“CRASHED SAUCERS AND DEAD ALIENS IN ENGLAND” and More!

A coroner's inquest convenes over a mutilated body in a lonely California cabin, where the only witness swears the thing that killed his friend was standing in plain sight the whole time. (Originally published in the magazine “Town Topics” on December 7th in 1893… a magazine, interestingly enough, not known for horror at all, but more for art, music, and society.) EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-thedamnedthing SOURCES and RESOURCES: “The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce: https://tinyurl.com/y6amz952 WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness. Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: July 23, 2026

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...

A 2023 book collects accounts of shapeshifting strangers, reptilian visitors, and living doubles, arguing the aliens John Carpenter put on screen may have been walking among us all along. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/TheyLive READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/ycktrfu5 FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Have you ever felt like something was off about someone you met? What if the truth was more bizarre than you could imagine - that aliens walk secretly among us, perfectly disguised? (Mimic In The Mirror) *** The short story “Eight O’Clock In The Morning” by Ray Nelson – the inspiration for the movie “They Live!” *** Left-handedness: once a mark of the devil, now a unique trait celebrated across the globe. From the Salem Witch Trials to modern-day challenges with spiral notebooks, left-handers have been forced to navigate a world designed for righties, despite the historical stigmas, surprising advantages, and the evolving recognition of left-handers in combat, culture, and commerce. (Left-Handers Are In League With The Devil) *** In the shadow of Switzerland's majestic Eiger mountain, 29-year-old Aidan Roche vanished without a trace during a solo hiking trip. Despite an unlocked camper-van and one last eerie messages sent from the trail, his disappearance remained shrouded in mystery. Months later, a grim discovery brought more questions than answers. (The Disappearance of Aidan Roche) *** In the summer of 1948, a series of inexplicable fires ravaged the Willey farm near Macomb, Illinois, destroying the family's home and barns. Despite the efforts of local authorities and the U.S. Air Force, no logical explanation could be found for the hundreds of mysterious blazes that seemed to start spontaneously. At the center of this baffling case was 13-year-old Wanet McNeil, whose alleged confession to arson left many unconvinced. Was Wanet truly responsible? Could she have been starting the fires with her mind? (The Macomb Firestarter) *** In 1991, 63-year-old Vasile Gorgos left his home in Romania to visit a cattle market and never returned, leaving his family to believe he had met a tragic fate. But 30 years later, Vasile shocked everyone when he mysteriously reappeared, wearing the same clothes as the day he vanished and carrying an unused train ticket from 1991 in his pocket. With no memory of where he'd been for three decades, Vasile's strange case has left people wondering if his disappearance could be tied to supernatural phenomena like portals, alien abduction, or shifts in time and space itself. (The Mysterious Vanishing of Vasile Gorgos) CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = “Eight O’Clock In The Morning” (short fiction) 00:12:38.092 = Show Open 00:15:46.852 = Mimic In The Mirror: Are Aliens Among Us? *** 00:26:13.246 = Left-Handers Are In League With The Devil 00:32:35.305 = The Disappearance of Aidan Roche *** 00:38:57.889 = The Macomb Firestarter 00:48:20.167 = The Mysterious Vanishing of Vasile Gorgos *** 00:55:50.605 = 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: “Eight O’Clock In The Morning” by Ray Nelson: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/mu7tmynm “Mimic In The Mirror” source: Sean Casteel at Spectral Vision: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckjpyz8 BOOK: “Mimics – The Others Among Us” by Sean Casteel and Tim R. Swartz: https://amzn.to/3Ws07IJ BOOK: “Sky Crash Throughout Time (A Cosmic Conspiracy)” by Philip Kinsella and Brenda Butler:...