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

Four thousand light-years from Earth, a survey ship deep inside the Crab Nebula picks up something on its locator that no human built, and within the hour both crews understand the same thing: whichever ship leaves first can be followed home, so neither one can be allowed to leave. A NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR: I’ve been on an old-time radio kick recently, listening to shows like “The Whistler”, “Dimension X”, and “Strange Tales”. One of my favorite shows is called “X-Minus One”.  It was a half-hour science fiction radio drama series that was broadcast from April 24, 1955 to January 9, 1958 in various timeslots on NBC radio. At the end of each episode they tell you where the stories they used came from before they adapted them for radio – and one of those sources was the publication “Astounding Science Fiction Magazine”. I jumped online to see if there were old copies I could look at, and I found a book – an anthology of many of the stories from that magazine. The book was published in 1954. The story was entitled “First Contact”, written by Murray Leinster in 1945. The story is credited as one of the first instances of a universal translator in science fiction. So influential is the story that it won a retro Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 1996. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-firstcontact SOURCES and RESOURCES:  “First Contact” by Murray Leister from “Astounding S-F Anthology”: https://amzn.to/3zhbBWi WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness. Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 13, 2026 LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

An actress found with her throat cut on Christmas morning, a socialite on trial for arsenic, a child butchered in Bradford, and not one of the cases found the end of the rope. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HorrorByGaslight READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/489cffte FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE:Nine murders from the reign of Queen Victoria, and the hangman went home after every one of them. In April 1891, a janitor at a Manhattan waterfront hotel opened the door to room 31 and found a woman the neighborhood called "Old Shakespeare" strangled and cut open, and within a day the New York papers were asking whether Jack the Ripper had crossed the Atlantic. In London, while the Ripper hunt filled the front pages, someone else was dropping the dismembered pieces of women into the Thames, one of them on the construction site of Scotland Yard itself. A Glasgow socialite stood trial for lacing her lover's cocoa with arsenic, barrister Charles Bravo lingered for days in his Balham mansion with antimony in his body and a household full of suspects, and Adelaide Bartlett walked out of court with liquid chloroform in her dead husband's stomach and no explanation of how it got there. Add a young Bradford boy whose mutilated body drew the Ripper's name north, a murdered London prostitute whose death gave Charles Dickens the killing of Nancy in "Oliver Twist", an actress found on Christmas morning with her throat cut and her door locked from the outside, and three siblings laid out in a Queensland paddock with their feet pointed west, and you have nine cases closed by verdict, by acquittal, or by nobody at all, with the questions still sitting open more than a century later. CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = East River Shadows 00:07:15.256 = Show Open 00:10:36.687 = The Gruesome Murder Of Shakespeare: Jack The Ripper In America?, Part 1 00:25:21.616 = The Gruesome Murder Of Shakespeare: Jack The Ripper In America?, Part 2 *** 00:38:58.221 = The Gruesome Murder Of Shakespeare: Jack The Ripper In America?, Part 3 *** 00:50:06.531 = The Thames Torso Murders: Victorian London's Forgotten Serial Killer *** 01:13:04.687 = The Balham Mystery: The Inexplicable Poisoning of Charles Bravo *** 01:35:52.584 = Blood On Boxing Day: The Gatton Murders *** 01:48:01.563 = The Strange Affair of Madeleine Smith: Love, Poison, and Mystery 02:02:16.844 = Bradford Butchery: The Tragic Case of John Gill *** 02:19:36.644 = The Grimwood Murder: The Real-Life Crime Behind Oliver Twist's Darkest Scene 02:34:13.930 = Christmas Murder Of A Forgotten Actress: The Case of Harriet Busman *** 02:49:05.581 = The Pimilco Poisonings: Marriage, Minister, Murder, and Mystery *** 02:59:24.285 = 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*

A young intern at a state asylum wires a homemade telepathy set to the forehead of a dying, illiterate mountain man whose ravings describe palaces of fire he could never have read about. 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, “It’s Hard To Be Rich” (September 18, 1978) ***WD 00:46:47.126 = Beyond Midnight, “Short Circuit” (January 03, 1969) ***WD 01:12:15.812 = MindWebs, “Beyond The Wall of Sleep” (April 16, 1983) 01:40:59.205 = Half Hour to Kill, “Blackout” (October 29, 1946 – Never Aired) ***WD 02:10:00.512 = Molle Mystery Theater, “Angel Face” (December 20, 1946) 02:39:18.122 = Mr Keen, “Murder And Bloodstained Necklace” (September 15, 1949) ***WD 03:08:03.457 = Murder at Midnight, “The Thirteenth Floor” (July 24, 1950) 03:34:31.197 = The Black Museum, “A Woman’s Pigskin Glove” (1952) ***WD 04:01:08.926 = Mysterious Traveler, “The Good Die Young” (February 27, 1944) 04:29:57.647 = House of Mystery, “The Ghost Who Forgot Halloween” (October 27, 1945) ***WD 05:01:19.157 = Show Close (ADU) = Air Date Unknown (LQ) = Low Quality ***WD = Remastered, edited, or c = leaned 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/WDRR0772

A man with a past he won't discuss buys a house deep in the woods, miles from anyone, and starts keeping a record of what comes out of the trees at night; the one he calls Skinny wears the faces of the dead, and it's already carved a message into the side of his house. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-myproperty SOURCES and RESOURCES:  “My Property Isn’t Normal” by Redditor Murderbird17: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/1av3mfeg WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness. Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 12, 2026  LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

Three MicroTerrors listeners wrote in with their own scary stories: a girl who sneaks out at night to see the T-Rex every parent in town warns about, a free doll on the sidewalk that introduces itself as Mr. Stevenson, and a family cruise with nothing but one-star reviews and something big moving under the boat. 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/1655277373 Find more family-friendly frights and creepy games to play on our website at http://MicroTerrors.com! Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/microterrors Other stories, novels, and more from author Scott Donnelly: https://amzn.to/3LymHaU Other narrations, podcasts, and audiobooks from voice artist Darren Marlar: https://WeirdDarkness.com = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Weird Darkness©, 2026 Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids™, 2026#MicroTerrors #WeirdDarkness