Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Just after midnight, a night-shift nurse starts getting pages from Room 316, a room that came down with the rest of its wing during the hospital's renovation.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/PagedFromRoom316

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “The Patient That Time Forgot” by Keith Conrad, from http://www.auditoryanthology.com

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 29, 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

Arch Oboloer’s “Night”: Chicago firemen tell one of their own why their station hasn't made a Thursday-night run in twenty years, in Arch Oboler's play about a single night across America in June 1945.

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 Conspiracy” (November 15, 1978) ***WD
00:46:25.640 = Arch Oboler’s Plays, “Night (Thursday Nights At The Firehouse)” (June 07, 1945)
01:15:55.462 = Barry Craig, “Song Of Death” (December 26, 1951) ***WD
01:45:04.366 = BBC Radio 4/Radio 7 Ghost Story, “A Little Place Off The Edgware Road” (December 1986)
01:57:50.877 = Night Beat, “Marvelous Machine” (June 05, 1952) ***WD
02:28:25.639 = The Black Book, “Different Readings” (November 21, 1951) ***WD
02:53:37.125 = Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, “The Ghost To Ghost Matter” (May 18, 1958) ***WD
03:18:11.630 = Box 13, “Hunt And Peck” (March 06, 1949)
03:44:42.435 = Calling All Cars, “The Cut Rate Murder” (April 11, 1934)
04:15:58.236 = Casey Crime Photographer, ‘Mysterious Lodger” (March 06, 1947)
04:46:23.234 = Tales From The Tomb, “The Girl Of His Dreams” (1960s)
04:49:57.115 = Incredible But True, “Death Of A Monster” (1950-1951)
04:53:30.980 = Strange Adventure, “Smart Guy” (1945)
04:56:45.507 = Tales Of The Frightened, “Mirror Of Death” (November 27, 1957)
05:01:40.499 = 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/WDRR0786

People living and working in remote areas often encounter things far creepier than just silence. These are real-life stories of unsettling encounters, from faces at the window to gruesome discoveries deep in the woods.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/ForestHorror

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8cuh5y

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: People who live and work in remote areas know that sometimes too much quiet can make your mind race. However, some experiences stick with people long after they occur because of the degree of creepiness. On Reddit, plenty of people who live in rural areas or make their livelihood there, share their scary stories for the rest of us to freak out over. We know that often strange people linger around woods, parks, and other desolate areas. And we have all heard plenty of the kind of creepy stories that backpackers experience. However, in this episode, the stories are more than a little unpleasant, because the people who suffered them weren't just out and about anywhere; they were at their homes, or doing their jobs. Imagine living in the woods, and looking up from your bathtub to see a face looking back at you. Or imagine you are working as a forest ranger and come across a thumb nailed to a tree. Tonight I will share some of the terrifying real-life stories, stories that are the stuff of nightmares.
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:01:39.734 = Show Open
00:02:35.745 = Living In Remote Places
00:21:34.077 = Park Ranger Scares ***
00:40:20.539 = Backpacker Terrors ***
01:00:46.336 = 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:
“Terrors of People Living In Remote Areas” by Matthew Lavelle: http://bit.ly/2Y5j1r2
“Park Ranger Scares” by Rosa Pasquarella: http://bit.ly/2xNbZZ6
“Horrifying Backpacker Stories” by Jen Lennon: http://bit.ly/2LXcfNs(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: July, 2021
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
Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar shares wilderness horror stories from Reddit, told by people who live out in the country, park rangers who work the backcountry, and backpackers from Alabama to the Adirondacks.
It opens with a woman alone at night on a rural property who saw a man's face at her kitchen window, and the next day she and her husband found his makeshift cabin on their land, where he'd stashed canned goods from their kitchen and pinned up selfies taken in their bed. Others describe an intruder in rural Louisiana with a white sheet tied over his head and a peeper in the Australian desert who stacked wooden pallets under a bathroom window to see in.
From there, the park rangers take over, starting with a trip leader on Mount Sterling in North Carolina who watched a man with no headlamp or gear sit under a tree and stare at a camp of middle schoolers until 3:30 in the morning. Rangers also came across a human thumb nailed to a tree, a child's stuffed animal hanging from a noose, and a cleanly severed deer head with no blood, lying on a trail in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley.
The episode closes with backpackers, including a 12-year-old and his older brother who hid on an Alabama hilltop while hog hunters with dogs fired into the woods around their campsite, and two friends in the Adirondacks who watched a man with a shotgun search their tent. A solo hiker's Kodak disposable camera came back from Costco with ten pictures of the hiker asleep inside the tent, and another backpacker found a cell phone deep in the woods, still switched on, with 911 as the last number dialed.

In July 1969, six frightened people told Fort Worth police they'd been attacked near Greer Island on Lake Worth by something half-man and half-goat, covered in fur and scales, and within days hundreds of armed hunters were combing the woods for a creature nobody has been able to put a name to in the more than fifty years since.
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HOUR ONE: “Jerry Meets A Sasquatch” *** Greer Island, a small patch of land close to where the West Fork of the Trinity River flows into Lake Worth, is heavily shaded by tall oaks, cedar elms and cottonwoods. One of the quietest spots in Fort Worth, the island is home to egrets and owls, perhaps an alligator or two. And maybe, just maybe, the Lake Worth Monster. (The Lake Worth Monster) *** In 2017, Washington State Senator Karen Keiser was quoted as saying, “The incidents continue, they continue, and we have to consider that there is potential cosmic life over the island… it’s a very special place, with a cosmic presence.” What exactly happened on Maurey Island in 1947? (The Maurey Island Incident) *** Whether you’re a true believer or one of those skeptics, stories of spirits haunting the living from the confines of a Ouija board can chill you to the bone, and make you think twice before communicating with entities from another dimension. (True And Disturbing Ouija Board Stories)
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HOUR TWO: Did she drown? Did she commit suicide? Despite her death in 1889, we still don’t know how Maggie Hourigan died. (The Mystery of Maggie Hourigan) *** In 1958 Gavin Gibbons wrote a children’s science-fiction novel By Space Ship to the Moon, which featured a UFO landing on Moel Sych in the Berwyn Mountains of North Wales. Sixteen years later, in a surreal case of life imitating art, those very same mountains would again be the focus for a story involving a downed UFO. But this time, some said, the story was for real. (The UFO Case That Refuses to Die) *** What if creatures like gnomes and imps aren’t just real – but also evil? (Nasty Gnomes, Evil Imps and Terrifying Tommyknockers)
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SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM TONIGHT’S SHOW:
BOOK: “UFO Down?” by Andy Roberts: https://amzn.to/2WYffOY
BOOK: “By Spaceship To The Moon” by Jack Coggins: https://amzn.to/2UTayDp
BOOK: “The Lake Worth Monster of Greer Island” by Sallie Ann Clarke: https://amzn.to/2JuWICg
PHOTO: “Lake Worth Monster” photo by Allen Plaster: https://tinyurl.com/v9xsgwa
“The Mystery of Maggie Hourigan” by Robert Wilhelm for Murder by Gaslight: https://tinyurl.com/y4rkkm66
“The UFO Case That Refuses to Die” by Nick Redfern for Mysterious Universe: https://tinyurl.com/tsxhnvu
“Nasty Gnomes, Evil Imps and Terrifying Tommyknockers” by Brent Swancer for Mysterious Universe: https://tinyurl.com/Something Small, Something Evil | Demonic Gnomes That Terrorize and Torment the Living: https://tinyurl.com/wk36c2j
“The Lake Worth Monster” by Chris Vaughn for NBC 5 in Dallas/Ft. Worth: https://tinyurl.com/vh6ym6b
“The Maury Island Incident” by Erik Rowton for Paranormal Scholar: https://tinyurl.com/yx2vvpv5
“True And Disturbing Ouija Board Stories” by Jacob Shelton for “Graveyard Shift”: https://tinyurl.com/yx48q3e6
“Jerry Meets A Sasquatch” from Paranormality Magazine
“My Boyfriend’s Doppelganger” from Paranormality Magazine
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(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.)
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"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46
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WeirdDarkness®, WeirdDarkness© 2026

In January of 1995, Christa Pike led a fellow Job Corps student named Colleen Slemmer onto the University of Tennessee's agricultural campus and came back with a piece of Colleen's skull in her pocket; Tennessee plans to execute her at 10 a.m. Wednesday, and with the state's highest court having refused to stop it, her lawyers are waiting on Governor Bill Lee and on the U.S. Supreme Court, where an emergency request for a stay is pending.

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/ChristaPike

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://pod.link/1078714736

*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

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