Show notes
It’s two sentences. The first is Bloody Mary as kids still play it. The second is the 1700s mirror ritual: girls ate an apple at a candlelit mirror and watched for a face over their shoulder. It was supposed to be their future husband’s, and a skeleton’s meant they’d die before they married. It leaves out the science explanation at the end of the segment, so the episode still gets to deliver that.
READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/5n88rm8a
FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Could there be floating balls of light not only possessed of some sort of intelligence, but which are capable of forming a unique bond with a person and even delivering painful stings when they so choose? (Sentient Fireballs and Biting Lights) *** Cattle sometimes die suddenly on Silvies Valley Ranch’s 140,000 acres in Harney County — struck by disease or felled by a broken leg and unable to find a way out of the rugged, forested terrain. But by the time ranch hands discovered four more dead bulls within 24 hours, they knew they were likely dealing with deliberate, premeditated killings. (Oregon Cattle Mutilations) *** To quote one survivor of a near-death experience: “I know of no English words for the combination of joy, ecstasy, love, and requited longing that burned within me. It carried me to a dimension I never knew existed. In that moment, there was no pain of loss, only unity, rapture and reunion.” Is it possible that we may soon have scientific evidence for what lies beyond the veil? (New Evidence of Life After Death) *** Seeing specters in the reflection of a mirror or piece of glass is not just a cliché movie trope. There is a history that goes along with the happening. (Ghost In The Mirror) *** We’ve all heard of haunted forests – but there is one that is so disturbing it drives some people to want to commit murder! (Where The Woods Entice You To Murder) *** When it comes to ghostly apparitions, the White Lady are ubiquitous. But a theater in Sunderland, England has not just a White Lady specter, but also the haunting Grey Lady… and the ghost of a comedian. (Haunted Empire Theater)
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:02:34.930 = Where The Woods Entice You To Murder
00:06:00.684 = Sentient Fireballs and Biting Lights
00:18:48.818 = Ghost In The Mirror ***
00:42:17.288 = The Haunted Empire Theater ***
00:50:01.495 = Oregon Cattle Mutilations
01:00:12.085 = New Evidence of Life After Death ***
01:05:48.430 = Show Close
01:07:28.182 = “Say It Three Times” by Incorruption (SONG)
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break
SOURCES and RESOURCES:
Essex Ghost Hunters FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/EssexGhostHunters
“Sentient Fireballs and Biting Lights” from the Fortean Times: (link no longer available)
“Oregon Cattle Mutilations” by Diana Kruzman for Oregon Live: https://tinyurl.com/y3sg3gle
“New Evidence for Life After Death” by Michael Grosso for Consciousness Unbound: https://tinyurl.com/wou5am3“Ghost in the Mirror” by Micah Hanks for the Gralien Report: https://tinyurl.com/wuxunbx; Erin McCann for Graveyard Shift: https://weirddarkness.com/archives/2587; and Lyra Radford for Ranker: https://tinyurl.com/wnzk58k
“Where The Woods Entice You To Murder” by Claire Reid for Lad Bible: https://tinyurl.com/tg9ylqo
“The Haunted Empire Theater” by Ian at Mysterious Britain and Ireland: https://tinyurl.com/tvxswbr
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*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
EPISODE SYNOPSIS:
This episode of Weird Darkness runs from a haunted well in the Essex countryside to stinging balls of light, the ghosts said to live in mirrors, a theater haunted by a vanished stage manager and a comedian, mutilated bulls in Oregon, and a man who says he went into the light with a mother and her dying son.
It opens at Cash's Well in Langdon Hills Country Park near Basildon, England, where ghost sightings go back to 1924 and ghost hunter Russell Old says the spirits of as many as 20 children take visitors by the hand. On one tour, Old says, a gentle seven-foot man turned so aggressive at the top of a hill that he said afterward, "I just wanted to kill everybody."
From there it's on to lights that seem to choose their targets, like the tiny ones Martha Grieswell of Richmond, Indiana, said crawled over her at night in 1978, stung like sweat bees, survived two days underwater and a stretch in her freezer, and turned up at her mother's house in Decatur. Others were deadlier: near Palestine, Texas, a boy reported that a ball of fire had struck a woman on horseback and set her ablaze, and she died the next day.
Next comes the ghost in the mirror, from the Bloody Mary ritual chanted in candlelit bathrooms at sleepovers back to the obsidian scrying mirrors of ancient Egypt and the psychomanteum, which Raymond Moody says the ancient Greeks used to contact the dead. In China, mirrors were turned over after a death so the departed wouldn't see a reflection and realize they'd become a ghost, and in the 1700s, girls in the British Isles ate an apple before a candlelit mirror to glimpse a future husband, while a skeleton's face meant death before the wedding. Bloody Mary herself has been tied to Mary I of England and to a witch called Mary Worth, burned at the stake around the Civil War; Japan's schoolchildren summon Hanako-san instead, knocking three times on the third stall of a third-floor girls' restroom.
After that, Sunderland's Empire Theatre in England is home to a White Lady thought to be Molly Moselle, an assistant stage manager who stepped out for a birthday card on January 14th, 1949, and was never seen again. Sid James suffered a fatal heart attack on the same stage in 1976 while the audience laughed, thinking it was part of the show, and actors say they've heard his laugh in dressing room one.
From England the episode crosses to the Silvies Valley Ranch in Harney County, Oregon, where five Hereford bulls were found dead on July 30th and 31st with their genitals and tongues cut away, no wounds, and no sign of a struggle. The killings echo the cattle mutilations of the 1970s, which led to a 1979 FBI investigation that found the animals had likely died of natural causes.
The episode closes with Michael Grosso's look at near-death experiences, deathbed visions, terminal lucidity, and shared death experiences. Mary Fran was killed instantly in a car crash, and her son, Nolan, died in the hospital days later with Scott M. Taylor, president of the Monroe Institute, at the boy's bedside. Taylor says he was in two places at once, standing among the weeping family while Mary Fran lifted Nolan from his body and the three of them went into the light.
More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.
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