Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

“The Kitchen Table” – A young couple pays a suspiciously low price for a neglected old farmhouse and lovingly begins restoring the home’s long-buried kitchen — never guessing that the house has been waiting a very long time for someone willing to listen to what it needs to say.

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 Undying Heart” (June 05, 1978)
00:45:25.646 = The Black Book, “On Schedule” (February 17, 1952) ***WD
00:59:54.814 = Front Page Drama, “Ghost of the Catacombs” (September 28, 1933) ***WD
01:14:48.366 = Box 13, “The Philanthropist” (January 30, 1949)
01:41:26.286 = Calling All Cars, “The Smashed Windshield” (February 07, 1934) ***WD
02:10:53.679 = Casey, Crime Photographer, “Duke of Skid Row” (September 19, 1946)
02:40:09.682 = CBC Mystery Theater, “The Kitchen Table” (May 26, 1967) ***WD
03:06:10.931 = Chet Chetter’s, “Peace To The Frifalites” (1989)
03:33:38.814 = The Clock, “The Double Cross” (June 24, 1956)
03:57:42.053 = The Crime Club, “Epitaph For Lydia” (May 01, 1947) ***WD
04:26:56.841 = Crime Classics, “Final Day of General Ketchum, How He Died” (July 27, 1953)
04:55:59.262 = Calling All Detectives, “Jerry Stumbles Into a Pickpocket Convention” (July 09, 1948) ***Wda
05:01:40.662 = 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/WDRR0740

On a quiet ER night shift, a badly burned stranger in a strange metallic suit is wheeled in, gasps a warning about a catastrophe that's coming, and then vanishes from the gurney — leaving behind a device counting down to a disaster only one nurse knows is on its way.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-sixteenhours

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “The Time Traveler” by Keith Conrad for Auditory Anthology (https://www.auditoryanthology.com)

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

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: August 11, 2026

What happens when self-declared prophets, alien messengers, and doomsday fanatics build secret empires in plain sight — and convince others to follow them to the end of the world?

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

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/utz5hrfd

SOURCES and RESOURCES:
New York Post - “Inside Manhattan’s secret ‘cult’”. *** News.com.au - “Congregation for the Light: Inside New York’s ‘cult next door’” *** Sinisterhood Podcast - Episode 16: “Congregation for the Light” *** The Commentator - “The Cult Around the Corner” *** Brooklyn Magazine - “Murray Hill Has A Secret Homophobic Aryan Doomsday Cult” *** https://yucommentator.org/2018/10/cult-stern-35th-the-light *** https://nypost.com/2014/11/02/the-secret-society-cult-that-operates-out-of-murray-hill/ ***https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381978851_Raelism_An_Unconventional_Religious_Pathway_to_Transhumanism*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism *** https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/religion-and-philosophy/raelism *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonaid *** https://www.bota.org/ ***https://www.botaineurope.org/ *** https://articles.skeptics.nz/2023/04/24/builders-of-the-adytum-the-tarot-cards-and-qabalah-in-naenae *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Builders_of_the_Adytum *** https://ilovehistory.utah.gov/1847-1904-lds-practice-of-polygamy/ *** https://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/fldsprofile.pdf ***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-Day_Saints *** https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Hai ***https://www.godsdirectcontact.org/spiritualpractice/Master_Ching_Hai.htm *** https://suprememastertv.com/en1/v/211271952624.html *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Hai *** https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Hai *** https://nypost.com/2018/01/11/the-cult-leader-behind-the-worlds-fast-growing-vegan-chain/ ***https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubccommunityandpartnerspublicati/52387/items/1.0385823 *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Science *** https://eng.the-liberty.com/2016/6323/ *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_Realization_Party *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryuho_Okawa *** https://www.cdamm.org/articles/cut-tsl *** https://summitlighthouse.org/aboutus/church-universal-and-triumphant/ *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Universal_and_Triumphant ***https://articles1.icsahome.com/articles/denouement-of-the-prophets--cult-the-church-universal-and-triumphant-in-decline *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Clare_Prophet *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Tribes_communities *** https://people.com/adam-arthur-rosenthal-twelve-tribes-religious-sect-accused-murder-8753907 *** https://nypost.com/2018/06/05/religious-cult-probed-for-child-labor-after-factory-expose/ *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles_of_Infinite_Love *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Gaston_Tremblay *** https://ktxs.com/news/big-country/ktxs-special-report-mystery-still-surrounds-house-of-yahweh-*** https://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/houseofyahwehprofile.pdf ***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfulfilled_Watch_Tower_Society_predictions *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Yahweh *** https://www.apologeticsindex.org/316-house-of-yahweh *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuwaubian_Nation *** https://people.com/crime/story-behind-united-nuwaubian-nation-moors-georgia-cult *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_York *** https://www.adl.org/resources/news/leader-anti-government-sect-sentenced-135-years *** https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/nuwaubian-nation-moors/ *** https://billygraham.org/answers/how-is-christianity-different-from-other-religions
(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: March 28, 2025
Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar pulls back the curtain on modern cults hiding in plain sight, from city apartments to desert compounds to Montana doomsday bunkers. This episode profiles more than a dozen secretive groups, including Manhattan's Congregation for the Light, the alien-worshipping Raëlian Movement and its Clonaid cloning claims, the polygamist FLDS led by imprisoned prophet Warren Jeffs, Supreme Master Ching Hai, Japan's Happy Science, Eckankar, Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant, the Twelve Tribes, the House of Yahweh, and the pyramid-building Nuwaubian Nation of Malachi Z. York. Along the way, Darren digs into why people get drawn in, the warning signs of a dangerous group, and what sets biblical Christianity apart from them all.

A lifelong night owl pushes their sleepless habit a few nights too far, and what starts happening once he finally closes his eyes is the reason he’s now sworn off sleep for the rest of his life.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-coffeeaddiction

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “I Have a Coffee Addiction” by Ashley Ingraham

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

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: August 10, 2026

Madame Delphine LaLaurie was one of the most admired socialites in New Orleans, and the Royal Street mansion she left behind is still called the most haunted address in the French Quarter.
==========
HOUR ONE: 
Winnie had two trunks when she arrived at the train station – trunks that contained the severed body parts of her two best friends. She had murdered them, it seems, all in the name of love. (Winnie Ruth Judd: Trunk Murderess) *** Was British government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly murdered? (Many Dark Actors: Dr. David Kelly) *** Madame Delphine LaLaurie, made popular by Kathy Bates in American Horror Story: Coven, was a first class monster. A figure of high society, she was well known for her mistreatment of slaves. But no one knew just how sick she truly was. (The Monster of Royal Street)
==========
HOUR TWO: Reddit users share some of the strangest, creepiest, most terrifying phone calls they’ve ever received – many that left the recipient with no explanation as to what just happened. (Creepy Phone Calls) *** Elizabeth Bathory was beautiful – and wanted to stay that way. So determined was her desire for a youthful appearance that she would bathe in the blood of young girls, thinking of it as a macabre fountain of youth. But how much truth is there to this story? And are there ghosts today, haunting their residences thanks to the Blood Countess? 
(Ghosts of the Blood Countess)
==========
SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME: A former schoolhouse has accrued a sinister reputation as one of the most haunted, weirdest places in Japan. (Haunted Schoolhouse In Japan) *** The gold rush brought many to North Carolina – men looking to get rich, and rich men looking to get richer. But the greed also brought cruelty to some mine owners… and that cruelty sometimes brought death… and hauntings. (The Skinflint Mine Entity) *** Was a certain female reporter murdered because she knew too much about the death of John F. Kennedy? (The Dorothy Killgallen Murder) *** Something bizarre and terrifying is living below the streets of London – and there are many theories as to what it might be. (Strange Things Below London)
==========
SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM TONIGHT’S SHOW:
“The Monster of Royal Street: Delphine LaLaurie”: https://tinyurl.com/ssf9lm3
“Many Dark Actors: Dr. David Kelly”: https://tinyurl.com/uf4jv5m
“Winnie Ruth Judd: Trunk Murderess” by Troy Taylor: http://ow.ly/kpFb30nhABS
“Creepy Phone Calls” by Aaron Edwards for Graveyard Shift: https://tinyurl.com/spnqq2s
“Ghosts of the Blood Countess” by Amy’s Crypt for Paranormal Scholar: https://tinyurl.com/r4lh7rn
“Strange Things Below London” by Nick Redfern for Mysterious Universe: https://tinyurl.com/ulutgp7
“The Murder of Dorothy Kilgallen” by Jessika M. Thomas for Ranker: https://tinyurl.com/tjzpaz7
“The Skinflint Mine Entity” from North Carolina Ghosts: https://tinyurl.com/w6ofq7g
“Haunted Schoolhouse In Japan” by Brent Swancer for Mysterious Universe: https://tinyurl.com/w4n98c6
==========
(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© 2025
==========
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).