“MURDER OF A HORROR MOVIE MAKER” and More Strange and Disturbing True Stories! #WeirdDarkness

MURDER OF A HORROR MOVIE MAKER” and More Strange and Disturbing True Stories! #WeirdDarkness

Find Weird Darkness wherever you listen to podcasts: https://linktr.ee/weirddarkness. #paranormal #truestories #paranormalstories #ghoststories #horrorstories #truecrime #cryptids
Listen to ““MURDER OF A HORROR MOVIE MAKER” and More Strange and Disturbing True Stories! #WeirdDarkness” on Spreaker.

IN THIS EPISODE: Al Adamson, the beloved cult-horror director of such schlocky films as PSYCHO A-GO-GO and DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN – was murdered in what can only be called a scene from one of his movies brought to life. (Murder Of The Horror Movie Maker) *** It’s said that the devout Saint Joseph of Cupertino could fly, he could read people’s thoughts, and could create rain during a drought. So why would the church do everything in its power to hide him from the masses of Christian believers? (The Flying Saint With Telepathic Abilities) *** A man sees two ghostly figures in a window’s reflection – and one of them is holding a strange object. (Shades of White) *** Some suspect a serial killer while others point a finger at the paranormal, but nobody has been able to fully explain the mysterious disappearances from Vermont’s Bennington Triangle. (Inside The Unsolved Disappearances Of The Bennington Triangle) *** Chingle Hall is one of Britain’s oldest and most haunted buildings. Ghosts and poltergeist activity have been reported for many centuries with visions of monks being the most commonly reported phenomena. (Haunted Chingle Hall) *** June and Jennifer Gibbons displayed unsettling behavior early on, even for twins. They refused to speak despite their ability to do so, and they insisted on never being apart. But that is not the strangest thing that happened between these disturbed twins. (Disturbing Twins)
SOURCES AND ESSENTIAL WEB LINKS…
“Murder of the Horror Movie Maker” by Troy Taylor: http://bit.ly/2lIuQlh
“The Flying Saint With Telepathic Abilities” by Ellen Lloyd for Ancient Pages: http://bit.ly/2m9CWnl
“Shades of White” by Herman for YourGhostStories.com: http://bit.ly/2lMKFHu
“Inside The Unsolved Disappearances Of The Bennington Triangle” by Ted Kammerer for All That’s Interesting: http://bit.ly/2k6nlnK
“Haunted Chingle Hall” posted at Ghost-Story.co.uk: http://bit.ly/2m3XFsw
“Disturbing Twins” by Jim Harper for Paranorms.com: http://bit.ly/2m8z1al
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PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT…..

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…

Al Adamson, the beloved cult-horror director of such schlocky films as PSYCHO A-GO-GO and DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN – was murdered in what can only be called a scene from one of his movies brought to life.

It’s said that the devout Saint Joseph of Cupertino could fly, he could read people’s thoughts, and could create rain during a drought. So why would the church do everything in its power to hide him from the masses of Christian believers?

A man sees two ghostly figures in a window’s reflection – and one of them is holding a strange object.

Some suspect a serial killer while others point a finger at the paranormal, but nobody has been able to fully explain the mysterious disappearances from Vermont’s Bennington Triangle.

Chingle Hall is one of Britain’s oldest and most haunted buildings. Ghosts and poltergeist activity have been reported for many centuries with visions of monks being the most commonly reported phenomena.

June and Jennifer Gibbons displayed unsettling behavior early on, even for twins. They refused to speak despite their ability to do so, and they insisted on never being apart. But that is not the strangest thing that happened between these disturbed twins.

If you’re new here, welcome to the show! While you’re listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, enter contests, to 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: DISTURBING TWINS==========

Born to West Indian parents, June and Jennifer Gibbons displayed unsettling behavior early on, even for twins. When the family moved to Wales, their differences became more evident, in part due to the Gibbons’ being the only black family in the community, but also owing to the twins refusal to speak (elective mutes) and an insistence on never being apart from each other. Sent to separate boarding schools at age 14, the girls withdrew and became catatonic. Once reunited, they resumed their isolation, but also began demonstrating a creative side, staging plays with their dolls and writing extensively in their diaries. Their creativity produced detailed novels, although the subject matter (sexuality, criminal behavior, etc.) was disturbing, given their lack of social interaction. This out-of-character behavior eventually led to even more bizarre developments, changing the narrative of the “Silent Twins” from interesting anomaly to impossible-to-explain tragedy.

Now aged 17, the twins in many ways began exhibiting “normal” teenaged girl behavior, including their first sexual experiences. This was followed by other “rebellious” activities (drinking, marijuana use, petty theft), and even more jarring, violent behavior towards one another, culminating in attempted murder (Jennifer trying to strangle June, June attempting to drown Jennifer). These antics soon escalated from youthful shenanigans to criminal behavior when they set fire to a tractor shop, and even more seriously, their vandalizing and attempted arson of a technical school. The latter incident led to their arrests and subsequent commitment to Broadmoor Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Berkshire, England.

For 14 years they remained at Broadmoor, becoming assimilated enough to join the hospital choir, and as their story became more publicized, intrigued journalist Marjorie Wallace attempted to forge a relationship. Eventually gaining their trust, Wallace, after exhaustively researching their diaries, concluded that the twins desperately longed for fame, and that their aberrant behavior was an attempt to achieve it. Wallace also determined that June and Jennifer felt trapped by their unique bond, with separation being the only solution to the dilemma.

In 1993, it was decided to transfer in hopes of “fast-tracking” their rehabilitation. However, when Marjorie Wallace met with the girls, expecting excitement and joy for their approaching transfer, she was instead taken aback when Jennifer told her, “I’m going to have to die.” Initially, Wallace tried to laugh this chilling development off, but it was apparent that Jennifer was serious, adding, “We’ve (herself and June) decided.”

When the twins arrived at Caswell Clinic in Wales, Jennifer Gibbons was unresponsive, and despite life-saving efforts she died soon afterwards, her demise attributed to sudden inflammation of the heart (acute myocarditis). Autopsy results ruled out drugs and foul play, making her death as mysterious and puzzling as her life. Shortly after, Wallace visited June Gibbons, who said, “I’m free at last, liberated, and at last Jennifer has given up her life for me.”

20-plus years later, June Gibbons has moved back to live near her parents in Wales. She lives alone, no longer under psychiatric care, and is accepted in the village.

BREAK==========

Coming up…

A man sees two ghostly figures in a window’s reflection – and one of them is holding a strange object.

Plus… It’s said that the devout Saint Joseph of Cupertino could fly, he could read people’s thoughts, and could create rain during a drought. So why would the church do everything in its power to hide him from the masses of Christian believers?

And… Al Adamson, the beloved cult-horror director of such schlocky films as PSYCHO A-GO-GO and DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN – was murdered in what can only be called a scene from one of his movies brought to life. That story is up next on Weird Darkness!

<COMMERCIAL BREAK>

STORY: MURDER OF THE HORROR MOVIE MAKER==========

June 21, 1995, Al Adamson – beloved cult-horror director of such schlocky films as PSYCHO A-GO-GO and DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN – was murdered in what can only be called a scene from one of his movies brought to life. It was a terrible and tragic ending to a well-liked man who brought a lot of whacky happiness into the lives of cult-film aficionados.

In the late spring of 1995, Adamson hired contractor Fred Fulford to do a major remodel of the director’s home. It was a huge project, so Adamson generously allowed Fulford to stay in his house while the work was being done. Fulford began stealing from Adamson immediately. On June 21, Adamson caught on to the theft and confronted Fulford about it. In a rage, the contractor picked up one of his tools and fatally bludgeoned Adamson with it. He then tore out the indoor jacuzzi in Adamson’s home, dumped the director’s body into the hole, filled it with four tons of cement, and tiled over the evidence.

It was like something out of one of Adamson’s movies – just like it, in fact.

Keep in mind, Adamson made some pretty wild horror films. They were the kind of stuff that played on double-bills at the drive-in in the 1970s. Some of them included FIVE BLOODY GRAVES, HELL’S BLOODY DEVILS, HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS, BLOOD OF DRACULA’S CASTLE, HALF WAY TO HELL, ANGEL’S WILD WOMEN, and more.

And Al’s murder? Well, rumor had it that Fulford took inspiration from a movie script that had been sent to Adamson that the contractor had read. But criminal mastermind he was not. In the weeks after the murder, none of Adamson’s friends of colleagues saw or heard from him and yet someone was writing checks on his bank account, running up his credit cards, and even wearing his clothes. Want to guess who it was?

After Al’s brother, Ken, reported that Adamson was missing, the police questioned Fulford. The contractor offered some shaky answers and then fled Los Angeles for Florida in Adamson’s pickup truck. At his trial, the prosecutor used a movie analogy to describe Fulford’s behavior – he said it was the “working of a popcorn kernel-sized brain.”

An intensive search of Adamson’s home eventually discovered the director’s remains and Fulford was arrested in Florida. However, it took four years to get him to trial. The delays began during extradition hearings to get Fulford back to L.A. from Florida. At one point, Fulford even insisted on representing himself in court. He denied the murder and told the court that he just thought Adamson had gone on a long trip, which he often did. The only thing he admitted to was using his dead employer’s checkbook, but the jury didn’t care. They found him guilty in a matter of minutes.

While sentencing Fulford, Judge Graham Cribbs called the crime “cold-hearted and calculated” and added that it seemed to be right out of the script of a horror movie.

STORY: SHADES OF WHITE==========

This incident happened about 1 month ago. It had been a long day and I was about to fix supper for my wife and I. She was in the bedroom folding clothes and I walked into the kitchen.

We live in an “open environment” apartment. This means the counter with the sink runs between the kitchen and living area. Since it is only a counter I can see all the way to the front of the apartment and out to the outside. I was standing there thinking about what to fix and I noticed something white behind me. I turned and could only see the cabinets and refrigerator. Now the cabinets are a dark wood and the frig is black so there is nothing white there. I turned back to the sink and again I saw the white behind me through the front window. Outside it is night and dark and there are no lights so the white I saw was definitely inside. I focused my eyes and looked closer and began to see two distinct figures of white. I thought at first that they were wearing white robes but the more I looked I realized they themselves were the white color. They were moving back and forth like curtains in the wind, but the windows were closed and also we have no curtains on them, just open blinds. I noticed one of them was a little shorter than the other and then I saw that the shorter one was holding an orange orb about the size of a basketball. The orb was glowing and when I looked behind me there was nothing there. I again turned back to the sink and looked to see the shorter one dropping down like it was kneeling. Then it rose again. I swayed back and forth and they seemed to follow my movements. I raised my arms to see if they would but my wife came into the room and asked what I was doing. I looked and they were gone.

I felt strong, cold air when they were there then the room warmed up when they were gone.

I just told my wife I was stretching.

I keep looking for them to reappear but I have not seen them since.

I would like to know who or what they were. And what was the orange orb?

STORY: THE FLYING SAINT WITH TELEPATHIC ABILITIES==========

Extraordinary people with strange and often totally amazing abilities have been known since long ago. Often their almost supernatural abilities go beyond the framework of rational thinking and knowledge we possess.

Certain abilities such as for example, telepathy, psychokinesis, levitation, invisibility, and teleportation are said to be impossible and yet there are many cases of people all across the world who have possessed one or even several of these powers.

Therefore, we cannot explain certain unusual abilities of the mind. we take a closer look at an extraordinary person who shocked people with his extraordinary levitation and telepathic abilities.

St. Joseph of Cupertino lived during the seventeenth century in Italy. His real name was Giuseppe da Copertino (1603-1663) and he was famous for his levitation abilities.

Apparently, he could travel short distances through the air and he shocked many people with his unexpected flights.

Levitation was not the only “miracle” Joseph performed. It is said that he could also read others thoughts at time. He possessed certain telepathic and he is also credited with gifts of healing and even producing rain during a drought.

Joseph’s extraordinary capabilities made him very popular with the church masses during his lifetime.

Thousands of people gathered to see St. Joseph of Cupertino and the Church decided to hide him from them masses. This led to that St. Joseph of Cupertino was often relocated to secret locations. Although St. Jospeh of Cupertino was never found guilty of any crime, he was nevertheless forced to spend most of his life in exile.

His amazing flights were witnessed by many prominent persons of the time.

The Spanish Ambassador to the Papal Court observed him fly over the heads of bystanders to a statue of the Immaculate Conception. The Ambassador’s wife who witnessed the same event was so upset that she fainted.

John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick once saw how Joseph floated above the floor during mass. John Frederick who had been a Lutheran at the time of the event, quickly converted to Catholicism after witnessing this “miracle”.

One day, Joseph, who by now was known as the Flying Saint attended a papal audience at the Vatican. He was so overwhelmed upon meeting Urban VIII (Pope from 1623-1644) that he rose into the air and only descended again when so ordered by a superior.

Joseph’s flights were unannounced and apparently uncontrollable for him, at least at conscious level.

Joseph might unexpectedly go into a trans-like ecstatic state during mass or festivity.

Church authorities found Joseph’s flight embarrassing and disruptive. He was banned from participating in masses and processions.

Interestingly, although St. Joseph of Cupertino did posses many extraordinary abilities, he was not intellectually gifted.

He could barely read or write and he suffered from major learning disabilities.

When he was 17 years old, Joseph tried to join the Catholic Order of Friars Minor Conventuals, but his lack of education prevented him from gaining admittance.

He was later admitted as a Capuchin but removed from the order shortly thereafter when his constant ecstasy proved him unsuitable.

When Joseph was in his early twenties, he was admitted into a Franciscan friary near Cupertino.

His learning abilities made his studies very difficult. It is said that he would only study a small section of the material, because that was all he could do, and he prayed that the material would be what he was tested on.

As previously mentioned, the Church did not appreciate Joseph’s “miracles”. At one point in his life, Joseph was even accused of deliberately attracting attention to himself with his “miracles”. As a result, he was investigated by the Inquisition.

On October 21, 1638, Joseph was summoned to appear before the Inquisition. He was detained for several weeks but he was not found guilty and released.

Unfortunately, this did not mean Joseph could enjoy true freedom.

After being cleared by the Inquisition, Joseph was forced to live in exile. He was sent to the Sacro Convento in Assisi.

Joseph was soon sought after by many different people including bishops, cardinals, knights, minister’s generals an others.

Over time, Joseph attracted a huge following.

To stop this, Pope Innocent X decided to move Joseph from Assisi and place him in a secret location under the jurisdiction of the Capuchin friars in Pietrarubbia.

Joseph was placed under strict orders to avoid writing letters. Despite this, Joseph kept attracting followers.

The Christian authorities had to undertake stronger measures to prevent Joseph from having contact with the outside world. He was relocated to yet another secret location where the same thing happened again!

The order ended when Pope Innocent died. The new Pope Alexander VIII was asked to release Joseph from his exile but he refused and Joseph was sent to the friary in Osimo where the Pope’s nephew was the local Bishop.

Joseph was ordered to live in complete seclusion. He was not allowed to speak to anyone except the Bishop. He was only permitted to see a doctor in case of health problems.

Joseph endured a life in exile with remarkable patience and he never complained, not even when he was not given food for two days.

On August 10, 1663, Joseph became ill with fever. He was happy that he was ill and refused to pray for his own recovery. Obviously Joseph believed he was now on his way to meet God and this thought filled him with joy.

During the last mass he experienced ecstasies and levitated on several occasions.

In the beginning of September, Joseph could sense that the end was near and he was happier than ever.

After receiving the last sacraments and papal blessing, Joseph of Cupertino died on the evening of September 18, 1663.

The man who became known as the Flying Saint was buried two days later before great crowds of grieving people.

Skeptics are not convinced that St. Joseph of Cupertino possessed magical or paranormal powers. They have suggested that alleged eyewitness reports of his levitations are unreliable as they are subject to gross exaggeration, or written years after his death.

We cannot say with certainty whether all stories about Joseph of Cupertino are true.

Perhaps some parts are slightly exaggerated, but this does not have to be the case. We simply do not know.

Joseph was beatified in 1753 and canonized in 1763. He has been declared the patron saint of air travelers, aviators, astronauts, people with a mental handicap, test takers and poor students.

BREAK==========

When Weird Darkness returns…

Chingle Hall is one of Britain’s oldest and most haunted buildings. Ghosts and poltergeist activity have been reported for many centuries with visions of monks being the most commonly reported phenomena.

But first… some suspect a serial killer while others point a finger at the paranormal, but nobody has been able to fully explain the mysterious disappearances from Vermont’s Bennington Triangle. That story is up next!

<COMMERCIAL BREAK>

STORY: BENNINGTON TRIANGLE==========

Some suspect a serial killer while others point a finger at the paranormal, but nobody has been able to fully explain the mysterious disappearances from Vermont’s Bennington Triangle.

Followers of folklore and aficionados of the paranormal are certainly familiar with the Bermuda Triangle and perhaps even southeastern Massachusetts’ Bridgewater Triangle. But one lesser-known cousin of these areas infamous for their strange disappearances holds more than its fair share of tantalizing mysteries: the Bennington Triangle of Vermont.

Dubbed as such by Vermont author Joseph A. Citro, the Bennington Triangle is a loosely-defined area that encompasses the ghost town of Glastenbury, once a small logging community centered on the eponymous mountain in southwestern Vermont. Abandoned at the end of the 19th century after the logging boom died down, the greater Glastenbury area is now mostly untouched, pristine wilderness and is considered remote even by Vermont standards.

Starting with a string of missing persons some 70 years ago, the now-abandoned town has long been the eerie setting of numerous unexplained disappearances, unsolved murders, and bizarre sightings that continue to this day.

In 1945, a five-year span of disappearances began in the Bennington Triangle with the vanishing of Middie Rivers. A 74-year-old local hunting guide, Rivers led a party of four hunters around the area of Hell Hollow in the southwest woods of Glastenbury before he was suddenly lost.

After an unsuccessful initial search, many still believed that this knowledgeable woodsman would be able to survive and soon surface in town. However, this was not the case. Soon, more than 300 concerned locals and U.S. Army soldiers dispatched from Massachusetts’ Fort Devens combed through the vast wilderness for eight days, turning up not a single shred of evidence as to the whereabouts of Rivers.

The following year saw arguably the most infamous missing persons case in the history of Vermont: the disappearance of Paula Welden. Welden was an 18-year-old student at Bennington College who decided to hike a leg of the Long Trail during Thanksgiving break when most of her peers had returned home for the holiday.

Last seen on Sunday Dec. 1, 1946 wearing easy-to-spot red and entering the Long Trail near Glastenbury Mountain, Welden never showed up for her Monday classes, spurring a massive search party of more than 1,000 people and a reward of $5,000. Despite the large turnout, numerous aircraft utilized, and variety of assisting law enforcement departments, no clues to her fate were ever discovered.

Many, including Welden’s father, criticized the authorities’ lack of sophisticated methods in handling the case, which actually served as the catalyst for the founding of the Vermont State Police seven months later. The case remains open to this day.

Exactly three years to the day after the vanishing of Paula Weldon, the Bennington Triangle saw one of its more seemingly supernatural disappearances. That day, a 68-year-old man named James E. Tedford boarded a bus to Bennington after visiting relatives in St. Albans, Vermont. Numerous eyewitnesses, including the driver, later confirmed that Tedford had been in his seat as late as the last stop before Bennington. Yet when the bus finally pulled into Bennington, Tedford was nowhere to be found.

After he implausibly vanished into thin air while inside a moving vehicle, baffled passengers noted that Tedford’s luggage and an open bus timetable remained on his seat. If the witnesses are correct, Tedford would have disappeared from his seat as the bus was traveling down Route 7 through the Bennington Triangle.

Nearly a year later in mid-October 1950, eight-year-old Paul Jepson went missing. He was last seen happily playing in the family pickup truck by his mother, who left to tend to pigs at the dump where she and her husband were caretakers. Then he vanished without a trace.

In addition to the hundreds assembled for a search party, a New Hampshire sheriff brought in a bloodhound to sniff out the missing boy. The dog was able to pick up his scent but abruptly lost the trail at a nearby crossroads, suggesting a possible abduction by a motorist.

As the case dragged on without resolution, some suggested that Jepson met an early demise at the hands of his parents and was dinner for the pigs. But, in keeping with the eerie feeling of the Bennington Triangle, the boy’s father told the Albany Times Union that it was perhaps “the lure of the mountains” that pulled in his missing son, as the boy had “talked of nothing else for days” prior to the disappearance.

Only about two weeks later, 53-year-old Frieda Langer, an experienced hiker and survivalist familiar with the area, went missing on the Somerset area of the Long Trail bordering east Glastenbury.

After hiking a brief half-mile with her cousin Herbert Eisner, Langer fell into a stream and set back to their camp to change her clothes, where her husband was resting with a hurt knee. But neither her husband nor her cousin ever saw her again.

Helicopters from the Connecticut Coast Guard and U.S. Army in Massachusetts as well as local aircraft from citizens and the Vermont Aeronautics Commission helped search for Langer. As many as 400 people, including the Massachusetts National Guard, meticulously searched the surrounding areas yet found nothing.

But soon they did find something and this became the only known disappearance of the Bennington Triangle where a body has turned up. Six months after she went missing, Langer’s corpse was found near the Somerset Reservoir — curiously, an open area that had been searched extensively numerous times in the previous months.

Yet even with a body, the case saw little resolution. The body had decayed so badly that no cause of death could be determined, only fueling further speculation about what kind of disturbing end she might have met.

The intriguing mysteries and unexplained events associated with the Bennington Triangle have caused many to speculate wildly about the possibility of nefarious and perhaps paranormal forces at work, a notion bolstered by alleged UFO and Bigfoot sightings in the region.

Others believe that the burst of missing persons between 1945 and 1950 may have been the work of a serial killer. But the sheer lack of evidence to back this up as well as the variety in the victims’ ages and genders (defying the usual patterns of serial killers) likely rules out that theory as well.

Others still contend that the disappeared met their demise at the claws of an indigenous mountain cat such as a lynx, bobcat, or catamount. However, bobcat and lynx are not known to be aggressive to humans, and the catamount has not been credibly sighted since before 1940 and has been declared extinct.

All in all, when trying to tie the disappearances together in hopes of discovering a solution to the mysteries, there is little to go on. The only known similarities between the most well-documented cases in the Bennington Triangle are the close proximity of the disappearances, the time of day when most were last seen (between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.), and the time of year when most were last seen (the final three months of the year).

And with little in the way of evidence, paranormal theories concerning the cases have taken hold. For those interested in the paranormal, such theories dovetail with other, more recent odd occurrences in the Bennington Triangle area.

These occurences include terrifying voices allegedly showing up on dead-air radio, sightings of mysterious figures, unexplained navigation mishaps, and planes that mysteriously crashed.

Thus it’s no surprise that the Bennington Triangle attracts those with a penchant for the eerie to this day.

STORY: CHINGLE HALL==========

In the small village of Goosnargh, lies one of Britain’s oldest and most haunted buildings, Chingle Hall. Ghosts and poltergeist activity have been reported for many centuries with visions of monks being the most commonly reported phenomena.

The house formerly known as Singleton hall was constructed in 1260 by the knight Adam de Singleton. The Hall remained in the de Singleton’s family late into the 16th Century. In 1585 the Wall Family who were related to the Singletons, moved into the Hall.

John Wall was born in the Hall in 1620, he studied at Worcester University. In 1641 he became a priest, during the time of the Catholic Reformation it was illegal to practice mass in Britain, Chingle Hall was used as a place of worship by Catholics and had many priest holes and secret compartments were made for the people taking part the mass to hide if the Hall was raided by the kings soldiers. At this time Father John Wall was most active, conducting secret mass on a regular basis.

In 1678 he was apprehended at Rushock Court near Bromsgrove, as he was tendering the Oath of Supremacy. He was taken to Worcester jail, where he was offered his life if he would foresake his religion, but he declined. Brought back to Worcester, he was drawn and quartered at Redhill on the 22nd of August 1679. His quartered body was given to his friends, and was buried in St. Oswald’s churchyard. Mr. Levison, however, secured the martyr’s head, and it was treasured by the friars at Worcester until the dissolution of that house during the French Revolution. It is rumoured to be buried the Hall’s grounds or hidden in the building itself. The Franciscan nuns at Taunton claim to possess a tooth and a bone of the martyr. He was Canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

In 1764 the house was passed to the Farrington family during these times Chingle hall was a hub for zealous religious activity. Great effort was made to keep alive the Roman catholic traditions, cavities were built into walls and tunnels were dug to some of the surrounding buildings as a method of escape.

Once inside the Great Hall, you see the wooden beams going across the ceiling. Some of these beams have strange symbols on them. No one really knew what these symbols were, until some scientists took samples of the wood. They found that the wood was much older than Chingle Hall, and had a lot of salt in them. The wood had actually come from an old Viking longboat. During the 1950s one of the beams spontaneously caught fire, and, just as quickly as it had started, it inexplicably extinguished itself. The smell of wood burning lingers in many of the rooms.

There is supposedly a poltergeist in the kitchen, but it does little more than rearrange the pots and pans. The visions of monks are one of the most commonly reported phenomena. In the Priests’ Room upstairs, a man with shoulder length hair has been seen to walk outside the window. That would not seem to be too unusual until you consider that the window is about twelve feet above the ground.

One of the rooms considered to be most haunted is Eleanor’s room. This room belonged to Eleanor Singleton, who was reportedly kept captive there for over 12 years and died/or was murdered there at the age of 20. Visitors have claimed to be overcome by a deep feeling of sadness when in this room. Some also smell lavender and feel phantom tugs at their clothing and some have even fainted. Orbs have been seen by many visitors to the property, sometimes only visible to one or two members of the group.

On Christmas day 1980, Gerald Main and ghost hunter Terence Whitaker spent time at the Hall in a vigil and recorded rapping sounds emanating from one of the priest’s hiding hole. At the time of the knocking noises they recorded a significant decrease in temperature and saw an ‘indefinable shape’ move across the floor.

In 1985, sounds of bricks being moved were recorded by a visitor in the Priest’s Room, which seemed to originate in the Priest’s hiding hole. He peered within and saw part of a human hand moving one of the bricks. As he watched, the hand stopped moving and disappeared. This witness later managed to capture the sounds of footsteps on tape and a shadowy form on film. Later bricks were found scattered on the floor of the Chapel on the ground floor.

During January of 1996, a team from the Northern Anomalies Research Organisation investigated Chingle Hall. During the visit one member of the group managed to capture two photographs of a blue/white light which appeared on and near the oak-beamed ceiling. What is notable is that the taking of the photographs and the light were witnessed by a several people in the house. When tape recorders were used in an investigation, sounds were heard and recorded within the Priest’s Room but nothing was heard or recorded on the cassette in the passageway outside.

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Thanks for listening. 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! And please leave a rating and review of the show in the podcast app you listen from! You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren@weirddarkness.com. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find all of my social media, listen to audiobooks I’ve narrated, shop the Weird Darkness store, sign up for monthly contests, find other podcasts that I host, and 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 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.

“Murder of the Horror Movie Maker” by Troy Taylor
“The Flying Saint With Telepathic Abilities” by Ellen Lloyd for Ancient Pages
“Shades of White” by Herman for YourGhostStories.com
“Inside The Unsolved Disappearances Of The Bennington Triangle” by Ted Kammerer for All That’s Interesting
“Haunted Chingle Hall” posted at Ghost-Story.co.uk
“Disturbing Twins” by Jim Harper for Paranorms.com

WeirdDarkness™ – is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright, Weird Darkness, 2022.

Now that we’re coming out of the dark, I’ll leave you with a little light… “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” — Psalm 46:1

And a final thought… “If I didn’t have spiritual faith, I would be a pessimist. But I’m an optimist. I’ve read the last page in the Bible. It’s all going to turn out all right.” — Billy Graham

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

 

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