SPIRITUALISM: Mediums, Ectoplasm, and Floating Tables – America’s Forgotten Obsession With The Dead
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I've always had an eerie feeling about this place because of its history and because of how dark and quiet it gets. Ironically, these are the same reasons I come here. The moonlit sky made for a perfect nightlight.

giving you just enough grey contrast to bring images to shape. I dozed off into the night, into a deep sleep. Suddenly I was woken. Something was tapping on my shoulder. I was startled when I opened my eyes and saw a black silhouette hovering above me. 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! Spiritualism, like jazz, is an American original and a part of who we are as a community and as a culture. Without it, you would not be listening to this podcast and have an interest in ghosts and the supernatural.

It is literally the glue that holds us all together. But what was it? What was it like? And how does it linger as part of what we do today? The basic tenet of spiritualism was that the human personality survives death and lives on in another form. It was believed that the dead could, and regularly did, communicate with the world.

The term "medium" is given to those who function as intermediaries between the living and the spirits of the dead during séances. During the heyday of spiritualism, between the late 1840s and the 1920s, there were two types of mediums: mental and physical. Mental mediums used their minds and bodies as channels through which the dead could communicate.

Physical mediums produced physical paranormal phenomena such as loud raps, voices, moving objects and even materialized spirit bodies. The source of such powers was thought to be the mediums themselves, who used their spirit energy, or the Victorian-era substance known as ectoplasm, to produce séance phenomena. The practice of communicating with the spirit world using an intermediary is an ancient one.

The priestess, or Pythia as she was known, who went into a trance to make prophecies at the Greek Oracle of Delphi is an early example. The Old Testament account of the Witch of Endor tells the story of the raising of the spirit of Samuel to King Saul so that he could question him about the outcome of an approaching battle. But the heyday of mediumship coincided with the spread of spiritualism in the United States during the mid-to-late 19th century.

Of the thousands practicing the art, or more often than not the deception of mediumship, only a handful, like Daniel Douglas Holm and a few others, stand out as notable and unusual individuals. Traditional seances were held in a darkened room, and sitters were usually placed around a table, holding hands and quiet music would often be played.

The music and dim lighting created conditions that were supposed to encourage the spirits to make contact, though skeptics argued that they also created an ideal opportunity for fraud. The medium would go into a trance and spirits would communicate through, while they also created a wide range of bizarre phenomena that was witnessed by observers. Such happenings included table-wrapping,

Loud knocks on tables or from elsewhere in the room said to be from spirits trying to communicate. Often during seances, tables would often move or tilt, despite being held down by the sitters. Levitation, objects in the room such as tables, chairs, and pianos would lift from the floor and move around.

In the case of Daniel Hume, the medium himself reportedly levitated in well-lit rooms and in front of dozens of reliable witnesses. Cold spots, cold breezes or notable drops in the temperature of the air were often reported. Ghostly music,

Musical instruments were a standard part of séances, especially during demonstrations by the famous Davenport brothers. But not for the mediums or sitters to play. The spirits not only plucked the strings of guitars and violins and shook tambourines, they also reportedly made them fly about in the air. Disembodied voices,

Ghostly whispers were often reported, along with the clear voices of the dead, although most communications came through the medium. At ports, the sudden appearance of small, portable objects often occurred in the seance room. Such items which came out of thin air were usually flowers or coins, although occasionally personal items of the dead, such as a ring or a handkerchief, were recorded. Ectoplasm

This term was coined by paranormal researcher Charles Richet to describe the mysterious, white-gray viscous substance that emanated apparently from the bodies of some physical mediums. Occasionally, the ectoplasm would form into the shape of human limbs or even into fully formed spirit entities that walked freely among the sitters. Ectoplasm remains one of the most controversial aspects from the heyday of the spiritual movement.

If it was real, it was never collected for study, which causes great doubt among skeptics. Combined with the fact that so many mediums were caught faking the production of ectoplasm using egg whites, cheesecloth and animal fluids, that its reality has been called into serious question and physical manifestations.

The appearance of spirit forms, like the famous example of the ghost of Katie King, was created by medium Florence Cook, was the pinnacle of feats for physical mediums. Very few of them, however, came through an invention of their talents unscathed. Oddly, though, there were a few mediums that were linked to physical manifestations, like the Eddy brothers of Vermont, whose talents remain unexplained even today.

In time, the exposure of many physical mediums using magic tricks to produce their phenomena caused mediumship to fall into disrepute. As the 20th century progressed, physical mediumship became less practiced, and most of the spectacular psychic phenomena associated with people like Daniel Hume disappeared.

That is not to say that there have not been flamboyant, not to mention controversial modern figures claiming to be in contact with the dead. It's just that the modern medium and the modern séance are rather less theatrical than during the golden age of spiritualism. Stories about female ghosts can be found across the globe, and many of these international tales of terror have chilling similarities.

For instance, why do so many places have stories about "women in white" or "vanishing hitchhikers"? These connections make us wonder what universal trauma or shared truth has made these stories take root in our collective consciousness. Regardless, we know one thing for sure: these female phantoms are capable of chilling us to the bone. Step aside, Ghost Bros. These lady wraiths are redefining the scare game.

The Vanishing Hitchhiker. Chances are you've heard this story before and perhaps thought of it uneasily while driving alone late at night. You may have even had an encounter with the vanishing hitchhiker herself. Although the story varies slightly based on the teller, it generally goes something like this: A man is driving alone late at night during a storm when he sees a young, beautiful woman on the side of the road.

concerned for her safety. He gives her a ride and might even offer her his jacket to keep her warm. He drives her to a home, but once they arrive, she disappears. Confused, he rings the doorbell and is told by whoever answers that, yes, a young girl lived there once, but she died years ago in a car accident on a stormy night, much like this one. Kushaki Anna

The Kushakiana, also known as the "slit-mouthed woman," is a Japanese ghost who terrorizes children. She is said to wear a face mask which she removes when she approaches her victim, revealing a smile that has been grotesquely slit. She then asks the child, "Do you think I'm beautiful?" If they answer no, she kills them. If they answer yes, she gives them a mouth just like hers.

The best answer to give the slit-mouthed woman, should you be unfortunate enough to cross her path, just run for your life. Anne Boleyn, the ghost of King Henry VIII's second wife, is said to haunt the Tower of London and surrounding buildings to this day. Given how grievously Anne was mistreated by her husband, it's not surprising her spirit has not been able to rest. The king divorced and beheaded Anne when she did not produce a male heir to the throne.

Henry's fifth wife, Catherine Howard, is also said to haunt the Hampton Court, where she was arrested before being beheaded. The Crying Woman In Latin American folklore, La Llorona, or "Crying Woman," is a weeping entity often found in or around bodies of water. Legend says that she drowned her children to punish her husband for infidelity, and that she killed herself afterwards out of remorse.

To this day, she is believed to walk waterways searching for her lost babies. Some variations of the tale believe La Llorona takes living children that she finds on her wanderings, while other iterations claim that those who hear the ghostly wails will soon die.

There are some commonalities between the legend of La Llorona and female spirits from other cultures, like the Banshees in Gaelic legend or the baby-gobbling demigoddess Lamia from Greek mythology. The Ironed Lady The famous Mexican ghost La Planchada, or the Ironed Lady, is the spirit of a nurse who many claim to have seen at hospitals across Mexico. There are many iterations of her origin story.

Some believe she was killed by a patient. Others say she killed herself after a romance with a doctor ended in tragedy. But La Plinchada may not be a spirit to fear. According to legend, many of the patients that she visits find themselves mysteriously healed the very next day. The Bell Witch The Bell Witch legend is based on ghostly goings-on that were experienced by the Bell family in their home in 1817.

They believed the phenomena they experienced — flying furniture, mysterious noises, frightened animals — were caused by the ghost of a witch named Kate Batts. It was later revealed that Betsy, the Belle's young daughter, caused much of the commotion. But the Belle Witch legend endures to this day and was even a key inspiration for the Blair Witch movie franchise. The White Lady

The White Lady is an iconic female ghost who has been reported in stories across the globe. She is often described as wearing a white, blood-soaked dress and frequents rural areas where tragedy has occurred, doomed to wander forever in torment until she can receive some closure. Bloody Mary

Who among us hasn't tried, or at least heard, of someone trying to conjure Bloody Mary at a sleepover or during a spooky night at summer camp? The enduring legend of Bloody Mary has its roots in several different women: Queen Mary I, a rumored child killer, and a young girl believed to have died in a gruesome train accident. No matter who Bloody Mary is, the rules for summoning her are relatively consistent.

Dim the lights, say her name three times while looking in a mirror, and then wait for the bloodletting to start. Dolly Madison We're not talking tasty snack cakes here. First Lady Dolly Madison played an influential role in making the White House the social center of politics in early America. Legend has it that she continues to take her duties as First Lady seriously to this day.

Her ghosts reportedly frightened gardeners away when they were trying to make changes to a rose garden that Dolly herself had planted. Looking for that perfect Father's Day gift? Ditch the boring polo shirts and barbecue aprons and get him something as unique as he is. Get him a Funko Pop of his very own, customized to look just like him. Whether you're shopping for your favorite fisherman, grill master, amateur golfer,

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Around 2012, my husband and I moved into our very first apartment as newlyweds.

I was super excited because it was in the perfect location, the perfect price, and my college buddy would live on the third floor, which was just above us. The apartment was bright, well-kept, and very clean, nothing out of the ordinary. I can't remember exactly when the weirdness started, but if I had to guess, I'd say probably about a year into our lease, things started to happen.

My husband at the time was in the military, so he would be gone for weeks at a time, and I wasn't afraid to be by myself. Several nights a week, when I would be laying in bed, the most overwhelming sensation would creep over me that I wasn't alone. Not at all. It got to the point that I would have to gather the courage to turn out the lights and then I would bundle up under the covers like a little girl scared of the dark.

I knew it was silly, but I always felt like if I peeked out from under the blanket, I would see someone standing there watching me. This feeling went on for months, almost every night. If I had to get up to pee during the night, I would get this sense of dread. In all places, the bathroom. It was connected to the bedroom, and I would race back to the bed and bury my head under the covers.

I told my husband about it, but there really wasn't much he could do. He kind of brushed it off, understandably. If at night I would get up to get water from the kitchen, if I didn't turn on all the lights, I would run back to bed, lest I turn around and see something behind me. I felt stalked in my own home. This thing had no sense of personal space whatsoever. Soon my husband started to feel watched at night as well.

Then other things started to happen. One day I called my husband to see when he would be released from duty and he said maybe in a couple of hours. I went about my business, folding clothes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man, tall and slender like my husband, standing in the doorway. I turned and started to greet him when I realized nobody was standing there and I had just spoken with my husband.

This awful feeling crept over me and I was so scared I threw myself up against the wall and started screaming, "If you're not from God, go away!" I was terrified. Another time a friend stayed the night and slept on the sofa. A few weeks later they confessed that they got up to get water from the faucet and they saw someone about four feet tall run down the hallway.

Another time, I woke up one morning to hear someone dragging their feet down the hallway. And I shouted, "Who's there?" Nobody responded. But the sound got closer and closer. Then I saw the edge of my bed indent like someone sat down. I screamed and it stopped. I told my husband and he was convinced I was dreaming, but I knew I wasn't.

"Another morning I woke up to see a tall, dark figure in a reddish cape or hood disappear into the floor. At this point I was so used to odd things occurring, I would document it in a journal and keep going with my life. I've always been sensitive to these sorts of things, but this was the most activity I have ever experienced in one place, and I've never experienced it since."

The last year we lived in the apartment, we got our first dog. I still have him even though my husband has now become my ex-husband. Dexter is a very intelligent, very aware dog. If someone is outside, he lets me know. Anyhow, a few months after I got him, he would stare into space, almost as if he was tracking something. I thought maybe it was just a bug or who knows.

Dogs don't see the world like the rest of us, so I didn't worry about it too much. He started to take an interest in the bathroom. He would wander in there, sniffing, and at night he would not sleep in the bed, even when we invited him. Instead, he would lay between me and the bathroom door, right on the edge, almost as if he was guarding me. We also had an extra bedroom adjacent to our master bedroom, and I just hated going in there.

I hated it. I couldn't explain it, but I just felt really unwanted in there. A few times when I went in there to clean it, I would feel what I can only describe as what felt like a psychic assault. I felt like someone was violently screaming at me, sometimes words like "get out." Other times it was just like a shrieking that reminded me of radio static, if that makes any sense.

One evening I was alone, as usual, and things got really weird. He started growling and barking very ferociously, snarling and snapping. A feeling of dread swept over me. Suddenly I felt like I wasn't alone again. I whipped out my iPhone and started filming. In the video you could hear the fear in my voice rising as I struggled to keep my voice steady while I simultaneously tried to get my dog to calm down.

I ended up giving the footage to a friend that worked in video production. I wanted to see if there was anything to it. A few weeks later, my friend called me. He was flabbergasted. "Are you guys trying to punk me? Are you serious right now?" I assured him I wasn't trying to pull one over on him. After a few minutes of trying to get me to tell him what he found, he finally told me he had cleaned up and enhanced the audio, and what I heard chilled me to the bone.

In the audio, you can clearly hear me asking my dog, what is it baby, what's wrong? Directly after that, you can clearly hear a deep, guttural voice mimicking my tone, not once, but twice. And each time my dog would promptly bark in that direction, into the bathroom where I was filming, as if to respond to the thing. I had caught my first EVP.

After that, things were so active that my husband and I called in a paranormal group to investigate our apartment. He couldn't ignore what was going on in our home any longer. They found nothing other than some EMF spikes and I was so crestfallen. I still have that file and the video. Years later, I won't listen to it. I just can't. But I still have it as proof that in the nearly four years we lived there, I was right.

I wasn't alone. The last summer I spent in that apartment, I went to see a psychic. Just for the hell of it. I just wanted some answers, and I was completely at a loss. She told me I had a demon attached to me, but for $3,000 she could get rid of it. Of course she could for a few grand. While I was laying on the table focusing my energies as I had been directed, I felt someone touch my thigh.

It was like a caress from the inside out. I sat straight up and gasped. I was completely alone in the room and all the doors were shut. It was a tiny room, not much larger than a closet, and if someone had been in there with me, I would have most certainly known. It was the oddest thing. The psychic also asked me if I was having any issues in my marriage. I told her no, my marriage was great.

She looked me dead in the eye and said, "You will." Again I brushed her off. What marriage doesn't have issues? As it turned out, unbeknownst to me, my husband was being unfaithful to me, and by that October we had split up. I never went back to that psychic, and I still won't put much stock in her, even though a tiny part of me wonders

As an odd aside, about six months before I moved out, I was wiping down the door frame to the extra bedroom and I found holes that had been painted over. They lined up perfectly and I realized that someone had at one time had a lock of some sort on the outside of the door, as if to keep someone or something trapped in that room.

for the life of me, I couldn't and still can't imagine why you would have a lock like that on the outside of a bedroom door. But I don't think I want to know. That was about three years ago. But as soon as I moved out of that apartment, everything stopped. I no longer felt like I was being watched. I no longer have that feeling of dread at night, and I haven't seen that man since. It all just stopped.

I know something is in that apartment and I was just sensitive enough to be receptive to it. I even did research on the area to see if I could find out if maybe someone had died there. I did find out that a man had hung himself a few buildings over, but that was after I had already been living there. Shakespeare once said, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

I plan on getting that tattooed on me as a reminder to always keep an open mind, to search for the truth, and try to be logical about things, but to remember that sometimes there just doesn't seem to be any other explanation that is logical or scientific. A startling sound that invokes a sense of fear depending upon the time of day or, as in this case, night. The raindrops made a constant pitter-patter on the glass window.

with drops racing each other to reach the bottom of the sill. The cold glass had a foggy appearance on the inside surface, making it difficult to reckon the street lamps casting more shadows on the narrow street below than light. The rain had lasted a little more than a couple of hours now, showing signs of slowing down after emptying its reservoir of water held in the dark clouds hovering miles above. The sudden sound was as unexpected as it was surprising.

Who was out in the rains in the dead of the night hauling objects of such weight? More importantly, it's not another floor above but the roof of the building I'm in, making it all the more mysterious. I felt this urge to go and check, maybe even give a hand. I decided to go for it and check out what was going on right above my head.

Had I known any building or renovation activity was scheduled by the building manager, I wouldn't have batted an eyelid and perhaps tried to sleep given the cool weather after days of sweltering heat and perspiration. I decided to take an umbrella with me, even though the rain had almost died down. Perhaps it would double up as a weapon if need be. The thought of going to check the crash was a grievous mistake now when I come to think of it.

I went from my living room into the kitchen to have a quick drink of water before heading up. As soon as I brought my glass up to my lips and the water made contact, another huge thud reverberated right on top of me and it felt like almost crashing through the ceiling, coming down on me and crushing me. This one felt bigger and heavier than the first and was seemingly following me around.

Clutching the umbrella in one hand and gasping for the staircase railing in the other, I slowly mustered enough grit to climb up and peek through the old wooden door. I did not swing open the door fully, as that made a creaking sound and I wanted to keep my element of stealth. Peeking out, I wasn't able to see anyone or any silhouette right away, and this gave me the courage to let myself fully out onto the rooftop and look around.

I pushed the door open, just enough for me to pass through, and took a step forward. The door was now just behind me, swinging slightly in the cool breeze, and I was standing on the open rooftop. The rain had fizzled down to a drizzle, with intermittent flashes of lightning illuminating the open space laying around me as clear as daylight, albeit for only a moment. Taking steps in a random but cautious manner,

Peering down the corners and below the water tanks, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, the realization dawned on me. The heavy crashing sound felt like it was following me around when I was in my apartment. It came from the living room ceiling when I first heard it sitting on the sofa and then right on top of the kitchen ceiling when I went to have some water. I look up.

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Hello, it is Ryan and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on Chumbacasino.com. I looked over at the person sitting next to me and you know what they were doing? They were also playing Chumbacasino.

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My parents built our home 21 years ago when I was only one. The property was given to us by my uncle in the 80s, but it wasn't until I was born that my parents moved me and my two older siblings out onto the 10-acre plot. It sits in the middle of Pennsylvania, in the middle of nowhere. Before we built our house, we burnt down the existing home sitting at the bottom of the property as it was dilapidated and beyond saving.

So, we moved in and started our life on the property. But through the years, I've come to believe there was another resident that inhabited our place long before we moved in. I can admit now that I was an odd child. Younger than normal, my fascination with ghosts and spooky stories drove me to actively seek out any true stories I could. In all honesty, I think it's because I lived alongside something dark for most of my life.

When I was around five or six was the first time I remember seeing him. I say him because saying it makes him more menacing to me. At the time, I slept with my mother as my parents didn't have the foresight to build another room to accommodate three children. She had a catering job that kept her from coming home until three in the morning and I always attempted to wait up for her. Each time I fell asleep with the lights on and I saw her in the morning.

One night, however, I remember waking up. I sat up and looked around the room. It was still dark and my mom wasn't home, but as my eyes scanned the room, they found him standing at the foot of my bed by the bedroom door. He was shrouded in black and had a white, featureless face. I didn't move and neither did he. He just stood there, watching me.

Even as a child, I thought I must have been seeing wrong, so I quickly lay back down and pulled the covers over my head. That's how things went for me. I saw or heard something and explained it away as my imagination or something reasonable. As I got older, things became harder to deny. It was small things at first. Doors rattling, dogs growling at certain areas of the house, phantom footsteps in the night.

Then, he started becoming bolder. We had a long hallway with an intersection of three doors at the end of it. He would pass from my brother's door on the left to my parents' on the right, touching a shoulder or appearing often in the night when you woke. My parents split up and there was a lot of turmoil in the house, which is why I believe he became emboldened. Things like him feed on negativity, and we were open season for him.

When I was 13, the first thing I couldn't explain away happened. I was waiting for everyone to get home. My dad, his girlfriend, and my sister were all out at the bar. My brother was at a friend's house, which left me alone. I had this theory that if I wasn't alone, nothing weird would happen. That night, I brought in our two outside cats to accompany my dog and rang my friend as I finished up some dishes.

If it wasn't for being on the phone with her, I would just say it was all a dream. It was 12:03 when I finished. I know because I looked at the microwave before turning around. All over the kitchen floor was what I could only describe as blood, pools and splatters everywhere. Immediately I freaked out and assumed my dog slaughtered my cats. I tiptoed over the linoleum and grabbed my dog by his collar.

He only had one spot on his left paw, and it didn't even register at the time that, if it was his doing, he would have had to have drug blood onto the carpeting he sat on. I kicked him outside and made my way to where the cats were. There was a foyer before you left the house, only separated by a door from the kitchen. The door was open, but the red liquid stopped short of the door. Inside, the cats were unharmed, not a spot on them.

Instead of letting panic take over, I did as my friend said and went about cleaning it. My sister walked in halfway through and stumbled past me. She was so drunk she didn't even remember it the next day. I moved out of the house that year. The weirdest part of this happening was almost exactly two years later. My dad's girlfriend had moved in with us and deteriorated into a shell of a woman before taking her own life. She shot herself in the kitchen,

and was found with having shut the foyer door and our lab waiting beside her body. My sister was the first to find her. But as trauma goes, her mind blocked the sight from her memory, nearly identical to what I saw two years prior. Something in me thought that that tragedy was the last of the horrible happenings in our home. I was wrong. And while nothing was as tragic, things did escalate. It wasn't just my brother and I who experienced it.

In later years, our friends started seeing him too. My friend Warren, the skeptic of my friend group, pulled me aside the morning after one movie night and said, "Last night I saw a man standing in the room watching us." As familiar as it sounded, I brushed it off and told him, "You must have seen my dad. He usually walks around to check on us before leaving for work." Warren shook his head. "David and I said goodbye to your dad. This was after." I gave him a stern look

really hoping I could convince him otherwise. "Did you have your glasses on?" "No," Warren said. "You can't see three feet without them. You didn't see anything." Warren frowned. "I know what I saw and I saw a tall, dark man watching us all. I just figured you'd want to know. He wasn't the only one. Most of the people who spent the night at our house would tell me in the morning of the strangest dream: a man standing in the room watching them as they slept. It became too much to deny."

There were many small things, such as the voice that whispered in my ear, "Don't fall asleep" one night as I was watching a movie. But I'll save them for another time and tell the final two things that kept me from sleep. The summer of 2015 was the summer I moved home. I knew nothing had changed and had asked our church to pray over the house to get rid of whatever was inside. They gave me anointing oil and told me to pray over the house every night.

I can tell you this didn't make him happy. That summer was the worst in terms of activity. Constant dread and around every corner were shadows and phantom touches. And then, the one night he took it a step further. My father had just become acquainted with Facebook and so he would wake in the middle of the night to scroll through and watch videos.

I awoke one night to what I figured was the sound of my dad watching his videos and rolled over to shut out the noise. Just then, my bed felt like someone had yanked it from the wall and shoved it back in. My entire bed shook and I was now wide awake. I peered around the room, hoping to see my cat moving about. Then at least I could say the cat could have done it, but instead found an empty room.

I didn't sleep for the rest of the night. The last happening, before it all just stopped, was another night, not too long after the bed-shaking incident. It was around 10:30 and I was sat on my living room floor messing with my makeup. I had my laptop open on the couch and it was just about to fall asleep. You know, the look a laptop gets when the screen goes black like a black mirror

Well, when I leaned over to tap it awake, I stopped mid-motion. In that black mirror, I could see a man, him, standing behind me. He was only from about mid-thigh down, but he was facing me. He slowly turned to the left and took a step or two, walking behind my head, and then another step or two until he was out of the black mirror's sight.

I watched from the corner of my eye waiting for someone to appear beside me, but nothing. Snapping my laptop shut and I turned on the lights in my house, I know what I saw and I was terrified. The next three nights I hardly slept and if I did it was a few spare hours during the day. Luckily nothing went on for the rest of the night and as I continued to pray and hope for the best, eventually all activity faded away.

It's been two years and I thought it was all gone. A few months ago my friends were making the rounds of calling a psychic. I'm a huge skeptic and decided to put her to my own test. I forfeited her calling cost just to disprove her. During her call she described things about my property she had no way of knowing. She'd only gotten my home phone 15 minutes before she called and she only knew my first name.

Another time, I'll write the whole weird story behind our call, but the worst of it was that she told me about our previous resident. It wasn't a living being, she told me after I asked her if she knew anything about what had been in the house. She told me it was an evil entity. She told me her voice smaller than before. It was dark and it fed on your family. It's gone now. You anointed your house, didn't you?

Again, she'd have no way of knowing, shy of a lucky guess. When I confirmed it, she told me, "'Good, that helped. It is dark, and if I'm tuned into it, it can find its way to me, so we aren't speaking any more of it. I suggest you keep your thoughts from it, too. You do not want it coming back into your home.' She said a quick prayer, and we moved on. She could have been pulling the wool over my eyes, and maybe it's my desire to understand what the meaning of it all was,'

Either way, I believe it was dark and haunting, and the things horror movies spawn from. The past two years have been peaceful, but I don't feel that feeling of someone constantly watching me. In the last month, small things started happening again, and while I pray for the best, I worry that, somehow, someway, he is back.

Some time ago, before I met my now wife, she was in a relationship with a violent ex-partner. She told me of an incident that happened to her one night while she was with said partner. My wife had retired to bed and the children were sleeping in the other bedrooms. Her partner had been out all day and was extremely drunk upon his return home. Hearing him downstairs and because of his violent history, my wife was terrified.

Knowing that she was in for a beating, she drew the covers up over her head and pretended to be fast asleep, hoping that he would fall asleep in a drunken state. Unfortunately, he decided it was worth waking my wife up and abusing her violently. Fearing the worst, my wife stifled her cries, hoping that the children would not wake and bear witness to his violent ways. As he lunged for her, his hands went around my wife's neck, slowly strangling her.

She thought that this was the end, that he would kill her there in her bed. She then started to pray in her mind that her nan protect her from this man, and she told me that everything started to turn white. Then, just before she passed out, she saw what she described as the ghost of her nan walk up to the bed and remove her ex-partner's hands from around her neck and lay him down next to her. He fell asleep instantly.

My wife got up, grabbed the kids and made her way to her mom's house. Upon leaving the house at 3 a.m. in the morning, she noticed a butterfly in the hallway, and as she opened the door, the butterfly left with her. Her nan loved butterflies when she was alive, and my wife saw this as a sign to tell her that everything would be fine.

Soon after that, she gathered enough strength and courage to leave him and start a new life, independent and free from violence. I met her soon after that, and I teach our children that they should always respect people, men and women, but never raise your fist to a woman. I believe that night my wife's nan, in spirit form, saved her life.

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Looking for that perfect Father's Day gift? Ditch the boring polo shirts and barbecue aprons and get him something as unique as he is. Get him a Funko Pop of his very own, customized to look just like him. Whether you're shopping for your favorite fisherman, grill master, amateur golfer, or just the world's greatest dad, we've got all the fun accessories to make your figure come to life. Build the perfect gift at Funko.com.

Pop yourself. Visit Funko.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 I will never be the same after what happened during that trip in the woods. Maybe talking about it or writing it down will somehow change things. I can only hope. It was a nice fall weekend coming up,

My brother and I had already made plans to go camping off the Appalachian Trail near an old mining town buried deep into the woods. After some phone calls to a few friends, we had ourselves a camping trip. Now, in the past, these trips have turned out to be quite comical to say the least. Our camping gear consists of tents, sleeping bags, and all the beer you can manage to carry on a three-mile hike up the mountain. This trip was going to be a good one.

We invited the most rowdy friends we could find. A collection of friends that was bound to deliver a good time. One of the rowdies was a co-worker of mine. When it came to drinking, he did a lot and he was sure to bring us some entertainment. His name is Joe. We've only been working together for a couple of years, but I thought if this trip were going to be complete, we needed Joe. After I brought it up to Joe, he told me that he'd never been camping and wouldn't have any camping gear to bring along.

I thought about it for a second and realized that if he didn't go, we might stand a chance of missing out on a lot of laughs. So I told him, "I have a spare sleeping bag and backpack and you can just stay in my tent." I knew that it was a good sign that Joe would go with us when he said, "What about the beer?" "That's not a problem. We'll take two trips if we have to." We both kind of laughed about that and planned our trip.

We could pack light on food and heavy on beer because we were only staying one night, Saturday to Sunday. On the way to the camp, I told Joe a little about the history of the spot where we were going to spend the night. It was once an old coal mining town with a couple thousand residents. Unfortunately for them, it was also sacred grounds for the local Indian tribe that roamed the hills. Of course, the Indians didn't allow anyone, not even their own, to reside on the sacred ground.

So, there were many massacres brought on by the Indians. There are still ancient Indian tombs spread across this land as well as an old cemetery left by the slain settlers. This area has always been known to have a curse on it, so they say. We've been coming here for a few years and never had any problems, but it makes for good campfire tales. We finally made it to camp

As the hours went by and the night grew darker, everybody was at true form. The regular rowdies were doing their job at keeping us entertained, as was Joe. Actually, I must say Joe was leading the pack. I never would have thought that he would get that drunk. All good things do have to come to an end, and around 1 o'clock in the morning, they did. Joe was drunker than I've ever seen him.

Unfortunately, Joe is now my problem. He's in my tent and unable to get himself into his sleeping bag. I'm now beginning to wish he were in one of the other tents. He's asking me stupid questions and making comments that make absolutely no sense. "Mike, Mike, these are my glasses and they'll be right beside me." "Okay Joe, that's fine, now go to sleep." His eyes were glassed over and bloodshot from the many beers and whiskey shots

His speech is slurred and staggered. "Mike, I can't see if my glasses are broke. Charlie will watch them too for me." "Oh man, Joe, did you just say Charlie? You must be drunk. No Charlie here, man, just you and me. That's it. You can talk all you want, I'm going to sleep." I stuffed myself down into my mummy-style sleeping bag, pulled all the necessary rip cords, and zipped up the side.

I guess they call them mummy sleeping bags because after they're all zipped up and pulled tight, you're wrapped up like a mummy with only your face sticking out, nearly impossible to get out of quickly. I've often worried about a bear attack or something like that. It'd take me a few seconds just to get an arm free to try and reach my pistol I have stuffed against the outside of my sleeping bag.

"Oh, Charlie'll be here. He's always here. At night. He watches. You know, he's my friend." Joe's voice started to slur even more as he started to doze off. My imagination can run away from me at times, and I personally didn't like the talk of this "Charlie" character. I've always had an eerie feeling about this place because of its history and because of how dark and quiet it gets.

Ironically, these are the same reasons I come here. The moonlit sky made for a perfect nightlight, giving you just enough grey contrast to bring images to shape. I also dozed off into the night, into a deep sleep. Suddenly, I was woken. Something was tapping on my shoulder. I was startled when I opened my eyes and saw a black silhouette hovering above me. "Mike, I have to take a piss."

"What the hell do you want? I was sleeping, Joe! What the hell?" I yelled. "I can't see. I can't get out of the tent." Joe's voice was still slurred even though we'd been sleeping for a few hours. "Why don't you put on your glasses?" "I don't know where they went." I scrambled to get out of the sleeping bag I was cocooned in. "Okay, Joe." I unzipped the tent opening.

"This is the last time I'm going to do this. Don't wake me again. As far as I'm concerned, you could piss yourself." "Sorry, Charlie woke me up. He said I had to go piss." I stared at Joe. "What are you talking about? Who the fuck is Charlie?" "He's right there," Joe began to point to the back of the tent. "In the corner." My eyes lit up. I was suddenly wide awake as I quickly turned and looked in the corner.

There, in the corner, was nothing but a backpack. I turned back to Joe. "Joe, just go piss. I'm going to sleep. There's nothing in that corner." "No, he was here. He woke me up. He said I should go piss." "Joe, here's your glasses." I picked them up from the end of his sleeping bag. "Let yourself back in. I'm going to sleep." I crawled back into my sleeping bag. It was much cooler now as the night grew longer.

I zipped up the sides, pulled on the cords and latched the velcro straps over. This entire process takes a minute or two and it's very tiresome, especially when you just want to go to sleep. I'm definitely not getting out of this bag again tonight. I'm lying in my bag and Joe is so close to the tent he sounds like he's pissing on it. "He better not be," I say quietly to myself. Outside, I can hear Joe slurring away. He's talking to himself.

Half of it I can't even make out. I try to listen closer. I figure it could make for a few good laughs later on. "I got up to piss, that's why – hey, you know – hey, there you are. I thought you were in the tent. I'm fine. He helped me out. You're always so angry, Charlie." Joe starts to come back into the tent. He makes a lot of noise getting back into his sleeping bag.

I pretend I'm asleep. It's very dark in here, so wonder Joe doesn't fall right on me as drunk as he is. He's doing some more muttering the whole way in. He finally gets himself situated. I swear he's gonna kick me right in the head with his feet they're so close. I can hear the plastic tarp that the tent flooring's made of crinkling beside my ear. "Charlie?" Joe says. "Get over here. Leave him alone now. He's trying to sleep."

Then suddenly I hear the pitter-patter of feet, or something that sounds like it, scurrying from beside my head down to Joe's. Many things are running through my head. Is Joe just finally getting to me? Am I hearing things? Could there be a rodent in the tent and Joe's too drunk to realize that it's not Charlie but a fucking mouse or something? Joe continues to talk to himself. "'What? I'm fine. He's not that bad.'

I listen as closely as I can. Why does he sound like he's in some kind of conversation? As I listen, I hear something. Something I can't possibly be hearing. A voice. Faint, but still a voice other than Joe's. As I listen in fright, it becomes more and more audible. Joe's not talking to himself. There's somebody there. Somebody talking to him. "Where are my glasses now? I think I lost them again."

Joe says in a calm, quiet voice. The faint voice answers back, "They are here, beside you," in a raspy sort of tone. "Oh, okay. I just don't want them to be stepped on," Joe says. The faint voice replies, "He shouldn't be here." Terror ran down my spine. I can't be hearing what I'm hearing. I didn't want to move or make a sound.

I tried to slowly turn my head to where I could see the end of the tent where Joe was lying. To my fright, beside Joe was a black figure. Very small. It couldn't have been more than a foot or two high. Very thin, maybe crouched down with a small head. It didn't look human or animal, but it was speaking, and what it was saying was terrifying. Joe continued to speak. I know, I know. I'm drunk, but I'm just...

Joe's voice began to fade as if he were falling back to sleep. The creature's voice came in. "Let me kill him!" I couldn't move. The fear ran through me and paralyzed every muscle in my body. Even my thoughts stopped for that brief moment. Joe replied in a comical manner, "Okay, Charlie." Joe giggled a little. "You do that then. I'm going to go to sleep now." As that was said, before I could move a muscle, the creature darted over to my head.

The patter of its feet made it seem as though it ran over on all fours. I squeezed my eyes shut tight. My heart was racing. I tried to breathe slowly. The creature, now beside my head, spoke again. This time it wasn't so faint. It was directly in my ear. "I think he is awake." I could barely hold it all back. My body began to tremble. I could now hear the creature breathing, but I couldn't feel its breath.

The breathing seemed to get more intense and eventually started to sound like a faint growl, an evil growl, as if it were getting ready to attack. I was trapped within the bindings and velcro of the mummy sleeping bag. I'd never be able to get an arm free in time to defend myself. All I could think of is how I was going to get out of this tent. The others were nearby, but by the time they would wake up, it would probably be too late.

As the creature seemed to get closer to my face and louder with its breathing, suddenly all muscles that once seemed to be totally paralyzed twitched and I sat straight up in my sleeping bag and screamed out as loud as I could. I was frantically tearing and pulling at the Velcro and zippers. Finally, something gave way with a loud rip and I was free.

I tore open the tent door and went running across the camp to the next nearest tent. I quickly opened the other tent and startled my brother who must have thought that he was being attacked himself. I leaped inside and grabbed his shotgun from the tent floor. I aimed out of the tent's opening, out into the dark forest waiting for sign of the creature's approach. "What the fuck's out there?" my brother asked. He looked as scared as I was without even knowing what had just happened.

My jaw was trembling, and I could barely speak. "'There a fucking bear out there? Where's Joe?' "'It's no fucking bear,' I answered. "'Where's your damn gun?' my brother asked. "'It's in my tent, still, with Joe.' "'You let Joe handle that gun? He's liable to shoot us,' he said. I haven't seen or heard the creature yet, but I find it hard to believe that I made it out of there without a scratch. I wasn't that quick on getting out of there."

The creature would have had plenty of time to attack if it wanted. "Mike," my brother says, "what's going on? Is there something out there or not?" I slowly began to lower the end of the shotgun barrel. "You're not going to believe this shit, but something was in the tent with me and Joe. Joe knows about it. It wanted to kill me and it's not human, it's some kind of creature." "What?" "Show me." "I'll show you, but you go first. I'm staying in here tonight, that's for sure."

"Okay, whatever, let's go check this out." We climb out of the tent. It's about 4 o'clock in the morning and the cool air makes a low fog roll across the ground. We approach my tent very slowly. The tent's door is hanging open. It is eerily quiet inside. I thought for sure that Joe would have awakened from all of the commotion and screaming. I stayed outside while my brother stuck his head inside the tent's opening.

I was expecting that Joe was dead or something was about to jump out of the tent onto my brother's head, but my brother turned to me and said, "Nothing in here but Joe sound asleep." "Then it must be out here. It was out here earlier with Joe." I looked around the camp hoping to see it, so I knew where it was. "Grab my gun for me and my sleeping bag. I'm staying in your tent," I said, grasping the shotgun tight.

With my gun and my sleeping bag, we walked back to my brother's tent. I had left the tent door open and the cool mist rolled inside the open flap. I stopped, dead in my tracks. "What's wrong with you?" my brother asked. "What if the creature climbed inside while we were out here?" I said. "Come on! There's nothing here!" He began to climb inside the tent. I wasn't going to hang around outside by myself, so I jumped inside and zipped up the door.

I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. While my brother dozed off, I sat straight up with gun in hand looking around the tent for the next two and a half hours waiting for daylight. Eventually, first light came and I crawled outside. The world looks different when illuminated by the sun. Not so eerie. I made a fire and the smell of the smoke eventually woke everyone up, even Joe. Joe crawled out of the tent like he had just been mugged in the alley

He was very pale and very hungover. He walked over towards me and stood by the fire. "What happened to the tent door?" Joe asked. "Are you serious?" I asked him. "Yeah. Why, did I do that?" "No, but don't you remember anything about last night?" "Not really. Not a whole lot. What did I do?" I couldn't believe that he had no recollection of what happened last night. I was almost afraid to ask him about "you know who"

But I had to know what was going on. I know what I saw and heard. Let me ask you this, Joe. Does Charlie ring a bell? Joe mutters, a little under his breath. Charlie? Charlie? No. Who's Charlie? Joe asks. And now I'm starting to get angry. I know I'm not losing it, and I wasn't that drunk. You gotta be shitting me, Joe. You know who Charlie is. You talked about him last night. He was in the tent last night. Now what the fuck?

Joe started to look down and really seemed to think about it. Then suddenly his face lit up and he began to smile. "Oh, okay, okay, you mean that Charlie, the invisible Charlie you mean?" I almost couldn't believe that he said that. For a moment I didn't want it to be real. Reality seemed harder to handle than the fact that I might be going crazy. I answered back, "Yeah, that's what I mean. What the fuck is Charlie? He tried to kill me." "Okay."

Joe looked at me like he thought I was the crazy one. "Charlie, if we're talking about the same Charlie, he's an imaginary friend I used to have when I was a kid. My wife told me I start talking to him in my sleep still occasionally and when I'm drunk sometimes. It all starts to make sense to me now, all except for the part of 'imaginary.' "He was definitely not imaginary last night," I said.

Joe begins to laugh. "What are you talking about?" "Tell me, Joe, what does your imaginary friend look like? Or should I describe him?" "I don't know. I guess he was just a little boy, so I could have a friend when I was little," Joe says. "I don't know exactly what happened that night, but till this day I haven't camped with Joe or at the old coal mining town. No one really ever believed my story, especially not Joe, and I don't blame them.

Could it have been just my imagination? Or could Joe's imaginary boyhood friend have been morphed and brought to life by the same Indian curse that is supposed to haunt the land we camped on, a curse that can bring your worst fears to life?

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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.

Monsters, myths, mysteries, mirth, and more every Monday with Mind of Marlar. I like alliteration, can you tell? You can find a list of where you can subscribe to the podcast at WeirdDarkness.com under the menu tab for podcasts. 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.

This is the Zodiac speaking. With those words written in a letter to the San Francisco Examiner, a killer was christened and a mystery born that continues to this day. The letter received by the newspaper on August 4th, 1969 was claiming credit for two sets of recent murders in the Bay Area around San Francisco. It was the second letter from someone claiming to be the killer

But this time, he gave himself his soon-to-be legendary name, the Zodiac. More murders would follow, along with more letters to local newspapers and police. The Zodiac's terrible crimes were being publicly played out in the nation's newspapers, with each twist and turn holding the American public under a grim spell. And then he stopped.

Less than a year after his first murder, the Zodiac Killer simply stopped killing. But that is, of course, by no means the end of the story. Less than a year after his first murder, the Zodiac Killer simply stopped killing.

The letters continued, filled with boasts and taunts, and other murders would occasionally be linked to the Zodiac, but, officially at least, he seemed to have had his fill of killing. At the time of the original police investigation, some detectives were skeptical the crimes were related, but mainly on account of the letters. The general consensus was that a serial killer was at work around San Francisco.

But despite the conviction they were after one man, the police departments of multiple jurisdictions were unable to develop a credible suspect. To date, the identity of the Zodiac Killer remains a mystery, one that continues to provoke fierce speculation and debate in books, documentaries, and online forums.

A mind-boggling number of suspects have been suggested, and it has almost become a national pastime in America to claim the Zodiac was a deceased family member. Fathers, brothers and uncles all suggested by relatives as the killer, often with accompanying books selling their theory. Author Thomas Horan has built on the suspicions of some of the original investigators that the crimes were not connected.

to suggest the Zodiac Killer never actually existed. If, as Horne surmises, the letters attributed to the killer were not genuine, then suddenly there is very little reason to believe the murders were even related. Could the Zodiac Killer himself, vividly conjured up in a series of letters to San Francisco Bay Area newspapers, really be an invention of an enterprising journalist keen to keep a sensational case on the front pages?

or the warped game of a hoaxer? If so, the truth behind this most mysterious of unsolved crimes would be a mundane one. If properly examined, does the reality of the Zodiac Killer really dissolve into fiction? To find out, we must first summarize the purported facts of the case.

According to the official story, the Zodiac's murders began in late 1968 with the Christmastime murders of teenagers Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday on December 20 at Lake Herman Road near Benicia, a small city in Salino County, California.

At approximately 11 p.m., an unknown assailant with a .22 semi-automatic pistol shot Faraday once in the head and Jensen five times in the back. Both died almost instantly, and there were no signs of sexual molestation or robbery.

Six months later, at around midnight the evening of July 4, a gunman shot 22-year-old Darlene Ferron and 19-year-old Mike Majoe in a parking lot at Blue Rock Springs Park in Vallejo, four miles away from the Lake Herman Road attack. Darlene Ferron was shot five times and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Majoe survived, despite being shot four times in the face, neck, and chest.

Like the previous murders, there were no witnesses and no signs of robbery. Around 40 minutes later, a man called the Vallejo Police Department to claim responsibility for the shooting, telling the police switchboard operator Nancy Slover that he shot the kids with a 9mm Luger. The caller also stated he killed those kids last year, a seeming reference to the Lake Herman Road murders.

On July 31, someone claiming to be the killer sent three near-identical letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, and Vallejo Times declaring responsibility for both sets of murders.

Alongside the letters was a cryptogram, which when eventually broken revealed a rambling message that stated how its writer liked killing people because it is so much fun and to kill something gives me the most thrilling experience. A similar letter by the same writer was received by the San Francisco Examiner on August 4th that offered more details the writer claimed proved he was the killer.

In this letter, the writer christens himself the Zodiac. On September 27, 1969, Brian Hartnell and Cecilia Shepard were tied up and stabbed multiple times by a man on the shore of Lake Berryessa near Napa, California. Shepard died two days later in the hospital, but Hartnell survived and was able to give a description of his attacker.

According to Hartnell, the man wore a strange costume, a black hood and bib, and claimed to be an escaped convict. Tying the pair up, he stabbed both of them repeatedly, then hiked a quarter of a mile to where the pair had parked their car and left a message on their door. The message contained the dates of both this and the previous two attacks, and the murder weapon used in each. It was signed, with the same Circle Crosshair logo present on the letters.

About 90 minutes later, someone phoned the Napa County Sheriff's Office to claim responsibility for the attack. On October 11, 1969, at around 10:00 p.m., cab driver Paul Stein was shot to death by his passenger in the Presidio Heights district of San Francisco. The killer took Stein's wallet and keys, wiped down some of the blood from the cab, and fled as police arrived.

Two days later, a letter was received by the San Francisco Chronicle claiming responsibility for the murder. Alongside the letter, the writer included a piece of Paul Stein's bloody shirt offered as proof that he was really responsible. Primarily because of the letters, police believed these five murders were committed by the man calling himself the Zodiac.

But despite a massive investigation across multiple police departments, the case was never solved, and the identity of the killer remains unknown to this day. Dozens, if not hundreds, of different theories have been put forward over the years as to the identity of the Zodiac Killer, but to date nobody has ever been able to put together a particularly convincing case against anyone that withstands close scrutiny.

Of all these theories, the one that has gained the most traction amongst the public originates with Robert Graysmith, a true crime writer who worked as a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle during the Zodiac murders. In Graysmith's 1986 book, Zodiac, and its sequel, Zodiac Unmasked, the author singles out Arthur Lee Allen as the Zodiac.

Allen was a convicted child molester who was briefly considered a suspect in 1969 but dismissed by the police because they were unable to find any evidence linking him to the murders. Despite Grace Smith's persistent accusations against Allen, repeatedly made in television interviews, he was almost certainly not the Zodiac. DNA tests on one of the letters did not match him, nor did a handprint found on another.

Handwriting experts could also find no match between extensive examples of Allen's handwriting and the Zodiac letters. Since its publication, many experts on the case have thoroughly dismantled Graysmith's book, exposing it as a mixture of myths, half-truths, and inventions concocted to present a non-existent case against an innocent man.

Despite the falsity of Robert Graysmith's claims, it has not stopped them from becoming the dominant modern narrative about the Zodiac case, used as the source for countless documentaries and other books. It was also the basis of a 2007 film about the case by director David Fincher. With the failure of anyone to find any credible suspects in the case,

Could the theory that the Zodiac Killer was some kind of hoax be correct, and the murders attributed to him unrelated? If not for the letters and phone calls attributed to the Zodiac Killer, it is doubtful the five murders the killer claimed responsibility for would have ever been linked by the police.

Whilst the Lake Herman Road and Lake Berryessa attacks were committed against young couples, the Blue Rocks Springs victims were not a couple. Nor were they, as is often reported, in a lover's lane area. Darlene Farron and Mike Madgeau were actually attacked in a busy parking lot close to a main road, with cars coming and going around them.

This was a high-risk location for murder and a far cry from the remote beauty spots where the Zodiac made two of his purported attacks. The third attack at Lake Berryessa is also quite different in style to the previous two sets of murders. Here, for the one and only time, the Zodiac wears a disguise.

a black executioner's hood with sunglasses over the eyeholes, and a bib over his chest with the now-familiar cross-circle symbol painted on it. Whilst laying on the Zodiac imagery thick, he also spends a great deal of time talking with his victims, something he is not known to have done in any of the other murders. This is also the only known attack where he ties up his victims. 29-year-old Paul Stein was the Zodiac's last victim.

robbed and murdered while driving his cab in the middle of a San Francisco street, as bystanders looked on. This attack appears least like the others attributed to the Zodiac, and would have undoubtedly been dismissed as an all-too-common robbery gone wrong if not for the letter writer's own claims to responsibility. All of these seemingly disparate attacks used a different murder weapon.

The first murders at Lake Herman Road were thought to have been committed with a .22 automatic pistol. The assailant of Paul Stein and at Blue Rock Springs used different 9mm semi-automatics, and the victims at Lake Berryessa were stabbed with a long knife. There was no matching ballistics in any of the crimes attributed to the Zodiac, nor any other solid forensic evidence that linked them.

Although fingerprints and palm prints were lifted at several of the crime scenes, none of them ever matched each other. To all intents and purposes, these appeared to be unrelated murders. Could it be that the Zodiac was not a genuine murderer, but a warped hoaxer claiming credit for unrelated crimes? Or separate criminals adopting the Zodiac's widely publicized persona as a kind of alibi?

Clearly, if you commit a crime, then blame it on an uncaught, high-profile serial killer, a serial killer that could not possibly be you, then you've created a cast-iron alibi for the crime that you did commit. Although rarely mentioned in the numerous documentaries on the subject or Robert Graysmith's books, there were strong alternative suspects in several of the individual crimes that were attributed to the Zodiac.

Salina County investigators at the time had good reason to believe the first attack at Lake Herman Road was drug-related. Two informants in jail for a similar crime the year before pointed to a drug-dealing associate of theirs named David Wally Ott as the shooter of Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday.

Police had some corroboration of this ID from another witness and a confirmed account of a confrontation between Faraday and another drug dealer in which Faraday had threatened to turn him into the police. Such drug and gang-related violence was all too common in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 60s. Ten people had been murdered in the previous year alone,

If the Zodiac had not effectively ended the investigation by claiming credit for Jensen and Faraday's deaths, other credible, albeit far less sensational suspects may very well have been found. There was also a plethora of possible alternative suspects in the Blue Rock Springs attack on Farron and Majau, including a rogue cop.

the same drug gangs that may have been involved in the late Kerman Road murders, and Darlene Farron's ex-husband, James Phillips Crabtree. If the murder of Farron had never been linked to the Zodiac, Crabtree, as her estranged ex-husband, would have been a prime suspect. The pair's relationship was acrimonious and violent, and even after Farron's tragic death, Crabtree would continue to talk about her in the most bitter and degrading terms.

He was also arrested shortly after her death in the possession of a handgun, similar to the one used in the murder. Despite the fact that it would have been routine for Crabtree to have been considered a prime suspect, amazingly, it wasn't until months later that the police briefly looked into him in connection with Farron's murder. Such was the power that the idea of a Zodiac killer had on the police investigation. If Crabtree was Farron's murderer,

What about the letters? Two factors tentatively suggest the possibility he may have written at least some of the earlier ones. As a trained cryptographer, Crabtree had the credentials to have written the ciphers contained in the Zodiac's first letters. He also uses the Zodiac's trademark circle crosshairs symbol in a postcard he wrote to an occult bookshop in England sometime in 1969.

It's not clear whether this was posted before or after the symbol appears in the letters, but either way, it's striking. Whilst there is little to suggest Crabtree was responsible for any of the other murders, could he have written the letters and added Jensen and Faraday as fictional Zodiac victims to act as a kind of alibi for himself in the murder of Darlene Farron?

It has long been speculated that the third attack at Lake Berryessa may have been a copycat, a twisted and disturbed person taking on the persona of the Zodiac as reported so vividly in the media during the previous weeks.

Whilst the killer at Lake Mariesa uses the Zodiac's logo and writes a Zodiac-like message on the car door, everything else about the attack only bears a superficial resemblance to the Zodiac's previously alleged murders. This is also the only attack the writer of the letters never mentions. Somewhat odd, considering his primary motive always appeared to be taking public credit for his work.

The change of killing method also singles out Lake Berryessa as unusual. Whilst by no means unprecedented for a serial killer to change murder technique, moving from shooting to stabbing is quite rare. Shooting is an impersonal and clinical method of killing, giving the gunman a degree of control and distance from the crime. Stabbing, however, is up close, messy, and personal. The murderer gets his victim's blood on his hands.

The contrast between the two methods reveals a very different pathology in the killer, and quite possibly a different killer altogether. There are other problems in the Lake Berryessa attack. Although the Zodiac left a message on the car door of his victims, no trace of blood is present on the door, despite the fact he had conducted a frenzied knife attack, stabbing Hartnell and Shepherd a total of 16 times just moments before.

How had the killer managed to so thoroughly clean his hands? The handwriting on the car door also shows some distinct differences between the writing evident in the Zodiac letters, although these could be accounted for by the unusual angle he may have had to adopt to write on the door. Either way, it cannot reliably be tied to the real Zodiac in either form or content with any certainty.

The last murder attributed to the Zodiac Killer was cab driver Paul Stein. Like many of the previous attacks, this would no doubt have been treated by the police as a routine, entirely unrelated crime if it were not for the Zodiac's claims of responsibility. Stein had been shot and robbed of his wallet, reminiscent of a spate of other cab robberies that had plagued the area around that time.

Eyewitnesses who saw the killer leave the cab described the assailant as a white man with a crew cut and glasses, ages 25 to 30. This was one of only two descriptions we can reliably assume were of the killer, but the other, from surviving Zodiac victim Mike Maggio, describes a shooter who did not wear glasses and had short, curly hair, not a crew cut.

Stein's killer, whoever it was, certainly appeared to be someone other than the person who wrote the letters. In an anniversary special on the Zodiac killings published in 1991, the Napa Times reported that a bloody fingerprint from the Stein cab did not match latent prints lifted off the letters.

Again, none of the forensic evidence gathered from the Stein murder scene, the prints, or the ballistics provided any link at all to any of the other crimes attributed to the Zodiac. Only the claims of responsibility in a series of letters sent to local newspapers by someone calling themselves the Zodiac and a couple of phone calls to the police provided any links between the crimes. But just how believable are these?

The first problem with the Zodiac letters starts right at the beginning, with the two murders at Lake Kerman Road in late 1968. For a killer so keen to take credit for and boast about his actions, it takes him more than six months to make any mention of these murders. The first brief reference is a phone call made to the police shortly after the second attack on Darlene Farron and Mike Majow,

in which he states, "I want to report a murder. If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway you will find kids in a brown car. They were shot with a 9mm Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye." Whilst he offers nothing that can corroborate his claim to be responsible for the December murders, he does provide one checkable fact for the July 4th attack: that he used a 9mm Luger.

For anyone who had discussed the matter with detectives, overheard police transmissions, or been around the murder scene, it was a reasonable assumption that Farron was killed with a Luger because of the bullets and shells found by police. But subsequent analysis by ballistics experts found that the murder weapon was not a Luger, but a similar semi-automatic pistol that took the same ammunition, a Browning High Power.

On the night of the call, this fact was only known to the true killer, and the caller appeared unaware of it. Clearly, the phone call itself provided no compelling evidence that the caller was responsible for the December and July 4 murders, and actually tended to argue against the idea. In the first letter sent to Bay Area newspapers on July 31, the writer provides evidence that he says proves he was responsible for the Lake Herman Road and Darlene Farron murders.

Vallejo Police Chief Jack Stiltz was, however, unconvinced. Talking to reporters, Stiltz said that the writer had demonstrated no knowledge that could not have been gleaned from the newspapers or by overhearing police chatter. Hoax letters, phone calls, and even false confessions are a depressingly familiar prospect for any major police department caught in the middle of a high-profile case, and Stiltz's skepticism was warranted.

A few days later, the writer tries again. In this second letter, mailed to the examiner, he tells a fanciful tale about taping a torch to his gun in the December murders, but offers no other details that might prove he was the real killer, such as what clothes his victims were wearing, something not reported in the newspapers.

He offers more information about the murder of Darlene Farrin, claiming that he shot Mike Majau in the knee and did not, as reported in the papers, leave the scene at high speed with tires squealing, instead leaving slowly so as to not draw attention to himself. Both of these "facts" offered by the writer, now calling himself the Zodiac, appear to be wrong.

Mike Majow was not shot in the knee, and both he and other witnesses did describe the shooter as leaving the scene at high speed, with engine racing and tires squealing. The writer of these first two letters do appear to be the same person, but nothing contained in them genuinely provided any arguable evidence that he was the true perpetrator of the two attacks, or even anything that could not have been learnt from other sources.

The next canonical Zodiac attack came at Lake Berryessa in September. Curiously, the assailant there had become somewhat shy, not only hiding behind his bizarre Zodiac disguise, but failing to write any letters boasting about his actions. He does, however, leave a message on the victim's car door consisting of the dates of the previous attacks and the latest one signed with the Zodiac's crosshair logo.

Shortly later, someone phoned the Napa police claiming the credit for the double murder, but offered no information, only known to the killer. Likewise, the car door message contains nothing about the previous attacks not already in public domain and only bears a superficial resemblance to the handwriting from the letters. Tellingly, the writer does not seem to know his own name, Zodiac.

This would be understandable if the writer was a hoaxer since that fact had not yet been publicly revealed by the police. Everything about the Lake Berryessa murders suggests a copycat attack by someone other than the writer of the letters, and the car door message and phone call provide no evidence to suggest otherwise.

When the letter from the Zodiac appeared on October 13 claiming credit for the murder of cab driver Paul Stein, the police were surprised as they had believed the killing was simply a robbery murder, just like the spate of similar crimes against cab drivers that had plagued the city all year. The text of the Zodiac's October 13 letter makes several dubious claims and contains no insights that would prove it was the true killer of Stein.

San Francisco Police Inspector Martin Lee was unimpressed by the Zodiac's latest correspondence. "His boast of being in the area we were searching while we were searching it is a lie," Lee said in a San Francisco Chronicle report on the case. The article further stated that detectives were well aware that many of the Zodiac's previous claims were also lies.

This latest letter could easily be dismissed as another hoax, if not for a piece of bloody cloth seemingly ripped by the killer from Paul Stein's shirt sent alongside the letter to the Chronicle. Of all the evidence offered by the writer of the letters, this was by far the most convincing. Whilst the piece of shirt did nothing to prove the Zodiac was responsible for earlier murders, it certainly seems compelling evidence he must have killed Stein.

But could the writer have acquired the bloody shirt some other way? The possibility that someone, a cop, a reporter, or someone else with insider connections had somehow managed to obtain the shirt piece after the murder cannot be overlooked. It would not be the first time that police investigations had been breached like this.

The history of crime detection is replete with hoaxers and frauds that have managed to garner what looked like insider information only the killer could have known. There are numerous examples of murder investigations being derailed by hoaxers who seem to have information that convinces the police they must be the real killer. The granddaddy of all serial killer cases, Jack the Ripper, contains several parallels with the Zodiac case,

Like the Zodiac, Jack gave himself his famous name in a taunting letter he wrote to the police. Several other letters were written by someone claiming to be Jack, a serial murderer of prostitutes in Whitechapel, London in 1888. Some of these letters contained details that appeared to show the writer new details of the crime scenes not generally known,

Another was even accompanied, like the Stein shirt, by a piece of physical evidence, a human kidney said to have come from the Ripper's fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes. Today, the majority of Ripper historians believe all of the letters attributed to Jack the Ripper are hoaxes.

Indeed, whilst the murders were of course very real, the character of Jack the Ripper evoked in the letters was a fictional creation, probably dreamt up by journalist Thomas Bulling in order to keep the lurid case on the front pages.

it's quite possible Bulling was able to insert authentic-sounding facts into some of the letters by his associations with rogue police detectives, the incestuous two-way sharing of information between the press and the police as prevalent then as it is in today's tabloid world. Could the Zodiac letters be the creation of an enterprising 1960s equivalent of Thomas Bulling?

Could the authentic details in the letters have been given to him by his contacts in the police department? Other examples indicate insider contacts in the police are not necessary for a hoaxer to create a convincing facsimile of a real killer.

In the late 1970s, in Northern England, police were closing in on a serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe, when a hoaxer managed to deflect the investigation down a cul-de-sac which probably cost at least three women their lives. Dubbed "Wareside Jack," John Samuel Humble sent letters and an audio tape to the Yorkshire police that convinced them he had knowledge only the real killer could have known.

Because of this, and Humble's strong "Wareside" accent, the whole investigation was moved away from West Yorkshire, where Sutcliffe operated, to the northeast of England. In actual fact, Humble had no inside information, he just read the papers and paid attention. Because of the size and complexity of the inquiry, police had simply become unaware of what information had and had not become public.

Humble was finally caught 24 years later and sentenced to eight years for perverting the course of justice. A contemporary serial killer case to the Zodiac is that of Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler. DeSalvo confessed to all 13 murders attributed to the Strangler and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1967, just a year before the Zodiac murders began.

Despite the conviction, there is growing belief amongst forensic investigators that DeSalvo was innocent of at least some of the murders, and as a compulsive liar, was able to insert convincing-sounding but erroneous information into his confessions to fool the police.

Crime author Casey Sherman believes some of the younger victims may have been unrelated murders disguised by the perpetrators to look like strangler murders to provide them with an alibi, a suspicion echoed in the Zodiac case. Despite the vast number of differing theories as to the identity of the Zodiac killer, most of them agree on one thing, that a single individual committed the murders, made the phone calls, and wrote the letters attributed to the Zodiac.

A certain baseline of generally uncontested assumptions exists that are accepted by most theorists and even the original investigators in the case. If they're true, then it makes the idea that the Zodiac Killer was a hoax or never really existed hard to countenance.

Law enforcement at the time, and most theorists today, believe that the writer of the letters and the individual who wrote the message on the car door of the victims at Lake Berryessa were the same person, due to handwriting matches made by experts like Sherwood Morrill. If the letter writer really was a hoaxer rather than a murderer, then he would have had to have somehow stumbled upon the Lake Berryessa crime scene by chance in order to be present to write on the car door.

which seems unlikely. Furthermore, unless he had inside help from the police, the letter writer almost certainly murdered cab driver Paul Stein because of the piece of Stein's bloodied shirt he sent alongside his letter taking responsibility for the crime. It seems likely, then, that the letter writer calling himself the Zodiac probably did murder Cecilia Shepard at Lake Berryessa and Paul Stein in San Francisco.

But did he commit the other Zodiac murders or just claim credit for them? If the other canonical Zodiac murders were not the work of the same man, then we must posit multiple killers committing similar murders in a relative small area at the same time, which seems statistically improbable. Although the killings do appear to show different methodologies, this is not as unusual as is often thought.

In criminologist Robert D. Keppel's book about serial murderers, Signature Killer, he describes what he calls "M.O. purism," a tendency amongst law enforcement to only link separate murders if the method used is exactly the same. According to Keppler, serial killers do sometimes change their M.O., modus operandi, as they strive to become more comfortable in the specific circumstances of each successive murder.

But what doesn't change, according to the former FBI criminal profiler John Douglas, is the killer's signature. We came to realize that while M.O. was important in certain types of crimes, it wasn't nearly as important as what I call signature, Douglas wrote. Signature, the unique aspect that was critical not so much to accomplish the crime as to satisfy the perpetrator emotionally."

For the Zodiac, the signature of his murders seemed to be the exerting of control and the demonstration of his superiority over the public and the police via his letters, a common thread that does seem to link the crimes even where the methodologies are different. It can also be argued that the different methods the Zodiac employed in his crimes were simply employed out of expediency.

For example, his use of a disguise and knife at Lake Berryessa may be because he committed the attack in daylight and wished to avoid detection. But whilst that attack and the Paul Stein murder appear to be very different, both exhibited the same signature use of messages and phone calls to the police that sought to assert the Zodiac's control over the investigation.

This need for control culminated in the threat he made in his October 13, 1969 letter to the Chronicle, in which he said he would blow up a school bus and pick off the children as they fled. This essentially singled him out as a kind of terrorist, using his crimes and the letters to cause fear and anxiety among the populace. The Zodiac murders have also become a parlor game, a giant jigsaw puzzle with many of the pieces missing.

Like many such cases where hard facts are few and far between, speculation and assumptions have filled the gaps. Often, like the half-truths and gossip packaged as investigative journalism by Robert Graysmith, facts get substituted by fiction in the public's mind. But even though much of Graysmith's mythology has been exposed as nonsense,

Many of his basic assumptions about the case are still widely accepted as correct by most theorists and investigators. By challenging these most fundamental assumptions about the case, authors like Thomas Horan have created a credible argument that questions the very existence of the Zodiac Killer. When the speculation and myths are stripped away, what's left does suggest the possibility that the famous Zodiac Killer may be a phantom.

a fictional boogeyman we choose to keep alive because sometimes our darkest fears make for a far better story than the mundane truth. 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.

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