THE DOOMSDAY FAMILY CULT: Anne Hamilton-Byrne Claimed To Be God, Kidnapped Kids, and Drugged Them
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Outside of the busy city life of Melbourne, Australia, a group of people operated in near total secrecy for over two decades under the control of a woman who believed herself to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

stolen children, rituals involving psychedelic drugs and torture were all part of Anne Hamilton Byrne's plan to create a master race for a war that hadn't yet begun. Hamilton Byrne's doomsday cult, known as "The Family," would amass a following of nearly 500 members before it finally unraveled because of a rebellious teenager.

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! By the time Anne Hamilton Burr rose to power as a cult leader with a small army of followers, she had amassed a fortune and adorned herself in fine clothes and jewelry.

She looked more the part of an urban socialite than a pseudo-religious leader, and her position of influence and wealth was a long way from the small farming settlement a few hours outside of Millbourne, where she grew up. Born as Evelyn Edwards in 1921, young Anne's mother died in an asylum after being diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic.

Because her father had trouble holding down a job and wasn't up to the task of being a single parent, Hamilton Burr spent much of her childhood in and out of orphanages. After giving birth to a single child and losing her husband in a car accident, Hamilton Burr began to immerse herself in yoga. At the time, yoga was still very mysterious to much of the Western world.

But Hamilton Burr was drawn to its connections with Eastern religion and would eventually begin teaching yoga to curious middle-class housewives in Melbourne. What followed was anything but a typical budding career as a yoga teacher.

By the early 1960s, Eastern religion and mysticism had begun to capture the interest of the West, and Hamilton Burr had built a reputation for herself among those in Melbourne who were fascinated with the new trend. When she met Dr. Raynor Johnson, a soon-to-be retired physicist, everything changed for Hamilton Burr. Johnson was captivated by her charm,

Speaking of her, Johnson wrote in his journal that she was "unquestionably the wisest, the serenest, and most gracious and generous soul I have ever met." The two experimented with LSD, and Johnson introduced her to doctors, nurses, and lawyers who were also seeking New Age wisdom and looking to the charming yoga teacher for guidance. Johnson helped recruit people to the cult

and eventually they used his property, Santinican, on the outskirts of Melbourne as their headquarters, building a lodge on the grounds for group meetings and discussions. It didn't take long for weekly meetings to follow, with Hamilton Burr delivering her message, a mishmash of Hindu, Buddhism, and Christianity to her followers. Hamilton Burr thought of herself on the same level as deities Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Krishna,

and after being brainwashed by her teachings, so did her followers. In addition to gaining members through Johnson, Santinican member Marianne Vilmec also contributed a great deal. She managed New Haven Hospital, a psychiatric hospital which treated many of its patients with LSD. Many of the hospital's staff were members of the family, and it was used as a way to recruit potential new members as well.

Hamilton Burr had her members under a spell. They gave her everything: their money, homes, and even children. By the early 1970s, the group had started to procure children. Some of the children were the offspring of members of the family, but others were falsely adopted. Because the cult was made of doctors, nurses, and attorneys, getting around any red tape associated with proper legal adoption was much easier.

In all, 28 children were part of the family, and all of them were told that Hamilton Byrne was their biological mother. Their identities were changed, and they were given false birth certificates. The children's last names were changed to Hamilton Byrne, and their hair was dyed blonde in an effort to convince them all that they were actually related. Life for children in the cult was anything but a happy and normal childhood.

Designated "aunties" would care for the children, grooming to make them look as identical as possible, recalled Sarah Moore, who was born into the cult. If a child stepped out of place, food would be withheld or, even worse, Hamilton Byrne would lay into them with one of her stiletto heels. Dave Whitaker, who grew up in the family cult, said that everything was fine as long as you obeyed.

"She's not somebody you argue with," said Whitaker. Even if Hamilton Burr was not around to dish out the punishment herself, she still took part in it. When she was away, she would call the aunties and listen to them discipline the children through the phone. If the beatings weren't enough, the children would regularly be given doses of Valium to keep them docile until they turned 14.

They also would be given large amounts of LSD and told by Anne Hamilton Burr that she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Once the children reached adolescence, they underwent a bizarre drug-fueled initiation ceremony. They were given a dose of LSD and left alone in a room for a period of time, only receiving visits from Hamilton Burr or one of the cult's psychiatrists.

Like many cults, the children and other cult members had little contact with the outside world. It was all part of the family's motto, unseen, unknown, unheard. However, that motto would come to an end in 1987. In that year, 14-year-old Sarah Moore was expelled from the group because of her rebellious behavior against Hamilton Byrne.

She eventually went to the police, and a raid was conducted on the group by law enforcement on August 14. The children were taken into protective custody, and Hamilton Byrne fled the country before eventually being arrested in 1993 on charges of fraud while hiding out in the Catskills of New York. Surprisingly enough, she served almost no jail time, but was ordered to pay damages to numerous individuals for psychological abuse.

Today, Anne Hamilton Byrne sits in a nursing home with severe dementia, unaware of the pain and suffering she caused for so many individuals, for the children who escaped the family cult. The cruel control wielded by Hamilton Byrne isn't something they will ever forget. "She'd just change your whole world," said Moore. "She'd turn it upside down overnight." Up next...

Evelyn Hartley, a 15-year-old sophomore from La Crosse, Wisconsin, vanished without a trace October 24, 1953, while on her way to a babysitting job. It was like something out of a Halloween urban legend, but in this case, the horror was real. And the odd happenings that take place here and there in a house more than likely can be explained in some rational way. But when the events never stop,

Perhaps it's the paranormal. These stories and more when Weird Darkness returns. 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

Now sliced. 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.

Kimberly Akimbo is the winner of five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. And now it's coming to Chicago. It's a story about growing up and growing old in no particular order. The New York Times calls it profoundly funny and deeply moving. The Washington Post says, I loved it from the first note to the last. Kimberly Akimbo, playing at the CIBC Theater, June 10th through 22nd. Get tickets at BroadwayInChicago.com.

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,

Evelyn Hartley was a pretty, well-liked student at Central High School in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Her father, Richard, was a biology professor at La Crosse State College, and her mother, Ethel, was a homemaker.

On the evening of October 24, Evelyn had agreed to babysit the 20-month-old child of Viggo Rasmussen, a professor and colleague of her father's. When she left home, she was wearing red jeans, a white blouse, white bobby socks and glasses. Evelyn typically checked in with her mother while she was babysitting. When several hours passed with no word from her, Ethel asked her husband to call the Rasmussen home. There was no answer.

Worried, he drove over and found the front door locked. He knocked repeatedly, but there was no response. Richard searched until he found an unlocked basement window and entered the house. To his shock, he discovered that the only occupant of the house was the baby, sleeping peacefully in a crib upstairs. Evelyn was nowhere to be found. Richard immediately called the police. When officers arrived, they also searched the house.

They found one of Evelyn's shoes and her glasses, which were broken. Her other shoe was found in a different room in the house. They discovered bloodstains both inside and outside the residence. There were also bloody footprints on the pavement outside the garage. Search dogs were brought in to follow the scent, which ended at the street. Detectives surmised that Evelyn had been put into a car and driven away. A massive search began that night.

Police officers and volunteers covered the town on foot, while the National Guard, Civil Air Patrol, and the Air Force searched from the sky. Men searched the Mississippi River and walked the banks. College and high school volunteers joined the effort, and within the first few days of her vanishing, there were more than 2,000 people looking for Evelyn. The search expanded outside of town. Hunters were asked to stay alert while out in the field.

Farmers were asked to check their land for any sign of Evelyn and, more ominously, for the suggestion that any of their land had been freshly dug for a grave. The idea sent police officers to local cemeteries where fresh graves were unearthed to see if Evelyn might have been buried in secret. Roadblocks were set up around La Crosse so that officers could check the trunks and back seats of every car for fresh blood or anything out of the ordinary.

There were more than 40,000 stickers printed for the search, each reading "My car is okay." Officers placed a sticker on every car that had been checked and cleared. The police even deputized gas station attendants to report any suspicious vehicles and to provide the license numbers of any drivers that refused a mandatory search. Richard and Ethel made numerous public pleas for information. They even addressed their daughters of doctor and begged for her release.

Soon after, the Hartleys received two telephone calls in which a man offered to trade information about Evelyn for $500. The police set a trap for the caller and captured Jack Dufferin, 20 years old. But he knew nothing about Evelyn's whereabouts. He was charged and convicted for attempted extortion.

Friends, neighbors, local businesses, and civic organizations collected money for a reward fund for any tips that might lead to Evelyn's return. The fund quickly grew to $6,600. Hundreds of tips flooded the police station. Each one was investigated and then promptly dismissed. No one, it seemed, had any idea of what had happened to Evelyn. The case grew cold, but the authorities didn't give up.

A year after Evelyn's disappearance, Sheriff Robert Scullin estimated that his department had questioned 1,200 people. Detective Captain Leo Kim, who led the initial investigation, placed that number higher at around 3,500. But despite their efforts, no new leads were discovered. The case was eventually given to A.M. Josephson, an investigator for La Crosse County.

He pursued the case for years, focusing primarily on two items of interest that were found early in the investigation: a pair of tennis shoes found on Highway 14 and a blood-stained denim jacket that was found nearby. He believed that they were important clues if the case was ever going to be solved. The shoes had been found about 10 miles southeast of La Crosse, near Shelby, Wisconsin,

The tread on the bottom of the shoes had a distinct pattern that detectives believed matched some traces of mud found in the Rasmussen house. Josephson discovered that the soles of the shoes exhibited a distinct wear pattern consisting with operating a Whizzer motorbike. Over the next few months, he pored over sales records and receipts and even tracked down past and present owners of Whizzer bikes, but never found any worthwhile suspects.

The jacket and shoes were photographed and put on display throughout the region, with a plea for information from anyone who might recognize them. Once again, calls flooded the police hotlines, but again, no new leads were found. As the case got colder, the shoes and bloody jacket were dismissed by most investigators. The shoes were size 11, but the jacket was only a small size 36.

Many detectives felt they were unconnected, but not Josephson. He believed that two kidnappers had taken Evelyn. He continued his search, but his efforts ultimately led nowhere. Years went by without any answers. By 1959, the last remaining efforts fizzled out, and while the Evelyn Hartley case was left open, most believed it would never be solved.

In the years that followed, quite a number of individuals came forward and confessed to the crime. In 1971, a 51-year-old transient named Tommy Thompson was arrested in Casper, Wyoming for passing bad checks. While locked up, he told police of a rape and murder that he had committed in 1953 and named Evelyn as his victim. Authorities checked Thompson's claims and found that he had been in prison in Minnesota at the time Evelyn disappeared.

There were other confessions too, but all of them fell apart after being investigated. In 1957, some investigators tried to link Evelyn's disappearance to the crimes of Ed Gein, a Wisconsin man who had recently confessed to murdering two women and fashioning trophies out of human body parts. It was discovered that he had been visiting relatives in La Crosse around the time of Evelyn's disappearance.

However, a search of his property and two lie detector tests ruled him out in the kidnapping. Authorities officially declared that Gein was not connected to the case. Evelyn's parents remained haunted by her disappearance for the rest of their lives. In an interview they gave in 1978, they admitted to losing all hope of finding out what happened to their daughter. It was the last public statement about the case they ever made.

To this day, the disappearance of Evelyn Hartley remains unsolved. These are an assortment of experiences that I've had while living in my house. These aren't very obviously paranormal and a keen scientific mind might be able to explain these away, but I'm convinced that I've had a few brushes with the supernatural.

This one dates back almost nine years. I was on the computer doing whatever teens do when I heard a door slam loudly somewhere in the opposite end of the house on the lower floor. Figuring it would be my sister who did have a habit of slamming doors when in one of her moods, I yelled in the general direction asking what's wrong. On not getting a reply, I went to check on her. I went downstairs to an empty home and the air was still as a summer noon.

No idea what made that door slam so loudly. My house has a terrace just outside my room. I love it and spend countless hours in there, pacing as I gab on the phone, sneak in occasional smoke, or just take in the scenery and contemplate things. I especially love it during the monsoons, as I stand there watching the clouds roll in with their showers. But something about the place gives me the creeps at night. The fact that it faces a thicket of trees doesn't help.

Invisible critters create a shrill cacophony at night, and I tend to avoid the place then. This one time I was out on the terrace at night. I didn't want anyone overhearing me talking to my boyfriend. The place was creepy as usual, except something seemed amiss. It dawned on me that not a single insect or bird was making any noise.

Wondering if a snake had wandered into the neighborhood , I futilely attempted to peer down into the velvety darkness. As I neared the wall close to the thicket, I suddenly felt colder and could see my breath condense in front of me. This was extremely unusual given that this was an Indian summer night with temperatures close to 80 degrees. I've read similar stories where someone explained how this happens due to a rapid temperature change or something.

Can't recall, maybe it was one of those cases. But nevertheless, I hastily made my way to my room and continued my call. This is my mom's story, who swears it happened. She'd been working on an article – she works as a correspondent for a daily – late into the night when she heard a faint whisper calling her name. Maybe it was a hallucination brought on by overworking herself or something like that, but she swears it sounded like my dad, who had been dead for almost 16 years at that point.

The same night she had a dream where she saw her dead husband cross a veil to somewhere, she almost followed him but woke up before she could do it. She's convinced she would have died had she followed him. She being a superstitious person had a Hindu priest perform a ceremony of sorts, similar to a Christian priest blessing the house, I guess. Creepy. Moving on.

This one is the scariest thing I've ever experienced up to this date. It's likely to remain so. I'd been having a party at my place as my mom had left the house to my sister and I for the weekend. We naturally proceeded to call all of our friends over and get drunk. Around 2 in the morning, the music had turned down and it was just a group of people talking over cigarettes and cheap scotch. Tragedy struck. We ran out of smokes.

Four of us left the place to buy a fresh pack or two. Yes, drunk driving was involved. We bought our smokes and were nearing my place. Before you see the entrance to my house, you make a turn and there's maybe 50 meters of open road. This is important to the story. There's another entrance from the main street as well, which we were not taking at this time. I was in the back seat, babbling, being happily drunk, while one of our soberish friends drove.

As we made the turn, he stepped on the brakes and swore loudly, snapping us out of our haze. All of us saw it. A woman, almost seven feet tall, was menacingly making her way down the road in the opposite direction toward the main street. She was draped in the traditional Indian garb, and from what we could see of her skin, it seemed like it was made of porcelain.

Her skin had this weird sheen to it. Her arms swung wildly, and she covered the distance in rapid strides and made the other turn which would have led her on the main street. The driver gingerly stepped on the gas and made it to the main street to see deserted streets and footpaths. Save for the occasional car or stray pooch, there was no traffic. We went back home and passed the rest of the night, swapping spooky stories.

I still cannot forget the terror I felt. Was it an alcohol-induced vision? Maybe, but how could the four of us have the same hallucination? This last experience I'll share with you and then I'll conclude. My grandfather came to live with us as he neared the end of his life. We didn't want to put him in a hospice and instead wanted him to have all the comforts of our home and be surrounded by his loved ones. We set him up in a spare bedroom.

brought in his favorite rocking chair and his hand-rolled cigarettes. He lived with us for almost a year before moving on. The spare bedroom was brought back in use, and I let one of my friends from university sleep in there after it was too late for him to go home. He didn't know my granddad had lived in there, but the next day he told me of the salt-pepper-haired man smoking near the window as he slept. He said he could smell the unfiltered cigarette smoke,

Maybe my grandfather's photo on the mantelpiece could have subconsciously given him an idea, but that doesn't explain the smell of cigarettes. I'll have dreams of him, my granddad, if I choose to sleep in that room for any reason. In those dreams, I'm convinced he's still alive. Often I wake up in a cold sweat realizing that it was just a dream and that he'd been gone for the past four years. It's very disconcerting. I have more stories of this house. I still live here when I'm not living in my dorm.

Somehow, though, we've gotten used to these and the frequency has decreased over time. Still, I don't know what to believe. When Weird Darkness returns, legend tells a centuries-old curse was placed upon Dudley Town in Connecticut. The town turned into a horrible place where people committed suicide or went insane.

And exactly 92 years ago today, October 24th, 1926, something went horribly wrong during a performance by Harry Houdini. A week later, he would be dead. These stories are up next.

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,

Now sliced. 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.

Kimberly Akimbo is the winner of five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. And now it's coming to Chicago. It's a story about growing up and growing old in no particular order. The New York Times calls it profoundly funny and deeply moving. The Washington Post says, I loved it from the first note to the last. Kimberly Akimbo, playing at the CIBC Theater, June 10th through 22nd. Get tickets at BroadwayInChicago.com.

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,

Legend tells a centuries-old curse was placed upon Dudleytown in Connecticut. The town turned into a horrible place where people committed suicide or went insane.

By the 1800s, Dudleytown was abandoned and it became famous as America's own village of the damned. What did really happen in Dudleytown? Is there a rational explanation to all these unexplained events? Or does Dudleytown suffer from the old curse? Dudleytown was once a thriving community. Today, it's just a ghost town on private property and access is forbidden.

The town's legend has long attracted paranormal investigators, journalists, hikers, the occasional birder, curiosity seekers, and just ordinary people inclined toward the supernatural. Some hikers who have been in the area report they have seen mysterious orbs. The story goes back to the 1700s when the Dudley family moved to an area near Cornwall, Connecticut. It's said that the Dudley family brought a curse to this small town.

a curse that has allegedly plagued the region ever since. Apparently, during the reign of King Henry VI, Edmund Dudley was beheaded for being a traitor to the crown. All members of the Dudley family were believed to be cursed ever since, and when Edmund's descendants moved from the Old World to the New World, they brought the curse with them. According to the curse, all of the Dudley descendants would be surrounded by horror and death.

Those who believe in this curse claim that the Dudley family began to experience a rather disturbing run of bad luck. The Dudleys were farmers who made a home for themselves in Dudleytown. They owned the land and allowed people to come and live there, but things didn't turn out well. The land was not good enough for farming, and by the 1800s the settlement was abandoned. Local historians dispute the claim that the Dudley family was cursed, though.

To date, they have not been able to link the Dudleytown founders with their Old World descendants, but strange things did happen in the village in Connecticut. Many mysterious events such as madness, suicide, fatal accidents, natural disasters, vanishings, and unexplained sightings led to the articles in the media. It is said one of the Dudley brothers went insane. On one occasion at a barn raising, a man fell to his death.

Some think he was murdered. Lightning struck and killed a Dudleytown woman right on her porch. She was the wife of General Herman Swift, who went insane and died soon after. A sheepherder lost his family and home. His wife died of tuberculosis, and his children disappeared. When his house burned down, he wandered into the woods, never to return.

It has been reported that two women, Mary Chaney and Harriet Clark, went insane in Dudleytown and committed suicide. In fact, Clark allegedly claimed she saw demons before she died. Are all these strange incidents really the result of a curse on Dudleytown?

Reverend Gary P. Dudley, a Texas resident and the author of The Legend of Dudleytown, Solving Legends Through Genealogical and Historical Research, disputes these accounts of the unlucky town. In tracing the genealogy of his name, he found virtually no historical basis for Dudleytown's cursed reputation, no genealogical link to Edmund Dudley, no mysterious illnesses or deaths.

Rev. Dudley, who investigated the history of Dudleytown, says that Harriet Clark did commit suicide, but in New York, not in Dudleytown. When old legends mix with rumors, gossips, and uninvestigated sightings, it's really difficult to learn the truth about what really happened in Dudleytown. Many of the deceased people are long gone and have no relatives. This makes investigations even harder, if not impossible.

Whether you believe in the power of curses or not, there is something special about Dudleytown. No matter how much historians dismiss the curse, many people just can't get rid of the feeling that there is something strange about such a small area with so many disappearances, unusual deaths, suicides, and cases of insanity. Those who plan to visit Dudleytown should think twice before making the journey.

The land is owned by the Dark Forest Entry Association. Trespassing on their property is strictly forbidden. Not to mention, if you do decide to trespass, you might be the next victim of the curse. On October 24, 1926, famed magician and escape artist Harry Houdini gave his final public performance at the Garrick Theater in Detroit, Michigan. Within a week, Houdini would be dead.

ushering in an even greater legend than the one he created in life. In early October 1926, Houdini began a week-long engagement in Providence, Rhode Island. At the same time, his wife Bess came down with a terrible illness. Sick and feverish, she stayed in bed and Harry stayed by her side. The doctors diagnosed her with Ptomaine poisoning, and it was days before her fever broke.

Houdini, with little sleep, continued with meetings and shows. He traveled to New York, dozing fitfully on the train, and then on to Albany for a scheduled show on October 11. During the performance, a chain slipped during Houdini's famous Chinese water torture cell escape, and he fractured his ankle. A doctor in the audience advised him to end the show and go to the hospital, but he refused.

In fact, he finished the entire performance, painfully hopping on one foot. Afterwards, he stopped at Memorial Hospital in Albany for treatment and x-rays. He was ordered to stay off his feet for at least one week, but he continued his shows against their advice. It would take more than a broken bone to stop a Houdini tour. Carey fashioned a leg support for himself and went on to Schenectady and then Montreal.

On October 18, he opened at the Princess Theatre and a doctor examined his ankle. He told Houdini the same thing that the earlier doctor had: stay off it for a week and the bone would knit. Houdini, however, continued to lecture and perform, although he did remain seated during his lectures. After one lecture at McGill University, students and faculty members surged forward to meet him. One young man showed Houdini a sketch he had made while Harry had been talking.

The magician pronounced it as an excellent likeness. He autographed the picture and invited the artist to make a close-up portrait later in the week, backstage at the theater. On the afternoon of Friday, October 22, the McGill University artists Samuel J. Smiley and Jack Price, a fellow student and friend, met Houdini in the theater lobby around 11 a.m. He escorted the students to his dressing room. Harry hung up his hat and overcoat, took off his jacket

rolled up his sleeves, and removed his tie. He opened his shirt collar and leaned back on the couch to look through a pile of letters on his dressing room table. He was talking about his career as Smiley began to sketch the portrait. He was hard at work on the drawing when a third student, J. Gordon Whitehead, came in and began talking to the magician. Houdini was very courteous to the young man but was also occupied with his mail.

He wasn't paying close attention when Whitehead asked if it was true that Houdini could withstand powerful blows to the stomach. He absently replied that he could as long as he had time to brace himself in anticipation of the punch. The boy, thinking that Houdini had given him permission for just such a demonstration, suddenly leaned forward and struck him four times in the abdomen with a clenched fist.

When Houdini looked startled, the boy quickly backed away, explaining in a panic that he'd thought Houdini had given him permission to hit him. Smiley and Price thought Whitehead had gone mad and grabbed for the boy to pull him away. Houdini stopped them with a pained wave. Whitehead felt terrible seeing the performer so clearly in pain, but the magician soon recovered enough to reassure the young man that he was fine and then step onto the stage for his show. Throughout the evening, Houdini was seen wincing in pain,

and late that night he admitted to crippling pains that continued to get worse. He was unable to sleep when he returned to his hotel room and Bess, believing that he had a stomach cramp or a strained muscle, massaged him in an effort to make him more comfortable. His performances over the next two days consisted of hours of agony, save for brief intermissions when he fell into a restless sleep. After his final Saturday show, he told his wife about what had happened in the dressing room.

By then, it was too late to get a doctor. An assistant wired the show's advance man in Detroit and told him to have a physician ready who could see Houdini when they arrived. The train arrived late, and Houdini went straight to the Garrick Theater rather than to the Statler Hotel where Dr. Leo Dretzka was waiting in the lobby. When the doctor finally got to the theater, he found Houdini busy helping his assistants with props for the evening show.

There was no cot in the dressing room where Dr. Gretzka could examine the magician, so Houdini stretched out on the floor. He was diagnosed as having acute appendicitis. He had a fever of 102 degrees but refused to go to the hospital for the emergency surgery that he needed. He was scheduled to perform at a sold-out show that night and was determined to be there. The theater manager had already told him that the house was full.

Houdini replied, "They're here to see me. I won't disappoint them." By the time he took the stage, his fever had gone up to 104. He was tired, feverish and tormented by abdominal pains. Plus, he was hobbling on the broken ankle from two weeks earlier. He somehow managed to perform the entire show, although his terrified assistants were constantly forced to complete some of the motions that Houdini couldn't manage.

Spectators reported that he often missed his cues and that he seemed to hurry the show along. Between the first and second acts, he was taken to his dressing room and ice packs were placed on him to try and cool his fever. This was repeated between acts two and three as well. Toward the end of the evening, he began doing what he called "little magic" with silks and coins, card slights and accepting questions and challenges from the audience. He remained on the stage throughout the evening

But just before the third act, he turned to his chief assistant and murmured, "Drop the curtain, Collins. I can't go any further." When the curtain closed, he literally collapsed where he'd been standing. Houdini was helped back to his dressing room where he changed his clothes but still refused to go back to the hospital. He went to his hotel, still convinced that his pain and illness would subside.

It was not until the early morning hours when Bess threw a tantrum that the hotel physician was summoned. He in turn contacted a surgeon, and Houdini was rushed to the hospital against his will. An operation was performed immediately, but the surgeons agreed that there was little hope for him to pull through. His appendix had ruptured, and despite the efforts of medical experts, it was suggested that Bess contact family members. The great magician, the doctors pronounced,

was near death. He passed away October 31, Halloween Day, 1926. In 1977, Anglia TV and the UK broadcast an edition of its popular science report that uncovered a story so colossal it would change the world. The episode was titled "Alternative 3:

and began with an investigation into a string of mysterious disappearances among top scientists, and what followed was sensational. The scientists the show discovered had been recruited into a top-secret clandestine space program designed to build a base on Mars in anticipation of a forthcoming ecological catastrophe on Earth.

Anglia TV was immediately bombarded with calls from alarmed viewers. The alarm was unwarranted, they were told, because, like Orson Welles' War of the Worlds in 1938, Alternative 3 was, in fact, a hoax. At least that's what the public was told about the broadcast that was intended to air on April 1st. But now, more than 40 years later,

there are some who believe there may have been more truth to it than anyone wanted to let on. Produced in a documentary style and originally intended to be broadcast on April 1st, the program "Science Report: Alternative 3" was a skillful fiction written by award-winning screenwriter David Ambrose.

Although relatively obscure, Alternative 3 has had an enduring impact since it was first broadcast in 1977. Many now believe the fictional events portrayed in the show subversively reflect reality. It has inspired hundreds of conspiracy theories about secret space missions, bases on the Moon and Mars, and even off-world fleets of advanced spacecraft.

The fictional Alternative 3 culminates with the reporter decoding a videotape which reveals footage of a joint US-USSR mission to Mars in 1962. Could there be any truth in such an amazing notion? Are the space programs of the global superpowers really far more advanced than they're admitting to the public?

In 2001, British hacker Gary McKinnon claimed to have found astonishing evidence that such an out-of-this-world program really does exist. Hacking into top-secret Pentagon military computers, McKinnon says he found a crew manifest file detailing non-terrestrial officers. Perhaps this was, at last, the smoking gun that proved Alternative 3 wasn't entirely fictional.

Could the secret space program portrayed in the program be real? As far as the general public is concerned, the American space program is run by NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Signed into existence by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958, NASA was primarily a civilian organization built upon earlier military space programs.

Its many high-profile projects like Gemini, the Apollo moon missions, and the space shuttle were subject to much publicity and public scrutiny. Despite this, the US Air Force continued to operate an almost entirely unknown, vast, and clandestine parallel space program even after the formation of NASA. The program rivaled, if not exceeded, the ambition of Apollo and the space shuttle,

It operated under almost total secrecy. Its scale, scope, and objectives were obscure, and only the occasional low-key press release hinted at its existence at all. Could the USAF's secret military space program be closer to the one proposed in Alternative 3? And was their technology and progress far more advanced than NASA's public space missions?

The USAF has long since run black projects that were so secret to the public, and sometimes even Congress, were completely unaware of their existence. Various aircraft, such as the F-117A Nighthawk, were financed, developed, built and operated under total secrecy. The Nighthawk's existence wasn't revealed publicly until 1988, some 11 years after its first flight.

Could there have been similar top-secret space projects that remain entirely unknown to the public? A look at those plans that were acknowledged reveals a curious pattern. In the late 1950s, the USAF spent billions of dollars on Dynasaur, an advanced reusable space plane. They then quietly announced its cancellation in 1963.

In the mid-60s, they canceled plans for a space station called the MOL . Project Horizon was an ambitious plan for a manned moon base that predates NASA's first moon landing in 1969. It, too, was discreetly canceled before it could come to fruition.

In 1989, the New York Times reported that the Air Force had shut down yet another planned manned space program with a staff of 32 astronauts and a space shuttle launching facility in Colorado. Until the announcement, which appeared in just one newspaper, the existence of this massive non-NASA space project was completely unknown.

It doesn't seem credible that the US Air Force would spend so many hundreds of billions of dollars on multiple manned space programs and then quietly mothball them all with no results. Could it be they were never cancelled at all, but continued on in secret? And were there other, even more secret black projects we still know nothing about? If so,

These programs would have been far more advanced than anything NASA publicly achieved and moves the prospect of the kind of secret space program envisioned in Alternative 3 closer to fact than fiction. A curious diary entry by President Ronald Reagan in 1985 suggests such a possibility may not be so far-fetched.

In President Reagan's diaries, published long after his presidency, Reagan recounts a meeting at the White House with several top space scientists. On page 334, he states, "It was fascinating. Space truly is the last frontier and some of the developments there in astronomy, etc., are like science fiction, except they are real. I learned that our shuttle capacity is such that we could orbit 300 people."

Presuming Reagan wasn't simply confused or mistaken, this claim is impossible without the prospect of a secret space program. America's space shuttle has a capacity of only eight people, and only five shuttles were ever built. The U.S. does not and never has had, at least officially, the technology to put 300 people into space simultaneously. The science fiction reference seemed apt.

However, in 2001, a computer hacker from the UK found evidence that cast this obscure entry in Reagan's diary in a sensational new light. In 2002, Scottish computer enthusiast Gary McKinnon was accused by the US government of the biggest military computer hack of all time.

Under the guise of "Solo," McKinnon hacked into dozens of Pentagon, US Air Force and NASA computers between 2001 and 2002. US prosecutors sought his extradition and charged him with seven counts of computer-related crime, which could have seen McKinnon receive a 70-year prison sentence.

His roll call of alleged crimes was impressive, disabling critical systems at a Navy air base not long after 9/11, bringing down an entire network of 2,000 US Army computers and copying, changing and deleting classified data. McKinnon himself maintains his actions were not malicious and he was merely searching for evidence of UFOs and suppressed free energy technology.

If he can be believed, what he found was incredible. The first find was a spreadsheet detailing a list of USAF officers with their names and ranks. What was interesting about this was the file was titled "Non-Terrestrial Officers." Based on what else he found, McKinnon does not think this is a reference to aliens but human officers serving in space. Also in the file were information about ship-to-ship transfers,

What made this file doubly strange was none of the ship names, or indeed officers, seemed to exist. McKinnon was aware of the case of Donna Hare, an ex-NASA employee who said the agency had a department in Building 8 at the Johnson Space Center whose job was to airbrush UFOs out of space images. McKinnon found an unguarded computer at Building 8 and looked for evidence to corroborate Hare's story.

Incredibly, he says he found it. There were a series of folders on the computer labeled "raw" and "processed." Inside the raw folder, he found an image of a large, silvery, cigar-shaped craft pictured in orbit over the Northern Hemisphere. Could this be a spacecraft developed by a secret space program of the kind proposed in Alternative 3? Critics of Gary McKinnon's case question why he didn't download or screen capture any of these images.

The hacker himself also admits he was often high on marijuana and drunk when he hacked the computers. Caveats aside, McKinnon had provided some tantalizing evidence and support for a secret space program, but it was still weak. Was there anyone else to corroborate his claims?

Some ex-employees of NASA, the military, and its defense contractors have come forward in recent years with evidence that supports the secret space program theory. Whilst some of these whistleblowers tell stories so bizarre and incredible they have to be discounted, others are more credible. In 1965, Sergeant Carl Wolfe was a young electronics expert at USAF Tactical Air Command at Langley in Virginia.

One day, he was called over to an NSA facility to examine a fault in some photographic equipment. The lab was processing images of the moon's surface taken by the lunar orbiter. One thing immediately struck Wolfe: there were hundreds of scientists from all over the world at the facility, speaking dozens of different languages. Wolfe felt this peculiar, especially at the height of the Cold War.

He got talking with a photographic technician processing the lunar orbiter images. The man appeared disturbed. "We found a base on the backside of the moon," he said. Wolfe was stunned. The technician then showed him contact prints that showed the base. Wolfe observed large domes, towers, and what looked like radar dishes.

The fictional Alternative 3 suggested the secret space program had built a moon base as a staging point for a mission to Mars. Was this it? Donna Hare tells a similar story. As a NASA contractor in the 1970s, she encountered an employee whose job it was to airbrush UFOs out of NASA photos. Intrigued, Hare sniffed around for more information.

She heard chatter that the Apollo astronauts had observed artificial structures and even spacecraft on the moon. John Scheissler spent 36 years as an aerospace engineer at Boeing and worked on numerous NASA projects. He too recalled seeing Apollo images containing UFOs. However, when accessing NASA's official photo archive of the mission, he was unable to find the photos.

the numerically indexed images had been removed from the collection. Perhaps the most unlikely whistleblower for a secret space program is the military of France. In 2007, Colonel Yves Blin of the French Department of Defense announced some very intriguing data gathered by their Graves Space Radar System. Some 20 to 30 satellites were detected that appeared not to exist.

The US Defense Department maintains a list of all satellites in orbit, including the classified military satellites of other countries, and none of these were listed. These mysterious satellites were, then, almost certainly launched by the US themselves. Whilst not evidence for Alternative 3, it did prove the existence of a clandestine space program of some kind. Whatever the purpose of these satellites, they would require a large infrastructure back on Earth,

Facilities, funding, technology, staff, rockets and launch pads – all operating in secret. Is it too much of a stretch then to suppose this infrastructure had achieved far more than just launching satellites? Could it have been responsible for the UFOs and structures observed on the moon by some witnesses? Projects such as Horizon and LUNEX envisioned military bases on the moon that predated Apollo

Officially, they were shut down, but did they in fact continue to operate as deep black projects? The idea that the US military may have secretly established a base on the moon is far-fetched, but not so outrageous as to be entirely dismissed. But in Alternative 3, a moon base was simply a staging point for a mission to Mars.

In terms of scale, ambition, and complexity, this would be far in excess of a moon base. However, in 2010, evidence that such a mission has already occurred came from the most unlikely source. Laura Eisenhower, the great-granddaughter of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, says she was approached in 2006 to take part in a mission to the Red Planet.

She was told she would be joining a base on Mars, set up as a survival colony in the event of a catastrophe on Earth. This was then the exact same scenario proposed in Alternative 3. Eisenhower's incredible story was ridiculed by most people. However, she seems sincere and no doubt believes what happened was genuine.

the possibility that she was the target of some kind of hoax or intelligence operation cannot therefore be dismissed. Alternative 3 is a very skillfully produced piece of television, weaving together news stories from the headlines of the time into a fiction credible enough that it's convinced many that it's fact.

As its name suggests, Alternative 3 was the third of three proposed schemes to avert a forthcoming ecological catastrophe on Earth. The first two of these proposals, at least, were directly based on real projects undertaken in the United States. Alternative 1 was to use nuclear bombs to blow holes in the stratosphere from which greenhouse gases could escape.

Whilst it may sound absurd, a controversial experiment in the 1950s did fire nuclear missiles into the atmosphere. Project Argus was ostensibly set up to measure the effects of radiation on Earth's upper atmosphere and involved the detonation of three nuclear warheads hundreds of miles over the South Atlantic Ocean.

Alternative two was to build a vast network of underground tunnels and bases in which a select group of people could maintain the human race. Over a hundred such installations exist in North America alone. Bases such as Site R in Pennsylvania and Mount Weather in Virginia are so vast that they have their own rail networks, hospitals, and television studios.

One of the most potent ideas in Alternative 3 was the prospect that mankind was on the verge of an ecological cataclysm. This was a worrying concept at the foremost of the public consciousness when the program was broadcast in 1977. Alarmist stories had begun to emerge about both global warming and global cooling. Dire warnings of extreme weather and environmental chaos were all over the newspapers.

Much of Alternative 3 was, then, based in fact. Could the more outrageous aspects of the plot be true as well? Author Leslie Watkins came to believe so. Watkins was hired to write a novelization of Alternative 3 in 1978 that greatly expanded upon the story presented in the TV show.

After its publication, he received hundreds of letters from what he regarded as credible sources confirming the basic premise behind the book. Watkins decided to use some of the evidence sent to him to begin a non-fiction sequel to "Alternative 3," but backed out after he came to suspect his phone and correspondence was being monitored by the intelligence services.

Watkins started to believe he had stumbled upon something deep and very dark. In 1989, he wrote, "...the book is fiction, based on fact. But I now feel that I inadvertently got very close to a secret truth." Critics of the idea of a secret space program point out the vast amount of money that would be required to mount such an operation.

Whilst the US military has long run black budgets, the amount of unaccounted money that would be required to construct bases on the Moon and Mars would be eye-wateringly vast. Such a program would completely dwarf the Apollo moon missions, which cost in current prices $110 billion. Could such huge sums be generated off the books?

Bill Sweetman, editor of Defense Technology International, estimated the U.S. military black budget to be $50 billion in 2010. To put that into context, NASA's budget in the same year was only $17 billion, so huge amounts of money are available. But much of that is already spent on conventional black military projects – planes, missiles, bombs, and so forth.

Other sources of revenue would still be needed beyond the traditional black budget dollars. And even if such funding could be secured, could it really be spent without anyone noticing? A project on the scale of Alternative 3 would generate millions of financial transactions, employ tens or hundreds of thousands of people, and involve hundreds of technology and engineering companies.

Could this really be done under absolute secrecy, without more people coming forward and admitting involvement? It's doubtful that what would effectively be the biggest undertaking in human history could really be kept so secret. If a large spaceship was really orbiting over the Northern Hemisphere, as McKinnon claimed, wouldn't it be noticed? There are hundreds of satellites in orbit from dozens of countries around the world,

yet none appeared to have detected the presence of such a craft, nor have any of the millions of amateur astronomers on Earth observed the craft with their telescopes. An orbiting spaceship and bases on the Moon and Mars would require hundreds of launches from Earth to construct, all of which would have to occur in complete secrecy and remain unobserved by anyone.

Furthermore, countries with a traditional enmity to the West, such as Russia, North Korea, China, and Iran, have all launched their own satellites and probes to both the Moon and Mars. How could the craft and the bases, then, be concealed from them? Alternative 3 proposes that governments from around the world would conspire together, but this would suggest that the evident hostility of such rival countries is actually a public charade.

Could it really be that the Cold War, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon on more than one occasion, was a sham and the USSR and US were secretly working together all along? Up next… In the Oakland Cemetery, a bronze monument to tragedy is said to bring death to anyone who touches it.

And if you find yourself dreaming of a dark-haired woman while near the French Broad River, it's best you get as far away from the water as possible. These stories and more when Weird Darkness returns. "Be our guest at Disney's enchanting musical, Beauty and the Beast. Experience this timeless classic tale brought to life like never before."

Fill your heart with joy and Disney magic at this dazzling and beloved production.

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 djinn 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. ♪♪

Nestled in a quiet neighborhood near Hickory Hill Park is Iowa City's Oakland Cemetery. The burial ground is home to numerous monuments to the dead, including one striking statue with a dark reputation: the bronze Black Angel. The figure dates back to the early 20th century and stands watch over the graves of Teresa Dolezal and her family.

Teresa moved to Iowa City with her son Eddie in the late 1800s. There, she worked as a midwife until 1891, when Eddie contracted meningitis and died. The boy's body was buried in Oakland Cemetery, and a monument carved in the shape of a tree stump was erected to mark his grave. After Eddie's death, Teresa moved to Oregon, where she met and married Nicholas Feldevert. But Feldevert was not long with this world either.

He died only a few years later in 1911. Stricken by two losses so close together, Teresa returned to Iowa City and commissioned the construction of an 8-1/2-foot tall bronze angel from Chicago artist Mario Korbel to memorialize her loved ones. As soon as the statue arrived by train car, stories began to circulate.

When the statue was erected in 1913, Eddy's monument was moved to stand beside it, while the ashes of Nicholas Feldevert were placed within the statue's base. When Theresa Feldevert passed on in 1924, her ashes joined those of her late husband. Curiously, no death date was added to Theresa's name at the base, fueling the statue's mystery. What's more, the angel statue had turned from bronze to black by the time of Theresa's

Local legends sprang up to explain this phenomenon, with most centering on Teresa's past. Some claimed she was an evil and mysterious woman, and that the statue changed its color to warn others to stay away from her grave. One particularly dramatic telling told of a thunderstorm on the night of Teresa's funeral. A lightning bolt struck the angel statue, scorching it black.

Other versions blamed the blackening of the statue on infidelity, claiming that Teresa swore on her husband's grave to remain faithful until her death and that the monument would turn black if she didn't keep her vow. Some even claimed that Eddie Dolezal never died of meningitis but was murdered by Teresa herself, the angel statue blackened as a mark of her guilt.

Little proof exists to corroborate such claims, and many explain the color change as the natural process of oxidation. Still, the legend persists, with some asserting that the angel's eyes had turned black as coal overnight, and the blackness then spread down its face as though the angel was weeping. With such a reputation, it's no wonder the black angel statue is now said to possess sinister powers.

According to one tale, any girl kissed in the shadow of the angel's wings will die within six months, and anyone who touches the angel on Halloween night will die within seven years. Kissing the angel directly, meanwhile, will cause a person's heart to stop instantly. One variation states that only a virgin can survive touching or kissing the statue without being struck dead.

Another claims that the angel itself gets down from its pedestal and walks the cemetery at night. In 2013, the sci-fi channel series Haunted Highway visited Oakland Cemetery to do an episode on the Black Angel, which aired on December 18th of 2013. Investigators captured odd sounds and visual anomalies all throughout the cemetery. When they turned their thermal cameras onto the Black Angel statue,

They found that it showed up as glowing hot, even though the night around it was chilly. Whatever the truth of the many legends, there's no doubting the Black Angel's power has a monument. Nowadays, it seems like the Appalachian Trail is as crowded as a busy city street, with noisy novice hikers clad head to toe in the latest, most expensive gear, armed with GPS devices and constantly talking on their cell phones.

With the hills becoming so crowded, a man who wants to get out alone in the wilderness has farther and farther to go. Such a man might decide to head out on his own and just follow the course of a nearby wandering river. If he started out from Asheville, his course would naturally be along the French Broad, whose wide banks skirt the city.

Taking a light pack and a few days' worth of food, he could just set out along the course of the river, pausing frequently to watch the water rolling over its rocks and just enjoying the peacefulness and quiet still to be found on its banks. But on the first night, after he pitches his tent and settles down in his sleeping bag, he may find himself tossing and turning and troubled by strange dreams.

A beautiful, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman walks in and out of his restless mind all night. And through the whole night, he dreams of nothing but her. He can never see her clearly, and she always seems like she's a great distance away. He is woken before dawn by the sound of what he thinks is singing, but the sound soon vanishes as he waits in his tent for the light to come.

When dawn comes, he cooks his breakfast, packs his tent, and makes his way further down the river, moving more slowly than yesterday and still feeling groggy and dazed. He doesn't get as far down the river as he thinks he will, and when the evening comes, he's glad to pitch his tent and lay down wrapped in his bag. There, he expects sleep to come easy after his exhausting day. But again, his dreams are troubled by the vision of the dark-haired woman.

Again, he awakes to the sound of singing, but this time the voice comes at midnight, and the young man steps out of his tent to stand by the banks of the river in the darkness. The sound persists. A subtle, beautiful singing, full of rich melancholy and precious longing. Enchanted, he lays down by the side of the river, and with the sound in his mind, his exhausted body finally gives in, and he drifts off to sleep.

When he awakes on the hard rocks it's well past dawn and all he can remember from his dreams is that the woman was there again and this time she seemed much closer. On the third day he walks even more slowly than the last and when he gets to a certain bend in the river where the water collects in a deep pool he finds himself unwilling to move from the spot. He pitches his tent well before dusk and sits by the river to wait.

As twilight descends into night, the young man doesn't go inside of his tent, but still sits by the side of the river, staring into the deep waters of the pool. As night comes into its own, the young man hears the sweet singing once again, more indescribably beautiful than any voice he has ever heard. And as the voice grows louder, it seems to be coming from the pool of dark water by his feet. And as he looks into the pool,

He seems to see the form of a beautiful, dark-haired woman rising out of the waters towards him. She is naked and more perfect than he could have imagined, the smooth curves of her body seeming to repeat the slow, smooth curves of the river, and he knows that she is singing to him, unable to resist. The young man reaches into the water to touch the woman, but as her hand wraps around his,

It's not warm flesh that he feels, but cold, rough, and slimy scales and claws that dig painfully into his arm before he can pull away. Before he even has a chance to scream, the cold grip pulls him into the dark water, and he disappears below the surface, and to his doom, another young life lost to the siren of the French Broad.

The story of the Siren of the French Broad first appears in print in 1845 as " A Tradition of the French Broad," a 64-line poem by William Gilmore Sims published in his Southern and Western magazine, but is more widely known from the 1896 retelling in Charles Montgomery Skinner's Myths and Legends of Our Own Land. One of the most puzzling mysteries of the French Broad River itself

is why exactly it is French. The name first appears in official records in 1777 and may come from the fact that with the Treaty of Paris that ended the French and Indian War in 1763, all waters that flowed into the Mississippi Basin were deemed French territory. The French Broad flows west into the Tennessee River, which eventually joins the Mississippi

and so the name might have been given around that time. There was also another nearby river that had also been named the Broad River, so the French could have been added to help differentiate it from the nearby Broad River. Skinner reports that the Cherokee name for the river was Salika, though this may be more a product of Skinner's imagination than the Cherokee language.

Cherokee naming conventions also differed from European ones, along with Eastern Native American naming conventions in general, in that the Native Americans tended not to give single names to entire rivers, but instead gave individual names to geographically important features along the river. This approach certainly makes more sense if you're traveling along a river instead of looking at it on a map.

but it was the source of miscommunication between the Europeans conducting their surveys and the Indians being asked the questions. The Europeans thought they were asking the name of the whole river, while the Indians were usually giving the name of the most convenient feature. In this way, the names of many smaller features transferred themselves onto entire rivers. The not-too-distant Hiwassee River derives its name from a Cherokee word meaning "stone wall,"

for a landmark perhaps built by the Moonite people. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names has recorded several different names for the French Broad, including Poelico, Zotika, and Tokioski, all of which may be features on the river whose identity is forever lost. Still, the name as we have it is a fine one. It reminds us of what seems like an improbable time when part of North Carolina was French territory.

When Weird Darkness returns, alien visitors, beings from a different dimension, our planet even had tree monsters and sentient pyramids showing up, and all in the year 1965. Plus, a retired naval officer reports rocks falling through his home's roof throughout the day, dozens in a single 24-hour period, with no explanation of where the rocks came from.

And in 1994, a man had a paranormal experience with a popular song recorded two decades earlier. These stories are up next! 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.

Looking at accounts of the strange and paranormal, one can often not escape the certain odd detail that many of these sightings happen in discernible waves, and that some years seem to produce far more reports of enigmatic encounters than others. Although it is uncertain why this may be, there are some years to which truly phenomenally bizarre reports seem to gravitate.

and 1965 certainly stands tall amongst them, with numerous accounts of strange visitors that seem as if they cannot possibly be from anywhere on this planet, or even this reality. This year we have tales of tree monsters, sentient pyramids, and just about the most flat-out mind-boggling reports of high strangeness one can hope to find.

Are they interdimensional travelers? Aliens? Or what? Keep listening and decide for yourself. One account of an entity not quite like any other comes from the town of Poole in Dorset, England in 1965.

The witness, a Terence Druss, claimed that when he was seven years old, he had awoken in his bedroom one night to find the surreal sight of a bizarre entity of around four feet in height, which seemed to take the form of a shimmering, multicolored triangle and from which dangled two thin black arms topped with what appeared to be lobster-like pincers.

When Terence quite rightly screamed in terror, his brother Broderick reportedly had come running into the room to see it himself, and the two frightened children stared in awe at the floating triangular being for a few seconds, after which it simply vanished into thin air right before their eyes. Oddly, this would not even be their only encounter with this unearthly entity.

The very next day, the two brothers were reportedly walking across a parking lot when they noticed the triangular thing hovering near a nearby car, only this time its appearance had changed in that it was a complete obsidian black and it now had a beak of some sort. Terrence would claim that it had seemed to be watching them and that they had run away as fast as they could. What was this thing?

Was it even biological at all or some sort of mechanized creation? Was it an alien or an interdimensional traveler? Did it ever exist outside these children's imaginations? No one knows. An equally perplexing and biologically implausible being was sighted in Argentina in the very same year, in October of 1965.

According to the original account printed in the Argentinian newspaper La Cronica Matutina, three schoolchildren by the name of Luis Ramirez, Maria Abella Cabana and Rosa Carbajal were walking along near their school in a secluded part of the village in Puerto Beltran in order to retrieve water from a nearby reservoir tank when they had a rather otherworldly encounter.

They claimed that they saw before them a massive, round, blob-like thing that rolled along the ground and pulsated as if alive. The entity apparently then began making circles along the dusty ground, kicking up sprays of dirt as it did so, before vanishing into a billowing cloud of dust.

Unfortunately, although this baffling report is very intriguing and has been retold in other books, such as Charles Bowen's 1967 The Humanoids and Gordon Crichton's Humanoids in South America, there are scant details on the sighting and no new information. Whatever these kids saw will probably never be solved.

Also, in 1965 and in South America is the peculiar account of two men who witnessed an outlandish entity along a secluded rural road in Peru. In summer of that year, on the evening of August 29th, witnesses Antonio Chavez Bedoya and Julio L. de Rolana were reportedly driving along an isolated stretch of the road near the town of Arequipa when their attention was captured by something standing right in the middle of the road in front of them.

They slammed on the brakes, and there in the headlights was one of the most far-out creatures one can imagine. The entity reportedly was about 31 inches in height and looked like a shrub or tree of all things, which was all black and had a single golden eye where its head would presumably be. Even odder still was the detail that it was surrounded by glittering strips of silver and gold.

which swirled around it like shining confetti or tinsel, making it resemble a Christmas tree in a sense. As the two puzzled men stared at it, they noticed that the large, gold-colored main eye was orbited by myriad smaller, glinting eyes nestled within the creature's branches. The being stood there for a moment, possibly just as surprised as the men were, before reportedly shambling off.

They would later claim that they had seen a UFO shortly afterwards, although whether it was connected to the creature or not remains unknown. Whatever this seemingly plant-based lifeform was, there were no further reports and it remains an enigma. Peru was also the location of yet another odd encounter in 1965, when in the summer of that year something would be sighted that toes the line between alien and interdimensional being.

On the evening of August 1, 1965, a 15-year-old student named Alberto San Roma Nunez was at his home in Lima taking in a load of laundry. And it may have seemed like just any other evening, but things were about to get incredibly weird very fast.

He was out on the roof at the time, the day coming to a close at that moment at dusk when the day melts into night, when he apparently saw a UFO descend from the darkening sky behind him. As the baffled witness looked on in disbelief, the craft evidently came to a rest right there on the roof with him, after which it opened and a bizarre creature descended from its bowels. The being was described as being around three feet tall and rather like a toad

greenish in color and hair that was covered with green lights, which may have been some sort of bioluminescence. The terrified Nunez perhaps wisely ran away immediately, but he would soon find himself surrounded by an angry red light. Thinking he was under attack, the student cowered there waiting for the worst, but as soon as it started the strange toad-like beast got back into its craft and took off into the night sky.

Interestingly, as the press began to report on the case, Nunez would retract his report and lay low. Many began to dismiss the story as a hoax, but Nunez never really stood up to those allegations. We're left to wonder just what he may or may not have seen out there.

Was this the ramblings of a disturbed individual or a real event that was either covered up or recanted by the witness himself, scared of the ridicule that may follow? If it was real, was it an alien or something altogether stranger still? Since not much has come of it, we will probably never know for sure.

This seems to really have been a year of oddness, because from Mexico there is yet another account from a witness named Francisco Estrada Acosta, who, on February 12, 1965, had his own brush with an inscrutable entity of the truly weird kind.

On this day, Acosta allegedly was out hunting along the Santiago River in the municipality of San Luis Potosi and followed the river to a place called the San Jose Dam. It was there he reported coming across a very tall being with a large oval-shaped head, huge reddish phosphorescent eyes, and a large toad-like mouth. So far, so strange.

But it really got weird when the entity allegedly reached out to Acosta with a hand that was described as being more like a flipper. The thing actually made contact with the witness, who said it was like being touched by a cold and clammy reptile, and this caused him to reel away and run off in terror.

When Acosta looked back to see if the creature was chasing him, he found that it had turned away and that it sported two wing-like protrusions that resembled stumpy bat wings. It's unclear just what happened to the beast after that, and it is certainly unknown what this flipper-handed, reptilian-winged being could have possibly been. Cryptid? Alien? Interdimensional interloper? Who knows?

The one thing that we can probably all agree upon, though, is that it really was quite strange. Here we've looked at an assortment of some of the oddest cases of weird entities ever seen, and they all happen to have occurred in the same exact year, 1965. While it is by no means clear whether we're dealing with aliens, cryptids, or overactive imaginations and hoaxes,

One possibility that is tantalizing is that these are perhaps visitors from another dimension. Considering the sheer, pure outlandishness of these entities, and their often incredibly bizarre appearances that fit with no other living thing we know of, maybe they are not only not of this world, but also not even of this reality.

Is it possible that these beings have, for whatever reason, either intentionally or not, managed to cross over through some veil that separates us from the alternate realities or universes? Have they somehow phased or punched through some thin spot in the membrane where the two converge to bump against one another to come spilling into our own? Also, what is the significance of 1965?

Why is it that all of these over-the-top tales originated in that year? Sure, there are reports in every year, but this one really produced some doozies. All coming from disparate areas. Are there perhaps certain years when these dimensions come closer together, resulting in such a series of sightings? Perhaps some pull or cycle as with the ocean tides? Or is this all mass hysteria?

At this point, we simply have no idea, and we're left to simply ponder and speculate on such thoroughly weird reports. Several years ago, a colleague and I were discussing signs from departed loved ones. He was saying that in the midst of grief for his father, he had literally looked to the sky and asked his father for a sign so that he'd know that he was in a better place.

As if in response to his plea, a long white feather floated down and landed on his chest. This brought him immense peace and whatever the origin of the feather, he was able to deal with his grief as he believed that it was indeed a sign from his father and that he knew that things would be okay from that point onwards. I then told him about my good friend Jim, who died a few years before.

Jim had left the UK in late 1993 to travel Europe and to spend some time on a kibbutz. We were 19, and I was still saving up to travel, so we said our goodbyes in London with a plan to meet up somewhere in Europe the following summer. I'd received postcards through the winter months from him, detailing his escapades as he crossed Europe, and as the months rolled on, I'd finally saved enough money to fly out to join him.

I received the last letter from Jim in April 1994, telling me he had left the kibbutz and was traveling with his newfound friends from the Greek island of Rhodes, where he had been working in a bar, to Crete, where we would meet in a month's time. My flight was booked, and I was excited about my adventure when one night I received a call from Jim's sister, telling me that he had had a terrible accident and had drowned.

While on a ferry between the two islands, he had somehow fallen from the back of the ship into the sea. One of his new friends, Mark, had jumped in to save Jim, but both were lost. Jim's body washed up on the coast a few days later. Mark's body was never found. The friends that Jim had made while he was traveling all flew to the UK for the funeral, and it was truly a celebration of his life.

He was a handsome and charming guy, and when you made a friend with Jim, it was for keeps. It would have been easy to stay in the UK, but I honored our pact and I flew to Greece in May, where I lived and worked for six months. Even though I began my journey alone, I made good friends and had amazing experiences that made me the person I am today. But I missed Jim every day. He was always on my mind and still is to this day.

I told my colleague how that whenever I heard Steve Miller band's "The Joker" it reminded me of Jim, as whenever he was making me laugh I'd always tell him he was such a joker. He'd always reply quick as a flash saying, "And a smoker and a midnight toker." The conversation with my colleague lulled, and after a few minutes I went to the office radio which sat on top of a filing cabinet and switched it on. When it came on, it was playing "The Joker."

for about 10 seconds before it switched off and became silent again. I walked back over to it and checked to see if the power cable had come loose. It was snugly seated in the back of the radio, but when I followed the cord, I saw that it had not been plugged in to the wall at all. I was overwhelmed with happiness knowing it had been a sign from Jim, still checking in, still the joker.

An intriguing, stone-throwing poltergeist case came from Port Louis, Moridius and appeared in the Melbourne Argus, February 4, 1939. The author of the article was Cappy Ricks, who the Argus introduced as a naval officer who served in Australian waters during World War I and lived for 11 years in Melbourne.

He is now in business in Meridius, but forwarded this story because of former associations with the Argus, the article stated. A little focused internet searching revealed the author as James Ernest "Capstick" Dale who, according to the Commonwealth of Australian Navy July List 1918, had been an acting lieutenant in the Australian Navy. Anyway, on to Cappy's story.

"Extraordinary incidents are related by an ex-naval officer from his own experience by Cappy Ricks." At 7:30 a.m. on September 1, 1937, a stone fell on the roof of my house, a bungalow in the Rue Touraine, Port Louis, Meridius. It rebounded to the paved courtyard, striking the stones only a few inches distant from the feet of the children's nanon, a Creole girl aged 13 years.

During the day, a hundred more fell, 43 in the house itself, doing, though, only slight damage. It was thought at first that this was the work of mischievous boys, but the police proved such not to be the case. Stones fell later in the bedroom, when all doors and windows were closed, one falling vertically between the feet of my wife's four sisters coming to her rest as it fell. Others fell in the court

and the nunnan rushed into the house in terror with three stones following her in, horizontally. The bombardment ceased as night fell, and the nunnan left for her home. But it was resumed at 7:30 the following morning. None of the stones was such as are common to the locality. One of them, a flat one some seven inches long, had a hole at its pointed end,

And into this I inserted my pencil to swing the stone around and around as I perplexedly deliberated on the inexplicable occurrence. More of this later. Police took up station in and all around the house. In the evening, 27 stones and a large iron shackle fell in the house in an hour and a quarter, although all windows and doors were closed. Nightfall only put an end to the bombardment.

On the following morning, a large iron nut that had laid in the court for months past fell from the kitchen ceiling and dashed a dish from the Indian cook's hands. In the bathroom, I was struck by a large stone which entered by a six-inch space above the door. A detective inspector was at the moment leaning against a tree six foot distant, but he had seen nothing.

At midday stones fell on the roofed back veranda and I saw a large bull-mouthed shell that with others had lain on the tiles of the veranda for two years rise of its own accord to a height of five feet and make straight for the little nonnan who fled shrieking.

Later, when she was laying my study table for tea, a stone flew into the partially open door and I crouched to catch it. But as it entered the room, it swung 40 degrees right and smashed glassware and a milk jug on the table where the nonnen was standing. This caused me to come to the determination, a weak one maybe, that the nonnen must go, but she left for home before I could tell her not to return. No stones fell during the night.

But the morning of the fourth day saw a resumption of the bombardment. Six police surrounded the court and courtyard, one of them high up a tree. I packed off my wife and babe to her mother's house and stones fell there, though still doing little damage. Then a retreat was made to a neighbor's house, and the stones followed, smashing pot plants and a table on the veranda.

I took my people to the hotel and left for the office to bring out my paper, only to be summoned to take wife, babe, and nonan away. Leaving the hotel, a stone flew into the car but was caught before it could strike anyone. It was the stone with the hole in it that, to the best of my belief, lay in my courtyard a mile away. Arriving at home, I once packed the nonan off for good and all, and not a stone fell afterwards.

But what a mess my home was in, not to mention the fact that it, with the street and courtyard, contained a thousand excited people, most of them yelling advice, one thousand varieties at me. All I could do was to clear them off the premises, with the exception of the police. I had left my home for the office at 9am, but before going I had collected all the stones that had fallen inside the house that morning, 14 in number, and these I placed on the bed in the adjoining room.

with a note for the detective inspector whom I had been momentarily expecting. It was these stones that had wrecked my dining room. I must explain that the two rooms are really one, divided by a wooden partition which cuts into a window space common to both halves. The wall at this point is 18 inches thick, with the glass of the window flush with the outside of the street wall, leaving a large windowsill recess which was stacked with papers and magazines.

A small body can pass from one room to the other round the partition. The communicating door between bedroom and dining room was closed and bolted, and the stones travelled horizontally from the bed round the end of the partition, breaking the window, tearing its curtains and scattering all the papers on the dining room floor and smashing the hanging lamp and everything breakable on two tables. Twelve of them remained on the tables amid the wreckage. The others strewed the floor.

The house was empty and all doors and windows were locked when this incident occurred. In the year that has elapsed, the occurrence, which was by no means unique in the country, has taken premier place in the three quarterly deliberations of the local Psychical Society, which has at last announced its inability to suggest a solution for the mystery. A similar reply was received from the parent British Society of Physical Researches.

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.

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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.

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