(Bonus Episode) “AMATEUR IN CHANCERY” by George O. Smith (Short Sci-Fi Story) #WeirdDarkness

A forest lookout sits alone in a glass tower at 2AM and spots flames crowning two distant pines — a fire only he can see. By dawn there's no smoke, no ash, no scorched earth... and no fire at all. From phantom flames that burn and vanish to the burned Bigfoot pulled from a Nevada blaze and the UFOs caught streaking through wildfire smoke, tonight we wander into the strange and unsettling things that appear when the forests burn. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources and full transcript): https://weirddarkness.com/ghostflames READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yjwtx7aw FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: The author of Frankenstein always saw love and death as connected. She visited the cemetery to commune with her dead mother. And with her lover. (Mary Shelley’s Obsession With The Cemetery) *** A girl moves into a new apartment and discovers that a haunting doesn’t necessarily have to be frightening. (Ghostly Happenings In My Old Apartment) *** The July 1886 murder at the Shawmut Avenue laundry was so shrouded in mystery that even the victim’s name was uncertain. (The Wash-House Murder) *** Ghosts, high strangeness, and even Bigfoot – it appears they may all have something in common, and that would be forest fires. (Forest Fires and the Paranormal) *** How do you explain an experienced lookout reporting a blazing forest fire, only for it to disappear less than an hour later – leaving no trace? (Phantom Flames) CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding 00:03:57.045 = Show Open 00:05:40.844 = Phantom Flames 00:21:25.265 = Forest Fires and the Paranormal 00:35:10.279 = Mary Shelley’s Obsession With The Cemetery *** 0048:57.368 = Ghostly Happenings In My Old Apartment 00:52:28.197 = The Wash-House Murder *** 01:01:09.811 = 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: “Phantom Flames” by F.A.Loomis from Idaho Magazine: http://ow.ly/beq730nL94u “Forest Fires and the Paranormal” by Brent Swancer for Mysterious Universe: http://ow.ly/ROYC30nL8n1 “Mary Shelley’s Obsession With The Cemetery” by Bess Lovejoy for the JSTOR Daily: https://tinyurl.com/y9cgd29w “Ghostly Happenings In My Old Apartment” by Cassie D, posted at MyHauntedLifeToo,com: https://tinyurl.com/ycexszvm 
“The Wash-House Murder” by Robert Wilhelm, from the book “Wicked Victorian Boston”: https://amzn.to/2BGJOO0 (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....

“Hands of Death”: A wheelchair-bound collector of murder relics decides the only things missing from his macabre collection are a murderer and a victim — so he engineers his own killer brother's downfall to acquire both. But the dead don't always stay in their boxes, and a pair of severed hands may yet keep a promise of vengeance. 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 Witching Well” (December 23, 1977) ***WD 00:47:28.447 = Adventures of Ellery Queen, “Armchair Detective” (march 27, 1946) ***WD (LQ) 01:17:54.860 = Quiet Please, “Valentine” (February 13, 1949) ***WD 01:48:08.576 = Radio City Playhouse, “Duet” (October 16, 1949) ***WD 02:17:13.009 = The Croupier, “The Roman” (September 21, 1949) ***WD 02:47:28.792 = Sam Spade, “Same And Guiana Sovereign Caper” (July 12, 1946) ***WD 03:16:41.034 = The Sealed Book, “Hands of Death” (March 18, 1945) ***WD 03:47:40.901 = The Shadow, “Death Rides a Broomstick” (March 02, 1941) 04:16:17.053 = Sleep No More, “Jilting of Granny Weatherall” (January 30, 1957) ***WD 04:45:27.614 = BBC Spinechillers, “Origami” (February 28, 1984) ***WD 05:29:33.275 = 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/WDRR0680

Researchers in Italy spent three months baking sourdough from yeast they pulled out of the meltwater inside a 5,300-year-old murder victim. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/otzibread 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. #WeirdDarkness, #WeirdDarkNEWS

“Brothers of the Angle”: A grieving widow believes a stranger can carry messages from her dead husband — messages only the couple could have known. But in a story about baiting hooks and landing fortunes, the real question is who's fishing, and who's the catch. 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, “Brothers of the Angle” (December 19, 1977) ***WD 00:46:41.705 = Mystery House, “Laugh? I Thought I’d Die!” (April 14, 1946) 01:11:23.715 = Night Beat, “Bell Perrin Amnesia Case” (July 06, 1951) ***WD 01:41:38.347 = CBC Nightfall, “Hypnotized” (April 22, 1983) 02:11:33.366 = Nightmare, “The Leech” (April 07, 1954) 02:34:12.420 = “The Leech” by Static Wax (SONG: https://weirddarkness.com/music) 02:36:59.340 = Obsession, “Surrender Is Farewell” (January 29, 1951) 03:00:13.100 = Origin of Superstition, “No News Is Good News” (1935) ***WD 03:15:10.285 = Pat Novak For Hire, “Jack of Clubs Better Encode” (February 20, 1949) ***WD 03:44:34.186 = Peril, “Cup of Tea” (ADU) ***WD 04:11:15.983 = Mystery Playhouse, “Challenge to Listener” (July 04, 1947) ***WD 04:36:15.645 = Price of Fear, “Guy Fawkes Night” (November 17, 1973) 05:04:00.821 = 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/WDRR0679

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb should never have been friends, they were too different from on another. But they did have one thing in common – they both agreed to create the perfect murder – and a mundane pair of eyeglasses would be their undoing.  EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources and full transcript): https://weirddarkness.com/BobbyFranks READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/ywzfbb6b 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: ”The Perfect Murder of Bobby Franks” by Troy Taylor – from the book “Suffer the Children: American Horrors, Homicides and Hauntings”: https://amzn.to/3lo6CvP (Available on Kindle, paperback, and as an audiobook narrated by Darren Marlar) (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: November, 2021