 adds her to during the podcast that are not in my voice or 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. 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… Is it possible that dinosaurs lived recently, like in the 1900s? Even more bizarre could they have been living in the 20th century in, of all places, the Arctic Circle? On May 3rd, 1881, Mena Mueller and Louis Kettler took the ferry from New York City to Hoboken, New Jersey. They were going to be married in Hoboken, although they each had a spouse already. The legality of the marriage did not concern them. They were returning to Germany and would start a new life there. But somehow, their plans went awry. That night, Louis Kettler returned to New York alone, and ten days later, Mena Mueller's body was found in New Jersey with a fractured skull. Timothy Trespass lives in his home in Brooklyn and I do mean in his home as he rarely leaves the house because he feels he is being stopped everywhere he goes by gangs of individuals and he is not the only one. They say walking is good for you, but that depends on where you walk, when you walk and who you bump into as one person found out late one night just trying to alleviate the boredom. You've all slept in longer than we planned. What's the longest you ever slept in? Three hours? Thirteen hours? Did you ever sleep three days straight? I see maybe two hands raised out there. You two are amateurs, by the way. One man slept three hundred days out of the year. A man had several unexplained incidents while hiking in a German forest. Even by the events, he eventually encounters a man with bright green eyes. Was this a guardian angel or was it a grey alien? If you're new here, welcome to the show and if you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com where you can find me on Facebook, Twitter and more along with the Weird Darkness Weirdo's Facebook group. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Stately mountains, sparkling turquoise rivers and meandering valleys with exquisite grace. This is just a fraction of the appeal that applies to the Klondike region of Canada's Yukon territory. Indigenous First Nation peoples account for approximately 20% of the Yukon's demographics. Together with the descendants of Canada's first immigrants, they contribute to a rich culture involving sled dog races, hiking, hunting and natural food cultivation. Maple syrup anyone? Camping within the country's frost-tipped forests invigorates the blood. The natural spring tends to supplement one's step during the exploration of Canada's bountiful ecology. Spelunkers and explorers scale its narrow crags and winding courses with eager companion dogs weaving in and out between tall trees. As a result of the steep temperatures, each breath appears as a swirling trace of condensation, one after the other as the lungs expand and contract in perfect anatomical unison. The wildlife in the Yukon's subarctic climate is no less exotic. Winter foxes, sheep, bears, elk, musk oxen, avian raptors and goats pepper the landscape. The arctic wastelands of the Yukon territory on the borders of Canada and Alaska are surely the last place anyone might expect to meet a dinosaur. But it would be such a creature described by a Mr. George Dupuis in 1903 that would introduce a new sort of fear into the hearts of the Canadian populace. The monster of Partridge Creek, as it would come to be known, garnered official inquiry after being featured in a French magazine which translated means I know all. It published a very interesting article in April of 1908. The tale was recounted by one of the creature's eye witnesses, French traveler George Dupuis. According to Dupuis, the adventure had begun one day in 1903 when a banker from San Francisco named James Louis Butler and a local gold prospector named Tom Leymour were hunting three large moose amid the marshy tundra countryside near the Yukon's Clear Creek, about 100 miles east of Dawson City. Suddenly a burly moose raised its head as if it had heard something unexpected in the vicinity, and just as it did so, a second member of the trio emitted a loud bellow of alarm, sending all three of them fleeing southwards with all speed. Standing seven feet at the shoulder and weighing up to half a ton as the world's largest living species of deer, the moose is not a creature to be readily intimidated by anything, which is why the two hunters were so surprised by their quarry's impromptu flight. When they reached the spot from where the moose had fled, however, the reason for these creatures' uncharacteristic behavior became clear. There in the snow was the clear impression of an enormous body belonging to some unidentifiable beast of monstrous proportions. The beast's belly had plowed into the riverbed's swampy mud, a massive, furrow 30 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 2 feet deep, which was flanked by gigantic footprints measuring 2.5 feet across and 5 feet in length, each also yielding impressions of sharp 1 foot long claws. Completing the clues left behind by this unseen Goliath was the imprint of a mighty 10 foot long tail spanning 16 inches across its middle. Notwithstanding the nightmarish visions conjured up by such dramatic dimensions, the two men decided to follow the monster's tracks, which led, after several miles, to a gulch known as Partridge Creek, where the tracks simply came to an end, giving the men cause to speculate that it must have leapt directly up into the gulch's encompassing cliffs. Following this, they made their way by canoe along the questin river to the nearby outpost of Armstrong Creek, an Indian village where Butler had earlier arranged to meet Dupuy to take him hunting, and which was home to the Reverend Father Pierre Lavigneau, a French-Canadian Jesuit priest. When Dupuy and the priest heard about the monster, they were highly skeptical at first, but eventually Butler persuaded them to return to Partridge Creek with Lemor and himself in a second search for it, aided by some local Indians. After a day's intensive but fruitless search of the immediate area and some distance beyond it in all directions, however, the party of weary beast hunters had resigned themselves to failure and decided to establish camp at the top of a rocky ravine. Thoughts of confronting monsters had been largely suppressed by the more practical goal of preparing a warm meal. Until, wholly without warning, they received a terrifying reminder of the reason for their presence there. A hideous roar broke the arctic stillness, and as the startled hunters reached for their rifles, one of them pointed with shaking hand to the opposite side of the ravine where the crimson rays of the dying sun revealed a heart-stopping sight. A veritable monster in every sense of the word was clamoring up its slope. Back in color, at least 50 feet long and estimated by Butler to weigh about 40 tons, their horrific visitor continued to climb upwards for a time, mercifully unaware of its terrified human eye witnesses' close proximity. When it was about 200 paces away, it paused for 10 minutes or so, furnishing them with ample opportunity to observe it at close range in all its spine-chilling glory. Although profusely splattered with thick mud, its hide could be seen to bear many coarse, gray black bristles like those of a wild boar, and a hideous mass of blood and saliva oozed from its cavernous jaws. Most remarkable of all, however, was the rhino-like horn perched prominently, if somewhat incongruously, near the end of its snout. The Indians cowered in terror behind a large rock, and the others were rendered momentarily speechless by the monstrous apparition. But when it became clear that it had not detected them, the priest gained sufficient control of his voice to whisper between still-chattering teeth, a seratosaurus of the Arctic Circle. Seratosaurus nasicornis was a large, flesh-eating bipedal dinosaur of the Jurassic period, related to the later, larger Tyrannosaurus rex, and readily identified via the large horn near the tip of its upper jaw. As they continued to watch, the beast suddenly reared up on its massive hind legs like a hellish kangaroo, gave voice to an ear-splitting roar again, and then disappeared back down into the ravine via a single immense bound. Not too surprisingly, the beast hunters found that the thrill of pursuing this creature had lost its former charm, and the following morning, they journeyed back to Armstrong Creek. Dupuis later attempted to enter as the Canadian governor at Dawson City in supplying them with a large-scale hunting party of mules and fifty armed men, but when this failed, he returned home to France. The matter was not quite over, however, for in January 1908, he received a letter from Fr. Levenieux, dated Christmas Day 1907, in which the priest informed him that on Christmas Eve and while in the company of ten Indians, he had seen their monstrous quarry once again. This time, racing at speed over the creek's frozen river, with what seemed to be the carcass of a caribou clamped between its great jaws. Tracks identical to those found back in 1903 were clearly visible in the deep mud, and were followed by Levenieux and company for at least two miles before being obliterated by falling snow. That appears to have been the last time that the beast of Partridge Creek was spotted, either by Levenieux or by anyone else, for there does not seem to be any further records on file alluding to this extraordinary creature. There would be more than enough healthy skepticism to go around, of course. The temperatures in the Yukon being what they were, down to negative forty degrees, should have made the environment fatal to such a creature, even given its size. If it were a lake-dwelling reptile, in which lake could the creature have made its home? The water surely would have been frozen over. Could the beast have been a surviving relic of prehistoric times? The depth and breadth of the Canadian landscape would have made for many secure hiding places, but why were there no nests or egg clutches ever found? Even given the vastness of the Yukon, wouldn't there have been at least a trickle of other encounters? After the Rev. Letter dated around Christmas Eve of 1907, it appeared that the monster of Partridge Creek was no more, but it did leave George Dupuis with one heck of a story. As long as the winters of Canada's Yukon kissed the wilderness with frost, the mystery endures. Coming up on Weird Darkness, Timothy Trespas lives in his home in Brooklyn, and I do mean lives in his home. He rarely leaves his house because he feels he is being stalked everywhere he goes by gangs of individuals, and he's not the only one. But first, on May 3rd, 1881, Mina Mueller and Louis Kettler took the ferry from New York City to Hoboken, New Jersey. They were going to be married in Hoboken, although they each had a spouse already. The legality of the marriage did not concern them. They were returning to Germany and would start a new life there. But somehow their plans went awry. That night, Louis Kettler returned to New York alone, and ten days later, Mina Mueller's body was found in New Jersey with a fractured skull. That story is up next, 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 from my type 2 diabetes aren't going to do me much good if I finish each meal with ice cream or cheesecake. I kind of 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 in about 150 calories per bar, less than 3 grams of sugar, up to 19 grams of 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 at WeirdDarkness.com slash built. On May 13, 1881, a man gathering leaves in the woods outside of Gutenberg, New Jersey nearly stepped on the body of a young woman lying dead on the ground. He hurried away to inform the police. That afternoon, a coroner of Hoboken visited the spot and made an examination of the body. She'd been an attractive woman with small and symmetrical features. He judged her to be around 25 years old. Along the top of her head, on the left side was a deep gash and beneath it, the skull was fractured. There was another gash over the right eye. Both wounds had apparently been made with the edge of a heavy stone. Her nose was broken and her left ear had been injured as if an earring had been torn from it. She remained unidentified for five days. Then, a New York City tobacconist named Simon Mueller came to see if it was his missing wife, Mina, short for Filomena. He was accompanied by his wife's sister, Maria Schmidt. In spite of the condition of her face, both positively identified her as Mina Mueller and recognized her clothing and jewelry as well. Mina and her husband had been separated for some time, and two weeks earlier, she had told her sister that she had found a decent man from Alsace who was going to marry her and take her to Europe aboard the steamer, La Merique, to set sail on May 4. Ms. Schmidt told this to Simon Mueller, who went to the docks on May 4 and watched the gang plank as the passengers boarded the ship. His wife was not among them. This story confirmed some information that the police already had. Mrs. Frank, the wife of an ale housekeeper in New York, was suspicious of a couple in the saloon on May 3. The woman seemed to have plenty of money, and she talked incessantly. Before she left, she borrowed a corkscrew to open a bottle of rind wine that she had purchased in Hoboken. The description Mrs. Frank gave of the woman tallied exactly with the description of the murdered woman, so police detectives set out to trace the couple's movements. They found that the wine had been purchased at an inn run by Edward Stable. The woman who bought it had told him that she and her husband had just been married by the Reverend Dr. Maven at the Grove Reformed Dutch Church, and she wanted to celebrate the event and treat the minister. The man had waited outside, and Stable did not get a good look at him, but his description of the woman matched that given by Mrs. Frank. The detectives spoke with Reverend Dr. Maven, who remembered performing a ceremony. They identified themselves as Louis Kettler and Mina Schmidt and given address on Third Street in New York, but Maven could not recall anything specific about the couple. His servant, however, remembered that the man had a full face and a dark mustache. Before the service, he paced back and forth in the garden as if his mind was troubled. The detectives went next to the Third Street address. No one there knew Mina Schmidt, but they found an expressman who had moved four trunks for a Mina Mueller from Third Street to Sharer's Hotel on Christopher Street. There, they were told that Mr. and Mrs. Kettler had checked in on May 2. They went out the morning of May 3, but late that night, Mr. Kettler had returned alone. He said his wife had stayed at her sister's house and they were to meet on the steamship the next day. The next day, he had his trunks delivered to the steamship wharf and checked out. With Louis Kettler aboard a ship heading to Europe, New Jersey Attorney General Stockton sent a message to authorities at Hov, describing Kettler and requesting his arrest on the charge of murder. Two Hoboken detectives were preparing to set sail for Europe. But a Jersey City reporter named Gustavus Seed did not believe that Kettler had left on the ship. There was no certainty that the baggage had actually been delivered to the wharf, and there was no positive evidence that Louis Kettler had actually boarded the ship. With some difficulty, Seed located C.A. Strang, the expressman who picked up the baggage at Sharer's Hotel. Strang told him that he had not delivered the trunks to the wharf, but to an address on Charles Street. Then, about ten days later, he moved three of them to an address on 36th Street. At the Charles Street address, Seed was told that Kettler had left for California, leaving behind a trunk full of crockery and cookware. Seed and Strang took the trunk to 36th Street, where no one knew Louis Kettler, but a man, fitting his description, named Martin Kinkowski, lived there with his wife and two children. Kinkowski was not home, but his wife recognized the trunk and paid Strang 50 cents to carry it into the house. As Gustavus Seed and C.A. Strang stood outside watching the house and waiting for Kinkowski's return, they were arrested by a hoboken policeman. Following their own line of inquiry, the police had come to 36th Street looking for the same man. They had mistaken Seed for Kinkowski. The matter was straightened out at the police station, and the officers were sent back to 36th Street. That night, Martin Kinkowski, alias Louis Kettler, was arrested for the murder of Filomena Mueller. Keeping the prisoner alive was the chief concern that night. News that they had captured the Gutenberg Killer traveled fast and a crowd of over 400 people stood on 36th Street, calling to lynch Kinkowski. They got him safely to the Hoboken Ferry, but another crowd seeking vengeance was waiting on the Jersey side. When Kinkowski was safely in his jail cell, he had to be kept under surveillance. He was so despondent, the jailers feared suicide. Kinkowski denied any connection to Mina Mueller's murder. He admitted that he knew her and said that they had been together at Shorts and Park in New Jersey on May 3rd. They stopped in a saloon for some beer, and when they came out, they saw two men walking down the road. One of them said, Hello Mina, what are you doing over here? When Kinkowski heard this, he turned to Mina and said, If you're that kind of woman, I'll have nothing to do with you. He left her with the two men and never saw her again. The trial of Martin Kinkowski for the murder of Filomena Mueller was held in the Hudson County Court of Oyer and Terminer, prosecuted by Attorney General Stockton. The evidence against Kinkowski was entirely circumstantial, but it was compelling. The prosecution presented a parade of witnesses who testified to saying Martin Kinkowski and Mina Mueller together at various times on May 3rd and to the movement of his trunks after the murder. At one point, the courtroom was shocked when a medical examiner produced Mina Mueller's skull to illustrate the wounds she received, but there was no physical evidence to link Kinkowski to the wounds. Kinkowski's defense was little more than his testimony contradicting or explaining away the testimony against him. He held to the story of the two men who she left with that day and wanted to take the court to the spot where it happened. This was disallowed by the judge. Kinkowski said that he had not taken the trunks to Charles Street to conceal them but to hold them for Mina's return. Throughout the trial, Kinkowski was emotionally charged. In his closing argument, when the Attorney General declared Kinkowski to be the murderer, he jumped to his feet shouting that God knows he is innocent and will protect him. He was not however protected from the jury, who after an hour of deliberation found Kinkowski guilty. When the verdict was read, Kinkowski fainted. In the days following his trial, Martin Kinkowski suffered from nervous prostration. His attorney appealed on technicalities and moved for a new trial but his motion was denied. At his sentencing, Kinkowski was asked if he had anything to say before the death sentence was pronounced. Kinkowski made a statement in German that was translated by an interpreter. He said, Since this courthouse has been built, a more innocent man than myself never stood before this court and God knows it. Martin Kinkowski was hanged inside the Hudson County Jail in Jersey City on January 6, 1882. He made no confession, professing his innocence to the end. Nobody believed him. His family told him to get help. But Timothy Trespass, an out-of-work recording engineer in his early 40s, was sure he was being stalked and not by just one person but dozens of them. He would see the operatives, he said, disguised as ordinary people lurking around his midtown Manhattan neighborhood. Sometimes they bumped into him and whispered nonsense into his ear. Now you see how it works, they would say. At first, Mr. Trespass wondered if it was all in his head. Then he encountered a large community of like-minded people on the internet who call themselves targeted individuals or TIs, who described going through precisely the same thing. The group is organized around the conviction that its members are victims of a sprawling conspiracy to harass thousands of everyday Americans with mind control weapons and armies of so-called gang stalkers. The goal, as one gang stalking website put it, is to destroy every aspect of a targeted individual's life. Mental health professionals say the narrative has taken hold among a group of people experiencing psychotic symptoms that have troubled the human mind since time immemorial. Except now, victims are connecting on the internet, organizing and defying medical explanations for what is happening to them. The community, conservatively estimated to exceed 10,000 members, has proliferated since 9-11, cradled by the internet and fed by genuine concerns over government surveillance. A large number appear to have delusional disorder or schizophrenia, according to psychiatrists. Yet the phenomenon remains virtually unresearched. For the few specialists who have looked closely, these individuals represent an alarming development in the history of mental illness. Thousands of sick people banded together in demanding recognition on the basis of shared paranoias. They raised money, hold awareness campaigns, host international conferences and fight for their causes in courts and legislatures. Perhaps their biggest victory came recently when believers in Richmond California persuaded the city council to pass a resolution banning space-based weapons that they believe could be used for mind control. A similar lobbying effort is underway in Tucson. Dr. Lorraine Sheridan, who is co-author of perhaps the only study of gang stalking, said the community poses a danger that sets it apart from other groups promoting troubling ideas, such as anorexia or suicide. On those topics, the internet abounds with medical information and treatment options. An internet search for gang stalking, however, turns up page after page of results that regard it as fact. What's scary for me, she says, is that there are no counter sites that try and convince targeted individuals that they are delusional. They end up in a closed ideology echo chamber. In instructional tracts online, veterans of the movement explain the ropes to the rookies. Do not engage with the voices in your head. If your relatives tell you that you're imagining things, they could be in on it. The tribe cuts across all classes and professions and includes lawyers, soldiers, artists and engineers. In Facebook forums and call-in support groups, they commiserate over the skepticism of their loved ones and share stories of black vans that circle the block or coworkers conscripted into the campaign. A T.I. subgenre has blossomed on Amazon. They have self-published dozens of e-books with titles like Tortured in America and My Life Changed Forever. In hundreds of YouTube videos, they offer testimonials and try to document evidence of their stalking, even confronting unsuspecting strangers. They wanted to basically destroy me and they did, said a young mother in Phoenix in one video, choking back tears. She lost custody of her daughter and was sent to a behavioral health hospital. Her name is being withheld to protect her privacy. She adds, But I'm going to fight back for the rest of my life. Guess what? I'm not crazy. Dr. Sheridan's study, written with Dr. David James, a forensic psychiatrist, examined 128 cases of reported gang stalking. It found all the subjects were most likely delusional. One has to think of the T.I. phenomenon in terms of people with paranoid symptoms who have hit upon the gang stalking idea as an explanation of what is happening to them, Dr. James said. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the community is divided over the contours of the conspiracy. Some believe the financial elite is behind it. Others blame aliens, their neighbors, Freemasons, or some combination. The movement's most prominent voices, however, tend to believe the surveillance is part of a mind control field test done in preparation for global domination. The military establishment, the theory goes, never gave up on the ambitions of MKUltra, the CIA's infamous program to control the mind in the 1950s and 60s. A leading proponent of that view is an anesthesiologist from San Antonio named John Hall. In his 2009 book, A New Breed, Satellite Terrorism in America, Dr. Hall gave his own account of being targeted. Agents bleached his water, he says, and bombarded him with voices making murderous threats. The book made a splash because of the messenger, a licensed member of the medical establishment who was telling those who feel targeted that psychiatrists were misleading them. A janitor knows as much about the human mind, he says. Dr. Hall was invited for an interview on Coast to Coast AM, a conspiracy-minded radio show based in California that is said to reach millions of listeners. After that, he says, I had probably 3 or 4,000 emails from people saying, It's happening to me in this state. It's happening to me in Florida. It's happening to me in California. The similarities of the cases spoke to a wide-ranging campaign. If the psychiatrists want to say that this is schizophrenia or delusional disorder, he says, that's fine, but every one of these victims have the same story. While Dr. Hall is faced scrutiny from the Texas Medical Board over his mental fitness, he retains his license. Over time, however, many others who identify as gang-stalking victims end up out of work. They are mocked by colleagues, tolerated by family, friends and spouses, all the way. The despair that results has led some to lash out in violence. Many in the community, for example, are convinced that Aaron Alexis, who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard in 2013, was a victim. Mr. Alexis, a former sailor, left behind a document accusing the Navy of attacking his brain with extremely low-frequency electromagnetic waves. On the side of his shotgun were etched the words, my elf weapon. It was unclear when Myron May's mental distress began, but by the fall of 2014 it had become too much. He quit his job as a prosecutor in New Mexico and traveled to Florida. There, he videotaped a testimonial about how gang-stalking had ruined his life. As you can see right now, he says into the camera, I am totally not crazy. Laying out his case, he describes an episode at a gas station, where he believed somebody in dark glasses was mimicking his movements. It was really creepy, he said. Everything I did, he did. Later in the video he prays for forgiveness for his future sins. Father, he says, right now I ask that you look down on all the targeted individuals across the globe. Help them to cope with this madness. On November 20, 2014, Mr. May walked into a library at Florida State University, where he graduated in 2005 and shot three people, leaving one paralyzed. He dared the police to kill him, then fired in their direction before being fatally shot. He was 31. The vast majority of people with psychosis never resort to violence. Still, studies suggest that a small number of those experiencing psychotic episodes, especially paranoid thoughts accompanied by voices making commands, are more likely to act on hostile urges than people without a mental illness. Many in the TI community, as anyone would, have repudiated the shootings by Mr. Alexis and Mr. May, but some also harbor troubling views about their perceived oppressors. They question how people could be so cruel. Karen Stewart of Tallahassee, Florida believes large numbers of regular people have been brainwashed by the National Security Agency into thinking that she is a traitor or terrorist. Wherever she goes, she says, to church, to the grocery store, to the doctor's office, they are there, watching. It baffles her, she says, but worse, it makes me angry to see how many people in this country are sociopaths. They are absolute group think drones, she said. I don't even consider them human anymore. Susan Clancy, a Harvard-trained psychologist who has researched people who believe they have been abducted by aliens, said it could be extremely difficult to dissuade patients who have latched on beliefs that they think explain their delusions. I think it is a need for meaning and a need to understand your life and the problems that you are having, she said. You are not some meaningless nobody. You are being followed by the CIA. In that way, Dr. Clancy says, the behavior shares a trait with religious beliefs. To abandon it would be life upending. Paula Trespass, Mr. Trespass' mother, said she avoided debating it with him. It wasn't something that he was making up, she said. He really felt the way he felt and experienced what he experienced. I got to the point where I was just finally saying to him, I am very, very sad that you have to go through this. I wish that there was something that I could do. The big hope is that society will wake up to what is happening and put a stop to it. Those who feel targeted, say. In some cases, they do seek psychiatric help. In others, the delusions subside. For the rest, the prognosis isn't good. Many contemplate suicide. Mr. Trespass says he went so far as to prepare a rope. Sitting at a coffee shop in Brooklyn recently, he says the stalking has thankfully quieted down. But he says its harassers have also been seeding his body with more gelons, a painful insect-like infestation of the skin that many doctors say is psychosomatic. He's gaunt, with weary, sad eyes. It's been eight years since it all began for him, he says. He can't hold a job. His friends have drifted away. The online community has been a crucial support for him. But we don't know exactly what's happening, he says. Maybe we're believing the wrong thing. I don't know. That's why I try to keep my mind open about who and what and why and how. One thing he is certain of, though, he says. He's not crazy. When Weird Darkness returns, they say walking is good for you. But that depends on where you walk, when you walk, and who you bump into, as one person found out late one night just trying to alleviate the boredom. Plus, we've all slept in longer than planned. What's longest you ever slept in? Three hours? Thirteen hours? You ever sleep three days straight? I see a couple of hands raised out there on that one. Well, you two that raise your hands, you're amateurs. One man slept 300 days out of the year. Those stories are coming up on Weird Darkness. No matter the time of day or season, sometimes you need to find a way to rid yourself of those ghostly chills that bring raised hairs and goose bumps to your skin. Other times, you're looking for those ghostly chills. Either way, it sounds like you need a mug of Weird Dark Roast coffee. Weird Dark Roast coffee has deep notes of cocoa, caramel, and a touch of sinister sweetness that'll send shivers down your taste buds. This is an exclusive coffee that I selected specifically for you, my Weirdo family. Weird Dark Roast is not available in stores, coffee houses, mad scientist labs, or even the dark web, but you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. Weird Dark Roast coffee, fresh roasted to order so it's as fresh as it can be when it lands on your doorstep and knocks three times. Grab yours now at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. Weird Dark Roast coffee does not actually knock on your door because it doesn't have arms or hands, so if you hear knocks at the door and no one answers when you ask who it is, it's probably paranormal and you should just leave the door shut and locked. About five years ago, I lived downtown in a major city in the U.S. I've always been a night person, so I would often find myself bored after my roommate, who was decidedly not a night person, went to sleep. To pass the time, I used to go for long walks and spend the time thinking. I spent four years like that, walking alone at night, and never once had a reason to feel afraid. I was used to joke with my roommates that even the drug dealers in the city were polite, but all of that changed in just a few minutes on one evening. It was Wednesday, somewhere between one and two in the morning, and I was walking near a police patrolled park quite a ways from my apartment. It was a quiet night, even for a weeknight, with very little traffic and almost no one on foot. The park, as it was most nights, was completely empty. I turned down a short side street in order to loop back to my apartment when I first noticed him. At the far end of the street, on my side, was the silhouette of a man dancing. It was a strange dance, similar to a waltz, but he finished each box with an odd forward stride. I guess you could say he was dance walking, heading straight for me. Deciding he was probably drunk, I stepped as close as I could to the road to give him the majority of the sidewalk to pass me by. The closer he got, the more I realized how gracefully he was moving. He was very tall and lanky and wearing an old suit. He danced closer still, until I could make out his face. His eyes were open, wide and wild, head tilted back slightly, looking off at the sky. His mouth was formed in a painfully wide cartoon of a smile. Between the eyes and the smile, I decided to cross the street before he danced any closer. I took my eyes off him to cross the empty street. As I reached the other side, I glanced back and then stopped dead in my tracks. He had stopped dancing and was standing with one foot in the street, perfectly parallel to me. He was facing me but still looking skyward, smile still wide on his lips. I was completely and utterly unnerved by this. I started walking again but kept my eyes on the man. He didn't move. Once I had put about half a block between us, I turned away from him for a moment to watch the sidewalk in front of me. The street and sidewalk ahead of me were completely empty. Still unnerved, I looked back to where he had been standing to find him gone. For the briefest of moments, I felt relieved until I noticed him. He had crossed the street and was now slightly crouched down. I couldn't tell for sure due to the distance and the shadows but I was certain he was facing me. I looked away from him for no more than 10 seconds so it was clear he had moved fast. I was so shocked that I stood there for some time, staring at him and then he started moving toward me again. He took giant, exaggerated, tiptoed steps as if he were a cartoon character sneaking up on someone, except he was moving very, very quickly. I'd like to say at this point I ran away or pulled out my pepper spray or my cell phone or anything at all, but I didn't. I just stood there, completely frozen as the smiling man crept toward me. And then he stopped again, about a car length away from me, still smiling his smile, still looking to the sky. When I finally found my voice, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. What I meant to ask was, what the blank do you want in an angry, commanding tone? What came out was a whimper. What? Regardless of whether or not humans can smell fear, they can certainly hear it. I heard it in my own voice and that only made me more afraid. But he didn't react to it at all. He just stood there, smiling. And then, after what felt like forever, he turned around very slowly and started dance walking away. Just like that, not wanting to turn my back on him again, I just watched him go, until he was far enough away to almost be out of sight. And then I realized something. He wasn't moving away anymore, nor was he dancing. I watched in horror as the distant shape of him grew larger and larger. He was coming back my way and this time he was running. I ran until I was off at the side road and back onto a better lit road with sparse traffic. Looking behind me then, he was nowhere to be found. The rest of the way home I kept glancing over my shoulder, always expecting to see his stupid smile, but he was never there. I lived in that city for six months after that night and I never went out for another walk. There was something about his face that always haunted me. He didn't look drunk. He didn't look high. He looked completely and utterly insane. And that's a very, very scary thing to see. A 42-year-old man in India recently made international headlines for suffering from a condition that causes him to sleep 300 days a year. Indian media recently reported the bizarre case of Perkaram, a middle-aged resident of Badwa village in Rajasthan, who allegedly suffers from HPA axis hypersomnia, a rare condition that causes him to sleep for long stretches of time that could last up to 25 days. 23 years ago when Perkaram was first diagnosed with this rare disorder, he slept for about 15 hours at a time. But his symptoms gradually got worse, and by 2015 his family started counting his sleeping schedule in days instead of hours. The small shop owner would sleep for more than seven or eight days at a time. But the condition kept worsening, and he now sleeps for up to 25 days non-stop. Out of 365 days, he spends about 300 of those days sleeping. Perkaram runs a local shop in his home village, but because of his condition, he can now only operate it for just five days a month. Sometimes he falls asleep while at work. Once that occurs, he can't wake up. All his family can do is take him home and feed and even bathe him as he sleeps. Because of this strange sleeping schedule, the 42-year-old man has been nicknamed Kumbhakaran by the people of Badwa, after the younger brother of Raven in Ramayana, who used to sleep for six months at a time. Perkaram's wife, Lichmi Devi, told Republic World that he woke up on Sunday after sleeping for 12 straight days, and the first thing he did was open his shop. Unfortunately, no one knows how long he will be able to operate it before he succumbs to his hypersomnia again. There is currently no known cure for Perkaram's condition, and the treatment he has tried over the years has had side effects like severe headaches and, ironically, fatigue, but his family is confident that he will recover and get back to leading a normal life. While not nearly as severe, there are other extreme sleepers that have been documented. A 17-year-old Indonesian girl who occasionally falls asleep for several days at a time has been dubbed a real-life sleeping beauty or the sleeping daughter of South Kalamantan. Eka, who hails from Banjar Mason in Indonesia's South Kalamantan region, first made news headlines in 2017, when national news outlets reported that she slept for 13 days straight. She has experienced two worrying episodes since then when she slept for about a day and a half, but recently Eka's condition worsened and she fell into a deep sleep for about seven days. Her parents took her to the Ansari Sela Hospital in Banjar Mason, but her tests came out fine. The teenager finally woke up after a total of nine days. Doctors say she is still very weak. No one really knows what's causing Eka's unusually long sleep, but symptoms suggest that she too is suffering from hypersomnia, which comes in many forms and has many possible causes, from neurological damage to genetic factors and physical or emotional trauma. Doctors simply just do not know. Eka's father, Boyati, told Tribune.com that he had tried waking up the girl several times but to no avail. Interestingly, the girl reportedly chews and swallows food in her sleep if she is fed by her parents and gets restless when she needs to use the bathroom. Boyati said that she urinates when taken to the bathroom and seated on the toilet seat. Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, as it is also called, has no known cure, but Eka's parents hope that her symptoms can at least be better managed so she can enjoy a quasi-normal life. While Eka's condition is debilitating, it peels in comparison to that of another real-life Sleeping Beauty. The mother of a 17-year-old girl, at least 17 when the story was originally reported in 2019, has appealed to authorities for help because she is struggling to look after her daughter who has this same but much worse condition. Cherique Tuvar from the Colombian town of Acacias has been suffering from Cline Levin syndrome ever since she was two. This ultra-rare condition, only 40 cases have been reported worldwide, is characterized by recurrent episodes of excessive sleep, as well as cognitive and behavioral changes. In Cherique's case, the episodes can last up to two months during which time her mother, Marlene, has to liquefy her food and feed her every few hours. To make matters worse, after these long bouts of hypersomnia, the 17-year-old suffers from temporary or even permanent memory loss. Her mother, when interviewed by Caracol News, said, After a 48-day sleeping episode in June 2018, she lost her memory temporarily, she asked me who I was, and then added that her daughter's longest episode lasted a whopping two months. Earlier that year, during the months of January and February, Cherique unnaturally slumbered for 22 days, and her mother had to feed her by hand every couple of hours. Her daughter has not yet had a catheter tube installed because she can still be fed by hand, but Marlene has to first liquefy everything that she cooks. She has had to quit her job in order to look after Cherique full-time, which is why she desperately needs the help of Colombian authorities to get by. Unfortunately, Marlene's cries for help have so far fallen on deaf ears. When the bizarre case of Cherique Tovar first made national headlines in 2017, the mayor of Acacius pledged to provide housing for the family so that they wouldn't have to pay rent anymore. That has yet to happen, and local authorities do nothing but offer excuses. We're solving an issue related to the end of the construction with the underground tanks that we need to be able to store water, the mayor says. Marlene Tovar has also appealed to health services to expedite the delivery of nutritional supplements that Cherique needs to survive during these episodes, as well as neurological treatment to mitigate the damage of the girl's memory. It's what she needs most because she doesn't eat the way we eat, her mother says. Unfortunately, the cause of Klein-Levin syndrome is yet unknown, although it has been suggested that the condition might be linked to viral infections. There is no known cure. I have one more story to tell in this episode, and it could be about an encounter with a guardian angel. Or it could have been one of the alien greys, or something else entirely. I'll let you decide. Coming up next on Weird Darkness. The Lord of the Elements wants to change reality. He's enlisted the evil Zeltan to help him, and together they'll try to recruit Stanley, a man gifted with incredible imaginative capabilities to help them. Unless Edward and his friends can stop them, that is. A tale of white and black magic, quantum physics, and a plot that twists and turns. If you like science fiction, fantasy, and horror, you'll love The Last Observer, a magic battle for reality by G. Michael Vacy, narrated by Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar. Hear a free sample of The Last Observer on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. I had this encounter about a year ago, but I started thinking about it quite a bit recently. I also wanted to add that while I don't fully dismiss the paranormal, I don't really believe in ghosts, cryptids, and such. This encounter didn't really change my mind about that. I had decided to go on a solo hiking trip for about two weeks. This would have been my second time doing something like this. The first two days of the hike were very average and relaxing, just a simple hike, but at night things got a little bit weird. I went to sleep at around 2100 or 2200 and nothing much happened until around 0200. I remember smelling a faint stench of rotting meat. It wasn't anything too crazy, but it was weird enough to somewhat wake me up. I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but then I started to notice that something was moving around my tent. I did think that because the smell and the sounds that it could be some carnivorous animal that may be a stank of rotting meat for whatever reason, but since I was still half asleep, I wanted to make sure it's not a bear or something, so I opened my eyes to check around. Now, just to note that during that night, the moon was quite bright, so it was possible to see quite well outside, so when I opened my eyes I could see a vague, lanky, humanoid shadow outside my tent. I didn't feel like I was in danger or anything. I did have a sidearm with me, so even if it was some creep, I didn't really feel threatened while holding a gun. After about a minute, the guy left and the smell also disappeared, but since it was a very creepy encounter, I stayed awake for about an hour and after nothing else happened, I went back to bed. The next day I had that weird feeling of being watched by something dangerous, but I don't know if it was because I was confident in my ability to protect myself or whatever. I didn't feel like I was in danger at all, I just felt creeped out. I didn't really enjoy that day all that much to be fully honest, and because of that, I set up camp a lot faster than I usually did. I didn't go to bed at my normal time, since I didn't want someone sneaking up on me again. At around 0100, I could smell that weird smell again, so I gripped my gun a little bit tighter and tried to find the guy, but instead all I saw were just a pair of yellowish eyes in the distance. I stared at them for about five minutes and then they just vanished together with the smell. I didn't feel like I was being watched anymore during that night, so after an hour I did decide to go to sleep. The next day, the feeling of being watched was back, but again, I didn't feel as though I was in any danger at all. I decided that even though I felt that way, I would still rather cut this trip short instead of actually getting into a situation where I am in danger, so I started making my way back, though through a more roundabout path. Nothing really happened that night. The next day, I suddenly could smell that rotten stench. It wasn't any stronger than before, but since I was in a decently large clearing at that time and didn't see any one or anything around me, I did panic a little bit and I started walking with a faster pace. I'm not exactly sure on how long I walked after that, but around midday the stench got stronger. I think that it's important to note that I don't have the best vision and I should wear glasses, but I don't most of the time. So when I looked around me and saw a grey humanoid figure quite far away to my left, I did panic, but by the time I put my glasses on, it was gone. After that, I didn't really feel like staying there for much longer, so I started doing a slow run to get out of there faster. I'd run quite a distance while feeling something following me, but then I ran into this strangely peaceful clearing where both the stench and the feeling of being watched stopped. It was a relatively small clearing with a few small boulders around, but the strange thing was that a man who was in his late 40s or maybe even early 50s was sitting on one of the boulders. He was wearing very plain dad clothes, definitely not something you'd be wearing while hiking in the middle of nowhere. Plus he had no gear anywhere near him, but the thing that I noticed first about that guy was his strangely bright green eyes. They weren't bright in the literal sense, but more like the kind of brightness you'd see in the eyes of a child. After running for so long, I was exhausted and the man noticed that and told me to sit down on one of the boulders and rest. I didn't even think about it and sat down. We talked for a while, mostly about hiking and nature, and while talking he had this very friendly smile that made me feel at ease. When I had rested, he offered to help me build my campsite in the clearing. It was really good at starting a fire. We shared a cup of tea and he told me that it was really nice talking to me, but he had to go. He didn't really say why or where he had to go, but he has to go. Just stood up and left. That night I didn't hear any noises other than a few birds and crickets. When I woke up the next day, I felt very refreshed. I packed up and started to continue along the trail. I didn't feel like I was being watched or smelled that stench at all during the rest of my hike. This was the first time I've told that story in full detail. I usually say that some animal or whatever was following me since that way people would actually believe me, but I decided to actually write exactly what happened. And you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and more, including the show's Weirdo's Facebook group on the Contact Social page at WeirdDarkness.com. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, click on Tell Your Story. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. The Monster of Partridge Creek was written by Brown Lotus for Medium and Carl Shuker for Shuker Nature. Gangstalking Paranoia is by Mike McFady for The New York Times. The Gutenberg Murder is by Robert Wilhelm for Murder by Gaslight. The Smiling Man was written by Redditor BlueTitle, posted at myhauntedlife2.com. Never Enough Sleep was posted at Oddity Central. And Woodland Guardian Angel was submitted by V.O. posted by Lance Strickler for Phantoms and Monsters. Again, you can find links to all of these stories in the show notes. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. And now that we are coming out of the dark, I will leave you with a little light. Romans 5, verse 8, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And a final thought, train yourself to find the blessing in everything. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Sisters Morgan and Celeste Parker. These sexy sirens, these gorgeous ghouls, will be presenting 1972's Moon of the Wolf, starring David Janssen, Barbara Rush and Bradford Dillman. After several locals are viciously murdered, a Louisiana sheriff starts to suspect he might be dealing with a werewolf. Come on, how can you go wrong with a werewolf flick? Am I right? Our Weirdo Watch Party is always free to watch online, so grab your popcorn, candy and soda and jump into the fun and even get involved in a live chat as we watch the movie. It's Moon of the Wolf on Saturday, March 2nd, hosted by Hexen Arcane. The show begins at 10pm Eastern, 9pm Central, 8pm Mountain and 7pm Pacific. You can watch a trailer for the film and watch horror hosts and schlocky B movies anytime, day or night on the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com. Hope to see you March 2nd. Our brain is a wonderful thing, allowing us to make decisions, work on problems, plan for the future, live for today and remember our past. But that last item, remembering our past, can sometimes be painful if we're stuck going back to those memories again and again, feeling shame for something we did or didn't do. How can we deal with our yesterdays? That's the topic of this week's message over at the Church of the Undead podcast, which you can get to by going to WeirdDarkness.com slash church. When you know who loves all things strange and macabre. If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com slash listen.