 This episode is dedicated to the men and women of our Armed Forces and First Responders. Whether you are currently serving or have served in the past, you are appreciated. It is because of your courage and sacrifice that we enjoy the freedoms and liberties we hold dear. And I for one, appreciate every single one of you for protecting what many of us take for granted. So thank you. 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 On September 18, 1973, Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, later to become President Carter, filed a report with the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena claiming he had seen a UFO. While most pregnancies go off without a hitch, once in a while there are abnormalities and sometimes those abnormalities aren't with the delivery, but with the pregnancy itself. We'll look at some bizarre real stories of pregnancies that gave almost everybody involved a shock. Stories of monsters have been told thousands of years, but there are a few cryptids that we had no idea about until relatively recently. We'll look at a few monsters we didn't know about until just a few years ago. Plus, if you missed the Halloween show last week, you can listen to it in the Weird Darkness podcast, which you can find wherever you listen to podcasts. Also on the website, you can watch streaming B horror movies and horror hosts 24-7 for free, listen to free audiobooks that I've narrated, send me your own true story of something paranormal that's happened to you or someone you know, and more. All of that is at WeirdDarkness.com. If you're new here, welcome to the show, and if you're already a member of this Weird Old Family, please take a moment and invite somebody else to listen with you. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. Now, fold your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Reports of strange creatures and monsters have been around for decades. Centuries, in fact. For example, the first report of the Loch Ness Monster occurred in the 6th century AD. The Bigfoot creatures were seen way back in the 1800s. That's when they were known as wild men. Sea serpents have been around for centuries. You get the picture. Monsters are nothing new. While that's not exactly true, some monsters have surfaced in relatively recent times. Admittedly, that is a weird situation, but it's also true. With that said, let's take a look at just a few of these monster cases of the relatively modern type. We'll begin with the Beast of Bray Road, a werewolf type thing that, despite what some might think, hasn't been around too long at all. According to Godfrey, the undeniable expert in the field of monsters says, since 1991, the Wisconsin town of Elkhorn has been the lair and hunting ground of a terrifying creature that is the closest thing one can imagine to a real-life werewolf. And just maybe that's exactly what it is. The monster has become known as the Beast of Bray Road, on account of the fact that many of the initial sightings were made on that particular road. Without doubt, the expert on all things of lycanthropic nature in Wisconsin is author and journalist Linda Godfrey, who has penned half a dozen books on werewolves and who I interviewed about her research into this malignant beast. She told me the story first came to my attention in about 1991 from a woman who had heard rumors going around here in Elkhorn and particularly in a high school that people had been seeing something like a werewolf, a wolf-like creature or a wolf-man. They didn't really know what it was, but some were saying it was a werewolf and the werewolf tag has just gotten used because I think the people really didn't know what else to call it. Why Bray Road wasn't tagged before 1991 is still unknown. Now onto a monster of the deep that made its debut in recent times. A resident of Lake Windemere, England, Bo Nessie was 100% unheard of prior to 2006. In terms of the publicity stakes, however, it has certainly done a great job in catching up. As for Lake Windemere itself, Britannica.com states the following. The lake is 10.5 miles or 17 kilometers long and 1 mile or 1.6 kilometers wide and has an area of 6 square miles or 16 square kilometers. It lies in two basins separated by a group of islands opposite the town of Bonus on the eastern shore and it is drained by the River Levin. Part of the Lake District National Park, Windemere is a popular tourist center with facilities for yachting and steamers operating in the summer. As the previous data demonstrates, Lake Windemere is much smaller than Lot Ness, yet that has not stopped a mysterious creature from appearing in its depths, which extend to 219 feet at their deepest. With all that said, let's take a look at the saga of Bo Nessie and how and why it has become a monster of the modern era. The first person to have encountered Bo Nessie was a journalist named Steve Burnip who saw the creature in 2006. He said of his close encounter of the monster's type, I saw a straight line of broken water with three humps. It was about 20 feet long and it went at a straight line up the lake. I nudged my wife and watched open mouthed as it gradually faded from sight. The water was not choppy so I know it wasn't the wind and I know what the wake from motorboats looks like and it wasn't that either. And thus, a monster was born. Then there is the so-called Texas Chupacabra, which isn't really a Chupacabra at all, but that's still an undeniably weird thing. Ken Gerhard has spent a lot of time pursuing what's become known as the Texas Chupacabras. They are hairless canids that look like huge rats but which are actually coyotes. The lack of hair is not due to down-to-earth mange, however. Rather, it's clear these animals are developing in hairless states. There are other anomalies too. The creatures have strange pouches on their back limbs. They have huge overbites. On occasion, they'll run on their hind legs in a strange, awkward bouncing fashion. They hunt in the day and do not appear to be intimidated or frightened by the presence of people. This brings us to how and why regular coyotes are quickly turning into something else. Ken has an answer. Many of these Texas Chupacabras, he says, have been reported in areas in and around coal-burning power plants. Coal-burning power plants release massive amounts of toxins, including something called sulfur dioxide, which, near laboratory tests, has been proven to be a mutagen. This is a toxin that can get into an animal's blood makeup and actually cause their cells to mutate. Maybe as a result of the pollution, the immune systems of these animals have been weakened to the point where, when they do contact the mange mites, their resulting symptoms are much more extreme than anything we've encountered before. This may be why they become completely hairless so fast and why they look so sickly. I'd also explain the physical changes like the forelimb lengths, the overbites and the pouches. And I might also explain why sightings of the Texas Chupacabras didn't really begin until the early 2000s. It was because, prior to before that, the pollutant wasn't at a level that was destined to cause problems. Until that is, the problems did begin and a monster of sorts began to be seen. Up next, on September 18, 1973, Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, later our President Carter, filed a report with the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena claiming he had seen a UFO. That story is up next on Weird Darkness. Before Jimmy Carter became the governor of Georgia and then the president, he was a typical small town guy from rural Georgia with a peanut farm. A down-home, folksy image was solidified in what's become known as the Jimmy Carter UFO incident, which came out during the 1976 presidential election. Jimmy Carter's always stood by his claim that he saw a UFO in Georgia in 1969, although he has been careful not to say that he believed it to be an alien spacecraft. He filed an official report about the incident in 1973 when he was still governor of Georgia. He said the experience led him to have more respect for others who have seen UFOs, and he even promised the American people that if elected president, he would release all information regarding UFOs to the public upon taking office. So, what did the 39th President see on that fateful day? In October 1969, Jimmy Carter was waiting outside of a Lions Club meeting in the small town of Leary, Georgia. He was about 7.30pm when he first spotted the UFO, which he called the darndest thing I've ever seen. Jimmy Carter's UFO sighting was backed up by about 20 witnesses who also saw the event, and they described it as very bright, changing colors and about the size of the moon. In the September 18, 1973 report he filed with the National Investigations Committee on aerial phenomena, NICAP, Carter said the object seemed to have no mass, but it lingered in the air for about 10 minutes before disappearing. Over that time, it cycled from a bright blue orb to red and white before receding into the distance. There were about 20 of us standing outside of a little restaurant, I believe a high school lunch room, he said, and a kind of green light appeared in the western sky. This was right after sundown. It got brighter and brighter, and then it eventually disappeared. Carter didn't think much about it again until he came up on the presidential campaign trail. The 1969 moon landing captivated Americans across the country and led to a small boom of interest in extraterrestrial life as well. By the 1976 presidential campaign, these questions were so prevalent in the United States that UFOs were taking center stage. As it turned out, both Carter and the Republican nominee Gerald Ford had experiences with UFOs. In 1966, Ford, who was then a congressman from Michigan, was fielding questions from his constituents about some sightings in the night sky. Are we to assume that everyone who says he has seen UFOs is an unreliable witness? I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFOs and to produce the greatest possible enlightenment on this subject, Ford said. Later Ford admitted that he had taken a special interest in the Michigan sightings, so much so that he had requested the Armed Services Committee of the House to convene a meeting on the matter. Although Ford never got his request fulfilled, the matter once again took center stage when he ran against Jimmy Carter in 1976. Because of Jimmy Carter's UFO sighting, he had a slightly different take and brought up his own experiences as proof. One thing's for sure, I'll never make fun of people who say they've seen unidentified objects in the sky, he said. If I become president, I'll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists, I'm convinced that UFOs exist because I've seen one. Jimmy Carter continued to demonstrate an interest in UFOs throughout his presidency. He promised to look into the Roswell incident to investigate any potential cover-ups. An unconfirmed account suggested that then-CIA director George Herbert Walker Bush told him the full truth about what the government was hiding about UFOs. The meeting reportedly reduced Carter to tears, although no independent corroboration of this event is known to exist, and Carter has always denied believing in extraterrestrial forms of life. In 2005, Carter told GQ Magazine that he was able to recount the event with such accuracy in 1973, four years after the incident, because he had taken a tape recorder with him that night and had the witnesses dictate their experience as well. However, he just stopped short of claiming that the UFO was from outer space. It was a flying object that was unidentified, he said, but I've never thought that it was from outer space. As far as covering up possible flights from distant satellites or distant heavenly bodies, I don't believe in that, and there's no evidence that it was ever covered up. Or extraterrestrial people coming to Earth, I don't think that's ever happened. Carter's grandson, Josh, later told Podcast 561 that after the Jimmy Carter UFO incident, his grandfather made the distinction between an unidentified flying object and an aircraft from outer space. The questions around what 39th president really saw on that fateful Georgia night continue to linger. The most likely explanation comes from Dr. Jere Justice, who believes that Jimmy Carter actually bore witness to a barium tracer cloud. Citing NASA documents and the former president's official report, Justice's claim has been submitted officially to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library as an explanation for what Carter saw that night. Ultimately, and despite promising to release information about the UFOs to the public once he became president, Carter declined to do so, citing defense implications to some of the information. To this day, Americans are still waiting. For the most part, pregnancies in people are pretty simple. Whether it's natural, in vitro, or through surrogacy, the steps remain the same. Take an egg and some sperm, get them together, and nine months later, okay, it's an oversimplification but you get the idea. Of course, not every pregnancy is the same, and some are downright weird. Rare conditions and otherwise impossible pregnancies exist and many of them may surprise you. These cases are the most unusual pregnancies ever recorded and they are straight up weird. Typically, a girl doesn't begin menstruating until she's around 12 years old. While that number certainly fluctuates up or down by a few years depending on the girl, it's the general average for most women around the world. Despite this, there are records of girls beginning their menstrual cycles much earlier. Still, the earliest known example is rather shocking. A Peruvian girl named Lina Marcella Medina gave birth to a child at the tender age of only five years seven months old. What's even more shocking about that number is that doctors estimated she'd been menstruating since the age of three and was capable of being impregnated that early in life. This wouldn't result in a pregnancy in most cases, of course, but sadly we don't live in a world where people don't pray on children. When Lina was brought into the hospital for abdominal pain and was found to be pregnant with a seven-month old fetus, her data was arrested for rape and incest. Because of her young age, the child was born via cesarean section and the boy survived. He came in at 5.95 pounds, which was a healthy weight. The viable pregnancy was certainly rare and no mother has since been recorded at such a young age, and hopefully one never will. We'll continue looking at some of these shocking pregnancy stories when Weird Darkness returns. Coffee It's a necessity. Most of us can't be bothered to even be civil to our families until we've had our first cup of Joe. I could drink coffee all day and often do, and now I've chosen an exclusive coffee just for the task. Weird dark roast coffee. I love chocolate, I mean who doesn't, so I specifically asked for a blend with at least a hint of cocoa, and Evansville Coffee, who roasts each bag to order knocked it out of the park when they sent me a bag to taste test for approval. Weird dark roast coffee has deep notes of cocoa, caramel and a touch of sinister sweetness that makes it great hot or cold. Personally, I like to put a little milk in it when I'm drinking it hot, but it is amazing black and poured over ice. Now you can drink it too, and the only place you can find Weird Dark Roast Coffee is at WeirdDarkness.com. I'm so sure you'll love it that we've even set it up for you to get free delivery on your first order if you use the promo code Weird. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. Typically women stop having children in their 40s, but thanks to modern medical practices like in vitro fertilization and various drugs, that's changed. Now women can get pregnant well into their 40s, but it's rare for pregnancies to happen in the 50s and beyond. That doesn't mean it's impossible, it is rare. Still, there are unusual cases, such as Omkari Panwar, who gave birth to twins at the age of 72. The Indian woman successfully delivered a boy and a girl, and it was all thanks to in vitro fertilization, so it wasn't some sort of strange accident. Both children were born healthy if a bit premature, though the effort nearly killed the mother. Panwar and her husband, Chiram Singh, had two other children and five grandchildren, but the couple had never had a son. The desire for one was so strong they went forward with implantation despite the risks. Such a practice is certainly frowned upon, but in India where it's illegal for a doctor to reveal the sex of a child, having a son is important. This desire often leads to the abortion of healthy female fetuses, hence the law of doctors not being able to reveal the sex. Believe it or not, it's possible to become pregnant while already pregnant, though it is incredibly rare. The phenomenon is called superfitation, and there are only around 10 cases known to exist in all of recorded medical history. One such case involved Julia Grovenberg, who became pregnant with her second son, Hudson, while she was pregnant with her first daughter, Julian. Hudson was conceived around two weeks after her sister's conception, so the two were close enough in age to pass for twins. Ultimately, that's how the parents passed the kids off, as they were both born simultaneously, making that pretty easy. Interestingly, though, superfitation can occur with more than one father, making it possible to carry two children from two different fathers at the same time. This actually occurred in 2017 when an American surrogate for a Chinese couple became pregnant with two children. The first was the implanted embryo, the second was the result of a biological impregnation between her and her partner. The two pregnancies were separated by about three weeks and technically stemmed from two mothers and two fathers. While it is exceptionally rare for a woman to get pregnant while she is already pregnant via superfitation, there is another way multiple pregnancies can occur. Some women are born with more than one uterus, a condition known as dydelphis. It's next to impossible for these women to become pregnant in both uterine at the same time, but it can happen. The odds of it occurring are only around one in five million, so there aren't many recorded cases. A recent occurrence happened in 2010 when Angie Cromar managed to have two babies at once, but they weren't twins. Twins form from either two eggs and a different sperm for fraternal twins or a single fertilized egg that splits for identical twins, but develop in the same uterus. Development in different uterine of the same mother is entirely different, so the offspring are not considered twins at all. Essentially, it's two separate eggs and two sperm cells, both of which combine separately, so the offspring are siblings but not twins. Still, they are often called non-genetic twins, which is not necessarily incorrect. It is incredibly rare and only about 100 instances have been recorded. Theoretically, a dydelphis pregnancy could result from two separate fathers. Becoming pregnant while pregnant is rare, but it can happen in a variety of ways. Superfitation results in pregnancy on top of pregnancy, but it's not the only way a woman can become pregnant twice. A more common double pregnancy can occur simply by having sex with multiple partners in a short period of time. Typically, a woman drops a single egg when she ovulates, but occasionally she can drop more. When this happens, one or both can become fertilized by separate sperm cells. Sperm can survive for up to five days following the insemination. At that whole time, they are just waiting around to find an egg. If one of those cells finds that second egg, it can fertilize that too, even if the woman was already impregnated around that same time. One such case occurred in 2009 when a Texas woman delivered twin boys. The father noticed how different they looked and asked for a paternity test. The results were baffling because while both children were born simultaneously, the each had a different biological father. This phenomenon, called heteropaternal superfascination, accounts for between one and two percent of all paternal twins. It's even resulted in the birth of twins where the children are different races due to the fathers being white and black. When an American woman gave birth to eight children at once in 2009, she became a reality star and a Guinness World Record holder. Octomom had some competition in 2021, though, when a Malian woman named Halima Cisa gave birth via cesarean section to nine babies at once, five girls and four boys, and they all survived. That's an important distinction because the previous two recorded instances of non-uplet's births, that's nine at a time, resulted in all of the children passing away after only a few days. Fortunately, Cisa avoided that horrific outcome and her children all came into the world as healthy little ones. They weighed in pretty small, 1.1 to 2.2 pounds each, so they needed to spend the first two to three months of their lives inside incubators, where they continued to grow and mature. Delivering the non-uplet's was a significant ordeal, requiring a team of 10 doctors and 25 paramedics at the Aine Borgia Clinic in Casablanca. Typically, multiple pregnancies like Mrs. Cisa's result from fertility treatments and are not the result of natural impregnation. It's unknown if this is the case for Cisa, but it's possible that it can be done naturally. During in vitro fertilization, multiple embryos are harvested to increase the probability of producing a viable pregnancy. It's common for people to keep the leftover embryos in cold storage so that they can use them at a later date. Sometimes, they're donated to programs that handle embryo adoption, so infertile people can use them to have a child. Typically, stored embryos aren't held in cryogenic preservation for more than a few years. Still, there are cases when an embryo was stored and used after a much longer period of time. Tina Gibson and her husband Ben managed to obtain two embryos stored in a cryogenic freezer and both of them broke records. Their first child came from a frozen embryo that was extracted and put on ice 24 years earlier. When they decided to have another child, they went back to the source so their kids would be genetic siblings. Two embryos from the same donor were implanted, and one took. The resulting baby came from a frozen egg donated in 1992, a full 27 years before the Gibsons implanted it. That's the longest period of time an egg spent between extraction, freezing, thawing, and implementation that resulted in a viable pregnancy. In this case, the baby was actually older than the parents if you consider conception the beginning of life. Medical dramas and even Monty Python's The Meaning of Life have delved into the surprise pregnancy trope over the years, so many think it's somewhat common. It actually is not and when a surprise birth comes along, it can create a whole host of problems for everyone involved. Surprise births or cryptic pregnancies occur when a woman has a mild to a complete absence of pregnancy symptoms. No morning sickness, cramping, minimal abdomen swelling, and more can leave a woman thinking she's not pregnant. Many even continue to menstruate. In April 2021, Melissa Sergekov gave birth to her son while sitting on a toilet. She thought she was passing a kidney stone. Stories like this pop up every once in a while and cryptic pregnancies are definitely rare, but they do happen more often than you might think. Patrick O'Brien, an obstetrician at University College London hospitals sees about one every year. In some cases, the unknowing, soon-to-be-mother spent her entire pregnancy menstruating with regularity, so the baby is genuinely unexpected. These pregnancies can be problematic because the mother missed out on all the prenatal care. If you've ever watched a sitcom involving a pregnant woman, odds are you've seen somebody complain about their baby skipping their due date. It's a common trope, and it's also fairly common for women outside the world of entertainment. Most pregnancies last for an average of 280 days, which is a little more than 9 months in a day. That's the average. But plenty of children are born too early, or a little late. And then there's the case of Bula Hunter, a woman who spent the longest time being pregnant. Hunter gave birth to her daughter Penny Diana after 307-5 days, earning herself a place in their record books and a story to tell for the rest of her life. The unusual pregnancy sparked skepticism that Hunter miscarried and then quickly became pregnant once more during her year of pregnancy. Her doctors, though, quickly squashed that notion, and by all accounts, she was genuinely pregnant, and her baby was born 100 days overdue. Hunter's daughter was perfectly healthy and without any unusual developments. Doctors concluded that her womb was healthy, but her daughter developed at a slower rate than normal. Her gestation had a few stops and starts in terms of development, which is what kept her around for so long. And if your mother ever let you know that she suffered for a long time delivering you and that you should be thankful for that, well, yeah, you should appreciate her, because she's right about that. Still, her intense pain that lasted upwards of 10-plus hours, it does sound horrible. It probably was horrible. But it doesn't really count as the worst labor pains on record. That distinction goes to Joanna Kristokan, a Polish woman who suffered far longer than most. Instead of the most typical 8-12 hours of labor pains felt by most mothers, Kristokan endured a disturbingly long 75 days. Not 75 hours, 75 days. That's 1,800 hours of intense labor pains. She went into early labor at 21 weeks while carrying triplets. The first was born soon after, but it was too early to survive, sadly, leaving two still inside her womb. The labor pains didn't end though, nor were the other children delivered. Instead, her contractions continued. To help her children survive, her doctors placed her in a bed tilted at a 30-degree angle with her feet up. She remained in that position for 75 days, experiencing labor pains the entire time. Fortunately, after that insanely long period of time, she delivered the remaining two children safely. Kristokan suffered some balancing issues soon after the birth, but she has since recovered. Our latest Weirded Work winner is Kevin Kramer. Kevin works at Olympian Machine in Grey, Louisiana where they manufacture components for oil field tools, and he and a couple of his co-workers listen to Weird Darkness while doing it. Because I chose Kevin's entry at random, he's receiving four Weird Darkness coffee mugs, four Weird Darkness magnets, and a batch of Weird Dark Roast coffee, all of which he can share with his co-workers at Olympian Machine in Grey, Louisiana. And for being the one who entered his company in the drawing, Kevin gets a Weird Darkness t-shirt. Congratulations, Kevin and Olympian Machine in Grey, Louisiana! If you listen to the podcast on the job with your co-workers, visit the contests page at WeirdDarkness.com to enter and I might draw your entry next month. According to local legend, there was once a terrifying mythical creature that tortured the village of Warwell Hampshire, England. The quiet village, which is located along their river test, only has about 500 residents, but this small little village is also famous for a creepy monster that allegedly lurked around at one time. The legend states that they duck, laid an egg, and were well abby, but it was hatched by a toad, and the baby turned into a cockatrice that had several different animal body parts. It appeared as a two-legged dragon-like monster with a rooster's head and body, the wings of a bat, and a snake's tail. Locals cared for the baby creature until it grew to a massive size and began feeding on the villagers by flying over the land and grabbing people with its claws before bringing them to its lair where it would feed on them. Villagers were so scared of the beast, they offered four acres of land to anyone who would kill it. While numerous people died while attempting to rid the land of the monster, one local apparently accomplished the task as described. A man named Green polished a piece of steel until it gleamed like a mirror and lowered it down to the beast's lair. Upon seeing its reflection, the cockatrice fought until it was exhausted, and then Green ran the beast through with a javelin and claimed his reward. Today, in Harewood Forest, there is still an area known as Green's Acres. Oddly enough, trees don't grow at Green's Acres. It's a good thing the cockatrice was allegedly killed, as the legend has described it as being one terrifying monster. Here's some of the weird news that made it to the Weird Darkness website the past few days. You can find links to these stories and others by clicking on Weird News at WeirdDarkness.com. The robotics company Boston Dynamics, now owned by Hyundai, is using its own products. It started a pilot program using one of its robotic dogs as a factory safety service robot or guard dog at a Kia plant in South Korea. So if you plan on sneaking in, you'll want to make sure the dog treats you throw over the fence are well-oiled and packed full of iron. An all-electric aircraft called Spirit of Innovation, built by British manufacturer Rolls-Royce, flew for the first time recently, spending 15 minutes airborne in the first step towards a speed world record attempt of flying at over 300 miles per hour. Although it'd probably go faster if they took that stupid angel hood ornament off the front of the plane. In a new study, food experts cooked 3D-printed foods in conventional ovens and with lasers, and found that laser-cooked meat shrinks 50% less, retains double the moisture content, and shows similar flavor development to conventionally-cooked meat. Soon we'll be going to steak houses that work like Starbucks. They'll watch your name so they can laser-burn it right there onto your steak. Uh, yeah, I got a medium-rare filet for sea-more-butts. Is there a sea-more-butts here? A 30-year-old woman in Kansas who was born without a belly button due to a rare defect recalls the kids in school bullied her and called her an alien, or they would react by looking at her and saying, ewwww. Of course, here we'd simply say, welcome, weirdo, you're a Hmong family. A well-known animal rights activist from evergreen Colorado was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her role in a murder-for-hire plot, as well as other charges. Charges against Jennifer Emme spanned three separate cases dating back to 2019. They included solicitation of murder in the second degree, retaliation against a witness or victim, protection order violation, attempt to influence a public servant, violation of bail bond conditions, menacing with a real slash simulated weapon, two counts of child abuse and second degree assault. Colorado state records show Emme's law license under the name Jennifer Reba Edwards. She's a lawyer for animals. In case you didn't catch that, she is totally fine with killing her cheating spouse's girlfriend. But don't you dare think of hurting puddles the Chihuahua. Police in Sebring, Florida are warning ghost hunters to stay away from the allegedly haunted Kenilworth Lodge in Highlands County because the ghosts are gone, but officers with arrest warrants for trespassers aren't. You might still see ghostly orbs, but they'll be rotating in the colors of red and blue and the sounds of clanking chains will be shortly followed by the feel of handcuffs. Experts from the Paris Brain Institute found that when people listen to stories, they subconsciously synchronize their heart rates with the narrative and each other. That means as I'm telling you these stories, our heart rates are synchronizing. Don't you just heart that? You can find links to these weird stories and others in the Weird News section at WeirdDarkness.com. Thanks for listening! If you missed any part of tonight's show or if you want to hear it again, you can subscribe to the podcast where you'll hear not only tonight's radio show but also the extra sudden death overtime content that I prepared that I didn't have time to fit in, because I went over time. And while the radio show is one night per week, I do upload episodes for the podcast 7 days per week. If you're one of my patrons, you get a commercial-free copy of tonight's show immediately after it's over. You can become a patron and or subscribe to the podcast for free at WeirdDarkness.com. 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. Doing that helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And if you'd like to be a part of the show, you can call in to the dark line toll-free and tell your own true paranormal story or a story that's happened to somebody you know. That number is 1-877-277-5944. Again, that toll-free number is 1-877-277-5944. You can also drop me an email anytime at darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright 2021. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. First Timothy 6 verses 6 through 9. But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering with these, we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. And a final thought from Lainey Taylor. It is a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry monster and looked behind him. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the 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, you know what they say about a woman scorned. We'll look at the most murderous wives in history. Maybe it'll give some of the men listening an idea of what to avoid in a relationship. Most people have at least a passing knowledge of who Typhoid Mary was and how she spread Typhoid to others while being asymptomatic herself. But the full story is a lot sadder than you've been told. Also on the website, you can watch streaming B horror movies and horror hosts 24-7 for free, listen to free audiobooks that I've narrated, send me your own true story of something paranormal that's happened to you or someone you know and more. All of that is at WeirdDarkness.com. 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. Now, fold your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. In the early 1900s, germ theory was a relatively new concept and many, including doctors, were unaware of how diseases spread. At the time, bacterial diseases like Typhoid and dysentery could still wipe out an entire family. Mary Mallon was an Irish immigrant who worked as a cook for affluent New York families. In her wake, she unknowingly left an outburst of Typhoid fever, earning her the epithet Typhoid Mary. By that time, doctors knew the disease was most commonly spread through excrement and they were able to trace outbreaks by locating the start of an epidemic and following its spread. By the time of her first quarantine in 1907, doctors determined that Mallon had infected 22 people and caused the death of a little girl. When she was permanently quarantined in 1915, she had ultimately infected an estimated 51 people, at least three of whom died from the disease. Since no healthy carriers had yet been identified, Mallon refused to believe that she, a healthy middle-aged woman, could possibly be the culprit behind the diseases spread. Eventually, public health officials in New York traced the outbreaks to the outwardly healthy Mallon, who landed herself in quarantine for life on North Brother Island after numerous fights and blatant refusals. We'll learn a little bit more about North Brother Island later on. In an almost decade-long battle that struck fear into many city dwellers' hearts, the legendary lady played a game of disease-riddled cat and mouse with New York's public health division. When Dr. George Soper, the sanitary engineer who identified Mallon as the typhoid culprit, came to take samples in 1907, Mallon outright refused. Allegedly, the cook grabbed a meat cleaver, alternatively a rolling pin or meat fork, depending on the story you hear, and chased him out of her house. After several more attempts, authorities were able to pin down Mary. The last attempt ended in a three-hour chase. After considerable resistance, Mary Mallon was finally taken into custody for stool, urine and tissue samples. Doctors then confirmed she was indeed ripe with the typhoid bacteria. Despite the fact, she displayed zero symptoms and remained the epitome of good health. Public health officials deemed her a threat to society and decided she must be quarantined. Against her will, Mallon was placed in a single occupancy cottage at the Riverside Hospital for Communicable Diseases on North Brother Island. Mallon stated to reporters she felt that she was being grossly mistreated, like a leper, and continuously insisted there was no way she had typhoid. By 1915, the now infamous Typhoid Mary had been recaptured and placed under a lifelong quarantine back at North Brother Island. Perhaps it was her intransigence or the fact the doctors truly didn't know how to handle a case like hers, but the health authorities treated Mallon inhumanely. When she was first tested, doctors discovered her gallbladder was riddled with the salmonella bacteria and they wanted to remove it. She refused the procedure during her first quarantine, but when they had Mallon in her second custody, they made a second attempt. She managed to prevent the surgery, but she couldn't prevent the doctors from taking over 160 samples from her body during her remaining years there. She also suffered neglect at the quarantine facility. Mallon was shown off to interns and journalists as a specimen. Her doctors limited her interactions greatly, only allowing her to wash bottles in the laboratory. Throughout the ordeal, Mallon repeatedly denied she was a carrier of typhoid and all the outbreaks that followed her career. However, she left quietly after each family's disease outbreak and always changed her name slightly for each new job. While she obviously wanted to avoid association with the press and she would want to remain in a typhoid-stricken household, Mallon's strange behavior makes some critics wonder if she did actually understand she was somehow a carrier of the disease. Mallon was released from her first quarantine under the condition that she would not continue working as a cook. In 1910, she was released and began a job as a launderess. Mallon promptly disappeared from her washing position, however, and immediately began to serve families again. For five years, she managed to evade the authorities by constantly changing her name and regularly changing jobs. In 1915, an outbreak of 25 new typhoid cases occurred at Sloan Maternity Hospital in New York. Mallon was found working as a cook there and she was promptly arrested and returned to quarantine. Mallon was returned to North Brother Island in 1915 and New York public health officials decided she would remain under quarantine for the rest of her life. The newly dubbed Typhoid Mary had been called the most dangerous woman in America and authorities agreed she could not be trusted to follow any sort of prevention and spreading typhoid. For her remaining 23 years of life, Mallon lived mostly in isolation on North Brother Island. In 1938, she supposedly died from pneumonia, though reports vary. By the time of her death, estimates contested that she had caused at least 51 cases of typhoid and three deaths. Health officials didn't expect to encounter typhoid and wealthy upper middle-class families in New York as it was typically associated with poverty and poor hygiene. Upon her first questionings from New York City health officials in 1907, Mallon admitted that she didn't see the point in washing her hands. Germ theory was still fairly new and she didn't seem to believe sickness could be transferred through physical contact or lack of proper washing. In 1906, George Sober, a sanitary engineer for the New York Department of Health, was hired by a homeowner whose family had suffered a violent and inexplicable typhoid outbreak. His first instinct was to look to the servants and cooks. Specifically, he was curious about an Irish immigrant who had been hired as a cook for the family three weeks before the outbreak. The exact incubation period of the salmonella bacteria that causes typhoid. He conducted a background check on her work history and saw the trail of typhoid victims. Coupled with the culprit's rapid job and name changes, Sober knew he had found his carrier. Sober interviewed Mallon and eventually suggested that she could be the carrier causing the outbreaks. Mallon staunchly denied his accusations. Authorities became involved before Mallon could be restrained and formally tested for the bacteria. Mallon was the first identified asymptomatic carrier of typhoid, meaning she carried the disease without displaying any of the symptoms. This was a breakthrough discovery at the time, but unfortunately no protocol existed to address such a problem. Health authorities did have the right to quarantine people who posed a risk to society health wise. However, even though authorities knew Mallon was somehow the missing link in the typhoid outbreaks, they couldn't exactly prove how or why. Mallon's anger and claims of a government conspiracy only worsened the already fraught situation. At certain times, the public even sided with Mary Mallon. However, she was undoubtedly the carrier as her compiled work history left a path of repeated sickness and death in its wake. Only in 2013 did Stanford researchers make a breakthrough in which they discovered how Mallon was able to carry the bacteria yet not display symptoms. Simply explained, the salmonella bacteria behind typhoid can hide in immune cells known as macrophages and essentially hijack their metabolism in their favor. If the germs are successful in hacking the macrophages, then the person, in this case, Mary Mallon, can spread the germ unknowingly while remaining healthy themselves. Mallon's discovery in 1906 as the first asymptomatic carrier in the country made waves in the scientific community. By the time of Mallon's death in 1938, over 400 other healthy carriers had been identified. According to records, it appears not one of them received forced confinement like typhoid Mary, though. This raised questions about epidemic and public health protocol. Many questioned whether it was just viable to confine someone against their will for the greater good of society. The medical community contested that Mallon's refusal to cooperate or act honestly regarding her diagnosis warranted her rough treatment and confinement. In the early 1900s, typhoid was still a fairly dangerous disease. The mortality rate was about 10 percent. The doctor introduced the first vaccine in 1896, which helped considerably for soldiers who were more likely to die from typhoid than combat, but it hadn't quite become widespread enough to be entirely effective for the masses. Typhoid sufferers start exhibiting symptoms between one and three weeks after infection, usually starting with a dangerously high fever along with nausea, vomiting, headaches and muscle pain. Next, a distinctive rash appears on the chest. Without treatment, intestinal bleeding can occur, leading to blood clots under the skin. In the most dangerous cases, the abdomen will distend. While typhoid Mary lived the last two decades of her life involuntarily on New York's North Brother Island, it is believed she may still be living there in spectral form. We will talk about North Brother Island when Weird Darkness returns. Are you more than just a fan of Weird Darkness? Would you consider yourself a loyal listener of the podcast? Do you want even more content? Take your dedication to the next level by becoming a member of Weird Darkness' Darkness Syndicate. As a member of the Darkness Syndicate, you receive exclusive Weird Darkness merchandise, get daily episodes of the podcast, Commercial Free, along with commercial free recordings of the weekly radio show. Listen to chapters of audiobooks I narrate, even before the publishers or authors hear them. Get video updates about the Weird Darkness podcast and future projects that I'm working on before anyone else, and share your opinions on ideas to help me decide what to do in the Weird Darkness podcast in the future. You get all of these benefits starting at only $5 per month. Join the Darkness Syndicate at WeirdDarkness.com slash Syndicate. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Syndicate. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. North Brother Island has a long history of disease and devastation. Once home to a rehab facility in a hospital that's specialized in infectious illnesses, the island lies abandoned today. Nature is taken over. Buildings are covered in foliage so dense, it sometimes obscures the structures altogether. It may not have the creepy legacy of Central Park, but North Brother has plenty of infamy scattered throughout its unusual history. Before being designated a bird sanctuary as it is today, it has seen its fair share of sickness and corruption. Structural safety concerns have prompted the City of New York to close the land to the public. Although there have been discussions about reopening certain areas, and reporters and city officials are allowed to visit with the approval of the Parks Department, North Brother's reopening would require substantial work. The infamous Typhoid Mary, Mary Mallon, infected dozens of people with her namesake disease. As one of the first asymptomatic carriers of Typhoid, she inadvertently passed it on to more than 50 unwitting victims. Investigators eventually identified her as the disease carrier and quarantined her to North Brother Island, where she lived in a bungalow before suffering a paralyzing stroke that landed her in Riverside Hospital. She passed six years later. Though she is buried in the Bronx, she is rumored to haunt the island where she was held against her will for 26 years. A steamship called General Slogan burst into flames just off the coast of North Brother Island in 1904. The captain attempted to quickly sail to the shore, but the ship's speed only fanned the fire. By the time General Slogan reached North Brother, the ship had been swallowed up by flames. Most of the passengers couldn't swim and the life vests on board failed them. Lifeboats were inaccessible. Roughly 1,000 people died in the incident, which marked the largest loss of life in New York until 9-11. In 1885, the City of New York purchased North Brother Island to build Riverside Hospital, a medical facility originally intended for smallpox patients. Riverside eventually began to treat other infectious diseases, including typhus, tuberculosis, and polio. Riddled with controversy, the hospital often reached capacity and staff regularly used poorly sterilized medical tools. When no more hospital beds could fit inside specific sections of the building, patients were placed in outdoor tents. These tents occasionally caught fire as they were heated with wooden stoves. No telegraph or phone lines existed for Riverside as late as 1894, leaving it extremely isolated. There was a morgue in the hospital to process the bodies of the many people who perished on its grounds. When the City of New York gained authority over the island from New York State in 1951, North Brother Island became a treatment center for young people addicted to opioids and other substances. The program, however, expensive and riddled with corruption, was shut down in 1963. In the 1990s, city officials looking for a purpose for North Brother Island contemplated expanding the federal prison complex on nearby Rikers Island. Ultimately, they decided against it. Rikers has a controversial past itself, with prisoners themselves having expanded the prison grounds using literal garbage shipped to the island. In its early days, the prison developed a massive rat infestation, a problem that even large packs of hungry hunting dogs couldn't solve. Rikers became known for its lawlessness. Prisoners frequently committed acts of aggression against one another, as well as the prison's guards. New York State's former Chief Judge, Jonathan Lipman, described Rikers as a penal colony and a 19th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. Because of North Brother's proximity to Rikers, police patrol the East River, which connects the two. Business Insider journalist Dave Mosher noticed their presence, observing that authorities seemed weary of people visiting North Brother, giving its proximity to one of the country's largest prisons. After advances in public health-made quarantine-based treatment obsolete, Riverside Hospital was used as housing for soldiers studying at colleges in New York under the GI Bill. After World War II, the state converted Riverside's men's dorms into Island Nursery School, which served as housing for soldiers' children. This arrangement lasted for five years until the state's lease on the island expired in 1951. Today, North and South Brother Island are together, protected nesting sites for the herons, as well as other shorebirds. Break a breaker for a trucker giveaway! Congratulations to my first deadhead trucker winner, Robert, who goes by the CB handle Rob-O. Rob-O drives for RR Cassidy who listens to Weird Darkness while behind the wheel. Congratulations, Rob-O! I'm sending you two Weird Darkness t-shirts, a hardcover journal, two travel mugs, and an extra-large pillow to rest your head on breaks or your butt while driving. If you're hauling a trailer on the road and listening to Weird Darkness, you can register to win next month's giveaway. Just go to WeirdDarkness.com slash truckers to register to win. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash truckers. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. Do you have a true paranormal story that has happened to you or someone you know? Share it by clicking on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com or you can call the dark line toll-free at 1-877-277-5944. That's 1-877-277-5944. I might use your story in a future episode. Throughout history, there have been many women who have murdered their husbands or partners. Motives have ranged from rage, jealousy, hate, and greed. These women are often labeled Black Widows by the media. Let's look at the murderous actions of 10 Black Widows. Chisako Kakahi, a Japanese woman, murdered at least four men, all of which were her husbands, before eventually being caught. Kakahi, dubbed the Black Widow by Japanese media, sought her victims on various dating websites. Her criteria was always the same. They needed to be rich, childless, elderly, and lonely. Once lured, she would poison them with cyanide, either putting it in their drinks or even placing it in medicine capsules. Her motive for these killings was to collect the insurance money. She managed to collect $12 million in insurance and inheritance payments, though she ended up falling into debt from poor investment decisions. In 2017, Kakahi was eventually arrested after the death of her fourth husband, only after a single month of marriage. She confessed to the crime, saying she killed him because he gave money to other women, but never any to her. She was sentenced to death. Dubbed the Torso Murderer, Evelyn Dick's case is one of the most sensationalized in Canadian crime history. A bunch of schoolchildren made a shocking discovery in 1944 while walking in the woods, the Torso of Evelyn's missing husband, John Dick, a streetcar driver. His head and arms were missing, which were later discovered to have been burned in the furnace of their home. Suspicion fell on Evelyn. She was convicted of the murder in 1946 and was sentenced to death by hanging. Her lawyer appealed her case and she was acquitted. However, in a shocking turn of events, Evelyn Dick's baby boy was found encased in cement under the floorboards of her home. This had her right back in court, charged for murder again. She was sentenced to 11 years in prison and was released in 1958. No one knows what came of this murderous after her release with a new identity and parole and case records sealed by essentially a royal pardon. Betty Lou Beetz was married six times, twice to the same man. She attempted to murder two of them. First, she shot Bill Lane in the back of the head, twice. The two divorced after this, but later remarried before separating again. She then tried to run over her third husband, Ronnie Threckheld, with her car. Both of these men would later testify at her murder trial. In 1983, Beetz reported her sixth husband, Jimmy Don Beetz, was missing. However, it was later discovered that she told her son, Robert Branson, to leave the house as she intended to murder Jimmy. Rob was then asked to help conceal the murder by hiding the body in the front yard and planting Jimmy's heart medication on his boat before abandoning the boat in a lake. This was done so it would appear that Jimmy had fallen overboard and drowned. The lake was dragged, with Jimmy's body not being discovered. After a search warrant was issued, the bodies of Jimmy as well as Doyle Wayne Barker, who was another former husband of Beetz, were found on her property. She was arrested and later sentenced to death by a lethal injection. Texas carried out her execution on February 24, 2000. Stacy Castor was dubbed the Black Widow after murdering her then-husband David Castor in 2005. She poisoned him with antifreeze, an odorless and colorless poison. She also attempted to murder her daughter, Ashley Wallace, by mixing pills into a drink in 2007. Stacy was also suspected of murdering her first husband, Michael Wallace, after his body was exhumed and traces of antifreeze crystals were found when examined. Initially, the coroner ruled that David Castor's death was a suicide by drinking antifreeze. However, Stacy Castor's fingerprints were found on the antifreeze bottle and the turkey baster was discovered in the trash. It was suspected that she force-fed the antifreeze to her husband using the turkey baster. In 2009, Castor was convicted of murder and attempted murder and sentenced to 51 years in prison. She died in prison of a heart attack in 2016. Bell Gunness would lure suitors to her Indiana farm with the promise of marriage and hospitality before murdering them in cold blood. Her murderous actions were discovered after her house burned to the ground with her and her children still inside. Upon investigation of the Gunness farm, authorities noticed a number of soft depressions in the earth. After digging, a bag of human remains was found. Upon further inspection, dozens of these depressions at the ground were identified, each containing a sack of human remains. After uncovering five bags on the first day of digging and six on the second, it is reported that the police simply stopped counting. The exact body count of Bell Gunness is not exactly known, but it has been estimated she could have killed up to 40 people. Despite being declared dead in the house fire, it is speculated that she escaped the flames with some sightings of her in the Chicago area being recorded long after her supposed death. Mary Ann Cotton was an English woman suspected of murdering three of her four husbands to collect their insurance policies. She carried out these murders through arsenic poisoning. Each of her then husbands fell ill with gastric issues and with each of them eventually passing away, she would then collect money from their policies. Her downfall didn't come until the death of her stepson, Charles Edward Cotton, who was labeled a sickly boy. Upon his death, she attested that she had tried to help the ailing boy through the administration of Arrow Route. But when the newspapers came across this case and found that Mary Ann had lost three husbands, a lover, and 11 children, all to stomach issues, well, the gig was up. After examining Charles' body, traces of arsenic were found and Mary was promptly arrested. She was found guilty and hanged in 1873. Nanny Doss, or the self-made widow, was an American serial killer who murdered four husbands, two children, her sister, her mother, two grandsons, and a mother-in-law. Even after all these deaths, she was sometimes referred to as the Giggling Granny. She was first married at the age of 16 to a co-worker by the name of Charlie Braggs, and they had four children together, two of which died from suspected food poisoning. The marriage ended in divorce. She very quickly married Robert Franklin Harrelson, a marriage that lasted 16 years until she poisoned him with rat poison after he sexually assaulted her. Her later marriages included Arleigh Lanning, who died from a suspected heart attack, and Richard Morton, who she poisoned. Though before she poisoned him, she poisoned her own mother. Her reign of terror came to an abrupt end after murdering her fourth husband, Samuel Doss. An autopsy revealed heavy amounts of arsenic in his system, and she was arrested. She was sentenced to life in prison. She died of leukemia in 1965. Amy Duggan sister, Archer Gilligan, worked in a nursing home, Archer home for the elderly and in firm founded by Amy's husband, James Archer. Unfortunately, James Archer later died from Breitz disease, a genetic condition applied to kidney disorders at the time. Only a few weeks before his death, Amy took out a life insurance policy on her husband. With this, she was able to continue to run the Archer home. She later married Michael W. Gilligan, who died only after three months of marriage from severe indigestion. Over the years, there were many deaths at the Archer nursing home. Between 1911 and 1916, 48 residents died, including Franklin R. Andrews. Andrews family, including his sister, Nellie Pierce, grew suspicious of these events. She went to the media about it which resulted in several articles on the deaths being published. However, it wasn't until a year later that Amy was arrested. The bodies of some of the Archer home residents were exhumed and it was discovered that they had died from arsenic or strict nine poisoning. Amy was arrested and was initially sentenced to death. But later Amy pleaded insanity and she was transferred to a mental facility for the remainder of her life. Elizabeth Ann Broderick or simply Betty Broderick, she killed her husband and his second wife while they slept in their home. Betty's divorce from her ex-husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, was very public. The Broderick vs. Broderick case became one of the most infamous divorce cases in the United States. This was primarily because Betty worked to put her then husband through postgraduate school so that he could become a lawyer. After the divorce, Daniel married his legal assistant, Linda Cocchina, with whom he later admitted to having had an affair while still married to Betty. Betty became embittered, leaving violent voice messages on Daniel's phone and sending strange gifts to Linda on her wedding day. On the night of Sunday, November 5th, 1989, Betty broke into Daniel and Linda's home, killing them while they slept. She shot Linda first, killing her instantly, and afterward shot Daniel as he was reaching for the phone. Daniel did not die instantly, and later, Betty admitted talking to him as he lay dying. Betty was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 32 years in prison. She remains incarcerated in California after parole hearings in 2010 and 2017 did not grant her release. Her next parole hearing is scheduled for 2032. Susan Wright tied her husband, Jeff Wright, to their bed and stabbed him a total of 193 times with two different kinds of knives. She later buried him in the backyard and painted the bedroom to try and hide the evidence. She later confessed to her attorney, citing that she killed her husband in self-defense. During a trial, Susan testified that her husband was abusive and on the night of his murder, high on cocaine. She killed him to protect both herself and their two children from his drug-fueled rage. However, the prosecutor painted a different picture of the situation, citing that Susan wished to collect the $200,000 in life insurance money. She was convicted of murder in 2005 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The resentencing appeal lowered her sentence to 20 years in 2010, based on witness testimony about Susan's husband's abusive behavior. In December 2020, she was granted parole and released from incarceration. I'd like you to meet the newest member of our Weirdo family. Meet Syjack, a female arctic wolf. While visiting the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Kingsburg, Colorado, Robin and I fell in love with the place and their mission to save the lives of animals from abuse and neglect. I immediately felt drawn to Syjack upon seeing her and decided to adopt her in the name of Weird Darkness. And that means you had a part in that, Weirdos. Syjack was born in a safari park that couldn't care for her, but the Wild Animal Sanctuary steps in to save Syjack and other Wild Animals from private owners and less than ideal living conditions. Syjack now has a lifelong home in a large acreage, natural habitat near other wolves. Wild Animal Sanctuary has saved numerous other Wild Animals from abuse and neglect. Lions, grizzlies, tigers, panthers and more. Visit WildAnimalSanctuary.org to learn more, donate to the sanctuary and maybe adopt an animal of your own like we have with Syjack. That's WildAnimalSanctuary.org. I'm Darren Marlar. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. Have you seen the Monster Channel on the Weird Darkness site? It has horror hosts, B horror movies, retro television commercials and a whole lot more, absolutely free to watch 24-7-365. You can find it all on the Monster Channel page at WeirdDarkness.com. Here is a brief but intriguing story that appeared in the South Bend Tribune back on February 24th, 1880. Unfortunately, this is the only news report I have found about this mystery, but it is still entertaining, short as it is. Here is the article. Lebanon, Ohio is the scene of a great excitement caused by a wonderful phenomenon of showers of ordinary bird shot falling from the ceiling of John W. Lingo's hardware store. This strange occurrence was first noticed by parties who retort to the place each evening to spend a few hours in social chat. On the first evening, quite a number of persons were in the store when the bird shot began to fall in different parts of the room, but principally in the midst of the crowd of persons sitting about the stove. As the stove was near a hatchway, it was thought by some that some person or contrivance was in the upper portion of the building which threw or dropped the shot down. Parties were selected and a thorough search made of the building. All the floors were visited and every nook and corner ransacked when the committee returned and reported no spooks found. Then someone suggested that they all go to the front end of the store where the ceiling is perfect and no hatchways to the upper rooms. The shot continued to fall the same way at the back portion of the room. Then it was proposed that all present hold their hands up over their heads in order that no one could use his hands to throw or drop the shot. Still, the shot fell as usual. Many believe the shot is thrown by the spirit of a burglar who was shot and killed in the store in 1874 while attempting to rob it. This bizarre incident kicked off at a hotel on Keeland Drive, Richmond, when bystanders called the police to report the gunshots had been heard. When the police arrived, they discovered 55-year-old Samuel Riddell shooting a gun from his hotel window and quickly moved to evacuate civilians from the vicinity of the building. After being arrested, Riddell attempted to explain his actions by claiming that he had observed aliens in the parking lot and was shooting at them. Fortunately, nobody was injured during the incident, including the aliens, I assume. Tough SAS troopers are terrified now that their own military base is haunted after they summoned the dead in a seance. The elite soldier's headquarters in Hereford has been hit by unexplained events ever since an attempt to contact spirits at a regimental dinner in the sergeant's mess. Apparitions are said to have appeared, eerie laughter has been heard, taps and lights have come on by themselves, and a ghostly presence has been waking some of the personnel. One member of the unit said, Someone came up with the idea of a seance. One of the wives said that she had the ability to contact spirits. We all thought she was a bit barking. There were some pretty tough guys in that room who had seen a lot of action, but a few were a bit nervous. Some of them now believe they have disturbed the dead and are being punished. And in case you're wondering, yes, a lot of alcohol was involved. And as the great philosopher Billy Joel once said, We're only human, you're bound to make mistakes. But what if some of us are above that? What if there are new humans living alongside us? You know, us, the ordinary folk. What Mary Rodwell is a certified regression therapist and ET contact researcher, she says that she has firsthand experience with these controversial new humans. Children between the ages of four and eight years old, she says, the world over are claiming to be children of extraterrestrials. You can tell if they are new humans because they have that new car smell. If you want to read that story in more detail, you can find it in the Weird News section at WeirdDarkness.com. Thanks for listening. If you missed any part of tonight's show or if you'd like to hear it again, you can subscribe to the podcast where you'll hear not only tonight's radio show, but also the extra sudden death overtime content that I prepared that I didn't have time to fit in because I went overtime as well as bloopers from tonight's show. And while the radio show is one night per week, I upload episodes for the podcast seven days per week. And if you are one of my patrons, you get a commercial-free copy of tonight's show immediately after it's over. You can become a patron and or subscribe to the podcast at WeirdDarkness.com. 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. Doing that helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And if you'd like to be a part of the show, well, you can call into the dark line toll-free and tell your own true paranormal story or a story that happened to somebody you know. That number is 1-877-277-5944. Again, the toll-free number is 1-877-277-5944. You can also email me anytime at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright 2021. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. First in with the 6 verses 6-9. But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. And a final thought from Lainey Taylor. It's a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, anchored in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry, monster and looked behind him. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.