PERIPHERAL DEMONS: The Terrifying Truth About Shadow People
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This scares me, and I don't know what it is. I've been seeing them since I was a little girl.

Always out of the corner of my eye, a tall, black shadow. I always feel like something or someone is by me. Last night, I went down to my bedroom. There it was. Standing next to my dresser. I ran upstairs, crying to my mom. She went down and looked, saying it was only because I was overtired. But I know what I saw. It was so scary. I don't know what it is. I need all the help I can get. Jessica's cry for help.

I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weirdos! I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained.

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Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness! Tales of walking shadows come from all around the world,

Some of these shadow people wander through the periphery of our lives. Others stay for years. People can rarely make out features of these darker-than-night, human-shaped entities, other than the occasional set of blazing red eyes. Shadow people often appear dressed as a medieval monk, wearing a fedora, or bald and genderless. These entities may simply trek through our bedroom at night, never to be seen again.

while others may lurk in doorways, just watching, day after day. Still others attack with energy-draining fear. What are they? I've studied the shadow people phenomena for the past decade and have come to the conclusion the term "shadow people" is a catch-all for entities that exhibit certain characteristics, but their origins can be wildly different.

Through research and personal experience, I've categorized these creatures by behavior. Benign shadows. Shadow people that seem to travel briefly through a person's life. I saw these entities as a child. They appeared to walk with purpose through my room, never acknowledging me and never straying from their path. I never felt an unholy fear, just the fear of watching a dark, human-shaped trespasser walk past my bed. Negative shadows.

Although these shadow people tend to simply lurk, they're associated with a feeling of unnatural terror. Red-eyed shadows. These entities are always negative and stare at those experiencing them with blazing red eyes. Victims often say they feel this creature feed from their fear. Hooded shadows. Dressed as an ancient monk, people who encounter these shadow people feel a deep rage bubbling behind the black cowl.

and the Hat Man. This entity is the most curious of them all. Dressed in a fedora and sometimes appearing to wear an old-time business suit, the Hat Man appears to people in cultures across the planet. Shadow people may be demonic entities, ghosts, interdimensional travelers, or other denizens of the dark realm we call the unknown.

Regardless of their label, shadow people could very well be more than just one type of being. Brad Steiger, author of "Shadow World," has studied the paranormal for more than 50 years and agrees: "There are more possible explanations for shadow people. I would say that experiencers are seeing all of the above and giving them the name of shadow people." Whatever these entities are, they are shocking to those who see them.

A gray sheet of clouds stretched across the sky as 12-year-old Doug ran to the corner store. "It was overcast but not raining and in the middle of the afternoon," Doug said. The day was shadowless, and decades later he still doesn't know what he saw on his way home from the store, arms laden with food. At first he thought it was a friend. "As I approached the corner to turn onto my street, I saw something black sticking beyond the bushes in front of my house," Doug said.

I yelled, "Andre!" and started running toward my driveway where the bushes are. The dark figure was not his friend Andre. A black man-shaped shadow grew from behind the bushes in this quiet afternoon and began running towards Doug's house. "After a few steps, I saw the shadow running down my driveway toward the backyard," he said. "I ran up the driveway to the gate that leads to my backyard. I couldn't believe my eyes."

Doug stood at the gate as the black shadow in the shape of a man ran across his yard and disappeared through a fence. "I was shocked," he said. "I couldn't stop thinking about it. This thing, what could it be? Why was it black when most stereotypical stories said that ghosts were white? Could this be demonic? Could it be like me, just a person? What did Doug see? A ghost? A demon?

a dimensional traveler, or was it all in his mind? Looking at it from a science perspective, I've been visited by what I presume to be the same shadow three times in my life, and the memories have haunted me ever since. When I was six, I saw it at my dad's new house towering over my bed. I couldn't move, and I don't remember what happened next. All I remember is trying to scream, but there was this horrible weight on my chest.

Luke Purdy. Most of the shadow people encounters I've collected over the years are readily explainable. The experiencer wakes to find a black, human figure standing in the doorway of their bedroom or leaning over their bed, just watching. A tightness grips their chest like the weight of a person is upon them. They can't breathe. Suddenly, the choking eases and the shadow being is gone.

This type of encounter is common, and psychology has a name for it: sleep paralysis. April Hebrion, a psychology professor at Northwest Missouri State University, said most shadow people encounters are probably the product of dreams. "When people sleep and enter the REM phase, it's very common for them to see things," Hebrion said. "The fear, the paralysis, and the entities are normal."

"There are hormones in REM sleep that paralyze the major muscle groups and it's called paradoxical sleep," she said. "Although this happens during REM, these people don't stay asleep and the hormones are still in their bodies. It can last up to eight minutes and they feel pressure on their chests and can see people. When the experiencer becomes fully awake, the shadow person encounter is over. All that's left is the fear."

Other shadow people encounters, as well as those of ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot for that matter, can be attributed to the same trick of light and shadow that allows us to see faces in clouds and carpets. These sightings can also be from electrical stimulation to certain parts of the brain, or drugs. Chemist Rick Toomey said anything that throws off the chemical balance of the brain causes all sorts of problems.

"All sensation is in the nervous system and it's all chemistry," he said. "If every neurotransmitter is chemistry, you can wreak havoc with that." However, many encounter shadow people in full consciousness and full daylight, removing the logical, scientific answers and leaving something terrible.

My best friend, when he was a boy, he was laying on his bed with the lights on. A shadowy figure emerged from his closet and moved toward his bedside. The shadow being reached out a finger and touched my buddy's leg. He screamed and the figure vanished, and his folks were there in moments. My friend's father noticed that the closet door was open and his parents knew he never slept without it closed. The black spot on his leg remained visible for several years

but the shadow being never returned. To this day, my friend has no idea what happened, but he does know one thing. It was real. Paul Sykros Although most reported shadow people encounters involve an entity simply appearing and disappearing, some are not that innocent. Negative shadows, red-eyed shadows, and hooded shadows all bring a feeling of horror when they step into someone's life.

These creatures are known by different names: demons, djinn, dark shadows, sigili. But their nature is the same. Bishop James Long, pastor of St. Christopher Old Catholic Church in Louisville, Kentucky, has studied demonology for years and knows shadow people well. To him, they are something evil. "Shadow people must be taken seriously and they can be quite dangerous," he said.

When a human spirit tries to manifest itself, its form is black, or otherwise known as shadow. It is energy trying to manifest itself so that it can appear to have the physical characteristics it had when living on Earth. These entities can move, communicate, and attack, drawing energy from their human victim. "Certainly shadows that attack are demonic in nature and should be avoided at all times," Long said.

I would strongly encourage anyone who witnesses a dark shadow to be careful. Cody Lilly's family has encountered this type of shadow for years: a black, human-shaped figure, featureless except for a wide-brimmed hat. "We called him the cowboy because he kind of looked like the Marlboro Man," Lilly said.

The cowboy stepped into Cody Lilly's life his sophomore year of high school in Clarenda, Iowa, and visited almost nightly for two years, pacing about his room, waiting for something. The entity, with fiery red eyes, never spoke and never approached him, but Cody knew why it was there. It hungered. It was feeding, he said, convinced the cowboy was absorbing energy from his terror.

"The first time I saw it, I was completely incapacitated by how scared I was of it." Cody Lilly soon went to college 30 miles south, and the visits stopped until after graduation in 2011 when he moved to Nebraska. "My girlfriend is in Kansas City, and I'm in Omaha. I was crashing with friends here," he said.

My car started acting up. I'm in the process of looking for a job, finding an apartment, buying an engagement ring. I had a lot of stuff on my plate, which might have brought on what happened. What happened was the cowboy. I'm sitting in my car on the phone with my mom. I don't know much about cars, but my mom does. As Cody described the car's behavior to his mother, he noticed a movement in the corner of his right eye.

He turned toward the passenger side window and saw it. The shadow man that once tormented him in the night. The cowboy. "It was full on. A shadow person in an old fedora," Cody said. "It was standing there. It leaned over like it's bending to look at me." As he stared in horror at this red-eyed shadow man in full daylight, the cowboy reached out its arm and knocked on the car window. "It knocked two times," Cody said.

After it knocked, it dissolved in my vision. It just showed up, knocked on my window, and was gone." Cody wonders if the cowboy wanted to let him know it was still around. "It's been quite some time that I saw him," he said. "I'm just kind of thinking he just showed up. I was feeling stressed out and I think he showed up just to feed on that." In Islam, the supernatural jinn can be a companion or a dark, shadowy predator.

Jinns are invisible entities, believed in by most all Muslims and Middle Eastern folklore, said religion expert Dashtina Most. Jinns get in and out of human spheres regularly, and it's believed that any human is able to make contact with a jinn. Although jinn can be benevolent, some jinn are wicked, appearing as dark figures that lurk in ruins and cemeteries, waiting for an unsuspecting human soul to stumble by.

"The wicked jinn, much like the demons of Christianity, are deceivers and may present themselves as the ghost of a loved one to insert themselves into a human's life." Wadé, a Cherokee, said the nature of shadow beings in the American Indian tradition are just as dark. "They're humanoid-shaped, but not proportionate to a normal person," Wadé said. "Their appearance is more monstrous in nature.

These shadow beings are the product of medicine men that have strayed from the path of healing. There seem to be a classification of spiritual beings that are shadow for the most part. These things can be manipulated by bad medicine or bad magic, Wadé said. They either take that form to attack other people, or they use some other spiritual being as a spiritual attack. In the Cherokee language, these dark medicine people are "sijili" or "witch."

"They're still alive to some degree," he said, "but they're not necessarily considered human." "I have a young boy, shadow spirit, in my home. He appears as a solid black cut-out-like figure. He's a prankster too. But he's not mean or evil. He lets us know he's here at times by playing with the animals — kittens, dogs, puppies, etc. Play, not mean. The dogs and puppies are wagging their tails.

"He moves my Barbies if he really wants my attention. And the other day, he didn't want the door to his room closed, so he opened it. He's a good kid." - Kim Tamzor A family sees a black figure come down the stairs at the same time at night, turn into the kitchen and disappear. A dark man in an out-of-date suit walks through a child's bedroom and down the hallway.

Some shadow people encounters, benign ones like these, could very well be disembodied spirits wandering the Earth. D.H. Parsons, president of the Bliss Parsons Institute of Metaphysics in Columbia, Missouri, has encountered many shadow people while investigating a haunting. Although many fellow investigators consider shadow people demonic, Parsons doesn't necessarily agree.

"My feeling is that a shadow person is another representation of a residual memory of a person who had such a strong personality in life that a bit of their energy remained here in this dimension after their spirit crossed over," Parsons said. "Most of the time the spirit beings are either friendly to us, or confused by us, or curious as to why we are there, but they have never done us any harm, not even the shadows." Not so for 18-year-old Dave Stanfield,

Stanfield didn't expect something to be waiting for him in his room when he woke. Something was. Something dark. A strange feeling pulled Stanfield from a deep sleep. As he lay in the gray room, staring at his bedroom wall, he saw it. I woke for no reason, had no weird dreams, and I wasn't groggy or half-asleep, he said. My room was dark other than some stray beams coming through the blinds.

and I could see a man, darker than the night like a void. The figure stood at the end of the bed. I could only make out the silhouette of his head and shoulders. The rest of him just went straight to the floor," Stanfield said. There were no legs or feet. No red eyes. No facial features whatsoever. Terrified, Stanfield slid low in bed, pulling the covers slowly over his face.

watching the black man-shaped figure standing over him until his blankets hid the horror from his view, and Stanfield fell back to sleep. Stanfield is now 29, and although he doesn't know what this shadow being was, he knows he saw it, and it haunts him still. Only in the past couple of years have I been able to find anything on the subject matter, Stanfield said. It's almost like re-victimization when reading stories from other people that describe experiences like mine.

I never knew it could be so widespread and am still dealing with the shock. But as with Parsons' encounters, this being didn't harm Stanfield, at least not physically. Harmless, just a watcher is all. Don Hull. Most shadow people encounters are benign, a dark figure lingering in the corners of your life, watching. Could these entities simply be watching us from a realm barely removed from our own?

Marie Jones, author of books exploring science and the paranormal, think other dimensions could be homes of shadow people. "In my research into quantum and theoretical physics, I came across concepts that really opened up the possibilities to me that entities from somewhere else could be coming here," Jones said. "One of these concepts is wrapped around different dimensions."

"Theoretically, if these infinite other universes exist, we really should not physically be able to access them," Jones said. Yet even theoretical physicists entertain the thought that perhaps the laws of physics on the other side allow for some crossover. Clark Kent's grandfather died in 1977, and his grandmother moved to a small apartment leaving her old house empty. And yes, this person's name is actually Clark Kent.

Although bearing the name of Superman's alter ego may be a burden to some, Kent said that his name has netted him many free bottles of beer from strangers at taverns. Really, well, who doesn't want to buy a drink for the last son of Krypton, right? Anyway, shortly after moving his grandmother into the apartment, 10-year-old Kent's family moved into the now-vacant house. "My first friend in the new neighborhood was my next-door neighbor, Jim," Kent said. "We're good friends to this day."

On a day in 1979, Kent invited Jim to his house to play ping pong, and it's haunted him since. That day after school, Kent and Jim had about two hours before Kent's parents came home from work, which meant ping pong in the basement between peeks at the forbidden stash of Playboys in a dusty alcove. It was there Kent saw something he didn't expect. "During our game, I was facing the alcove," Kent said.

"At a certain point, something caught my attention. Standing in the alcove was the shadow of a man wearing a fedora. It was creepy and I had to pause," Kent said. "I could not figure out how any combination of the boxes could cast such a shadow." Then it moved. Kent stood at the ping-pong table, staring at a dark figure watching him from the alcove. He then quickly looked at Jim, who was looking at him.

"He realized I had seen something," Kent said. "I was struck by the realization that no man was casting a shadow on the wall. The shadow was solid and was not attached to any object. I turned and scrambled up the stairs with Jim right behind me. At the top of the stairs, their breath coming fast and heavy, Kent slammed and latched the basement door, then looked at Jim with wide eyes."

Jim denied seeing the Shadow Man that day and for nearly 30 years after. As the two met for a long-needed reunion, Kent mentioned the Shadow Man in his basement. Jim sunk into his chair and spoke in a whisper. "I'll never forget that hat." "I was stunned," Kent said. Then he asked the same question he had asked three decades ago. "Did you see it?" "Yes, I did," Jim told him. "I was scared."

But did this entity, this "watcher," step into Kent's life from a parallel universe? Although some physicists entertain the idea of these multiple universes, physicist David Richardson is not eager to join them. "I hate to bring this up in this context, but if there were extra dimensions, shadow people might actually be people," he said. "I'm skeptical of that, but it's possible. We're just starting to figure out that sort of stuff."

demon, jinn, traveler? Regardless of the nature of these entities, regardless of their intentions, the advice for each encounter is always the same: Proceed with caution. Hold the kaleidoscope to your eye. Peer inside. One twist changes everything. A woman awakens in a grotesque, human-sized arcade game.

A mysterious cigar box purchased at a farmer's market releases an ancient jinn who demands a replacement prisoner. An elderly woman possesses the terrifying power to inflict pain through handmade dolls. An exclusive restaurant's sinister secret menu includes murder-for-hire and harvested organs.

With each turn through these 20 tales, Reddit NoSleep favorite AP Royal reshapes reality, creating dazzling patterns of horror that entrance as they terrify. The Kaleidoscope, 20 Terrifying Tales of Horror and the Supernatural by AP Royal, narrated by Darren Marlar. Hear a free sample on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com.

They've been here for thousands of years, making their presence known in the shadows. They might be seen by a lonely motorist on a deserted road late at night, or by a frightened and confused husband in the bedroom he's sharing with his wife. Perhaps the most disconcerting part of this phenomenon boils down to this question. Has the government been aware of their presence all along and is covertly working with them towards some secret end?

In the audiobook, Runs of Disclosure, what once was fringe is now reality. While listening, you'll meet regular people just like you who have encountered something beyond their ability to explain. You'll also hear from people of great faith and deep religious belief who continue to have these strange and deeply unsettling encounters. Author L.A. Marzulli explores these ongoing incidents to discover the answers to these questions.

Who are they? What do they want? And why are they here? Can you handle the truth? Listen to this audiobook if you dare! "Rungs of Disclosure: Following the Trail of Extraterrestrials and the End Times" by L.A. Marzulli Narrated by Darren Marlar Hear a free sample on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com It was back in college.

My roommate and I attended an art school and our apartment quickly became the home where my fellow classmates would come together to do homework, complete projects, talk and, if need be, crash for the night. We all became really close to a class that was graduating shortly before we would. One of the boys in this class was Wiccan. I grew up in a Christian home and considered myself a firm believer, so having him in our apartment was really unsettling to me.

I distanced myself when our friends and my roommate started becoming very interested in his beliefs and his stories of spirits, creatures, energy, and so on. It always gave me a sickening feeling, and I'd often separate myself from the group and keep in my room. One of our friends, Kyle, was almost always at our home.

He was, without a doubt, our closest friend, and would never leave at the end of the night without knocking on my roommate's door, then mine, to say goodnight. Kyle also started becoming increasingly interested in our Wiccan friend's beliefs, and I think curiosity got the best of him. And he started to become more involved, without regard to the dangers or the dark side he could face. As days passed, I started seeing less and less of Kyle.

His demeanor changed. He seemed depressed, jumpy, watchful, and overall looked exhausted. My roommate and I were able to convince Kyle to come over one night to get some work done, as we didn't want him to be alone and felt like he needed to get something, whatever was happening to him, off his chest. Our Wiccan friend had also come over to talk. They admitted that Kyle had taken some of the practice into his own hands and got in over his head.

As they told me what was happening to Kyle, I stared at them both. Kyle was wearing a pair of jeans, his wallet secured in his back pocket via a thick chain. He had on a black shirt with the Punisher skull on it and a pair of black Doc Martin-style shoes. Kyle was short and bulky. Our Wiccan friend was tall and thin. He wore a tan tweed coat you'd typically see on an elderly man, a pair of khaki pants, and had on a yellow t-shirt.

"Kyle told me about how he could see spirits since starting this. He did not want to see them, but they were everywhere. They weren't physically in front of him, but projections of his mind. And since he opened a door with our Wiccan friend, he was vulnerable now and didn't know how to undo it. They drained him of his energy as if they were feeding off it. They stole his happiness, and he was left with feelings of dread and fear.

and he had not come over recently because he didn't want to bring anything into our home and leave me specifically at their mercy. I suddenly became really, really tired. I managed to stay awake an hour or so longer before telling our friends I was going to bed around 8 p.m. I prayed when I got to my room, silently in my head. What Kyle had told me terrified me, and I didn't want any part of it.

The voices being followed, seeing unfriendly spirits, spirits feeding off his energy. All I knew to do was pray to be protected from it. I was awakened a short time after 11 to Kyle's voice. I opened my eyes and rolled over to face my bedroom doorway. I saw Kyle standing there, saying, "Hey, I just want you to know I'm leaving now." I stared back at him, confused, because Kyle always came in and gave me a hug.

It was weird that he was just standing there. I saw him shifting back and forth in his black Punisher t-shirt and jeans. The moonlight coming from the window caused a glimmer to bounce off his chain holding his wallet in his pocket. I remember tracing the outline of the skull on the shirt with my eyes and feeling like I could see everything in hyper detail. Then my eyes moved to Kyle's left. A tall, dark mass stood next to him, reaching clear to the ceiling.

In my head, my mind was saying, "Wiccan friend," but that's not what this was. I couldn't see through it, but it was still like a dark cloud. It swayed like a person back and forth as Kyle stood there, looking like he was near tears and staring at me. After a couple of minutes of silence, Kyle turned to the mass as if he was addressing it and accepting his fate, looked at the ground, and followed it down the hall and out the door.

My last thought before falling asleep was, why did our Wiccan friend change his clothes? A couple days passed and I finally saw Kyle again. He looked the same, miserable and barren of all energy. I asked him if he was working on getting out of his situation and he was quiet. Then I asked, hey, why didn't you and your Wiccan friend come in my room the other night before you left? You guys always give me a hug. Kyle looked at the ground, mumbling.

"I wasn't allowed to," I continued, "and why did your Wiccan friend change clothes? I saw him standing with you in the doorway." Kyle's face shot up and his eyes looked at me in absolute terror. He swallowed and said, "Melissa, he went home at nine. That wasn't him that you saw." The memory came flooding back. The shape. The fear on Kyle's face. How I remember every detail of Kyle's appearance but nothing of his friend.

We couldn't come in because we were told not to. Not by you, though, by the angel. Your room, and only your room, is being protected for as long as this poses a threat. Nonbelievers and Wiccan can't see what I'm seeing unless you're half asleep and your mind is vulnerable. I'm so sorry, Melissa. I never meant for you to see that." My face grew red hot as the blood rushed to my cheeks. I wanted to cry. I just stared at Kyle as he got up and walked out the door.

I only saw him a few more times, aside from a few times in class. He started failing and had to repeat some things. I barely saw him. Once in a while, we'd talk online, but things weren't the same since then. Almost exactly a year later, I graduated and got a job in the next town over. I'd been at this job for about three months by then and had gotten my own studio apartment on my own. On a side note, my whole family lives about two and a half hours north

My mother and I, very close and have always talked every day. She didn't like the idea of me living so far away all by myself, but I wanted to prove that I could make it on my own without anyone's help. I'd been on the phone with my mother one night when I started to get a sore throat and a cough. I told her I was going to get some rest because I had work and thought I could sleep it off. The next morning, it was worse. Incredibly worse.

The energy had been sucked from my body and I felt like my body had absolutely zero muscle to it. As much as I tried, I could barely will my arm to reach for the phone on my nightstand. It took me an entire 30 minutes to nudge my hand to the phone to call off work. It was Friday, so they thought I was just taking advantage of an early weekend. The second they hung up, the phone thudded to the ground and I blacked out.

I awoke hours later. It was late afternoon and I needed to go to the bathroom, but I still couldn't move. I could barely keep my eyes open. It felt as though lead weights were tied to them and they were being forced shut. I knew I had to try moving and I knew something was wrong. Using every bit of strength I had, I slid down off my bed and bit by bit I crawled to the bathroom.

It took an entire two hours to crawl just nine feet. Twenty minutes later, I managed to turn on the bathtub. Slowly but surely, I inched myself inside and turned on the water as hot as I could take it. My body felt like I was freezing. Again, I blacked out. I remember fading in and out and awakening after three hours, still in the tub.

The rest must have given me some ounce of energy because I was now able to lift my arms and crawl back into bed. Saturday arrived and I slept the entire way through it. Nine missed calls from my mother, and I couldn't move anything but my eyes. I was out for over 24 hours, and the only thing I could do was lay there. I felt so helpless. My body was in so much pain, and I was overcome by fear.

I could feel tears coming from my eyes as I stared at my phone. The movement to direct my head towards the nightstand was agonizing, and I just wish I could call my mother to come save me. Surely I was dying. Night fell, and I saw a flicker from the lamp on my dresser. My eyes tiredly peered over as my lifeless body just lay there, still in nothing but a towel from the day before, and my sheet barely pulled up over me.

With the light still on, the room somehow seemed to grow darker. I looked straight up and saw the dark mass from the year before. It was like a blanket, threatening to crush me and squeeze what was left of my life from my body. I watched as it moved down closer. Both a solid mass and a cloud at the same time. The weight grew heavier and heavier on top of me. I was paralyzed,

I got the feeling that this had come to finish me off after I had angered it and not allowed it in my room not long ago. My breathing became slower as I felt hundreds of pounds of weight start to crush me, making it almost impossible for me to breathe. Tears burned down my cheeks as I quietly apologized to my mom in my heart for how she would find my lifeless body. How long would it be before someone found me? Did I remember to tell her I loved her the last time we spoke?

Is this really how it ends? With the last bit of air I could force into my lungs, with the dark death hovering inches from my face, I breathed out my favorite Bible song from when I was a child. I love you, Lord. And suddenly I was given one more breath. And I lift my voice. And another breath. To worship you, O my soul.

rejoice. The more I quietly sang, the more breath I was given to keep going. The mass was still above me but a few inches higher now. I took in as much air as I could, still unable to move, and quietly, softly and painstakingly sang, this little light of mine. Several lines in, I felt anger coming from the death cloud. I opened my eyes one last time to look up at it,

and everything went dark. Sunday morning, the sun came up. The light hit my face and I opened my eyes and turned my head. I laid there for a second, assessing the room and taking in deep breaths. My fingers moved, then my hands, arms, and then my toes. I pushed my body up and placed my feet on the ground. I was alive. I was alive. The night before, I was marked for death, and here I am walking

A sigh of disbelief escaped my mouth, followed by a burning pain. I swallowed, barely. I looked in the mirror and stared in shock at what I saw. The inside of my mouth, clear down to my throat, looked like it had been set on fire. I dragged myself to the hospital after a proper shower and change of clothes. The doctor was dumbfounded. He said the skin looked as if I'd swallowed a torch, and all I could think about was

were the last words I breathed out before losing consciousness. Won't let Satan blow it out. This little light of mine. Henry Miller went to the home of his doctor, Zachariah Walker, in Brownsburg, Virginia, to pick up some medicine on Wednesday, November 13, 1889. Dr. Walker was under the weather and could not see Miller, but his wife Betty knew the prescription and she took him to the office while she prepared a compound.

Though 50 years old, the doctor's wife, Betty Walker, was a strikingly attractive woman, delicate and refined, her black hair sprinkled with silver. Henry Miller, nearly 70 years old, could not control himself alone with Mrs. Walker. He tried to kiss her, offering other indignities which were repulsed. Mrs. Miller did not tell her husband what had happened until Friday morning, when the doctor was fully recovered.

He was immediately incensed and went out with his manservant and his shotgun looking for Henry Miller. He made it generally known that he intended to kill Miller on sight. When Miller heard of this, he went to Justice E.B. Bosworth and procured a warrant against Walker, and a hearing was held in Brownsburg later that day. Mrs. Walker accompanied her husband to court, and Henry Miller was there with four of his sons.

Miller was one of the wealthiest farmers in Rockbridge County, and Dr. Zachariah Walker was a celebrated physician and surgeon, a distinguished member of the state medical examining board. Both families were prominent and well-respected, but on this day, they would not show any pretense of civility. Justice Bosworth heard both sides of the case.

No one denied that Dr. Walker threatened Henry Miller's life, so Bosworth charged him $500 bail to keep the peace for 12 months. He told Walker if he refused to pay, he would have no alternative but to send him to jail. "That's what I want you to do," said Dr. Walker, "but I'd like to get my dinner before going." Bosworth agreed to this. Then Walker said, "There is one other request I wish to make and that is to be allowed to slap Henry in the face."

Of course, Justice Bosworth said that could not be done, but Dr. Walker insisted that he would do so. As he rose, he drew a revolver from his hip pocket. As he tried to cock the revolver, Henry Miller's son, David, wrenched the pistol away from him. This ignited a general melee in which everyone in the courtroom was more or less involved, either as a peacemaker or antagonist. Pistol shots were fired, and men were striking each other with uplifted chairs.

Justice Bosworth later said that the first thing he saw was Dr. Walker stabbing Henry Miller with a large dirk knife, dealing deadly blows with an unstinted vigor. David Miller fired a pistol, hitting Dr. Walker in the back. Then Walker went to a bench to lay down. Mrs. Walker went to the bench and while trying to revive her husband, she received a fatal shot and slipped to the floor. Their roles now reversed. Dr. Walker went down to the floor to see his wife.

He was shot several more times and died on the floor next to her. Several witnesses saw Miller's son, James, shoot Mrs. Walker and heard him say, "You caused the death of my father, and you shall all die together." When the battle ended, Henry Miller, Dr. Walker and Mrs. Walker were dead. David Miller was seriously wounded. T. A. Deaver, another participant in the affray, had a knife wound in the neck.

and John Hempsey had a pistol wound in the side. The inquest, held several days later, found that Mrs. Walker was killed by James Miller, Dr. Walker was killed by pistol shots fired by the Miller boys without individualizing them, and Henry Miller was killed by Dr. Walker. William Miller was tried the following February for the murder of Dr. Walker. It could not be determined that he fired the shot that killed Dr. Walker, so he was acquitted.

In March, James Miller won the sympathy of the jury by stressing the family hardship of losing his father. He was acquitted as well.

Do you like my horror-able humor episodes called Mind of Marler? If so, and you'd like more, it now has its very own podcast. Comedic creeps, sarcastic scares, frivolous frights, macabre madness. Every week I dive into strange history, twisted true crime, and paranormal weirdness. All the stuff you'd expect from me on Weird Darkness, but delivered with dark comedy, satire, and just the right amount of absurdity.

With regards to the paranormal, I would actually call myself an agnostic, neither fully believing nor disbelieving.

but what I experienced at this abandoned house would possibly suggest that there is indeed something on the other side. Up until around 2015, Crosby Towers was an abandoned mansion, previously the home of a whiskey merchant built in the 19th century, and was then a care home and subsequently a property of the Church of Scotland, though I have no idea what the church wanted with it. As of 2012, it had been fully abandoned for around a decade or so,

The name Crosby means "dwelling by the cross" but there was nothing godly about this house. In May 2012, some friends and I ventured in at late evening. The house could only be addressed from the back, as all the doors and windows were boarded up. At the back, one of the wooden boards could be shifted, revealing an entrance that used to be a door.

It was a dusty, narrow passageway which led into the main ground floor lobby of the house, with rooms coming off on all sides. A sign read "CCTV," but we knew it was just a ploy and went on. We did have to be careful, though, because some flat windows overlooked the back garden, and they were known to watch out for intruders on the grounds of Crosby Towers.

They were mostly grumpy old men or ladies, and we wouldn't let the thought of them ruin our adventures. We were pensive after going in the back door. The interior of the house was dark. We milled around a while, joking or talking, egging each other on to go further in beyond the passageway.

Eventually, we did, and I was at the back, but I still heard that incredibly loud, unforgettable bang from upstairs as we entered the main part of the ground floor for the first time. We rushed out and didn't return till a few days later. I remember walking home with one of my friends and talking about the bang after it happened. It sounded like it came from the top of the staircase to the second floor, just as somebody at the front approached the bottom of the stairs.

I can almost hear it today. The next time we came to the house, we were at the back entrance again, and I just had this indescribable feeling that something was going to happen. It almost felt like a trance. Then I heard, or thought I heard, a piercing female cry. I ran out into the backyard convinced the cry was real. To my dismay, nobody else had heard anything.

Maybe it was just fear and it was inside my head. Perhaps due to an overactive imagination, but it sounded so real. If it was inside my head, I guess it shows how powerful a thing the mind is. Eventually we did muster up enough courage to go in again and we explored the whole of the ground floor. It was pretty ruined and littered with some debris, but the old carpets were still in place. It smelled musty, like a library.

There was a broken-down elevator, side passageways and, to our horror, a dentist's chair. We joked that it looked like a torture chamber. Above the second floor, there was also a spiral staircase leading to the tower. But we never, ever made it up there. Let alone the second floor. We were too scared. I remember us standing at the top of the stairs, looking at the hemmed-in second-floor hallway and rooms and being too nervous.

We joked what our feelings would be had we reached the tower only to hear unexplained noises down below. That was a terrifying thought. Would we dare go back down? Naturally, we took many photographs. One friend took some pictures of the window on the second floor which looked out onto the back entrance and yard. In one of the photos there was nothing, just the open window. Yet on another photo,

Taken minutes apart, there was a white thing in the open window looking out. It wasn't a clear face, but it definitely looked like one. And it was just pure white with black slits. She showed us that these photos were taken at the very time we stood beneath the window. It was just above us. That was as far as our experiences went in 2012.

Some of us would return a year later, in particular exploring the huts and outhouses round the back. The grounds were big indeed. I effing hate this house, said one friend nervously as we explored a back room which looked like it had been a kitchen. It led into the main belly of the house via broken cables. It was a remark, I remember, because it was interesting how we were both allured to the house and petrified by it.

I guess it's a powerful combination at the root of most inquiries into the unknown. On one occasion, as we were walking along the road beside the seafront just outside Crosby Towers, we heard noises coming from the house, like loud taps on a window or wall. However, there was no wind. This was a calm, windless spring evening. We turned and looked at each other. Then we turned back to look at the house.

The taps resumed, almost like it was trying to get our attention. We repeated the process, and the same thing happened. That was creepy. After all that, we went our separate ways and forgot about the house, sometimes talking with each other in our last year at school, but I haven't forgotten what we heard and saw there. It's something I shall always refer back to when discussing the paranormal.

Online photos and stories from other people could only take you so far, but nobody can take away your own experiences. The building was renovated around 2015 and now it's a block of apartments, a blend of the old and the new. Personally, I think it looks ugly and prefer the old aesthetic. I have no idea who lives there now, but God help them.

Some mysterious disappearances are stranger than others, and among the weirdest are those where the missing person shows up with mysterious clues and riddles that only serve to drive it all the further into the odd. I have written of such cases before, and they never cease to amaze me. Here is another very recent unsolved case of a vanished and returned person which seems to suggest that there is something very unusual going on indeed.

Teleportation? Alien abduction? Amnesia? I'll let you decide. The whole very strange tale begins February 7th, 2018, when a 49-year-old firefighter from Toronto, Canada, by the name of Konstantinos Dani Filippidis, was on a skiing trip to Whiteface Mountain at Lake Placid in New York State.

Philpittis was an experienced and avid seasoned skier and went on this trip every year with his coworkers. On this day, most of his friends had stopped skiing at around 2:30 p.m., but Philpittis decided to stay out for a couple more runs. At some point, it was noticed that the firefighter was nowhere to be seen, although his skis, boots, passport identification, and car were left behind, seemingly abandoned without reason.

A massive search was quickly put together which found no sign of the missing man, and this search would quickly grow to hundreds of officials from several agencies, professional searchers, and volunteers who scoured the area for six days using helicopters, drones, dogs, and any means at their disposal.

At no point did the search party turn up any sign of Philip Hiddes, despite the fact that with the heavy snow at the time, it was deemed that he could not possibly have gone very far. In addition, the slopes were very crowded that day, yet no one seemed to have remembered seeing the missing man or to have any idea where he could have gone, furthering the mystery. Considering that there was no reason why the man should want to run off, authorities began to assume the worst.

and it was whispered that he may have died out there in the wilderness, his body still waiting in the frigid cold to be found. The search was called off, and Philippides' family, friends, and two children were left to wonder what kind of horrible fate had befallen him. It was a tense time, overshadowed by a sinister cloud of certainty that he was never coming back. Then, seemingly out of nowhere,

Filipides' wife got a call from a groggy and disoriented man who sounded remarkably like her husband, and when he used a nickname that only they knew, she was convinced it was him. The strange part is that the call was coming from over 2,500 miles away, clear from the other side of the country, in Sacramento, California.

The call was traced to a rental car area of the Sacramento International Airport, and it was deemed by authorities that he seemed to be in trouble, with Sgt. Scott Swisher of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department saying, "On our end as well, it left a lot of unanswered questions. It was apparent there was a lot of issues going on with the gentleman, very disoriented, obviously needing some medical assistance. It was thought that he may have been with a kidnapper

but police were able to locate the missing man and found him to be alone, still in his ski clothes and cognizant, albeit in a state of dazed confusion. It was soon found that he had actually purchased an iPhone for the purpose of calling his wife and that he had gotten a haircut. When he was initially questioned, he claimed that the only memory he had was being dropped off by a big rigged truck in Sacramento.

after which he had felt compelled to get the haircut and then bought the phone to call his wife. As to how he had arrived in Sacramento, a full country away from where he had begun his journey, he had no memory, nor did he have the slightest idea of who had dropped him off. He was unable to describe the trucker or the truck or even give an estimate as to when or where he had been picked up.

Additionally, no one in the area of the ski resort remembered seeing such a big rigged truck at the time. The missing man was very cooperative during questioning and let authorities look at his bank and cell phone records as well as his medical records, but none of these offered any clue at all as to what had happened to him and offered up no suspicious activity.

He was also found to have all of his cash and belongings, suggesting that he had not been robbed. And although he claimed to feel that he may have sustained a severe head injury, there was no physical evidence that anything was wrong with him. Certainly not an injury grievous enough to cause such intense memory loss.

There was also found no history of mental disturbances or psychological problems, and he was, by all accounts, a loving family man who was dedicated to the fire department where he had worked for decades. It was all a complete mystery as to how he had gone from New York to Sacramento, and New York State Police Major John H. Tibbetts Jr. called the whole thing a head-scratcher.

Philippides has continued to maintain that he has no idea as to how he ended up in Sacramento, and insists he has no memory at all of the circumstances as to how he arrived there or of the journey itself, with the only clue being that he vaguely remembers being dropped off by a truck. That's it.

Making things even more difficult is that all appeals to the public and widespread distribution of his photos looking for anyone who might have seen him along his route or even in Sacramento have turned up nothing. Major John H. Tibbetts Jr. has said of the case, "He ended up on the side of the road. The only one we've got there is Route 86. We don't have a lot of interstate truck traffic coming up 86. Perhaps an independent trucker offered a ride."

He can't describe the trucker or the truck or anyone. It may be a mystery. I don't want to say it was a cold case. It was a missing persons case. We found him. Technically, he found himself. He wants to find out where he was as badly as we want to find out where he was. If we could have somebody call that we can prove actually met Danny on his journey across the country, that would be tremendous help to us. So far, such information has been elusive, to say the least.

It is still totally unclear what happened to him as he was skiing, why he disappeared, where he was during the six days that he was gone, how he ended up in Sacramento of all places, or why he doesn't remember a single moment of those six days. What happened here? There have been accusations that it is all a hoax, but nothing at all points to that. Was he kidnapped?

If so, then why did they take him all the way across the country only to drop him off with all of his money and belongings? And again, why doesn't he remember any of this? It remains unclear. Some rather bizarre theories have sprung up in the wake of the case that suggest something very odd is going on indeed.

One idea is that he was somehow teleported across the country, with the memory of the truck merely his brain's effort to try and fill in the blanks and make sense of what had happened. After all, other victims of alleged spontaneous teleportation have reported similar experiences of lost time, confusion, and distorted memories.

There have been others who have suggested that he was actually abducted by aliens, and that the truck he thinks he remembers was actually a spacecraft. Whether there is some mundane explanation at work here, or something more bizarre, it all remains unsolved, and has managed to baffle and intrigue everyone. Thanks for listening! If you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes!

All stories used in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find links to the authors, stories, and sources I used in the episode description as well as on the website at WeirdDarkness.com. If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do! You can email me and follow me on social media through the Weird Darkness website.

WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find information on sponsors you heard during the show, listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, get the email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host. You can visit the store for creepy and cool Weird Darkness merchandise. Plus, it's where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression,

addiction, or thoughts of harming yourself or others. And if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell of your own, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.