Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Latest Episodes:

THE TOY BOX FROM TOMORROW: Mimsy Were The Borogoves | #MidnightInTheMacabre Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

In the spring of 1942, seven-year-old Scott Paradine was playing hooky down by the creek when a scorched metal box tumbled down the bank, packed with toys no store on Earth had ever stocked – an abacus whose beads slid off in a direction no grown-up could follow, a crystal cube full of tiny people who did whatever he thought at them, and a doll whose insides didn't match any anatomy chart. Scott and his two-year-old sister Emma figured the toys out fast, their father couldn't work them at all, and the child psychologist he brought home to dinner came away convinced the toys were teaching the kids to think in a way no adult could follow.
EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mimsy
SOURCES and RESOURCES: "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett, the pen name of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, first published in Astounding Science Fiction, February 1943
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: October 07, 2026
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

THE DEVIL'S BARGAIN: The Psychic Detective Who Finds What He Steals | #RetroRadio Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

Lord Carnavan's wife lends a visiting sheikh her carved Indian jewel box for one afternoon, and the morning after she wears her diamond necklace to Buckingham Palace, the necklace is gone from the locked box and her husband wants the psychic detective next door on the case.
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Devil’s Bargain” (December 06, 1978) ***WD
00:46:21.922 = The Saint, “Nineteen Santa Clauses” (December 25, 1949) ***WD
01:15:28.920 = 2000 Plus, “Green Thing” (September 27, 1950) ***WD
01:46:11.949 = The Unexpected, “Cargo Unknown” (1947-1948) ***WD
02:00:49.726 = Unsolved Mysteries, “Writing On The Wall” (October 05, 1949) ***WD
02:16:31.638 = Dark Venture, “Hideout” (January 07, 1947) ***WD
02:40:04.171 = The Weird Circle, “Terribly Strange Bed” (July 29, 1943)
03:08:10.615 = The Whistler, “Death Pays a Visit” (June 11, 1945)
03:37:46.860 = Strange Wills, “Singapore Liz” (November 02, 1946)
04:08:25.983 = Witch’s Tale, “Spirits Of The Lake” (January 02, 1933)
04:39:31.712 = X Minus One, “Real Gone” (February 27, 1957)
05:01:37.400 = Show Close
(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.

BOTCHED EXECUTIONS: Christa Pike And The Woman Who Woke Up In Her Coffin Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

Tennessee gave Christa Pike two doses of pentobarbital on September 30th, 2026, and she survived both. In 1650, Anne Greene hung for almost half an hour at Oxford, and when the anatomists opened her coffin, she was breathing.
From the book “BOTCHED EXECUTIONS: Four Centuries Of Failed Hangings, Electrocutions, Gassings, Injections And Firing Squads” by Darren Marlar, https://amzn.to/4yLF5oo, sources at https://weirddarkness.com/botchedexecutions.
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: October 06, 2026
https://weirddarkness.com/botched01

HOMICIDAL SLEEPWALKING: The Sleepwalker’s Alibi – Is It Possible To Murder Without Waking? Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

You go to bed like any other night… but by morning, someone is dead — was it a dream, or did you kill while still deep in sleep?
EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HomicidalSleepwalking
READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckud24p
FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: At least 68 cases of sleepwalking murder have reached a courtroom, giving a jury the unenviable task of deciding whether a murder committed while asleep means criminal responsibility for the unfortunate sleepwalker. (Homicidal Sleepwalking) *** A man begins to see and experience strange things around the house as he cares for his elderly grandmother.  (The Other Company) *** What does uncontrollable laughing, the Chupacabra, rampant crime, witch burnings, and dancing to exhaustion all have in common? They are all examples of what experts call “mass hysteria”. (Strange Stories of Mass Hysteria) *** Weirdo family member and U.S. veteran Joe Akins shares a personal experience with the paranormal and extraterrestrial! (UFO's & Demonic Shadow Figures) *** Another Weird Darkness fan, Mathew R., sent us a short story about what happened to him while visiting the Watseka Wonder House (The Watseka Wonder)
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:00:38.261 = Show Open
00:02:29.182 = Homicidal Sleepwalking
00:18:49.261 = The Other Company ***
00:24:50.570 = Strange Stories of Mass Hysteria
00:37:01.174 = UFOs and Demonic Shadow Figures ***
00:39:58.141 = The Watseka Wonder
00:43:52.791 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break
LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“Homicidal Sleepwalking” by Fiona Guy for Crime Traveller: http://bit.ly/2nhu93j
“The Other Company” by Marc Eulo Boni for Ghost Attic: http://bit.ly/2lN5UcS
“Strange Stories of Mass Hysteria” by Doug MacGowan for Historic Mysteries: http://bit.ly/2lIJ8mp
“UFO's & Demonic Shadow Figures” by Joe Akins for Weird Darkness
“The Watseka Wonder” by Troy Taylor for American Hauntings: http://bit.ly/2nOK1dE, with a short paragraph at the end from Weirdo family member Mathew R.
(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: August 22, 2018

SIX FRIGHTENED MEN: The Shapeshifting Terror of Pollux V | #MidnightInTheMacabre Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

Six members of a space expedition find themselves hunted by a shapeshifting monster that appears from nowhere on a desolate alien world, seeming to pick them off one by one.
EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/SixFrightenedMen
SOURCES and RESOURCES: “Six Frightened Men” by Randall Garrett (Originally published in ‘Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy’ June 1957)
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: October 07, 2026
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

THE HOROSCOPE RACKET: The Astronomers Who Took On The Casinos Of Mars | #MidnightInTheMacabre Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

The skyrockets at a Mars casino town's Marsy Gras keep ruining $1,000 photographs of the night sky at the Mars Observatory, so the astronomers start offering tourists free horoscopes, and every one warns the reader he'll lose consistently at Harvey's Club.
EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HoroscopeRacket
SOURCES and RESOURCES: “$1,000 A Plate” by Jack McKenty: https://amzn.to/3NcdSFo
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: October 06, 2026
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

DAVID GRUSCH ON JOE ROGAN: Reptilians, Greys, And Bodies Like 'Greek Gods' Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

On The Joe Rogan Experience, former intelligence officer David Grusch described video of human-looking bodies at a crash site, passed along a secondhand account of a deadly clash with living reptilians, and alleged a criminal ring inside a federal agency. Author Timothy Alberino says most of it should come as no shock to longtime UFO researchers, and Grusch predicts the evidence he says exists, none of it public yet, will come out before President Trump leaves office.
EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources and original article): https://weirddarkness.com/DavidGruschOnRogan
READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4jekr2mw
LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: October 05, 2026
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

THE CASE OF THE BURNING SKULL: The Shadow Hunts A Glowing Skeleton Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

The Shadow: A young chemist tells Lamont Cranston he woke in the night to find a skull burning green and grinning at him in the dark, and by the next morning he's vanished from his own house.
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Serpent of Saris” (December 04, 1978) ***WD
00:44:33.459 = Sam Spade, “Critical Author Caper” (August 15, 1948) ***WD
01:13:27.490 = The Sealed Book, “Death Rings Down The Curtain” (July 01, 1945)
01:43:56.502 = The Shadow, “The Case Of The Burning Skull” (March 18, 1945) ***WD
02:09:25.037 = Sleep No More, “The Man In The Black Hat” (December 05, 1956) ***WD
02:33:35.834 = BBC Radio 4 Spine Chillers, “Falling To Pieces” (April 2006)
02:45:51.849 = The Strange Dr. Weird, “Dead Man’s Paradise” (April 17, 1945) ***WD(LQ)
02:57:48.298 = Strange, “Phantom Wagoneer” (March 21, 1955) ***WD
03:12:20.632 = Suspense, “Donovan’s Brain, Part 1” (May 18, 1944) ***WD
03:42:36.925 = Suspense, “Donovan’s Brain, Part 2” (May 25, 1944) ***WD
04:11:33.984 = Tales of Tomorrow, “The Old Die Rich” (March 26, 1953) ***WD
04:41:19.375 = The Creaking Door, “Dummy” (June 08, 1964) ***WD
05:13:12.446 = Show Close
(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.
CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0793

I DRIVE FOR CERBER: Hellish Commutes Made Heavenly | #MidnightInTheMacabre Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

Jim's DUI keeps him off Uber, so he signs up with a rideshare app called Cerber, and his first fare, a seven-and-a-half-foot man who never lets Jim see his face, pays $1,279.37 for one ride to Fort Miley.
A NOTE FROM DARREN: I thought I’d bring back a classic from my flagship podcast, Weird Darkness. I often get comments on YouTube, on Facebook, or receive an email saying that someone liked a certain episode for this reason or that. Usually it’s a comment about how creepy or scary a specific story was, or it’s someone sharing an incident that happened to them that was similar. Or more often than not, just a note of encouragement to thank me for the podcast (which I do love getting, by the way). But very few episodes have garnered the amount of positive feedback that “I Drive For Cerber” has, which I have posted several times simply because people keep asking for it. So for those of you who have never heard it before, or for those of you who loved it the first time and wouldn’t mind another go-around, I proudly present, “I Drive For Cerber” by Mofucious.
EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/cerber
SOURCES and RESOURCES: “I Drive For Cerber” by Mofucious: https://www.creepypasta.com/i-drive-for-cerber/
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: October 05, 2026
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

HELLHOUNDS IN AMERICA: From Pike County To Palm Springs | #WDRadio Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

Britain has told stories of the Black Shuck for centuries, but witnesses in the United States describe huge black dogs of their own, one chasing two men back to their car on a Wisconsin river island and another pushing its front paws through the screen of a Michigan boy's bedroom window.
HOUR ONE: Love, money, divorce, anger, and murder. One Pennsylvania family had it all and then some in the late 1800’s. (The Butler County Tragedy) *** Count Saint Germain and Jacques Saint Germain, John and Wayne Carter, the Casket Girls of New Orleans. Despite many years between all of their lives, they all still have one grisly thing in common. All were thought to be, and possibly were, real vampires tied to the Big Easy… a place where real blood-suckers continue to live and roam the streets even now in the twenty-first century. (Vampires of New Orleans) *** They have a long history in the United Kingdom, stalking the moors and fog-carpeted streets in the night. But it appears hounds from Hell have also made their way to the Americas. (American Hellhounds)
==========
HOUR TWO: On a barren field in the U.S. state of Georgia, five granite slabs rise in a star pattern. Each of them weighs over 20 tons and on top of them, there is a capstone. Nobody knows who built it or why they were placed there, but one popular opinion that their purpose is to guide humanity after a predicted post-apocalyptic event that will come in the not so distant future. (The American Stonehenge) *** When you think "fairies," what comes to mind? You probably picture an adorable and sparkly creature akin to Disney's Tinker Bell, a lovely - and above all, friendly - presence. You may even want to make contact with them. Unfortunately, glittering humanoids with butterfly wings are the stuff of children's books. Retrace faerie folklore, and you'll discover their secret scary origins. (The Dark Side of Fairies) *** In the Summer of 1949, a geologist named Vadim Kolpakov discovered a strange feature on the surface of the earth in the Bodaibo, Irkutsk, region of South-Eastern Siberia. Encircled by a largely treed area, this anomaly is oval with a conical crater that contains a small ball-like mound in its middle. The geologic mystery has baffled scientists who are uncertain of what caused this weird formation. (What Caused the Patomskiy Crater) *** Is there any truth behind the enduring legend of the werewolf?  (Planet Werewolf) *** The Red Pen
==========
SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM TONIGHT’S SHOW:
Big Matt, “Long Road” song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWEvHVz2V6U
“American Hellhounds” by Brent Swancer for Mysterious Universe: https://tinyurl.com/yczhkvde
“The Butler County Tragedy” by Robert Wilhelm for Murder By Gaslight: https://tinyurl.com/yyn78amz
“Vampires of New Orleans” by Brian Harrison for Exemplore: https://tinyurl.com/ycyy4vjp
Episode containing “The Elves of Iceland”: https://weirddarkness.com/?s=Elves+Iceland
“Planet Werewolf” by Lea Rose Emery for Graveyard Shift: https://tinyurl.com/vcetp96
“The Dark Side of Fairies” by Amber Fua for Ranker: https://tinyurl.com/rbexptk
“The American Stonehenge” by Mihai Andrei for ZME Science: https://tinyurl.com/yaogafuz
“What Caused the Patomskiy Crater?” by Lochlan McClelland for Historic Mysteries: https://tinyurl.com/wu9r5bc
“The Red Pen” by Kjirsty Beth for Paranormality Magazine
==========
(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for material I use whenever possible. If I have overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it immediately. Some links may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)
==========
"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46
==========
WeirdDarkness®, WeirdDarkness© 2026
==========
To become a Weird Darkness Radio Show affiliate, contact Radio America at affiliates@radioamerica.com, or call 800-807-4703 (press 2 or dial ext 250).

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