“I MET A MONSTER: REAL STORIES OF CRYPTID ENCOUNTERS” and More True Paranormal Tales! #WeirdDarkness

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IN THIS EPISODE: The number of Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, chupacabra, Jersey Devil, and various other cryptid and creature sightings is astronomical if you really look at it. And while it’s more than possible that most of these sightings are explainable by misidentification of existing wildlife, or overactive imaginations, the sheer number of sightings couldn’t possibly be waved off by such simple explanations. We’ll look at some true stories of people who have come across unexplainable creatures. (I Met a Monster: True Stories of Cryptid Encounters) *** Have you ever had a premonition while dreaming? Something that later came true in real life? What do you do with that information? What if you know it’s not a normal dream, but a real look into the future and if you don’t do something, a tragedy will take place? But then… what if your dream warning is what actually leads to a real life murder? (The Dream That Led To Murder) *** The ability to move something only with the power of your mind has been disproven by science time and time again. Telekinesis, as much as we’d like to think it’s possible, has been proven not to exist. Well, except for those scientific studies that we have not heard about that say the exact opposite. (The Reality of Telekinesis) *** Thousands of people in Finland experienced a UFO sighting one night in 1966. The incident, however, was obviously not taken too seriously, as it was barely investigated despite the numerous reports. But those who lived through it say it was a night they will never forget. (Anatomy of a UFO Incident) *** (Originally aired in December 2020)

SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM THE EPISODE…
BOOK: “The Night-Side of Nature; or Ghosts, and Ghost-Seers” by Catherine Crowe: https://tinyurl.com/y4cf53hx
BOOK: “The Physics of God: Unifying Quantum Physics, Consciousness, M-Theory, Heaven, Neuroscience and Transcendence” by Joseph Selbie: https://amzn.to/3lCMm3v
“I Met a Monster: True Stories of Cryptid Encounters” by Stephen Wagner for Live About: https://tinyurl.com/y2pz2jnv
“The Dream That Led To Murder” by Malcom Smith for Malcolm’s Musings: https://tinyurl.com/y3zuubvt
“The Reality of Telekinesis” by Cynthia McKanzie for Message to Eagle: https://tinyurl.com/y67ogt42
“Anatomy of a UFO Incident” by Lawrence Gerald for Ideal’s UFO Magazine, March 1978: https://tinyurl.com/y473g9d4
The fictional short horror story at the beginning of this episode, “The Rake” is from Creepypasta Wiki, author unknown:https://tinyurl.com/y67kp75z
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OTHER PODCASTS I HOST…
Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/paranormalitymag
Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/microterrors
Retro Radio – Old Time Radio In The Dark: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/retroradio
Church of the Undead: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/churchoftheundead

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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 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.)

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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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PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:

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

INTRODUCTION: SHORT STORY: THE RAKE=====

During the summer of 2003, events in the northeastern United States involving a strange, human-like creature sparked brief local media interest before an apparent blackout was enacted. Little or no information was left intact, as most online and written accounts of the creature were mysteriously destroyed.

Primarily focused in rural New York state and once found in Idaho, self proclaimed witnesses told stories of their encounters with a creature of unknown origin. Emotions ranged from extremely traumatic levels of fright and discomfort, to an almost childlike sense of playfulness and curiosity. While their published versions are no longer on record, the memories remained powerful. Several of the involved parties began looking for answers that year.

In early 2006, the collaboration had accumulated nearly two dozen documents dating between the 12th century and present day, spanning 4 continents. In almost all cases, the stories were identical. I’ve been in contact with a member of this group and was able to get some excerpts from their upcoming book.

A Suicide Note: 1964

“As I prepare to take my life, I feel it necessary to assuage any guilt or pain I have introduced through this act. It is not the fault of anyone other than him. For once I awoke and felt his presence. And once I awoke and saw his form. Once again I awoke and heard his voice, and looked into his eyes. I cannot sleep without fear of what I might next awake to experience. I cannot ever wake. Goodbye.”

Found in the same wooden box were two empty envelopes addressed to William and Rose, and one loose personal letter with no envelope:

“Dearest Linnie,

I have prayed for you. He spoke your name.”

A Journal Entry (translated from Spanish): 1880

“I have experience the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I see his eyes when I close mine. They are hollow. Black. They saw me and pierced me. His wet hand. I will not sleep. His voice (unintelligible text).”

A Mariner’s Log: 1691

“He came to me in my sleep. From the foot of my bed I felt a sensation. He took everything. We must return to England. We shall not return here again at the request of the Rake.”

From a Witness: 2006

“Three years ago, I had just returned from a trip from Niagara Falls with my family for the 4th of July. We were all very exhausted after a long day of driving, so my husband and I put the kids right to bed and called it a night.

At about 4am, I woke up thinking my husband had gotten up to use the restroom. I used the moment to steal back the sheets, only to wake him in the process. I apologized and told him I though he got out of bed. When he turned to face me, he gasped and pulled his feet up from the end of the bed so quickly his knee almost knocked me out of the bed. He then grabbed me and said nothing.

After adjusting to the dark for a half second, I was able to see what caused the strange reaction. At the foot of the bed, sitting and facing away from us, there was what appeared to be a naked man, or a large hairless dog of some sort. Its body position was disturbing and unnatural, as if it had been hit by a car or something. For some reason, I was not instantly frightened by it, but more concerned as to its condition. At this point I was somewhat under the assumption that we were supposed to help him.

My husband was peering over his arm and knee, tucked into the fetal position, occasionally glancing at me before returning to the creature.

In a flurry of motion, the creature scrambled around the side of the bed, and then crawled quickly in a flailing sort of motion right along the bed until it was less than a foot from my husband’s face. The creature was completely silent for about 30 seconds (or probably closer to 5, it just seemed like a while) just looking at my husband. The creature then placed its hand on his knee and ran into the hallway, leading to the kids’ rooms. I screamed and ran for the lightswitch, planning to stop him before he hurt my children. When I got to the hallway, the light from the bedroom was enough to see it crouching and hunched over about 20 feet away. He turned around and looked directly at me, covered in blood. I flipped the switch on the wall and saw my daughter Clara.

The creature ran down the stairs while my husband and I rushed to help our daughter. She was very badly injured and spoke only once more in her short life. She said “he is the Rake”.

My husband drove his car into a lake that night, while rushing our daughter to the hospital. They did not survive.

Being a small town, news got around pretty quickly. The police were helpful at first, and the local newspaper took a lot of interest as well. However, the story was never published and the local television news never followed up either.

For several months, my son Justin and I stayed in a hotel near my parent’s house. After we decided to return home, I began looking for answers myself. I eventually located a man in the next town over who had a similar story. We got in contact and began talking about our experiences. He knew of two other people in New York who had seen the creature we now referred to as the Rake.

It took the four of us about two solid years of hunting on the internet and writing letters to come up with a small collection of what we believe to be accounts of the Rake. None of them gave any details, history or follow up. One journal had an entry involving the creature in its first 3 pages, and never mentioned it again. A ship’s log explained nothing of the encounter, saying only that they were told to leave by the Rake. That was the last entry in the log.

There were, however, many instances where the creature’s visit was one of a series of visits with the same person. Multiple people also mentioned being spoken to, my daughter included. This led us to wonder if the Rake had visited any of us before our last encounter.

I set up a digital recorder near my bed and left it running all night, every night, for two weeks. I would tediously scan through the sounds of me rolling around in my bed each day when I woke up. By the end of the second week, I was quite used to the occasional sound of sleep while blurring through the recording at 8 times the normal speed. (This still took almost an hour every day)

On the first day of the third week, I thought I heard something different. What I found was a shrill voice. It was the Rake. I can’t listen to it long enough to even begin to transcribe it. I haven’t let anyone listen to it yet. All I know is that I’ve heard it before, and I now believe that it spoke when it was sitting in front of my husband. I don’t remember hearing anything at the time, but for some reason, the voice on the recorder immediately brings me back to that moment.

The thoughts that must have gone through my daughter’s head make me very upset.

I have not seen the Rake since he ruined my life, but I know that he has been in my room while I slept. I know and fear that one night I’ll wake up to see him staring at me.”

SHOW OPEN=====

Welcome, Weirdos – (I’m Darren Marlar and) this is Weird Darkness. Here you’ll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained.

Coming up in this episode…

Have you ever had a premonition while dreaming? Something that later came true in real life? What do you do with that information? What if you know it’s not a normal dream, but a real look into the future and if you don’t do something, a tragedy will take place? But then… what if your dream warning is what actually leads to a real life murder? (The Dream That Led To Murder)

The ability to move something only with the power of your mind has been disproven by science time and time again. Telekinesis, as much as we’d like to think it’s possible, has been proven not to exist. Well, except for those scientific studies that we have not heard about that say the exact opposite. (The Reality of Telekinesis)

Thousands of people in Finland experienced a UFO sighting one night in 1966. The incident, however, was obviously not taken too seriously, as it was barely investigated despite the numerous reports. But those who lived through it say it was a night they will never forget. (Anatomy of a UFO Incident)

The number of Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, chupacabra, Jersey Devil, and various other cryptid and creature sightings is astronomical if you really look at it. And while it’s more than possible that most of these sightings are explainable by misidentification of existing wildlife, or overactive imaginations, the sheer number of sightings couldn’t possibly be waved off by such simple explanations. We’ll look at some true stories of people who have come across unexplainable creatures. (I Met a Monster: True Stories of Cryptid Encounters)

If you’re new here, welcome to the show! While you’re listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, to visit sponsors you hear about during the show, sign up for my newsletter, enter contests, connect with me on social media, plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you’re struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.

Now.. bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness!

STORY: I MET A MONSTER – TRUE STORIES OF CRYPTID ENCOUNTERS=====

The number and variety of strange creatures that people report seeing is astonishing. Of course, it’s possible that they are misidentifying known creatures, but what if only some of these sightings are accurate? Here are real reports of cryptids, monsters, and other strange creatures.

* The Cornfield Creature, reported by Frank Sempko: I used to work at a cheese factory on the edge of a cornfield in southwestern Minnesota. There were a series of days in the summer of ’04 or ’05 where it was so hot that the milk being delivered to us in trucks would evaporate before we got it. It made work easy; the dearth of milk denied us any actual labor, but management wouldn’t let us not come to work, so we would show up and mess around all shift.

I was working nights at the time. It was 2 or 3 a.m., and I was out on the loading dock watching bats fly around the floodlights, because I liked being out in the cool night air. The corn was about as high as my shoulder, so about 5′ 10″.

As I was watching the bats, I looked down at the edge of the cornfield. Something was moving there. It was the size of a small child and very, very skinny. Pale, with something that looked like a head of straight, black hair. It moved in a sort of jerky gait, like someone dancing “the robot” badly. It moved in chunks: legs, then hips, then torso, shoulders, neck and finally head. It was looking back into the cornfield, or at least I felt like it was.

I felt prickly all over. I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was a heron or something at first, but it looked too much like a person. It didn’t move like a person, though. Gradually, step by step, it moved toward me. Letting my curiosity better my fear, I moved toward the edge of the dock, which was raised a few feet off the ground. When I got within a few feet of the edge, the thing looked at me. I was paralyzed. I could have run, but I was stuck somewhere between terrified and intrigued.

It moved, its “face” still pointed at me. It ratcheted its body in that disconcerting, jerky movement toward the cornfield and went into it. I tried to watch where the field moved as it passed, but the corn remained perfectly still. I noticed that all the crickets were silent. After a few minutes, nothing happened. I stood out there for an hour, but it never came back. I never saw it again.

* The Forest Cryptid, reported by Johanna H.: My strange story took place on the 26th of September, 2009. My church was on a retreat in Indiana, in a forest. The place we stayed at was a small building in the center of the forest. We decided that evening to go out and play in the forest with the children, so we came up with a game to play. It was like police: the kids were the police and we would pick an adult to be the hostage. So when we began the game, we had to find the adult hiding in the forest in the middle of the night.

So we start going around the back of the building and we spotted a tall figure. It had to be at least six feet tall. It was running toward the trees where there was a small open area with tall grass that goes up to your knees. It ran with its arms at its sides, but it stopped at the edge of the tall grass, as if to wait for us to get closer.

We chased after it, thinking it was the adult. When we were finally a few yards away, it dove into the grass and started to crawl very fast, almost snake-like. We got weirded out, but stood there staring at it. When it got across the tall grass, it began to climb a tree! It looked somewhat like a deformed cat-like animal when it was climbing. Then a few moments later a kid yelled, “I see him!” and was pointing in an opposite direction. We saw a similar figure running a couple of yards away, so we chased it. But then it vanished behind a tree!

Turns out, a few minutes later we found the adult hiding in the parking lot in the front of the building the whole time. So who knows what we saw that night in that forest. At least 15 kids saw the thing with me, so I know I’m not crazy!

* The Primehook Swamp Creature, reported by Helen J.: I was driving on Broadkill Road in Broadkill Beach Delaware around dusk in July 2007. This road borders a swamp area. Standing on the side of the road by the swamp, my daughter and I saw a creature like we’ve never seen before. It stood about 2-1/2 to 3 feet tall with long legs, a tan body, a flat, almost puggish face, and a long tail. It had small ears and looked to be about 30 pounds.

My other daughter and her friend also saw this same animal the year before around the same area, except it was night and it ran in front of their car. I asked the lady who owned the Broadkill Beach store about it and she said she had seen it once when she was dirt biking with her dad in that area years before, and both her and her dad had no idea what it was even though she was raised around Broadkill.

She said we were lucky to have spotted it as very few people have seen it. We went to the Primehook Reserve (this is what the swampy area is called) museum and they had no idea what it could be. I am wondering if anyone else has seen it and what the heck it is.

* A Florida Sea Monster, reported by Adam G.: This story takes place, I think, in the summer of 1995, making me 9 years old. Practically every other year, my family would take a trip to Florida. We would usually go to Disney World, but my mother was getting sick of that, so that year we actually didn’t go to Disney World to my sister’s and my dismay.

On one of these days, we were on a beach. I don’t remember what the beach was called, but the people sitting next to us mentioned it being the bottom tip of Florida. After a while of nothing happening, everybody was either in the ocean or sunbathing silently. A woman sitting to the left of us pointed past us, to our right, asking, “What is that?” We all turned and looked to a surprisingly vacant corner of the beach. There were no people down there, but what was there was something really strange.

We all got up to get a better look, very quickly forming a crowd around it. If I had to describe the creature we saw in one word, that word would be “cartoonish.” I will never forget what it looked like. It was green and looked like a ball of slime about the size of a basketball. It had tentacles resting on the ground around it with two longer tail-like tentacles sticking out of its back. The thing that was the most bizarre and made it look cartoonish were its eyes, which were on stalks that stood about a foot off its body. The eyes looked creepily human and just looked at us in an almost disinterested way. The other strange thing about it was its mouth, which never seemed to close, and where you’d expect teeth were tooth-shaped fleshy protrusions. No one, not even the creature, seemed scared, and after a while it lazily slithered back into the ocean.

There were roughly 10 witnesses to this thing, and we all spent most of our time talking about what it must have been. One idea was that it was a parasite organism for a much larger creature, one also possibly never identified.

* The Mothman, reported by Scarlett: You will never believe what I saw one very cold, dry November night. My family and I moved into a new house upon a hill on a little back road, in the very small town of Fort Gay, WV. Fort Gay sits right on the east side of Kentucky. The population of my town then was probably just a couple thousand. My family and I were unpacking. We had not yet put the furniture in its rightful places and everything was still in boxes. Overwhelmed with working all day, I retired around 11:00 p.m. I put my little brother on the couch and I took his bed, since my bed wasn’t put together yet. His room faces the front of the house; his window is around 20 to 25 feet or so off the ground.

I was looking out the window when I saw “it.” It stood about 7 feet tall. I had no idea what it was, but I was frozen. I had never been that scared in all my life. All I could do was lay there and just stare at this thing. It was sitting in a tree about 50 feet or so off the ground, about 50 feet from the house across the yard. It felt like an eternity. I couldn’t breath; I couldn’t even blink. It had big, red, bright glowing eyes looking dead into my face. I finally worked up enough courage to close my eyes and put my head under the covers, when all of a sudden this thing smacked the window.

I went through the house screaming, “There’s something outside!” I was crying. My mom and dad looked at me and said, “What’s wrong with you? It looks like you have seen a ghost!” My face was snow white. I said, “I dont know what it was, but please, daddy, don’t go outside.” I begged and I begged. He came back in and said they was nothing out there. I kept screaming saying, “Yes, there is! Yes, there is.”

When I explained to them what I saw and how I felt, they said I was crazy, but to this day I will not go outside by myself, and even in the day someone still has to watch me to my car. I have heard of some pretty crazy things going on up on that road, but I never expected to experience anything myself. My husband and I went to the theaters and watched Mothman Prophecies. I was reliving that night all over again. The way they described feeling and what saw was remarkable. My husband looked over at me and said, “Isn’t that what you described to me when we first started dating?” I couldn’t say a word. After that moment I knew what I saw. I believe in all heart of hearts I saw the Mothman. It’s just a little weird. I only live about 80 miles south of Point Pleasant, WV, where all that took place 37 years ago. It was exactly 32 years to the month when I saw “It.”

* The Kitsune (or Fox Spirit), reported by Bryan T.: Back in September of 2004, I was hiking in the Arashiyama area outside of Kyoto, Japan. I had decided to leave the touristy area and set off alone in a random direction toward the mountains. I found myself on an old trail through the forest.

After a while, I encountered an old man with a long white beard. He carried a staff and was dressed in coarse blue robes, like a peasant out of a Samurai movie. He saw me and told me to follow him. Being more curious than anything, I walked after him as he led me further into the forest.

He spoke at length about the beauty of nature, how people cut down forests and polluted the Earth, and told me that humans must learn to protect and respect nature. During the whole exchange he never spoke about himself or asked any questions of me. After a while he said he had to leave and showed me another trail, saying I should take it when I wanted to go back to the city. He then left by that trail.

I happened to pass the same place on the way back that evening, so I took the trail the old man showed me. Only minutes later, I ended up completely lost and couldn’t even find the trail itself to retrace my steps. It was getting dark out, and as I shone my flashlight around I noticed an old white fox watching me from nearby. I could have sworn it was watching me with an amused look on its face, but as soon as I shone my light on it, it ran off into the bushes.

I remember reading all sorts of old Japanese stories and legends about fox spirits that can take human form, and I feel like I may have seen one that day.

* Invisible Sprinting Humanoids, by Cassandra J.: Working as a police motorway patrol-woman in Portsmouth, England, I’m frequently confronted with situations that are both bizarre and unnerving. However, the incident that occurred on the 25th of November last year is by far the most unusual of them all. During a routine speed camera set up in the city, around 6.30 pm (at which time it was completely dark,) our speed trap picked up random tracings of nonexistent objects hurtling past at 30 to 40 mph.

The devices are not actually known to malfunction, so we trained the camera on the road surface to see what we picked up. Sitting in the back of the patrol van, we were shocked to discover on the screen that the camera was picking up what can only be described as human figures, running up and down the street approximately 40 ft away from the vehicle, only barely visible through the night vision filter. They were of average height, had a silvery hue, and were sprinting up and down the central reservation (the dividing surface between two opposite lanes on a motorway) repeatedly, and very fast.

I admit I did not exit the vehicle to investigate, but apparently I didn’t have to. Only about 10 feet away, at the side of the road, one of these silvery entities just appeared on the screen. Female, approximately 6 foot, and standing motionless facing away from the van. She was dressed in scantily clad clothing, not unlike that a young woman on an evening out may wear. I was extremely freaked out, especially considering that leaning out of the window, there was absolutely no evidence of anyone standing that close to the vehicle. As the first vehicle only five minutes from the first sighting drove past, all visible evidence of the entities had vanished. Nothing occurred from that time till the end of my duty at 9 p.m., and yet, when I played back the footage from the camera, the silvery objects and the woman are not on the tape!

Obviously, I did not report the incident, but friends and fellow officers agree that it is highly unusual, and none of them had experienced anything of the like before.

* A Red-Eyed Roadside Cryptid, reported by Britton J.: The following happened in Vidor, Texas on June 20, 2000 around 1:00 am. I just got off from work and was headed east. On this road there is a 90 degree turn, and at times you have to watch because cattle might be out and on the road.

That morning that’s what I thought had happened. No one else was on the road, but I saw red eyes that would look at the truck lights and look down over and over, and I knew something was not right.

I was driving on the left side of the road, and when I got close I noticed that this red-eyed creature stood about five foot tall and sported black hair all over its body.

I stopped the truck and got out my spotlight and shined it on this creature. It seemed like forever, but I know that it was only a few minutes. This creature raised its arm above its head and let out a terrible scream that I have heard before. It turned around and went behind a house and left.

I have heard this sound before when I lived on Teal Rd. in Orange, Texas, just a few miles from this location. I have traveled this road many times hoping to see this creature again and never have. I’m told this creature is related to Bigfoot.

* Bizarre Australian Creature reported by Jessica C.: I’m not entirely sure on the exact date of when this happened, but it would have been around 1999, maybe in spring or summer. Living in Australia, you are bound to see strange things from time to time, although most have an explanation behind them. This is different.

I was young at the time, probably nine or so, and my family was having a barbecue in the backyard of our house. We were all sitting at this table on the patio, eating and talking, not really paying attention to anything surrounding us. Suddenly, I heard a “plop” noise come from the leaf cover in the garden along the back fence. I immediately turned and looked to see what had made the noise.

To my horror, I saw a small, blue creature look at me then run into the shrubbery. It was about 15 cm (6 inches) tall, on all fours. It didn’t have any toes that I could see. Its face was vertically oval shaped with small black eyes, a long, protruding nose and a grimacing mouth filled with almost needle-like teeth. The outer of the face was dark blue, sort of like a mane, but it looked hairless. The rest of the face and body was light blue. The best I can describe the body is like that of a lion, except with short legs, no tail and less sculpted.

I looked at my brother and he said, “What was that!?” He had seen it, too. When my mum calmed us down, she took my brother and me to separate rooms of the house and got us to draw what we had seen. We both drew the same thing. I was terrified for the rest of the night. To this day, I still don’t know what the creature was that I saw, but it still gives me the creeps.

BREAK=====

Up next… Thousands of people in Finland experienced a UFO sighting one night in 1966. The incident, however, was obviously not taken too seriously, as it was barely investigated despite the numerous reports. But those who lived through it say it was a night they will never forget. (Anatomy of a UFO Incident) That story and more when Weird Darkness returns.

STORY: ANATOMY OF A UFO INCIDENT=====

The following is an article written for “Ideal UFO’s Magazine” #1 in March, 1978 by Lawrence Gerald. Here’s the article…

When you talk UFOs with Bjorn Carlsen, it’s best to use a soft voice and broach the subject lightly. Fifty-year-old Carlsen, a first officer with the Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) looks like the gentlest of men, a pleasant-featured fellow who might pet your dog or play with your kids. But beneath that kindly exterior, you get the impression that 230-lb., powerfully-built Carlsen has the potential of a keg of dynamite waiting to be touched off.
And the subject of UFOs touches him off.
“I don’t like the damn things,” he says, with just a trace of Swedish accent. “They’re spooky and they’re scary and they could have killed us.”
When you talk about UFOs with Fairfax, Virginia, housewife Nina Boyer, it’s better to take a consoling approach — reminding her that she isn’t alone, that thousands of ordinary citizens have been threatened by flying saucers, and that many have felt the fright she experienced. Fifty-three-year-old Mrs. Boyer is gentle, too, and has the inner strength to cope with being a UFO witness, but she doesn’t get angry about it. She just wishes it had never happened.
“A lot of people who saw those things were more frightened than I was,” she acknowledges. “I imagine some of them still worry.”
We talked to both these people—and many others, over a period of several years—seeking to unravel one of the great UFO mysteries of our time, the “wave” of sightings that took place in and around Helsinki, the capital of Finland, during a 14-hour period from dusk on October 13, 1966, til 8:00 a.m. the following day.

More than a decade has passed since this great Scandinavian UFO frenzy alarmed witnesses, excited scientists and made banner headlines in Helsinki. Yet this giant UFO “flap” to our knowledge has never been reported in the U.S. And to the people who were there, the memory is as vivid as if it happened yesterday.
Briefly, here is what did happen:
During that long night, people on vessels at sea and virtually the entire population of downtown Helsinki spotted low-flying, blue-white lights which cavorted through the skies alone, in small groups and in V-shaped formations of up to 12 or more. These brightly-colored, airborne apparitions showed up on radar, disappeared radio broadcasts, and “buzzed” at least three airliners, including Carlsen’s. They evaded pursuit by Finnish jet fighters. They ruined film exposed by several photographers. They harried, harassed and annoyed as many as a million people for nearly 14 hours — and then they completely disappeared.
At least one person may have committed suicide as a result of this UFO “frenzy.” And several persons whose stories can’t be verified claim to have had psychic messages from, even actual contact with, aliens from space.
We decided to look at this UFO incident not from the viewpoint of the “far out” recipients of beamed messages, but from the more conservative accounts of serious, responsible persons.
Three, in particular. We interviewed airline pilot Carlsen in the plush “cake lounge” of the Marski Hotel in Helsinki only weeks after the incident. (This writer was living in Helsinki at the time but had been out of town that critical night.) We talked to Mrs. Nina Boyer in her Virginia apartment nine years later, in late 1975, and spoke to another pilot, Harold Peyton, in 1977. Because of his employment, Carlsen’s name is disguised slightly here. All other names in this “anatomy of a UFO incident” are real.
The story begins at official sunset—6:17 p.m.—when Birgitta Lindroos, a clerk-typist for the Helsinki city government, emerges from a coffee shop near the waterfront. She notices several persons clustered along the sea wall, staring out at lengthening shadows on the water. A policeman points, gestures.
“Suddenly, I realized that six bright lights were skimming over the water. As we watched, they turned and climbed. They began moving back and forth through the sky and we watched, spellbound. . . .”
By7:00 p.m., hundreds of persons throughout the Finnish capital were watching swarms of saucer-like craft maneuvering over their city. The big “flap” was under way.

“We were on a six-nation tour which my husband Jack had awarded himself as a retirement present. We’d arrived in Helsinki that morning and were attending dinner at a well-known nightclub, the Kaivahone, with the other members of our tour group. We’d begun an appetizer, the herring the Finns catch in the Baltic, and the band was assembling on stage. It was going to be one of the high points of our trip, a fine seafood dinner followed by music, dancing and conversation.
“Suddenly, we noticed that people at the other tables were standing up and clearing out of the place.
“People were shouting. Someone cried in English, ‘flying saucer!’
“There was a sense of panic. I can’t say why, although I’ve often wondered if we were all affected by some supernatural force we didn’t understand. I know I felt a compulsion to hurry as we spilled out into the courtyard behind the nightclub.
“The air was chilly. Everyone was looking up. I peered up in time to see five brilliant flying disks, passing directly overhead.
“I wish I could describe the ghostly appearance of these huge, silent apparitions in the sky. These were great, round objects, each of them maybe 100 feet in diameter, perfectly circular and without any distinguishing features of any kind. They gave off an intense white light with bluish tinges and they passed over us in total silence. . . .”
Nina and Jack Boyer, with several dozen other people, moved downhill to an open terrace to gain a better view of the startling objects in the sky. While this was happening, five more UFOs “buzzed” the Norwegian merchant vessel Christian Leader 125 miles away in an unusually rough Baltic Sea. At this time, Captain Bjorn Carlsen was arriving at Copenhagen’s Kalstrup Airport 580 miles away, preparing to take command of SAS Flight Six to Helsinki. He was cautioned to expect high winds and unusual turbulence. A similar forecast was being gotten over the phone by 36-year-old Harold G. (Hal) Peyton, an expatriate American preparing for a night flight a hundred miles north of Helsinki, at the newly-opened Jyvaskyla airport. Peyton remembers thinking, “Hold on here! The weather was supposed to be calm!”
Two hours after the initial sightings, two Vampire F.B. 52 fighter-bombers bearing the blue and white insignia of the Finnish Air Force gave chase to a lone UFO heading east from Helsinki toward the Soviet coast, where the lights of Leningrad shone in the distance. This was the first of several encounters between jets and the strange intruders. One of the pilots guessed the speed of the UFOs at 1,300 m.p.h. He radioed, “Unable to make contact. . . . They’re pulling away. . . .”
According to reports, Major General R. Artola, chief of staff of the Finnish air arm, was telephoned at home. He immediately headed for his home in the drab, stressed-concrete Defense Ministry Building.
For Nina Boyer and the awestruck members of her tourist group, the UFOs had become more distant now, but were putting on a spectacular light show that crisscrossed the skies of the city. Nina remembers that no one spoke of returning to dinner. “It was like we were all held there by some force, completely absorbed by what we saw. . . .”
The fast-flying UFOs—variously described by onwatchers as globes, disks and saucers—abruptly separated from each other, disappeared behind low clouds and appeared again, then rejoined into formations of six or more. No one who watched them reported hearing a sound. Their sudden turns, sharp dives and rapid changes of position—mixed with long periods when they glided gently—ruled out any thought that these were aircraft or any other known phenomenon.
“We watched them for over an hour. People were talking openly about space ships, wondering if aliens were about to land, the way it happened in that radio program ‘The War of the Worlds.’ Somebody wondered if the Finnish authorities would protect us foreign tourists if this was an invasion.
“Jack and I both felt our lives were changed by this experience. The sense of sharing it with so many others—thinking about how we were all humans, all together in the face of something that wasn’t from our world—had a special meaning. We were all a little afraid and we suddenly realized how much we all meant to each other. Jack and I were to remain close friends with several of the other witnesses until Jack passed away eight years later in 1974. . . .”
Nina Boyer has thought about that night in Helsinki ever since. Were she and her friends watching the arrival of a probe-force of starships from another galaxy? “I’ve often thought it could be something like that,” she says.
Around 10:00 p.m., just before the saucers left Helsinki skies for a brief period to return later, 17-year-old high school student Axel Lundgren leaped from the ninth story of his parent’s apartment house and plunged to his death. Friends said Lundgren was “disturbed” — and the appearance of UFOs may have sent him over the brink.

Hal Peyton hails from the rugged Appalachian coal-mining towns of West Virginia. He’s tough and he doesn’t convince easily. As a U.S. Air Force lieutenant, he flew 55 combat missions in Vietnam and won several awards. He and his wife Linda jumped at the offer of a civilian flying job with an ore prospecting company in Finland. He was drawing top pay for piloting a De Havilland Otter lightplane and towing a magnetic scintillometer to search for underground nickel deposits.
When we talked to Peyton, he still wasn’t convinced that invaders from space were cavorting through the skies of Finland, but he did feel that something had happened which he didn’t understand — and didn’t like.
“Somebody at the airport warned me they were spotting UFOs down in Helsinki. I figured, the heck with it. I had scheduled a night hop in my Otter to check out some equipment and I was determined to go. I’ve heard UFO stories throughout my flying career—some from impeccable sources—but I’ve never cancelled a flight because of them. . . .”
Hal Peyton took off, leveled off at 5,000 feet and turned on a 180-degree heading for Helsinki. Suddenly, a blue and white light appeared on his tail.
A friend of this writer’s in Finland claims to have unearthed a newsletter from an occult group telling of another man who spotted those blue-white lights. A 35-year-old watchmaker who stood on the roof of Sottman’s Department Store in Helsinki that night, the man claims that the UFOs beamed him a telepathic message from his deceased great-grandfather. The message was: Tell the leaders of the world to stop experimenting with nuclear weapons. Apart from the fact that the nuclear test-ban treaty had already taken effect three years earlier, this second-hand story strikes us as one that will have to be considered on its merits.
Hal Peyton’s experience is something else.
“When this ‘thing’ started following me, I decided to lose altitude, turn west and try to get a better look at it. I did. And it stayed with me.
“It seemed to hang in the air about 500 feet behind me in the night sky. When I turned, it turned. It appeared to have the capability to abruptly change direction 180 degrees. It clung to me like glue and I began to have a ‘trapped’ feeling. . . .”
The original purpose of Hal’s flight, an equipment check, was soon forgotten. The pilot suddenly wondered why he hadn’t taken seriously the accounts of UFOs he’d heard from other pilots all these years. Twisting and turning above the dark Finnish mountains, the UFO drawing closer to him every moment, he faced an agonizing decision: If he tried to maintain course, the blue-white light might ram him. But if he continued taking evasive action, he might fly into a ridgeline.
Hal chose to try to escape. Throwing the single-engine Otter into a series of grinding, gut-wrenching turns, he realized he was getting lower and lower — dangerously close to the peaks that loomed around him. His senses were racing: Each new maneuver was more difficult, he was quickly becoming fatigued, and the persistent UFO kept getting closer and closer. . . .
During this hectic struggle for survival, Hal Peyton was in a better position to get a clear look at a UFO than most men have ever been. At times, the great shimmering disk was only feet from his airplane. Yet Hal feels he can’t contribute much to the knowledge accumulated by UFO researchers. What he saw was murkily-defined, a blur in motion.
“The craft was much larger than my Otter, maybe 100 feet across. Its perfect, flawless round shape would seem to argue that it had to be artificial, constructed by some alien intelligence. It was the color of a gas flame in the upper temperature ranges, this glowing white hue laced with little streaks of blue. This would suggest that it was extremely hot for some reason, perhaps something to do with its energy source. . . .
“But I saw nothing to tell me what it was.
“There were no markings, no blemishes, no appendages. It was simply a perfectly smooth, round shape. Not a clue as to what was inside or who was driving. . . .
“And it was dogging me like crazy. . . .”
This was close to midnight. The UFOs had reappeared in the skies in Helsinki, being viewed now only be night people and onwatchers who were too fascinated to go to bed. At Kalstrup Airport, SAS Douglas DC-6B registry number LN-LMO—one of the last prop-driven craft operated by the Scandinavian carrier—lifted into the dark sky carrying 56 passengers and five crew. Pilot Bjorn Carlsen had not yet heard of the UFO swarm over his destination, which he would not reach for another three hours.
Hal Peyton was just about certain he was going to meet with disaster when his tormentor suddenly broke away and disengaged.
“The UFO suddenly seemed to back away from me and then soared upward into the night sky. I had a perfect plan-view of its circular bottom as it climbed away.
“I leveled off again and just stared. It was leaving me. The craft receded into the distance, suddenly moving at much greater speed and in seconds it was gone.
“I got back to Jyvaskyla safely, telephoned my wife, and then spent a few minutes being sick. I no longer laugh at other pilots who talk of seeing UFOs. I may not be convinced they’re alien starships, but I do know that, whatever they are, they’re a threat — and I feel lucky to be alive.”

By one in the morning, only diehards among the Helsinki populace continued to watch the bright lights which now appeared for only moments at a time, disappeared, and then showed up again. There was another inconclusive encounter with Vampire F.B.52 jets of the Finnish Air Force. Years later, a woman in a suburb would claim that a saucer landed in her backyard and disgorged a stem-limbed creature with three eyes who told her that God was the only salvation. A high wind was blowing. Weather experts were puzzled by the freakish gusts, the sharp temperature drop of more than two degrees Centigrade, and the stormy, whitecapped seas.
The strange weather—a phenomenon also associated with UFO sightings in the Bermuda Triangle—totally perplexed Captain Bjorn Carlsen.
His four-engine DC-6B, LN-LMO, bored toward the Finnish coast. Carlsen and his crew were informed by approach control radar that UFOs were being tracked near them.
“The UFOs appeared very suddenly. At first we didn’t have a clear view of them. Then they began to circle us in the clear night sky, seeking to harass us. They began playing a game of aerial ‘chicken’ — darting in front of us and narrowly averting collision.”
At the controls of the airliner, tensed-up by the actions of the persistent, saucer-like objects, Bjorn Carlsen was angry and frustrated. He couldn’t take violent evasive action — not without scaring or harming his passengers.
“They were scared anyway. An older man began a frantic argument with the stewardess, insisting that we should land immediately. She tried to explain that we were still over water, the Baltic. He was impervious to reason.
“The UFOs seemed to be taunting us. They were large, spherical craft giving off a yellow-white glow. My co-pilot insisted he could see portholes along the rim of their saucer-like bodies.”
Another SAS employee aboard Carlsen’s DC-6B, the flight engineer, remembers the UFOs becoming more aggressive as the airplane approached the Finland coast. “They were stalking us. They were trying to collide with us. . . .”
The DC-6B began shaking on turbulence, which quickly became the most violent turbulence Carlsen had ever encountered in his flying career. Struggling to keep his aircraft as steady as possible, he felt his temper rapidly coming to the surface.
Finnish air controllers lost contact with Carlsen for more than 20 minutes — another phenomenon for which there is no explanation. He didn’t even notice at the time. He was too busy focusing on the brilliant lights that kept shooting past all around him.

Carlsen’s experience was to be a prolonged one. But for people on the ground, it would be even more prolonged. Sightings of the bizarre intruders would continue, sporadically, throughout the night. The last recorded contact seems to have taken place long after sunrise, when a half-dozen saucers hovered briefly over the central downtown area of Helsinki. The headline on a Finnish-language morning daily proclaimed, “Invasion From the Skies.”
Around 2:10 a.m., now crossing the coast, Bjorn Carlsen was caught up in that invasion.
While struggling with his controls and glancing quickly from one UFO to another, Carlsen made a brief announcement intended to calm the passengers. He doesn’t remember what he said. “There was nothing to say. The damned things were all around us and we didn’t know what they were doing. . . .”
The encounters between Carlsen’s DC-6B and the flying saucers lasted one hour and 50 minutes. They had a profound effect on every person aboard—”some were afraid, some mystified”—and several passengers would later write Carlsen to praise him for his professional conduct. The incident may have been one of the most protracted air-to-air encounters of all time yet in the end it taught almost nothing about the origin and nature of UFOs.
“This is part of what steams me up,” Bjorn Carlsen told us, describing his weariness and frustration as the UFOs finally began to peel off and fly away just when he was lowering his gear and preparing to land at Helsinki. Carlsen was exhausted far beyond what might normally be expected. He was mad. He had a disturbing sense of futility.
He landed normally, despite high winds, and an airline flight which should have been “routine” came to an end. A few weeks later, Carlsen told us he thinks the UFOs could have caused his plane to crash, had he simply not maintained course — the opposite action to that taken by Hal Peyton. When we contacted Carlsen again years later, while preparing this article, he said that the passage of time had not calmed his rage.
What happened that night to the citizens of Helsinki? To Nina Boyer? Hal Peyton? Bjorn Carlsen?
Why the strange weather? The reports of psychic encounters? The loss of radio contact with Carlsen’s plane? Why did the UFOs attack civilian planes but flee from jet fighters?
There are no answers.
Did Finnish authorities investigate? No official findings have ever been released.
The other big UFO “flaps” of recent history—the massive wave of sightings over Washington, D.C. in 1952 and the similar UFO storm over Tokyo in 1964—have challenged researchers, filled the literature of saucer buffs and provided not one single clue as to what UFOs are or where they come from.
If Helsinki, Finland was being invaded by alien star ships that night, their message didn’t come across. As UFO sightings increase around the world, maybe some answers will be forthcoming. But despite arduous study of the great Helsinki “flap,” at this point the only conclusion we can offer is that it left some people mad, some mystified, and almost no one eager to have any further contact with the troublesome intruders.

BREAK=====

When Weird Darkness returns… The ability to move something only with the power of your mind has been disproven by science time and time again. Telekinesis, as much as we’d like to think it’s possible, has been proven not to exist. Well, except for those scientific studies that we have not heard about that say the exact opposite. (The Reality of Telekinesis)

But first… have you ever had a premonition while dreaming? Something that later came true in real life? What do you do with that information? What if you know it’s not a normal dream, but a real look into the future and if you don’t do something, a tragedy will take place? But then… what if your dream warning is what actually leads to a real life murder? That story is up next. (The Dream That Led To Murder)

STORY: THE DREAM THAT LED TO MURDER=====

There are so many anecdotes of accurate premonitions of danger, either waking or dreaming, that we should probably accept this form of ESP as reality in at least some cases. A strong premonition of this sort commonly induces the percipient to alter his behavior in order to avoid the danger. But what if there are serious consequences of such an action? What if cancelling your plane flight at the last moment means losing both the fare and the cost of your vacation? What if your boss insists you make the journey or risk losing your job? Worse still, how do you know that attempting to avoid the danger won’t, in fact, be the action that makes it come true?

There is a fascinating book by Catherine Crowe published in 1850 entitled, “The Night-Side of Nature; or Ghosts and Ghost-Seers”, which you can download and read for free if you wish – I’ve linked to it in the show notes.

Chapter 5, or “Warnings” tells of Dr W., who dreamed that he was called to a patient several miles away, and while he was crossing a moor on horseback, he was attacked by a bull. Only by locating a spot inaccessible to the bull was he able to escape, and there he remained until some people discovered his plight and rescued him. The next morning, he received a summons from that very patient. “What an unusual coincidence!” he thought. But as he was crossing the moor – lo and behold! – there was a bull, the last thing you would expect on the commons. Need I say more? The action played out exactly as per the dream, and it was only because of the dream that he was able to find the safe site where he spent four hours held up. Obviously, if you receive a warning dream, it is a good idea to heed it.

Or is it? The most disturbing story was one Catherine Crowe culled from a newspaper, although she did not provide a citation, only the text. Although the original story came from Germany, I presume she was quoting a Scottish newspaper, because of the use of the term, “baillie” for a certain type of municipal official. A Hamburg locksmith called Claude Soller was approached by his apprentice, who related his dream of the previous night. He had been murdered on the road to Bergsdorff, a small town about two hours’ journey away. (This is presumably different from the modern town of Bergsdorf, which is a long way off.)

We must imagine a frightened lad in his late teens. The locksmith scoffed at his worries. It was only a dream, after all. And to demonstrate his contempt for the idea, he immediately gave him a mission to Bergsdorff. Soller’s brother-in-law lived there, and since he (Soller) owed him 140 rixdollars – which was no doubt a lot of money in those days – the apprentice was to take them to him. The poor boy begged and complained, but to no avail, so at 11 am, off he went.

Halfway to his destination, he came to the village of Billwaerder (now Billwerder, an outer suburb of Hamburg), where the terror of his dream took hold of him. Seeing the “baillie” supervising some workmen, he told him of his dream and implored him, because he was carrying money, to allow one of the workmen to accompany him through a small wood en route. The baillie was happy to oblige.

Next day some peasants brought in the corpse of the apprentice, his throat cut, along with the blood-stained reaping hook found next to the body. The baillie immediately recognized it as the instrument he had given to his workman to trim the willow: the same workman he had appointed to be the apprentice’s guide. It just goes to show you should never contemplate murder if you are completely stupid. The workman confessed, and admitted it was the apprentice’s story of his dream which had put the idea into his head.

There is a common motif in fiction whereby attempting to outwit a prophesy actually causes its fulfillment, but in real life, a premonition of danger usually allows the recipient to avoid it. However, in this case, the murder would never have taken place if the victim hadn’t dreamed about it, and then talked about the dream. Of course, it could have been just a coincidence: a bad dream with no psychic overtones, but which inspired two people to act it out. I hope so, because if it wasn’t, it raises disturbing questions about causation, free will, and destiny.

STORY: THE REALITY OF TELEKINESIS=====

We all know our thoughts are powerful in many ways. What you think determines what you’ll do and how you feel. Your thoughts can change the perception of reality. We should also not forget your thoughts can draw you closer to your greatest fears and have an impact on your dreams.

But just how powerful are your thoughts really? Are they powerful enough to move objects? It sounds absurd to even claim that thoughts alone can affect material objects without physical contact.

Most scientists will say it is impossible to move objects using thoughts alone, but there are studies that tell a different story.

In the interesting book “The Physics of God: Unifying Quantum Physics, Consciousness, M-Theory, Heaven, Neuroscience and Transcendence,” (which is available on Amazon and I’ve linked to in the show notes), author Joseph Selbie explains results of experiments that are against mainstream science are deliberately ignored by prestigious scientific journals such as the Physical Review Letters, The New England Journal of Medicine, or Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

As an example, Selbie describes how scientists from the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program conducted experiments for almost three decades offering evidence of telekinesis which is the ability to move objects at a distance by mental power or other non-physical means.

Although the cases and results were thoroughly documented, the studies were rejected by scientific journals.

In his book, Selbie writes: “PEAR was founded in 1979 by Robert G. Jahn, then dean of the Princeton School of Engineering and Applied Science. Despite the pedigree of Princeton University and of Professor Jahn, and despite the overwhelmingly high quality of the science conducted, not one paper based on PEAR’s successful proof of telekinesis was ever accepted by a respected scientific journal.

PEAR’s methodical practice of science was impeccable. PEAR conducted experiments for 27 years to determine whether individuals could affect material objects without physical contact. Among their experimental approaches, PEAR developed a variety of what they called random events generators (REGs), such as water fountains, cascading steel balls, pendulums, and electronic systems.

The REGs were rigorously developed to be impervious to all known outside influences such as vibration, pressure, temperature, and electromagnetism. No REGs were used in their experiments unless they had demonstrated precisely measurable results and maintained rock-solid consistency when left in isolation.

Once a REG was determined to have rock-solid consistency, volunteers were then asked to try to alter its rock- solid consistency by their thoughts alone. For example, volunteers tried, without touching or influencing the devices in any physical way, to make more water flow in one channel of a fountain than the other, or to make more steel balls cascade to one side of a device than the other.

PEAR conducted these experiments for almost three decades, using hundreds of volunteers, in thousands of experiments, accumulating billions of data points. The results of these experiments revealed that nearly every volunteer had successfully altered the baseline distribution of the REG.

The change from the baseline was often miniscule—but consistent— to an overwhelming statistically meaningful degree. The odds against the possibility that PEAR’s experimental findings are merely the result of random events are several trillion to one.

In other words, practically speaking, there is no chance at all that their findings could be wrong: The volunteers successfully affected the behavior of physical systems using only their minds.

Yet no prestigious scientific journal ever published their papers. PEAR’s findings, by every objective measure, were based on facts gathered in a stringently scientific manner. But because their findings fell outside scientific orthodoxy they were not given any scientific legitimacy.”

In 2007, Robert G. Jahn announced the Princeton laboratory is closing after almost 30 years of disputed research on telekinesis and the ability of the mind to influence machines.

“For 28 years, we’ve done what we wanted to do, and there’s no reason to stay and generate more of the same data,” said the laboratory’s founder, Robert G. Jahn, 76, former dean of Princeton’s engineering school and an emeritus professor. “If people don’t believe us after all the results we’ve produced, then they never will.”

Princeton University made no official comment.

Today we can still discuss the results of these controversial studies. To some, these experiments will always remain in the realm of science fiction, but there are also those who are convinced telekinesis is a real ability.

SHOW CLOSE=====

Thanks for listening (and be sure to stick around for the bloopers at the end)! If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do! You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren@weirddarkness.com. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find information on any of the sponsors you heard about during the show, find all of my social media, listen to audiobooks I’ve narrated, sign up for the email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host including “Church of the Undead”, visit the store for Weird Darkness merchandise, and more. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on TELL YOUR STORY. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.

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

“I Met a Monster: True Stories of Cryptid Encounters” by Stephen Wagner for Live About
“The Dream That Led To Murder” by Malcom Smith for Malcolm’s Musings
“The Reality of Telekinesis” by Cynthia McKanzie for Message to Eagle
“Anatomy of a UFO Incident” by Lawrence Gerald for “Ideal’s UFO Magazine” #1, March 1978
The fictional short horror story at the beginning of this episode, “The Rake” is from Creepypasta Wiki, author unknown

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

Now that we’re coming out of the dark, I’ll leave you with a little light… “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.” – Titus 3:4-7

And a final thought… “God doesn’t give you the people you want, he gives you the people you need.” – Unknown

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

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