Stories of the Paranormal, Supernatural, Legends, Lore, Mysterious Macabre, Unsolved and Unexplained
From the chilling 1874 case that coined ‘don’t take candy from strangers’ to Patty Hearst’s transformation from heiress to bank robber, journey through true tales of kidnapping where victims outsmarted their captors, others never escaped, and some didn’t want to. These are the abduction stories you’ve never heard—told by the survivors themselves and featuring cases of Stockholm Syndrome that challenge everything we think we know about survival.
On January 2, 1935, a young man checked into Kansas City’s Hotel President under a fake name, insisting the maid leave his door unlocked while he sat alone in complete darkness. Three days later, he was found brutally tortured and murdered in Room 1046—and when someone mysteriously paid for his funeral with a note signed “Love forever, Louise,” investigators realized they had no idea who the victim really was or who killed him.
In 1835, a Mormon apostle claimed he met Cain on a Tennessee road. Today, some believers think Bigfoot sightings are actually encounters with the Bible’s first murderer, cursed to wander the earth forever. We examine the evidence, the theology, and what this strange theory reveals about ourselves.
In 1953, dogs and livestock in Bladenboro, North Carolina began turning up dead with their skulls crushed flat and their bodies completely drained of blood, while witnesses reported seeing a massive cat-like creature that made sounds like a woman screaming. Over 70 years later, similar attacks still occur in the area, and despite massive hunts involving over a thousand people, no one has ever caught or identified what’s killing these animals.
When Charles Peck died instantly in California’s worst train crash, his phone somehow made 35 calls to his loved ones over the next 11 hours—and his case is just one of many documented instances of the dead reaching out through our technology.
In 1912, someone crept through an unlocked door in small-town Iowa with an oil lamp and an axe, leaving eight bodies and a mystery that still haunts the house where they died.
Three convicts vanished from America’s most secure prison using dummy heads made of toilet paper and hair, leaving behind only pieces of a makeshift raft and a mystery that has haunted investigators for over 60 years – but many don’t know about the evidence that was hidden and suppressed.
Three papier-mâché heads stared from prison beds while their creators vanished into the dark waters of San Francisco Bay, leaving behind a mystery that refuses to die.
A bizarre masked figure interrupted two television broadcasts in 1987, creating one of broadcasting’s most disturbing unsolved mysteries.
A fresh sonar image from the floor of the Pacific Ocean has raised the possibility of finally solving aviation’s most enduring mystery, but a half-century of false leads has kept researchers from getting too excited.
In the remote fields of Argentina, a rancher discovered his cow with its face surgically removed and mysterious white lines drawn across its body — the latest in a decades-long global phenomenon that has baffled investigators and left thousands of animals mutilated with impossible precision.
What really happened to David Lang, the farmer who vanished mid-step in front of witnesses—an unsolvable mystery, a paranormal glitch, or just a cleverly spun tall tale?
When lightning struck Peter Williamson’s backyard in 1974, sixteen witnesses watched him vanish completely—only to reappear three days later wearing pants from a tailor shop that had burned down twenty years earlier.
Hundreds died in a jungle commune led by a madman, but what if Jonestown wasn’t a mass suicide, but a cover-up for something even darker?
What began as eerie tales of a bloodthirsty winged beast terrorizing Maryland would soon unravel into one of the most bizarre and brilliant hoaxes in American cryptid history.
In the middle of the Mojave Desert, a shattered phone booth once rang with voices that claimed to be aliens, the dead — and things far worse. (NOTE: This is an old #Darkives episode, so it sounds quite different than newer episodes.)
Was The Grinning Man a visitor from Lanulos — or was something far darker hiding behind the disturbing smile?
When Christine Collins’ son vanished in 1928, it sparked a twisted chain of lies, corruption, and murder that would expose one of the darkest chapters in California’s history.
When David Lang vanished in front of five witnesses he was never seen again – but the mystery only deepened when his voice came back from nowhere.