Apollo 20 Controversy | Alien Body, Crashed Spacecraft, Dark Side of the Moon, and a Lie?!

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Little grips people's imaginations, like stories of what might have
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been alternative histories where Zeppelins fill the skies, the Nazis
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won World War II, JFK was never assassinated. One such
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speculative tale revolves around the subject already heady with conspiracy
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in legend the Apollo moonlandings. We can only imagine what
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alternative history would have unfolded if the program had not
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been canceled but continued to explore the Moon. But one
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man claims the program was not canceled. In fact, he
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claims that Apollo eighteen, nineteen, and twenty did in fact
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go to the Moon despite what was reported, and what
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Apollo twenty found was beyond incredible, it was downright unbelievable.
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On the other side of the Moon a crashed alien spacecraft,
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complete with the dead bodies of its crew. I'm Darren
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Marler and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome Weirdos. I'm Darren
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Marler and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories
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of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
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unsolved and unexplained coming up in this episode. It was
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In two thousand and six, when Jennifer Keys disappeared from
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her Florida home without a trace. What happened to her?
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We'll look inside this case that is still a mystery.
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In eighteen ninety four, a massive fire broke out in
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the forests of Minnesota, killing more than four hundred people.
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Do their go Ghosts remain behind with the ashes. A
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teenager tells how ghosts are just part of day to
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day living for her family. One of the most well
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known explorers, Christopher Columbus, had a signature that was so
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perplexing that most scholars believe it a secret code of
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some kind, and so far an unbreakable code at that
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Some victims died because they happened to leave their doors unlocked.
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Others had been methodically stalked. How do serial killers choose
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their victims? We'll look at the methods of nine of
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the most notorious serial killers in history. When Jeffrey Dampier
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won the lottery, he thought he had finally had it all.
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Little did he know that someone was about to take
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everything from him. They found Annie stretched out on the
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floor with a pistol lying by her hand. There was
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no sign of struggle, and nothing had been taken. They
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could only conclude that Annie had taken her own life.
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But is that really what happened. When you think of
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seeing a ghost, you almost automatically envision an ethereal being
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in flowing white, like that of a woman in a
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wedding dress. And that might make sense, seeing as there
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are a lot of dead brides to be floating around America.
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You've seen them on the outside of large Gothic buildings
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and massive churches. Their stone faces and menacing presence can
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be unsettling to some. But what are the purpose of gargoyles?
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Were Betty and Barney Hill actually visited and even abducted
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by aliens in nineteen sixty one or was it an
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outlandish story just to get attention. The village of Trasmos
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in Spain is said to be cursed by witches. Could
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there be truth in the lore? But first, did a
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secret Apollo mission to the dark side of the moon
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discover an ancient alien life form? We begin there now.
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Bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
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and come with me into the weird darkness. Official history
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tells us that the last time man ever went to
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the moon was in December nineteen seventy two, when Apollo
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seventeen astronauts Eugene Cernon and Harrison Schmidt spent a record
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breaking three days on the lunar surface. But more Apollo
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missions were originally planned, Apollo eighteen, nineteen, and twenty having
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already begun construction or in the latter planning stages when
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they were canceled in nineteen seventy two, a combination of
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declining public interest and budget cuts making the once prestigious
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Moon program fall out of favor in Washington. Science fiction
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can speculate on what would have happened if these programs
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had gone ahead. Perhaps we would have habitable colonies on
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the Moon today, or staging posts for trips to Mars,
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and maybe we would have explored the dark side of
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the Moon, long rumored to contain remnants of an ancient
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alien civilization. In two thousand and seven, a mysterious figure
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took to YouTube with evidence that this incredible scenario was
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not speculative fiction, but a clandestine fact, one hidden from
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the world to protect the truth about what they had
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found on Earth's closest neighbour. A user calling himself retired
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AFB posted a number of videos purporting to be footage
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of a secret Apollo twenty mission jointly manned by US
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and Soviet astronauts that took place in August of nineteen
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seventy six. Retired AFB identified itself as William Rutledge, a
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now elderly and retired NASA astronaut in exile in Rwanda
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who took part in the secret Apollo twenty mission alongside
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fellow astronauts Leona Marietta Snyder and Alexei Leonov. According to Rutledge,
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Apollo twenty's mission was to explore the polar region of
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the Moon on its dark side to investigate images supposedly
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taken by Apollo fifteen of the area, which showed what
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appeared to be a vast ancient city and a huge,
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miles long crashed spacecraft. Rutledge's footage would be astonishing if true,
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as it shows both the alien city and a flyover
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of the cigar shaped spaceship. The videos then cut to
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the Apollo twenty crew actually exploring the interior of the
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crashed ship, and perhaps most amazing of all, discovering the
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body of a human like alien dubbed Mona Lisa by
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the astronauts The body appeared to have been that of
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a young woman, partially mummified, with a thin layer of
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a waxy substance covering its skin. She appeared to be
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locked into the controls of the spacecraft by a device
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connected to her eyes and nose. In an interview with
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an Italian journalist Luca Scentumburlo, Rutledge went into more details
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about their discovery of Mona Lisa, explaining that the EB
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extraterrestrial biological entity appeared to be neither alive or dead,
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but in some kind of state of suspended animation. According
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to Rutledge, the alien was disconnected from the navigational device
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and returned back to Earth aboard the lunar module, where
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the body still resides today. Ruttledge also described the ship
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we went inside, the big space ship also into a
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triangular one. The major conclusions of the exploration were it
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was a mothership very old that crossed the universe at
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least a billion years ago. Understandably, due to the sensational
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nature of the videos, religious posts to YouTube gathered millions
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of hits, but soon after, he claims his account was
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hacked and the videos deleted. Was NASA trying to destroy
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the evidence of these most secret of missions. If so,
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it didn't work quickly, Rutledge and others would set up
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multiple mirrored versions of the videos on several different video
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sharing websites, and they remain widely available today. But did
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NASA or anyone really need to worry? For many, the
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story was simply too incredible to be believed. Indeed, more
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than one commentator noted how similar religious claims were to
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a variety of science fiction films. Could there be any
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truth in the Apollo twenty story. Photographs of the lunar
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surface taken by Apollo fifteen and eighteen seventy one do
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appear to show some strange anomalies. In the del Portalzac region,
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in the southern region of the Moon's dark side, an
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unusual cigar shaped object situated on the edge of a
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crater can clearly be seen in several of the NASA
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photographs circulating on the Internet, including those on NASA's very
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own website. The feature looks to have mass and form,
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and seems to sit on top of the Moon's surface
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rather than be a part of it. The videos of
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the supposed Apollo twenty flyover of the craft show it
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to be stone like in texture, but covered in intricate
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carvings and patterns that could not possibly be natural. If
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the footage is a hoax, then the creators have avoided
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the obvious temptation to make their spaceship metallic and futuristic looking,
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instead opting for a curious, megalithic design replete with elaborate decoration.
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Religious account of the Apollo twenty mission and video footage
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have been met with widespread skepticism, but if they are
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a hoax, he's managed to insert some authentic details into
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his story that give it some hint of authenticity. Whilst
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Rutledge and Leona Marietta Snyder appear in no official lists
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of NASA or Soviet astronauts, Alexei Leonov was an internationally
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respected Soviet cosmonaut, best known for becoming the first man
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to walk in space in nineteen sixty five. For hoaxers
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to include such a high profile figure as Leonov was risky,
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as he could simply have come out with unassailable proof
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that he was elsewhere at the time of the mission,
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and the whole deception would instantly fall apart. Was this
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bold choice of using a real cosmonaut actually evidence for
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Apollo twenty's authenticity. One figure shown briefly in the videos
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even looks like Leonov, which at least attests to an
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attention to detail. Other aspects of the footage show that
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if a hoax, the creators had access to either real
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Apollo mission hardware or a very good replica of it.
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Several shots in the videos showing the interior of the
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lunar module are exact and impressive replicas of the real thing.
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An Apollo twenty badge, complete with the names of the
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three astronauts, is also visible in some frames, as further
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proof this is not simply recycled footage from one of
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the earlier official Apollo missions. If Rutledge was really an impost,
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then this part of the video was well produced. He
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must have had a decent sized budget to replicate a
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whole Apollo module interior inside a studio, indicating this was
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a professional operation. Alternatively, he may have somehow secured access
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to a real Apollo lunar module housed in a museum,
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although it seems unlikely any museum wouldever consent to the
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filming of a hoax video, and such a location was
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the real reason. Religi's depiction of the module's interior so
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accurate because it was genuinely filmed aboard a secret Apollo
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twenty mission to the Moon. There are numerous examples of
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researchers and investigators discovering anomalous artifacts and structures in NASA photographs,
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both of the Moon and other planets in the Solar System.
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Author and lecturer Richard C. Hogland is a proponent of
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many such claims, most famously that of the Face on Mars,
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a striking formation in the Sidonia region of the planet's
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surface that Hogland still insists is a giant alien statue
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of a human like face. Like many such observations, Hogland's
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work is based on poor quality, blurry photos, often nth
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generation copies found on the Internet. Invariably, when higher quality
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source images are found, many of these seemingly artificial structures
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prove to just be optical illusions, and that proved to
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be the case when newer, far higher resolution images gathered
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by probes such as NASA's Mars Global Surveyor in two
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thousand and three, showed the Sidonia Face was merely a hill,
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an entirely natural structure that only vaguely resembled a face.
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When illuminated at the right angle. Hoogland's work is an
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example of a psychological phenomenon called peridolia, the tendency of
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the human mind to perceive significant patterns where there are none.
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Often this takes the form of seeing human faces or
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animals in abstract or formless images. William religious story of
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Apollo twenty begins with the premise that Apollo fifteen captured
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images of a giant cigar shaped mothership on the dark
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side of the Moon. Many of the images circling on
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the Internet today do show what appears to be an
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artificial object, but they are low resolution and lack detail,
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like the face on Mars. When higher quality source images
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are referenced, this mothership is shown to be an optical illusion.
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The structure is merely a long hill on the lunar surface, which,
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when in deep shadow, appears to resemble a cylindrical object.
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With religious alien spacecraft vanished into the dust, much of
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his story disappears with it. How could the crew of
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Apollo twenty have explored a spaceship that does not exist?
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Showing that the spacecraft in the photographs is simply a
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hill does not prove Apollo twenty never flew, But if
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it did, its mission, as stated by Rutledge, is a deception.
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Could the spacecraft story be deliberate misinformation to hide Apollo
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twenty's real mission in a cloak of absurd sounding science fiction,
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or did the apocryphal mission never even get off the ground.
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The Americans Mammoth Saturn five rocket remains the only vehicle
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ever developed that was capable of taking a payload further
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than low Earth orbit. As such, all of the Apollo
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Moon missions were launched using those rockets. Between nineteen sixty
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six and nineteen seventy three, thirteen of the rockets were
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successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center, twelve of them
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for Apollo and one for Skylab. A further two were
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constructed but never used, and are now on display in
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museums and space centers across America. This presents a serious
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problem for William Rutledge's story about a secret Apollo twenty mission.
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Since the Saturn five was the only rocket capable of
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propelling a payload beyond Earth orbit, and since all of
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the known Saturn five rockets are accounted for, how did
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Apollo twenty even leave the Earth In order for the
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Apollo twenty mission to have occurred, we have to propose
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either the US had built more Saturn five rockets in secret,
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or that they or the Soviet Union had developed other
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completely unknown rocket technologies that were capable of sending men
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to the Moon. Instruction of the Saturn five was a
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massive effort, involving tens of thousands of engineers, designers, scientists,
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and contractors all around the world. The rocket was also
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vastly expensive. Each one cost over three billion dollars, so
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expensive that the cost was one of the main reasons
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the Apollo program was canceled by President Nixon. After construction,
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the next challenge was the logistics of storing and transporting
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something so huge. Special buildings and vehicles had to be designed,
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and the moving of the rocket to the launch site
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involved thousands of people. Even if it was possible to
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keep all of this completely secret, the real problem would
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be the launch itself. According to Rutledge, Apollo twenty was
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launched from Vanderberg Air Force Base, an installation that's located
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close to several large towns and cities in Santa Barbara.
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There's even a public rail line that runs right alongside
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the base. The launch of any rocket let alone something
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as huge as a Saturn five would be visible for
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hundreds of miles around onmissible to hundreds of thousands of
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people throughout southern California. Civil aviation and air traffic control
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would have to be notified, as would numerous other public bodies.
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It would essentially be impossible for a secret launch to
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have occurred from Vanderberg, all but confirming the Apollo twenty
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story as a hoax, a confirmation that would soon come
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from the hoaxer himself. French sculptor Theory Speth claimed responsibility
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for the Apollo twenty hoax on an Internet bulletin board
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in two thousand and seven. Speth's use of the username
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retired afb elsewhere on the Internet was also exposed by
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several research. Although Speth admitted the videos were a hoax,
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this has not deterred posters on websites and Internet forums
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propagating the videos as genuine, either unaware of Speth's submission
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or choosing to ignore it. One line of reasoning has
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it that Speth's confession is itself a hoax, simply an
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attempt at damage limitation or misinformation from NASA, but a
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closer look at the videos Speth, posted under the pseudonym
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of William Rutledge, show the clear fingerprints of fakery. Since
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the hoaxers were obviously unable to produce their own footage
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to the Moon, they had no alternative but to use
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existing NASA photos of the lootar surface in order to
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create their footage, a fact which makes the task of
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producing undetectable fakes virtually impossible. Several of the shots at
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the Moon's surface used in the videos are unmistakably composites
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using such NASA photographs with fictional elements added by the
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hoax One of the film's most striking sequences was created
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in this way. The panning shot showing what appears to
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be a vast alien city on the lunar surface, is
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actually a digital composite created from an Apollo seventeen moon
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photo combined with a painting of alien landscape by artist
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Bruce Pennington. The next sequence in the videos showing the
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alien mothership, look very much like they were filmed using models,
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with the wobbly looking flyover of the craft being perhaps
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the least convincing part of the whole film theory. Speth
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is a sculptor by trade, and he appears to have
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put his talents to good use in creating the Mona
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Lisa alien body as well. Indeed, several of the artworks
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shown on his website have a strong resemblance to the
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body seen in the videos. As beguiling as she seems,
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Mona Lisa is in all likelihood a clay sculpture created
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by Speth as the centerpiece of hoax. She bears all
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the hallmarks of the artist's previous works, and, whilst very
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artfully designed, does not convince as a real body in
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most of the shots in the video. The cavalier attitude
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toward the alien body is also a giveaway as to
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its unreality. No quarantine protocols are evident, and the unqualified
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astronauts perform crude medical procedures on the alien that clearly
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would never have been allowed in a real NASA mission.
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There's no doubt that the tale of Apollo twenty and
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its secret mission to investigate aliens on the Moon is
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a fantastic story. We all want it to be true,
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which might explain why basic critical faculties are often suspended
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when the story is recounted on the internet. Those who
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want to believe will find a way to keep Apollo
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twenty's incredible adventure to the Dark Side of the Moon alive,
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regardless of the facts. As alternative history, it is more
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captivating than mere reality. Up next, one of the most
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well known explorers, Christopher Columbus, had a signature that was
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so perplexing that most scholars believe it a secret code
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of some kind and so far an unbreakable code. And
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some victims died because they happened to leave their doors unlocked.
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Other victims had been methodically stalked. How do serial killers
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choose their victims? We'll look at the methods of nine
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of the most notorious serial killers in history. Those stories
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and more when Weird Darkness returns. One way you can
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support what I do is by shopping in the Weird
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Darkness Store. You can find Weird Darkness t shirts, trucker caps,
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00:21:57.079 --> 00:22:01.079
and dad hats, school supplies, kids' clothes, coffee mugs, and more,
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00:22:01.359 --> 00:22:04.039
with dozens of designs to choose from and a variety
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00:22:04.039 --> 00:22:06.839
of colors to match your style. Grab some weird Oh
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00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:09.680
merchandise for yourself or maybe as a gift for the
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00:22:09.720 --> 00:22:13.079
weirdo in your life by clicking on store at Weird
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Darkness Dot com that's Weird Darkness dot com slash store.
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Quite often I come across stories that I can't fit
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into Weird Darkness or just don't feel quite right for
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the show, but I still find them interesting. Or I
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write an article based on our recent Weird Darkness story.
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When that happens, I put it in the Weird Darkness blog.
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Sometimes it's a news story, other times it's a video
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just about everything I want to share that doesn't end
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00:22:42.079 --> 00:22:45.160
up in the podcast ends up in my blog. I
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00:22:45.240 --> 00:22:47.960
posted the blog several times a week too, so there's
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always something to come back for. Just click on blog
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at weird Darkness dot com. I'm a nineteen year old
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girl from the west of Skyland. Myself and my family
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have always had connections with ghosts and spirits and talk
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openly about them, so it's quite normal for us. I
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live in an old miner's cottage which was built in
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the eighteen hundreds, and before I lived there, my uncle
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and cousins did. One day, I watched my cousin as
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she sat at the bottom of the stairs looking up.
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I asked what she was looking at, and she just
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replied with the man on the stairs. A few years later,
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I moved in with my mom, and sure enough, every
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night I could hear distinct heavy footsteps walking up and
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down the stairs. He seems to be pretty chill, and
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I've never felt threatened in a house with him. He's
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affectionately named the Man on the Stairs. Another time, I
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was having trouble in my own room with a spirit
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and would wake up with things thrown on me and
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my belongings moved. I wasn't able to sleep in my
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own room for about a month until I finally went
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to my parish priest, who agreed to come and bless
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my house for me, and the trouble died down then.
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But every now and then I begin to feel very
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uneasy in my room. I'm not sure if I should
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get it blessed again, as I definitely do not want
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it to get as bad as it was before. I
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can happily sit in the presence of ghosts as long
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as we both go about our own business and I
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don't feel threatened. Serial killers frequently follow a pattern. That
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pattern may just be the ways in which they harm
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their victims, but frequently their patterns extend to the manner
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in which they choose their victims as well. Some killers
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target people who look similar or have the same jobs
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or the same interests. These nine killers all had specific
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profiles they bore in mind while choosing their next victims.
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Adam Leroy Lane Lane reportedly heeded women saying they were
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below him. He's known to have killed two women and
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was caught while trying to kill a third, a fifteen
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year old girl. Police believe he may have killed many
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more as he traveled for his job as a trucker.
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He put little planning into his attacks. His first known
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victim was killed while she was outside in her yard
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talking on the phone. He chose his second victim by
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trying doors. Monica Massaro was stabbed to death in her
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New Jersey home because her door was unlocked. Lane's only
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goal was to kill women. He didn't particularly care what
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they did or looked like. Robert Hanson Henson was an
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experienced tracker and hunter. He literally hunted his female victims,
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either drove or flew them in his private plane to
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remote sections of Alaska, then released them to pursue them
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through the woods. He kidnapped, raped, and murdered at least
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seventeen women around Anchorage, and possibly more than thirty. Hanson
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had a stutter and bad acne growing up. He reportedly
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felt shunned by attractive girls in his school and turned
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his revenge fantasies into reality. Hanson primarily targeted good looking
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women who worked in the sex trade. Dennis Rader, Raider,
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the bt K bind torture kill killer, chose his victims carefully.
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The identified women who fit his specific sexual fantasies, then
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stalked them over a period of time. He left a
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frightening note for one intended victim who didn't come home
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the night he planned to kill her. It read, be
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glad you weren't here because I was. Raider prioritized targets
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who lived alone or didn't lock their doors regularly. Anders Brievic,
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this Norwegian mass burderer, killed seventy seven people, first detonating
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a bomb at a government building, then shooting dozens of
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people trapped on an island summer camp. Most were the
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children of liberal Norwegian politicians. Briavic, a neo Nazi, says
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he planned the terrorist attack for nine years. His manifesto,
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published the day of the attack, declared his enemies were feminism, Islam,
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and cultural Marxism. Richard Chase sometimes called the Vampire of Sacramento.
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He told police that he chose only victims whose doors
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were unlocked. He said he considered an unlocked door a
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sign that his victim wanted him to enter. Chase killed
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at least six people, drank their blood and sometimes ate
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their flesh. Ashley Mervyn Coltson, Australian killer. Coltson picked two
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victims after they put an ad in the paper. Two
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students were looking for a third person to share their house.
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Colton answered the ad and forced the two women into
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separate rooms. The brother in law of one of the
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women was there at the time, and Coulson forced him
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into a third room. All three were hogtied and shot.
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No motive has ever been established. Coltson went on to
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attempt to abduct another couple about a month later, but
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was stopped by nearby security guards. Colin Ireland Ireland stalked
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his victims in gay bars, choosing men who were willing
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to be tied up as part of a sexual game.
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Ireland claimed he was not gay and his motivation was
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not sexual. Rather, he said it was easier to kill
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someone when they willingly allowed themselves to be restrained. Ireland
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killed at least five men and died in prison. Gary Ridgeway,
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the so called Green River Killer, targeted vulnerable women, prostitutes
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and runaways. That may have been why he was able
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to kill so many before being caught. He was convicted
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of forty nine murders, but is believed to have killed
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twice that number. He himself said he killed so many
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women that he has trouble keeping them straight Anthony Sowell.
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When he was arrested, police found eleven bodies in Soowl's Cleveland,
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Ohio duplex. Soowel two chose victims he believed were less
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likely to be missed. In this case, the killer chose
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African American women, typically ones who were not close with
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their families or struggled with drug use, thinking that police
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and the community would not be able to come together
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to find the victims, and he was right. Many of
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his victims had not even been reported missing by their families.
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One of the most well known explorers but least talked
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about unsolved codes, is the signature of Christopher Columbus. It
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might be surprising that to this day no one is
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completely sure on its meaning. The cause for this is
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because Columbus never explained his reasoning for adopting the mysterious
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writings of his signet. What is known, however, is that
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it was very important to him. Columbus began using the
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mysterious signet after returning from his first voyage across the
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Atlantic o. The first known example dates to fourteen eighty three,
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and historians have numerous other examples and documents demonstrating the
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curious signature from that time on to his death. He
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even instructed his errors to continue using the signet themselves.
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In doing so, we have a written record for how
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Columbus described his signature. He directed them to sign with
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my signature which I now employ, which is an X
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with an S over it, and an M with a
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Roman A over it, and over that an S, and
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then a Greek Y with an S over it, preserving
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the relation of the lines and points. If you could
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see an illustration, the shape is actually the form of
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a triangle, and by his instructions, this was exactly how
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it should be written without alteration. Attempts to decode the
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signature have of course been made, and many theories put forth.
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They range from stating his signature proves he was secretly
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a Jew in search of a new land for his
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persecuted people, to being a devout Catholic. What are the
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most commonly accepted suggestions are that the letters S, sas,
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XM Y expoferens decode to translated servant, I am of
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the Most Exalted Savior Christ Mary and Joseph Christ Bearer.
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The last part of his signature, expoferens is agreed by
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most to be a Greek Latin form for his name
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Christopher expo a Greek form for Cristo, and Pherens is
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a Latin form. This combination, however, allows for a deeper
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religious significance to appear in his name. When translated, it
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can literally mean Christ Bearer. But there are other theories.
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Some suggest the shape he chose for his signet is
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important and feel it could mimic the mast of a
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ship and a Jewish prayer, supporting ideas that Columbus himself
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was Jewish and looking for a new homeland for his
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Jewish people. By signing his name as such, he was
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secretly conveying this to other hidden Jews. Some also found
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his signet to support the Crusades and his desire to
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free the Holy Land of Muslims. The example given is
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that his signature can refer to may the Sarricans be subjugated,
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turned away, and removed by Christ Mary Joseph. It's difficult
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to know for certain, though, While many do feel his
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signature is religious in nature and that the X M
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Y do connect to Cristus, Maria Josephus, or christ Mary
476
00:33:42.440 --> 00:33:46.000
and Joseph, some put forth the why might perhaps refer
477
00:33:46.119 --> 00:33:50.519
to Isabelle or Queen Isabella, who backed his most famous voyage.
478
00:33:51.480 --> 00:33:56.079
Unless a document is found revealing Christopher Columbus's intentions, it
479
00:33:56.160 --> 00:34:05.599
seems the mystery of his signature will continue on when
480
00:34:05.640 --> 00:34:10.119
Weird Darkness returns. It has been twelve years since Jennifer
481
00:34:10.199 --> 00:34:14.519
Keise disappeared from her Florida home without a trace. What
482
00:34:14.719 --> 00:34:18.159
happened to her? We'll look inside this case. That is
483
00:34:18.400 --> 00:34:22.639
still a mystery. And in eighteen ninety four, a massive
484
00:34:22.679 --> 00:34:26.159
fire broke out in the forests of Minnesota, killing more
485
00:34:26.199 --> 00:34:30.119
than four hundred people. Do their ghosts remain behind with
486
00:34:30.199 --> 00:34:47.559
the ashes? These stories are up next. Now there's a
487
00:34:47.599 --> 00:34:50.000
new way to share Weird Darkness with the weirdo's in
488
00:34:50.039 --> 00:34:52.840
your life. It's a skill on your Amazon Echo device.
489
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Just say play Weird Darkness and you'll immediately start hearing
490
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the newest episode with your Amazon Echo or smart device.
491
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.719
It'll let me keep you company all day and all night,
492
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and it's easy to tell your friends how to tune
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in too. Just tell your Amazon device play Weird Darkness
494
00:35:08.639 --> 00:35:13.199
to start listening. No matter the time of day or season.
495
00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:15.920
Sometimes you need to find a way to rid yourself
496
00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:19.559
of those ghostly chills that bring raised hairs and goosebumps
497
00:35:19.559 --> 00:35:22.880
to your skin. Other times you're looking for those ghostly chills.
498
00:35:23.079 --> 00:35:25.360
Either way, it sounds like you need a mug of
499
00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:28.440
Weird Dark Roast Coffee. Weird Dark Roast Coffee has deep
500
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notes of cocoa caramel and a touch of sinister sweetness
501
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that'll send shivers down your taste buds. This is an
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exclusive coffee that I selected specifically for you my Weirdo family.
503
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Weird Dark Roast is not available in stores, coffeehouses, mad
504
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Scientists Labs, or even the dark web, but you can
505
00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:49.000
find it at Weird Darkness dot com, slash coffee. Weird
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Dark Roast Coffee fresh roasted to order, so it's as
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fresh as it can be when it lands on your
508
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doorstep and knocks three times grab yours now at Weirddarkness
509
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dot com, slash coffee. That's Weird Darkness dot com, slash coffee,
510
00:36:01.039 --> 00:36:03.000
Weird Darkest Coffee. It's done. Actually knock on your door
511
00:36:03.039 --> 00:36:04.719
because it doesn't have arms or hands. So if you hear
512
00:36:04.760 --> 00:36:05.960
knocks at the door and no one answers when you
513
00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:07.719
ask who it is, it's probably paranormal and you should
514
00:36:07.760 --> 00:36:15.760
just leave the door shut and locked. On September first,
515
00:36:16.039 --> 00:36:19.639
eighteen ninety four, a massive fire broke out in the
516
00:36:19.679 --> 00:36:24.159
forests of Minnesota, destroying more than three hundred ninety square
517
00:36:24.199 --> 00:36:28.079
miles of land and the town of Hinckley. The official
518
00:36:28.079 --> 00:36:32.239
death count was four hundred eighteen, although it was likely
519
00:36:32.280 --> 00:36:35.960
even higher than that. Many of those who died were
520
00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:41.000
simply never found. It was a hot summer in Minnesota
521
00:36:41.079 --> 00:36:44.360
in eighteen ninety four, with high temperatures, a two month
522
00:36:44.440 --> 00:36:48.280
long drought, and then common method of lumber harvesting in place,
523
00:36:48.559 --> 00:36:51.719
which stripped branches in place and littered the ground with
524
00:36:51.840 --> 00:36:56.000
flammable debris. A terrible fire was simply a matter of time.
525
00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:01.239
The deadly combination began with several small fires in Pine County,
526
00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:06.800
Minnesota that united into a firestorm as the heat, smoke
527
00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:09.840
and gases from the smaller fires rose into the sky.
528
00:37:10.440 --> 00:37:14.480
They were pushed back down by cooler air above. As
529
00:37:14.480 --> 00:37:18.440
the heat came down, it swirled into a tornado of flames,
530
00:37:18.960 --> 00:37:22.920
which then began to move quickly and grew larger and larger,
531
00:37:23.440 --> 00:37:28.679
turning into a horrific firestorm. The fire first destroyed the
532
00:37:28.679 --> 00:37:32.840
towns of Mission Creek and brook Park before coming into
533
00:37:32.840 --> 00:37:36.199
the town of Hinckley. The temperature rose to at least
534
00:37:36.320 --> 00:37:41.079
two thousand degrees, melting barrels of nails into a solid mass,
535
00:37:41.440 --> 00:37:44.679
and fused cars on the Eastern Minnesota Railroad yard to
536
00:37:44.719 --> 00:37:50.639
the tracks. Some residents escaped by climbing into wells, ponds
537
00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:54.480
or the Grindstone River. Others made it aboard the two
538
00:37:54.599 --> 00:37:57.840
crowded trains that managed to pull out of Hinkley before
539
00:37:57.920 --> 00:38:02.280
it was consumed by flames. James Root, an engineer on
540
00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:06.039
a train heading south from Duluth, rescued nearly three hundred
541
00:38:06.079 --> 00:38:09.239
people by backing up a train nearly five miles to
542
00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:13.960
Skunk Lake, where the passengers escaped the fire. William Best
543
00:38:14.039 --> 00:38:16.800
was an engineer on the second train, and he steamed
544
00:38:16.840 --> 00:38:19.800
to Hinckley to try and save as many people as possible.
545
00:38:20.920 --> 00:38:25.360
When the smoke finally cleared, Hinckley was in ruins. It
546
00:38:25.440 --> 00:38:31.320
had also destroyed the nearby settlements of Mission Creek, Brook Park, Sandstone,
547
00:38:31.719 --> 00:38:37.639
Miller Partridge, and Pokagama. Hundreds of acres of land lay
548
00:38:37.719 --> 00:38:42.840
black and smoldering, and hundreds had been killed. Could this
549
00:38:42.960 --> 00:38:47.880
be why ghost stories still linger in Hinckley? In the
550
00:38:47.920 --> 00:38:51.440
small town was a gravel pit where many residents were
551
00:38:51.519 --> 00:38:53.960
unable to make it to the trains and they took
552
00:38:54.039 --> 00:38:57.280
refuge from the fire. The pit had been dug by
553
00:38:57.280 --> 00:38:59.960
the railroad and had filled with water from an atche
554
00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:04.400
spring after the summer drought. Though the water was only
555
00:39:04.440 --> 00:39:08.440
about three feet deep, many considered it an eyesore, but
556
00:39:08.519 --> 00:39:11.320
it ended up saving the lives of more than one
557
00:39:11.400 --> 00:39:16.760
hundred people, livestock, and wild animals during the fire. Everyone
558
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:20.880
who took refuge there survived, except for one man who
559
00:39:20.920 --> 00:39:23.679
fainted and was stepped on by a cow and died.
560
00:39:25.039 --> 00:39:28.639
Fire victims waded out the blaze in the pit, emerging
561
00:39:28.679 --> 00:39:32.719
to find their town was in ashes. The pit was
562
00:39:32.760 --> 00:39:36.199
eventually filled in and became part of a public park,
563
00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:39.599
but despite the lack of death connected to it, it
564
00:39:39.639 --> 00:39:43.639
has come to be considered a haunted place. They say
565
00:39:43.679 --> 00:39:46.400
that if you are a believer in ghosts, the town
566
00:39:46.400 --> 00:39:50.880
of Hinckley will offer many opportunities to find them at
567
00:39:50.920 --> 00:39:54.440
the site of the old gravel pit, strange lights at night,
568
00:39:54.719 --> 00:39:58.920
and as one resident stated, sometimes there are more dead
569
00:39:58.960 --> 00:40:05.480
people in the streets ofky than live ones. On the
570
00:40:05.519 --> 00:40:09.679
evening of January twenty fourth, two thousand and six, friends
571
00:40:09.679 --> 00:40:12.920
and family of twenty four year old Floridian Jennifer Keyes
572
00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:17.400
had already begun to pass out flyers requesting information on
573
00:40:17.480 --> 00:40:20.719
the whereabouts of the young woman, who had vanished either
574
00:40:20.800 --> 00:40:25.000
late the night before or early that morning. By the
575
00:40:25.039 --> 00:40:28.920
following day, news of her disappearance had spread beyond Orlando
576
00:40:29.159 --> 00:40:34.000
and into national news outlets. Before she vanished, Jennifer Keys
577
00:40:34.039 --> 00:40:37.360
seemed to have it all, a loving family and boyfriend,
578
00:40:37.800 --> 00:40:40.480
a great job, and no reason for her to drop
579
00:40:40.599 --> 00:40:44.880
everything and run away. Her loved ones naturally assumed that
580
00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:50.039
something terrible must have happened. That remains the prevailing assumption today,
581
00:40:50.599 --> 00:40:54.119
but more than a decade later, detectives still have not
582
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:58.159
made much headway in the case. There is some haunting
583
00:40:58.639 --> 00:41:02.119
grady video footage of a person of interest, and authorities
584
00:41:02.320 --> 00:41:06.679
have found Kesey's abandoned car, but there is overall minimal
585
00:41:06.679 --> 00:41:10.320
physical evidence for law enforcement to work with. So what
586
00:41:10.599 --> 00:41:14.320
exactly happened to Jennifer Keyes in two thousand and six.
587
00:41:16.039 --> 00:41:19.039
Jennifer Keys was twenty four at the time of her disappearance,
588
00:41:19.519 --> 00:41:23.079
and by all accounts, was a successful young woman. She
589
00:41:23.159 --> 00:41:26.320
had a stable job working as a finance manager for
590
00:41:26.480 --> 00:41:30.440
Central Florida Investments timeshare company in a Cooey, Florida, and
591
00:41:30.639 --> 00:41:34.440
was the proud new owner of a condo in nearby Orlando.
592
00:41:34.760 --> 00:41:38.599
Keise and her boyfriend, Robert Allen, had recently vacationed in
593
00:41:38.639 --> 00:41:44.199
the US Virgin Islands. Life appeared pleasant, then came the
594
00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:48.920
morning of January twenty fourth. Keith had returned home from
595
00:41:48.960 --> 00:41:52.159
work around six pm the night prior and chatted with
596
00:41:52.199 --> 00:41:55.480
her family on the phone. She called her boyfriend later
597
00:41:55.519 --> 00:41:58.760
that night at around ten pm before turning in for bed.
598
00:42:00.079 --> 00:42:02.960
Allan would be the last person in Keyth's inner circle
599
00:42:03.159 --> 00:42:06.360
to have connected with her. It was common for Keys
600
00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:08.719
to call or send a text message to her boyfriend
601
00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:12.039
as she was leaving for work, but no message came
602
00:42:12.239 --> 00:42:16.599
on the morning of January twenty fourth. Concerned, Alan made
603
00:42:16.679 --> 00:42:21.239
several attempts to contact his girlfriend, but texts went unreceived
604
00:42:21.679 --> 00:42:25.760
and phone calls went straight to voicemail. Co workers had
605
00:42:25.760 --> 00:42:28.719
also begun to wonder why they hadn't heard from Keys.
606
00:42:29.400 --> 00:42:32.440
It was unlike her to not call in, and she
607
00:42:32.480 --> 00:42:36.559
had missed an important morning meeting at eleven a m.
608
00:42:37.119 --> 00:42:40.480
Jennifer Keyse's employer contacted her parents to inform them of
609
00:42:40.559 --> 00:42:44.679
the situation. Realizing that something was amiss with their daughter,
610
00:42:45.119 --> 00:42:48.039
Drew and Joyce Keyse made the drive down from Tampa
611
00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:50.480
to Orlando to check that their daughter was at her home.
612
00:42:51.360 --> 00:42:54.360
They soon discovered that her car was missing, but that
613
00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:58.159
her condo did not show any signs of disarray. They
614
00:42:58.159 --> 00:43:02.239
found a damp towel in the shower suggesting she washed
615
00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:05.639
before work that morning, a pair of pajamas on the floor,
616
00:43:06.079 --> 00:43:09.800
and some makeup on the counter. Her mother noted in
617
00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:14.920
the podcast Unconcluded, which details the investigation, that a particular
618
00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:18.320
pair of pomps that Keith was excited about was missing
619
00:43:18.400 --> 00:43:22.000
from her closet that morning. All of this evidence seemed
620
00:43:22.039 --> 00:43:25.000
to indicate that Keith had left for work as usual.
621
00:43:25.800 --> 00:43:28.440
It should be noted, however, that the Orlando police never
622
00:43:28.480 --> 00:43:33.079
processed Keith's condo as a crime scene, so where was she?
623
00:43:34.559 --> 00:43:38.639
In the years following Jennifer Keith's disappearance, police had managed
624
00:43:38.679 --> 00:43:42.639
to track down her car, but not much else. Two
625
00:43:42.760 --> 00:43:46.119
days after Keith disappeared, police received a phone call from
626
00:43:46.159 --> 00:43:48.480
somebody who had seen a photo of her car on
627
00:43:48.519 --> 00:43:50.880
the news and thought that it looked a lot like
628
00:43:50.920 --> 00:43:54.840
the one parked outside their apartment complex. It was indeed
629
00:43:55.039 --> 00:43:58.119
the car in question, a black two thousand and four
630
00:43:58.280 --> 00:44:03.199
shabby Malibu. Upon analyzing the car at the police crime lab,
631
00:44:03.800 --> 00:44:07.440
just two pieces of physical evidence were recovered, a latent
632
00:44:07.639 --> 00:44:12.119
print deemed too minuscule to yield any helpful information, and
633
00:44:12.239 --> 00:44:16.360
a small amount of DNA A DVD player of hers
634
00:44:16.400 --> 00:44:19.480
remained in the backseat of the car. And because Keith's
635
00:44:19.519 --> 00:44:22.440
personal effects, like her cell phone and purse, had never
636
00:44:22.480 --> 00:44:25.800
been located, it can be surmised that the motive of
637
00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:29.880
the suspect was not robbery. While the lack of physical
638
00:44:29.920 --> 00:44:33.639
evidence from the car was frustrating, the video footage captured
639
00:44:33.639 --> 00:44:37.519
from the apartment complex was just as disappointing for detectives.
640
00:44:38.559 --> 00:44:41.599
The surveillance video showed a person of interest dropping off
641
00:44:41.639 --> 00:44:43.880
the car at noon on the day of the disappearance,
642
00:44:44.480 --> 00:44:47.960
but any physical description of the suspect is almost entirely
643
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:52.119
obscured by the apartment's gate The cameras were designed to
644
00:44:52.159 --> 00:44:56.800
capture images just once every three seconds, as opposed to continuously,
645
00:44:57.360 --> 00:45:00.440
and it just so happened that at each interval the
646
00:45:00.480 --> 00:45:03.440
person of interest was obscured by a different gate post
647
00:45:03.639 --> 00:45:08.159
while walking by. Investigators went so far as to tap
648
00:45:08.280 --> 00:45:11.280
NASA to enhance the video footage of the person, but
649
00:45:11.480 --> 00:45:14.159
have been unable to determine whether that person was even
650
00:45:14.199 --> 00:45:17.440
a man or a woman. Police could only discern that
651
00:45:17.480 --> 00:45:21.800
the person was between five three and five five. Journalists
652
00:45:21.800 --> 00:45:24.519
who covered the story reported that the obscured footage made
653
00:45:24.519 --> 00:45:27.880
this person of interest the luckiest person of interest ever.
654
00:45:29.239 --> 00:45:32.840
Without much physical evidence to go on, the investigation turned
655
00:45:32.840 --> 00:45:36.679
to those who knew Jennifer Keith. Her boyfriend and brother
656
00:45:37.119 --> 00:45:39.760
both checked out, and the next boyfriend, who had wanted
657
00:45:39.800 --> 00:45:44.159
to rekindle their relationship, was also ruled out. Detectives learned
658
00:45:44.199 --> 00:45:48.920
that an older work colleague had unsuccessfully pursued a romantic relationship,
659
00:45:48.960 --> 00:45:53.519
but he too was determined unsuspicious. Keith had mentioned to
660
00:45:53.559 --> 00:45:57.280
her family that construction workers doing renovations at her complex
661
00:45:57.639 --> 00:46:01.840
would occasionally cat call. Those leads also turned up nothing.
662
00:46:03.079 --> 00:46:07.000
Her credit cards went unused after her disappearance, and her
663
00:46:07.039 --> 00:46:10.559
cell phone had been turned off. The beloved daughter of
664
00:46:10.599 --> 00:46:13.559
the Keys family was nowhere to be found, and there
665
00:46:13.599 --> 00:46:17.519
were no clues to go on. Imagine waking up and
666
00:46:17.559 --> 00:46:21.039
your daughter is nowhere to be found. Orlando Police detective
667
00:46:21.119 --> 00:46:24.880
Teresa Sprague told The Orlando Sentinel on the tenth anniversary
668
00:46:24.880 --> 00:46:28.880
of the disappearance. You can't reach her, You can't locate her.
669
00:46:29.280 --> 00:46:33.079
The police can't locate her. Hours turn into panic, in
670
00:46:33.199 --> 00:46:36.679
days into your worst nightmare. I cannot imagine the nightmare
671
00:46:36.719 --> 00:46:39.199
the keyth family had been sleepwalking through for the last
672
00:46:39.320 --> 00:46:43.400
ten years. As of late, the Keyes family has been
673
00:46:43.440 --> 00:46:47.719
largely disappointed in the Orlando police investigation, stating that they
674
00:46:47.719 --> 00:46:51.320
have largely withheld information from the family. They add that
675
00:46:51.400 --> 00:46:54.519
outside of a two page document, the police have had
676
00:46:54.559 --> 00:46:57.360
a little contact with the family regarding their progression of
677
00:46:57.360 --> 00:47:01.440
the case. We need to get this information, Keith's father
678
00:47:01.559 --> 00:47:05.400
reported to Fox News. After twelve years, we deserve that
679
00:47:06.960 --> 00:47:11.039
anyone with information regarding the case is asked to contact
680
00:47:11.119 --> 00:47:14.280
crime Line Florida. You can find a link to them
681
00:47:14.519 --> 00:47:27.719
in the show notes. Ground zero for rumors of witchcraft
682
00:47:27.800 --> 00:47:30.559
in Spain can be traced to the construction of the
683
00:47:30.599 --> 00:47:35.679
Castle of Trasmos sometime in the thirteenth century. The layout
684
00:47:35.719 --> 00:47:40.400
of the spooky and imposing structure was a unique hexagonal shape,
685
00:47:40.800 --> 00:47:43.920
which was seen as a sure sign of witchcraft foot
686
00:47:44.519 --> 00:47:47.800
and it did not help that the castle supposedly constantly
687
00:47:47.840 --> 00:47:53.079
issued forth anomalous noises such as rattling chains, the banging
688
00:47:53.119 --> 00:47:55.760
of metal, which was seen as the result of witches
689
00:47:55.840 --> 00:48:00.440
mixing potions in their cauldrons, and other mischief, well as
690
00:48:00.519 --> 00:48:06.320
occasional shrieks and arcane whales. Even the construction of the
691
00:48:06.400 --> 00:48:09.320
castle was wreathed in myth, as it was said to
692
00:48:09.360 --> 00:48:12.519
have been created in a single night by a magician
693
00:48:12.800 --> 00:48:18.119
called Mutomine. Many of these bizarre rumors seemed to have
694
00:48:18.159 --> 00:48:22.199
been originally intentionally spread by the castle's very own inhabitants.
695
00:48:22.880 --> 00:48:25.280
At the time, the Castle of Trasmas was said to
696
00:48:25.320 --> 00:48:29.760
be a major den of the illicit manufacture of fake coins,
697
00:48:29.800 --> 00:48:32.840
which was helped along by the rich silver and iron
698
00:48:32.880 --> 00:48:36.239
mines of the area. It is said that, in order
699
00:48:36.280 --> 00:48:39.159
to keep the locals from becoming too nosey about all
700
00:48:39.199 --> 00:48:43.039
the noise they were making, the counterfeiters intentionally began to
701
00:48:43.039 --> 00:48:46.519
fan out rumors that the scraping and banging of metal
702
00:48:46.920 --> 00:48:50.280
was from the nefarious activities of witches engaged in their
703
00:48:50.400 --> 00:48:54.760
dark arcane business, and the ploy worked, and it is
704
00:48:54.840 --> 00:48:57.840
thought that this was where the village's reputation as a
705
00:48:57.880 --> 00:49:04.119
haven of witches began. Unfortunately for the villagers, the rumors
706
00:49:04.199 --> 00:49:07.679
spread by the fake coin forgers worked a little too well.
707
00:49:08.440 --> 00:49:12.199
Before long, the rumor grew to encompass the whole village,
708
00:49:12.519 --> 00:49:15.559
until it was seen as a veritable hive of witches
709
00:49:15.599 --> 00:49:19.480
and warlocks, a cursed place, and a center of the
710
00:49:19.559 --> 00:49:23.360
dark arts that stirred fear and superstition in the surrounding areas,
711
00:49:24.039 --> 00:49:28.280
an idea still held onto by many today. It got
712
00:49:28.280 --> 00:49:31.679
to the point that the neighboring monastery of Veruella had
713
00:49:31.719 --> 00:49:36.639
the entire village officially excommunicated from the Church, although this
714
00:49:36.840 --> 00:49:39.599
is often seen as just being an excuse to force
715
00:49:39.639 --> 00:49:43.079
Treasmas to pay taxes to them, something from which they
716
00:49:43.119 --> 00:49:47.000
had previously been exempt as it didn't officially belong to
717
00:49:47.039 --> 00:49:51.360
the Catholic Church. With the excommunication carried out and in
718
00:49:51.440 --> 00:49:56.000
full effect, the villagers nevertheless refused to beg for forgiveness,
719
00:49:56.119 --> 00:49:59.199
with many of them Jews and Muslims and not even
720
00:49:59.320 --> 00:50:03.920
Christian which only furthered their reputation as devil worshiping Heathens.
721
00:50:05.159 --> 00:50:08.800
The friction between Trasmas and very Weella Abbey would continue
722
00:50:08.880 --> 00:50:12.960
for many years, eventually almost leading to civil war when
723
00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:16.559
the abbey began trying to divert the village's irrigation water
724
00:50:16.840 --> 00:50:21.480
without paying. Although the King of Spain, King Ferdinand the Second,
725
00:50:21.920 --> 00:50:24.719
deemed Trasmas to be in the right in terms of
726
00:50:24.760 --> 00:50:27.719
the water dispute and ruled in their favor, the Church
727
00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:31.159
took this as an affront. Seething that they had been
728
00:50:31.280 --> 00:50:35.920
bested by this which infested excommunicated town, the Catholic Church
729
00:50:36.239 --> 00:50:40.840
went about getting revenge. Pope Julius the Second gave permission
730
00:50:40.880 --> 00:50:44.400
to dust off the powerful and rarely used Catholic curse
731
00:50:44.840 --> 00:50:47.880
Psalm one hundred eight of the book Psalms, which is
732
00:50:47.920 --> 00:50:51.199
said to be a potent curse saved for the worst
733
00:50:51.239 --> 00:50:54.679
of times, and in this case it was invoked to
734
00:50:54.719 --> 00:50:59.199
curse the entire village of Trasmos. Psalm one hundred and
735
00:50:59.280 --> 00:51:02.880
eight reads as thus a song a Psalm of David.
736
00:51:03.960 --> 00:51:07.119
My heart, Oh God, is steadfast. I will sing and
737
00:51:07.159 --> 00:51:10.719
make music with all my soul. Awake, harp and liar,
738
00:51:11.280 --> 00:51:14.199
I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you Lord
739
00:51:14.280 --> 00:51:17.280
among the nations. I will sing of you among the peoples.
740
00:51:17.320 --> 00:51:20.719
For great is your love, higher than the heavens. Your
741
00:51:20.760 --> 00:51:24.480
faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above
742
00:51:24.480 --> 00:51:27.679
the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth.
743
00:51:28.320 --> 00:51:30.920
Save us and help us with your right hand, that
744
00:51:31.039 --> 00:51:34.559
those you love may be delivered. God has spoken from
745
00:51:34.559 --> 00:51:37.719
his sanctuary in triumph. I will parcel out to Shechem
746
00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:41.480
and measure off the valley of Sucketh. Gilead is mine,
747
00:51:41.760 --> 00:51:46.159
Mnessa is mine, Ephraim is my helmet, Judah is my scepter.
748
00:51:46.800 --> 00:51:49.840
Moab is my wash. Basin on Edom, I toss my
749
00:51:49.960 --> 00:51:54.519
sandal over Felictia, I shout in triumph. Who will bring
750
00:51:54.559 --> 00:51:57.480
me to the fortified city? Who will lead me to Edom?
751
00:51:57.880 --> 00:52:00.440
It is not you, God. You have rejected us, and
752
00:52:00.519 --> 00:52:03.599
no longer go out with our armies. Give us aid
753
00:52:03.679 --> 00:52:07.519
against the enemy, for human help is worthless. With God,
754
00:52:07.599 --> 00:52:10.320
we will gain the victory, and he will trample down
755
00:52:10.639 --> 00:52:15.400
our enemies. Why this, somehow was seen as a curse
756
00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:19.079
is beyond me. It was in the wake of this
757
00:52:19.119 --> 00:52:24.079
wicked curse that the once prosperous and populous village fell
758
00:52:24.199 --> 00:52:30.000
into severe decline, suffering from a mysterious epidemic of disease, famine,
759
00:52:30.320 --> 00:52:33.199
a fire which burned down the Castle of Trasmos in
760
00:52:33.199 --> 00:52:37.639
fifteen twenty, and other myriad woes, during which time the
761
00:52:37.679 --> 00:52:42.079
population fell to its current low. Even to this day,
762
00:52:42.239 --> 00:52:46.239
the village is poor and in shambles, its buildings weathered
763
00:52:46.280 --> 00:52:50.880
and decrepit, its nearly empty streets cracked and weed choked.
764
00:52:51.239 --> 00:52:54.519
A veritable ghost town. And for many this is a
765
00:52:54.559 --> 00:52:58.800
result of the Catholic curse, which is technically still in effect,
766
00:52:59.000 --> 00:53:02.400
as no pope has ever officially lifted it. This makes
767
00:53:02.440 --> 00:53:06.440
Trasmos the only entire town in all of Spain to
768
00:53:06.559 --> 00:53:11.159
remain both excommunicated and also cursed by the Catholic Church,
769
00:53:11.719 --> 00:53:14.800
as well as to incidentally still be considered a haven
770
00:53:14.920 --> 00:53:20.000
for witches and witchcraft. This reputation has brought in droves
771
00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:23.360
of tourists to this tiny, withered village, who come for
772
00:53:23.440 --> 00:53:26.519
the dark history and to see for themselves what an
773
00:53:26.519 --> 00:53:31.719
officially cursed town of witches looks like Trasmos does little
774
00:53:31.800 --> 00:53:35.440
to downplay this history of witchcraft, and indeed, there is
775
00:53:35.599 --> 00:53:41.199
the yearly festival held there during which annulets, potions, herbs, charms,
776
00:53:41.199 --> 00:53:44.960
and other magical witches items are sold, and there's even
777
00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:48.559
the crowning of the Witch of the Year. There is
778
00:53:48.599 --> 00:53:52.719
a museum of witchcraft now located in the Castle of Trasmas,
779
00:53:53.039 --> 00:53:56.840
where the whole legend started. If one is ever to visit,
780
00:53:57.320 --> 00:54:01.000
there are plenty of charms to be bought against witchcraft,
781
00:54:01.280 --> 00:54:12.159
so rest assured you're in safe hands. Up next, Jeffrey
782
00:54:12.239 --> 00:54:15.719
Dampier won the lottery, was generous with it to everyone
783
00:54:15.800 --> 00:54:19.280
he knew, but it didn't stop him from being murdered
784
00:54:19.400 --> 00:54:23.440
by a family member. They found Annie stretched out on
785
00:54:23.519 --> 00:54:26.400
the floor with a pistol lying by her hand, with
786
00:54:26.480 --> 00:54:29.639
no sign of struggle, and nothing had been taken, So
787
00:54:29.719 --> 00:54:34.119
why is there a question whether she actually committed suicide?
788
00:54:34.320 --> 00:54:38.039
But first up the incredible true story of Betty and
789
00:54:38.119 --> 00:54:40.840
Barney Hill, who claimed to have had a close encounter
790
00:54:40.960 --> 00:54:44.880
the fourth kind and even have evidence to back it up.
791
00:54:45.679 --> 00:55:02.320
These stories and more when Weird Darkness returns. If you
792
00:55:02.400 --> 00:55:05.400
like what you're hearing in the podcast. Use the share option.
793
00:55:05.519 --> 00:55:08.039
I'm a device you're listening from to let others know
794
00:55:08.159 --> 00:55:11.119
about the show or this episode. Spreading the word to
795
00:55:11.199 --> 00:55:16.039
others who like the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters,
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00:55:16.119 --> 00:55:19.000
or unsolved mysteries like you do helps to keep the
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show growing, and it's the best way that you can
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support what I do. Thank you for sharing and helping
799
00:55:24.440 --> 00:55:30.599
to spread the Weird Darkness. Are you a member of
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the Darkness Syndicate? The Darkness Syndicate as a private membership
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where you receive commercial free episodes of the Weird Darkness
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I'm narrating before even the publishers or authors get to
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hear them. You also receive bonus audio of other projects
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00:56:04.679 --> 00:56:08.559
per month. Join the Weird Darkness Syndicate at Weird Darkness
811
00:56:08.639 --> 00:56:14.679
dot com slash syndicate that's Weird Darkness dot com slash syndicate.
812
00:56:20.559 --> 00:56:24.199
The idea of little green men from Mars invading our
813
00:56:24.239 --> 00:56:29.000
planet has been bringing us excitement, joy and even laughter
814
00:56:29.199 --> 00:56:33.280
for decades, simply due to the absurdness of the image.
815
00:56:33.320 --> 00:56:37.639
But on September nineteenth, nineteen sixty one, a reported event
816
00:56:37.800 --> 00:56:40.920
occurred on the back roads of New Hampshire that single
817
00:56:41.000 --> 00:56:45.920
handedly rewrote what experts believed about UFO encounters and little
818
00:56:45.920 --> 00:56:50.039
green men. Up until this time, only a handful of
819
00:56:50.079 --> 00:56:54.119
reports of a similar nature it surfaced. However, this was
820
00:56:54.119 --> 00:56:59.760
the first highly publicized abduction account filled with detailed information.
821
00:57:00.920 --> 00:57:05.400
What happened close to Lancaster that evening made international headlines
822
00:57:05.760 --> 00:57:08.599
and made celebrities out of the couple that came forward.
823
00:57:09.599 --> 00:57:13.760
Their names were Betty and Barney Hill, and this is
824
00:57:13.800 --> 00:57:18.639
their story. The Hills were a married couple living in Portsmouth,
825
00:57:18.639 --> 00:57:22.519
New Hampshire, with their pet dog, Delsey. Betty was a
826
00:57:22.599 --> 00:57:26.280
social worker with the State Welfare Agency and Barney worked
827
00:57:26.320 --> 00:57:29.320
for the Post Office. They were respected members of their
828
00:57:29.360 --> 00:57:33.679
community as members of the NAACP and the Unitarian Church.
829
00:57:34.519 --> 00:57:36.960
In fact, the governor had appointed Bartey to serve on
830
00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:40.800
the State Civil Rights Committee. After a short vacation to
831
00:57:40.880 --> 00:57:44.840
Niagara Falls. They were driving home on Highway three through
832
00:57:44.880 --> 00:57:48.639
the White Mountains. Betty sat in the passenger seat and
833
00:57:48.880 --> 00:57:51.960
was idly gazing out the window when she noticed a
834
00:57:51.960 --> 00:57:56.000
bright light that she initially thought was a star. It
835
00:57:56.119 --> 00:57:59.639
seemed to be following them, but it was moving erradically.
836
00:58:00.599 --> 00:58:04.000
The couple had a brief conversation about it. Barney initially
837
00:58:04.039 --> 00:58:06.960
assumed that it was just an ordinary aircraft, but Betty
838
00:58:06.960 --> 00:58:09.880
suggested they pull over so they could get a better look,
839
00:58:10.159 --> 00:58:14.280
and also to give Delsi a pit stop. Barney stopped
840
00:58:14.280 --> 00:58:17.800
the car and got out his binoculars. Betty looked first.
841
00:58:18.440 --> 00:58:20.679
She knew it wasn't a star when she saw a
842
00:58:20.760 --> 00:58:24.480
spinning craft with an odd shape and flashing lights of
843
00:58:24.480 --> 00:58:29.519
different colors. Barney took his turn to look through the binoculars.
844
00:58:29.559 --> 00:58:32.360
Although he had presumed it must be an airplane, he
845
00:58:32.400 --> 00:58:36.079
saw it rapidly descend and move in their direction, too
846
00:58:36.199 --> 00:58:39.719
quickly to be a plane. He rushed back into the
847
00:58:39.719 --> 00:58:44.199
car and continued to drive toward Franconia Notch. Betty watched
848
00:58:44.239 --> 00:58:47.480
the craft as it got closer and closer until it
849
00:58:47.559 --> 00:58:50.280
was right over them, forcing them to stop in the road.
850
00:58:51.559 --> 00:58:54.159
Barney did not know what they were looking at, but
851
00:58:54.280 --> 00:58:59.159
it was huge and silent. It hovered about one hundred
852
00:58:59.159 --> 00:59:03.079
feet above them. He grabbed his pistol and the binoculars
853
00:59:03.119 --> 00:59:07.320
and went out to investigate. Barney saw windows across a
854
00:59:07.360 --> 00:59:11.440
pancake shaped object. As he moved toward it, he saw
855
00:59:11.480 --> 00:59:14.079
something else that made him turn and run back to
856
00:59:14.159 --> 00:59:18.039
the car. Inside the craft, there were up to eleven
857
00:59:18.360 --> 00:59:22.159
beings that didn't quite look human. They were staring at
858
00:59:22.280 --> 00:59:26.360
him through the windows. Barney hysterically ran back to the
859
00:59:26.360 --> 00:59:29.400
car and drove away as fast as he could, but
860
00:59:29.440 --> 00:59:33.440
the Hills were suddenly overcome by buzzing and tingling throughout
861
00:59:33.440 --> 00:59:38.119
their bodies. This was when things became very cloudy for them.
862
00:59:38.400 --> 00:59:42.559
When they regained full consciousness, they were once again experiencing
863
00:59:42.599 --> 00:59:46.599
the tingling, and they were thirty five miles further down
864
00:59:46.599 --> 00:59:50.280
the road without any memory of the drive to get there.
865
00:59:51.679 --> 00:59:56.199
When the Hills arrived home around dawn, they both felt strange.
866
00:59:56.320 --> 00:59:59.559
They knew they had seen something, but they couldn't remember
867
00:59:59.599 --> 01:00:02.800
what it had happened. After they felt the buzzing sensations,
868
01:00:04.079 --> 01:00:07.519
both Betty and Barney had physical changes from the night before,
869
01:00:08.079 --> 01:00:12.840
including Betty's torn and stained dress, Barney's scraped shoe, and
870
01:00:12.920 --> 01:00:16.519
a broken binocular stramp, but neither of them had any
871
01:00:16.599 --> 01:00:21.159
memory of these things having happened. Each also owned a watch,
872
01:00:21.360 --> 01:00:25.760
and after the previous night's events, neither watch ever worked again.
873
01:00:27.119 --> 01:00:30.440
Attention quickly turned to the car. On the back of
874
01:00:30.440 --> 01:00:34.960
the vehicle, shiny circles of concentric nature were discovered. A
875
01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:38.559
compass placed near the circles indicated that the circles were
876
01:00:38.599 --> 01:00:43.960
somehow magnetized. Betty confided in her sister, who strongly advised
877
01:00:44.000 --> 01:00:45.920
that she get in touch with the local Air Force
878
01:00:45.960 --> 01:00:49.880
base to report the incident. Barney was more concerned with
879
01:00:49.960 --> 01:00:52.920
being labeled and eccentric, but allowed Betty to get in
880
01:00:53.000 --> 01:00:57.800
touch with piece AFB on September twenty first. At that time,
881
01:00:58.119 --> 01:01:03.079
she made her first report. Five days later, Major Paul
882
01:01:03.119 --> 01:01:06.639
Henderson visited the Hills at their home and completed an
883
01:01:06.679 --> 01:01:10.960
official inquiry. A report written by the National Investigations Committee
884
01:01:10.960 --> 01:01:14.920
on Aerial Phenomenon or NIGHTCAP, concluded that the Air Force
885
01:01:14.960 --> 01:01:17.880
files had insufficient data on the events of that night.
886
01:01:19.239 --> 01:01:22.920
Ten days after their encounter, Betty began to have vivid
887
01:01:23.039 --> 01:01:27.119
dreams about the strange event. Five nights in a row.
888
01:01:27.320 --> 01:01:31.639
Her dreams contained small men in uniforms who forced the
889
01:01:31.719 --> 01:01:36.199
Hills into a strange craft and subjected them to examinations.
890
01:01:36.679 --> 01:01:40.920
She wrote down her dreams in a journal. Betty went
891
01:01:40.960 --> 01:01:43.440
to the library and found a book on the UFO
892
01:01:43.519 --> 01:01:48.480
phenomenon written by former Marine Corps Major Donald Kehoe, leader
893
01:01:48.519 --> 01:01:53.239
of NICAP. She contacted him directly and their investigation began
894
01:01:53.360 --> 01:01:56.440
About a month after the sighting. Both of the Hills
895
01:01:56.480 --> 01:02:00.719
were interviewed at length by NIGHTCAP officials, and Barney both
896
01:02:00.719 --> 01:02:04.400
admitted to seeing the same thing, a large disc that
897
01:02:04.599 --> 01:02:08.119
was silent. The people that Barney said he saw were
898
01:02:08.360 --> 01:02:13.079
somehow not human. The couple did try and put the
899
01:02:13.119 --> 01:02:17.039
whole episode behind them, but were being affected in different ways.
900
01:02:17.880 --> 01:02:21.320
Barney grew more and more stressed and anxious as time
901
01:02:21.400 --> 01:02:25.119
went on. Outsiders assumed that this was due to their
902
01:02:25.119 --> 01:02:31.199
innerracial marriage, an uncommon occurrence during that generation. Some criticized
903
01:02:31.239 --> 01:02:35.039
the couple based solely on their union. None of this
904
01:02:35.159 --> 01:02:38.719
helped either spouse, and things got so bad for Barney
905
01:02:38.760 --> 01:02:41.599
that he was forced to take time off work in
906
01:02:41.719 --> 01:02:45.519
order to try and recover. Things were not much better
907
01:02:45.719 --> 01:02:48.800
for Betty, but she turned her attention toward trying to
908
01:02:48.800 --> 01:02:53.559
find out as much as she could about their perceived encounter. Meanwhile,
909
01:02:53.599 --> 01:02:58.760
Barney began seeing a therapist. Their feelings that something happened
910
01:02:58.800 --> 01:03:02.000
that they couldn't quite peace together gnawed at them for
911
01:03:02.079 --> 01:03:07.440
two years. A speaker at the Hills Church, Ben H. Sweat,
912
01:03:07.800 --> 01:03:10.920
gave a talk about his poetry and Betty and Barney attended.
913
01:03:11.679 --> 01:03:14.760
The pastor was aware that Ben dabbled in hypnotherapy and
914
01:03:14.840 --> 01:03:17.320
asked him about it. At the end of the talk,
915
01:03:17.400 --> 01:03:20.960
Betty and Barney asked Ben if he thought hypnotherapy might
916
01:03:21.000 --> 01:03:24.360
be able to help regain what they felt were lost memories.
917
01:03:25.199 --> 01:03:27.800
They also asked for his help, but he declined because
918
01:03:27.800 --> 01:03:30.760
he didn't feel that he was qualified, and instead he
919
01:03:30.840 --> 01:03:34.719
recommended they ask Barney's therapist for a referral. They took
920
01:03:34.760 --> 01:03:37.880
his advice, and that is when they found doctor Simon.
921
01:03:39.039 --> 01:03:41.800
Doctor Benjamin Simon began working with the couple at the
922
01:03:41.840 --> 01:03:45.760
start of nineteen sixty four. Over the course of around
923
01:03:45.800 --> 01:03:50.760
six months, he used hypnotic regression during the first sessions.
924
01:03:51.239 --> 01:03:55.239
Doctor Simon concluded by inducing amnesia to each partner in
925
01:03:55.320 --> 01:03:58.480
order to reduce the possibility of potential collusion. Out of
926
01:03:58.519 --> 01:04:02.559
session another was able to remember what happened, then there
927
01:04:02.599 --> 01:04:07.000
was less chance of them discussing matters among themselves. In
928
01:04:07.039 --> 01:04:11.800
his sessions, Barney had many new recollections, such as meeting
929
01:04:11.800 --> 01:04:15.639
an irishman that had red hair. There were also beings
930
01:04:15.679 --> 01:04:18.800
there that didn't seem to be human. All of these
931
01:04:18.840 --> 01:04:23.360
individuals were dressed in similar looking uniforms. Each had a
932
01:04:23.400 --> 01:04:27.199
peaked cap and silver piping on the uniform itself that
933
01:04:27.320 --> 01:04:31.519
reminded Barney of Nazi uniforms. According to his own memories
934
01:04:31.599 --> 01:04:34.519
during hypnosis, Barney said the crew spoke a language he
935
01:04:34.559 --> 01:04:38.760
could not understand, and also English, but they weren't using
936
01:04:38.800 --> 01:04:43.480
their mouths. Barney said they appeared to use thought transference.
937
01:04:45.239 --> 01:04:49.519
Betty reported similar events during her hypnotic sessions separately from
938
01:04:49.559 --> 01:04:54.159
her husband. Both revealed that they underwent medical exams, during
939
01:04:54.239 --> 01:04:59.119
which the beings took numerous samples that included blood, bodily fluids,
940
01:04:59.119 --> 01:05:03.239
and hair. Betty also stated that as part of her exam,
941
01:05:03.480 --> 01:05:07.280
skin samples were taken. Much of what Betty had mentioned
942
01:05:07.360 --> 01:05:10.440
during her sessions were things that had already been written
943
01:05:10.519 --> 01:05:14.440
in her journal. Something took place on board the craft
944
01:05:14.599 --> 01:05:18.639
that only Betty noted though she indicated that the aliens
945
01:05:18.719 --> 01:05:21.800
showed her a map of where they came from, which
946
01:05:21.880 --> 01:05:25.760
she drew during one of her sessions. Some people believed
947
01:05:25.800 --> 01:05:30.119
this could be the location of their home world. Additionally,
948
01:05:30.199 --> 01:05:33.400
Betty had indicated that the beings showed her trade routes
949
01:05:33.440 --> 01:05:36.800
that they used frequently, routes they did not take often,
950
01:05:36.960 --> 01:05:42.320
and those they took for expeditions. Sometime around nineteen seventy,
951
01:05:42.760 --> 01:05:45.280
a teacher from the Ohio made a match to the
952
01:05:45.360 --> 01:05:49.559
Zeta Reticuli star system. It looked just like the map
953
01:05:49.679 --> 01:05:54.159
Betty drew, and also included our own son. Some of
954
01:05:54.199 --> 01:05:57.800
the stars on that map were not catalogued until after
955
01:05:58.000 --> 01:06:01.000
the Betty and Barney Hill incident, which for some people
956
01:06:01.440 --> 01:06:07.480
proves that their experience was genuine. Carl Sagan, however, provided
957
01:06:07.559 --> 01:06:12.199
another perspective on a show Cosmos episode twelve. He said,
958
01:06:12.320 --> 01:06:15.679
there is a resemblance between the two maps, but that's
959
01:06:15.719 --> 01:06:19.199
mainly because the lines corresponding to the navigation route have
960
01:06:19.320 --> 01:06:22.480
been copied from the Hill map onto the real star map.
961
01:06:23.280 --> 01:06:26.039
If we were to substitute some other set of lines
962
01:06:26.039 --> 01:06:28.760
for the Hill lines, we find that the eye suddenly
963
01:06:28.840 --> 01:06:31.840
is biased against seeing any agreement between the two maps
964
01:06:31.840 --> 01:06:35.880
at all. He also indicated that anyone can find just
965
01:06:35.920 --> 01:06:41.320
about any pattern from various vantage points in space. Once
966
01:06:41.360 --> 01:06:45.440
doctor Simon completed the hypnotic sessions, he presented the tapes
967
01:06:45.519 --> 01:06:49.719
to the local Nightcap investigators, having interviewed the pair shortly
968
01:06:49.760 --> 01:06:53.480
after the original event. Nightcap officials were impressed by their
969
01:06:53.480 --> 01:06:57.800
honesty and intelligence. Both wanted nothing more than to get
970
01:06:57.840 --> 01:07:01.239
to the bottom of what happened to them. Many people
971
01:07:01.280 --> 01:07:04.559
considered the Hills to be reliable, and even doctor Simon
972
01:07:04.639 --> 01:07:08.519
believed that the Hills truly and sincerely believed what they reported.
973
01:07:09.440 --> 01:07:13.280
On the other hand, doctor Simon never believed in UFO's
974
01:07:13.519 --> 01:07:17.079
or alien visitations. He was under the impression that the
975
01:07:17.159 --> 01:07:21.920
Hills shared a delusion based on Betty's dreams. Although he
976
01:07:22.000 --> 01:07:26.119
conducted the hypnosis sessions, he never swayed them into their testimonies.
977
01:07:26.840 --> 01:07:29.840
On the contrary, Ben Sweat heard the session tapes and
978
01:07:29.880 --> 01:07:34.639
indicated that doctor Simon actually tried to suggest logical, rational
979
01:07:34.679 --> 01:07:38.519
explanations for the hills memories during the sessions, but to
980
01:07:38.599 --> 01:07:44.280
no avail. They stuck with their abduction stories. Toward the
981
01:07:44.440 --> 01:07:48.760
end of nineteen sixty five, the Boston Herald Traveler managed
982
01:07:48.800 --> 01:07:52.199
to get an exclusive scoop when they somehow acquired reports
983
01:07:52.239 --> 01:07:57.280
of the original encounter. Someone had broken confidence and October
984
01:07:57.280 --> 01:08:00.000
twenty fifth was the first of a five day explos
985
01:08:00.760 --> 01:08:04.960
of the Betty and Barney Hill alien abduction story. According
986
01:08:04.960 --> 01:08:07.960
to Sweat, Barney was upset about the leak and he
987
01:08:08.000 --> 01:08:09.880
had called Sweat in the middle of the night in
988
01:08:09.920 --> 01:08:13.199
a panic about it. Barney said he and Betty were
989
01:08:13.199 --> 01:08:15.880
afraid that they would be scorned and ridiculed and lose
990
01:08:15.920 --> 01:08:19.279
their jobs, said Sweat in his personal statement about the
991
01:08:19.279 --> 01:08:22.800
Betty and Barney Hill abduction case. Now that the couple
992
01:08:22.840 --> 01:08:26.720
was a media sensation, they both felt they had little choice.
993
01:08:27.159 --> 01:08:31.319
They needed to break their own silence. Before this, neither
994
01:08:31.399 --> 01:08:35.159
made any overtures for publicity at all. The Hills and
995
01:08:35.199 --> 01:08:39.039
doctor Simon all collaborated with author John Fuller to produce
996
01:08:39.079 --> 01:08:43.159
a book based on their experience. This book, titled The
997
01:08:43.279 --> 01:08:48.520
Interrupted Journey, emerged in nineteen sixty six. Betty's niece Kathleen
998
01:08:48.560 --> 01:08:52.319
Martin wrote a second book entitled It Captured the Betty
999
01:08:52.319 --> 01:08:57.239
and Barney Hill UFO Experience. Both publications are still available today,
1000
01:08:57.560 --> 01:09:02.159
along with countless others. We may never know what really
1001
01:09:02.239 --> 01:09:06.479
happened to Betty and Barney Hill on September nineteenth, nineteen
1002
01:09:06.600 --> 01:09:10.720
sixty one. The public is divided in its perception of
1003
01:09:10.760 --> 01:09:14.640
the story, between those who believe it wholeheartedly and those
1004
01:09:14.640 --> 01:09:18.479
who think the story was merely a confabulation. What is
1005
01:09:18.560 --> 01:09:21.560
certain is that, despite their reluctance to come forward and
1006
01:09:21.600 --> 01:09:25.199
report their encounter, the Hills hath become synonymous with the
1007
01:09:25.319 --> 01:09:29.760
UFO community. Their experience turned into the most well known
1008
01:09:29.880 --> 01:09:32.880
of all UFO reports, and would set the stage for
1009
01:09:33.000 --> 01:09:38.439
many others like it. As the nineteen sixties progressed, Barney's
1010
01:09:38.439 --> 01:09:43.199
health began to worsen. In February nineteen sixty nine, he
1011
01:09:43.239 --> 01:09:47.880
died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Betty never remarried after his death,
1012
01:09:48.279 --> 01:09:51.079
and went on to become something of a UFO celebrity
1013
01:09:51.520 --> 01:10:02.560
until her own death in two thousand and four. John
1014
01:10:02.640 --> 01:10:05.960
Dorman left the farmhouse to work in his fields at
1015
01:10:05.960 --> 01:10:10.039
about one fifteen the afternoon of September first, eighteen ninety seven.
1016
01:10:10.960 --> 01:10:13.560
His wife, Lizzie had some banking to take care of,
1017
01:10:14.039 --> 01:10:18.560
and left for Philadelphia at about two. As usual, they
1018
01:10:18.640 --> 01:10:21.000
left their children in the care of John's half sister
1019
01:10:21.079 --> 01:10:24.960
Annie eighteen year old Annie Dorman had lived with John
1020
01:10:25.000 --> 01:10:27.600
and his wife at their Cobbscreek comb off and on
1021
01:10:27.760 --> 01:10:30.720
for the previous five years, working as a nurse to
1022
01:10:30.720 --> 01:10:35.000
their four children. Around three pm that day, a neighbor,
1023
01:10:35.359 --> 01:10:38.359
missus Myers, came by to chat with Annie, leaving. About
1024
01:10:38.359 --> 01:10:41.680
ten minutes later. At four thirty, one of the children
1025
01:10:41.920 --> 01:10:44.800
found Annie lying on the floor of the second story room,
1026
01:10:45.560 --> 01:10:50.319
dead from a gunshot wound. The children ran for their father,
1027
01:10:50.439 --> 01:10:53.560
who returned to the house with Al Myers, stable boss
1028
01:10:53.640 --> 01:10:57.720
at nearby Melbourne Mills. They found Annie stretched out on
1029
01:10:57.760 --> 01:11:01.079
the floor with a pistol lying by her head. There
1030
01:11:01.119 --> 01:11:04.199
was no sign of a struggle and nothing had been taken.
1031
01:11:05.000 --> 01:11:08.239
The men could only conclude that Annie had taken her
1032
01:11:08.239 --> 01:11:13.199
own life, but suicide was unlikely for a number of reasons.
1033
01:11:14.079 --> 01:11:16.560
No one who knew Annie could imagine what would have
1034
01:11:16.640 --> 01:11:20.359
driven her to kill herself. She was bright and pretty,
1035
01:11:20.840 --> 01:11:24.039
with an even and sweet temperament. Anne was always cheerful.
1036
01:11:24.720 --> 01:11:29.000
Her boyfriend, Ernest L. Pendlebury, was steady and honest. She
1037
01:11:29.159 --> 01:11:32.279
was a religious girl, healthy in mind and body. A
1038
01:11:32.359 --> 01:11:35.880
favorite among the congregation of Sarah D. Cooper Methodist Church.
1039
01:11:37.039 --> 01:11:41.039
The circumstance of Annie's death made suicide all but impossible.
1040
01:11:41.840 --> 01:11:45.560
The pistol was old and rusty, sitting unused for at
1041
01:11:45.640 --> 01:11:48.560
least two years, high on a shelf in the room
1042
01:11:48.600 --> 01:11:52.039
where she was found. Annie was only five feet tall.
1043
01:11:52.119 --> 01:11:54.720
It would not be able to reach the pistol without
1044
01:11:54.760 --> 01:11:57.880
standing on something, and none of the furniture had been moved.
1045
01:11:59.119 --> 01:12:02.000
Chief Berry of the u Chester Police Department examined the
1046
01:12:02.039 --> 01:12:05.039
pistol and found it so rusty that it took all
1047
01:12:05.119 --> 01:12:08.479
his might to cock it and pull the trigger. It
1048
01:12:08.520 --> 01:12:12.680
had been fired five times. Two shots went through the ceiling,
1049
01:12:13.199 --> 01:12:16.840
one went through a washerboard under a window, one shot
1050
01:12:16.960 --> 01:12:20.920
shattered Annie's jaw, and one shot went through her heart.
1051
01:12:21.840 --> 01:12:24.399
The shot through the heart had killed her, but the
1052
01:12:24.439 --> 01:12:27.199
shot to the jaw had been so severe that she
1053
01:12:27.239 --> 01:12:31.079
would not have been able to fire another. Since nothing
1054
01:12:31.119 --> 01:12:33.720
had been stolen, it was thought that Annie may have
1055
01:12:33.800 --> 01:12:37.159
been raped. When the body was found. Her dress had
1056
01:12:37.199 --> 01:12:40.479
been smoothed, as if to hide signs of a struggle,
1057
01:12:41.119 --> 01:12:44.640
but the top had been opened, exposing her breasts. The
1058
01:12:44.680 --> 01:12:47.840
medical examiner determined that Annie had not been raped and
1059
01:12:48.199 --> 01:12:52.159
was still a virgin. The inquest held at the Dorman
1060
01:12:52.239 --> 01:12:55.840
homestead on October fifth, revealed that the household had not
1061
01:12:55.920 --> 01:12:59.239
been as peaceful as it first appeared. A letter from
1062
01:12:59.279 --> 01:13:02.359
Annie's father's said that John's wife had not treated her right.
1063
01:13:03.199 --> 01:13:05.960
One witness said that he had seen Annie crying on
1064
01:13:06.039 --> 01:13:09.319
several occasions and had seen Missus Dorman chase her with
1065
01:13:09.359 --> 01:13:13.399
a broom. Lizzie Dorman admitted that once, during a quarrel
1066
01:13:13.439 --> 01:13:16.039
with Annie, she had grabbed her by the throat, but
1067
01:13:16.199 --> 01:13:20.439
generally their relations had been pleasant. Their disagreements were seen
1068
01:13:20.520 --> 01:13:24.520
as trivial, hardly provoking murder, and Missus Dorman was in
1069
01:13:24.560 --> 01:13:28.079
the city at the time of the shooting. The coroner's
1070
01:13:28.159 --> 01:13:31.039
jury ruled that Annie Dorman was shot by a person
1071
01:13:31.239 --> 01:13:36.560
or persons unknown. The Philadelphia Inquirer speculated that a man
1072
01:13:36.600 --> 01:13:39.439
who knew Annie and was familiar with the place had
1073
01:13:39.479 --> 01:13:43.039
been watching and knew when she was alone. He entered
1074
01:13:43.039 --> 01:13:46.119
the house between three thirty and four and approached Annie
1075
01:13:46.159 --> 01:13:49.880
with one intention. She at once detected the foulness of
1076
01:13:49.920 --> 01:13:54.039
that intention. She pleaded with him, then threatened him. It
1077
01:13:54.159 --> 01:13:56.600
was someone she knew, and he realized he'd gone too
1078
01:13:56.640 --> 01:14:00.000
far and must silence her. He reached for the gun
1079
01:14:00.560 --> 01:14:04.359
and she rushed him, fighting for her honor and her life.
1080
01:14:04.560 --> 01:14:07.800
Three shots were fired wildly before the two that killed her.
1081
01:14:08.720 --> 01:14:11.600
The murderer then placed the gun by her side and
1082
01:14:11.680 --> 01:14:14.720
smoothed down her dress to hide evidence of a struggle,
1083
01:14:15.520 --> 01:14:19.000
but like all takers of life, left the one mute
1084
01:14:19.039 --> 01:14:22.560
piece of evidence in the shape of the exposed bosom.
1085
01:14:23.640 --> 01:14:25.520
But there was no way to prove any of this,
1086
01:14:26.119 --> 01:14:29.079
and no way to determine the identity of the man,
1087
01:14:29.279 --> 01:14:32.279
or even whether the killer was a man. With no
1088
01:14:32.439 --> 01:14:37.000
leads to follow and no funds available to higher professional detectives,
1089
01:14:37.520 --> 01:14:41.600
Delaware County District Attorney W. I. Schaeffer was forced to
1090
01:14:41.720 --> 01:14:47.119
drop the investigation. The circumstances of Annie Dorman's murder still
1091
01:14:47.279 --> 01:15:02.319
remain a mystery. If you're like most people, you've probably
1092
01:15:02.359 --> 01:15:06.560
fantasized at least once about winning the lottery. After all,
1093
01:15:06.840 --> 01:15:09.079
with that kind of money, you'd never need to deal
1094
01:15:09.159 --> 01:15:12.000
with going to work, you'd never have to worry about
1095
01:15:12.039 --> 01:15:16.600
bills or saving for retirement. But to paraphrase Biggie Smalls,
1096
01:15:17.279 --> 01:15:22.039
sometimes more money just means more problems, and that's especially
1097
01:15:22.079 --> 01:15:25.439
true for people who win the lottery. It turns out
1098
01:15:25.479 --> 01:15:30.800
that becoming a multi millionaire overnight doesn't always lead to happiness.
1099
01:15:31.479 --> 01:15:36.000
Just ask Jeffrey Dampier. Jeffrey Dampier was an average guy.
1100
01:15:36.279 --> 01:15:39.199
He grew up on Chicago's West Side and worked as
1101
01:15:39.239 --> 01:15:43.119
a security guard until he won a staggering twenty million
1102
01:15:43.199 --> 01:15:46.720
dollars in the Illinois state lottery in nineteen ninety six.
1103
01:15:47.760 --> 01:15:50.880
After coming into that kind of money, Dampier's life changed
1104
01:15:51.239 --> 01:15:55.439
very abruptly. He and his wife got divorced, splitting the
1105
01:15:55.439 --> 01:15:59.760
winnings fifty to fifty. Dampier then began dating and eventually
1106
01:15:59.800 --> 01:16:04.279
married another woman named Crystal Jackson. Two years later, the
1107
01:16:04.319 --> 01:16:06.960
couple moved to Tampa Bay, Florida, where they opened a
1108
01:16:07.000 --> 01:16:12.520
gourmet popcorn store. Dampier was generous with his winnings, especially
1109
01:16:12.560 --> 01:16:15.960
to Jackson's side of the family. He spent lavishly on
1110
01:16:16.079 --> 01:16:19.680
cruises and gifts, and when his sisters in law fell
1111
01:16:19.680 --> 01:16:23.079
on hard times, he offered to take care of their finances.
1112
01:16:23.560 --> 01:16:26.159
Of course, Dampier had a less than innocent motive for
1113
01:16:26.199 --> 01:16:28.800
doing so. He was actually having an affair with his
1114
01:16:28.840 --> 01:16:33.199
wife's sister, Victoria Jackson. It seems like things were good
1115
01:16:33.319 --> 01:16:36.680
for Dampier for a few years at least, then in
1116
01:16:36.720 --> 01:16:39.600
two thousand and five, the story took a dark turn.
1117
01:16:40.479 --> 01:16:46.119
Victoria was also dating another man named Nathaniel Jackson no relation.
1118
01:16:47.079 --> 01:16:50.000
Nathaniel knew about Jeffrey Dampier's money and came up with
1119
01:16:50.039 --> 01:16:53.000
a plan to get his hands on it with Victoria's help.
1120
01:16:54.039 --> 01:16:57.640
According to Victoria's account, she showed up in Nathaniel's apartment
1121
01:16:57.800 --> 01:17:01.760
on July twenty sixth, then demanded that she called Dampier
1122
01:17:01.840 --> 01:17:05.319
and tell him to come to the apartment. Victoria lured
1123
01:17:05.399 --> 01:17:08.640
Dampier over by claiming that she was having car troubles.
1124
01:17:08.960 --> 01:17:11.600
When Dampier showed up to help, Nathaniel pulled out a
1125
01:17:11.640 --> 01:17:15.920
shotgun and forced him into a van. Dampier then had
1126
01:17:15.920 --> 01:17:19.039
his hands bound behind his back with shoe strings while
1127
01:17:19.119 --> 01:17:23.239
Victoria drove the van. Nathaniel repeatedly hit Dampier with the
1128
01:17:23.239 --> 01:17:25.840
butt of the gun, demanding that he turned over his money.
1129
01:17:26.840 --> 01:17:31.960
When Dampier proved uncooperative, Nathaniel and Victoria switched places so
1130
01:17:32.000 --> 01:17:36.079
she could try to reason with him. Finally, Nathaniel handed
1131
01:17:36.119 --> 01:17:39.680
the gun to Victoria. According to police, he demanded that
1132
01:17:39.800 --> 01:17:43.840
Victoria shoot Dampier, shoot him, or I shoot you, he said.
1133
01:17:45.039 --> 01:17:48.439
Victoria then fired a single shot into the back of
1134
01:17:48.520 --> 01:17:54.720
Dampier's skull, killing him almost immediately. The pair drove the
1135
01:17:54.800 --> 01:17:57.920
van to a deserted road and abandoned it with Dampier's
1136
01:17:57.920 --> 01:18:02.039
body inside. The boy was discovered soon afterward, and the
1137
01:18:02.039 --> 01:18:05.840
two fugitives were arrested a few days later. At the trial,
1138
01:18:05.920 --> 01:18:10.439
the defense painted Victoria as a victim. According to her sister, Tiffany,
1139
01:18:10.479 --> 01:18:14.000
Geffrey Dampier began his relationship with Victoria when she was
1140
01:18:14.119 --> 01:18:17.680
just fifteen. They knew she was fifteen when he started
1141
01:18:17.680 --> 01:18:20.520
messing with her. She said, where's the justice for her?
1142
01:18:22.000 --> 01:18:25.600
And according to the defense, Nathaniel had forced Victoria into
1143
01:18:25.600 --> 01:18:29.760
committing the murder, but the prosecution argued that when she
1144
01:18:29.840 --> 01:18:32.680
placed the phone call that lured Dampier to the apartment,
1145
01:18:33.199 --> 01:18:37.800
she knew what would eventually happen. For her part, Victoria
1146
01:18:37.840 --> 01:18:40.960
felt that the victim wouldn't have blamed her. After the
1147
01:18:40.960 --> 01:18:43.720
guilty verdict was read, she turned to her mother in
1148
01:18:43.720 --> 01:18:48.560
the courtroom and said, Jeffrey forgives me. Both Jackson's were
1149
01:18:48.600 --> 01:18:52.640
sentenced to life in prison, where they remained today. For
1150
01:18:52.720 --> 01:18:56.159
Jeffrey Dampier, winning the lottery turned out to be a
1151
01:18:56.199 --> 01:19:00.199
death sentence. His widow. Cristel agreed in a later interview
1152
01:19:00.319 --> 01:19:02.840
that he would have been better off without the money.
1153
01:19:03.840 --> 01:19:14.399
I think it is a curse, she said. When Weird
1154
01:19:14.479 --> 01:19:18.079
Darkness returns, we'll look at some of the numerous ghost
1155
01:19:18.279 --> 01:19:24.279
brides of the United States and gargoyles. Aside from looking menacing,
1156
01:19:24.800 --> 01:19:27.840
could they also be a kind of protection from evil?
1157
01:19:28.960 --> 01:19:45.840
These stories are up next. If you or someone you
1158
01:19:45.880 --> 01:19:49.439
know is struggling with depression, dark thoughts, or addiction, please
1159
01:19:49.720 --> 01:19:52.319
visit the Hope in the Darkness page at Weird Darkness
1160
01:19:52.399 --> 01:19:55.800
dot com. There, I've gathered numerous resources to find hope
1161
01:19:55.840 --> 01:19:58.800
and solutions for those suffering from thoughts of suicide or
1162
01:19:58.880 --> 01:20:02.800
self harm. The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline as well as
1163
01:20:02.840 --> 01:20:06.159
the Crisis text Line both have trained counselors at all
1164
01:20:06.159 --> 01:20:08.439
hours to help those in need, and the page even
1165
01:20:08.439 --> 01:20:11.760
includes text numbers for those in the US, Canada, United
1166
01:20:11.800 --> 01:20:14.840
Kingdom and Ireland. Those struggling with depression can get help
1167
01:20:14.880 --> 01:20:17.720
through the Seven Cups website and app, and there's information
1168
01:20:17.760 --> 01:20:20.560
for anyone to read more about what depression truly is
1169
01:20:20.600 --> 01:20:22.920
and how to identify it. Through our friends at ifread
1170
01:20:22.960 --> 01:20:25.960
dot org. There are resources for those who battle addictions,
1171
01:20:26.079 --> 01:20:29.399
be it drugs, alcohol, or self destructive behavior. Along with
1172
01:20:29.479 --> 01:20:32.119
help for those related to addicts, the page has links
1173
01:20:32.119 --> 01:20:34.239
to help you find a therapist or counselor to find
1174
01:20:34.319 --> 01:20:36.560
help for those who have a family member with Alzheimer's
1175
01:20:36.600 --> 01:20:39.600
or deventia, help for those in a crisis, pregnancy, and more.
1176
01:20:39.720 --> 01:20:42.600
These resources are always there when you or someone you
1177
01:20:42.720 --> 01:20:45.119
love needs them on the Hope in the Darkness page
1178
01:20:45.239 --> 01:20:59.000
at Weird Darkness dot com. This episode is dedicated to
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the men and women of our armed forces and first responders.
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Whether you are currently serving or have served in the past,
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you are appreciated. It is because of your courage and
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sacrifice that we enjoy the freedoms and liberties we hold dear,
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and I, for one, appreciate every single one of you
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for protecting what many of us take for granted. So
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thank you. A young woman groom and some of their
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wedding guests decided to play a game of hide and
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seek in a large mansion used for the wedding reception.
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One version of this story says it was the father
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of the bride's house. Someone other than the bride was
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designated as it. Some versions say the maid of honor
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Others say the groom and everyone was found, but the bride,
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friends and family searched the house for hours, days, even weeks.
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A missing report was even filed. Eventually, the groom had
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to move on with his life, and one day in
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the far off future, someone was cleaning the house. They
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opened a large chest in the attic and found a
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skeleton in a tattered wedding dress. It seemed that the
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lid of the chest shut on the bride when she
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used it as a hiding place. She was unable to
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open the lid and she suffocated to death. Some say
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the heavy lid crushed her skull. Another legend about ghost
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brides that I heard growing up involves a deadly wedding dress.
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There are many versions of this story too. Sometimes it's
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not even a wedding dress. The story goes that a
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dead young woman was to be buried in her wedding dress,
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but her parents decided at the last minute to bury
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her in a different dress. Since the wedding dress was expensive,
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they decided to sell it for profit. This dress ended
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up in the hands of another young woman and she
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needed it for a community any dance. The entire night
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of the dance, the dress gave off an odor and
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she felt very faint. Her date decided to take her
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home since she was not feeling well. She did not
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make it home alive. Her date told the doctor about
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the odor. The doctor investigated and found formaldehyde in her veins,
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which had caused her blood to coagulate and stop flowing.
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I don't know when they asked the store about the dress.
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They revealed that they received it from a feuderal home
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and it had been worn by a corpse. The dancing
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most likely caused the young woman to sweat, which opened
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her pores and took in the formaldehyde. I'm not sure
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why revisiting such dreadful stories bring joy to people, but
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in writing all of this, it sent me down a
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rabbit hole full of ghost brides. So enjoy the following
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bits of paranormal history involving brides, grooms, and haunted wedding dresses.
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The Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park. The inn itself
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is already very haunted. A woman staying in room two
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reported a woman dressed in eighteen nineties clothes floating at
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the end of her bed. People have also reported the
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fire extinguisher moving, and doors opening and closing. The most
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interesting ghost, though, is the headless Bride. People have reported
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a woman in a white dress drifting across the crow's nest,
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holding her head under her arm. According to legend, the
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bride was a young woman from nineteen fifteen New York that,
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despite her wealthy father's wishes, married a much older male servant.
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Her father provided them a one time dowry of a
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substantial amount, with the agreement that they would not ask
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for money ever again and would leave New York forever.
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They married and headed to Yellowstone National Park for their honeymoon,
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staying in Room one twenty seven of the Old Faithful Inn.
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On their way to Yellowstone, the groom spent most of
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the money on gambling and booze. A month into their honeymoon,
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the dowry was gone. This led to intense arguments between
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the couple, which was heard by hotel staff. One day,
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the husband stormed out and never returned. The hotel staff
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thought that they might give the heartbroken wife her space,
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and after a few days, decided to check in on her.
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The maid found the young bride bloody in the bathtub.
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Her head was nowhere to be found. A couple days later,
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an odor in the crow's nest led staff to her head.
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Dauphine Orleans Hotel, New Orleans, Louisiana. A young courtesan named
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Milly worked in May's Place, a bar in the Dauphine
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Orleans Hotel. The morning of her wedding, her groom to
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be was shot dead in a gambling dispute. Milly from
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that point on and even after death, walked around the
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bar in her wedding dress. She still walks around the
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bar in her wedding dress today, waiting for her fiancee
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to return. The Driscoll Hotel in Austin, Texas, Room five
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twenty five is haunted by two brides. Allegedly, two young
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women ended their lives in the room on their honeymoons
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twenty years apart. The room was closed for a time
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and then eventually reopened for renovations. The renovations brought about
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some paranormal activity, including apparitions, weird sensations, unexplained leaks, distant voices,
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and other odd noises. The Hotel Galvez in Galveston, Texas.
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Since her death in the nineteen fifties, a ghost bride
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haunts room five oh one in Hotel Galvez. Her fiancee
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was a mariner, and she, when expecting his return, would
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watch the sea from the hotel. One tragic day, she
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watched as his ship sank and soon after ended her life.
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She had actually survived and returned to heartbreak. She still
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walks the halls, scaring guests. One guest in Room five
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all One abruptly left the hotel at three am in tears.
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The City Tavern, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a bride and her bridesmaids
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were preparing for the wedding when one bridesmaid accidentally knocked
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over a candle, setting the curtains on fire. The fire
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spread throughout the tavern, taking the lives of the bride
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and her bridesmaids. The ghost of the bride is active today,
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especially during wedding events at the tavern. Some wedding fetoghgraphers
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have even reported seeing her apparition appearing next to the
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living bride when looking through the camera viewfinder, although no
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one has caught her on film. Emily Morgan Hotel, San Antonio, Texas.
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The Emily Morgan Hotel resides in a building originally erected
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in the nineteen twenties. The hotel itself was established in
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that same building in the nineteen eighties. The building, first
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used as a medical arts building, is lined with gargoyles
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portraying a different medical ailment. Such an astonishing building comes
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with some astonishing ghost stories, of course. The seventh floor
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of the thirteenth floor building is haunted by a ghost bride.
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Her backstory is unknown. Visitors of the hotel have called
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down to the front desk after hearing loud shrieks. Hotel
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staff simply reply, we're sorry, but we do think it
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might be a ghost responsible for that hotel conniat Erie, Pennsylvania.
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Elizabeth and her new husband stayed in Room three twenty
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one on their honeymoon. Their blissful vacation was interrupted by
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a raging fire in the hotel. The husband was able
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to get out alive, but Elizabeth was trapped in the
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room and died. The heartbroken bride still roams the third
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floor looking for her husband and sobbing. Wearing a wedding dress.
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She leaves behind a smell of jasmine. The Alpha Gamma
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Delta House at University of Georgia Athens, Georgia. The Aged
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Sorority House at the University of Georgia once housed the
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wealthy families of Athens. The mansion was built by William
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Winstead Thomas in eighteen ninety six as an engagement gift
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for his daughter Isabelle and her fiancee, Richard W. Johnson.
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The house is often called the wedding cake House because
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of that. Isabelle ended her life in the house after
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Richard left her at the altar. The house went through
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a couple of hands before becoming a sorority house. According
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to several reports, the scorned bride is still active in
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the house. Paranormal activity includes faucets turning on, lights turning
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on and off by themselves, doors opening by themselves, and
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faces appearing in the window. One sorority sister named Sarah
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lived in the engagement room and described her experiences. The
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door to my bedroom and my roommate's closet door randomly
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swing open on their own. I swear that the ghost
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who lives here is doing it. It really freaks me out.
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Long Island Campgrounds, Bolton Landing, New York. The state campground
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has ninety sits over one hundred acres. In the nineteen sixties,
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a new husband and wife decided it was the perfect
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location for their honeymoon. They were allegedly murdered in their
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sleep while camping. The bride now wanders the grounds looking
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for her husband among the living campers. Phelps Grove Park, Springfield, Illinois.
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When driving over a bridge and phelps Grove Park, a
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newly married couple lost control of the car and both died.
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The bride still haunts the location. She can be seen
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holding the hem of her wedding dress and her face
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is only darkness. Curves Onondoga Hill, New York. A similar
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story appears in Onondoga Hill folklore. About sixty years ago.
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A young couple died in a car crash on a
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very snaky road just after their wedding. People claim to
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see the bride on Halloween. Her glowing figure floats down
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the road in a wedding gown, searching for her husband.
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Some say she can carries a bright orange lantern. Baker Mansion, Altuna, Pennsylvania.
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Anna Baker, the daughter of the rich Elias Baker, fell
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in love with a local steelworker. Her father forbade her
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to marry him because he was of a lower class.
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She died alone much later. The Baker Mansion in Altuna,
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Pennsylvania was made into a museum and a wedding dress
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was put on display in a glass case in Anna's bedroom.
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When there's a full moon, the dress violently shakes, sometimes
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to the point of almost breaking. The glass mith says,
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she is so mad she never got to wear a
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wedding dress, and therefore shakes it in anger. Some people
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often report seeing it dance by itself, with the shoes
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tapping along some small town in North Dakota. The book
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Haunted a Marria by Michelle Norman and Bes Scott tells
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a spooky story of sisterly jealousy. In the nineteen thirties.
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Sisters Lorna May and Carol were complete opposites. Lorna May,
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the youngest sister, was strong, cheerful, and a hard worker.
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The older sister, Carol, was reportedly more attractive, grumpy, and lazy.
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They both fell in love with the same man, A
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01:33:25.760 --> 01:33:30.680
widower with three children. Ben ben chose Lorna May to
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be his wife, imagining the both of them working side
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by side on the farm. Carol was very angry shouldn't
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he be with the prettier one. Shortly before the wedding,
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Lorna May suffered abdominal pains Carol was nearby and was
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sent to get the doctor. She returned saying that she
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could not find a doctor in town. It's believed she
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lied about that and even dawdled in town to waste time.
1360
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Lorna May was rushed to town, but died of a
1361
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ruptured appendix shortly after arriving. Carrol then set out to
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marry Ben. She even demanded the undertaker removed the wedding
1363
01:34:09.920 --> 01:34:14.159
dress from Lorna May's dead body before the burial. A
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01:34:14.239 --> 01:34:17.439
month after the funeral, Carrol was able to convince Ben
1365
01:34:17.680 --> 01:34:21.079
to marry her. Their wedding was in mid July in
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01:34:21.159 --> 01:34:25.680
one hundred degree heat. Carol looked beautiful in Lorna May's
1367
01:34:25.760 --> 01:34:29.760
high neck wedding dress during the festivities, though Carol began
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01:34:29.840 --> 01:34:33.600
to sway and grab at her throat. She died in
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Ben's arms. The autopsy revealed that it could not be heatstroke.
1370
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The wedding dress had absorbed some of the embalming fluid
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01:34:41.600 --> 01:34:45.399
while on Lorna May. The hot weather caused Carol to sweat,
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which opened her pores and allowed the fluid to enter. Well,
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I'm back at that same childhood legend, aren't I. While
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a few are planning on getting married in the near future,
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I might suggest going with a new dress, not going vintage.
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Gargoyles are depicted with many fearsome faces. They grin and
1377
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leer down from roofs and towers of medieval churches and
1378
01:35:20.399 --> 01:35:24.880
have been present there for centuries, warding off evil. They
1379
01:35:24.920 --> 01:35:29.199
decorate great churches and cathedrals of the British Isles, Ireland
1380
01:35:29.279 --> 01:35:34.079
and other European countries. It is traditionally believed that gargoyles
1381
01:35:34.119 --> 01:35:38.720
were created during the medieval period, However, their history goes
1382
01:35:38.760 --> 01:35:41.680
far beyond that time, to the very beginnings of art,
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when man created demons to scare away demons. Many examples
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of these creatures have been found in ancient civilizations as well.
1385
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The use of decorative water spouts was known to the
1386
01:35:54.760 --> 01:36:00.640
ancient Egyptians, Etruscans, Greeks, and Romans, and gargoyle like carvings
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have been found in other parts of the world, especially
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in countries that were influenced by European culture and tradition,
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such as Mexico. They have appeared in a number of
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different images and figures, and it is said that no
1391
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two gargoyles are identical, but no one seems to know
1392
01:36:18.560 --> 01:36:22.520
why they were seen on the roofs of Egyptian temples,
1393
01:36:22.760 --> 01:36:26.399
where their mouths served as a spout for water. Also,
1394
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Greek temples were decorated with gargoyles in form of lions
1395
01:36:30.319 --> 01:36:35.680
and other animals. Later, these creatures became strictly ornamental and
1396
01:36:35.720 --> 01:36:40.800
assumed many forms, such as dragons, devils, demons, half human
1397
01:36:40.880 --> 01:36:43.960
and half animal, as well as caricatures of real people
1398
01:36:44.079 --> 01:36:48.479
or classes of people. The name gargoyle is often attributed
1399
01:36:48.720 --> 01:36:53.119
to Saint Romanus, the Archbishop of Rowan. According to legend,
1400
01:36:53.119 --> 01:36:55.439
he saved his country from a monster by the name
1401
01:36:55.520 --> 01:37:00.000
of Gogi, sometimes called Gargoyle. The gargoyle is said to
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01:37:00.239 --> 01:37:03.840
have been a legendary dragon with bat like wings, a
1403
01:37:03.960 --> 01:37:06.640
long neck, and the ability to breathe fire from its
1404
01:37:06.680 --> 01:37:09.239
mouth that lived in a cave near the Signe River
1405
01:37:09.399 --> 01:37:12.359
in the seventh century and was ravaging the town and
1406
01:37:12.399 --> 01:37:16.039
people of Rowan. It was slain by Saint Romanus, the
1407
01:37:16.159 --> 01:37:20.159
Archbishop of Rowan. After the dragon was slain, its body
1408
01:37:20.319 --> 01:37:23.880
was set ablaze. Its body was consumed by fire, but
1409
01:37:23.960 --> 01:37:28.920
the head and neck survived and was mounted on a building. Supposedly,
1410
01:37:28.960 --> 01:37:31.640
the monster was so scary looking that it frightened off
1411
01:37:31.680 --> 01:37:35.479
evil spirits. This led to some calling the monster a
1412
01:37:35.560 --> 01:37:40.000
protector and placing similar carved figures on churches and other
1413
01:37:40.079 --> 01:37:45.079
important buildings. Originally, the term referred only to the carved
1414
01:37:45.119 --> 01:37:49.439
lions of classical cortices, or to terracotta spouts, such as
1415
01:37:49.560 --> 01:37:53.199
those found in the Roman structures at Pompeii. The word
1416
01:37:53.239 --> 01:37:57.560
later became restricted mainly to the grotesque carved spouts of
1417
01:37:57.600 --> 01:38:01.920
the European Middle Ages. It is often, but incorrectly, applied
1418
01:38:02.239 --> 01:38:08.159
to other grotesque beasts. Gargoyles always have drainage conduits, other
1419
01:38:08.279 --> 01:38:12.920
carved beast depictions do not. What's important is not all
1420
01:38:13.000 --> 01:38:19.640
grotesques are gargoyles, but all gargoyles are indeed grotesques. A
1421
01:38:19.720 --> 01:38:23.319
French abbot, Saint Bernard of Clervaux ten ninety to eleven
1422
01:38:23.439 --> 01:38:28.159
fifty three, was famous for speaking out against gargoyles, most
1423
01:38:28.199 --> 01:38:31.560
probably because he didn't fully understand their role when he wrote,
1424
01:38:31.880 --> 01:38:35.199
what are these fantastic monsters doing in the cloisters before
1425
01:38:35.239 --> 01:38:37.960
the eyes of the brothers as they read? What is
1426
01:38:38.000 --> 01:38:42.039
the meaning of these unclean monkeys, these strange savage lions
1427
01:38:42.079 --> 01:38:46.039
and monsters? To what purpose are here? Placed these creatures
1428
01:38:46.479 --> 01:38:50.800
half beast, half man, or these spotted tigers. I see
1429
01:38:50.840 --> 01:38:54.239
several bodies with one head, and several heads with one body.
1430
01:38:54.880 --> 01:38:57.840
Here is a quadruped with a serpent's head. They're a
1431
01:38:57.880 --> 01:39:01.640
fish with a quadruped's head. Then again an animal, half horse,
1432
01:39:01.680 --> 01:39:05.560
half goat. Surely, if we do not blush for such absurdities,
1433
01:39:05.760 --> 01:39:09.800
we should at least regret what we have spent on them.
1434
01:39:10.039 --> 01:39:13.119
Even in the United States, gargoyles were used on more
1435
01:39:13.239 --> 01:39:16.840
modern buildings as a form of decoration, such as the
1436
01:39:16.920 --> 01:39:20.119
stainless steel versions used on the Chrysler Building in New
1437
01:39:20.199 --> 01:39:25.359
York City, at Princeton University, University of Chicago, and Duke University.
1438
01:39:26.960 --> 01:39:30.560
Perhaps the most famous are the gargoyles that decorate the
1439
01:39:30.680 --> 01:39:34.760
Washington National Cathedral in Washington, d C. The sixth the
1440
01:39:34.880 --> 01:39:37.720
largest cathedral in the world and likely to be the
1441
01:39:37.800 --> 01:39:42.000
last Gothic cathedral ever built. It has one hundred twelve
1442
01:39:42.119 --> 01:39:46.560
gargoyles rained version devices with a spout, and over one
1443
01:39:46.600 --> 01:39:51.000
thousand other grotesques those without a spout. When people think
1444
01:39:51.039 --> 01:39:54.760
of gargoyles, most envisioned monsters and dragons and the like,
1445
01:39:55.359 --> 01:40:00.279
but there are also other intriguing and odd figures. More
1446
01:40:00.279 --> 01:40:03.199
famous gargoyles from history are those used on Notre Dame
1447
01:40:03.239 --> 01:40:07.000
de Perie. They reside atop dizzying heights and are often
1448
01:40:07.079 --> 01:40:10.479
unnoticed by human eyes, but ever watchful of our movements.
1449
01:40:11.079 --> 01:40:15.159
They have observed us for centuries. The gargoyles of the
1450
01:40:15.199 --> 01:40:20.000
famous Notre Dame Cathedral half man, half beast preside over Paris,
1451
01:40:20.079 --> 01:40:23.359
and have done so since the medieval times. It is
1452
01:40:23.399 --> 01:40:27.319
believed that there is no commonly accepted explanation of why
1453
01:40:27.359 --> 01:40:31.800
these odd carved creatures exist as they do. Why were
1454
01:40:31.840 --> 01:40:35.640
these figures actually placed atop the buildings? Do they have
1455
01:40:35.680 --> 01:40:39.640
a symbolic meaning? Were they used for repelling evil or
1456
01:40:39.680 --> 01:40:44.560
perhaps only for architectural balance? Or were they perhaps, as
1457
01:40:44.680 --> 01:40:48.880
Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin suggested,
1458
01:40:49.439 --> 01:40:54.439
watchmen of the period, guardians of the ancient religious sanctuaries.
1459
01:41:02.720 --> 01:41:05.640
Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share
1460
01:41:05.640 --> 01:41:07.720
it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or
1461
01:41:07.760 --> 01:41:12.239
strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do.
1462
01:41:13.239 --> 01:41:15.960
All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true
1463
01:41:16.039 --> 01:41:19.039
unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or
1464
01:41:19.079 --> 01:41:22.680
links to the authors in the show notes. Ghosts A
1465
01:41:22.720 --> 01:41:25.239
Part of My Life was written by em Lynch from
1466
01:41:25.359 --> 01:41:29.079
your ghost Stories dot Com. Under a Flaming Sky is
1467
01:41:29.079 --> 01:41:33.680
by Troy Taylor for American Hauntings, Inc. Apollo twenty Journey
1468
01:41:33.680 --> 01:41:38.000
into Darkness was posted at the Unredacted. The secret code
1469
01:41:38.000 --> 01:41:41.119
signature of Christopher Columbus was written by Jenny Kyle for
1470
01:41:41.239 --> 01:41:45.960
Mysterious Writings. How do serial Killers Select their Victims is
1471
01:41:46.000 --> 01:41:50.680
from the Lineup Inside. The Unsolved Disappearance of Jennifer Keyes
1472
01:41:50.960 --> 01:41:54.600
was written by Joel Stice for All That's Interesting. The
1473
01:41:54.720 --> 01:41:57.680
Cursed Village of Witches was written by Brent Swanzor for
1474
01:41:57.800 --> 01:42:02.239
Mysterious Universe. U Hill Death Ghost Brides of the United
1475
01:42:02.239 --> 01:42:06.760
States was posted at Notebook of Ghosts. No Good Deed
1476
01:42:06.800 --> 01:42:10.199
Goes Unpunished was written by Wyatt Read for All That's Interesting.
1477
01:42:11.279 --> 01:42:14.159
The Annie Dorman Mystery is by Robert Wilhelm for a
1478
01:42:14.239 --> 01:42:18.039
Murder by Gaslight. The Betty and Varney Hill abduction was
1479
01:42:18.079 --> 01:42:21.840
by Les Hewett for Historic Mysteries and in the Protection
1480
01:42:21.920 --> 01:42:27.279
of Gargoyles is by Asutherland for Ancient Pages. Weird Darkness
1481
01:42:27.319 --> 01:42:31.000
is a production and trademark of Marler House Productions. And
1482
01:42:31.039 --> 01:42:33.279
now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave
1483
01:42:33.319 --> 01:42:37.159
you with a little light Proverbs twenty six, verse nineteen.
1484
01:42:38.079 --> 01:42:41.119
Just as damaging as a madman shooting a deadly weapon
1485
01:42:41.439 --> 01:42:44.119
is someone who lies to a friend and then says
1486
01:42:44.319 --> 01:42:48.600
I was only joking. And a final thought to keep
1487
01:42:48.640 --> 01:42:53.880
your excuses from making you useless. Stop making useless excuses
1488
01:42:55.399 --> 01:43:12.760
on Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in the weird darkness.