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Thursday Oct 07, 2021

The Oakland County Child Killer AKA The Babysitter Killer

Thursday Oct 07, 2021

Today's episode is taking us back to the world of unsolved true crime. This episode deals with pretty tough stuff so consider this your trigger warning as the episode does talk about the killings of young children.

We are heading to the state of Michigan for this one. Oakland county to be exact. Oakland county is part of the metropolitan Detroit area, located northwest of the city. As of the 2020 Census, its population was 1,274,395, making it the second-most populous county in Michigan, behind neighboring Wayne County. The county seat is Pontiac. The county was founded in 1819 and organized in 1820. Oakland County is among the ten highest income counties in the United States with populations over one million people. The county's knowledge-based economic initiative, coined "Automation Alley", has developed one of the largest employment centers for engineering and related occupations in the United States. This county would spawn a serial killer. From February 1976 to March 1977 four children were abducted and murdered with their bodies left in various locations within or just outside Oakland County.

There were at least two other murder cases that investigators believe may have been victims of the “Oakland County Child Killer” or “The Babysitter Killer,” as some called him.

The ensuing murder investigation was the largest of its kind in U.S. history at the time. One suspect was even from our neck of the woods! We'll check out the victims and then get into the suspects. Again, this is definitely a touchy episode for some so if you're uncomfortable with this sort of thing, you might want to skip this episode.

Still with us? Ok so here we go.

Every 40 seconds, a child goes missing or is abducted in the United States. Approximately 840,000 people are reported missing each year in the United States and the F.B.I. estimates that between 85 and 90 percent of these are children. On a positive note, More than 99 percent of children reported missing in America in recent years have come home alive.

According to the Washington State Attorney General’s Child Abduction Murder Research:

In 74 percent of the missing children homicide cases studied, the child murder victim was female and the average age was 11 years old.

In 44 percent of the cases studied, the victims and killers were strangers, but in 42 percent of the cases, the victims and killers were friends or acquaintances.

Only about 14 percent of the cases studied involved parents or intimates killing the child.

Almost two-thirds of the killers in these cases have prior arrests for violent crimes, with slightly more than half of those prior crimes committed against children.

The primary motive for the child abduction killer in the cases studied was sexual assault.

In nearly 60 percent of the cases studied, more than two hours passed between the time someone realized the child was missing and the time police were notified.

In 76 percent of the missing children homicide cases studied, the child was dead within three hours of the abduction–and in 88.5 percent of the cases the child was dead within 24 hours.

Pay attention to your kids, folks. Be that parent. The one who annoys them constantly by asking where they are and knowing who they’re with. Protect the fuck out of them with every last fiber of your being. THAT is your number one job as a parent.

The First victim was 12 year old Mark Stebbins. Mark was from Ferndale Michigan and was last seen at 1:30 pm on Feb. 15 1976. His body was found three days later in Ferndale. He was sexually assaulted and suffocated to death.

Mark was last seen and heard from at 1:30 p.m. Feb. 15. He talked to his mother on the phone. He was letting her know that he was leaving the American Legion Hall to head home. He never made it and at 11 p.m. that night Mark’s mother called the Ferndale Police Department to report Mark missing.

At about 11:45 a.m. Feb. 19, 1976, a businessman named Mark Boetigheimer left his office building and headed toward a drug store located inside the New Orleans mall at 10 Mile and Greenfield roads. On his way something caught his eye in the northeast corner of the parking lot. He saw what looked like a mannequin dressed in a blue jacket and jeans. But as he got closer he knew he stumbled into a situation much more grim. It was a body, a human body. It was the lifeless body of 12-year-old Mark Stebbins.

Another person told police that they walked their dog around that parking lot, just so it could get some exercise. That was around 9:30 a.m. the same morning the body was found. The man said his dog was on a 20-foot leash and they walked that part of the lot. He said if that body was there at the time, his dog would have found it. If that’s true, Mark’s body wasn’t there at 9:30 a.m. But it was at 11:45 a.m. when Mark Boetigheimer found him. That means there was a 2-hour-and-15-minute window in which someone or some people dumped Mark’s body in the area.

Mark was a 7th-grader at Lincoln Junior High School. He stood 4 feet 8 inches and weighed about 100 pounds. He had strawberry-blond hair. The autopsy showed the cause of death as asphyxia by way of smothering, but the report also showed rope burns on his neck, wrists and ankles. It appeared that Mark was also sexually assaulted.

Brooks Patterson, who was the Oakland County prosecutor at the time, said Mark’s body was washed by an autopsy team, washing away any fingerprints.

The second victim was also 12 years old. Jill Robinson was from Royal oak Michigan.

Karol Robinson had three daughters and was recently divorced. She and her oldest, Jill, would butt heads and on one occasion in December of 1976 they did just that. It was an argument that led to Jill running away from home. She was last seen at a hobby shop on Woodward Avenue, then the Donut Depot on Maple Road between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. Dec. 23. According to Karol, Jill’s mother, the two were arguing about biscuits. Jill was asked to help make them for dinner, she refused. Sometime after a heated back-and-forth, Karol told her to leave until she became part of the family. Jill went to her room, packed up her clothes and a plaid blanket into a denim bag. Before she left she dressed herself in blue jeans, a shirt, an orange winter coat and a blue knit cap with a yellow design on it, and then she would leave, just like her mother asked her to. She rode her bike away from her mother and her home.

Jill would later be seen by a family friend at a hobby shop on Woodward Avenue, just four and 1/2 blocks away from her mother’s home. The next morning, two witnesses said they saw her in the Donut Depot on Maple Road -- this was between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.

Jill’s father, Thomas Robinson, made a call to police at 11:30 p.m. the day she left. Jill was found on the side of I-75, north of Big Beaver Road. She was laying on her back, fully clothed, not bound in any way, but a ring of deep dark red surrounded her head. The killer had transported her here, then shot her at close range in the head with a shotgun. It was later decided that Jill was fed and cared after for at least three days. She seemed to be washed, clean and with no signs of sexual abuse at all.

The third victim was 10 year old Kristine Mihelich. Kristine was from Berkley Michigan. She was last seen on January 2nd, 1977. Her Body was found on Jan. 21, 1977 -- she was missing for 19 days -- she was found in a snowbank along Bruce Road in Franklin Village, Mich. The cause of death was suffocation -- she was not sexually assaulted.

Police said there were no signs of violence and that she was in the same clothes she was last seen in. Her body was on its back, knees drawn up. That’s when a Franklin Village mailman, Jerry Wozny, saw her. He saw her blue jacket in the snow on the same route he’d been driving for eight years. State police Sgt. Robert Robertson supervised the removal of the girl’s body. Thirty-five officers from nine different departments made a task force that Prosecutor Patterson called “the strongest effort I’ve ever seen in this county.” The task force was headquartered in Southfield. Police Sgt. Joseph Krease was charged with tracking down Kristine’s abductor.

Kristine’s mother, Deborah Ascroft said “people keep talking about the Royal Oak girl (Jill Robinson) but I’m just not even going to think about that.” Ascroft said that in an interview on Jan. 5, 1977. At the time, Kristine had two younger brothers and according to her mother they kept asking “when is she coming home?”

Shortly after Kristine’s disappearance, a child from the elementary school she attended was missing, which set off a panic at the school. A frantic search went on for about 20 minutes and the child eventually was found on school grounds. Tensions were at an all-time high.

Parents at Pattengill Elementary School were lined up outside school to pick up their children -- many of them used to walk home, but not now. When Kristine’s body was found in a snowbank at the end of a dead end street in Franklin Village, it was so frozen officials had to wait until the following day to perform an autopsy, because of the body’s frozen state.

Wozny -- the mail carrier who found her -- said: “I saw a hand ... It scared the hell out of me.”

Kristine was the fifth young person from Oakland County to die within the year. As of late January 1977, Patterson had no evidence to link Mark and Kristine’s deaths.

11 year old Timothy King was the fourth victim. He was last seen on March 16, 1977 and his body was found on March 23, 1977 in a ditch along Gill Road, about 300 feet south of 8 Mile Road in Livonia -- He was missing for seven days. The cause of death was again suffocation -- he also was sexually assaulted.

Timothy King left his Birmingham home with 30 cents he borrowed from his older sister, Catherine, and headed to the corner store. He wanted some candy and it wasn’t rare for him to make this trip of about three blocks. He left with his skateboard and football, headed toward the Hunter-Maple Pharmacy.

Tim’s older brothers -- he had two -- were not around. One was babysitting a neighbor’s kids while the other was rehearsing for a school play. Tim’s parents were out to dinner at a nearby Birmingham restaurant.

A clerk, Amy Walters, said she sold Tim candy and he left through the back door into a dark parking lot around 8:30 p.m.. Birmingham Police Chief Jerry Tobin said “whatever happened to Tim happened between the time he left the store and before he got home. It doesn’t look particularly good at this time.”

This was now the seventh child that had gone missing in the area. The six prior to Timothy had been found -- murdered. Tim was only the second boy. The hysteria was at an all-time high. According to Catherine, Tim’s sister, Tim asked that she leave the front door ajar, so when he got back from the store he could get back in easily.

Catherine also left for the night. It would have been the first time little Timmy would be home alone at night for any period of time. Timothy’s parents got back to the house around 9 p.m. to find the door ajar, but there was no sign of Tim.

The King family searched everywhere for Tim. They called his friends, searched the neighborhood and surrounding area. By 9:15 a.m. the next day, Chief Tobin called on the task force, requesting their full involvement. By the afternoon -- the day after Timmy went missing -- headquarters were established in the Adams Fire House, just a few blocks from the King family home. Door-to-door searches were conducted and classmates questioned.

Tim was abducted on a Wednesday. By Thursday, 100 lawmen from Oakland County, volunteers, Oakland County Sheriff’s investigators, the county helicopter and the special Oakland County Task Force all were scouring the area. That Thursday the Kings stayed behind closed doors most of the day, but did say “we very much want Tim to come home.” That was Barry, Tim’s father.

“We love him very much. He had a basketball game Saturday and missed practice today (Thursday). He’s active in a school play. He’s an achiever and a participator. We just love Tim and want him to come home.” Barry said.

Barry told reporters that the week before Tim told his mother that he wouldn’t speak to strangers, that “he’d run away from them.”

“It’s awful,” said a neighbor of the King family who also had an 11-year-old daughter. “When it happens to other people, you feel sympathy. When it strikes your neighborhood, you’re scared.”

Other possible victims

Cynthia Rae Cadieux was 16 years old from Roseville Michigan. Last seen: 8:20 p.m. Jan. 15, 1976

Body found: 1:05 a.m. Jan. 16, 1976 in Bloomfield Township, Mich.

Cynthia Cadieux lived with her mother and stepfather. She attended Roseville High School, which was within walking distance from her home. Even though the school was close, one of her friends, Rose DeStesafano, offered to give her a ride home. On a cold January day in 1976, Rose offered Cynthia a ride.

“Cynthia refused, just like she always does,” said DeStesafano.

That decision may have been a fatal mistake.

The date was Jan. 15, 1976, and Cynthia walked, not to her mother and stepfather’s home, but to a girlfriend’s house. It was a planned visit. In fact, her parents thought Cynthia was spending the night there, but the girls didn’t think so. Cynthia planned to go home that Thursday night. Police were able to verify that she’d made it to the friend’s house that evening. They were also able to figure out she’d left her friend's home around 8 p.m., presumably heading back to her home. Her body would later be found that night -- technically morning in Bloomfield Township, which is about 26 miles away.

At 1:05 a.m. Jan. 16, a driver noticed something on the side of the road. What the person saw was the naked, lifeless body of Cynthia Rae Cadieux. It appeared that her skull was crushed by a blunt instrument. Police revealed Cynthia was raped and sodomized -- possibly by more than one person.

This case was looked at under a proverbial microscope that was designed to find the link or links between several other dead children in the Oakland County area.

Sheila Srock was 14 years old and from Birmingham Michigan. Last seen: 8:20 p.m. Jan. 19, 1976

Body found: Jan. 19, 1976

Birmingham is “the place” most consider to be the model community in southeastern Michigan. It’s a place everyone wanted to live, but most couldn’t afford. Those who knew of Birmingham would never have associated it with violence or crime, but that would change Jan. 19, 1976.

January in Michigan is a cold time and place, usually snow-covered. That’s why a resident on Villa Street was shoveling snow from his roof a little after 8 p.m. Monday. While he was up there, he saw something through a neighbor’s window -- something horrible.

Inside the next house over was 14-year-old Shiela Srock. She was babysitting her brother’s baby while he was out. Shiela and the baby were upstairs, likely playing. At the same time a dark figure slithered in and out of homes in the neighborhood, stealing anything and everything he could. Eventually this intruder found himself on the doorstep of Shiela’s brother’s house. He rang the doorbell, and there was no answer. From there he popped the lock open and made his way in. The neighbor was able to see him as he ran into Shiela, gun drawn. The robber was upset that he didn’t find anything of value and that now he’d been seen. According to police, the robber had Shiela remove her clothing. He then raped her, sodomized her and ultimately killed her.

The neighbor apparently saw most or all of these horrible actions. Obviously, he didn’t have a cell phone in 1976, so he couldn’t call for help right away since he was on the roof.

The assailant was described as a thin, white man between 18 and 25 years old, who stood about 6 feet tall. He had a prominent nose and a pointed chin, according to witnesses. The attacker’s car also was identified. He drove away in a 1967 Cadillac. People at the crime scene said the killer mingled and chatted with onlookers. He asked questions about what was going on as he subtly fit into the crowd.

Eventually a man did admit to this killing. In March 1976, Oliver Rhodes Andrews confessed to and later was convicted of the murder of Srock. He is serving a life sentence in prison. According to a March 4, 1976 report from the Ludington Daily News, Andrews was wanted for questioning “in some 200 burglaries in several states.”

“(He) admitted in a four-hour confession late Monday that he raped the girl and shot her five times when the babysitter surprised him as Andrews broke into a home he thought was empty,” reads the report.

Jane Louise Allan was a 14-year-old girl from Royal Oak. She was considered a runaway because she had done so five times before. She was last seen hitchhiking along I-75 in Pontiac on Aug. 7, 1976. Her body was found in a lake in Miamisburg, Ohio five days later. Police said she died from carbon monoxide poisoning after being kept in the trunk of a car.

The information about the victims was taken from a great article on clickondetroit.com.

Ok so now you're asking yourselves, well there must be suspects right? The answer is… Yes there are… And we're gonna talk about em.

Let's talk about the profile the police came up with.

All related killings happened on days that it snowed. All children were last seen within a mile of Woodward Avenue between 9 Mile and 15 Mile roads. All children were fed and cared for.

The killer(s) either bathed them or made them bathe. Both male victims had rope burns on his wrists and ankles.

A psychological profile created by police described the killer as fanatically clean, smart and sexually abnormal. The big lead police had -- even as of March 24, 1977 -- was the witness who saw TimothyKing speaking with a man inside a blue AMC Gremlin.

Speaking of the gremlin… Let's run through that real quick.

Eventually a woman came forward with some vital information. She said she saw Tim talking to a man in the pharmacy parking lot. She said Tim and the man were about two car-lengths away from her. She was able to describe the man she saw talking to the boy, whom she believed to be Timothy King. This witness also described the vehicle she believed the man to be driving; a dark-blue AMC Gremlin with a white stripe on its side, she called it a “hockey stick” stripe.

Police say the man described by witnesses was between 25 and 35 years old, white, with a dark brown hair cut in a shag style. He had muttonchop sideburns, a fair complexion and a husky build. He was driving a late model blue AMC Gremlin with whitewall tires.

Police also said they suspected Tim was abducted by one or possibly two men, and that person -- or people -- could have been involved in the other six cases of murdered children from the area.

The Oakland County Task Force released the following suspect profile on March 16, 1977:

Male

20-30 years old

Above average education

Above average intelligence

Caucasian

Ability and capacity to store child for at least 18 days

Homosexual

Plus mental problems

Compulsively clean -- fanatically so

No substance abuse involving drugs or alcohol

Different (stranger ranger)

Work -- schedule

December-January, vacation off work

Clean car, clean house

Single dwelling -- attached garage, cost above $30,000

Prior contact with police

Seeing psychiatrist

White collar job, 9-5 schedule

Area of southern Oakland County

Wants bodies found

A few weeks after King's murder, a psychiatrist who worked with the task force received a letter, riddled with spelling errors, written by an anonymous author ("Allen") claiming to be a sadomasochist slave of the killer ("Frank").[12] "Allen" wrote that they had both served in the Vietnam War, that "Frank" was traumatized by having killed children, and that "Frank" had taken revenge on more affluent citizens, such as the residents of Birmingham, for sending forces to Vietnam.[12] "Allen" expressed fear and remorse in his letter, saying he was losing his sanity and was endangered and suicidal, and admitted to having accompanied "Frank" as the latter sought boys to kill.[13] He instructed the psychiatrist to respond by printing the code words "weather bureau says trees to bloom in three weeks" in that Sunday's edition of the Detroit Free Press,[12] before offering to provide photographic evidence in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The psychiatrist arranged to meet "Allen" at a bar, but "Allen" did not show up and was never heard from again.

Suspects:

Ted Lamborgine

Ted Lamborgine, a retired auto worker believed to have been involved in a child pornography ring in the 1970s, was arrested in parma heights Ohio. Ted had transferred from Detroit to the Ford plant in Brook Park Ohio around the time the killings stopped. Before his arrest he moved from apartment to apartment like a man trying to escape creditors. Sometimes he'd stay for only a few months. Once he moved from an apartment in one tower of a complex to an identical apartment in another tower, for no apparent reason.

Even when he was in one place, he couldn't sit still. A neighbor who lived next to Ted in an Olmsted Township trailer park says he constantly moved his furnishings around. And he never once used his kitchen, eating out every day, even for breakfast.

Ted tried the stable life. He bought a little lemon-colored home in Slavic Village that had a tiny patch of front yard. His elderly mother and his sister even drove down from Detroit to see the place on a rare visit. It didn't last long though and he sold there house and moved again. He was running from his last in Michigan Theodore Lamborgine and his partner in crime, Richard Lawson, were part of a 1970s sex ring that preyed on young boys in Detroit’s Cass Corridor. According to Lawson,Cass Corridor was a six-block section of dope dealers, hookers, bars, and poverty. Big families had moved from the South to work the auto plants. Hundreds of kids ran wild in the streets. It was a pedophile's paradise. Those poor kids from the neighborhood had nothing. So the men put money in their pockets and food in their bellies. In some cases the men even helped the mothers out, taking care of those gas bills to get families through the cold northern winters. Back at their homes, in motel rooms, and in the greasy basement of a neighborhood bike shop, the men used the boys -- some as young as nine -- to enact their darkest fantasies. Lawson said they tried not to be too rough. After all, they wanted the boys to come back the next time they cruised up with a crisp 10-spot. And so the boys came back, some of them for years. Sometimes, though, Ted got a little carried away. On special occasions he'd bring kids from the hood up to mossy suburbs like Royal Oak for "parties" at other pedophiles' homes. Police suspect there may have been hundreds of men involved, networking like members of a book club. The parties were potluck orgies: Everyone brought a kid to share, and things were known to get wild. Kids were sodomized, photographed, then thrown in a bathtub and hosed off.

Then there was the time Ted scared even Lawson. They were at the apartment of Bob Moore, owner of the bike shop, when Ted whipped out a photo album Moore kept of their little sweethearts. Ted pointed to one picture of a little boy with a wing-cut and a cute, dimpled chin. The kid wasn't one of the Cass hood-rats the men usually settled for. This was a kid from the other side of 8 Mile Road, the dividing line between the dust and crumble of the city and the bird's nest of suburbs in northern Detroit. This kid was clean and had nice clothes. "Looks like the King boy, doesn't it?" Ted had said, winking. Lawson never forgot the moment. Out of the five men involved in their Lamborgine and Lawson were the only two living members of that ring when they were charged in 2006. Lamborgine faced 19 counts of sexually assaulting children, while Lawson faced 28 similar charges.

Lawson, who was already serving a life sentence for murder, told WDIV in 2006 that he knows who the Oakland County Child Killer is. WDIV later obtained documents detailing molestations of many children in the 70s and 80s. Three new names of suspects in the investigation were listed and one of those names matched the one Lawson gave as the Oakland County Child Killer. The name Lawson gave was Bobby Moore, one of the deceased members of the sex ring. Investigators said they were looking into all of those people.

Investigators also said they did not believe Lamborgine or Lawson to be the killer, but they did think the men had valuable information that could help solve the case.

Lamborgine is serving a life sentence at Kinross Correctional Facility in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Many people believe that Ted was the killer dealer investigators believing it was somebody else. At the very least it's send that Ted could have been involved in some way.

Archibald Edward Sloan:

In July 2012, Prosecutor Cooper discussed Archibald Edward Sloan and his 1966 Pontiac Bonneville. A hair found in the car is a DNA match to evidence at two of the crime scenes -- Mark Stebbins’ and Timothy King’s. The hair is not his but police believe it belongs to an acquaintance.

Sloan is reportedly the owner of the car where the hair was found. Prosecutors were considering him an accomplice to the suspect. He could be a direct link to whoever the killer is, prosecutors said.

It is believed Sloan worked at a garage or gas station near 10 Mile and Middlebelt roads during the time of the Oakland County Child Killer murders. Seven years after the death of Timothy King, Sloan was arrested again. He was charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. The offense took place in October 1983. He was sentenced to life in prison in January 1985. In February 2019, the Investigation Discovery channel aired a two-part, four-hour documentary about the killings. At this same time, WXYZ-TV investigative reporter Heather Catallo announced that Arch Edward Sloan had failed a polygraph test when he was interviewed by the Oakland County Child Killer Task Force in 2010 and 2012.

Sloan, 77, is serving his life sentence at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian, Mich.

James Vincent Gunnels:

At one point investigators said James Vincent Gunnels was the best lead in the decades-old serial killer mystery. His DNA is a mitochondrial DNA match to a hair found on the body of victim Kristine Mihelich. A mitochondrial match means the hair belongs to Gunnels or a male relative on his mother’s side.

In 2012 Gunnels told WDIV that he had nothing to do with the child killings.

“I’m not guilty. There it is there. But at the same time, I know how the state police twist words to their advantage,” Gunnels said. “My heart goes out to those families. It really really, really does. I don’t feel that they were served justice through any of this.”

After WDIV spoke with Gunnels, he decided he wanted to speak to the victim’s family face-to-face. He reached out to the King family.

“When the request first came in, I was hesitant to go,” said Chris King. “I felt it would be too hard to be in the same room as a suspect in this case. It’s clearly theoretically possible that he somehow aided in (Kristine Mihelich’s) abduction, or killing.”

The King family contacted police who have questioned Gunnels on several occasions. According to police records, Gunnels failed a lie detector test. They wondered what Gunnels might say to the family.

“We weren’t sure what to expect,” Chris King said. “But we had just been told to ask open-ended questions, see what he says, listen to his story. Um, who knows. He might be able to shed some light on, or tell us something he hadn’t before.”

It wouldn’t be easy. Chris King took his father Barry King along with him to the meeting with Gunnels.

“It was grueling,” Chris King said. “My dad is a lot tougher than I am. I found it exhausting, you know, mentally and physically.”

Barry King said Gunnels’ story wasn’t off-the-wall, but not exactly promising.

“I believe that the story he told Chris and I was believable,” Barry King said. “But it was contradicted by previous stories that he has told other people.”

Gunnels told the Kings that Bush was a child predator who lived in Oakland County at the time.

“It seems clear that he must have had at least some knowledge of the crimes,” Chris King said.

However, Gunnels denied knowing anything about the Oakland County Child Killings.

“I say right now I have no idea what that man did to anyone else,” Gunnels said.

Chris King asked him about two polygraph tests.

“My questions for him were, you know it’s hard to understand you tried to cheat on one polygraph exam and failed a second polygraph exam,” Chris King said. “So, if you had absolutely no involvement or knowledge of these crimes, why would you feel that you had to cheat in the first place and then why would you fail the second one? It doesn’t make sense.”

Gunnels told the Kings that he felt terrible.

“I couldn’t imagine having that happen and not knowing all those years,” Gunnels said. “I really really couldn’t.”

Chris and Barry King have been going the extra mile to try and solve the case, not knowing if they have done any good.

“It was kind of a long shot that it would help,” Chris King said. “But law enforcement said, ‘Who knows. Sometimes these guys have remorse and they end up telling you things.’ So, we went with that hope.”

Christopher Busch:

Christopher Busch was a convicted pedophile who lived in Bloomfield Hills and killed himself in 1978. For decades, victims’ family members had believed Busch could have been the killer.

In 1977, Gregory Greene, 27, was arrested on child sexual assault charges. Greene led investigators to 26-year-old Busch, telling them Busch killed Stebbins. However, Busch and Green both passed polygraph examinations. Greene was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting young boys. Busch first got probation for the same charges before ultimately killing himself.

However, in 2012 it was revealed that there is zero evidence suggesting Busch is the Oakland County Child Killer. His DNA does not match the physical evidence that investigators have.

“Whatever evidence that may or may not exist does not come back to Busch,” said Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper.

Police sources had told WDIV that Busch’s suicide scene was suspicious and may have been a murder. They know he had a drawing of a tortured boy that closely resembled victim Mark Stebbins. Ropes were found in his closest. He had a blue Vega car which looked like the infamous blue Gremlin spotted at one of the abductions.

It was later revealed by investigators that Busch was in custody while police investigated the killings and admitted he was a pedophile. Investigators wanted to keep him in jail but he was let go after he agreed to a plea deal.

However, none of that matters now after investigators said Busch did not commit the murders.

“There isn’t a piece of evidence that we can point to and say Mr. Bush killed Timothy King, Jill Robinson, Kristine Mihelich or Mark Stebbins,” said Paul Walton, chief assistant Oakland County prosecutor.

Chis King, Timothy King’s brother, said he thought Busch was involved because the suicide scene photos show potential evidence linked to the cases. One photograph shows the drawing that was pinned on Busch’s wall, which closely resembles Stebbins.

The photographs also show ropes that appear to have blood on them and a shotgun shell. However, the shotgun shell in Busch’s room cannot be matched with the caliber used to kill Jill Robinson.

“They even took it to NASA to try and see if they could get an identification of the caliber and there was no way in which they could do that,” said Cooper.

Prosecutors also said they tracked down the scientist who analyzed the ropes found at the home of suspect Busch.

“He conclusively told us that he was aware of these facts and that had there been any blood on that rope or ligature he would have sent it on to the evidence unit,” said Walton.

So there's the main suspects in the case. What do you guys think? Was it one of these guys? Did one of these guys have at least some involvement? We may never know.

Oh and one other quick note, John Wayne Gacy makes an appearance in this story briefly. One witness described two men he claimed to have seen abducting King. One of those men's descriptions bite a striking resemblance to John Wayne Gacy. Gacy was rumored to have been in Michigan at the time of the killings. It was found that gacy's DNA did not match DNA found on the victims however, and that was the end of that. But who knows… There's plenty of people that think there were multiple people involved, could he have been one?

Well that's almost everything, there were a few things that we found from around 2013 but they were just small nuggets that we could not find anything to really update the situations with. So we have left those out as well. There is also a side plot, if you will, involving a man using the alias Jeff claiming that he was part of an investigative team putting over 10,000 hours into their own investigations. They claim to know the identity of the killer but would not divulge the name unless they were able to set the information the police had to confirm the person's identity. The police would not share the info. There were lawsuits and other crap and the whole thing seems kind of ridiculous. You can check it out on your own if you'd like though.

So there you have it! What do you guys think?

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Tuesday Sep 28, 2021

Creepy Germany

Tuesday Sep 28, 2021

Guten abend meine freunde! Heute machen wir eine reise nach deutschland. Welche Seiten werden wir sehen? wen werden wir treffen? Wird Jon das lesen können? Ich denke, wir werden es herausfinden!

Anyways, for those of you that don't speak German… Well you'll never know what we said there, and for those of you that do, Moody's German is rusty and we're sure Google's help in translating was probably off, so hopefully it wasn't too ridiculous. At any rate, today on the train we are back to our creepy series, and if you're remotely intuitive, you'll already know we are heading to the great country of Germany! The country that gave us some amazing inventions like the hole punch, the mp3, the coffee filter, and everyone's favorite...Fanta...and all the other crazy and cool shit they've given the world! All of that cool stuff aside, we are looking at some other stuff that Germany is giving to the world… Creepy shit! So without further ado, let's get into it!

Let's start with a cryptid legend! First up we have the Nachtkrapp. The origins of the Nachtkrapp legends are still unknown, but a connection possibly exists to rook infestations in Central Europe. Already feared due to their black feathers and NoNscavenging diet, the mass gatherings quickly became an existential threat to farmers and gave rooks and crows their place in folklore as all-devouring monsters. Several versions of the Nachtkrapp exist. In most legends, the Nachtkrapp is described as a giant, nocturnal raven-like bird.

The most popular (and hideous) of the legends claim that the Nachtkrapp leaves its hiding place at night to hunt. If it is seen by little children, it will abduct them. The giant bird then flies to its nest whereby it grossly devours the child by first ripping off their limbs and then picking out their heart.

There are of course, other legends, in which the Nachtkrap will merely abduct children by placing them in his bag (how he holds this bag I do not yet know) and take them 'away'.

There is also the Wütender Nachtkrapp (German, lit. Angry Night Raven). Despite its name, this appears to be a tamer version of the Nachtkrapp; instead of abducting children, it simply crows loudly and flutters its wings, until the children have been terrorized into silence.

Then, there is the Guter Nachtkrapp (German, lit. Good Night Raven) This scary sumbitch is a benevolent version of the Nachtkrapp. This bird enters the children's room and gently sings them to sleep. Creepy shit for sure

Let's stick with cryptid legends for a second. We're gonna throw the Aufhocker in here real quick too. The word Aufhocker literally means to 'lean upon'. It is a creature that is said to jump on the back or shoulders of lone wanderers at night, its attack instilling such horror in their victims that they collapse in fright. Although some myths state that the individual collapses not from fright but because once the Aufhocker attaches to a victim it grows dramatically in size/weight.

The Aufhocker statue in Hildesheim Germany has depicted the Aufhocker as a human in shape. However the actual form and nature of this mythological creature is quite unclear. Interestingly, many stories apparently describe the Aufhocker as a shapeshifter, who may appear in the guise of a dog or a sad old lady (personally the sad old lady guise would be the scariest). However, the link with the dog shape-shifter is interesting because in Belgium there is a hell hound called the Kludde, whose modus operandi is remarkably similar to the Aufhocker, in that it stalks lonely roads at night, and jumps on the back of travellers ripping their throats out.

However, there are other descriptions of the Aufhocker as a type of zombie (corporal undead), or kobold (type of Germanic imp) or as some type of vampire or werewolf.

According to some reports the Aufhocker is "considered to be a very dangerous theriomorph that tears the throats out of humans. The connection to attacking victims in the throat is what links the aufhocker to vampirism."

(A theriomorph is: a creature (usually a deity) capable of taking the form of an animal)

According to myth, the aufhocker can not be killed. However, as the Aufhocker seems to have been blended with vampirism, lycanthropy and hell-hound mythology throughout the ages, it is said that they can be driven off by prayer, church bells, dawn or profuse swearing which should be no problem for us.

Ok those sound pretty crazy. Let's go visit a creepy place now. The Bärenquell Brewery East Berlin Germany

The fall of the Berlin Wall impacted Germany, Europe, and the world in oh so many different ways. It changed the entire world. But it also changed the world of one of our favorite things... beer. It was known among all of the Germans that the West side made much better beer than the East side. The construction of this humongous beer factory started in 1882 when the first building was constructed, the official residence of the brewery. Over the next forty years or so ten more buildings were added on the premises around the official residence. One was the administrative building with its tower in neo-Renaissance style, built in 1888. Three years later the bottle bearing building was added to the lo, sketched up and built in the Gothic revival architectural style. Just a year afterward (1902) another neo-Gothic wing was added to it. This one would function as a barrel factory and a storage room. In 1906 the main four-stories central brewery building was constructed in the same Gothic style with a castle-like appearance. After the central building was done, business was booming, and the brewery was doing nicely. What was left was to construct the other small but necessary facilities. Like a horse stable with a water tower in 1910, and the beer bottling cellar with a loading station that was used as a smaller warehouse as well. A couple more smaller warehouse buildings were built in 1920. As time moved forward some of the machinery needed repairs and the solution was very simple. They constructed a workshop building in 1927, this time diverging from the usual Gothic style the workshop was done in the style of Expressionism. The architects behind all of the buildings were Emil Holland, Robert Buntzel, and H.O.Obrikat. Sadly today only two of them remain standing, the official residence building from 1882 and the Renaissance administrative building of the Director that was added in 1888. Under Socialist rule, the Bärenquell Brewery had operated as a state-owned Volkseigenen enterprise. During the Treuhandanstalt programme of privatizing these businesses at the end of this era, the brewery was bought in 1990 by the Henniger brewery. The last Berliner Pilsener Spezial beer was bottled on 1st of April 1994 when Bärenquell beer production was moved to Kassel. Since the beer was no longer brewed in Berlin, they changed the name from Berliner Pilsener Spezial to Original Pilsener Spezial. The brand changed hands one more time. However, Bärenquell beer ceased to be brewed in 2009. After the brewery was closed some of the buildings remained to function as rental warehouses. Others were rented for different private business and small-time production factories. After a while all of them left the premises and every single building was abandoned. The place became closed to the public but that never stopped urban explorers and graffiti artist. It was also a place where young local people hung out and ironically drank beer. The buildings days are not over and even though it is heavily damaged it just may be saved and renovated. As of 2014, Bärenquell Brauerei has a new owner, a firm that owns a chain of furniture shops has the papers for the property. The plan most likely is to open another mega furniture store on the premises. Some of the brewery’s smaller buildings have already been torn down to open place for the new shopping mall structure. There's not a ton of stories about hauntings here but there are a few and that's enough for us… Because it's a brewery and fuck it we can do what we want, you don't like it… Get your own podcast. Most of the things we found about hauntings here involve creepy sounds and a few shadow people stories. People claim to hear disembodied voices late at night and many report hearing sounds like things being thrown out, dropped, and banging and clanging noises. There's also been reports from kids hanging out in the brewery at night of strange shadows and possible apparitions, but to be fair… They were most likely under the influence.

Ok now that we got our obligatory alcohol reference into the episode let's see what else we can find.

Well let's take a nice hike… How's that sound? We could hike through the Black Forest, that could be fun… Or could it…

This forest is surrounded by castles, monasteries, and ruins. The wilderness of this site has many tales to its name, making it one of the most haunted sites in Munich. Based on local folklore, ghosts, witches, werewolves and even the devil are believed to haunt this forest. One of the more well known tales from the black Forest is that of Der Grossman! Der Großmann (der Grossman), or “The Tall Man”/ "The Great Man", is a supposed mythical creature associated with woodcuts carved by an unknown artist in 16th century Germany. Said woodcuts portrayed it as a tall, disfigured man with white spheres where his eyes should be, similar in appearance to the Slender Man. Der Großmann was commonly described as a fairy of the Black Forest who abducted bad children that entered the forest at night, and would stalk them until they confessed their wrongdoings to a parent. We found A supposedly translated account from 1702 describes an alleged incident involving Der Großmann:

My child, my Lars… he is gone. Taken from his bed. The only thing that we found was a scrap of black clothing. It feels like cotton, but it is softer… thicker.

Lars came into my bedroom yesterday, screaming at the top of his lungs that "The angel is outside!" I asked him what he was talking about, and he told me some nonsense fairy story about Der Großmann. He said he went into the groves by our village and found one of my cows dead, hanging from a tree.

I thought nothing of it at first…But now, he is gone. We must find Lars, and my family must leave before we are killed. I am sorry, my son… I should have listened. May God forgive me.

Wow… Well that's unsettling. We also found a story involving a haunted hostel in the black Forest.

"When I was 12 years old I went on a school trip to the Black Forest in Germany. The hostel we were staying at seemed relatively normal to begin with but each night we were more and more convinced that there was a ghostly presence.

I was in a shared dormitory with 3 of my friends. It started on the first night when I was the first to fall asleep. When I awoke the next morning they asked if I had heard someone come and stand outside our bedroom door at 1am in the morning. I was asleep so I had not heard anything, so it didn't really occur to me it was anything scary. The second night we all sat up talking and at 1am we heard someone come up the stairs and stand outside our dormitory. My friend nervously laughed and the person must have heard us because they ran down the stairs so fast it left us speechless.

The third night we all went to sleep quite early hoping we would sleep past 1am, however this time we awoke to one of the girls in our dorm screaming and crying. When we turned the lamp on and calmed her down she said she had turned over and saw a man sitting on the end of my bed.

After that nothing happened. We sat up each night and waited until 1am but the person never came back. The day I came back from Germany I went for a nap because I was exhausted from the long journey. My mum came into my room to get my suitcase when apparently I shot upright in bed, eyes wide open, deeply breathing.

My mum said she had never seen me do anything like that before and she had to lie me back down and wait for me to go back to sleep. I have no recollection of this. Since then nothing has happened but I definitely know something traumatised us in that hostel."

What else can you find in the black Forest, well let us tell you. There are stories of Water nymphs that are supposed to live in the dark depths of the Mummel Lake at the foot of Hornisgrinde at Buhl, Baden. Then there's the Legend of Fremersberg Mountain

A small cloister of Franciscans had a monastery on the southern slope of Fremersberg Mountain from 1426 until 1826. It was named Kloesterle. The monks were not only concerned with the spiritual health of the people, they also concerned themselves with their earthly peace. For instance, when ghosts raising a ruckus on the mountain, raised fear and anxiety among the villagers with their rumblings, the monks caught the troublemakers, put them in sacks, and carried them to poltergeist graves, where they remain banned once and for all. So the story goes.....

How about the Legends of Yberg Castle

Myths of this ancient castle tell of fair ladies who appear in the night; of unusual Bowling games on the first Monday of every month and of a mysterious vault, that no one could find, filled with delicious wines.

Or you could go with the Myth of the Village of Ittersbach

In 1232 Herman, Margrave of Baden, gave his villages of Utilspur (today called Ittersbach) and Wolmerspur to the convent St. Gallen. As a settlement Wolmerspur disappeared, but the cause is unknown whether war, plague or famine. According to myth, at midnight during Advent a headless horseman on a white steed rides in the cemetery over the terrain of the destroyed village of Wolmerspur.

Then there's The Legend of Hex Von Dasenstein

In the village of Kappelrodeck (Kreis Ortenau) there is an old legend surrounding the town's namesake family. High on a hill sits Rodeck Castle that was, for centuries, the seat of this aristocratic family. Centuries ago, legend has it, that a beautiful daughter of the family fell in love with a peasant boy. Her powerful father forbid her to marry the boy. The girl ran away to the other side of the valley and took up life as a hermit in a huge outcrop of rocks in the middle of the mountainside vineyards. The outcropping was known as Dasenstein. Over the years, the townsfolk came to believe that the girl was a powerful and good witch who watched over their blessed grape crops. The local wine cooperative goes by the name, Hex von Dasenstein (Witch of Dasenstein). Its wines are renown throughout Europe and in 1982, its spatburgunder (pinot noir) was named best wine in Europe and served to President Reagan during his ill fated visit to Bitburg.

The Mummelsee The Mummelsee is a 17-metre-deep (about 55ft) lake at the western mountainside of the Hornisgrinde in the Northern Black Forest of Germany. The Mummelsee has a legend of a king who lived beneath the water and dragged down women to his kingdom under the water many years ago.

I mean we could go on, sometimes you get a twofer… This was like a 7fer

This forest is on pretty much every list of the most haunted forests in the world, sounds like for good reason! You can find all sorts of stories from the area that will make you think twice before hanging around.

It seems in our travels that religious sites are usually good for some creepiness and it's no different here. We're gonna check out the Wessobrunn Monastery. Wessobrunn Abbey (Kloster Wessobrunn) was a Benedictine monastery near Weilheim in Bavaria, Germany. According to tradition, it was founded in 753 by Duke Tassilo III, but its origins probably are associated with the important Huosi family, founders of benediktbeuern. It soon became an imperial abbey. In the 9th century, when it colonized the wastelands between the Ammer and Lech Rivers, a monk wrote the famous Wessobrunn Prayer, one of the oldest and best examples of Old High German literature. In 955 Hungarians destroyed the monastery, whose lands were ruled by provosts until 1065, when Benedictines returned from sankt emmeram in Regensburg and established a double monastery. One of the nuns, Diemud, c. 1150 excelled as a poet and calligrapher (45 MSS). Romanesque stone sculpture of the 12th–13th century discovered in Wessobrunn belongs among the German masterpieces of the period. The abbey joined the reforms of hirsau and melk (1438). In 1414 Abbot Ulrich Höhenkirchner was mitered. Under Leonhard Weiss (1671–96) began a period of glory, as Wessobrunn became a center of scholarship and baroque art with its famous school of stucco artists and painters. In the 18th century 30 monks taught at Salzburg University and at other Benedictine schools of higher learning. Wessobrunn monks compiled a Bible concordance that became a standard exegetic work. Three-fourths of the buildings, including the Romanesque church, were demolished after suppression of the abbey in 1803. Only the hostelry, with stuccoed and painted floors and halls, still stands. The grounds are owned by the archabbey of St. Ottilien; the buildings of Wessobrunn are occupied by the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing. The monastery is also known as one of the haunted sites in Germany. Based on an event in the 12th century, a sister in the monastery went into hiding in the underground tunnel because she broke her vows. She was locked inside and reported to have died of starvation. This resulted in the tale that the sister’s spirit is never at rest and still roams the areas of this monastery. Many many people have reported seeing an apparition roaming the halls and grounds. There are also many reports of people hearing a lady weeping and crying.

Sticking with the religious places, let's check out Kloster Unterzell. The Kloster cell was a former convent of the Premonstratensians in Zell am Main in Würzburg in Bavaria in the diocese of Wuerzburg. A dark chapter in the history of the Unterzell Monastery is the fate of the superior Maria Renata Singer von Mossau , who was sentenced to death and executed in 1749 during the witch persecution in the Würzburg monastery. This story is where the Hauntings are believed to come from. Locals and visitors to the monastery have reported witnessing her spirit passing through the corridors of the Kloster Unterzell. They say you can also see her lurking in shadows and just outside of your field of vision but disappearing when you look. You can find some stories on different reddit type sites that'll creep you out for sure.

There are tons of creepy haunted castles in Germany and most of them are pretty fucking awesome to see. We've got a few for you here! We'll start with Hohenzollern Castle.

The White Lady of Hohenzollern

Around 500 years ago, the prince-elector of Brandenburg, Joachim II, took a mistress called Anna Sydow after his second wife, Hedwig Jagiellon of Poland, suffered a severe injury. The injury put a great strain on his marriage and the elector grew very close to Anna, putting her up in the Jagdschloss Grunewald, a Renaissance-style castle in Berlin.

Joachim grew so fond of Anna that he was even seen in public with her, which disgruntled the public. They had several children together and Joachim even bestowed the title of Countess von Arneberg on his daughter, Magdalene. The years passed and one day, Joachim made his son, Johann Georg, swear an oath to protect Anna after his death. He made his son swear the oath again a year later and, a year before his death, arranged for Magdalene to be placed in the care of Johann.

Despite his promises, Johann reneged on his oath and imprisoned Anna in Spandau Citadel, almost immediately after his father died. Johann then married Magdalene to a court pension clerk. Anna remained in the prison for four years until she died.

Johann continued his life as elector of Brandenburg, imposing taxes on the poor and exiling the Jewish people from Brandenburg. He thought he had seen the last of Anna Sydow, but he was wrong. Eight days before his death, Anna appeared as a ghastly apparition; the White Woman.

Sightings of the White Woman have persisted since that time, particularly before the death of one of the Hohenzollern Kings of Prussia. In the mid-1800s, King Frederick William IV of Prussia, stopped by Pillnitz Castle to visit his cousins, the King and Queen of Saxony.

That night, everything was still. The air was cold and crisp, and it was silent as a strange fog descended on the castle. Reports by on-duty sentries from that night tell of five ghastly spectral figures walking through the castle walls and towards the King’s chambers. One figure, a White Woman, led the other four, headless men carrying a casket. Inside the casket, another man lay, a crown where his head was supposed to be.

The next day, King Frederick William began to suffer from terrible symptoms, which would continue for three months. He suffered a haemorrhagic stroke which would leave him incapacitated. He remained this way for three years, until he finally died.

The White Woman has all but disappeared, mainly due to the German monarchy being abolished, as the House of Hohenzollern had no more kings in its line. It is said, however, that she might appear to the forsaken few who wander around the Berlin Schloss or the Spandau Citadel.

Well that is a fun story… Let's check out another!

Burg Eltz is a picturesque medieval castle, tucked away in the hills in the west of Germany, between Koblenz and Trier. It is one of Germany’s more famous castles and has never been destroyed or taken in battle. Since its construction, and even to this day, the castle has been owned by the Eltz family.

The castle is also said to be haunted by the forlorn ghost of Agnes, daughter of a fifteenth-century earl from the noble Eltz family. Agnes’ hand in marriage was promised to the squire of Braunsburg when they were both just children. Years passed and as the two passed into adulthood, their engagement day drew close. Their families arranged for them to finally meet for the first time, just days before the engagement took place.

Upon meeting the young squire, Agnes was shocked at how rude and callous he was. Agnes begged her father to call off the engagement, but he refused - the marriage had been sealed years ago and had to be honoured. Negotiations concerning dowry and heritage began between the two families. In the final meeting, when everything had been agreed, the squire turned to kiss his soon-to-be bride. Agnes refused to kiss her betrothed and he responded angrily, swearing vehemently at her.

Tensions rose and the squire’s family were expelled from the castle. The Braunsberg squire raised his forces and laid siege. The Eltzer guards were tricked into leaving the castle and chasing an expeditionary force, allowing the squire to sneak in with his heavily armoured bodyguard one night. They began massacring the Eltzer residents, servants and the few guards that were left behind.

Agnes awoke to the sound of murder and upon seeing the slaughter from the window of her tower, rushed to the castle armoury. She took her brother’s ornate breastplate and sword and rushed into battle, ferociously hacking back the attackers. Her courage inspired the few remaining defenders to slowly turn the tide of the battle. The attackers seemed all but beaten until an arrow struck and pierced Agnes’ armour, fatally wounding her.

Upon seeing her fall, the Eltzer defenders rushed the squire, hacking him down and driving off the attackers. The castle was saved but Agnes succumbed to her wounds, her spirit forever cursed to haunt the very castle she fought to defend.

And what tour of creepy castles would be complete without…. Fucking Frankenstein's castle.

On a hilltop in the Odenwald mountain range, overlooking the German city of Darmstadt, are the crumbling remains of the real-life Frankenstein Castle. The stone structure has stood upon the hilltop since the mid-13th century. Some say that the castle’s dark legend made its way to a young Mary Shelley, providing inspiration for her great novel. While “Frankenstein” conjures thoughts of mad scientists and lumbering monsters, the phrase is in fact a fairly normal phrase for castles in southern Germany. The term “Frank” refers to the ancient Germanic tribe, while “stein” means stone. “Frankenstein” means “Stone of the Franks.” Lord Conrad II Reiz of Breuberg constructed the castle sometime around 1250. He christened the structure Frankenstein Castle, and afterward adopted the name “von und zu Frankenstein.” As founder of the free imperial Barony of Frankenstein, Lord Conrad held power over nearby Darmstadt, Ockstadt, Nieder-Beerbach, Wetterau, and Hesse.

As for the castle’s dark legend, that can be traced back to alchemist Johann Conrad Dippel, who was born in the castle in 1673. It is suggested that Dippel influenced Mary Shelley's fantasy when she wrote her Frankenstein novel, though there is no mention of the castle in Shelley's journals from the time. However, it is known that in 1814, prior to writing the famous novel, Shelley took a journey on the river Rhine. She spent a few hours in the town of Gernsheim, which is located about 16 kilometres (10 miles) from the castle. Several nonfiction books on the life of Mary Shelley claim Dippel as a possible influence. Dippel created an elixir known as Dippel’s Oil. Derived from pulverized animal bones, the dark, viscous oil was used as late as World War II, as a chemical warfare agent that rendered wells undrinkable without actually making the water poisonous. Rumors surrounding Dippel hold that, during his time at Frankenstein Castle, he practiced anatomy as well as alchemy, even going so far as to exhume corpses and perform medical experiments on them. There are some reports claiming that Dippel actually created a monster that was brought to life by a bolt of lightning—though it seems most likely that Shelley’s tale inspired these stories, and not the other way around. Rumours about Dippel appear to be modern inventions, too. For example, he is said to have performed experiments with cadavers, in which he attempted to transfer the soul of one cadaver into another. Soul-transference with cadavers was a common experiment among alchemists at the time and was a theory that Dippel supported in his writings, thus making it possible that Dippel pursued similar objectives, but there is no direct evidence to link him to these specific acts. There is also no evidence to the rumour that he was driven out of town when word of his activities reached the ears of the townspeople — though he was often banned from countries, notably Sweden and Russia, for his controversial theological positions. He also eventually had to flee to Giessen after killing a man in a duel.

An intriguing local legend tells of a Lord Georg of Frankenstein, who lived in the castle and fought a dragon that lurked at a nearby well. The legend goes that the lord was stung by the dragon’s poison tail during the skirmish, and died after making his way back to the castle. The supposed tomb of Lord Georg can still be visited in the church in the nearby village of Nieder Beerbach.

The forest near the castle is also home to a particularly eerie natural anomaly. Due to magnetic stone formations within the mountains, there are places near Frankenstein Castle where compasses cease to work properly. Legends say that witches used these areas for their sabbaths on Walpurgisnacht.

In 2008, the SyFy show Ghost Hunters International dedicated an entire episode to Frankenstein Castle. While there, the investigators met with a Frankenstein expert and claimed that the castle held “significant paranormal activity.” Sounds were recorded in the castle’s chapel and entrance tower, including a recording of what some believe was a voice speaking in Old German saying, “Arbo is here.”

Also, Hidden behind the herb garden of the castle, there is a fountain of youth. Legend has it that on the first full-moon after Walpurgis Night, old women from the nearby villages had to undergo tests of courage. The one who succeeded became rejuvenated to the age she had been on the night of her wedding. It is not known if this tradition is still being practiced these days.

Sounds like a fun place!

This next one isn't necessarily a haunted spot but we found the story and thought it was cool. It's about a "devil's bridge". One of the most famous Devil's bridges in the world is the Steinerne Brücke (Stone Bridge) in Regensburg, Germany. The legend behind the Stone Bridge is quite the amazing tale. The story involves a race between two builders, the mentor versus his protégé. The mentor was building a cathedral while his protégé was constructing a bridge—the two of them made a bet, and the bet was to see who could finish their structure first.

Eager to beat his mentor, the protégé made a deal with the Devil. In this pact, the Devil would receive the first three souls to cross the bridge. With the Devil's help the protégé won the bet. Filled with regret, the protégé guarded the bridge, refusing to let anyone cross. He was later visited by his mentor who was concerned by his behavior. The protégé broke down and confessed to his mentor of the deal he made with the Devil. The mentor came to the young man's aid, sending a rooster, a hen and a dog over the bridge. The Devil was so enraged that he was tricked by the cunning mentor, he attempted to destroy the bridge, but it was too strong to be ruined. However, the Devil's attempt did leave a bump in the middle of the bridge that is still there to this day.

Awesome story.

Next up we headed back to school… Wait no fuck that. We’ll just talk about a school haunted by… Well.. Nazis of course. Bitburg school is no ordinary school. It's an American school for children of service members. The school is also taught by military servicemen, which means that people who see ghosts here have military connections. Back before Bitburg became a United States military base, it was a Nazi military zone. In the interwar years, Bitburg, like most of the Eifel region, was impoverished and comparatively backward. Economic growth began after the Nazi Seizure of Power and the Nazi regime's introduction of employment-boosting public works projects, including infrastructure for war, particularly the Westwall; new armed forces barracks; and the development of the Kyll Valley railway. It is said that the building now used as the post office at Bitburg Annex (what is left of Bitburg Air Base) was the headquarters for Adolf Hitler when he was in the city.

In late December 1944, Bitburg was 85 percent destroyed by Allied bombing attacks, and later officially designated by the U.S. military as a "dead city." Subsequently, the town was occupied by Luxembourg soldiers, who were replaced by French forces in 1955.

As you can imagine… Some pretty fucked up things probably went on in the area which would most likely lead to some crazy hauntings. Most of them seem to be focused at the bitburg middle school. There are many reports from reputable military individuals about the strange goings on at the school. Many people have their lights flickering on and off throughout the school. It's apparently a pretty common occurrence. People also report that at night the sounds of people screaming at the top of their lungs can be heard. Are these the voices of people that were tortured or killed in the area? There are a few stories about people seeing shadows and apparitions as well.

Damn maybe we would have actually liked going to school if our school was like this!

Lastly for this episode we're gonna visit Osnabrück Hünenbetten. This place used to be a major pagan temple and gravesite. When Charlemagne set out on a tirade to convert the inhabitants of the region to Christianity, a bloody massacre took place here. Now massacres, as we all know, are not a pleasant thing and this one led to the deaths of many pagan priests. The troops destroyed the largest altar stone to prove the supremacy of the Christian God over paganism. So it's no surprise that there are some crazy tales that come from this place. Take for instance the stories of how people see bloodstains appear on the rocks at the site, especially on the winter and summer equinox. There are reports of poltergeist activity as well. It's also said that on quiet nights you can hear the screens of the people who were massacred. There's also reports of strange lights and orbs being seen at the site as well.

Okay, meine Freunde, das ist alles, was wir für diese Episode haben. wir hoffen, euch hat unsere Zugfahrt im gruseligen Deutschland gefallen.

For those of you who don't speak German, you'll never know what I've just said. And for those that do speak German, well you're probably laughing at the translation and ALSO still probably never know what we actually were saying. And in saying that, it's time for … DIE FILME!!!

BECOME A P.O.O.P.R.!!

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Wednesday Sep 22, 2021

Hollow Earth Shenanigans

Wednesday Sep 22, 2021

Hollow Earth Theory

Well hello there passengers, and welcome to yet another exciting day aboard the MidnightTrain. Today we delve deep into the mysterious, creepy, possibly conspiratorial world that is our own. What do I mean by that? Well we are digging our way to the center of truth! Today, we learn about Hollow Earth… and for the flat earthers out there… you’re gonna wanna hang out for a minute before you dip outta here… also fuck you.

(Cinematic trailer voice) In a World where there exists people who think the world is a flat piece of paper with trees growing out of it and a big guy who flips the piece of paper over to switch between day and night. One man wants to change that idea. His name… is Edmund Halley. Yes that Halley. The one known for the comet he discovered. But before we explore more about him and his findings, let's discuss what led us to this revolutionary hypothesis.

So besides idiots who believe the earth is flat, I mean stupid-endous personalities, there are other more interesting characters that believe the earth is completely hollow; or at least a large part of it. This is what we call the Hollow Earth Theory. Now where did this all come from? Well, nobody cares, Moody. That's the show folks!

Ok, ok, ok… fine. Since the early times many cultures, religions, and folklore believed that there was something below our feet. Whether it’s the lovely and tropical Christian Hell, the Jungle-esque Greek Underworld, the balmy Nordic Svartálfaheim, or the temperate Jewish Sheol; there is a name for one simple idea. These cultures believed it to be where we either come from or where we go when we die. This may hold some truth, or not. Guess we will know more when the time comes.

The idea of a subterranean realm is also mentioned in Tibetan Buddhist belief. According to one story from Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there is an ancient city called Shamballa which is located inside the Earth.

According to the Ancient Greeks, there were caverns under the surface which were entrances leading to the underworld, some of which were the caverns at Tainaron in Lakonia, at Troezen in Argolis, at Ephya in Thesprotia, at Herakleia in Pontos, and in Ermioni. In Thracian and Dacian legends, it is said that there are caverns occupied by an ancient god called Zalmoxis. In Mesopotamian religion there is a story of a man who, after traveling through the darkness of a tunnel in the mountain of "Mashu", entered a subterranean garden. Sounds lovely.

In Celtic mythology there is a legend of a cave called "Cruachan", also known as "Ireland's gate to Hell", a mythical and ancient cave from which according to legend strange creatures would emerge and be seen on the surface of the Earth. They are said to be bald, taller than most with blue eyes and a big, bushy beard… fucking Moody. There are also stories of medieval knights and saints who went on pilgrimages to a cave located in Station Island, County Donegal in Ireland, where they made journeys inside the Earth into a place of purgatory. You guys know purgatory, that place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are shedding their sins before going to heaven. In County Down, Northern Ireland there is a myth which says tunnels lead to the land of the subterranean Tuatha Dé Danann, who are supposedly a group of people who are believed to have introduced Druidism to Ireland, and then they said fuck it and went back underground.

In Hindu mythology, the underworld is referred to as Patala. In the Bengali version of the Hindu epic Ramayana, it has been depicted how Rama and Lakshmana were taken by the king of the underworld Ahiravan, brother of the demon king Ravana. Later on they were rescued by Hanuman. Got all that?

The Angami Naga tribes of India claim that their ancestors emerged in ancient times from a subterranean land inside the Earth. The Taino from Cuba believe their ancestors emerged in ancient times from two caves in a mountain underground.

Natives of the Trobriand Islands believe that their ancestors had come from a subterranean land through a cavern hole called "Obukula". Mexican folklore also tells of a cave in a mountain five miles south of Ojinaga, and that Mexico is possessed by devilish creatures who came from inside the Earth. Maybe THAT’S where the Chupacabra came from!

In the middle ages, an ancient German myth held that some mountains located between Eisenach and Gotha hold a portal to the inner Earth. A Russian legend says the Samoyeds, an ancient Siberian tribe, traveled to a cavern city to live inside the Earth. Luckily, they had plenty of space rope to make it back out. The Italian writer Dante describes a hollow earth in his well-known 14th-century work Inferno, in which the fall of Lucifer from heaven caused an enormous funnel to appear in a previously solid and spherical earth, as well as an enormous mountain opposite it, "Purgatory". There’s that place, again.

In Native American mythology, they believed that the ancestors of the Mandan people in ancient times emerged from a subterranean land through a cave at the north side of the Missouri River. There is also a tale about a tunnel in the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona near Cedar Creek which is said to lead inside the Earth to a land inhabited by a mysterious tribe. It is also the belief of the tribes of the Iroquois that their ancient ancestors emerged from a subterranean world inside the Earth. The elders of the Hopi people believe that a Sipapu entrance in the Grand Canyon exists which leads to the underworld.

Brazilian Indians, who live alongside the Parima River in Brazil, claim that their forefathers emerged in ancient times from an underground land, and that many of their ancestors still remained inside the Earth. Ancestors of the Inca supposedly came from caves which are located east of Cuzco, Peru. So, this is something that has been floating around a shit ton of ancient mythos for a long ass time. Well, ya know… before that silly thing called SCIENCE. Moving on.

Now to circle back to our friend Edmund. He was born in 1656, in Haggerston in Middlesex (not to be confused with uppersex or its ill-informed cousin the powerbottomsex). He was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist; because what else was there to do in the 1600’s but be a know-it-all? He was known to work with Sir Isaac Newton among other notable (but not gonna note them here) proponents to science.

In 1692 he proffered the idea that the earth was indeed hollow and had a shell about 500 miles thick with two inner concentric (having a common center, as circles or spheres… hear that flat earthers??) shells and an inner core. He proposed that the atmospheres separated the shells and that they also had their own magnetic poles and that the shells moved at different speeds. This idea was used to elucidate(shed light upon… yes pun intended) anomalous(ih-nom-uh-luhs) compass readings. He conceptualized that the inner region had its own atmosphere and possibly luminous with plausible inhabitants. MOLE PEOPLE!! He also thought that escaping gases from the inner earth caused what is now known as the Northern Lights.

Now another early ambassador to this idea was Le Clerc Milfort. Jean-Antoine Le Clerc, or known by a simpler name, Louis Milfort. Monsieur Milfort was a higher ranking French military officer who offered his services during the late 1700’s. He is most notably known for leading Creek Indian warriors during the American Revolutionary War as allies of the British. I guess having a common enemy here would make sense as to why he chose this group to lead. He emigrated in 1775 to what was then known as the British Colonies of North America. But we all know there is nothing Bri’ish about us.

Now why would a higher ranking French military Officer want to emigrate from his home to a place of turmoil? Great question Moody! I knew you were paying attention. Well, a little about this French saboteur.

He was known by many aliases, but we will just stick with Louis (Louie) for all intents and purposes. Louis was born in Thin-le-Moutier, near Mezieres, France. He served in the French Military from 1764 to 1774. Now this is according to his memoir that was dated in 1802. He left France after he ended up killing a servant of the king’s household in a duel. Apparently, the king’s servant loved the king. So much so that when Louis read aloud a poem that he had written that included the king, the servant jumped up, tore off his glove and slapped Louis across the face not once, but 4 fucking times! This is obviously something that Louis could not just let happen, so he challenged the servant to a duel. Not just any duel, mind you. He challenged him to a duel of what was then known as a “mort de coupes de papier.” The servant died an excruciating death and Louis fled. Here is the poem that started the feud.

There’s a place in France

Where the naked ladies dance

There’s a hole in the wall

Where the men can see it all

But the men don’t care

Cause they lost their underwear

And the cops never shoot

Cause they think it’s kind of cute

There a place in France

Where the alligators dance

If you give them a glance

They could bite you in the pants

There’s a place on Mars

Where the ladies smoke cigars

Every puff she makes

Is enough to kill the snakes

When the snakes all die

They put diamonds in their eye

When the diamonds break

The dancing makes them ache

When the diamonds shine

They really look so fine

The king and the queen

Have a rubber ding-a-ling

All the girls in France

Have ants in their pants

Yes, this is 100% bullshit… but, you’ll have that shit stuck in your head for days.

Now as much as we tried to find ACTUAL information as to why there was duel and why it was with a servant of the king, we couldn't find much. But after digging up some more information on Louis we found out that he ended up going back to France to be a part of the Sacred Society of Sophisians.

This group is also known as the secret society of Napoleon's Sorcerers… This may have to be a bonus episode so stay tuned for more!

Now back to the “Core” of our episode. The Creek Indians who are originally from the Muscogee [məskóɡəlɡi](Thank wikipedia) area which is southeast united states which roughly translates to the areas around Tennessee, Alabama, western Georgia and Northern Florida. Louis adapted their customs and assimilated into their Tribe. He even married the sister of the Chief.

Now after Louis and the rest of the people in the American Revolutionary War lost to the U.S. he decided to lead the Creek Tribe on an expedition in 1781 because, well, they had nothing else to do. On this expedition they were searching for caverns where allegedly the Creek Indians ancestors had emerged from. Maybe even the Origin of Bigfoot.

Yes, the Creek Indians had believed that their ancestors lived below the earth and lived in caverns along the Red River junction of the Mississippi River. Now during the expedition they did come across these caverns which they suspected could hold 20,000 of their family in. That's pretty much all they found. They didn't have video cameras back then otherwise, I'm pretty sure they would have found footage of bigfoot though.

Another advocate was Leonhard Euler, yes, you heard right. Buehler… Buehler… No Leonard Euler. A great 18th century mathematician; or not so great if you didn't enjoy math in school unlike moody who was the biggest nerd when it came to math.

Euler founded the study of graph theory and topology. No moody, not on-top-ology. Mind always in the gutter. Euler influenced many other discoveries such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and the coolest subject ever; Infinitesimal Calculus. Which is Latin for BULLSHIT.

But anyways I digress. This guy knew his stuff BUT he did think with all his “infinite” wisdom that the earth was in fact hollow and had no inner shells but instead had a six hundred mile diameter sun in the center. The most intriguing and plausible theory he had within this whole idea was that you could enter into this interior from the northern and southern poles. Let’s hold to that cool hypothesis for right now and move along with our next Interesting goon of the hollow earth community.

With Halley’s spheres and Eulers’s Holes came another great man with another great theory. Captain John Symmes! Yes you know Captain Symmes. HE was a hero in the war of 1812 after being sent with his Regiment to Canada and providing relief to American forces at the battle of Lundy’s Lane. He was well known as a trader and lecturer after he left the army.

In 1818 Symmes announced his theory on Hollow Earth to the World! With his publication of his Circular No. 1.

“I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentric spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles 12 or 16 degrees; I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking.”— John Cleves Symmes Jr., Symmes' Circular No. 1

While there were few people who would consider Symmes as the “Newton of the West”, most of the world was less than impressed. Although his theory wasn't as popular as one would expect, you gotta admire the confidence he had.

Symmes sent this declaration at a rather hefty cost to himself to “each notable foreign government, reigning prince, legislature, city, college, and philosophical societies, throughout the union, and to individual members of our National Legislature, as far as the five hundred copies would go.”15]

Symmes would then be followed by an exorbitant amount of ridicule for his proclamation, as many intellectuals were back then. This ridicule would later influence a rather bold move, Cotton. We’ll touch on this later.

What was so special about his theory that got 98% of the world not on the edge of their seats? Well, to start he believed the Earth had five concentric spheres with where we live to be the largest of the spheres. He also believed that the crust was 1000 miles thick with an arctic opening about 4000 miles wide and an antarctic opening around 6000 miles wide.

He argued that because of the centrifugal force of the Earth’s rotation that the poles would be flattened which would cause such a gradual gradation that you would travel into the Hollow Earth without even knowing you even did it.

Eventually he refined his theory because of such ridicule and criticism. Now his theory consists of just a single hollow sphere instead of five concentric spheres. So, now that we know all about symmes and his theory, why don't we talk about what he decided to do with his theory?

What do you think, Moody? You think he created a cult so he could be ostracized? Or do you think he gave up and realized he was silly? Hate to be the bearer of bad news here but he decided to take his theory and convince the U.S. congress to fund and organize an expedition to the south pole to enter the inner earth.

Good news and bad news folks. Good news, congress back then actually had some people with heads on their shoulders as opposed to those today and they said fuck that noise and denied funding for his expedition. Hamilton, Ohio even has a monument to him and his ideas. Fuckin’ Ohio.

Next up on our list of “what the fuck were they thinking?” We have Jeremiah Reynolds. He also delivered lectures on the "Hollow Earth" and argued for an expedition. I guess back in those days people just up and went to the far reaches of the earth just to prove a point. Reynolds said “look what I can do” and went on an expedition to Antarctica himself but missed joining the Great U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842, even though that venture was a result of his craziness, I MEAN “INTEREST”.

He gained support from marine and scientific societies and, in 1828, successfully lobbied the House of Representatives to pass a resolution asking then-President John Quincy Adams to deploy a research vessel to the Pacific.

The president, for his part, had first mentioned Reynolds in his November 4, 1826, diary entry, writing:

“Mr Reynolds is a man who has been lecturing about the Country, in support of Captain John Cleves Symmes’s theory that the Earth is a hollow Sphere, open at the Poles— His Lectures are said to have been well attended, and much approved as exhibitions of genius and of Science— But the Theory itself has been so much ridiculed, and is in truth so visionary, that Reynolds has now varied his purpose to the proposition of fitting out a voyage of circumnavigation to the Southern Ocean— He has obtained numerous signatures in Baltimore to a Memorial to Congress for this object, which he says will otherwise be very powerfully supported— It will however have no support in Congress. That day will come, but not yet nor in my time. May it be my fortune, and my praise to accelerate its approach.”

Adams’ words proved prophetic. Though his administration opted to fund Reynolds’ expedition, the voyage was waylaid by the 1828 presidential election, which found Adams roundly defeated by Andrew Jackson. The newly elected president canceled the expedition, leaving Reynolds to fund his trip through other sources. (The privately supported venture set sail in 1829 but ended in disaster, with the crew mutinying and leaving Reynolds’ ass on shore.) Per Boston 1775, the U.S. Exploring Expedition only received the green light under the country’s eighth president, Martin Van Buren.

As Howard Dorre explains on his Plodding Through the Presidents blog, multiple media outlets (including Smithsonian, in an earlier version of this article) erroneously interpreted Adams’ description of Reynolds’ ideas as “visionary” as a sign of his support for the hollow earth theory. In fact, notes Bell in a separate Boston 1775 blog post, the term’s connotations at the time were largely negative. In the words of 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson, a visionary was “one whose imagination is disturbed.”

The president, adds Dorre, only agreed to support the polar expedition “after Reynolds abandoned the hollow earth idea.” I had always heard that he was a believer in mole people and hollow earth, turns out his words were just misinterpreted. Hmm… I wonder if there are any other books out there where the overall ideas and verbage could and have been misinterpreted causing insane amounts of disingenuous beliefs? Nah!

Though Symmes himself never wrote a book about his ideas, several authors published works discussing his ideas. McBride wrote Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres in 1826. It appears that Reynolds has an article that appeared as a separate booklet in 1827: Remarks of Symmes' Theory Which Appeared in the American Quarterly Review. In 1868, a professor W.F. Lyons published The Hollow Globe which put forth a Symmes-like Hollow Earth hypothesis, but failed to mention Symmes himself. Because fuck that guy, right? Symmes's son Americus then published The Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres in 1878 to set the record straight. I think the duel would have been a better idea.

Sir John Leslie proposed a hollow Earth in his 1829 Elements of Natural Philosophy (pp. 449–53).

In 1864, in Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne described a hollow Earth containing two rotating binary stars, named Pluto and Proserpine. Ok… fiction. We get it.

William Fairfield Warren, in his book Paradise Found–The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole, (1885) presented his belief that humanity originated on a continent in the Arctic called Hyperborea. This influenced some early Hollow Earth proponents. According to Marshall Gardner, both the Eskimo and Mongolian peoples had come from the interior of the Earth through an entrance at the North Pole. I wonder if they knew that.

NEQUA or The Problem of the Ages, first serialized in a newspaper printed in Topeka, Kansas in 1900 and considered an early feminist utopian novel, mentions John Cleves Symmes' theory to explain its setting in a hollow Earth.

An early 20th-century proponent of hollow Earth, William Reed, wrote Phantom of the Poles in 1906. He supported the idea of a hollow Earth, but without interior shells or inner sun. Ok, no sun. Got it.

The spiritualist writer Walburga, Lady Paget in her book Colloquies with an unseen friend (1907) was an early writer to mention the hollow Earth hypothesis. She claimed that cities exist beneath a desert, which is where the people of Atlantis moved. Mmmk. Deserts and Atlantis. Check. She said an entrance to the subterranean kingdom will be discovered in the 21st century. Pretty broad brush she’s painting with there.

Next up we're gonna talk a little about Admiral Richard E. Byrd. According to Hollow Earth theorists, Byrd met an ancient race underground in the South Pole. According to Byrd’s “diary,” the government ordered Byrd to remain silent for what he witnessed during his Arctic assignment:

March 11, 1947

“I have just attended a Staff Meeting at the Pentagon. I have stated fully my discovery and the message from the Master. All is duly recorded. The President has been advised. I am now detained for several hours (six hours, thirty- nine minutes, to be exact.) I am interviewed intently by Top Security Forces and a Medical Team. It was an ordeal!!!! I am placed under strict control via the National Security provisions of this United States of America. I am ORDERED TO REMAIN SILENT IN REGARD TO ALL THAT I HAVE LEARNED, ON THE BEHALF OF HUMANITY!!! Incredible! I am reminded that I am a Military Man and I must obey orders.”

After many polar accomplishments, Byrd organized Operation Highjump in 1947. The objective: construct an American training and research facility in the South Pole. Highjump was a significant illustration of the state of the world and the cold war thinking at the time. The nuclear age had just begun, and the real fears were that the Soviet Union would attack the United States over the North Pole. The Navy had done a training exercise there in the summer of 1946 and felt it needed to do more. The northern winter was coming, and Highjump was a quickly planned exercise to move the whole thing to the South Pole. Politically, the orders were that the Navy should do all it could to establish a basis for a [land] claim in Antarctica. That was classified at the time.Now Operation High jump could probably be its own episode, or is at minimum a bonus. But we'll get some of the important details on how it pertains to this episode. Some say the American government sent their troops to the South Pole for any evidence of the rumored German Base 211.

Nazis were fascinated with anything regarding the Aryan race. They traveled all over the world including Antarctica to learn more of alleged origins.

The Germans did make their mark in the South Pole. However, what they have discovered doesn’t compared to what Byrd recorded in his diary. the time. The nuclear age had just begun, and the real fears were that the Soviet Union would attack the United States over the North Pole. The Navy had done a training exerci but was that all it was

“For thousands of years, people all over the world have written legends about Agartha (sometimes called Agarta or Agarthi), the underground city. Agartha (sometimes Agartta, Agharti, Agarath, Agarta or Agarttha) is a legendary kingdom that is said to be located in the Earth's core. Agartha is frequently associated or confused with Shambhala which figures prominently in Vajrayana Buddhism and Tibetan Kalachakra teachings and revived in the West by Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. Theosophists in particular regard Agarthi as a vast complex of caves underneath Tibet inhabited by demi-gods, called asuras. Helena and Nicholas Roerich, whose teachings closely parallel theosophy, see Shambhala's existence as both spiritual and physical. Did Byrd find it?

He claims to have met “The Master,” the city’s leader, who told him of his concerns about the surface world:

“Our interest rightly begins just after your Race exploded the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. It was that alarming time we sent our flying machines, the ‘Flugelrads’ to your surface world to investigate what your Race had done…You see, we have never interfered before in your Race’s wars and barbarity. But now we must, for you have learned to tamper with a certain power that is not for your Man, mainly that of atomic energy. Our emissaries have already delivered messages to the power of your World, and yet they do not heed.”

Apparently, the government knew about Agartha before Byrd.

Marshall Gardner wrote A Journey to the Earth's Interior in 1913 and published an expanded edition in 1920. He placed an interior sun in the Earth (ah ha! The Sun’s back!) and built a working model of the Hollow Earth which he actually fucking patented (U.S. Patent 1,096,102). Gardner made no mention of Reed, but did criticize Symmes for his ideas. DUEL TIME! Around the same time, Vladimir Obruchev wrote a novel titled Plutonia, in which the Hollow Earth possessed an inner Sun and was inhabited by prehistoric species. The interior was connected with the surface by an opening in the Arctic.

The explorer Ferdynand Ossendowski wrote a book in 1922 titled Beasts, Men and Gods. Ossendowski said he was told about a subterranean kingdom that exists inside the Earth. It was known to Buddhists as Agharti.

George Papashvily in his Anything Can Happen (1940) claimed the discovery in the Caucasus mountains of a cavern containing human skeletons "with heads as big as bushel baskets" and an ancient tunnel leading to the center of the Earth. One man entered the tunnel and never returned. This dude was a sniper with the Imperial Russian Army during World War I

Moody is going to love these next examples.

Novelist Lobsang Rampa in his book The Cave of the Ancients said an underground chamber system exists beneath the Himalayas of Tibet, filled with ancient machinery, records and treasure. Michael Grumley, a cryptozoologist, has linked Bigfoot and other hominid cryptids to ancient tunnel systems underground.

According to the ancient astronaut writer Peter Kolosimo a robot was seen entering a tunnel below a monastery in Mongolia. Kolosimo also claimed a light was seen from underground in Azerbaijan. Kolosimo and other ancient astronaut writers such as Robert Charroux linked these activities to DUN DUN DUNNNN….UFOs.

A book by a "Dr. Raymond Bernard" which appeared in 1964, The Hollow Earth, exemplifies the idea of UFOs coming from inside the Earth, and adds the idea that the Ring Nebula proves the existence of hollow worlds, as well as speculation on the fate of Atlantis and the origin of flying saucers. An article by Martin Gardner revealed that Walter Siegmeister used the pseudonym "Bernard", but not until the 1989 publishing of Walter Kafton-Minkel's Subterranean Worlds: 100,000 Years of Dragons, Dwarfs, the Dead, Lost Races & UFOs from Inside the Earth did the full story of Bernard/Siegmeister become well-known. Holy fucking book title, Batman!

The science fiction pulp magazine Amazing Stories promoted one such idea from 1945 to 1949 as "The Shaver Mystery". The magazine's editor, Ray Palmer, ran a series of stories by Richard Sharpe Shaver, claiming that a superior pre-historic race had built a honeycomb of caves in the Earth, and that their degenerate descendants, known as "Dero", live there TO THIS DAY, using the fantastic machines abandoned by the ancient races to torment those of us living on the surface. As one characteristic of this torment, Shaver described "voices" that purportedly came from no explainable source. Thousands of readers wrote to affirm that they, too, had heard the fiendish voices from inside the Earth. The writer David Hatcher Childress authored Lost Continents and the Hollow Earth(1998) in which he reprinted the stories of Palmer and defended the Hollow Earth idea based on alleged (cough… “alleged”) tunnel systems beneath South America and Central Asia.

Hollow Earth proponents have claimed a number of different locations for the entrances which lead inside the Earth. Other than the North and South poles, entrances in locations which have been cited include: Paris in France, Staffordshire in England, Montreal in Canada, Hangchow in China, and The Amazon Rain Forest.

Ok, have you two gents heard of the Concave Hollow Earth Theory?

It doesn’t matter, we’re still going to talk about this lunacy.

Instead of saying that humans live on the outside surface of a hollow planet—sometimes called a "convex" Hollow Earth hypothesis—some whackamuffins have claimed humans live on the inside surface of a hollow spherical world, so that our universe itself lies in that world's interior. This has been called the "concave" Hollow Earth hypothesis or skycentrism.

Cyrus Teed, a doctor from upstate New York, proposed such a concave Hollow Earth in 1869, calling his scheme "Cellular Cosmogony". He might as well have called it Goobery Kabooblenuts. See, I can make up words, too. Anyway, Teed founded a group called the Koreshan Unity based on this notion, which he called Koreshanity. Which sounds like insanity and would make far more sense. The main colony survives as a preserved Florida state historic site, at Estero, Florida, but all of Teed's followers have now died. Probably from eating Tide Pods. Teed's followers claimed to have experimentally verified the concavity of the Earth's curvature, through surveys of the Florida coastline making use of "rectilineator" equipment. Which sounds like something you use to clean out your colon.

Several 20th-century German writers, including Peter Bender, Johannes Lang, Karl Neupert, and Fritz Braut, published works advocating the Hollow Earth hypothesis, or Hohlweltlehre. It has even been reported, although apparently without historical documentation, that Adolf Hitler was influenced by concave Hollow Earth ideas and sent an expedition in an unsuccessful attempt to spy on the British fleet by pointing infrared cameras up at the sky. Oh boy.

The Egyptian mathematician Mostafa “Admiral Akbar” Abdelkader wrote several scholarly papers working out a detailed mapping of the Concave Earth model

In one chapter of his book On the Wild Side (1992), Martin Gardner discusses the Hollow Earth model articulated by Abdelkader. According to Gardner, this hypothesis posits that light rays travel in circular paths, and slow as they approach the center of the spherical star-filled cavern. No energy can reach the center of the cavern, which corresponds to no point a finite distance away from Earth in the widely accepted scientific cosmology. A drill, Gardner says, would lengthen as it traveled away from the cavern and eventually pass through the "point at infinity" corresponding to the center of the Earth in the widely accepted scientific cosmology. Supposedly no experiment can distinguish between the two cosmologies. Christ, my head hurts.

Gardner notes that "most mathematicians believe that an inside-out universe, with properly adjusted physical laws, is empirically irrefutable". Gardner rejects the concave Hollow Earth hypothesis on the basis of Occam's razor. Occam’s razor is the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity", sometimes inaccurately paraphrased as "the simplest explanation is usually the best one."

Purportedly verifiable hypotheses of a Concave Hollow Earth need to be distinguished from a thought experiment which defines a coordinate transformation such that the interior of the Earth becomes "exterior" and the exterior becomes "interior". (For example, in spherical coordinates, let radius r go to R2/r where R is the Earth's radius; see inversive geometry.) The transformation entails corresponding changes to the forms of physical laws. This is not a hypothesis but an illustration of the fact that any description of the physical world can be equivalently expressed in more than one way.

Contrary evidence

Seismic

The picture of the structure of the Earth that has been arrived at through the study of seismic waves[52] is quite different from a fully hollow Earth. The time it takes for seismic waves to travel through and around the Earth directly contradicts a fully hollow sphere. The evidence indicates the Earth is mostly filled with solid rock (mantle and crust), liquid nickel-iron alloy (outer core), and solid nickel-iron (inner core).[53]

Gravity

Main articles: Schiehallion experiment and Cavendish experiment

Another set of scientific arguments against a Hollow Earth or any hollow planet comes from gravity. Massive objects tend to clump together gravitationally, creating non-hollow spherical objects such as stars and planets. The solid spheroid is the best way in which to minimize the gravitational potential energy of a rotating physical object; having hollowness is unfavorable in the energetic sense. In addition, ordinary matter is not strong enough to support a hollow shape of planetary size against the force of gravity; a planet-sized hollow shell with the known, observed thickness of the Earth's crust would not be able to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium with its own mass and would collapse.

Based upon the size of the Earth and the force of gravity on its surface, the average density of the planet Earth is 5.515 g/cm3, and typical densities of surface rocks are only half that (about 2.75 g/cm3). If any significant portion of the Earth were hollow, the average density would be much lower than that of surface rocks. The only way for Earth to have the force of gravity that it does is for much more dense material to make up a large part of the interior. Nickel-iron alloy under the conditions expected in a non-hollow Earth would have densities ranging from about 10 to 13 g/cm3, which brings the average density of Earth to its observed value.

Direct observation

Drilling holes does not provide direct evidence against the hypothesis. The deepest hole drilled to date is the Kola Superdeep Borehole,[54] with a true vertical drill-depth of more than 7.5 miles (12 kilometers). However, the distance to the center of the Earth is nearly 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers). Oil wells with longer depths are not vertical wells; the total depths quoted are measured depth (MD) or equivalently, along-hole depth (AHD) as these wells are deviated to horizontal. Their true vertical depth (TVD) is typically less than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers).

Ok, then let’s discuss what actual scientists, like ALL OF THEM, believe the earth is actually composed of.

The inner core

This solid metal ball has a radius of 1,220 kilometers (758 miles), or about three-quarters that of the moon. It’s located some 6,400 to 5,180 kilometers (4,000 to 3,220 miles) beneath Earth’s surface. Extremely dense, it’s made mostly of iron and nickel. The inner core spins a bit faster than the rest of the planet. It’s also intensely hot: Temperatures sizzle at 5,400° Celsius (9,800° Fahrenheit). That’s almost as hot as the surface of the sun. Pressures here are immense: well over 3 million times greater than on Earth’s surface. Some research suggests there may also be an inner, inner core. It would likely consist almost entirely of iron.

The outer core

This part of the core is also made from iron and nickel, just in liquid form. It sits some 5,180 to 2,880 kilometers (3,220 to 1,790 miles) below the surface. Heated largely by the radioactive decay of the elements uranium and thorium, this liquid churns in huge, turbulent currents. That motion generates electrical currents. They, in turn, generate Earth’s magnetic field. For reasons somehow related to the outer core, Earth’s magnetic field reverses about every 200,000 to 300,000 years. Scientists are still working to understand how that happens.

The mantle

At close to 3,000 kilometers (1,865 miles) thick, this is Earth’s thickest layer. It starts a mere 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) beneath the surface. Made mostly of iron, magnesium and silicon, it is dense, hot and semi-solid (think caramel candy). Like the layer below it, this one also circulates. It just does so far more slowly.

Near its upper edges, somewhere between about 100 and 200 kilometers (62 to 124 miles) underground, the mantle’s temperature reaches the melting point of rock. Indeed, it forms a layer of partially melted rock known as the asthenosphere (As-THEEN-oh-sfeer). Geologists believe this weak, hot, slippery part of the mantle is what Earth’s tectonic plates ride upon and slide across.

Diamonds are tiny pieces of the mantle we can actually touch. Most form at depths above 200 kilometers (124 miles). But rare “super-deep” diamonds may have formed as far down as 700 kilometers (435 miles) below the surface. These crystals are then brought to the surface in volcanic rock known as kimberlite.

The mantle’s outermost zone is relatively cool and rigid. It behaves more like the crust above it. Together, this uppermost part of the mantle layer and the crust are known as the lithosphere.

The crust

Earth’s crust is like the shell of a hard-boiled egg. It is extremely thin, cold and brittle compared to what lies below it. The crust is made of relatively light elements, especially silica, aluminum and oxygen. It’s also highly variable in its thickness. Under the oceans (and Hawaiian Islands), it may be as little as 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) thick. Beneath the continents, the crust may be 30 to 70 kilometers (18.6 to 43.5 miles) thick.

Along with the upper zone of the mantle, the crust is broken into big pieces, like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. These are known as tectonic plates. These move slowly — at just 3 to 5 centimeters (1.2 to 2 inches) per year. What drives the motion of tectonic plates is still not fully understood. It may be related to heat-driven convection currents in the mantle below. Some scientists think it’s caused by the tug from slabs of crust of different densities, something called “slab pull.” In time, these plates will converge, pull apart or slide past each other. Those actions cause most earthquakes and volcanoes. It’s a slow ride, but it makes for exciting times right here on Earth’s surface.

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The Charley Project

Tuesday Sep 14, 2021

Haunted Phone Calls & Evil Phone Numbers

Tuesday Sep 14, 2021

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The Charley Project

https://screenrant.com/most-underrated-phone-horror-suspense-movies-when-stranger-calls-back-caller-dont-hang-up/

Tonight we're going to discuss phone calls. Yay… Phone calls. Att, T-Mobile, Boost, Sprint, you know all the big ones. Oh wait… That's the bonus episode. We're actually talking about creepy phone calls, ranging from the seemingly paranormal to the downright strange. Are some phone numbers cursed? Should we call some from Logan’s phone right here on the show? Can dead people make phone calls to the living? Would you want dead people to call you? Why didn't anyone call Logan? Seriously, we'll give you his number… He's a sad lonely man. Not a ton of history or set up today, this is mostly going to be a storytelling episode to make everyone scared to answer their phones, and seriously we're gonna call at least one cursed number today live right here. Well anyway let's get into this hullabaloo.

The extraordinary claimed phenomenon of telephone calls from the dead, one of a variety of new forms of contact with the dead using modern technology, was raised by parapsychologists D. Scott Rogo and Raymond Bayless in their 1979 book Phone Calls From the Dead. Their research had been stimulated by a report in the September 1976 Fate Magazine from Don B. Owens of Toledo, Ohio, oh boy, Toledo… yay… concerning his close friend Lee Epps. They had lived in the same neighborhood for years before Lee moved away and their contact became limited to occasional meetings or telephone calls. On October 26, 1968 at 10:30 P.M. , Don's wife Ethel answered a telephone call and immediately recognized the voice as that of Lee. He said: "Sis, tell Don I'm feeling real bad. Never felt this way before. Tell him to get in touch with me the minute he comes in. It's important, Sis." Ethel tried to ring him back but got no answer; neither did Don when he came in. That evening Don learned that Lee was in a coma in hospital, six blocks from their home and died at 10:30 P.M. It would have been impossible for Lee to have made the call himself in his condition, yet Ethel had immediately recognized his voice. Rogo and Bayless were sufficiently intrigued to follow up the phenomenon of "phone calls from the dead." After collecting a few cases, they wrote an article in the October 1977 issue of Fate Magazine titled "Phone Calls from the Dead?" More cases came to hand and led to a two-year investigation of the claimed phenomenon. It proved oddly difficult to establish in a manner acceptable to the present standards of psychical research, since the accounts dealt with spontaneous events, usually without the opportunity of rigid factual verification. Moreover, it was difficult to rule out coincidental hoaxes. Rogo and Bayless concluded, however, that such paranormal phone calls actually did occur and might even be more common than initially thought. Is there an actual PK manipulation of the telephone apparatus, or are the ringing tone and the voices actually in the subject's mind? Many individuals have experienced the hallucination of "phantom bells'' when they think they hear a doorbell or a telephone ringing but find no one there. In some of the cases examined by Rogo and Bayless, it seemed that the call was placed in a normal way through an exchange that caused the phone to ring. In other cases the phone calls appeared to be placed through long-distance operators. Some subjects reported hearing the familiar "click" at the end of the call as the communicator apparently hung up. Rogo and Bayless suggested PK-mediated electromagnetic effects and discussed the possible relevance to the related phenomenon of Raudive voices or electronic voice phenomenon. E.V.P.! Let’s get Stanz, Venkman, Zeddmore and Spengler on this bitch! (Shame on you if you don’t get that reference. Reevaluate your life decisions)

Anyhoo, This investigation was one of the earliest accounts of people actually looking into the phenomena of paranormal phone calls.

As technology has advanced so have the amount of stories of haunted phones and cursed phone numbers. With the advent and popularity of cell phones, it's inevitable that people will get phone numbers that others have once used. Ya know, like dead people ! We bet you’ve never thought about that until now! You’re welcome! And God forbid anyone get Moody's phone number… The amount of student loan refinancing and auto warranty calls they get will probably drive them insane. So what happens when you get a haunted phone or cursed phone number? Well let's check out some stories.

This first story comes from somebody with the screen name Sza1 from a thread about this very topic. Here we go:

"About 8 years ago, I was working for a company that set up our office like a trading floor with lots of open space. The group I worked in sat together in one area, and our director had a desk on the floor with us. He also had a separate office, but most of the time, he sat with us and had his phone set up to ring in our area.

One day, our director was in a meeting. My group (there were five of us) was working, and we were all fairly occupied. A call came to our director’s line. It rang a few times and bounced over to us. They guy I sat next to answered the phone. It was clear that it was not a call related to our work, and my colleague kept asking the person on the other end to speak up. He wrote something down, and the call ended quickly thereafter. My colleague remarked that the person on the other end either got cut off, or hung up abruptly.

Fifteen minutes later, or so, my director came back from his meeting. He asked if anything came up, and my neighbor told him that he received a call from a woman named Pam. He went on to say that she called him to say hello and that she missed him. My director said “Pam?” And my coworker said yes, that was the name she gave. He then said that she sounded like she was calling from the bottom of the ocean, and once she gave the message, she was abruptly disconnected, or hung up on him.

The boss’ face turned gray. He told us that he only knew of one Pam. She was a friend of his and his wife who lived several states away, and she had just died of cancer the week before."

Ok so that's definitely strange. Was it a phone call from a dead friend? Was it somebody playing a fucked up joke on this guy? I can't imagine getting that message though.

This next one comes from another forum thread from a person called screenwriter70.

"After my aunt passed away from bone cancer, and her daughter had the land-line disconnected, my mother started receiving phone calls from that number. (They called each other daily, sometimes 2-3 times a day.) My mom was afraid to answer them at first as she knew the number was no longer in service - and she feared her sister was 'calling her to the grave' to join her. She called back twice, and got the "this number has been disconnected" recording. Once, she actually answered the call yet all she heard was static on the other end. This went on till my mother, afraid, got rid of that mobile phone and number. Then an old family friend started getting the calls. I Googled the phenomenon and even asked a local psychic with a paranormal team about it. She told me that my aunt only wanted my mom to know that she's okay where she is now. Has anyone else ever experienced this?"

Well we haven't experienced this yet. What about you guys? This could be a glitch in the phone system maybe, or maybe not!!!

This next one is pretty creepy and comes from a user named BOS2IAD. He told a story he heard from his dad.

"My dad once told me that his phone rang one day and when he picked it up, it was my aunt (mother's sister) on the other end. The thing is that my aunt died almost 3 years ago. He said my aunt told him that my mother had something to say to him. My mother had long since died. After my aunt said that to him, he heard 2 people in the background talking. To him it sounded like my aunt was trying to convince my mother to talk to him. Then the line went dead."

Ok so this guy gets a 2fer. His deceased sister and his deceased wife are supposedly trying to contact him. Honestly it's kind of sad if his wife didn't want to talk to him given the chance. But who knows!

Ok so this next story involves a haunted house, demons on the phone and some straight up evil shit.

"My home sits on what use to be a graveyard. There was an evil entity here one time and my brother challenged it one time when he was visiting. After my brother went into my laundry room and cursed it out basically challenging it he went home to WV where he lived. My brother always calls me when he gets home from the long drive so when he called to tell me he made it home this happened:

The phone rang and I picked it up saying hello. My brother came on and said hello back then , we were both blocked couldn't hear each other on the receiver and an evil voice came on over both our phones saying DON'T you Fucking call here and all kinds of screams were in the back ground. I hung up and my brother did also. I then called my brother back and said did you hear that and my brother asked me if I heard it to. We both know what we heard. Then months later I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. As I walked back into my bedroom I heard 3 loud bang knocks on my bedroom wall. I was scared so I looked it up. 3 knocks or bangs on your door or wall means either you're gonna die or 3 people you know are gonna die. The same night at my daughters home, she and my grandson were in bed and something knocked 3 times loudly on her bed and the whole bed shook. A few months later my uncle died then my father died and my brother died. My heart was broken.The evil did its work and is still doing it today .So many things have happened but I know the Lord Jesus is on my side ."

Wow… That's pretty fucking crazy right there. A haunting that involved a really messed up phone message. Then the knocking, then the deaths, man I'd never use the phone again, oh and I'd move the fuck out of that house.

So this next one isn't from a dead person, but from the story tellers past self!!

"I received a phone call from my past self

I have never posted on here but recently read a story about a phone call that reminded me of something that once happened to myself.

I grew up in a rural village with most of my close friends living close by. We would call on each other and play outside together a lot, as most children do. One day, I was around eleven years old at the time, the phone rang and, assuming it was a friend, I ran downstairs to answer it. I answer and say “hello”, the voice on the other end says “hello” back. It’s a young girl. I ask who it is as it doesn’t sound like any of my friends. And, without answering my question, she asks “do you want to come out and play?”. Before I can answer she continues talking. I begin to realise she isn’t having a conversation with me. At the same time I realise the girl is me. The conversation is one I had with my friend months earlier, but only my half of it.

I know sometimes wires can get crossed and you can hear other people’s conversations, especially in rural areas. Though it was me speaking, not someone else, and I know it was my friend I was speaking to as I referred to her in the conversation. After it ended the line went dead and I sat there mystified. To this day I cannot come up with an explanation for this and every time I think about it a chill runs down my spine.

Additional information: Not sure if this is relevant but we had recently moved to a new house (within a year) and I can’t be sure if the original phone call was made in our old house or the new one."

Well that's a new one! Could it have been some kind of weird phone glitch somehow playing back the conversation! Or was it something more?

This next one is creepy but also pretty heartwarming in a way.

"My ex’s mom passed away & sent us a message on my phone

This is my first post, so bear with me, but after reading many other glitch stories, I wanted to share mine here.

In early December 2015, my now ex-boyfriend’s mother passed away in the home following surgery and other health problems related to her heart (she was born with a rare condition). Unfortunately she went into cardiac arrest and we were unable to save her, so the event in and of itself was extremely traumatic and unexpected.

A couple of nights later, we decided to go see some friends who wanted to offer their condolences to my ex; everyone loved his mom. We were all sitting in our friends’ living room watching tv and, to be honest, they were really trying to distract us from everything.

One friend was just being her goofy self and I was taking Snapchat videos and I DISTINCTLY remember taking a video of (let’s call her) Amy... I saved the video, but when I looked at my screen to watch it, it was not Amy.... it was a grainy video with a background that appeared to be outside and 100000% not in a living room, but on the screen was my ex’s mom...

She said the words, “I’m okay baby. I’m okay” and multiple other friends saw it on my phone before it disappeared. She looked young and vibrant and has a huge smile on her face. Someone had tossed my phone to another friend across the couch to see and the video then disappeared. When we watched the original video back immediately after, my ex’s mom was gone. It was Amy in the video again just like I saw it while recording it in the first place.

My ex and his mom had a very close relationship, best friends really, so when we saw her on my screen letting him know she was okay... it was astounding.

I saw it first and everyone noticed i was visibly upset. I cannot imagine what went through my ex’s mind and heart when he saw that, but to this day, it’s something we talk about and something he shares with new friends... something we simply cannot explain other than her coming thru in a glitch to let us know she was okay."

So I mean ya definitely creepy but also being able to see your mother young and healthy and happy one last time, while at first incredibly jarring, must have felt pretty good after the fact.

Ok a couple more then we're moving on to cursed phone numbers!

This next one is pretty quick. It's another user whose dad experienced something crazy. Now for us, coming from your dad, you would tend to believe something like this could have happened. Most of us don't expect something like this from our fathers, except maybe Moody's kids, those poor poor children. Anyways:

"My mom died 13 years ago. About four years ago my dad was on vacation in Arizona with his girlfriend. He said he was up watching tv and the hotel phone rang. He answered it and said it was my moms voice saying “I’m ok” he said he said “Cass?” And he said the phone was crackly and said tell HEATHER (me) I am ok” he said his girlfriend was confused why the phone ring. He immediately called me even though it was late and he was crying. My dad doesn’t believe in the supernatural but still to this day can’t explain that call."

Fuck man, that's gotta be a tough thing to hear on the other end of the phone. Again, it's a reassuring message but where is it freaking coming from!

Ok one last ghost call we found. This is from a girl who said this happened when she was a teenager. At least a weird traumatic event didn't happen in her formative years...yea….

"I Had a phone conversation with someone who had died two weeks previously.

When I was a teenager, my mum lived in a house with a big garden. We had a huge cherry tree, and my mum decided she should get a tree surgeon in to look at cutting it back. The guy came to have a look and said he would get back to her with a quote and they could make an appointment. It has to be mentioned at this point that the man had a very distinctive German accent.

About three weeks later, I was home alone making dinner while my mum was at work, and the phone rang. I answered it, and it was the German tree surgeon. He asked me if my mum was in, and I said she wasn't and asked if I could pass along a message. He said I should tell her that he had called to follow up on cutting the cherry tree and ask her to phone him back. And that was the end of the conversation.

When my mum got home I told her that he had called, and she looked at me very strangely and asked if I was sure. I was quite confused and said I was. He had identified himself on the phone, and he had a very distinctive accent. My mum was silent for a moment, and then she told me that he had died of a heart attack a few days after his visit to our house."

Wonder if it was the moustache!!! So there you go, some phone calls from ghosts! There's some pretty crazy stories out there if you wanna look.

So what causes these calls? Could it be the dead using the electromagnetic energy to manipulate electronics? If you're up on your ghost hunting you know that many people use different electronic devices to try and detect spirits. So why couldn't the spirits manipulate telephones? Some of the stories we came across definitely reeked of pranks or straight out storytelling. But hey if a couple are true… Then who knows!

Ok now to the part of the show where we convince one of us other dickheads to call a supposedly cursed phone number or two. First we'll look at a list of supposedly cursed numbers and why people feel they are cursed… Then we'll fucking call a couple! Well...Logan will.

The first one seems obvious enough. 666-666-6666...I mean… Right? Seems self explanatory. But you know here we go. For years, people all over the world have been receiving creepy messages from the phone numbers 666-666-6666 or 1-666

666-6666. Some people believe these phone calls come from the devil. In many cases, the calls do not show up on the phone bill. Now it's story time:

"We were in a car going home one night when our friend received a call on his cell phone from (666) 666-6666. He never picked up the phone and we even joked about how the devil was calling him from hell. Several minutes later he received a voicemail. Now this was the oddest voicemail I have ever heard. It sounded like a hollow voice and there was a lot of static in the background. We were only able to determine a couple of words, but it scared the shit out of us. And for some reason the message was erased several hours later, and there was no sign of it on his bill."

To quote the amazing movie the Burbs: I want to kill everyone. Satan is good. Satan is our pal.

But anyhoo we digress. Next number please!!

646-868-1844…

The area code for the number

848-868-1844 is based in White

Plains, New York - but that

doesn't really mean much,

because it's a VOIP (meaning

its owner could be based

anywhere). And while it's true

that the initial message you'll

hear upon dialing is weird - it

starts with odd, bell-like tones,

leads into garbled, unintelligible

words, and then ends with an

answerble tone

the really weird thing about this one

doesn't happen during the call

itself. It happens after you hang

up: Within seconds, you'll

receive a text message

containing a jumbled mix of words.

That's definitely one we are trying! Well Logan.

Next up is 090-4444-4444. The Japanese community believes that this is one of the numbers you should never call. Number 4 in Japan sounds like (shi) which means death in their language. It is assumed that this contact is associated with death that occurs within one week of interaction. Similarly, the number is referred to as Sadako’s Number, where Sadako was The ghost from the movie “the Ring”…spooky!

From Japan we head to Bulgaria. The number 0888 888 888 is associated with misfortunes. The Bulgarians consider it one of the most cursed phone numbers in the world. The first owner died of radioactive poisoning cancer, while the second and third owners were shot dead in Bulgaria's streets. Following these incidents, Mobitel, the phone company, was forced to suspend the contact. To date, any attempt to call the number directs you to a voicemail message stating "no network".

The phone company even said fuck this phone number!

Another haunted phone number is 1- 000-000-0000. The Asian community attributes it to strange deaths. It is reported that a male voice would be heard on the other end of the call, demanding that the recipient tell fifteen or more people about the number. Failure would result in immediate death.

Hope Logan has free long distance…

Another creepy phone number to call is 630-296-7536. Once the call goes through, a woman's voice is heard on the receiving end, telling callers that their information is being traced. Soon afterwards, callers would be given an appointment with the agenda to "remodel your life." Based on that plan, you may get goosebumps at the thought of what might happen to you.

Some of the world’s scary phone numbers present themselves in the colour red. The Nigerians and Pakistan community have been sending out communication warning people about such contacts. It was reported when recipients answered these calls, they'd hear a high-frequency noise that would result in deafness or death due to brain haemorrhage.

Ok one last number that Logan is definitely calling! 801-820-0263. This number has no factual data on its creepiness. Nevertheless, those who dial it out of curiosity report that the receiver can tell you your full names and see what you are doing.

There are some other ones that get listed but they are creepy for other reasons some are promotional stunt's from band like Nine Inch Nails , some are for stores or websites selling horror related stuff and some just connect you with chainsaw, which is really fucking creepy.

(Make Logan make phone calls here)

Well there you have it, friends, tales of ghostly phone calls. Hope you enjoyed them. Hope you guys try calling some of these numbers as well. Tell us what you guys think of these creepy calls.

Movies

Tuesday Sep 07, 2021

The Stanley Hotel

Tuesday Sep 07, 2021

Today we are taking a cross country train ride to the great state of Colorado. On a side note fuck John Elway for crushing our childhood hopes and dreams. Anyway, off to Colorado we go… And yes it's for the weed… Well partly. It's also to visit a landmark known to scores of horror movie fans the world over. The Stanley Hotel! Why, you ask? Cus it's creepy, possibly haunted and because we can do whatever the fuck want… It's our show, even if we do get snubbed by our local entertainment paper for best local podcast. Jerks. But we digress. Today's episode is about a hotel but it starts with a man. Freelan Oscar Stanley. And with that we dig into the history and creepiness of the Stanley hotel!

Freelan Oscar Stanley was born, along with his twin brother Frances Edgar Stanley, On June 1st 1849 in Kingfield Maine. Although their family was not wealthy, education was highly valued and knowledge of science, poetry and music were encouraged from a young age. In 1859, At the age of nine, Freelan and Francis started their first business together refining and selling maple sugar. At eleven, their great-uncle, Liberty Stanley, who had raised their father as his own son, taught them the art of violin making. By the age of sixteen, Freelan had completed three instruments. In 1883, Francis developed a machine that coated dry photographic plates. After receiving a patent for their process, the brothers set up a factory in Newton, Massachusetts, to manufacture the plates. In the summer of 1897, they attended a local fair where they witnessed a French inventor demonstrate his steam-driven car. Apparently impelled by his wife's inability to ride a bicycle, Francis vowed to build something that his wife could ride. The French inventor's steam car was the driving force (get it?) Francis needed. After the fair, the brothers began to develop a steam car of their own. The brothers formed a car company in 1898 and produced their first steam car, which was dubbed The Flying Teapot. An instant success, the car was easy to run and achieved a top speed of 35 miles per hour (56 kph), quite fast for the turn of the century. Its major drawback was the need to stop every ten miles or so to refill the boiler. The brothers sold their company after only a few months, but they returned to the business of making cars in 1902 when they formed the Stanley Motor Carriage Company. They staged various events to publicize their steam cars, including racing up mountains and racing against gas-powered cars. Eventually the Stanleys sold their photographic plate business to George Eastman and concentrated on the manufacture of their steam cars, which came to be known unofficially as Stanley Steamers. The brothers continued to build race-winning, steam-powered cars. In 1906, one of their cars--The Rocket, driven by Stanley employee Fred Marriott--set the world's record for the fastest mile: 28.2 seconds, which is a speed of more than 127 miles per hour (204 kph). In 1918, Francis was killed while driving one of his automobiles. He swerved to avoid an obstruction in a mountain road and plunged down an embankment near Ipswich, Massachusetts. At the time of his death, the Stanley Motor Company had suspended automobile production to manufacture engines to pump out Allied trenches during World War I. After The war, Henry Ford's Model T soon came to dominate the American automobile industry. Developments in gas-powered engines, and the limitations of steam cars, signalled the end of the steam-auto era. The Stanley Motor Carriage Company ceased production in 1924.

In 1903, at the age of 54, Stanley was stricken with a life-threatening resurgence of tuberculosis. The most highly recommended treatment of the day was fresh, dry air with lots of sunlight and a hearty diet. Therefore, like many "lungers'' of his day, he resolved to take the curative air of Rocky Mountain Colorado. He and Flora arrived in Denver in March and were followed shortly by his Stanley Runabout which was shipped by train. After one night at the famous Brown Palace Hotel, Stanley arranged an appointment with Dr. Charles Bonney (MD, Harvard, 1889), the preeminent American expert in the disease. Dr. Bonney, a great advocate for home treatment, recommended he leave the hotel for a rented house at the first possible convenience. Stanley spent the remainder of the winter at 1401 Gilpin Street but, when his symptoms had not improved by June, he was determined to summer in the Colorado mountains. Bonney recommended Estes Park whose climate he compared with that of Davos, Switzerland, a posh resort for European tuberculetics. On June 29, Stanley saw Flora off by train and stagecoach while he set out in his steam car. Having gotten lost and spent the night in Boulder, Stanley arrived a day later, on June 30. During their first summer the couple stayed in a primitive cabin rented to them by the owners of the Elkhorn Lodge. Over the course of the warm season, Stanley's health improved dramatically. Impressed by the beauty of the valley and grateful for his recovery, he decided to return every year. By the end of the summer of 1903, Stanley had acquired property in Estes Park and, with the help of English architect Henry "Lord Cornwallis'' Rogers who the Stanleys had recently met, he began the construction of Rockside, his home in Colorado. Completed in 1904, the Stanley cottage was built with four bedrooms, gracious living areas and a modern kitchen, so that Flora could entertain summer guests. By 1907, Stanley had all but recovered and he returned to Newton for the winter rather than Denver. However, he and Flora had become enamored with the beauty of the Colorado mountains, often comparing them in speeches with those "rock-ribbed" hills "ancient as the sun" of William Cullen Bryant's poem, “Thanatopsis”. Not content with the rustic accommodations, lazy pastimes and relaxed social scene of their new home, Stanley resolved to turn Estes Park into a resort town. In 1907, construction began on the Hotel Stanley, a grand hotel catering to the class of wealthy urbanites who composed the Stanleys' social circle in Newton. To power the new hotel, Stanley constructed the Fall River Hydro-Plant which consequently brought electricity to Estes Park for the first time. In 1909, their 100-room, East Coast colonial-style “house” was unveiled. Equipped with running water, electricity and telephones, the only amenity the hotel lacked was heat, as the hotel was designed as a summer resort. A two-thirds scaled-down second lodge was finished a year later. (While this might seem ambitious, it’s worth noting the top floor was dedicated exclusively to children and nannies.) The buildings were designed by F.O. Stanley with the professional assistance of Denver architect T. Robert Wieger, Henry "Lord Cornwallis" Rogers, and contractor Frank Kirchoff. The site was chosen for its vantage overlooking the Estes valley and Long's Peak within the National Park. The main building, concert hall and Manor House are steel-frame structures on foundations of random rubble granite with clapboard siding and asphalt shingle roof. Originally, Stanley chose a yellow ocher color for the buildings' exteriors with white accents and trim. Every guest room had a telephone and each pair of rooms shared an en suite bathroom with running water supplied by Black Canyon Creek, which had been dammed in 1906. The floor plan of the main hotel (completed 1909) was laid out to accommodate the various activities popular with the American upper class at the turn of the twentieth century and the spaces were decorated accordingly. The music room, for instance, with its cream-colored walls (originally green and white), picture windows and fine, classical plaster-work was designed for letter-writing during the day and chamber music at night – cultured pursuits perceived as feminine. On the other hand, the smoking lounge (today the Piñon Room) and adjoining billiard room, with their dark stained-wood elements and granite arch fireplace were designated for enjoyment by male guests. Stanley himself, having been raised in a conservative household and having recovered from a serious lung disease, did not smoke cigars or drink alcohol, but these were essential after-dinner activities for most men at the time. Billiards, however, was among Stanley's most cherished pastimes.

With no central heating or ventilation system, the structure was designed to facilitate natural airflow; the Palladian window at the top of the grand stair could be opened to induce a cross-breeze through the lobby, French doors in all the public spaces open onto verandas, and two curving staircases connecting the guest corridors prevent stagnant air in the upper floors. Although the main hotel is now heated in the winter, guests still depend on natural ventilation for cooling in the summer. Within a few years of opening, a hydraulic elevator was put in operation. In 1916, the east wing of the main building was extended in the rear adding several guest rooms. Around this time, the alcove of the music room was added. In 1921, a rear veranda was enclosed forming a room that currently serves as a gift shop. Around 1935, the hydraulic elevator system was replaced with a cable-operated system and extended to the fourth floor necessitating the addition of a secondary cupola to house the mechanical apparatus. Originally, a porte-cochere or a covered entrance large enough for vehicles to pass through, extended from the central bay of the front porch, but this was removed when the south terrace was converted into a parking lot. In 1983, a service tunnel was excavated, connecting the basement-level corridor to the staff entrance. It is cut directly through the living granite on which the hotel rests. The concert hall, east of the hotel, was built by Stanley in 1909 with the assistance of Henry "Lord Cornwallis" Rogers, the same architect who designed his summer cottage. According to popular legend, it was built by F.O. Stanley as a gift for his wife, Flora. The interior is decorated in the same manner as the music room in the main hotel and vaguely resembles that of the Boston Symphony Hall (McKim, Mead & White, 1900) with which the Stanleys would have been familiar. The stage features a trap door, used for theatrical entrances and exits. The lower level once housed a two-lane bowling alley which was removed during the ownership of Maxwell Abbell. It possibly resembled the bowling alley at the Stanley's Hunnewell Club in Newton, pictures of which are archived in the Newton Free Library. The hall underwent extensive repair and renovation in the 2000s. Once called Stanley Manor, this smaller hotel between the main structure and the concert hall is a 2:3 scaled-down version of the main hotel. Unlike its model, the manor was fully heated from completion in 1910 which may indicate that Stanley planned to use it as a winter resort when the main building was closed for the season. However, unlike many other Colorado mountain towns now famous for their winter sports, Estes Park never attracted off-season visitors in Stanley's day and the manor remained empty for much of the year. Today it is called The Lodge and serves as a bed-and-breakfast that is off-limits to the public. To bring guests from the nearest train depot in the foothills town of Lyons, Colorado, Stanley's car company produced a fleet of specially-designed steam-powered vehicles called Mountain Wagons that seated multiple passengers. Upon opening, the hotel was alleged to be one of the few in the world powered entirely by electricity. However, lack of available power induced the installation of an auxiliary gas lighting system in June 1911. On June 25 – the day after the pipes had been filled – an explosion occurred that injured a maid and damaged the structure, though contemporary newspaper articles differ on certain details. An article from a newspaper at the time started the following

"The Stanley Hotel, built at a cost of $500,000, was partly wrecked last night by an explosion of gas. Eight persons were injured, one seriously. None of the guests were injured. Elizabeth Wilson, of Lancaster, Pa., a hotel employee, was hurled from the second to the first floor, and both ankles were broken. The other seven are negro [sic] waiters."

When the Lancaster paper reprinted the story, the editor noted that Elizabeth Wilson's name did not appear in local directories and she could not be identified as a Lancastrian. Similar accounts in local Colorado papers give the maid's name as Elizabeth Lambert and convey various dramatic details that are not confirmed by other articles. The most comprehensive and detailed article on the incident appeared on June 29 in the Fort Collins Express and seems to be the most accurate – positively refuting that the maid had been "hurled from the second to the first floor.” That article said this is the incident

"The chambermaid, Lizzie Leitenbergher, had both ankles broken, it is thought from the concussion of the explosion, and was thrown into a hole in the floor. She was not, however, thrown through into the dining room, being caught by the timbers and held until rescued. She was taken to a hospital in Longmont. She had been in the employ of the hotel ever since it was built and came here from Philadelphia."

The only other injuries mentioned in that article were as follows "Two waiters also sustained slight injuries, one suffering a dislocated hip and the other being struck across the face by a flying plank. Neither of these, however, is in serious condition."

Stanley operated the hotel almost as a pastime, remarking once that he spent more money than he made each summer. It was an invite-only gathering place for friends, and haut monde of the time. Haut monde meaning “for fashionable society”. The boujie bastards. John Philip Sousa, the renowned former US Military composer, directed the band at the house’s opening. His autograph on the bottom of Flora’s piano, which Sousa tuned himself, was mistaken for graffiti by a tuner in the 1990s and removed.

Harry Houdini performed in the ornate concert hall; the trapdoor he used for his famous escape act still exists onstage. And while the men shot pool and drank, the women would gather for various letter writing campaigns. The whiskey bar – now one of the state’s largest – provided a common ground between the sexes. Yay, whiskey!

In 1930, Freelan sold the buildings to a corporation who transformed the property into a hotel. With the nearby national park still growing, their success was minimal. After attempts at a revival, the property was sold to John Cullen in the mid-1990s. Budgets were so stretched that at the time of the sale, the turndown service consisted of the top bed duvet being placed on nails across the window because they couldn’t afford drapes.

The hotel was not really in a great place for a while. That would change thanks in part to someone we've talked about before… this weird guy named Stephen King. King has told the story many times over the years. In a 1977 interview by the Literary Guild, King recounted "While we were living [in Boulder] we heard about this terrific old mountain resort hotel and decided to give it a try. But when we arrived, they were just getting ready to close for the season, and we found ourselves the only guests in the place—with all those long, empty corridors." King and his wife were served dinner in an empty dining room accompanied by canned orchestral music: "Except for our table all the chairs were up on the tables. So the music is echoing down the hall, and, I mean, it was like God had put me there to hear that and see those things. And by the time I went to bed that night, I had the whole book [The Shining] in my mind." In another retelling, King said "I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed. I got up, lit a cigarette, sat in a chair looking out the window at the Rockies, and by the time the cigarette was done, I had the bones of The Shining firmly set in my mind.

In the front matter of the book, King tactfully states "Some of the most beautiful resort hotels in the world are located in Colorado, but the hotel in these pages is based on none of them. The Overlook and the people associated with it exist wholly in the author's imagination."

So not only was this hotel the institution of the book the Shining, it was the location of the doll shot for the 1997 tv miniseries of The Shining. Not only that, the hotel was the filming location for another fantastic movie. It serves as the hotel that the dynamic duo of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne stay in the critically acclaimed, and one of my personal favorite movies; Dumb and Dumber. Several tv shows have also recorded episodes there and the band Murder By Death have played an annual winter show at the location since 2014. I highly recommend their track “As Long As There is Whiskey in The World”.

King's novel is based on the famous Stanley Hotel in Colorado, but the exterior shots in the movie are of Oregon's Timberline Lodge. Kubrick agreed to change the infamous room number from 217 to 237 (which does not exist) in the movie because the hotel was worried people would not want to stay in the room in the future.

Ironically, room 217 is most often requested at Timberline Lodge, according to the hotel's website.

Ok so all of that is well and good but let's be honest, We're here for another reason, the creepy shit! Oddly enough the history of the hotel didn't hold much to attribute to possible haunting or paranormal activity. But that hasn't stopped the belief by many people that the hotel is haunted. Let's check out some of the haunted spots and some stories.

Room 217

Perhaps the most famed spot in the Stanley Hotel, this is where horror writer Stephen King spent the night and got the inspiration for his 1977 bestseller "The Shining." You can soak up the same Rocky Mountain views that King got when he stayed there. An added amenity? The room has a library of King novels. The room is thought to be haunted by Elizabeth Wilson, AKA Mrs. Wilson. She was the hotel’s head housekeeper and, during a storm in 1911, was injured during an explosion as she was lighting the lanterns in room 217. She survived, though broke her ankles and her spirit seems to be a regular in the room. Guests have reported items moved, luggage unpacked, and lights being turned on and off. Oh, and Mrs. Wilson is old-fashioned: She doesn’t like it when unmarried guests shack up together, so some couples have reported feeling a cold force come between them. One of the biggest myths about the room is that it’s never available. Not true! You can actually book it and stay there if you have the balls to. We’re in!

The Vortex

From an architectural standpoint, the staircase between floors in the hotel’s main guesthouse is a stunner. But the area has also been dubbed “The Vortex” a natural spiral of energy. It’s also known as the “rapid transit system” for ghosts that are known to haunt the hotel.

Concert Hall

There’s a lot of paranormal hubbub said to be happening in this famed concert hall. Paul, one of the well-known ghosts haunting The Stanley, was a jack-of-all trades around the hotel. Among his duties? Enforcing an 11 p.m. curfew at the hotel, which could be why guests and workers hear “get out” being uttered late at night. The area is also a favorite spot for hotel founder Flora Stanley’s ghost to play the piano. A few of Paul’s antics: A construction worker reported he felt Paul nudge him while he was sanding the floors and tour groups on The Stanley ghost tour have reported he flickered a flashlight for them. Another ghost known to wander about the Concert Hall is Lucy, who quite possibly was a runaway or homeless woman who found refuge in the hall. She entertains the requests of ghost hunters, often communicating with them with flashing lights. Stanley historians, however, aren’t quite sure about her pre-death connection to the hotel.

Room 401

More than a century ago, the entire fourth floor was a cavernous attic. It’s where female employees, children, and nannies stayed. Now, today’s guests will report hearing children running around, laughing, giggling and playing. Plus, there’s a famous closet that tends to open and shut on its own in this room.

Room 428

Really, you get a badge of bravery for staying in any room on the fourth floor. But, bonus points if you can book room 428. Guests have reported hearing footsteps above them and furniture moving about. But that’s actually physically impossible given the slope of the roof, tour guides say. The real haunt in this room, though, is a friendly cowboy who appears at the corner of the bed.

Grand Staircase

From antique mirrors and portraits, there’s plenty to distract the eye on the grand staircase at The Stanley. But it could also be a popular passageway for the hotel’s resident ghosts. In 2016, a visitor from Houston snapped some photos on the grand staircase and, upon returning home and reviewing them, spotted an apparatus at the top of the staircase. The thing is he doesn’t remember anybody else being on the staircase at the time he was taking the photographs. The ghostly image of a woman is at the top of the stairs.

Underground Caves

If you go on the 75-minute night spirit tour at the Stanley (you don’t have to be a hotel guest to get in on it, but you should book in advance!), your tour will come to an eerie halt at the end with a visit to the underground cave system. Workers moved about the hotel through the caves in the early days so it makes sense this is a popular haunt. Skeptics will pass off the haunts as breezes from the historic piping and ventilation systems. But, beneath the hotel is a higher-than-average concentration of limestone and quartz, which some ghost hunters believe help capture energy at the property.

Well, now that we've talked about some of the hotspots, let's check out some stories about things that have happened there!

This first group comes from Kirin Johnson. He has had three separate incidents!

My Story

Now I will share the three separate paranormal experiences that have changed my belief in ghosts. Despite being a former skeptic, I came to the Stanley with an open mind. While I’ve seen orbs and have had several strange experiences that I can’t explain, what I experienced on Friday, May 26, 2017, was certainly the most intense and frightening experience of them all.

Experience #1: A Trolley By The Door

At approximately 8:00 p.m., my partner and I came back from a quick trip to the grocery store. Out of nowhere, we heard the sounds of what seemed to be a trolley that was outside of our door. My partner immediately walked over to the door to see who it was. I thought to myself that perhaps it was room service, but I knew we didn’t make any requests. Shockingly, my partner looked through the peephole, and there was no one in sight. Although what happened was certainly a shock to us, it wasn’t enough to convince me that it was a ghost.

At around 11:00 p.m., we decided to reach out to Ms. Elizabeth Wilson (or any other ghost that may have been hanging out in our room). I figured that even if nothing were to come out of it, I can at least say “I tried.” I said to Ms. Wilson: “If you are really here with us, prove it.” I repeated this a couple of times. This was the last thing I had said before I finally went to bed.

Experience #2: A Big Bang That Woke Up Other Visitors

It was around 2:30 in the morning when I was woken up from a loud noise. Despite my partner being a heavy sleeper, the noise was loud enough to wake him up as well. The loud noise sounded like it came from someone who picked up a large and heavy object, and then slammed it to the floor.

Interestingly, it wasn’t just my partner and I who woke up from this mysterious noise. Just a moment or two after we woke up, we heard other guests around the hotel speaking and whispering. I was so scared, I asked my partner to put the television on so I could just forget about it and go back to sleep. However, he didn’t want the television on. He was more interested in finding out where the noise came from, then going back to sleep.

A Strange Discovery The Next Morning

When I woke up the next morning, I saw a 20 oz. bottle of Mountain Dew on the floor. My partner’s soda somehow fell to the floor in the middle of a quiet night. What’s even more odd is that this bottle was loud enough to wake up not just my partner and I, but also other guests who were near our room. I don’t believe it was the soda that caused the loud noise. I believe it was a ghost responding to our request to prove it really exists.

Other Guests Who Say They Heard A Loud Bang

Before we left room 217, I overheard a conversation between several people outside of our room. They were talking about hearing a loud noise late in the night. I spoke with a woman who told us she was staying in a room directly above ours. After I asked her about the loud noise, she said it woke her up around 2:30. The woman described the noise as the fall of a “large barrel.” According to the woman, there was another guest in room 324 who also heard the noise.

While on our way to check-out, we ran into a young man who stayed in room 326 with his father. In addition to taking pictures of orbs that were floating outside of room 217 the previous night, he too said he was woken up from what he described as a “loud boom.”

Experience #3: The Creepy Laugh Of A Woman

While I thought that the extremely loud and unexplained bang was enough to convince me that there really are ghosts roaming the Earth, one more thing happened that night.

At around 4:00 a.m., I woke up and realized that less than two hours after the loud bang occurred, it was completely silent in our room. My partner was sound asleep. Just a minute or two after I woke up, out of nowhere I heard the sounds of a chuckle from a woman. Interestingly, it sounded like the ghost was giggling just centimeters away from my ears.

I believe that the chuckle had probably come from Elizabeth Wilson. Although it certainly was frightening and quite creepy to me, I was extremely tired. I quickly went back to sleep.

For more information on this strange ghost story, visit OdditiesBizarre.com. For information on the fascinating history of the Stanley Hotel, visit their official website: StanleyHotel.com

After staying just one night in the Stanley’s room 217, I went from a skeptic, to a believer in ghosts. If I ever go back to this hotel, I will likely request another room with many reports of supernatural activity. However, regardless of what room you visit at the Stanley Hotel, if you come with an open mind, you just might have a paranormal experience you will never forget.

Wow... That's a crazy stay!

This next one did not have a name associated with it.

“Over the weekend, about 15 coworkers and myself had our company trip to The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, known for being Stephen King’s inspiration for “The Shining”. We took an 8pm ghost tour, where we joined about 15 other people to get guided around the property and told stories about it’s history and creepy things that are said to have happened. We were told to take lots of pictures, I’m sure to try and capture orbs or ghosts. Many green orbs were caught in pictures, but I don’t think anything is as creepy as the photo taken by my coworker- a little girl in a hot pink dress, who was definitely not on our tour. And apparently years ago, a young girl (12-13) by the name of Lucy was squatting in the basement of the concert hall (which is where this photo was taken), and discovered upon plans to begin some construction. She was forced to leave, the night got below freezing, and she froze to death. Everyone on my tour has vouched that this girl was not on our tour (who wouldn’t remember someone wearing that hot pink?). The man pictured is our tour guide- no one would have been in front of him. I am convinced this is the ghost of Lucy. Just one more added note, though I doubt if anyone would believe me, but there was only ONE time throughout the tour where I felt any strange energy or feeling, and it was right here, heading down to the basement of the concert hall.”

Fucking little kid ghosts… No thanks.

This next one is fun! Again no name was presented in the article.

“I’m pretty skeptical when it comes to supernatural or paranormal happenings but one thing in particular really messed with my head; at the beginning of the tour you follow tour guide to the music hall which would often be occupied by children playing during the day time.When you arrive in the hall you’re are seated in the observation box and given an introduction of sorts explaining that none of the spirits or activity are angry or violent and that alot of the activity was thought to be that of children (especially in this hall). So, our guide asked by show of hands if any of the tour members are good with kids to which I, along with 4 or 5 others raised our hands; everyone who raised their hands she gave a dum dum sucker to for us to hold out on our palm as if we were handing it to a child and depending on the spirits comfortablity with you they would supposedly pull on the the sucker. Some people claimed to feel movement, some didn’t feel a thing but, I personally felt and watched this fucking sucker drag from the middle of my hand all the way off to the ground.

Nice… sounds like fun!!

Here's another fun story'

“When I was a kid, the Stanley was just a pretty hotel with dumpy rooms (1970s canary yellow and olive drab. Borderline craphole). We never stayed there, it was just a place to get a good, cheap lunch. (Obviously, this was before the miniseries, when it was still cheap and not haunted).

Anyway, I’d screw around and explore the hotel because hotels are fun to screw around in and explore. My brother, my sister, and myself were wandering the hotel after lunch, poking our heads into open rooms and whatnot. Well, we round the corner of the hallway and to our right is an small opening in the wall of the hall leading to a set of very narrow and steep circular stairs descending into pitch black darkness. None of us had the cojones to check it out. Wish we had, I never saw that staircase again.”

3rd floor

“My ex-girlfriend and I went there around New Years a couple of years ago. I can confirm it is very haunted. On the 3rd floor, my ex turned white as a sheet after stopping in front of a particular door. I asked her what had happened, she said that something had ran their hand from her backside up to the nape of her neck. There was no one else around but us. When the docent got all of the tour members gathered around the door she had the experience at, she began to tell the group about an apparition that likes to grope pretty young ladies and run his hand from their back side up to their neck. Super Spooky!”

Here's another!

The ballroom, “It’s absolutely beautiful- and haunted. My sister lived in Colorado for years so one winter we were visiting we decided to make the trip to Estes Park. Well being the rule breakers we are in my family, we ditched the official tour and took our own. We came across this big room with chairs covered in white cloth. We decided to “play ghost” and drape the cloths over ourselves, pretend to be ghosts, and take pictures. We, of course, thought we were hilarious. The ghosts decided to delete every picture we took in that room. All the pictures we took before and after were still on the camera, just the ones where we were playing ghost were deleted. Weird place!”

Interesting!

Here's a quick one from an investigator.

“In a bathroom at the Stanley the shampoo bottle was thrown into the tub once when we were investigating 1302 once. I’ve had my voice recorder knocked over. As far as seeing anything with my own eyes or objects thrown at me, no. Not yet. I think it takes a lot of energy for spirits to manipulate our physical environment, so it’s rare, but it does happen, yeah.”

Well that's some crazy shit.

Ok one more…. This is a retelling of a coyote of sisters doing a ghost hunt with numerous paranormal investigators from the Ghost Hunters tv show.

"Our night started in Room 401. I have to admit: I was a bit nervous. I had never been on an investigation of this scale before. It didn’t take long for things to start happening.

Sitting patiently, my sister began to feel what she would later describe as "waves of rolling chills" that extended from her feet all the way up to her head, as well as the sensation that all of her hair was standing up on her head. Simultaneously, a fellow investigator’s K-II meter (which measures electromagnetic frequency, or EMF) began to light up, denoting a change in the room’s electromagnetic field. Paranormal or not, we were jacked, and the night was only beginning!

Down the hall in Room 418, my sister and I had our first encounter with an Ovilus, or "ghost box" or "spirit box."At one point, the Ovilus said "Dawn" (my sister’s name) as well as "dime," which was a word/image that a fellow investigator had agreed to use as a trigger word to communicate with her recently deceased mother.

Soon we were out of the main hotel and into the balcony of the property’s Music Hall. Once our group got settled in, we heard shuffling sounds from the stage and main floor. At one point, a mini Maglite flashlight, which was set up to turn on and off with an-ever-so-slight twist of its lamp head, turned on without assistance. This technique has been utilized on numerous episodes of "Ghost Hunters," yet continues to draw scrutiny from naysayers. Was a spirit in fact making contact, or was the battery simply completing the circuit and turning on the flashlight’s beam? Who knows? I’m still not sure. But I’ve certainly never experienced a flashlight turning on by itself like that before. I chalked it up as another new experience in a weekend of new experiences.

But what happened next had to be the climax of our weekend at the Stanley Hotel. As our group shifted down to the basement of the Music Hall, my sister and I decided to separate from the larger group to check out an interior room with a door that a spirit named Lucy liked to close, and had already closed, several times so far that evening – even with a heavy, upholstered chair propped in front of it.

Dawn and I sat down with a handful of other investigators in the pitch-black room and began introducing ourselves to Lucy, asking her politely to shut the door if she was present. It wasn’t long before she obliged. I was literally about four feet away from the doorway when, sure enough, the door began move away from the wall and toward the jamb, closing the door almost completely. Elated, we thanked Lucy for her efforts. Then we asked her to do it again, and after hearing rustling noises behind me and to my left, it happened again a second time.

Upping the ante, we put a chair in front of the door to see if we could get it to happen with the chair blocking the door’s path, to no avail. A few minutes later, the group decided to try to get the door to close again without the chair to block its path, like it had two times prior. Moving the chair myself, I pushed the door tightly against the wall to ensure the door wasn’t leaning forward, building momentum and closing due to some mechanical issue such as a faulty hinge. But I couldn’t make it start a closing motion without a deliberate effort. Clearly something had to be shutting this door, right? We asked Lucy a third time to please shut the door, and almost as if on command, the door began to shut again. About halfway between the completed motion, I yelled, "Slam it!" and that’s exactly what happened. We experienced the door shutting a total of five times (a fourth time after asking Lucy to give us a sign she wanted us to leave, and the final time when the door closed behind us as we were leaving the room).

Before long, we were off to famed room 217: the one that had King himself had stayed in, the one that had inspired King to write his book and the one that was the impetus for coming all this way in the first place.

Purportedly haunted by an extremely tidy chambermaid, the host investigators purposely littered random items across the bathroom floor in hopes that Mrs. Wilson would tidy up during our time there. Interestingly, my sister heard something in the bathroom almost immediately upon turning the lights out. It turns out that a photo taken before the lights were turned out would show the items had indeed moved from their original locations. Coincidence? Could very well be. But hard to argue at the same time. As 1 a.m. came and the night’s investigation ended, the activity continued, even into the next morning. Up at 6 a.m. to pack up, check out and make the drive back to the airport, I heard the distinct sound of female laughter. I immediately thought, who would be up at this hour, especially after a long night of investigating? Then something told me to check the closet, the bathroom closet. I really didn’t want to look, but I did anyway.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw a plastic access panel to the crawl space behind the closet removed, now laying precariously in front of the opening. A quick glance into the space revealed the customary plumbing and electrical works, but why the laughter? Was it children playing in the hall? Was it coming through the way from Room 401? What exactly caused the panel to become dislodged from the screw that was holding it in place anyway? The questions raced and the answers eluded. It really was anyone’s guess, and considering where I was and the weekend I had just experienced, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Crazy stuff!!! What do you guys think about this place? What have you heard? Let us know.

https://theknow-old.denverpost.com/2019/10/18/colorado-horror-films-halloween/226413/

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Monday Aug 30, 2021

The Honolulu Strangler (He Totally Did It.)

Monday Aug 30, 2021

Today we're taking the train to a land of paradise. Warm climate, great surf, beautiful women, and…. the Honolulu Strangler? That's right we're taking a trip to Hawaii and the land of unsolved murders. You know how we like our unsolved crimes here at the midnight train! So without further ado… Let's get into what we do know about the case and see if we can solve it like we do with so many other things.

So the Honolulu Strangler was a serial killer who was active between 1985-1986. He tortured and killed 5 women. The five victims were found with their hands bound behind their backs, sexually assaulted and strangled. The strangler’s victims ranged in ages between 17 and 36 and came from different walks of life. The police had several suspects including one that… Well… is most likely the killer but… You know, the police let him go. Well get to him in a bit. First we are going to discuss the victims and then the few suspects they had. There's not a huge amount of information out there. Every source has the same information so we'll give you what we have found.

Let's start with the victims.

The first victim was Vicki Gail Purdy. She was an attractive, petite 25 year old blonde who was a transplant from North Carolina. She lived in Miliani with her husband Gary. Gary was stationed in Hawaii as a helicopter pilot for the U.S. Army. Vicki worked at the Wahiawa Video Rental store, which was a point of contention between her and Gary. Gary Purdy had long objected to his wife’s place of work, for the video store was known to sell pornographic films. The police found that Vicki liked to go dancing at clubs with her friends. On May 29 Vicki went to a club with a couple friends in Waikiki. Gary was expecting her back around 9. When she did not return home Gary started to page Vicki and continued to page her throughout the night. For you young kids out there, a pager is what you used to get ahold of someone before there were cell phones. You'd get a page and then you'd have to find this thing called a pay phone to call the number back. A PayPhone is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic outdoor areas, with pre-payment by inserting money (usually coins) or by billing a credit or debit card, or a telephone card.… It was nuts! At any rate… the next morning Gary finds his wife's car in the parking lot of the Shorebird Hotel. Police were contacted by a cab driver who said he had dropped Vicki off there the night before sometime around midnight. Vicki's body was found the morning of may 30th on an embankment near Keehi Lagoon. She was found with her hands tied behind her back. She had been raped, then strangled, and then killed. At first the police checked out any possible connection to the video store. On top of Gary not liking her working there, the store had a bit of a reputation already. In December of 1984, two women, a worker and the co-owner of the store, were stabbed to death at the store. Police initially took the angle that a porn obsessed man had stalked and killed Vicki. After investigation though police could find no link to the video store and the crime. They were back to square one. Her husband, Gary Purdy was a chief warrant officer with the 24th Aviation Battalion. At six feet tall and 165 pounds, he could obviously handle his own. He told media Purdy she had once “knocked the —- out of me” during an argument. He believed it would have taken two people to nab her.

Victim number two was 17 year old Regina Sakamoto. Regina was petite like Vicki, but moreso. She was only 4'11" and weighed only 105lbs. Also like Vicki, Regina was a transplant. She was originally from Kansas. People said Regina was a shy quiet girl who had planned on attending college in Hawaii in the fall. Regina's father was a military serviceman stationed in Hawaii. On January 14,1986 Regina spoke with her boyfriend at around 7:15am. She had told him that she would be late as she was not catching her usual bus. She would be missing for about a month after this. In February her body was found. She had been bound with her hands behind her back, raped and strangled just like Vicki. Oh and she was found near Keehi Lagoon as well… Same as Vicki.

After the discovery of Regina's body, homicide detectives became convinced they had a serial killer on their hands. Due to the fact that both women were found with their hands tied behind their backs, both had been raped, and both had been strangled, police surmised the cases were linked. Add to that they were both found in the same area, and it was all but assured. The Keehi Lagoon area was part of an urban beach park. There was ready access to the ocean and it was dotted with tiny islands. It was fairly secluded and made for a good dumping ground for the killer.

Two weeks after Regina Sakamoto disappeared, but before her body was found, the killer struck again. This time it was 21 year old Denise Hughes that was the victim. Denise was a native of Washington state. Like Regina, she was also used to using the bus system and regularly took the bus to and from work. Denise failed to show up to work at her job as a secretary for a phone company. Police suspect she met the killer at the bus stop or on the bus. In February, three fishermen would find her body. There were a few differences between her body and the first two. First off she was found near Moanalua stream and not by Keehi Lagoon. Second, her body was wrapped in a blue tarp. Despite these differences and the fact that the body was pretty decomposed, they were able to assess that it was the same killer, due to the fact that she'd been bound the same way and strangled. Regina's brother would later do an interview with khon2.com and say

“She was late for school that day,” “It was in Waipahu. She was sitting at the bus stop in front of Diners in Waipahu.”

Her brother was in 5th grade at the time. He would go on to say:

"I used to look up to her. She’d babysit me and stuff like that", adding that she was “very bookish, smart, fun loving, everybody’s friend, that kind of thing.”

When asked about revisiting the case, her brother says he wished they could test for DNA. Unfortunately they could only test for blood type at the time.

“It’s kind of sad that both my parents, you know, they’re not here to, even if it does get resolved, they’re not here to see it,” Omar Sakamoto said. “I just want, what is that, closure.”

This interview was about 5 years ago when there was talk of reopening the case or at least revisiting some of the evidence.

The killings prompted the Honolulu Police Department to form a task force that included an FBI profiler who helped put together a profile of the person they believed could be the suspect.

He was described as a Caucasian male in his 30s to 40s with no criminal record. The profiler also suspected the killer targeted women near where he lived or worked.

“He’s an individual who may be, at this particular juncture, may be experiencing girlfriend or marital problems and the selection of victims is probably the result of opportunity or chance encounters,” former Honolulu Police Chief Douglas Gibb said back in 1986.

Former homicide lieutenant Gary Dias was the head of HPD’s homicide detail at the time. “DNA could’ve been a much greater asset for us in that particular case,” Dias said, “and it’s useless in today’s age, because 82 percent of the world are types O and A.”

“Digital evidence is extremely important toward the advancement of investigations,” Dias said. Unfortunately back then, there was no cell phone video, and surveillance video wasn’t common.

The next victim was 25 year old Louise Medeiros. According to a newspaper article we found from Hawaii from 1986, Louise J. Medeiros was a young woman who had lived much of life before she knew how to live it anyway. She'd left her large family on Kauai as a teenager, opting for independence and uncertainty on her own on Oahu. In six years, she'd returned to Kauai once, for a bowling tournament, and then only called home. She'd been on welfare, gotten in trouble with the law and lived with beach people at Makaha. Three months pregnant when she was killed, the 25-year-old had never married, had three children and a daughter in a foster home. But most of the family worries about their prodigal sister were soothed when Louise came home in March for a reading of her mother's will. The family found her centered and motivated, no longer the alienated rebel. Then the day after the reunion she was gone... abducted, police assume, from a bus stop near the airport on the evening of March 26. "She was finally happy. She had found peace within herself," recalled her eldest sister, Brenda Durant, of the last visit. "We were lying in my bedroom. She'd laugh

and laugh." On March 26, 1986,

Medeiros boarded a red-eye flight to Oahu. From there, Medeiros told her family that she planned to take a bus to Waipahu in order to meet them following the tragic death of their mother. Medeiros was last seen alive leaving the plane after it landed in Honolulu.

Medeiros's body was found by construction workers on April 2 near the Waikele Stream. Like the other four victims, Medeiros was found partially clothed. (The killer always removed the pants and undergarments and left his victims nude from the waist down.) She had also had her hands tied behind her back. Medeiros had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

In order to catch the killer, the HPD began sending their female officers undercover to the Honolulu International Airport and to Keehi Lagoon. By now, it was clear that the killer favored out-of-town victims or those with limited connections to Hawaii.

The killer's last known victim was 36 year old Linda Pesce. Her roommate would be the last person to see her alive. Her roommate said she saw Linda when she left home on the morning of April 29, 1986. The next morning the roommate was informed that Linda had not shown up for work. This was odd to the roommate. She was informed a little later that Lindas car had been found near a viaduct on route 92/interstate H-1. It was at this point the roommate reported her missing to the police. Motorists claimed that on the evening of April 29 they saw the car’s emergency lights flashing, indicating it had stalled. They also described a Caucasian or mixed ancestry man in his 30s or 40s, of medium build, and a cream-colored, american made van with letters on its rear windows, both beside Pesce’s vehicle.

In May of 2018, the TV show Breaking Homicide returned to the case and the show’s investigators suggested that the Honolulu Strangler may have also killed 19-year-old Lisa Au in 1982. Au was last seen alive just after midnight on January 21, 1982. Her car was later found near Kapaa Quarry Road. Ten days later, on January 31, 1982, a jogger found Au’s nude, decomposing body on Tantalus Lookout in Waikiki. Police were never able to officially list Au’s cause of death.

Ok, now… This is where shit kinda gets crazy! Depending on the source things get a little mixed up. We've found at least two different accounts of what happened next but they both involve the same man, a man who most people think is the killer.

The first story we found was that an unidentified(at the time) 43 year old white male came to the police claiming that a psychic (also unidentified) told him where Linda Pesces body was. He said the psychic informed him the body was located on Sand Island. The man then led police to a spot on the island but Pesces body was not there. Police decided to search the entire island and then found her body. She had been strangled and her hands were bound with parachute cord like the other victims. From what I've encountered on this particular part of the story, he purposely did not go near the spot where they eventually found her body. Sounds sus af. And that just sounded weird coming from me. Moving on.

OK so that's the first version of the story. We found another version that goes a little something like this:

The as yet unidentified mean first came to police attention when Linda Pesce’s body had not yet been found. He voluntarily presented himself to the authorities claiming he had found some bones on Sand Island. When investigators processed the bones they discovered they were from a pig. The man was put under surveillance and, on May 9, was arrested due to circumstantial evidence linking him to the serial killings.

So we found both of these stories in several different places and wanted to present them both. From here on out everything pretty much lines up through most sources.

So who the hell is this guy? Well it would come out much later that the mans name was Howard Gay Dutcher. So who was Howard Gay and why was he considered the prime suspect even though he'd helped find the body of Linda Pesce? Let's have a look at this guy shall we?

Gay was born in 1943 in Buffalo, New York. Not much is known about his personal history other than he joined the army and was stationed at George Air Force Base, a 30-minute drive from Apple Valley, California, where he lived for fifteen years. He was eventually discharged in 1965. Gay attended Victor Valley College, received his associate degree, and was employed by Continental Telephone in Victorville, where he held jobs as a lineman and teletype repairman. In the same year as his discharge, he married Rita Thompson, his college sweetheart, and fathered two children with her: Justin and Jason. In 1968, he was employed by Flying Tiger Line at Los Angeles International Airport. Gay’s role was to train cargo aircraft mechanics around the world and, in 1980, he was relocated to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Howard lived in a rented three-bedroom home in Ewa Beach. He divorced from his wife in 1983. One day, his family decided to surprise him by traveling to Honolulu, but when they showed up he was upset and even refused to let them in his home. He made them stay in a hotel and shipped them back to California two days later. His neighbors told reporters he was a gentleman, always willing to help others. A female assistant manager who worked at La Mariana Sailing Club in 1986 recognized Gay as a man who routinely stared at her, asked her to accept rides from him, and once reacted furiously when she once again refused.

The FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit profiled the Honolulu Strangler as being a Caucasian male in his late 30s or early 40s who had no prior criminal record and may have been experiencing marital or girlfriend problems at the time. It said the killer may have lived or worked in the area between Sand Island and Waipahu. He was also an opportunist who cruised for victims and struck when opportunity presented itself, rather than a stalker who chose his victims. And due to prior witnesses, they had suspected the killer drove a cream colored van with words on the back.

All of these things fit Gay to a T. On May 9th 1986, police arrested Gay. Gays girlfriend had started to police the he like bondage sex and would routinely tie her up with her hands behind her back, like the victims. Another way he fit the profile and the police thought him to be a viable suspect is that his ex wife told police that each killing coincides with a domestic dispute the couple had. The ex wife says that Gay would leave the house after the fights and would not return until the next day. On top of that he was connected to all the crime scenes since he worked at the airport (near where most of the victims were dumped) and lived in close proximity to Waipahu, where two victims disappeared and Louise Medeiros’ body was found. He also drove a cream-colored, american made van with letters on its rear windows, had a vasectomy like the man who raped three of the victims, and possibly had access to parachute cord due to his job. If that were not enough, Linda Pesce’s boss claimed she had written down Gay’s phone number on a note pad on the day she disappeared, since at that time Linda was looking for customers in the airport area. Gay offered to take a polygraph examination which (depending on the source) gave an inconclusive result, or a failure result, and consented to a search at his home. Despite all the elements against him, he was released after being held and questioned for ten hours, since prosecutors Peter Carlisle and Michael McGuigan decided they had insufficient evidence to win a case.

Two months after the arrest a woman came forward to claim she'd seen Linda chatting with a man the night she disappeared. The woman was brought in and shown a lineup and picked Gays photo out of the line up. The woman said she did not want to be a witness as she was scared because the man had seen her as well.

So what happened to Gay after this. Well… We'll tell ya. The killings stopped after Gay’s arrest and release. After his release he stated, “The police have released me, that’s all I know. They (the investigators) have plenty of good cause. They’re doing their job”..Gay returned to California in June 1986 to see his son, Jason, graduate from high school. Three days later, Jason was killed in an automobile accident, while changing a tire on the side of the road which prompted Howard to become a born-again Christian. Gay later worked for FedEx in Memphis, Tennessee, presumably when the latter acquired Flying Tiger Line, in 1988. He died of kidney failure in November of 2003.

We found his obituary… Not one mention of his time in Hawaii...it reads as follows:

Howard Gay lived in Apple Valley, California, for fifteen years. He was stationed at George Air Force Base, where he was honorably discharged in 1965. He attended Victor Valley College, where he received his associate degree. Howard was employed at Continental Telephone in Victorville, California, as a lineman and later a teletype repairman. In 1968, he was employed by Flying Tiger Lines at LAX, and later Federal Express in Memphis, Tennessee. Howard traveled throughout the world, training aircraft mechanics on airframe and powerplant systems on large cargo planes.

Interesting….

At any rate, police spoke to many people and followed other leads on cream colored vans and things like that. Nothing solid ever came from anything else other than the Howard Gay stuff. Police that worked the case spoke years later and they all are certain that Gay was the killer. Unfortunately since he is dead and since no DNA evidence is available we may never actually get a solid answer on this case, despite there being a reward of $25,000. This seems to be one of those weird unsolved cases that everyone seems to know who did it. Crazy case!

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Wednesday Aug 25, 2021

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Wednesday Aug 25, 2021

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Monday Aug 23, 2021

Creepy Ohio

Monday Aug 23, 2021

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Well well well, here we are. Home state time. Creepy Ohio is where we are heading today! We're probably going to skip over the big boys like the Ohio State reformatory and places like that because well… You know about them. There will be plenty of good stuff though we promise!

Let's start off in good ol… Dayton? Sure Dayton it is! We're going to visit the Victoria Theatre. Fun fact about this place...The Victoria is one of the oldest continually operated theaters on the continent! It cost $225,000 to build and opened as the Turner opera house in 1866. If you're wondering, that's just under 4 million in 2021 money. According to an article, newspapers at the time called it the best theater west of Philadelphia! Impressive! General admission was $1. The best seats in the house were between $10 and $12. Arson was suspected of having caused an all-consuming fire May 16, 1869, which destroyed the theater at a loss of $500,000, about 10 million today, of which insurance covered only $128,000, 2.5 million, so that sucks pretty bad. The rebuild took a few years and the theater reopened in 1871. The opera house resumed operations as "The Music Hall". In 1885 it became "The Grand Opera House". On September 18, 1899, it became the "Victoria Opera House", and in 1903, it became the Victoria Theatre, two years after the death of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Smooth sailing from here on out right? Wrong? 1913 brought about the Great Dayton Flood. The Dayton flood of March 1913 was caused by a series of severe winter rain storms that hit the Midwest in late March. Within three days, 8–11 inches (200–280 mm For all you civilized people out there) of rain fell throughout the Great Miami River watershed on already saturated soil, resulting in more than 90 percent runoff. The river and its tributaries overflowed. The existing levees failed, and downtown Dayton was flooded up to 20 feet (6.1 m) deep. This flood is still the flood of record for the Great Miami River watershed. The volume of water that passed through the river channel during this storm equaled the monthly flow over Niagara Falls. Daaaaaaaang! The ground floor of the theater was severely damaged. The theater's interior was rebuilt and remodeled. Ok now that disaster is out of the way…. Wait… What's that? There's more? Jeez… On January 16, 1918, fire struck again and gutted portions of the building. Due to WW1 the rebuild was delayed due to a materials shortage. After the Armistice, The Victoria saw extensive interior remodeling and in 1919 re-opened as "The Victory Theatre" – a name commemorating the American war effort and its result. For many years after this, the theater had an amazing run and saw many of the top performers of the days come through. Al Jolson, The Marx Brothers, Helen Hayes, Fannie Brice, George M. Cohan, Lynn Fontayne, Gertrude Lawrence, Alfred Lunt, and some schhlub named Harry Houdini were just some of the big names to grace the theater! In the thirties the theatre was fitted to also play talking pictures! Here's another fun tidbit of trivia, chainsaw was one of the pioneers of talking pictures! He started in the first talkie ever, it was called, "I Can't Believe This, What is this voodoo?" It was not good. In fact, don’t look it up on YouTube, it's really really bad. Over the years the change in times and the way the city of Dayton was headed, threatened to close the theater. In 1975 it was slated for demolition, in favor of a proposed parking lot. A public outcry for the theater's preservation that year helped to earn the building its listing in the National Register of Historic Places and, thus, it escaped demolition. However, portions of the building were in poor or fading condition. All the while, it continued to be visited extensively by traveling theater companies.The theatre had a network of access tunnels stretching out beneath the city's streets for several blocks. It was said that, during Vaudeville times, the tunnels allowed circus animals to be unloaded from railroad cars blocks away from the theatre, and held underground until showtime. As late as 1979, much of the tunnel network was accessible to employees, although some sections were blocked off by city steam pipes. In 1978, the theatre was greatly benefited by the donation of a cache of equipment and stage draperies from National Cash Register's (NCR) auditorium, which had been slated for demolition. NCR also donated its historic five-rank Estay pipe organ to the Victory, which was renovated and installed by aficionados. In 1986, Virginia Kettering donated $7 million to fund a downtown arts center, conditioning her donation on the requirement that the center include the Victory Theater and be located within the same one-block area.The 1989 rebuilding of the theater was extensive. It involved razing the interior commercial space within the forward, Main Street-facing section of the building as well as the stage house, while carefully preserving and restoring the 1866–71 facade and the 1919 auditorium. At the same time, the interior auditorium portion of the structure was completely renovated. All of the commercial space at street level was reclaimed for a grand, new lobby. The result was an extensively-new Victoria Theatre (as it was now so renamed) designed expressly for the performing arts. The auditorium retained its original appearance with completely restored plaster work, drapery, marble work, gilding, and fresco detailing. Additionally, the house received state-of-the-art upgrading to its wiring, lighting, and sound systems and now accommodated infrared sound transmitters for headphone use.

The current theater accommodates 1,154, with 635 seats in the orchestra, and 519 in the balcony. The proscenium measures 37'7" wide by 29'0" high by 39'3" deep. A full-sized orchestra pit lies just below the stage lip. Ten dressing rooms, accommodating up to 18 people, are off-stage left, in the basement and at stage level.

You know we love to get the history of these places and this one is pretty cool. So what about creepy stuff? Well let's check it out! First off according to a dayton.com article, there's the story of a touring actress in the early 1900s who went to her dressing room to change for the next scene, and never came out of the room. No trace of her was ever found, though fewer and fewer actors would use that dressing room, with reports that some would look into the mirror and see her face staring back again. The same article talks about how in the 1950s, a man committed suicide in the theater by wedging a knife into the seat in front of him and throwing himself upon it. When the curtains around the left exit door are pulled, some people claim to see his face. Staff members through the years have said they heard strange noises like the rustling of satin or taffeta, or suddenly smelled the scent of roses in the air. Others are said to have seen the ghost of the Victoria’s founder when they’re alone in the building.

Diane Schoeffler-Warren, Victoria spokeswoman, told us that many of the historic theater’s long-time volunteers and staff like to blame these strange occurrences on “Miss Vicki,” who was not a real person.

PARANORMAL FINDINGS

Staff, patrons and performers have had a boatload of experiences with the spirits who visit or reside here.

Project Paranormal Investigations caught some hard evidence that greatly increases the known number of spirits who adore this theatre.

Apparently, the spirits here are a talkative group. They caught a boatload of EVP’s of many spirits. One spirit once worked there as an usher, some crew members, actors and actresses, a director and a well dressed man with a dirty hat who watches people who come into the auditorium.

One EVP possibly suggests that the spirit of Vicki’s killer is grounded here. “They will never catch me!”

This well-dressed man could be the spirit of the Victoria’s founder keeping a close eye on the living and still enjoying his theer.

Spirits freely gave up their names: Isaac, Jacob, Alice, Jennifer Price, Bill and Miss Josephine Swartz who was a well-known ballet instructor.

One male spirit pleaded for help.

One gruff spirit didn’t believe he was dead, and asked the investigator. “Do you want to fight?” This fiesta spirit said that the year was 2000.

One male spirit keeps the spirit of Vicky company. Hopefully he is a friend and her protector.

There was a negative, evil one there as well, reported by the other spirits. This spirit said that he was sent to keep another spirit stuck here. That's…. Nuts...ooh boy.

So that's fun stuff, haunted theaters are always good. Where should we head now?

How about a lunatic asylum that's now part of a college… We know that seems crazy but just run with us. The Ridges, a building formerly known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum, has been a constant source of ghost stories and sightings for years. The Ridges, was a Kirkbride Plan mental hospital operated in Athens, Ohio, from 1874 until 1993. After a period of disuse the property was redeveloped by the state of Ohio. Today, The Ridges are a part of Ohio University and house the Kennedy Museum of Art as well as an auditorium and many offices, classrooms, and storage facilities. The original design included an administration building with two wings, one that would house the males and the other for females. The building itself was 853 feet long, 60 feet wide, and built with red bricks fired from clay dug on-site. Built onto the back were a laundry room and boiler house. Seven cottages were also constructed to house even more patients. There was room to house 572 patients in the main building, almost double of what Kirkbride had recommended, leading to overcrowding and conflicts between the patients.The administrative section, located between the two resident wings, included an entrance hall, offices, a reception room on the first floor, the superintendent’s residence on the second floor, and quarters for other officers and physicians on the 3rd and 4th floors. A large high ceiling amusement hall filled the 2nd and 3rd floors, and a chapel was included on the 4th floor. Behind and beneath the building’s public and private spaces were the heating and mechanical systems, kitchens, cellars, storerooms, and workspaces. The site, which was first comprised of 141 acres, would eventually grow to 1,019 acres, including cultivated, wooded, and pasture land. The grounds were designed by Herman Haerlin of Cincinnati and would incorporate landscaped hills and trees, decorative lakes, a spring, and a creek with a waterfall. Not only would the patients enjoy the beautiful landscape, but citizens also enjoyed the extensive grounds. Though the facility would never be fully self-sustaining, over the years, the grounds would include livestock, farm fields and gardens, an orchard, greenhouses, a dairy, a receiving hospital, a Tubercular Ward, a physical plant to generate steam heat, and even a carriage shop in the earlier years. The hospital, first called the Athens Lunatic Asylum, officially began operations on January 9, 1874. Within two years, it was renamed the Athens Hospital for the Insane. Over the years, its name would be changed many times to the Athens State Hospital, the Southeastern Ohio Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, and the Athens Mental Health and Developmental Center. During its operation, the hospital provided services to a variety of patients, including Civil War veterans, children, the elderly, the homeless, rebellious teenagers being taught a lesson by their parents, and violent criminals suffering from various mental and physical disabilities. With diagnoses ranging from the slightest distress to severely mentally ill, these patients were provided various forms of care, many of which have been discredited today. The asylum was best known for its practice of lobotomy, but it was also known to have practiced hydrotherapy, electroshock, restraint, and psychotropic drugs, many of which have been found to be harmful today. More interesting are the causes listed for admission, including epilepsy, menopause, alcohol addiction, and tuberculosis. General “ill health” also accounted for many admissions, which included in the first three years of operation 39 men and 44 women. For the female patients hospitalized during these first three years of the asylum’s operation, the three leading causes of insanity are recorded as “puerperal condition” (relating to childbirth), “change of life,” and “menstrual derangements.” According to an 1876 report, the leading cause of insanity among male patients was masturbation. The second most common cause of insanity was listed as intemperance (alcohol). Depending upon their condition, a patient’s treatment could range from full care to amazing freedom. Over the years, numerous buildings were added, including a farm office, a new amusement hall, additional wards and residences, a laundry building, power plant, garages, stables, mechanics shops, a firehouse, therapy rooms, and dozens of others. By the 1950s, the hospital was using 78 buildings and was treating 1,800 patients. In the 1960s, the total square footage of the facility was recorded at 660,888 square feet. At this time, its population peaked at nearly 2,000 patients, over three times its capacity. However, the number of patients would begin to decline for the next several decades as de-institutionalization accelerated. As the number of people at the Asylum declined, the buildings and wards were abandoned one by one. Comprised of three graveyards, burials began soon after the institution’s opening as there were deceased patients who were unclaimed by their families. Until 1943 the burials were headed only by stones with numbers, with the names of the dead known only in recorded ledgers. Only one register exists today, which contains the names of 1,700 of the over 2,000 burials. In 1972 the last patients were buried in the asylum cemetery. Today the cemeteries continue to be maintained by the Ohio Department of Mental Health.

In 1977, Athens Asylum made news when it housed multiple personality rapist Billy Milligan. In the highly publicized court case, Milligan was found to have committed several felonies, including armed robbery, kidnapping, and three rapes on the Ohio State University campus. In preparing his defense, psychologists diagnosed Milligan with multiple personality disorder, from which the doctors said he had suffered from early childhood. He was the first person diagnosed with multiple personality disorder to raise such a defense and the first acquitted of a major crime for this reason. Milligan was then sent to a series of state-run mental hospitals, including Athens. While at these hospitals, Milligan reported having ten different personalities. Later 14 more personalities were said to have been discovered. After a decade, Milligan was discharged. He died of cancer at a nursing home in Columbus, Ohio, on December 12, 2014, at 59. The next year, the hospital made the news again when a patient named Margaret Schilling disappeared on December 1, 1978. It wasn’t until January 12, 1979, 42 days later that her body was discovered by a maintenance worker in a locked long-abandoned ward once used for patients with infectious illnesses. Though tests showed that she died of heart failure, she was found completely naked with her clothing neatly folded next to her body. More interesting is the permanent stain that her body left behind. Clearly, an imprint of her hair and body can still be seen on the floor, even though numerous attempts have been made to remove it. By 1981 the hospital housed fewer than 300 patients, numerous buildings stood abandoned, and over 300 acres were transferred to Ohio University. In 1988, the facilities and grounds (excluding the cemeteries) were deeded from the Department of Mental Health to Ohio University.

The Athens Center officially closed in 1993, and the remaining patients transferred to another facility. The property stood vacant for several years before restoration began. The name of the property was changed to the “Ridges” and in 2001 renovation work was completed on the main building, known as Lin Hall. Today it houses music, geology, biotechnology offices, storage facilities, and the Kennedy Museum of Art. Over the years, other hospital buildings were modeled and used by the University, although many others still sit abandoned. wow… Crazy stuff. The info and the history cave from a great article at legends of America.com.

When the University took over the property, some students began to spend time at the Ridges. This is when many reports of paranormal activity began to surface. This includes hearing disembodied screams in the middle of the night, electric anomalies, rattling door handles and vanishing spectral images. Some of these events occurred in the area where Margaret Schilling’s remains were found and, were thus, attributed to her. Her spirit is said to have appeared staring down from the window of the room where her lifeless body was discovered. Her apparition has been seen attempting to escape. Others have seen her wander in various parts of the building at night.

Other former patients are also said to remain in residence as well. Visitors have reported seeing strange figures standing in the empty wings of the former hospital. Many have heard the disembodied voices of those in agony and warning those that wish to listen to them. You may also hear the squeaks of gurneys that are no longer there. Some folks see strange lights and hear screams echoing through the walls. More frightening, many have come across the spirits of patients in the basement, who remain shackled there in their afterlife. Sadly, these may be the many spirits who died or suffered at the hands of staff in the asylum.

The cemetery is also said to be haunted by shadowy people and strange lights. In one area, the linear shapes of the graves form a circle, rumored to be a witches’ meeting point.

Let's switch it up for a minute and talk about Moody's favorite things … The cryptids! So what kind of cryptids can one expect to find in Ohio? Well we are gonna let ya know!

Let's start with the Loveland Frogmen. Stories started popping out in the 50's, tales that differed slightly from one another, about a massive frog causing all manner of mischief. Most of the stories start the same but there seem to be three major variations. In one story, the motorist is heading out of the Branch Hill neighborhood when he shines his car’s headlights on the huge figures. The trio stood on their hind legs and just stood in the middle of the road. The man honks his horn. The figures perk up. They twist their necks around. A gasp!!!! All three look at the driver with leathery skin and frog faces.

Version number 3: same bridge, the motorist pulls over, he gets out of his car and spots the creatures. All three are conversing animatedly. The driver calls out to them. One of the Loveland Frogman gets up, points his finger at his friends in the universal gesture of “put a pin in it,” turns to the bothersome intruder, “can’t you see we’re holding a conversation? How rude,” holds out a wand over its heads, and flicks the Harry Potter approved apparatus… a blazing fire of sparks cannons out of the wand. The motorist flees the scene.

The other version goes like this: the motorist spots the creatures under the Loveland bridge, one of many going over the Little Miami river – he honks his horn. The creatures shot out from under the bridge, one lands on his hood and croaks… the driver passes out. On 3 March 1972 at 1:00 am, the Loveland police department goose marched into the madness. Officer Ray Shockey was gliding his car on Riverside Drive near the Totes boot factory and the Little Miami River when a suspicious animal ran across the road in front of his vehicle. He hit his brakes. Hit the steering wheel and looked on. The animal, now fully illuminated in his patrol car’s headlights, blinked at Shockey… who was having a meltdown true to his last name; Shockey was in shock. Framed in his car’s lamp stood the legendary Loveland Frogman. Shockey reported the sighting and stated, “it’s crouched like a frog.” The creature then climbed over the guardrail and jumped into the river.

Two weeks after that wild incident, a second Loveland police officer, Mark Matthews, did Shockey a solid and reported seeing an unidentified animal, similar in height and facets, near the same road. And you know what… He shot the damn thing! That's right, killed it! Unfortunately Matthews didn't actually shoot a frogman…nope. According to Matthews, it was “a large iguana about 3 or 3.5 feet long”, and he didn’t immediately pinpoint the creature’s ID because it was missing its tail… not a freaking Loveland Frogman.

“It either got loose or was released when it grew too large"

In August 2016, local Cincinnati TV stations reported that "a night of fun turned into a chilling tale of horror" when two teenagers playing Pokémon Go between Loveland Madeira Road and Lake Isabella claimed to see a giant frog near the lake on August 3 that "stood up and walked on its hind legs".[7][8] It was later revealed to be a local student from Archbishop Moeller High School in a homemade frog costume.

Real or not? We may never know! You don't believe in the Frogmen you say well how about the grass man!

Often referred to as the Eastern Bigfoot, the Grassman is reportedly a 7-foot tall, 300-pound hominid.

According to famed cryptozoologist, Loren Coleman, the Ohio Grassmen have a more human-like appearance and are more human-looking and are shorter than the classic “Bigfoot”. The Grassman is often seen around farms and especially eating tall grasses such as wheat, which is what its main diet is, and where its name comes from. In addition to a different diet, the Grassman also seems much more sociable than Bigfoot. Many Grassman sightings include more than one Grassman, and it is reported that mothers have been seen with babies. The first sightings of the Grassman date all the way to 1869, however, one of the most prominent sightings was in 1978. The grandchildren of Minerva residents Evelyn and Howe Clayton, along with their friends, ran inside screaming about a hairy monster they saw in the gravel pit outside. When the couple went out to investigate, they saw the Grassman, just as the children had described, and it quickly ran off. The family saw the creature a few more times, and claimed that it would leave the smell of rotten eggs wherever it passed through, though it never seemed to steal anything.

Yet another Bigfoot-type creature lurks in Ohio, this time near Minerva. The Minerva Monster was first spotted by the Cayton family in the late 1970s when they followed the sound of their barking dogs to a pit on their property where they disposed of trash. Inside the pit, they found a massive, 7-foot tall, 300-pound creature, covered in fur, staring at them as they approached. The creature returned to the family’s property so often that it was witnessed by several other friends and family members and even investigated by the sheriff. During the creature’s final appearance at the property, two creatures were spotted after the home was pelted with several rocks while the family was inside. We suspect this may have been chainsaw.

Although sightings continued in nearby counties, none were as detailed as the Cayton families, whose stories remained unchanged for decades.

How about the Charles Mills Lake Monster! This mysterious cryptid has only been documented one time. In March of 1959, teenagers Denny Patterson, Wayne Armstrong, and Michael Lane were running amok near the shores of Charles Mills Lake when they saw something that terrified them.

Out of the water came a 7-foot tall, armless, humanoid. The boys noted that the creature had glowing green eyes and massive webbed feet. After the boys reported what they had seen, authorities searched the area, finding footprints that they thought resembled tracks that scuba and snorkel diving fins would leave behind.

Crosswick Monster

Around 20 miles north of the Loveland Frogman’s territory lies Crosswick. Although the monster hasn’t been spotted in nearly 200 years, the legend of the Crosswick Monster is still told in the area. According to reports, two young boys were playing on the banks of a small creek when they were startled by a massive, snake-like creature. The monster sprouted arms and snatched one of the boys, dragging him nearly 100 yards to a massive sycamore tree that was assumed to be its den.

The Crosswick monster dropped the child just outside a hole in the tree’s bank. The 26-foot diameter tree was eventually chopped through by dozens of men from the town and when the serpent-creature reappeared, the men noted that it was between 12-14 feet tall. The monster escaped the men, crashing through a fence before darting into a cavern.

The full description read, “It is described as being 30 to 40 feet long, 12 to 14 feet tall when erect, 16 inches in diameter, and legs 4 feet long. It is covered with scales like a lizard’s, of black and white color with large yellow spots. Its head is about 16 inches wide, with a long forked tongue, and the mouth inside deep red.”

Although the Crosswick Monster was never seen again, it is remembered as one of the most believable cryptid experiences in Ohio, as more than 60 men claimed to have witnessed it.

Dogman

Described as a werewolf-like creature, the Dogman has reportedly been seen all throughout Ohio. Eyewitnesses describe the Dogman creatures as between 4-6 feet tall, often very muscular, and with pink or gray skin. It is sometimes seen on all fours or walking bipedally.

One of the most recent accounts was in 2016 in Allen County. The Dogman is typically associated with Michigan, but in the past decade, several sightings have taken place throughout Ohio, an understandable migration.

Ok so let's get back to creepy places!

How about a haunted hotel? The Buxton inn fits the bill! Buxton Inn was originally called the Tavern and it was built in 1812 by Orrin Granger. Today, the Buxton Inn is the oldest continuously running inn in Granville, Ohio. Aside from being an inn, Buxton also served as Granville’s first post office and a stagecoach stop. The Buxton became very popular and was patronized by no less than President William Harrison himself. After Orrin Granger died, ownership of the inn changed. Although it went through several owners, it never closed down because of its popularity. In 1829, more additions were constructed for the building. In the 1850s, the inn was purchased by James W. Dilley and it was renamed to “The Dilley House”. Major Buxton and his wife acquired the property in 1865. They attracted many guests and the inn continued to thrive under their ownership. After the death of the Buxtons, retired opera singer Ethel Bounell took over the inn. The current owners of the inn are Orville and Audrey Orr. The Buxton Inn’s long history lives on with the ghosts frequently seen there, the majority of which are the ghosts of its former owners. The first ghost ever reported at the hotel was Orrin Granger in the 1920’s who built the hotel in 1812.

During the 70’s, workers of the inn saw a man dressed in blue and since then they have refused to enter the inn after dark. Major Buxton (the man who the inn was named after) is also said to haunt the inn. He has been spotted in several locations around the inn.

Ethel “Bonnie” Bounell, the former innkeeper, is said to have died in room number nine. Guests who have stayed in the room have reported seeing a lady dressed in blue, Bonnie’s favourite color. Shadowy figures have been seen in rooms number seven and nine and even in the basement. Guests have also felt the presence of a ghostly cat jumping on their beds. Other reports include heavy doors slamming shut and opening of their own accord, with no apparent breeze or other valid explanation. People have also reported hearing footsteps behind them in empty hallways, and their names being called out.

Definitely spooky… anyone want to take a trip to hell? No? How about just helltown? Well that is where we're headed!

The village known as “Helltown” is purportedly teeming with crybaby bridges, spooked school buses, mass human sacrifice scenes, and a mutant python for good measure. The extreme folklore surrounding the region formerly known as Boston, Ohio is ironic since the only verifiable legend about the town is that it is deserted for a very frighteningly tragic reason. Founded in 1806, Boston Village’s original claim to fame was its standing as the oldest village in Summit County. Boston’s relatively uneventful life took a turn for the worse in 1974, when it became the unlucky victim of nationwide anxiety over the country’s disappearing forestland. Using the laws of eminent domain, President Gerald Ford signed a bill that gave the federal government’s National Park Service jurisdiction to expropriate land for the establishment of National Parks. The NPS decided that Boston Township would be the new home for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and began buying the properties of its longtime residents. The sentiment among citizens who had no choice but to leave their homes was expressed in a message scribbled on the wall of one of the houses: “Now we know how the Indians felt.” The empty homes were boarded up and adorned with U.S. “No Trespassing” signs. The government quickly fell behind on its plan to create the park and the village sat neglected. The remaining buildings, remnants of a “vanished” town, have created a fertile soil for the innumerable urban legends that have popped up over the years.

The hellish aura of the area only continued to grow when the NPS acquired Krejci Dump in 1985. Rangers visiting the site became ill and covered in rashes. It was soon discovered the dump was highly polluted with toxic chemicals improperly disposed of. The dump became a Superfund site and as of 2015 the NPS is wrapping up restoration of the area.

Helltown is home to six or seven separate legends, which has led this area in Boston Township in Ohio to be grouped as one large haunted site. The overgrowth creates a dark, almost cursed place, where ghosts, cults, Satanists, and even a wild-eyed serial killer were said to lurk. Helltown is the nickname given to the northern part of Summit County. The areas most associated with the legends are Boston Township and Boston Village, as well as portions of Sagamore Hills. First settled all the way back in 1806, Boston stands as the oldest village in Summit County. The construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal brought loads of people to the region in the mid-1820s. The area then began to flourish when a railroad station was constructed in the town. The station was named ‘Boston Mills,’ and the name stuck.

Loads of legends come out of the Boston Cemetery, which sits deep in the middle of the area known as Helltown, including tales of a ghost who sits on a bench and stares out into space, forlorn, waiting for his family to come back for him. The only souls not forced to leave the area were the dead, now stuck in this abandoned ghost town, looking for their families which have left so long ago.

There are two roads through Helltown, both labeled as ‘dead ends’ even though you can watch them continue on into the distance. Legend says that local Satanic cults put up these signs to keep people out of their secret hideouts. Stanford Road, one of the main roads in Helltown, is sometimes referred to as The End of the World, or Highway to Hell. It is a twisting, dangerous road with a very sharp incline, so steep that when a car crests the top of the hill, it looks as if it is driving off a cliff. Some stories indicate that the road itself is evil, and is known to take possession of your vehicle, causing fatal accidents. It is said that if you park your car at the end of Stanford Road, you may meet your gruesome fate at the hands of the strange people who still patrol the area, protecting it.

One rumor persists through the ages that the town’s residents were actually evacuated due to a large chemical spill, and the National Park was just a cover-up. The chemical spills were said to have caused mutations in local children, and even created the Peninsula Python, a gigantic snake that slithers the area.

An account given by a local paranormal researcher who explored the area truly sums up the overall vibe of Helltown – “I have experienced much in my explorations of there, some of which I don’t care to remember and some of which I can never hope to explain.

Helltown is not truly abandoned. It does have residents, but they are a strange and frightening breed. I have gone exploring the woods and cemetery of the area in the late night and wee morning hours, and have returned to my car to find strange people looking into its car windows. This has happened twice––once at 2:00 AM and once at 4:30 AM. Both times, the people fled as soon as they saw me approaching the car before I had a chance to speak to them. Both times, they were dressed in all black.

A part of me is glad that I didn’t get to converse with them because I have heard too many tales about the ways of Hell Town residents. Supposedly, they are all Satanists and worship at the town’s two evil churches. I have been to both of these churches, however not inside them. One, the Mother of Sorrows, has upside-down crosses hanging from it.

I have also been to the Boston Cemetery, where a ghost has been seen sitting on a bench. This cemetery is as dark a place as I have ever been. The graves date back to the early 1800s. I didn’t see the ghost when I visited, but I did hear strange growls and howls from the depths of the graveyard. This was more than enough to convince me to leave, as the prospect of getting attacked by some strange boneyard dwelling beast was not appealing, to say the least.”

Welllllll we might not be heading there any time soon!

Ok we got one more place for ya. The Bellaire house. The history of Bellaire House stretches back to 1904, when it was constructed by Jacob Heatherington, who also owned a coal mine that ran directly beneath the property on Belmont Street.

When the original owner died, he left the land and the five-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house to his daughter Eliza and son Edwin.

But not long after coming into her inheritance, Eliza Heatherington collapsed dead on the dining room floor in the house.

Legend has it that her grieving brother became obsessed with the idea of communicating with his dearly departed sister from beyond and invited mediums from across the country to his home for that purpose. Paranormal researchers believe that it was Edwin Heatherington who, through his experiments with the occult, unwittingly opened nearly a dozen different portals to the 'other side' throughout the house, allowing malevolent spirits to cross over.

Research suggests that the plot of land on which the house sits also conceals Native American burial caves, and it has been intimated, though not confirmed, that prior to the Civil War the site was part of the Underground Railroad used by fugitive slaves.

The Bellaire House sits on what is known as a Leyline. This means there is a consistent wellspring of paranormal activity that goes all through the house. A virtual spring of ghosts coming back from the dead.

Kristin Lee, the current owner of the house was affected by two floods which left her family homeless. After they moved into the home they saw “odd” things. Kristin Lee blamed everything except for the paranormal until the point when it was impossible to deny. She describes the history and her time there on the home's website.

"The house gained a mysterious reputation even during the years when it was sitting abandoned. The neighbors in the area claimed to see people roaming around in the house or peeking out of the windows. This was when the house was locked and no one was living there. There were some who thought that the kids were up to something nifty, but when I moved in there, it didn’t take long for its history to resurface because that’s when paranormal activities in the Bellaire House began to manifest in more violent ways. Jacob Heatherington built the Bellaire House in the vicinity of sacred Shawnee Native American burial caves. That makes the house 172 years old. Those caves were right behind the Bellaire House and the Ohio River is right in the front. Physics proves that water is a portal because it is always moving and the magnetic pull of the water creates a powerhouse of energy where spirits can cut through earthbound gravity, gain energy to port back and forth from their dimension to ours. The craziest part is that the portal sits right under the Bellaire House.

This area is still known as the Native American Internment Area. The thing is that the Native Americans who lived in this area used to bury their leaders, chieftain, shamans, healers, and witchdoctors in these caves. They used to hold their ceremonies in this area and practiced magic. In 1754 the French & Indian War rampaged through Bellaire. The native massacres by the hands of French soldiers were large. Blood still stains the grounds of the entire town of Bellaire. The residual energy of the slaughter still seeps inside the soil today.

She goes on to say:

Although Joe Estes & Associates cleaned the inhuman spirits, the house is always active to this day despite all the cleansing and Catholic rituals.

The ley line over which the Bellaire House is built is one of the alignments of ancient monuments and prehistoric sites in straight lines. It is believed by some that it indicates paths of positive energy inherent in the Earth. The Bellaire House is on the tip of one of the most ancient ley lines in the world! This could possibly be the reason why the Native Americans chose the land that the Bellaire House sits on because it is supercharged with such a profound energy source that it caused a direct connection to the great spirit, the old world gods, and intergalactic beings!

Research revealed that when Jacob Heatherington, who was a millionaire and used to run the city, died he left the coal mine company to his son Alex Heatherington, who was assisted by his daughter Lyde.

Unfortunately, the business started to fail due to Alex hearing and seeing things that were not there. He also began to have epileptic seizures and declared that "demons were trying to kill him." Back then people believed that he was haunted and cursed because of the coal mine explosions.

According to paranormal investigators, there are as many as 11 portals throughout the house. The most interesting thing is that no matter how hard paranormal investigators try, these portals refuse to stay closed. Edwin and Lyde were also known to have servants. Mostly, all of them were named Mary. There was one particular Mary that had a child inside of the Bellaire House and it was rumored that the child had the bloodline that was needed to allow an entity inside of the Bellaire House to grow stronger to do Lyde’s bidding. There are village rumors that a servant’s child was lured to the attic and plunged to his death out of the window.

In March 1940, there was another explosion in the mines. This time in Coal Mine #2, which was commonly referred to as Willow Grove Mine at the time. It was about twenty minutes from Bellaire. The explosion trapped 180 men in the mine and took the lives of at least fifty men. Also, it left more than a hundred men burned and severely wounded. Although many members of the community tried to rescue the trapped men, only a few men could be saved. It’s said that the rescue attempt continued for several days to no avail. This explosion at Coal Mine #2 further contributed to the haunting of the Bellaire House..

So what exactly happened to Kristen Lee and her family in that house. One day, Lee said she was home when she heard the sound of footsteps coming from the attic. She assumed it was her boyfriend, Jeff, whom she thought was working upstairs.

When sometime later she heard Jeff come through the front door downstairs, Kristen was shocked, but figured that the noise she heard from the attic was just the old house settling. A few weeks later, Kristen was napping on the couch when she was awakened by a presence next to her. She opened her eyes to discover a man's greyish figure in a cap.

She screamed in terror and demanded to know who he was. The man said nothing in response, got up from the couch, made his way to the foyer and vanished into thin air.

Lee noted that her boyfriend and son were asleep at the time, but the family dog appeared panic-stricken. She also pointed out that it was so cold in the room she could see her breath.

Lee says that was her first startling encounter with the supernatural inside the house, which she would later dub ‘a portal to hell.’

In the following months, Lee and her family would allegedly experience strange voices and footsteps, objects moving on their own and ghostly figures popping up out of nowhere. It came to a point where Lee sent her youngest son to stay with her parents and her oldest with his father because she feared for their safety inside the house.

Things finally came to a head one evening when Lee says the family dog was hurled against a bedroom wall by an invisible force, which at the same time pinned her down, rendering her motionless.

After that incident, Lee and her family promptly decided to move and rent out the house, but her tenants did not linger there either.

One family that briefly called Bellaire House their home allegedly lost six of eight family members while residing at 1699 Belmont Street.

Kristen Lee then tried to offload the house by selling it to the town of Bellaire for a dollar, but there were no takers, as the locals were well aware of its bad reputation.

Out of options she decided to turn the house into a spot where people could come and ghost hunt. And that is where it sits today. Maybe that'll be our next trip!

That's since creepy Ohio for you! Again we left out some of the more well known stuff and didn't have room to include every cool thing so we may be back for round two of creepy Ohio say since point as well! There are tons of cool creepy places in Ohio. Check them out!

Wednesday Aug 18, 2021

The Djinn or Jinn...

Wednesday Aug 18, 2021

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