“HOMICIDAL POLTERGEISTS” and More Terrifying True Paranormal Horror Stories! #WeirdDarkness

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IN THIS EPISODE: Murderous phantoms and homicidal ghosts are only found in television and movies, right? It’s rare – but they do decide to to make their presence known in the real world on occasion. (Homicidal Poltergeists) ***  A dead chicken was found beside the granary, next to a large print on the ground of an animal no one could identify. That was almost a year ago when sightings of a strange creature began on the Restayno family’s property. (The Argentina Entity) *** You’ve heard her story on national news – the hiker, lost in the wilderness of Hawaii for seventeen days. Fortunately she was found alive and relatively unharmed. But the mainstream news outlets are leaving out one very eerie part of Amanda Eller’s story. (Ghostly Voice Causes Hiker To Get Lost) *** Heaven and Hell… are these just ideas in a book, or are they real places? And is it true, as some believe, that Hell is below us, in the center of the Earth? (Caught Between Heaven And Hell) *** A paranormal investigator stumbles upon an abandoned property he has never seen before – and even this seasoned ghost hunter was scared out of his wits by what happened there. (The Ghost of a Serial Killer Lurks Within This Abandoned Farmhouse)

TRANSCRIPT FOR THIS EPISODE…
Find a full or partial transcript at the bottom of this blog post.

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STORY AND MUSIC CREDITS/SOURCES…
(Over time links can and may become invalid, disappear, or have different content.)
“Caught Between Heaven and Hell” by Sean Casteel: http://bit.ly/2XdbuGh
“The Argentina Entity” posted at Inexplicata: http://www.inexplicata.blogspot.com/
“Ghostly Voice Causes Hiker To Get Lost” by Steve Almasy: https://cnn.it/2WAxw1j
“Homicidal Poltergeists” by Sean Casteel: http://bit.ly/2R8tgEV
“The Ghost of a Serial Killer Lurks Within This Abandoned Farmhouse” from Backpackerverse: http://bit.ly/2F2XaFW
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TRANSCRIPT:

Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised.

Most of us think of ghosts as frightening entities, but I’m really not sure why. I mean, the majority of ghostly entities and spirits are like will-o-the-wisps. They may drift out of the cobwebs of your attic or a damp cellar corner, but, for the most part, they don’t really do anything dramatic or harmful – except perhaps throw a chair in the air, or shake a bed till it rocks, or step heavily on the floorboards in your house alerting you to their presence. Now I’ve seen doors open and close by themselves, lights go on and off and dishes drop to the floor without breaking. But after watching hours upon hours of your favorite ghost hunters’ show, I really can’t get as excited as I was at age four when I thought I saw a full body apparition in my room surrounded by a brilliant aura. TV and the movies portray ghosts and the esoteric in general in a more aggressive light. You have ‘Ghostbusters’ with its slime and ‘The Exorcist’s’ star Linda Blair spitting pea soup and telling her mother what she can do while in hell. Nothing like a good nail biting horror story like ‘Pet Semetary’ to prompt us to hide under the covers and leave on the night light next to the bed. And who can’t pass up an episode of “Supernatural”? It doesn’t matter in these instances if we are five or fifty, a good scare is a good scare! But what about fearsome ghosts away from the fictionalized world of horror movies? Good scares in real life, as far as ghosts go, are pretty much a rarity, except for those occasional cases which are guaranteed to make you wet your pants and scare the crap out of you. Tonight we’re not looking at your average, mundane ghost story. What we are concerned with are incidents which can be categorized as the most diabolic of poltergeist experiences, as well as skirmishes with the most gruesome and alarming phantoms you are ever likely to deal with.

I’m Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness.

Welcome, Weirdos – this is Weird Darkness. Here you’ll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained.

Coming up in this episode of Weird Darkness…

A dead chicken was found beside the granary, next to a large print on the ground of an animal no one could identify. That was almost a year ago when sightings of a strange creature began on the Restayno family’s property.

You’ve heard her story on national news – the hiker, lost in the wilderness of Hawaii for seventeen days. Fortunately she was found alive and relatively unharmed. But the mainstream news outlets are leaving out one very eerie part of Amanda Eller’s story.

Heaven and Hell… are these just ideas in a book, or are they real places? And is it true, as some believe, that Hell is below us, in the center of the Earth?

A paranormal investigator stumbles upon an abandoned property he has never seen before – and even this seasoned ghost hunter was scared out of his wits by what happened there.

Murderous phantoms and homicidal ghosts are only found in television and movies, right? It’s rare – but they do decide to to make their presence known in the real world on occasion.

While you’re listening, you might want to check out the Weird Darkness website. At WeirdDarkness.com you can find transcripts of the episodes, paranormal and horror audiobooks I’ve narrated, 24/7 streaming video of Horror Hosts and classic horror movies, you can find my other podcast, “Church of the Undead”, plus you can visit the “Hope In The Darkness” page if you are struggling with depression, anxiety, or thoughts of suicide. And you can also shop the Weird Darkness store where all profits go to support depression awareness and relief. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.

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You can usually count on psychic and counselor Maria D’Andrea to provide upbeat, positive insight on a variety of occult matters. But even Maria has had her life touched by an evil ghostly presence or two, as the following story from her contribution to “Knife-Wielding Demons and Murderous Ghosts” demonstrates. What starts as an etheric sword fight between ghostly combatants crosses over into physical reality – with terrifying results.
This is how Maria tells the story: “One cold and dreary night, I was doing some spiritual blessings at a cemetery at the request of a client to help his recently passed away relative through the transition from one reality to the next. As I walked through the grounds looking for the gravestone, I thought I heard a strange sound. As I tried to listen more, I realized it sounded like arguing, but in a language I didn’t know. I ignored it, thinking it had nothing to do with me, and kept walking in search of the gravestone.
“I found the spot I was looking for, did the blessing and started back to my car.
“Soon, it sounded like the arguing was closer, then it sounded far away, then again closer, like they were moving around everywhere in the cemetery. I was still thinking it didn’t concern me. But I became curious as to what was going on, so I started to walk toward the sounds. Yes, I knew it wasn’t my smartest move.
“As I headed in the direction of the sounds, I heard what sounded like metal hitting metal. I rounded a bend and there were two etheric soldiers fighting. There were swords clashing and making a terrible clanking sound. One was a confederate soldier and the other a union soldier. Apparently they didn’t know the War Between the States was over.
“They seemed out of control, vengeful as though they were in a whirlwind and couldn’t stop. I heard a few words, although not the whole sentence, and I wasn’t paying attention to their meaning. They said the following words: ambush, conscript and a few more, but those are the ones I remember. After all, I was more focused on the deadly fight.
“They were both covered in blood; some blood looked dark, with an eerie glow, while some looked like the blood was dripping off various body parts. It looked gruesome. As I stood there transfixed, at a distance, all of a sudden they both turned their heads and looked at me. First I thought they were looking at something else. Why would they notice and see me?
“They both started running toward me waving their swords. Initially I thought that, since they were spirit and non-physical, that they wouldn’t harm me. I was wrong.
“As they ran toward me, one of them threw his sword toward me, and I heard it as it splintered part of the tree near me. So it could harm me physically. It didn’t occur to me previously that anyone would throw a sword.
“I turned and ran toward my car. I know when to retreat. I kept thinking as I headed toward the parking lot, “I hope they don’t realize they’re spirit because they would be able to gain quicker ground not being limited by physical laws.” I didn’t even look back, since I still heard them yelling and they sounded like they were getting nearer.
“I heard the second sword hit a stone near me, but by then I was at my car. It seems they were attached to the cemetery because they didn’t follow when I got to the parking lot.
“Some days it doesn’t pay to be curious. Hopefully nobody else will see them, because, if you don’t see them, they might not be aware of you either.”
Another contribution to the new book comes from researcher and author Adele Casales Rosa, whose book “Portal: A Lifetime of Paranormal Experiences” details numerous encounters with the unknown, her own as well as those of others. In a chapter called “The Horror of Baguio,” Rosa recounts the story of a young Filipino husband and father named Ernest who is crippled with depression because of a monstrous presence not everyone around him could perceive.
“The creature’s continued presence almost every twilight,” Rosa writes, “consumed Ernest’s waking hours. His apprehensions of being ‘taken’ by the creature, body and soul, started to show in his poetry. His poems, which were an outlet for his internal turmoil, turned even darker, drearier and more foreboding. His siblings, who read his opus, became concerned and from concern, became alarmed when he wrote one poem which began as ‘The bird that flies is false.’ Themes of death became prominent.”
The creature tormenting the young poet was described like this: “Embracing the window, with a wingspan of more than 6 feet from tip to tip, was a bat taller than a man. Its leathery wings ended in a talon-like grasp at the edges of the window. Its yellow eyes were like a cow’s, the semblance of horns protruded from its black head and it had a goatee at the end of its pointed chin. The face of a goat with the eyes of a cow – and a leathery body framed by the wings of a bat.”
It is an eerie thing to contemplate, that such a creature would repeatedly appear and yet never leave any physical traces behind, such as animal tracks or bat droppings. In spite of its physical nature, its effect on the young percipient was decidedly psychological and emotional, as was its impact on his family. To learn the story’s tragic end, read “Knife-Wielding Demons and Murderous Ghosts,” and prepare yourself for a tale as sorrowful as it is strange.
Scott Corrales, a most prolific writer and translator of Hispanic UFO and paranormal articles and books, has become a frequent contributor to Global Communications books. For this particular volume, Scott provides a survey of cult-related murders and satanic secret societies. The following is excerpted from his chapter in “Knife-Wielding Demons and Murderous Ghosts.”
“It came as a surprise to readers of Chile’s ‘La Tercera’ newspaper that the nation’s Chamber of Deputies (similar to the U.S. House of Representatives) had held hearings in relation to the existence of eighty active satanic groups in their country – 40 of them classified as ‘dangerous clandestine groups.’ The cults are allegedly involved in such ghastly acts as consuming human flesh, necrophilia and self-mutilation.
“According to sociologist and cult researcher Humberto Lagos, satanic groups were proliferating throughout Chile since the year 2000. The groups are never large – size not being a consideration, rather, the amount of damage they can cause being the major factor – and are formed by young males (30 and younger) who cut off one of their fingers as a sign of belonging to the cult. Lagos, the government’s main consultant on the matter, added that lonely, elevated areas such as La Piramide are frequented by these cultists for their weekly rituals. A cross-section of the cult members would reveal disaffected youth who blame society for their ills and – in a Catholic country – rebel against one of the most visible societal symbols.
“Police officers report that these places are often marked by a hexagon with the number ‘666’ and fenced with inverted crosses. The cultists drink alcohol and take drugs prior to engaging in sexual rituals. However, the Vitacura sheriff’s department, which is in charge of the La Piramide sector, has not recorded any reports from local residents regarding strange rituals or situations in the area.
“It is believed that three hundred such groups exist throughout Chile, acting in small cells, much like terrorist outfits. Many of them are not satanic, but rather practitioners of Santería or other Afro-Caribbean religions, which have gained considerable followings in South America.
“The Chamber of Deputies’ committee on cults was empaneled as a result of charges of white slavery leveled against the ‘Center for Tibetan Studies’ in the city of Viña del Mar. The new anti-cult legislation would follow the European model, which makes ‘manipulation of conscience’ and any form of mental manipulation or obfuscation a crime.
“None of this, according to the information in La Tercera, compares with the most violent case recorded: the 1994 incident involving a Satanic/neo-Nazi cult engaging in child abductions in order to torture them and subject them to all manner of sexual outrages. The cult celebrated its rituals at night in the vicinity of the sports club of the town of Sausalito.
“The Chilean newspaper does not go on to state if there was any link between the cultists and the members of the upper class athletic club. While such a connection may at first seem startling, it has been seen elsewhere, as in the case involving a group of Mexican Satanists who carried out their rituals in Chapultepec Park, not far from the elite Restaurante del Lago eatery.
Another case involving upper middle class practitioners of ritual magic appeared in Spain’s El Pais newspaper on March 23, 1999, when it was reported that members of the Fraternidad Blanca Universal (Universal White Fraternity) had performed a ritual designed ‘to enhance both pleasure and longevity’ in the coastal resort town of L’Alfás del Pi which resulted in the death of Natalie Castleford, 38, a Belgian national. According to the press, the cultists placed a blanket over Castleford’s body and several people proceeded to sit on her in order to interrupt her breathing process – a method which, according to the cult’s beliefs, causes intense pleasure, extends natural life span and purifies the body.
“At this point it must be added that police officials in these countries, while at first baffled by the nature of the crime, tend to react swiftly and usually ‘get their man’ after diligent detective work, often resorting to infiltrating the cults. In October 2002, Spain’s El Mundo newspaper carried a story on how Italian law enforcement had successfully broken up the Angels of Sodom, a satanic cult in the city of Pescara in eastern Italy, led by a 32-year-old reverend known as Jan Ash. This cult leader had allegedly belonged to a number of U.S. cults, but decided to establish his own seven years ago because of his interest in ‘vampiric practices,’ according to the newspaper.
The police apprehended ‘Reverend Ash’ and three associates during the Pescara raid, and confirmed fourteen cases of abuse to minors, adding that ‘the total list may number in the hundreds, since the cult had been operating clandestinely for seven years and reputedly had a considerable number of customers.'”

A VENGEFUL GHOST IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY?
Global Communications’ great scholar of Greek mythology, writer and podcast personality Hercules Invictus, adds some material of historical interest on the nature of the gods and spirits we encounter in the land of dreams, a realm that is a reality unto itself and occupied by dark powers we cannot begin to comprehend.
Hercules also tells the story of a Grecian entity called The Moor, who could possibly be a daemon or a vengeful ghost. In any case, The Moor is a fearsome creature to encounter and a fascinating example of how the mythic and paranormal are handed down through the centuries with their fear-inducing qualities still intact.
So-called poltergeists come in all shapes and sizes and inspire varying degrees of horror. What might be surprising is that poltergeists are NOT necessarily the spirits of the dead nor the overworked, disordered personalities of the living often thought to have become possessed by demonic forces. That which we call a ‘poltergeist’ could just as easily include a wide range of other unearthly phenomena, such as random denizens of the dark moving through time and space and other dimensions, as well as manifestations of cryptids, known collectively as shape-shifters and ‘bedroom invaders,’ and possibly even representatives of numerous alien races.

No one has ever completely explained why we enjoy being terrified. What is that perverse thrill we seek and never get enough of? Why does a case of the chills make us feel satisfied and well-served by scary forms of entertainment, whether entirely fictional or, factual stories said to have literally taken place in our “real” and physical world?

Traveling on my way to another haunted location, my “spidey senses” went off as I passed a run-down farmhouse.

When I reversed and stopped in front of the property, I could almost hear screams and growls in my head. Strangely enough, there were no signs blocking the entrance to the property, so I grabbed my equipment and went in. I found it odd that the majority of the trees and plants surrounding the old house were either dead or dying.

The house itself also looked like it was decaying from the inside out, along with the surrounding buildings and sheds. As I crept up to the front porch, I saw that it was crumbling around the concrete steps that lead up to the front door. Stepping slowly and lightly, I noticed the cracks in the concrete and then the old boards nailed across the door.

I switched one of my EVP recorders on, then I pulled on the boards, finding them flimsy and easy to rip down. The door opened on its own – creepy enough – but I had to remember that the dangers were more than structural. I walked slowly, testing the floorboards as I went, but the familiar pricking up of my hairs and the chills hit me fast.

Surprisingly, the center of the house was sturdy, so I walked freely into the kitchen and then froze in my tracks. A woman was slumped on the floor under the sink, with a large knife stuck in her chest and trickling blood.

I was able to see through her and I realized that I was in the middle of a residual haunting, but then she looked up. The pain in her face was horrible, but she managed to raise her hand and point upwards. Then she screamed. I looked around but no one was there, so I turned back as I trembled in fear, to see the woman standing up.

Still screaming, she pointed up again. Her head began to twitch and shake uncontrollably with her mouth open wide. I knew that I had to investigate, even though I was nearly peeing in my pants, so I went out and ran up the stairs. When I got to the top, I heard the boards behind me creaking with slow footsteps. I spun around – nobody was there.

I felt like I was being stalked but I had to push on, going to the bedroom at the front of the crumbling house. Again, the door opened on its own, making my flesh crawl. Then I saw a small boy lying in a pool of his own blood.

I couldn’t help the tears falling down my face, but I was distracted by a nasty growl close to my right ear. Angry now, I turned around and yelled, “Who are you?!” but I didn’t get a response, so I looked back at the little boy. He lifted his head and pointed to the back of the house. My head was spinning as I didn’t know what to do.

Then the boy sat up and yelled in his tiny voice, “Help us!” while he continued to point emphatically and cry. I ran over to the room on the other side, feeling like someone was controlling me, while a chill ran through my body.

When I got to the room, that door opened – violently this time – smashing against the wall, while the handle rattled. A teenage girl was flung across the old bed, with slashes all over her body. A river of blood ran under the bed. Then I heard menacing laughter in the distance, which fueled my anger. The girl slowly sat up and pointed to the left.

I was weeping angry tears for this ghostly family, who had obviously been viciously attacked by a sadistic killer. I could still hear the screams from the mother and the little boy, along with the gurgling from the girl on the bed. It was clear that she had her throat slashed but she was trying to speak as she pointed to the back of the house.

Feeling that I might find the killer there, it took some time for me to build up the nerve to keep moving. I was annoyed with myself for stepping into this nightmare without backup, as I’d never faced anything like it before. Then I remembered my video camera, so I activated it and pointed it all over the place while I continued on my way.

The gurgling, crying and screaming went on as I crept down the landing to the room at the back, shivering in fear. Before I even got to the room, I heard the slow creaking of the door, which made me shudder and move slower.

My body shook as I made it to the door, where I expected to face the killer responsible for the death of this family. Instead, I saw a grown man in a chair with an axe deep in his head! There was a pool of blood under the chair. Somehow I knew that this was the father and that he couldn’t speak, but he slowly lifted his hand and began to point.

A chill swept through my soul as I realized that his finger was pointing directly at me. Was I the killer?! As I thought that, the father pointed more emphatically at me and the screams and noises from his family increased. While I stood there dumbstruck, wondering what he meant, I felt a blast of evil hit my back – freezing my body.

Then a putrid stench wafted over me and the father continued to point anxiously – to the space behind me. Finally I was able to turn around, as an unholy growling began to filter through the screams of the whole family. This time I did pee my pants, as I realized that I was face to face with the most evil entity I had ever encountered.

Keep in mind that until that day, I had only ever captured voices on my EVP recorder. I’d never seen a ghost! Now I was only centimeters away from a murderous monster who had slaughtered an innocent family in cold blood. At first, I had no idea what I had to do and it was obvious that the sinister specter found this fact amusing.

He looked like a big gorilla of a man who had escaped an insane asylum, with huge black eyes and an awful sneer. Then I remembered that I had a mini-bible on my keychain, which my mother had given me before she’d passed away.

I whipped my keys out and with trembling fingers, I flipped the bible open and shoved it in his ghostly face. It was all I could think of but it worked! I yelled, “LEAVE THEM ALONE! GO TO HELL, WHERE YOU BELONG!” He screamed like a demon splashed with Holy water. As I raged along with the family’s screams, he disappeared.

I turned around and the father was gone. When I raced through the house, I saw that the whole family was gone. The house was now empty but free from evil. When I got back in my car, I finally broke down and cried happy tears. I wasn’t even mad when I got back home and discovered that my equipment had malfunctioned, with no evidence.

When Weird Darkness returns…

Heaven and Hell… are these just ideas in a book, or are they real places? And is it true, as some believe, that Hell is below us, in the center of the Earth?

That story is up next.

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Many of you have been asking for an earlier Weirdo Watch Party so you could participate too – so this one is for you! Put it on the calendar – Friday night, July 24th – 7:30pm Central (that’s 5:30pm Pacific, 6:30pm Mountain, 8:30pm Eastern). Arachna from Beware Theater is hosting the Bela Lugosi classic “The Human Monster” from 1939! You don’t need to buy a ticket, it’s always free to join the Weirdo Watch Party – just set a reminder on your mobile device, online calendar, smart home device, write it in blood on your refrigerator, whatever you have to do so you don’t miss it – and this one is early enough that you can get to bed at a decent hour! Join us as Arachna brings us Bela Lugosi in “The Human Monster” – again, it’s July 24th at 7:30pm Central – that’s 5:30pm Pacific, 6:30pm Mountain, 8:30pm Eastern – on the Weirdo Watch Party Page at WeirdDarkness.com!

Do heaven and hell actually exist as physical locations? Can one step outside of the boundaries of religious and cultural conditioning that for millennia have told us that the two places exist outside the physical realm as places to be found only in spiritual dimensions that are unreachable by the living?
Timothy Green Beckley and his stable of venerable writers and researchers invite you to consider the possibility that the territories we think of as the afterlife – the dichotomies of heaven and hell – are in fact physical places concealed throughout eternity in the bowels of the Earth.
This is the theme of Beckley’s latest group project, the book called “Our Hollow Earth: An Inner World Paradise, Or A Gateway To Hell?” Since the book provides excellent arguments to support either case, it is up to the reader to determine which authors’ testimonies are more credible.
Beckley’s introduction pulls no punches when he writes: “Frankly, the text books – the truth according to our ‘experts’ – are all wrong! If you think life exists only on the surface of the planet, you have been listening to the ‘party line’ way too long, for there are those who see the Earth as being multilayered, and that what goes on ‘above’ definitely goes on ‘below’ – and maybe more so to the extreme.”
“One case for an Inner Earth hell,” Beckley continues, “is found in the wickedly profound tales of one Richard S. Shaver, who claimed he knew about a race of underground beings he called the Dero. For eons, the Dero had been polluting humankind’s minds with murderous thoughts and were responsible for plagues, ‘natural’ disasters, wars and all manner of evil deeds. They inflicted these woes upon humankind through the use of ancient laser-like ‘stem rays’ shot forth from their cavernous dwellings, hidden out of sight below the very bottoms of our feet.”
According to Beckley, Shaver said there was a real hell and it was located not in some mythical place but down below, right beneath us, toward the center of the earth. Like it or not, fundamentalist “scholars” tell us quite clearly that hell is for real and located inside the earth, making reference to Ephesians 4:9, which says of Jesus: “Now in saying that He ascended, what does it mean but that He also descended into the LOWER PARTS OF THE EARTH?” The reports of some who have experienced a Near Death Experience say they were thrown into the fiery lakes of hell and that “this place seems to be UNDERGROUND or WITHIN THE EARTH in some way.”
Shaver’s belief in a literal, physical hell was the result of demonic voices in his head.
“From as far back as I can remember,” Shaver writes, “there were the voices. They weren’t there all the time, but they were there enough that they played an important role in my early childhood development. At first I thought that everyone heard the voices. I thought there was nothing strange about being awakened at night with the hideous screams of someone being torn limb from limb ringing in your ears. I thought it was normal to hear the maniacal laughing of an invisible someone who thought it was a fine joke to see an innocent soul run down by a speeding train. I thought everyone knew that the voices were with us all of the time, watching, waiting, and scheming for our bloody deaths. But I was wrong. It seemed that I was the only one who heard the voices. I learned quickly not to talk about them, lest I be thought a maniac.”
Shaver’s voices gradually faded from his life and became only a distant childhood memory. They returned, however, when he was an adult working at an auto plant in Detroit. He began to hear them through the noise of the machinery, conversing among themselves about gleefully tearing the skin off a woman as she screamed for mercy or causing cars and planes to crash.
He concluded he must be quite insane, quit his job, began to live a hobo life and took to alcohol to try to block the voices out. He found himself confined to a prison or mental hospital – he seems unclear on which – and came to believe the voices came from people living in caves beneath the institution where he was incarcerated, tormenting him and the other prisoners with strange technologies he compared to some kind of x-rays.
Shaver writes: “My problems, I realized, did not stem from some kind of mental impairment. I wasn’t crazy in the traditional sense, even though at times I felt like I was being driven mad by the hateful rays that were being beamed at me by the people below. No, I was sane in an insane world.
“I have often wondered,” he continues, “how many people who have been institutionalized because they were diagnosed as crazy were in fact victims, such as myself, of the damnable rays. Did they themselves think that they were insane because of the voices they heard in their heads and voluntarily committed themselves? Even today I still wonder if most forms of mental illness are not actually insidious attacks from the world below.”
Over time, perhaps as a method of coping with the voices, Shaver began to develop a myth or a narrative to explain them. He writes about the coming of the “Titans,” a humanoid race that migrated from their home planet and settled on Earth long before mankind was created. The Titans created the first civilization on the Earth, a social and scientific utopia that has never been equaled since.
But there came a time when the sun began to flare in dangerous ways and Earth was flooded with world-destroying radiation. The Titans had no choice but to flee, but some of them stubbornly refused to abandon their homes and instead moved underground or beneath the seas. They took their great machines and scientific knowledge with them, in hopes of someday finding a solution to the solar radiation and returning to live on the Earth’s surface.
But even deep within the Earth, the solar radiation continued to affect them. They tried moving deeper into the planet, but to no avail.
“Those who did not die immediately,” Shaver writes, “suffered genetic damage that was passed down from generation to generation. Eventually, this once mighty race was reduced to mutated horrors, retarded in intelligence and social structure. Worse still, these monstrosities still had access to the self-repairing machines of their ancestors. But instead of using them for their intended purposes, they used them to satisfy their sick, twisted desires. These are the demons of ancient myth and folklore.”
They are the masters of a very REAL Hell!
Of course, stories about various locales inside the Earth are nothing new. Unlike Shaver’s tales of the demonic Dero who inhabit a cavern world, the inhabitants of the actual Hollow Earth, located at the planet’s core, are also said to be peaceful in countenance, but wish to keep their existence a secret for fear that the surface “warmongers” will want to invade.
A few years ago, when Beckley reprinted the long out-of-print edition and expanded upon the original version of “The Smoky God And Other Inner Earth Mysteries,” he knew going in that there isn’t anything new under the sun – even the central sun said to light the interior of our planet!
The story of the Smoky God is dramatic and tells of a fantastic journey by father and son to a place inhabited by gentle giants. In contrast to the rather admittedly demented Richard Shaver, who made no effort to conceal his hearing voices inside his head, voices that drove him nearly insane (he is said to have been locked in an insane asylum for several years), most of the tales of a Hollow Earth are rather benign. As a further example, one need only examine the works of Tibetan mystic T. Lobsang Rampa, who called the paradise located in the Inner Earth “Agharta.” Beckley’s Global Communications publishing house has republished many of Rampa’s books in excellent new editions.
But the story of the Inner Earth does not always involve supernatural entities like demons or highly-evolved, benevolent, heavenly personages. There is also plenty of everyday human evil thrown into the mix. Take the story of Admiral Byrd, for instance, about whom many questions remain.
Admiral Richard E. Byrd is thought of as an iconic American hero. But what was he concealing from the public, and why did he swear to secrecy a handpicked group from among the crews that accompanied him on his polar expeditions?
In 1938, the Nazis asked Byrd to join their expedition to the North Pole, which the admiral quite naturally declined. The Nazis went there without him, seeking to make contact with a hidden race of supermen by finding a doorway into the Hollow Earth that was believed to exist in the icy northern wastelands. Did the Nazis succeed in making that contact? Did they get alien assistance in building their own disc-shaped aircraft?
Ace Fortean advocate Tim Cridland presents not only photographic proof of the existence of massive holes at the North and South Poles, which are usually covered with a thick cloud layer, thus disguising the entrances there, but also explores the close connection between a member of the Byrd family and the assassination of a beloved president.
The admiral’s cousin, David Harold Byrd, was an oil-rich financier from Texas who funded some of Admiral Byrd’s earlier polar expeditions. By virtue of his wealth, Harold Byrd was part of the inner circle of the rich and powerful in Texas, which included Lyndon Johnson and John Connelly. Did the secret cabal somehow have a hand in the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Was the conspiracy of murder birthed in a Houston hotel room?
In any case, to many in the UFO and conspiracy theory communities, Admiral Richard E. Byrd is not merely some benign fatherly figure smiling at us from the pages of 20th century history. While Byrd is commonly thought of as a national hero and a courageous explorer of the forbidding wastelands of the Polar Regions, those who look a little deeper soon discover a disturbing darkness and subterfuge that entangles the American icon in many a wicked web.
From the darkness surrounding Byrd, his cousin and the JFK assassination, we move along to what may be even darker terrain, as described by author and podcaster Micah Hanks.
“It’s one of the most famous conspiracies,” Hanks writes, “associated with the end of the Second World War: that a group of Nazis escaped to Antarctica, where they had a secret base established to aid in the furtherance of their top secret flying saucer development program. Such tales have been the stuff of legends for decades now, and the persistence of rumors like these offer an alternative to popular theories about alien visitors that remain a hallmark of modern UFO lore.”
Hanks refers to a 2006 discovery by Ohio State University scientists who claim to have located some kind of “gravitational anomaly” located below Wilkes Land, Antarctica. It was later speculated in the tabloid press that the anomaly could be the long-sought “secret Nazi UFO base” in question.
There is some legitimacy to this idea, according to Hanks, stemming from the fact that the Nazis did mount an expedition to the South Pole in 1938-39, though there is no proof they attempted to establish a more permanent stronghold there. Ironically, according to Hanks, the idea of Nazi UFOs in Antarctica has less to do with anything the Nazis actually did than with what Admiral Byrd himself said about it.
Hanks quotes from a 1947 interview with Byrd, published in a Chilean newspaper, thusly: “The admiral stated that he didn’t want to frighten anyone unduly but that it was a bitter reality that, in case of a new war, the continental United States would be attacked by flying objects which could fly from pole to pole at incredible speeds.”
“As one can see,” Hanks continues, “such wording easily lends itself to the idea of a connection between the Nazi UFO mythos and something going on at the South Pole.”
Jules Verne’s 1864 novel, “Journey To The Center Of The Earth,” is often credited with being the first book to deal with the concept that the Earth could possibly be hollow. But, in actuality, Verne’s classic tome was written about a hundred years after the release of a book that purports to be a real account of the author’s exploits in the underworld.
As far as is known, Niels Klim’s “Underground Travels,” originally published in Danish as “Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum” (1741), is a purportedly real journey as described by the author, Ludvig Holberg. It is being published here in English by Global Communications without tampering or unneeded editing. The complete title in English is: “NIELS KLIM’S JOURNEY UNDER THE GROUND, BEING A NARRATIVE OF HIS WONDERFUL DESCENT TO THE SUBTERRANEAN LANDS, TOGETHER WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE SENSIBLE ANIMALS AND TREES.”
Ludvig Holberg is the most eminent writer among the Danes in the 18th century. University-educated and well-traveled, he wrote treatises on law as well as histories, satires and comedies.
“There are many persons of both sexes in my country who believe in fairies and supernatural beings and who are ready to swear that that they have been conveyed by spirits to hills and mountain caves,” writes Holberg.
The work starts with a foreword that assures the reader that everything in the story is a real account of the title character’s exploits in the Underworld. The story begins in the Norwegian harbor town of Bergen in 1664, after Klim returns from Copenhagen, where he has studied philosophy and theology at the University of Copenhagen and graduated magna cum laude. His curiosity drives him to investigate a strange cave in a mountainside above the town, which sends out regular gusts of warm air. He ends up falling down the hole, and after a while he finds himself floating in free space.
Klim, the hero of the tale, is said to be transported to the world underground, where he meets with some “surprising” adventures. Many strange creatures inhabit this new world. Trees are introduced that have the power of speech and musical instruments discuss questions of philosophy and finance.
This introduction is followed by a short section called “Apologetic Preface,” in which descendants of Klim the Great add a prefix to the new edition where they swear to the authenticity of the story and seek to amend the bad reputation with which the publisher has unfairly been burdened by readers who believe the book is all fantasy.
Whether or not one lends total belief to the story told by Holberg and Klim, it is in any case a fascinating tale of adventure, redemption and coming to know one’s true self in a world previously unknown to mortal man.
“Our Hollow Earth” also includes a chapter by Hercules Invictus, a frequent contributor among Beckley’s writers. Hercules writes about the physical heaven and hell as described in Greek mythology. The Rivers of the Underworld, also an element of Greek mythology, are neatly summarized by Deanna Jaxine Stinson. Deanna’s husband, Paul Dale Roberts, recounts the story of a cave in Guatemala reputed to be an entrance to a Hollow World where the UFO occupants are said to reside. Scott Corrales covers similar territory in the wider exploration of Latin American entrances to the Underworld.
Beliefs in and about the Hollow Earth span the centuries and cut across all cultural and metaphysical lines. If you’re new to the subject, “Our Hollow Earth: An Inner World Paradise, Or A Gateway to Hell?” will provide the introductory overview that will start your education along the right path. If you’re a longtime student of the strange, you owe it to yourself to read the contributions from writers of the present time along with the resurrection of Ludvig Holberg’s breezily fascinating 18th century adventure story, which you likely are unaware of.
Just what IS down there? Is there an unseen enemy beneath our feet, threatening to conquer us with mind-blowing wicked technology when they feel the time is right? Or is there some gentle race of Inner Earth inhabitants who guard their secret paradise from us savages here on the surface?
The complete duality of the Hollow Earth mystery inevitably gives one pause, does it not?

Up next…

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Very early in the morning on October 8, a team from Vision Ovni headed for the locality of Colonia Elia in the Province of Entre Rios to research the manifestations of a strange creature that appears in small holds and fields, slaying farm animals as well as calves and sheep. This was the information presented to us by the national media, which had taken an interest in the story. It was thanks to this interest that we became aware of the case. The following is written in first person from the the point of view of the article’s author:

Once we had reached the site, 260 kilometers distant along Route 14, we entered Colonia Elia through a dirt road in search of the witnesses. As always, we employed an old but sure-fire strategy to get information. We stopped a man who was riding along on horseback, and he quickly indicated the location of the Restayno family home. This was the family that had witnessed the events involving the unusual creature.
The witnesses warmly welcomed us: they showed us evidence of the mutilations, which was among the reasons for our trip, and quickly told us the details of the occurrences.

Manifestations of this entity began a year ago, around September 15, when they found a dead chicken beside the granary, displaying strange marks, and a large print on the ground. The family’s boys – Matias and Gabriel – fully knowledgeable about the animals that wander the fields, could not recognize the type of marks left on the chicken’s breast and much less identify the footprint found near the dead animal. In an effort to glean further evidence, they found tear marks, made as if by claws, in the back of the henhouse. The following night, early in the morning, the heard noises that prompted them to go outside to see what was happening. Matias, 16, was startled when he saw a bizarre figure scurry away among the vegetation at the back of the house; he described this figure as large (standing at least 1.70 meters) and swift in its getaway. Upon inspecting the henhouse, they found a dead chicken with a large rip in it chest.
From that moment on, the family’s boys would not have a normal life again, as each night turned into an episode of chase and attempted capture of this creature, which turned the family’s life into a strange adventure. According to a family member, the “critter”, as they’ve dubbed it, seems more frightened than them. Whenever the possibility of an encounter exists, the reaction is always the same: flight.
All manner of snares have been laid out to trap this creature: otter traps, cages (lent by a neighbor who cares for endangered animals), and they even prepared a trap using old bedding elastic […]. The creature was captured in each of these, but managed to free itself. The otter trap, however, inflicted serious injury, given that blood traces remained on the trap and on a nearby stone. These samples were taken for analytical purposes.
Manifestations have been constant. The witness see fleeting shadows and the entity’s claw-prints, such as the ones it left on a tree, as though it had used the wood to sharpen them, or its footsteps, which are easily seen because the boys, in their urge to secure evidence, began spreading ashes and rice powder around the hen houses.
The best was yet to come, and it would happen inside the house at three o’clock in the morning. Matias heard a noise behind the kitchen but within his home. This experience allowed Matias to clearly see the entity that had been engaged in the chicken mutilations. We managed to obtain an oral picture of the creature. We showed him a series of figures from our files, and he identified one of them as very similar, and based on that, he outlined the description of what confronted him that night.
He seized his carbine (.22 caliber) and quickly headed to the front of the house. When he drew the curtain of the room that houses his mother’s pantry and the cheese-making churns, he found the “critter” on top of the freezer, clearly intending to grab the churn. Matias’s immediate reaction was to fire, which he did four times without wounding it. The anima jumped through a window, spilling chicken entrails throughout the room.

Five weeks ago, Amanda Eller felt drawn to go to the Makawao Forest Reserve on the Hawaiian island of Maui to connect with nature and get grounded.

She had rarely been to that park and hadn’t been in months. But that day she was called to go.

The 35-year-old physical therapist, who had a whole day to herself, figured she’d go for a 3-mile hike and spend a couple of hours in the woods.

“I don’t really know what happened,” she said Tuesday morning, speaking to reporters while in a wheelchair. “All I can say is that … I have strong sense of internal guidance, whatever you want to call that — a voice, Spirit, everybody has a different name for it.

“My heart was telling me walk down this path, go left. Great. Go right. It was so strong.”

She said it turned out to be not nearly as strong when after meditating on a log she wanted to go back to her car.

She tried one path and it didn’t get her back to her car. She tried another. No luck. And another.

She came to the realization she wasn’t on a human path; she was on a boar path.

“At that point I had no choice because everything looked the same. I said, ‘The only thing I have is my gut. I don’t have a compass. I don’t have a cell phone,'” she said. “‘So, Spirit,’ or whatever you want to pray to, I said, ‘I need your help right now.'”

She said she listened to her sense of guidance, which instead of taking her back to her car, took her on a 5-mile journey, one she called a “spiritual boot camp.”

Eller ended up spending 17 days in the woods, trying to get back to her car and then just trying to stay alive and catch the attention of searchers in helicopters.

She spent two days in a Maui hospital being treated for severe sunburn, a twisted knee and ankle problems before she went home Monday night. She hopes to be back at work in two weeks.

Eller thinks the days she spent alone in the woods, surviving on berries and stream water, is part of something bigger, something that has been changing her life since she moved to Maui four years ago.

It taught the physical therapist who often treats people in great pain what it is like to be on the patient’s side.

Eller, who is also a yoga teacher, said she would get down and feel like a victim.

“This is not your punishment. This is your destiny. This is your journey. This is part of your path,” she said.

She said she eventually accepted that this would be a gauntlet of painful endeavors and she had to choose life.

Eller said she would find things she could use to spell out SOS and she’d hang pieces of clothing where it could be seen from the air.

But as helicopters passed over — she estimated there were at least 20 times they were nearby — they couldn’t see her.

Until on Friday evening, when a helicopter surveying areas to put search crews into the forest spotted her.

She had been sitting out on a rock, frying in the sun, and here came another helicopter. But she saw someone pointing at her.

“I just fell to the ground and just started bawling,” she said.

In hindsight, Eller says that even though she hates cell phones, she should have taken hers with her into the forest. She also will take a water bottle next time.

That next time, though, in this park, won’t be anytime soon, she said, laughing.

Thanks for listening. If you like the podcast, please share a link to this episode and recommend Weird Darkness to your friends, family, and co-workers who love the paranormal, horror stories, or true crime like you do! Every time you share a link to the podcast it helps spread the word about it – growing our Weirdo family, and also helps get the word out about resources available for those who suffer from depression. So please share the podcast with others.

Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Fact or fiction, click on “Tell Your Story” at WeirdDarkness.com and I might use it in a future episode.

All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true (unless stated otherwise), and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes.

“Caught Between Heaven and Hell” and “Homicidal Poltergeists” both by Sean Casteel

“The Argentina Entity” posted at Inexplicata

“Ghostly Voice Causes Hiker To Get Lost” by Steve Almasy

“The Ghost of a Serial Killer Lurks Within This Abandoned Farmhouse” posted at Backpackverse

Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music.

If you’d like a transcript of this episode, you can find a link in the show notes.

Now that we’re coming out of the dark, I’ll leave you with a little light… One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 3:13-14

And a final thought… One of the simplest ways to stay happy is letting go of the things that make you sad.

I’m Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.