“The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce (1893) | #MidnightInTheMacabre

From the vengeful Bell Witch to the lingering spirits of Gettysburg, America is packed with haunted spots that refuse to let go of their ghosts – whether it’s eerie voices in old asylums, shadowy figures in historic mansions, or phantom footsteps in forgotten graveyards. If you’re looking for a brush with the supernatural, these legendary (and lesser-known) locations won’t disappoint. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HauntedAmerica READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/36de8fpn LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:  Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* SOURCES and RESOURCES: “America’s Most Haunted Places” by Troy Taylor and April Slaughter for AmericanHauntingsInk.com:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/582mh58k (used with permission) “America’s Not-So-Famous Haunted Houses” by Troy Taylor for AmericanHauntingsInk.com:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p979tsv (used with permission) (Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.) WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness. Originally aired: January, 2022 Weird Darkness tours fifteen haunted American locations, starting with the ones every ghost hunter already knows. The Bell Witch Cave in Adams, Tennessee, where a spirit claiming to be the witch of Kate Batts tormented the Bell family for years and, some say, retreated into a cave near the Red River. Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, where tuberculosis patients died in numbers large enough to require a body chute running down the hill and out of sight. The Myrtles Plantation, whose most famous ghost stories turn out to be false, though the apparitions on the grounds keep getting reported anyway. The Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, where four members of one brewing family took their own lives across five decades. Gettysburg's Devil's Den, the Stanley Hotel that inspired Stephen King, the Winchester Mystery House with its staircases to nowhere, Bachelor's Grove Cemetery outside Chicago, Yorktown Memorial Hospital in Texas, and the Villisca Ax Murder House in Iowa, where eight people were killed in their beds in June of 1912 and no one was ever convicted.Then the show turns to the houses that never made the lists. Nemacolin Castle in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, built on the site of a French and Indian War garrison and later a stop on the Underground Railroad. Tinker Swiss Cottage in Rockford, Illinois, a twenty-seven-room Swiss-style home on a limestone bluff where children's laughter is heard by staff who came in as skeptics. The McCune Mansion in Salt Lake City, where a little girl walks in and out of a mirror. Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin, where a fired servant locked seven people in Frank Lloyd Wright's home in August of 1914, set it on fire, and killed them with a hatchet as they tried to escape. And Prospect Place in Trinway,...

“Adventure of the Beauty Queen”: A woman wakes to a voice from a thousand years in the future, telling her a machine has searched all of history for beauty and found her. Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = Show Open 00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Queen of Palmyra” (April 27, 1978) ***WD 00:45:45.877 = The Eleventh Hour, “Codeword Silver” (ADU) 01:11:24.672 = Escape, “The Fortune of Vargas” (September 21, 1949) 01:40:04.624 = Exploring Tomorrow, “Adventure of the Beauty Queen” (June 25, 1958) ***WD 01:59:42.274 = Dark Fantasy, “Rendezvous With Satan” (May 29, 1942) 02:28:27.595 = Fear on 4, “Fat Andy” (March 06, 1988) 02:57:32.941 = Theater Five, “Dark Appointment” (November 23, 1964) ***WD 03:18:08.219 = Adventures of Superman, “Mystery of the Walking Dead” (November 05, 1949) 03:47:56.562 = Hall of Fantasy, “The Judge’s House” (April 03, 1947) ***WD 04:14:35.484 = Harry Lime, “Rogues Holiday” (September 21, 1951) 04:39:24.955 = BBC Haunted Tales of the Supernatural, “The Family” (July 05, 1980) ***WD 05:07:30.568 = Show Close (ADU) = Air Date Unknown (LQ) = Low Quality ***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing. CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0724

A lifelong friend's death leaves Jason Clark hearing that friend's voice picking winners at the track, an unbroken streak that draws the attention of the bookmakers he's bleeding dry — and when they demand his system at knifepoint, what proof can he offer? Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = Show Open 00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Bet With The Angels” (April 21, 1978) ***WD 00:46:18.058 = Chet Chetter, “Elmer And The Book of Absolute Truth” (1991) 01:16:14.133 = The Clock, “The Hitchhiker” (January 03, 1956) ***WD 01:40:44.592 = The Crime Club, “Grey Mist Murders” (April 10, 1947) 02:10:32.203 = Crime Classics, “The Terrible Deed of John White Webster” (July 13, 1953) 02:40:14.956 = Danger Dr Danfield, “Norman Miles” (September 08, 1946) ***WD 03:05:54.976 = Calling All Detectives, “Casebook of J. Browning” (June 14, 1948) 03:14:16.749 = The Devil and Mr. O, “Hungry One” (January 14, 1972) 03:42:57.931 = Diary of Fate, “Nelson Walker” (June 15, 1948) ***WD 04:10:44.961 = Dimension X, “Hello Tomorrow” (September 15, 1950) ***WD 04:39:05.898 = The Strange Dr. Weird, “Knife of Death” (February 20, 1945) ***WD (LQ) 04:51:32.354 = Strange Adventure, “The Island of Mystery” (1945) ***WD 04:54:56.292 = Show Close (ADU) = Air Date Unknown (LQ) = Low Quality ***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing. CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0723

Before sixteen children were found in a single room in Hamden, the Siders family left behind another house in Gallia County — and a renovator says he found it in the same condition. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/siderscase20260722 Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736 *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Al Capone begged his way into the prison band, Robert Stroud spent eleven years in the hospital, and every inmate at Alcatraz learned fast that on the Rock, almost everything beyond a meal and a cot had to be earned... and a single broken rule could send you into total silence and darkness in the hole. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/alcatraz READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/y7sjc7zw CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding 00:01:23.422 = Show Open 00:02:30.901 = Being An Alcatraz Inmate 00:19:49.953 = The Impossibility of Escaping Alcatraz *** 00:40:10.152 = Prisons More terrifying Than Alcatraz *** 00:52:59.621 = Show Close *** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* SOURCES and RESOURCES: “Being An Alcatraz Inmate” by Melissa Sartore for Ranker.com’s Weird History:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/535vhu7n “The Impossibility of Escaping Alcatraz” by Melissa Sartore for Ranker.com’s Weird History:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/bdfj2ypt “More Terrifying Than Alcatraz” by Michelle Nati for Ranker.com’s Unspeakable Times: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3jwhh268 (Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.) WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness. Originally aired: February, 2021 Weird Darkness takes listeners inside the federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island — what daily life was actually like behind its walls, the fourteen escape attempts that mostly ended in the San Francisco Bay, and a tour of American prisons whose conditions make the Rock look mild by comparison.It opens with the texture of everyday survival at Alcatraz, where the prison held roughly 330 men in cells measuring five feet by nine, and where food, clothing, shelter, and medical care were the only four rights an inmate had — everything else, from library access to a spot in the prison band, had to be earned. Warden James A. Johnston enforced a code of silence that lasted until 1937, so inmates like Jim Quillen talked through the pipes between cells, and Quillen described nineteen days in solitary as total silence and darkness. Al Capone begged his way into the Rock Islanders band and learned tenor guitar, tenor banjo, and mandola; Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz, spent eleven of his seventeen years there in the hospital, studying law and languages. Prisoners were counted thirteen times a day, allowed a single two-page letter each week to a blood relative, and served food widely regarded as the best in the federal system — and still, by inmate Bryan Conway's account, fourteen of three hundred...