it became a base for French merchants who used it as a staging post to further their commercial conquests. Slowly however, Sidon again declined until the late 20th century, when again it has risen from the ashes to become an important commercial and agricultural center. Though this was a brief but relevant history of Sidon and its relationship to my story was remarkable, the fact that it was well known as a nest of pirates was startling. I considered also the link of the skull and crossbones to piracy, especially as it was linked to the Templars and the fact that the lord from the skull and crossbones story was Lord of Sidon. So was this Lord of Sidon mentioned in the Templar story really a pirate? We'll look more closely at that question when Weird Darkness returns. My doc agrees that I need to lose a few pounds. I knew that going in, but he also told me that the meds I'm taking for my type 2 diabetes aren't gonna do me much good if I finish each meal with ice cream or cheesecake. I kinda knew that in advance, too. But cutting back on carbs and sugars is a lot easier said than done. I've tried a lot of protein bars while on the road, but I swear it's like eating non-sweetened chocolate-dusted particle board. But now I travel with built bars. Built bars taste like candy bars. In fact, I'm now using them for my dessert. And at about 150 calories per bar, less than 3 grams of sugar, up to 19 grams to protein, I can satisfy my sweet cravings guilt-free. Visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Built in Try a Box. You can go for a variety pack of several flavors to try or pick and choose to build a box of your own. Use the promo code WeirdDarkness at checkout and get 10% off your entire purchase. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Built. I'm Darren Marlar, welcome back to Weird Darkness. We're talking about the history of the skull and crossbones, and we're stepping now into how pirates started using the symbol. Was Lord of Sidon, as we were talking about earlier, really a pirate? Let's look into that a bit more. The links between Sidon are strong. Templars were highly commercial and indeed linked to slavery. So was Sidon. It collapsed in the 14th century, and so did the Templars. It had a huge fleet, and so did the Templars. In fact, they were one and the same in many respects, both feeding from one another. The leaders of Sidon were linked with the Templars and would have seen the Templars' banking system as highly important. As the Holy Land finally fell to the Muslims in 1211, I found mention of a Templar knight by the name of Tabald Godin, who was thought to have carried off the famous Templar treasure. When Godin finally arrived at the Templar port of Sidon, he was elected the next Grand Master or Lord. It seems that there were ample financial reserves held at the Sidon Preceptory, and so the treasure of the Templars cannot have been gold or otherwise it would not have been mentioned. I am of the opinion that the treasure was the secret of the Holy Grail. If Sidon had a hidden message in the text, then it was simply that the Lord of Sidon was to get the Grail from the Lady of Maraclea, as intimated in the story I just mentioned, which reveals, and rather symbolically, the means through which he could claim it. Having now established a link between Sidon and the Templars' story, I wanted to move on to the other name given that caught my eye, Maraclea. This peculiar name I found was taken from a site that the Templars had previously held in the 13th century. I wondered whether the name had a symbolic meaning, a name with a hidden message in the language. Why else would she be from Maraclea and not Antioch or Acre? Initially, I found the site was called Maraclea because it simply means clear waters or sea. But I wanted to know why the Templars had used the term and began with the standard etymological practice of breaking the word up into two parts, Merah and Clea. Taking the first part, I delved into the world of etymology once more and found some remarkable coincidences. Merah in Hebrew means bitter and was a common alternative for Mary, whether the mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene. In Latin, it equates to Mer, which is water, lake, sea, and indeed linked to horse, female horse, a mare. In Anglo-Saxon, I found that the term Merah meant greater or more. In Buddhism, Merah is death or evil one. Merah is said to tempt us like Eve, and indeed it was Merah who tempted Buddha on the night before his enlightenment experience. I found this rather intriguing, as in the Garden of Eden it was the serpent who supplied the fruit of the tree of knowledge to Eve, and therefore he was supplying enlightenment just like Buddha, and Eve, as Hava, is equated with a female serpent. This Merah of the Buddhists I discovered was also closely related to Rama, where Ma equates to black or dark, a term associated with beauty, and a term also meaning great mother. Baffled, but also excited by these etymological results and their relationship to the story of the enlightenment or shining, I quickly moved on to the second part of the word, Clea. When I did look at this word, I felt rather stupid, as it was perfectly Clea what it meant. Clea meant clear or simply to clean, to clear, to be clear, to be pure, to be bright or to shine. I also noted that this Lady of Merah Clea, according to theologians and scholars, was thought to have come from Armenia. Rife in Armenia at the time was what is known as Polysian Christianity, a Christianity that would not be recognized by most today. I decided not to delve too deeply into this theology, but did find that this spawned the Boga mills who had been linked to and were even called the same as the infamous Cathars or perfect ones, in other words illuminated or shining ones or pure ones. I ran through the variants that were now possible. Mary pure. Well, no, that didn't work. Water bright. This didn't really relate. In fact, there were numerous configurations of the two parts of Merah Clea that I could have made. In the end, I landed on to that just seemed to make perfect sense and related etymologically in the Anglo-Saxon for both words, without mixing up the languages. The result sent a shiver up my spine as I realized the two meanings of Merah Clea. The first one was black clear or dark clear. Well, this was significant in the Gnostic sense, as the contradictory nature of the words revealed the duality spoken of by the Gnostics and Menachians, light and dark, male and female. These were the two sides of our minds, a revelation of our own divided consciousness. It was in fact the very same element spoken of throughout time as the generative source for all religions. For by overcoming this duality and finding balance and union or a neutral state, we become enlightened to our own true self and often enter a spiritual state of illumination or shining. The other meaning of the name Merah Clea was equally astounding and related even more to the concept of illumination. It was greater shining. However, there was even more meaning in this interpretation. Standing back for a moment, I wondered about the whole thing. Here I have a Lord of Sidon, possibly a Templar Knight, if indeed not a Grand Master, coming into union with the greater shining. What could it possibly mean other than this Templar was a shining one and therefore experienced the holy grail of enlightenment for himself? The result of his union would be the head or skull nine months later, although another version says nine years. And I was to discover in my researches into the Temple of Jerusalem the number nine was of paramount importance to the Templars. The head was also definitely being used as a metaphor for this internal process, which actually involved the head or something within it. This in itself gives us a greater insight to the argued over Bathomet head that the Templars were said to have worshipped. Strange also then that nine knights set up the Templars and nine years later to Roslyn Chapel with supposedly the holy grail tucked away in a bag. But I decided maybe I should take another look at the number nine, which is a reversed letter P, something which would soon become strangely more relevant. Weird Darkness is now partnering with Paranormality Magazine. Paranormality Magazine is based out of a love for the strange, unexplained and paranormal, as well as a fascination with the people and creators that make the paranormal community what it is. Exploring all 40 and subjects from phantoms to UFOs and every cryptid creature in between, their global team collects stories, conducts interviews and reports on cutting-edge paranormal projects. They also consider contributions from outside writers, researchers and artists. Visit weirddarkness.com slash magazine to learn more or subscribe to Paranormality Magazine. That's weirddarkness.com slash magazine. And you can get 10% off your subscription if you use the promo code Weird. That's weirddarkness.com slash magazine promo code Weird. Weirddarkness.com slash magazine promo code Weird. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. If you're looking for Weird Darkness merchandise, you can find t-shirts, buttons, hoodies, office supplies, clothes for your kids, stickers, magnets, coffee mugs and a whole lot more with your favorite Weird Darkness design. And all profits I receive from the Weird Darkness store go to organizations that help people who struggle with depression. You can check out the merchandise right now by clicking on store at weirddarkness.com or just visit weirddarkness.com slash store. We're still looking at the history of the skull and crossbones. We found out that a reversed number nine is the letter P which somehow seemed strangely relevant. I decided in this instance to just take a look at language rather than numbers and so consulted the encyclopedia of word and phrase origins by Robert Hendrickson. Nine days' wonder, minor marvels, things that cause great sensations for a short time and then pass into limbo. Kittens, puppies and other young animals have their eyes closed for a number of days, nine, and then open them and see the light. Amazingly, this is mirrored in folk tales, myth and legend, and therefore in the significance of the number we have here a period of nine months where the female is pregnant and thus rebirth, nine months or years for the Lord of Sidon to receive his prize, and nine days before the newborn animals see the light. It all made complete sense. So the skull and crossbones is linked to the number nine and again enlightenment and the holy grail which are both seen as good, pure, and holy. Indeed, was not the holy grail said to be the giver of all good things just like the head in the Templar tale, guard it well for it would be the giver of all good things. If this greater shining were truly the holy grail, then it would bring him good things for sure. It became his protecting genius. Others have found this part of my text very strange. However, I understood what it meant immediately and for confirmation I looked up the meaning in a standard dictionary and found perfect corresponding evidence for the greater shining. Genius, inborn faculty. Genius, the tutelary spirit of any one, also wit, lit, inborn nature, allied to genus. So this greater shining, this head, became his inborn faculty or inborn nature. The two were the same. There is a subtle underground symbolism going on here. The Lord of Sidon, a Templar, mates with the Lady of Mariclia, a Cathar, and we have an inborn nature called genius. Suddenly the skull and the crossbones symbol, as explained in the Templar text, is revealed before our eyes. At this point it crossed my mind that I had only gone back to the Templars. I wondered just how far back in time I could possibly go with this skull and crossbones image. The earliest reference to the actual skull and crossbones I could discover was the Templar reference. However, taking the image as symbolic, which is what indeed it was, then we are looking for the shape, a skull or head with a diagonal cross or salt hair below. Amazingly, I found this in ancient Egypt and on the tomb of Tutankhamun. Carrying a staff or scepter was in ancient Egypt a symbol of universal power. The flail was used to beat animals or indeed people into submission and shows authority like the scepter, hence the interchangeable nature. The crook was a shepherd's tool used to pull stray animals by the neck without hurting them. Here we have an image of push and pull. This shepherd aspect of the king is as old as Mesopotamia and possibly beyond. These two symbols reveal the two opposites of the duality spoken of by the Gnostics, the push positive slash male and pull negative slash female. Anyone therefore that mastered these symbols had mastery over the self and the enlightened connection or shining. Tutankhamun was seen with these devices held upon the chest in the diagonal cross form, making a replica of the skull and crossbones in form, whereas many other pharaohs held them outwardly away from each other. When dead, the king becomes Osiris and I find that this same image is seen upon Osiris and is therefore his symbol, a symbol of the ultimate universal power and borrowed by his earthly representative, the pharaoh. Osiris is the archetypal resurrection god, a symbol of regeneration akin to the power of the Templar in the text. So the Templar is symbolically the same as Osiris on earth. No wonder that Christ is called the Good Shepherd, as was Osiris who was called the Good God. So here I was tracing back the image of the skull and crossbones back into ancient Egypt and even Mesopotamia. It should have been no surprise, as this is the home of the ancient and original shining ones, and yet amazingly there was more to come. I turned my gaze even more laterally and found another symbol related entirely to both the skull and crossbones and the Egyptian influence. This separate and more obscure image also closely resembled the skull and crossbones, and over it a holy war has raged for decades. The symbol is now commonly known as the Chai Roe, so-called because it is composed of the Greek letters Chai which looks like an X and Roe which looks like the letter P. The war over these two letters is fought between Christians and historians, between fundamentalists on both sides, and yet both sides are missing the point. The Christians claim that the Chai Roe form the first two letters of Christ, Christos, and the historians claim that the symbol can be found hundreds of not thousands of years before Christianity and was therefore usurped by them. I needed to look into this to discover the origins, meaning and why it so resembled the style of the skull and crossbones. An identical symbol to the Chai Roe has been found and scribed on rocks dating from 2500 BC Sumeria and was interpreted as a combination of the two sun symbols, symbols of the ancient shining ones. It was also used on the coins of Ptolemy III from 247 to 222 BC as well as being an emblem of the Chaldean sky or sun god and has the definition everlasting father-son. I then noted that other meaning for Chia which was pure. Could it be that this link was even well known in Templar times? The feeling of stupidity quickly drained away as I suddenly realized what the term Marklea meant, a word that has been missed by thousands of Templar historians the world over and yet is a key to unlocking the secret of this peculiar text. According to Sir Flinders Petri, the Egyptologist, the monogram Chai Roe was the emblem of the Egyptian god Horus thousands of years before Christ and is therefore a link between Horus the Saviour and Christ the Saviour. I have already noted on several occasions the links between these ancient characters and so this was highly believable and conclusive. To others it is in this 2nd century BC where the secret of the monogram lies with the Greek Ptolemy's who are said to have borrowed it from the Africans. In this scenario the Greeks called their version of Horus Heracles or Percules and applying the Greek Tress to him. This suddenly gave the ancient Horus the title of Lord Crestus and inevitably Christ. This, if true, shows again the direct link between Horus the Chai Roe monogram and Christ. Indeed many European scholars have actually identified Heracles or Percules as none other than an emblem of Jesus Christ. I had to bear in mind that the name Heracles is related to Hero and Who which means Shining but are also related entomologically to Christ showing that these titles of the Messiah are directly derived from the word Hero which is of African origin and can be found the world over as a word for the sun. But there were even more links as I discovered. The Greek title Christ is like Hero also derived from an Egypto-African word Kerast and Christos or Christos is the KRST Kerast. Kerast is a person who is anointed, enlightened or shining as a Hero or Hero during his or her own lifetime. It is only when deceased that one receives the great term Kerast or Azure. This Azure is none other than Osiris the same Egyptian god I found with the skull and crossbones symbol with the flail and scepter. The anointing in the physical sense as the anointing also applies in the spiritual sense, derived from the body or cadaver being anointed with spices, oils and resins to preserve it. The body is then wrapped in bandages placed in a coffer which is then placed upright to symbolize resurrection. It was believed that in the plural the Harris, Heroes or Kerasts, Christs would rise again to save the world as fully divine beings and thus become the once and future king. It seems then that this tradition came out of Africa through Egypt and into Greek and Christian legend and brought with it the original symbols of Osiris. So amazingly we have a link between the Shiro and the symbol of Osiris, God the Father of Horus or Christ. No wonder what a philosophical and historical war rages and that Christianity refuses to accept this remarkable link. So I wondered what do the Christians believe this Shiro to derive from? Well I found that it goes back to Constantine and was an amazing propaganda device to establish the new Roman and therefore to become Catholic Empire. The story goes that Constantine had a vision before a great battle and was told that with the symbol of the Shiro, which they call the laborum, he would gain victory by this sign you will conquer. Using the new laborum as his battle standard which would relate to everybody, Constantine took the field and the empire was born again. In fact the Christians had begun using this symbol secretly as a sign of their faith and Constantine or somebody who advised him simply picked up on the fact that this symbol and the whole savior process was as ancient and widespread as I am outlining here and according to some it was used to plunder the treasuries of the pagan temples. Amazingly on the coinage used during and after Constantine's death, we see the laborum or Shiro underlined with the serpent, a symbol used throughout time and especially by the Gnostics for wisdom and the Enlightenment process. Strangely, just as the biblical term Elohim is a plural word used for God, El, and in reality means the shining ones, the X part of the monogram is also plural, X equals 10, it is the number of Yahweh. Chi also has another meaning, great fire or light or even shining, there is that word again. The P or row part is more difficult but it has been related to pen, which means head in etymology, thus implying that the loop on the top of the letter P is a head in the very place that a skull would be on the skull and crossbones. One thing is sure, row stood for Peter or Patah and the Egyptian God, which is Father. Together, they therefore make Shining Father, which later became the Roman Jupiter, the Roman version of the Greek Father God Zeus. I found that the symbol of the skull and crossbones then stretches back over thousands of years and relates entirely to the ancient shining ones and directly to Osiris, the Egyptian version of the original shining Father incarnated on earth. Not only that but geographically it goes right into the heart of original shining territory. But I again had questions, why the X? I believe that the X marks the spot in more ways than can be imagined. It is the crossing point of the two dual energies and it is the center where the true enlightenment is engaged, where the two opposites meet. With the upright world axis running through the X we also have a dividing line but it is also a six-pointed symbol and it is akin to the Star of David or Seal of Solomon, which is also an ancient symbol with much the same meaning. The six points are important as they reveal the seventh point and most wholly the center of the X. I was tempted to look into the infamous skull and bones secret society of Yale University, so famously joined by Bush Jr. and Sr., as well as many other extremely powerful individuals, but decided I was straying too far into the world of conspiracy theories that had little or no substance and so I left well enough alone. However, I was to discover with the Jesuits who swear an oath upon the symbol of the skull and crossbones, I found that the Freemasons also have this symbol and utilize it without too much knowledge of its origin or so we are led to believe. However, what was intriguing was the degree that utilized the symbol, the Knights Templar. In the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Virginia, USA, there is an enter room with a large portrait of the colonial period grandmaster Lafayette wearing the Templar apron, bearing the skull and crossbones. The same apron images have also been found elsewhere such as Michigan, Detroit and Jackson and I am sure that they are not the only ones as several members have also pointed out to me that they too have seen the aprons. According to Masonic history, the apron can only be dated back to the late 18th century and to the revisions carried out by Thomas Smith Webb where he pointed out that the flapback and a skull and crossbones embroidered in silver thereon. On another apron is described by Cornelius Moore in 1859, an apron of black velvet of a triangular form trimmed in silver lace. On the top or flap is a triangle with 12 holes perforated through it. In the center of the triangle is a cross and serpent. On the center of the apron is a skull and crossbones and an equal distance from them in a triangular form a star with 7 points. In the center of each star a red cross. The reasoning behind having this skull and crossbones on the Masonic apron is revealed in a story about a lord of Sidon, but we don't have time to even begin to get into that. Paranormal experiences, encountering extraterrestrials, extraordinary states of consciousness, spiritual phenomenon encounters with non-human entities that can't be explained by science. These stories of what people have come across are ubiquitous here on Weird Darkness, and often those who have had these encounters choose to stay quiet and not even tell close friends or family out of fear of ridicule and they suffer silently trying to deal with the internal horror of what they've experienced. If I'm describing you or someone you know, there is now a place you can turn to for professional counseling from experts who, unlike others in their field, are open to the paranormal, supernatural and extraterrestrial experiences of others, and they're not there to explain away your experience but to help you recover from it and move forward with living. I'm referring to the Opus Network. If you want to reach out for help or learn more, look for the Opus Network towards the bottom of the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. Maria Mandel was among the first group of women to work in Nazi concentration camps. Having volunteered to do so in 1938, Mandel showed an early enthusiasm for the work, as her brutality set her apart from other guards. Holocaust survivor Lena Haig recalled how Liechtenberg inmates would be beaten for the slightest infraction. They were stripped naked, tied to wooden posts, and Mandel would then beat us mercilessly until she could no longer lift her arm. Mandel's penchant for using physical violence to keep prisoners in line ensured she quickly rose through the ranks of guards. One prisoner recalled how Maria Mandel and her fellow guard, Dorothea Bins, preferred to beat people themselves rather than have someone else do it, earning her the nickname The Beast. One of her preferred methods was to look for women who had curled their hair against camp regulations and either beat them or force them to shave their heads. Once prisoner Maria Bialika witnessed Mandel kick a fellow inmate to death. In 1942, Mandel was sent to work in Auschwitz, where she oversaw all female inmates. Whether inmate or guard, every woman at the camp was subordinate to her. In addition to doling out punishments, Mandel was responsible for choosing which prisoners were sent to the gas chambers and which would be subjected to grotesque medical experiments. Maria Mandel took savage pleasure in her job of selecting women and particularly children to be gassed. Maria Mandel's reign of terror came to an end as the Allies advanced into Germany. She was captured by the American forces after attempting to flee to Bavaria and finally made to account for her crimes at the Auschwitz trial in Krakow in 1947. Thanks for listening! I don't have enough time to cover the Dragon of Zhmaz, so I'll include that story in tonight's sudden death overtime content which you can find in the podcast that I'll upload immediately after tonight's show. If you missed any part of tonight's Weird Darkness radio show and you want to hear it again, you can subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcast app at WeirdDarkness.com-slash-listen. Not only will you hear a copy of tonight's show, you'll also get daily episodes of the Weird Darkness podcast as I post seven days a week. Again, you can subscribe to the podcast at WeirdDarkness.com-slash-listen, or just search for Weird Darkness wherever you listen to podcasts. You can follow the show on Facebook and Twitter at Weird Darkness and please tell others about the Weird Darkness radio show who love the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. Doing that helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. If you'd like to be a part of the show, you can send in your own paranormal experiences by clicking on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com. You can also email me anytime at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. Weird Darkness radio is a production and trademark of Barler House Productions. Copyright Weird Darkness 2023. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Psalm 34 verse 14. Turn from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. In a final thought, every day may not be a good day, but there is good in every day. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Hey Weirdos, keep listening. Hour 2 of the Weird Darkness radio show is coming up. Today, scientists know that there are millions, perhaps billions of planets in the universe that could sustain life. So in the long history of everything, why hasn't any of this life made it far enough into space to shake hands, or claws, or tentacles, with humans? It could be that the universe is just too big to traverse. It could be that the aliens are deliberately ignoring us. It could even be that every growing civilization is irrevocably doomed to destroy itself. Something to look forward to, fellow earthlings. Or it could be something much, much weirder. Like what you ask? Well, in this episode, I'll share some strange answers that scientists have proposed for why we have not yet met any extraterrestrials. And some of the reasons are completely, pun intended, out of this 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 this hour, if you buy a used camper knowing someone died in it, and with the bloodstain still clearly visible, you shouldn't really be surprised later to find that your trailer is haunted. A doppelganger is a strange creature that looks exactly like a real person, but is not that person's twin, and seeing your doppelganger is considered a very bad omen. We'll follow the story of George Barrington, who was well known for two things, picking pockets and writing books. One led to the other, you see, and it also led to the sighting of a phantom ship. But first, one night, about 60 years ago, physicist Enrico Fermi looked up into the sky and asked, where is everybody? He was talking about aliens, so why haven't we met them yet? We begin there. 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 follow Weird Darkness on Facebook and Twitter, and visit WeirdDarkness.com to find the daily Weird Darkness podcast, watch streaming B horror movies and horror hosts 24-7 for free, listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, send me your own true story of something paranormal that's happened to you or someone you know and more. You can find it all at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. For those not yet familiar with the term, the Fermi paradox, or Fermi's paradox, is named after physicist Enrico Fermi. It is the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. In other words, with all those billions of planets and galaxies and stars, the chances of there being other intelligent life in the universe is extremely high. Yet we have no solid evidence that any exists apart from our own planet. So where are the aliens? Here are a few strange answers to that question delivered by scientists. First, the aliens are hiding in underground oceans. If humans hope to converse with ET, we'll need to have a few icebreakers handy. Now, seriously, alien life is probably trapped in secret oceans buried deep inside frozen planets. Subsurface oceans of liquid water slosh beneath multiple moons in our solar system and may be common throughout the Milky Way, according to astronomers. NASA physicist Alan Stern thinks clandestine water worlds like these could provide a perfect stage for evolving life, even if inhospitable surface conditions plague those planets. Impacts and solar flares and nearby supernova and what orbit you're in, and whether you have a magnetosphere and whether there is a poisonous atmosphere, none of those things matter, he says, for life that's underground. That's great for the aliens, but it also means we'll never be able to detect them just by glancing at their planets with a telescope. Can we expect them to contact us? Heck, Stern said, these critters live so deep we can't even expect them to know that there's a sky over their heads. Another possibility is that the aliens are imprisoned on super-Earths. No, super-Earth is not Captain Planet's dorky cousin. In astronomy, the term super-Earth refers to the type of planet with a mass up to 10 times greater than that of our Earth. Star surveys have turned up oodles of these worlds that could have the right conditions for liquid water. This means alien life could conceivably be evolving on super-Earths all over the universe. Unfortunately, we'll probably never meet these aliens. According to a study published in April, a planet with 10 times Earth's mass would also have an escape velocity 2.4 times greater than Earth's, and overcoming that pull could make rocket launches and space travel nearly impossible. On more massive planets, spaceflight would be exponentially more expensive, says study author Michael Hipke, a researcher affiliated with the Sauderberg Observatory in Germany. Instead, those aliens would be to some extent arrested on their home planet. Okay then, perhaps we're looking in the wrong places because all aliens are robots. We'll look into that possibility when Weird Darkness returns. Are you a business owner or marketing manager? How would you like to share your product or service with our Weirdo family of listeners? Whether your business is worldwide, nationwide, or local, I would love to tell people about what you have to offer. To get your business heard in Weird Darkness, or just get information about advertising in the podcast, visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Advertise. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Advertise. I'm Darren Marlar. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. If you'd like to stay up to date on everything about the show and also maybe win some cool prizes at the same time, you can sign up for the Weird Darkness email newsletter. It's absolutely free, and every month, I draw one name at random for my winner to receive a Weird Darkness prize pack. You can sign up for the Weird Darkness newsletter. Again, it's free at WeirdDarkness.com, and you'll automatically be entered to win. We're still looking at the possibility of life in the universe and why we've never seen it. And could it be because, well, extraterrestrials are robots? Humans invented the radio around 1900, built the first computer in 1945, and are now in the business of mass producing handheld devices capable of making billions of calculations per second. Full-blown artificial intelligence may be right around the corner, and futurist Seth Shostak said that's reason enough to reframe our search for intelligent aliens. Simply put, we should be looking for machines, not little green men. Any alien society that invents radio, he says, so we can hear them, within a few centuries, they've invented their successors, Shostak said at the Dense Space Conference in San Francisco in 2016. He continued, I think that's important because the successors are machines. A truly advanced alien society may be completely populated by super-intelligent robots, he said, and that should inform our search for aliens. Instead of focusing all our resources on finding other habitable planets, perhaps we should also look to places that would be more attractive to machines, say places with lots of energy, like the centers of galaxies. We're looking for analogues of ourselves, Shostak said, but I don't know that that's the majority of the intelligence in the universe. Another idea is that we've already found aliens, but we're just too distracted to realize it. Thanks to pop culture, the word alien probably makes you envision a spooky humanoid with a big bald head. That's fine for Hollywood, but these preconceived images of E.T. could sabotage our search for alien life, according to a team of psychologists from Spain. In a small study, the researchers asked 137 people to look at pictures of other planets and scan the images for signs of alien structures. Hidden among several of these images was a tiny man in a gorilla suit. As the participants hunted for what they imagined alien life to look like, only about 30% noticed the gorilla man. In reality, aliens probably won't look anything like apes. They may not even be detectable by light and sound waves, the researchers said. So what does this study show us? Basically, our own imagination and attention span limit our search for extraterrestrials. If we don't learn to broaden our frames of reference, we could miss the gorilla staring us in the face. Another idea, humans will kill all the aliens, or we already have. The closer we get to finding aliens, the closer we get to destroying them. That's one likely eventuality anyway, according to theoretical physicist Alexander Barrison. Here's his thinking. Any civilization capable of exploring beyond its own solar system must be on a path of unrestricted growth and expansion. And as we know here on Earth, that expansion often comes at the expense of smaller, in-the-way organisms. Barrison said this me-first mentality probably wouldn't end when alien life is finally encountered, assuming we even notice it. What if the first life that breaches interstellar travel capability necessarily eradicates all competition to fuel its own expansion? Barrison wrote in a paper posted in March. I'm not suggesting that a highly developed civilization would consciously wipe out other life forms. Most likely they simply won't notice. The same way a construction crew demolishes an ant hill to build real estate because they lack incentive to protect it. Whether humans are the ants or the bulldozers in this scenario remains to be seen. Perhaps the aliens triggered climate change and that killed them. When a population burns through resources faster than its planet can provide them, catastrophe looms. We know this well enough from the ongoing climate change crisis here on Earth. So isn't it possible that an advanced energy-guzzling alien society might run into the same issues? According to astrophysicist Adam Frank, it's not only possible but extremely likely. Earlier this year, Frank ran a series of mathematical models to simulate how a hypothetical alien civilization might rise and fall as it increasingly converted its planet's resources into energy. The bad news is that in three out of four scenarios, the society crumbled and most of the population died. Only when the society caught the problem early and immediately switched to sustainable energy did the civilization manage to survive. That means that if aliens do exist, the odds are pretty high they'll destroy themselves before we ever meet them. Across cosmic space and time, you're going to have winners who managed to see what was going on and figure out a path through it and losers who just couldn't get their act together and their civilization fell by the wayside, Frank said. The question is, which category do we want to be in? Another possibility, the aliens couldn't evolve fast enough and died. File another excuse under the Aliens Are Dead Already category. The universe may be teeming with hospitable planets but there's no guarantee they'll stay that way long enough for life to evolve. According to a 2016 study from Australia National University, wet rocky planets like Earth very unstable when they start their careers if any alien life hopes to evolve and thrive on such a world, it has a very limited window a few hundred million years to get the ball rolling. Between the early heat pulses, freezing, volatile content variation and runaway greenhouse gases maintaining life on an initially wet rocky planet in the habitable zone may be like trying to ride a wild bull. Most life falls off, the study authors wrote. Life may be rare in the universe not because it's difficult to get started but because habitable environments are difficult to maintain during the first billion years. How about dark energy splitting us and the aliens apart? The universe is expanding. Slowly but surely galaxies are moving farther apart with distant stars appearing dimmer to us all thanks to the pull of a mysterious invisible substance that scientists are calling dark energy. Scientists speculate that within a few trillion years dark energy will stretch the universe so much that earthlings will no longer be able to see the light of any galaxies beyond our closest cosmic neighbors. That's a scary thought. If we don't explore as much of the universe as possible before then, such investigations may be lost to us forever. The stars become not only unobservable but entirely inaccessible. Dan Hooper, an astrophysicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois wrote in a study earlier this year. That means we are on a serious deadline to find and meet any aliens out there and to keep a step ahead of dark energy. We'll have to expand our civilization into as many galaxies as we can before they all drift away. Of course, fueling that kind of growth won't be easy, Hooper said. It might involve rearranging the stars. And of all the ideas of why we've not met aliens, here's a twist ending. We are the aliens. If you left your house today, you saw an alien. The woman delivering mail? Alien. Your next door neighbor? Noisy alien. Your parents and siblings? Aliens. Aliens. Aliens. At least that's one implication of the fringe astrobiology theory called the panspermia hypothesis. In a nutshell, the hypothesis says that much of the life we see on Earth today didn't originate here but was seeded here millions of years ago by meteors carrying bacteria from other worlds. Proponents of this theory have variously suggested that octopi, tardigrades and humans were seeded here from other parts of the galaxy. But unfortunately, there's no real evidence to back up any of this. One big counterargument, if bacteria carrying human DNA involved on another nearby planet, why haven't we found traces of humanity anywhere besides Earth? Even if this hypothesis turns out to be plausible, it still doesn't help us answer Fermi's nagging question. Where is everybody? A creature, part of the darkness before God created the heavens and earth, has awakened. It had slumbered, hibernating from the light. Now it's hungry and wanting to feed. Bobby, a local kid and the police chief have gone missing. Everyone in the small town of Standard Illinois is turning to former Chicago cop Rob Aletto to find them. But as he starts his search, more people disappear. Rob is quickly overwhelmed. The night itself seems to come alive, taking these people. Aletto must find out why and discover a way to stop it before the entire town slips into darkness. Into Darkness by Jason R. Davis, narrated by Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar, the greatly anticipated sequel to Inside the Mirrors. Here are free samples on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com My ex and I purchased a camper and moved it onto our property. The old man who lived in it before had fallen in the camper, hit his head on the corner of the kitchen countertop and died. There was still a blood stain on the carpet. The man's children were from out of the area and didn't want to deal with the hassle of moving the camper, so they sold it for next to nothing, as is. Not long after we moved the camper next to our home, I was sleeping on the couch in our living room. I was laying with my back facing out towards the room, nearly asleep, when something touched me and I jerked awake. My first instinct was that my child had come to wake me up because he couldn't sleep. I turned around to ask him what was wrong, but nothing was there. I then thought it was my cat because he would occasionally come up and tap me with his paw. I got up and looked around for the cat, but he was sleeping in my child's room on his bed. I was kind of creeped out and I almost went back into the bedroom but decided to go back to the couch. To this day, I am convinced that something inhuman touched me that night. I had a few other strange things happen and I feel like it had something to do with moving that camper to our house. Another time I was home alone watching TV in the living room, my Chihuahua was laying in the corner of the room facing towards me. All of a sudden, he got up and started barking as if he saw something. At first I thought he was barking at me, which was unusual but I realized he wasn't looking directly at me, but in front and to the side of me. He then went from barking to whimpering and running around in circles in the room as if something was chasing him. He continued on into the kitchen, which is when I noticed that he was not only running in circles and crying, he was also peeing on the floor as he ran. I picked him up and tried to comfort him and looked to see if there was anything wrong. I was so concerned I called my boyfriend and asked if I should just bring him to the vet. His sister worked at a vet clinic so I drove him down there just to make sure there wasn't anything wrong with him. They looked him over and said he was fine and couldn't explain the strange behavior. I don't know, the part of me thinks maybe he was barking at something he saw and something didn't like that. I think the thing started to chase my dog and scared him to the point of pissing himself. My dog had never behaved that way before and never did again. It was just a weird inexplicable freak out. The existence of so-called doppelgangers and spirit doubles is an ancient and widespread belief. According to legend, doppelgangers, German for double walker, is a duplicate of a real person. It's someone that looks the exact same as another person yet is not their twin. Mystics throughout the ages have believed doppelgangers and spirit doubles are supernatural creatures. They are either spiritual copies of the person or downright demonic twins. According to legends and folklore, seeing one's own double or alter ego is considered a bad omen. If people saw the double of their relative in a place that he or she was not actually there, it meant that they had seen their spirit double and that particular relative was to meet his death soon. According to some beliefs and superstitions, doppelgangers are supposed to be the evil twin that suggests and insinuates to its human counterpart to do bad and unlawful things. One of the earliest references of double spirits can be found in the Zervinite branch of Zoroastrianism. It deals with the abstract duality of Zoroastrianism into a concept of manifest twins born of a monist first, principle Zervan time. In this cosmological model, the twins Akura Mazda and Angra Mainu were co-eternal representatives of good and evil. However, the idea of a dual nature is by no means restricted to Zoroastrianism. This belief can be found in many religions. Perhaps even God and the devil can be seen as opposite sides of the same nature. In Norse mythology, a doppelganger was called a vartiger. It was believed this was a ghostly double that preceded a living person performing their actions in advance. Many stories of vartiger include instances that are nearly deja vu in substance, but in reverse, where a spirit with the subject's footsteps, voice, scent or appearance and overall demeanor precedes them in a location or activity, resulting in witnesses believing they have seen or heard the actual person before the person physically arrives. In Breton mythology, as well as in Cornish and Norman French folklore, the doppelganger is a version of the Ancu, a personification of death. There are many tales involving Ancu who appear as a man or a skeleton wearing a cloak and wielding a scythe and in some stories he is described as a shadow that looks like a man with an old hat and a scythe, often atop a cart for collecting the dead. He is said to wear a black robe with a large hat which conceals his face. Ancient Egyptians believed in the existence of a ka. The ka was considered a spiritual double born with every man. It lived on after a person died as long as it had a place to live. The ka lived within the body of the individual and therefore needed that body after death. This is why the Egyptians mummified their dead. If the body decomposed, their spirit double would die and the deceased would lose their chance for eternal life. Native American myths believe that there is an upper world and an underworld. While the good people reside in the upper world, their evil doubles live in the underworld. There are also several curious modern stories of doppelgangers. It happens that a doppelganger cannot be seen by the person at all, but instead manifests to other people in a completely different location. How the existence of doppelgangers can be explained remains a question that no one has been able to solve yet. Traditional science explains the manifestation of a spirit double or doppelganger as nothing but electrical glitches of the brain or mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. However, there are also those who believe in the presence of a double you or double self. There are many intriguing examples of how certain historical figures have claimed to be haunted by a doppelganger. One such person was Johann Wolfgang von Geff, 1749-1832. He was a famous German writer, poet and politician. Geff encountered his doppelganger while riding his horse on the road to Drusenheim. His double approached him, riding in the opposite direction. This being was dressed in a grey suit trimmed in gold. Eight years later, Geff found himself riding on the same road in the opposite direction. He suddenly remembered the strange encounter and was even more shocked to realize he was wearing the very grey suit trimmed in gold that he had seen so many years earlier. One of the most intriguing doppelganger stories concerns Emily Saggy, who never saw her doppelganger. Everyone else did, though. Saggy worked in an exclusive girls school. She was a very good teacher, but for some reason she kept moving from one job to another. In 16 years she had changed positions an impressive 19 times. In 1845 the school found out why. Saggy was allegedly the center of some very strange doppelganger activity. Her spectral twin was first seen during a class as 13 students witnessed the doppelganger standing by Saggy's side and mirroring her movements. Next it stood behind her as she ate, pantomiming her movements. Saggy herself, however, was completely oblivious to the apparition despite the fact that everyone else could see it clearly. However she did become strangely groggy and powerless during the times the doppelganger manifested and the wraith was often seen doing things Saggy later said she had been thinking about at the moment, suggesting that she may have had some subliminal control over her own doppelganger. Soon the doppelganger ventured beyond Saggy's immediate vicinity. At first it appeared to a classroom full of students sitting calmly in the teacher's chair while Saggy herself was outside working in the garden. A few people who dared to approach the doppelganger found they could pass through it, yet it had a texture that reminded them of thick fabric. Time went by and the apparition became a permanent fixture of the school's life, freaking people out on a regular basis. The girl's concerned parents started removing their children from the school. Although Saggy was a model employee on all non-paranormal accounts, the headmistress had no option but to fire her and her ghostly double. French writer Guy de Maupassant said he was haunted by his own doppelganger near the end of his life. One incident involved his double entering his room and sitting opposite to him, then dictating what mossipant was writing. Carl Sandberg's biography of Abraham Lincoln includes a strange account reportedly told by Lincoln himself and confirmed by Mary Todd Lincoln of the appearance of a double image of himself in a mirror on the night he was first elected to the presidency. Lincoln said he was extremely tired and had returned home to rest. When he looked into a bureau mirror across the room he saw a double image of himself. The second Lincoln was pale in comparison to the first image. This phenomenon occurred twice before the second image disappeared. Lincoln mentioned it to his wife who said that she thought it was a sign that he would be elected to a second term and that the death power meant that he would not live through his final term. There are of course many other intriguing stories of doppelgangers but what is most fascinating is perhaps the possibility that a copy of you could exist in a parallel universe. A previous episode of Weird Darkness talked about how some of our dream glimpses could possibly be from a parallel universe. I'll place a link to that episode in the show notes. We talked about how in this world there could be a copy of yourself making different decisions and seeing places that somehow later manifest themselves in your dreams. Is it not possible that doppelgangers are in fact beings that exist in an alternate reality and occasionally enter our realms? It's a theory worth exploring. Hey Weirdos, how would you like to receive a box full of scary stuff in the mail full of fear inducing objects like creepy collectibles, true crime themed accessories, frightening flair, blood curdling books, terrifying trinkets, eerie e-downloads and more, absolutely free. Every other month I'm filming an unboxing video of the newest creepy crate that I get in the mail, then I'm boxing it all back up and giving it away by random drawing to someone subscribed to the Weird Darkness email newsletter. And before I close up the box for good, I might toss in a couple of Weird Darkness goodies as well for good measure. You can keep the creepy crate for yourself or give it away to a weirdo friend or family member. To watch my latest creepy crate unboxing video and to register to win a creepy crate of your own for free, visit WeirdDarkness.com slash CreepyCrate. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash CreepyCrate. George Barrington was well known for two things, picking pockets and writing books. One led to the other, you see. Barrington had been caught picking pockets in London, yet again in 1790 and was sentenced to transportation, which means the authorities had given up trying to make him stop picking pockets and instead put him on a boat to anywhere not England. As a result of this unexpected trip, Barrington wrote books about his sea voyages. In Barrington's first book, A Voyage to New South Wales Volume 1, published in 1795, he appears to provide not only one of the earliest mentions of the legend of a phantom ship called the Flying Dutchman, but he also seems to have recorded the first published claim of an actual encounter with the ghostly vessel. Here is the legend of the phantom ship as Barrington explains it in his book. I had often heard of the superstition of sailors respecting apparitions, but had never given much credit to the report. It seems that some years since a Dutchman of war was lost off the Cape and every soul on board perished, her consort weathered the gale and arrived soon after at the Cape. Having refitted and returning to Europe, they were assailed with a violent tempest nearly in the same latitude. In the night watch, some of the people saw or imagined they saw a vessel standing for them under a press of sail as though she would run them down, one in particular affirmed it was the ship that had foundered in the former gale and that it must certainly be her or the apparition of her, but on its clearing up the object, a dark, thick cloud, disappeared. Nothing could do away the idea of this phenomenon on the minds of the sailors and on their relating the circumstances when they arrived in port, the story spread like wildfire and the supposed phantom was called the Flying Dutchman. From the Dutch, the English seamen got the infatuation and there are very few India men, but what has someone on board who pretends to have seen the apparition? As you can see, Barrington was by no means a believer in the actual existence of the ghostly ship, but he felt the need to write this clarification of the legend because he then had to explain what happened to him when his ship was leaving the Cape of Good Hope itself. Barrington's book covers the years 1790 to 1792 when he was sent to Botany Bay, Australia and it was some time in this initial trip that Barrington's ship had made anchor at the Cape of Good Hope, Africa. When the time came to leave, Barrington's ship found itself having to anchor near the coast for 24 hours as it waited for a tropical storm to pass. Barrington had the keys for the cabinet that the alcohols were locked up in, which is why the boatswain woke him at 2 a.m. The boatswain was clearly frightened. He stated he had just seen the Flying Dutchman. Barrington sums up what the boatswain told him by saying, I was just looking over the weatherbow. What should I see but the Flying Dutchman coming right down upon us with everything set? I know it was she. I could see all her lower deck ports up and the lights fore and aft as if cleared for action. Now as how would you see, I am sure no mortal ship could bear her lower deck ports up and not found her in this here weather. Why the sea runs mountains high, it must certainly be the ghost of that there Dutchman that found her in this latitude and which I have heard say always appears in this here quarter in hard gales of wind. After a couple of swigs of drink, the boatswain seemed to have composed himself some. So Barrington asked him if he was afraid of ghosts. The boatswain answered that he was as good as any other man on that but admitted that as a child he was frightened. He then also said that the man who was at the helm, a Joe Jackson, had not seen the phantom ship though it had appeared plain as day to the boatswain himself. Barrington convinced there was no phantom ship, headed up to the deck with the boatswain to see if he could figure out what happened. The weather had cleared up by that time and the moon was shining bright with no clouds in sight. In talking to the others awake on deck, Barrington found that the sky had been very cloudy just a half an hour earlier. The sea was still running high and the wind was still blowing strong enough for Barrington's ship to hold its position until morning. Barrington eventually concluded that the boatswain had seen luminous spots in the high water of the night, luminous spots caused by sea creatures which Barrington had seen at differing points in his trip and that the boatswain had interpreted these lights seen through a passing cloud as being open ports and lights on a ship that wasn't actually there. You can follow the show on Facebook and Twitter at Weird Darkness and please tell others about the show who love the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. And doing that helps make it possible for me to keep doing the radio show. If you'd like to be a part of the show, you can send in your own paranormal experiences by clicking on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com. You can also email me anytime about anything at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. All stories from 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 which you can find at WeirdDarkness.com. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright Weird Darkness 2023. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Psalm 91 verse 14. Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him, I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. And a final thought from Karen Casey. The talents we each have been blessed with can only be developed if we use them fully to benefit the lives of others as well as our own. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Don't go anywhere, weirdos, because sudden death over time is up next. Loneliness can be a real burden. And while you can always log on to social media or watch TV, sometimes you just want someone near you. I mean, what if you could be in your living room sitting right next to Michael Myers or sleeping in your bedroom with Freddy Krueger? Maybe watch a horrible B movie with Alvira right there next to you. Have dinner with Hannibal Lecter. Do some quilting or sewing with Pinhead watching over you the whole time. Maybe wash and groom your dog in the presence of the Wolfman. Bobbletopia is the place to get your favorite horror characters as bobbleheads. And their Nika line of hyper-realistic horror action figures is incredible, like King Kong, the alien Xenomorph, Pennywise, Frankenstein's Monster, and more. And most every item is under $40. No need to be lonely any longer. Visit bobbletopia.com slash Weird Darkness and get 10% off your first order by using the promo code WeirdDarkness. That's bobbletopia.com slash Weird Darkness. See, you're feeling less lonely already. The Dragon is one of the most well-known creatures in ancient mythology, and many cultures have this creature, or one of its related forms in their folklore. In East Asian countries, for instance, dragons are regarded as symbols of power, strength, and good fortune. They are believed to be benevolent creatures that have power over bodies of water, rain, and floods. In Western Europe, by contrast, dragons are viewed as malevolent creatures that are the embodiment of evil. One popular motif of Western European art is that of St. George slaying the dragon. One of the lesser known dragons is that of the Jamage, a dragon that can be found in Slavic folklore. In certain Slavic countries, dragons are viewed either as good or evil, depending on their sex. In Bulgarian legends, for instance, male dragons are believed to be the protectors of crops, whilst the female ones are bent on destroying the fruits of man's labor. In other parts of the Slavic world, the dragon is seen as a wicked beast, similar to those of Western Europe. In Russia and Ukraine, a particular dragon-like creature is a dangerous beast with three heads that spits fire. In Serbia, however, the Jamage is generally regarded as a benevolent being, just like the dragons of East Asia. These creatures have been described as having a ram's head and a seductive snake's body. These dragons are said to protect the people from the Aela, or Ajeda, a creature believed to bring bad weather and storms that destroy crops. In addition to the great strength and wisdom, the Jamage are also reported to be able to take on different forms, including that of human beings. In this form, they were able to pursue one of their favorite hobbies, the pursuit of women. Some Jamage are thought to be so engrossed in this activity to the extent that they neglect the protection of farmlands from bad weather. If crops were destroyed by bad weather, villagers would gather to expel the Jamage from the houses of local women. The lust of the Jamage for mortal women is also a major theme in a Serbian folk tale known as the Sarena Milica and the Jamage of Yastrebats. In this tale, the Sarena Milica is said to have been visited by a Jamage every night for a year. When her husband, the 14th century Serbian ruler, Tsar Lazar hears this, he tells the Sarena to ask the Jamage if he feared anyone besides God and whether there is a hero on this earth superior to himself. The Jamage is tricked into revealing that there is indeed one that he feared, the Zamage Despot Vuk, who lived in a village called Kupanova in the plain of Sermia. The next day, the Tsar is sent for the Zamage Despot Vuk who arrives and subsequently slays the Zamage. It has been pointed out that the Zamage Despot Vuk is actually based on a real historical figure, Despot Vuk Brankovic, who lived during the second half of the 15th century and was believed to be a descendant of a dragon. The portrayal of Vuk Brankovic as a hero shows how history and legend could be merged to suit a ruler's needs. Vuk was not the only Serbian ruler to employ the legend of the Zamage to bolster his image. There are other rulers who claim that their fathers were actually Zamage. These include Tsar Lazar's son and successor, Stefan Lazarevic, as well as Stojan Kupic and Vasakarapic, two important figures of the first Serbian uprising that took place in the early 19th century. Some years ago, there were plans in Serbia to capitalize on the country's rich dragon lore and turn it into a tourist attraction. Numerous landmarks, including castles, fortresses and churches where the Zamage are said to have visited, would be incorporated into a dragon trail for tourists. Today, such a trail known as the Paths of Dragons through Serbia is in existence. The route begins in Frusca Gora in the north, passes through the country's capital Belgrade, and ends at the fortress of Markovokil in the south. In a way, this might help to preserve the legends of the Zamage for future generations and also contribute to Serbia's tourism industry. 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. 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