Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Thirteen years after The Empire Strikes Back, the long-delayed finale arrived in 1996 — six episodes that brought the original trilogy to a close. Funding cuts had stalled production for more than a decade, but the conclusion was completed at last, with Anthony Daniels returning one final time as C-3PO, joined by Brock Peters as Darth Vader, John Lithgow's Yoda, and Ed Asner as Jabba the Hutt. Sti...

A dying woman swears there's a prowler downstairs, but what her husband finds in the dark kitchen is a timid little ghost who can't remember why he's come. 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 Approxi...

When the Hale-Bopp comet swung past Earth in 1997, thirty-nine people put on matching black shirts and brand-new Nikes, swallowed a lethal mix of barbiturates and vodka, and lay down beneath purple shrouds to die — certain their souls were about to board the alien ship they believed was hiding in the comet's tail. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/heavensgate READ or...

A newly declassified FBI form describes a meter-wide red sphere with a white plasma core hovering in a backyard one evening, among dozens of glowing-orb sightings in the Pentagon's third batch of UFO files. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/UFO-Batch-3 Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast a...

After her 24-year-old daughter died by suicide in Montreal, Kristie Carrier read the months of ChatGPT conversations on Alice's phone — and filed suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/openai-suicide-lawsuit Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a lis...

When the luxury liner SS Morro Castle erupted in flames off the New Jersey coast in 1934, it left behind 137 dead, a captain's corpse that vanished before it could be examined, and a heroic radio operator whose criminal past suggested he may have started the fire himself. | #WDRadio June 14, 2026 ========== HOUR ONE: Jeannie Saffin already had a tough life, being born with a birth defect that stun...

In Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day, a former nun clutches a crucifix, prays the words Jesus prayed the night before the cross, and then lets it fall to the floor. EPISODE PAGE (Includes Sources and Transcript): https://weirddarkness.com/cotu-disclosureday LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:  Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcas...

Three nine-year-old boys in a Massachusetts port town go looking for the schoolyard ghost called Skeleton Jack and instead find a tree that should not exist — black and leafless, cold enough to seem to drink the life out of the air — a tree one of them is dared to carve his name into, while something he can't see breathes in the dark just behind him. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://w...

Thirteen years after The Empire Strikes Back, the long-delayed finale arrived in 1996 — six episodes that brought the original trilogy to a close. Funding cuts had stalled production for more than a decade, but the conclusion was completed at last, with Anthony Daniels returning one final time as C-3PO, joined by Brock Peters as Darth Vader, John Lithgow's Yoda, and Ed Asner as Jabba the Hutt. Sti...

A mother tracking her daughter's phone led police to a New Hampshire Olive Garden, where the daughter ran out in tears with cigarette burns on her legs and a story about a forced marriage and a satanic ritual. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/DanielOuellet Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podc...

A bored New York commuter who passes the time on the A train by quietly sorting his fellow riders into types becomes fixated on one unremarkable man whose blank stillness never breaks — a man who takes the same seat in the same car to ride to the end of the line and right back again — until the need to know what he really is pulls the commuter off his own route and down into the tunnels after him....

The official story has Lee Harvey Oswald firing three shots from a sixth-floor window, yet the witnesses on the stairs never saw him flee, the paraffin test on his cheek came back clean, and J. Edgar Hoover himself admitted the voice on the Oswald tape from Mexico City belonged to another man. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/ConspiracyInDallas READ or DOWNLOAD the f...

In 1983, the team behind NPR's record-breaking Star Wars returned for the darker, colder middle chapter — The Empire Strikes Back, told across ten episodes. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels were back as Luke and C-3PO, Billy Dee Williams reprised Lando Calrissian from the film, and a young John Lithgow voiced Yoda, all set to the original sound effects and John Williams' score. From the frozen wast...

In 1981, National Public Radio turned the biggest movie in the world into a thirteen-episode radio epic that went on to break the network's listening records. George Lucas sold the rights for a single dollar and handed over the original sound effects and John Williams' score, letting a full cast bring the galaxy to life in sound alone. Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprised Luke Skywalker and C-...

Louisiana troopers stopped a banged-up Toyota Supra on Interstate 310 on June 7th, and the driver's escape attempt ran through two swamps, one alligator, and a sheriff's drone. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/gator-getaway Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free list...

A terrifying vision, a terrifying UFO encounter, and evidence of the encounter buried in his arm – if true, Tim Cullen’s story could change everything we think we know about extraterrestrials. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/timcullen READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/433fftc2 FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Tim Cu...

A three-year-old who could not sit up, walk, or speak arrived at a Rockford hospital with a brain bleed in July of 2023, and Loves Park detectives would spend nearly three years trying to learn how it happened. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/lovespark2023 Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other pod...

A candlemaker guards one dying flame through the night while ravenous things in the dark demand the soul of a frozen stranger. An old woman stares through a second-floor window with no ledge to stand on, and the shadow man behind her inches closer with every passing night. And a small-town officer commits a man to a psychiatric hold for claiming a five-year-old suicide was really a murder — until...

In one of Ontario's least forested regions, a witness reported two creatures scavenging garbage at dawn — and when they knocked on wood to scare them off, something knocked back. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/ontariobigfoot Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free l...

A coffin lid scratched from the inside, a stalker hiding in the basement, and a plate of "fresh venison" served by a man who was never a hunter — Redditors share the true moments that still keep them up at night. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/RedditHorrors READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4ywsvu9v LISTEN ON PODCAS...

“The Enchanted Child”: A polite little boy keeps pushing away his favorite dessert at Sunday dinner — and every time he does, somebody in the family doesn't live to see Monday. 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 STAM...

A tiny tagging system nobody had ever studied in the brain turned out to be hard at work locking in fear — and only in the females in the lab. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/Fear-Study 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/107...

A Florida man heading to court for a burglary charge stopped to attempt another burglary along the way, telling police he just wanted a shirt to wear in front of the judge. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/burglary-commute/ Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free list...

Behind the walls of H.H. Holmes' "World's Fair Hotel" waited trap doors, gas chambers, and a basement of acid vats — and more than a century after the Murder Castle burned, something still lingers at 63rd and Wallace. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HHHolmesHotel READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/57djvd7f FEATURED ST...

A skeptical census taker's idle curiosity about a mystic who can summon the dead draws his old friend's beautiful, restless daughter into the stranger's orbit — and she may never come back. 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 &a...