adds her to during the podcast that are not in my voice or placed by third-party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Dracula is one of the primary evil beings living in pop culture. The history of vampires goes back perhaps thousands of years to ancient superstitions, but what is the origin of Dracula as we know him today? In general, people believe the history of Dracula is an open and shut case, beginning and ending with Vlad Tepis or Vlad the Impaler as he is known. However, there may be more to the story than meets the eye. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome Weirdos, I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode. Ronald Gene Simmons went on a 16 person murder spree and 14 of them were his own family. In the world of Harry Potter, figures like Grindelwald and Voldemort meet in dark rooms to work their evil magic plans against those who they consider enemies. But is there a real life version of such dark magic meetings? A dark figure appears out of nowhere to terrify a man in his own home. The largest haunted place in the world isn't a house, mansion, asylum or even a forest or lake.  But first, where did Bram Stoker get his idea for Dracula? Hint. It was not as many believe Vlad the Impaler. We'll begin there. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, Twitter contests to connect with me on social media. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.  Most scholars believe that Bram Stoker based his evil Count Dracula on a real-life 15th-century prince in Wallachia, Romania. Vlad Dracula, Vlad, son of the dragon or Vlad Tepesh, Vlad the Impaler, as his story has come down through history, was a terrible man and a savage ruler. His brutality against enemy troops consisted of having them sit awkwardly on stakes with sharp points, and as their leg muscles gave out, the point of the stake would impale them through the buttocks, through the length of their body. Thus, he was nicknamed Vlad Tepesh, which means Vlad the Impaler. However, impaling was not his only method of torture and murder. Vlad was as creative as he could possibly be. People also knew him to boil his victims alive or cut off their limbs and other body parts. Additionally, Vlad mutilated organs, skinned and scalped people, or simply had animals eat them. It is not clear where he initially got the idea for this kind of torture, but the reports say that he even used these methods on innocent women and children. Saxon records indicate that Vlad Tepesh killed between 40,000 and 100,000 people. It is uncertain if he really drank the blood of his victims or if fanciful people created the tale later. Bram Stoker took note of Vlad's name, Dracula, and used it for his character. Vlad acquired the name Dracula because of his father's name, Vlad II Drakul. It was Sigismund King of Hungary and the future Holy Roman Emperor who initiated Vlad II into his Society of Knights. The name of the Society was the Order of the Dragon, and their purpose was to fight the Ottoman Empire during the Crusades. Hence, Vlad II took the name Drakul, which means the Dragon or Dragonist. As noted, Dracula means son of the dragon. Some time after his death, Vlad took on the nickname Vlad the Impaler. Evidently, that was what he was most famous for. Vlad Dracula engaged in various wars and battles of the time, and enemy troops sometimes imprisoned him. During one of his imprisonments, a bishop described him. He was not very tall but very stocky and strong, with a cold and terrible appearance, a strong and aquiline nose, swollen nostrils, a thin reddish face in which very long eyelashes framed large, wide-open green eyes. The bushy black eyebrows made them appear threatening. His face and chin were shaven but for a mustache. This is certainly not the image we have of Dracula today. Interestingly, not all scholars point to Vlad as the only basis for Dracula. Some believe that Irish native Bram Stoker used Irish folklore to base his original vampire. Irish mythology and history point to a shadowy figure known as a Awartak. He was a fifth-century king who apparently was also a dwarf. The following is an excerpt of the tale from 1875. This dwarf was a magician and a dreadful tyrant, and after having perpetrated great cruelties on the people, he was last vanquished and slain by a neighboring chieftain. He was buried in a standing posture, but the very next day he appeared in his old haunts, more cruel and vigorous than ever, and the chief slew him a second time and buried him as before. But again, he escaped from the grave and spread terror through the whole country. The chief then consulted a druid and according to his directions, he slew the dwarf a third time and buried him in the same place with his head downwards, which subdued his magical power, so that he never again appeared on earth. A 2000 edition of the magazine History Ireland claims that some sources say Awartak drank human blood during his daily reigns of terror. In examining the history of Dracula, the novel, we must first examine early fiction. During the 1700s, well before Dracula came out in 1897, there was a period of vampire obsession in Europe. Many countries had long-standing superstitions about them. The fictional literary works about vampires that began during this period indicate that the concept of Dracula was not unique to Stoker. Heinrich August Ostenfelder wrote a poem with a classic romantic vampire theme called The Vampire in 1748. In it, a vampire longs for a young woman, but he is frustrated because the young woman listens to her Christian mother who tells her that she should stay away from him. She warns her daughter that he is not mortal. The vampire vows to creep to her bed while she is sleeping to give her the kiss that will drain the young woman's blood and take her life with it. Another piece suspected of influencing Stoker is Camilla. This was a novella by Joseph Sheridan Lafano that was published in 1871, 26 years before Bram Stoker's Dracula. This story also contains romantic themes of vampiric longing. However, unique in concept for its time, the female vampire, Carmilla, desires a female protagonist. Although a number of fictional writings were produced during this time, one in particular relates directly to Stoker's version. Gottfried August Berger wrote a ballad in 1773 called Lenore. The phrase, for the dead, ride fast, was in the ballad, and Stoker used the same line in his novel Dracula. Is it possible that Vlad Raquel and Awartak, in combination with literary work that began in the 1700s, are responsible for sparking Bram Stoker's imagination? Regardless of the true history of Dracula, the creation of Bram Stoker's novel could not be confined to the printed page. The 1922 silent film Nosferatu stole much of its plot from Stoker's book. So much of the plot, in fact, that Bram Stoker's widow won a lawsuit against the makers of the film. The best-known film version of the novel, a classic horror romance, is of course the 1931 film starring Bella Legosi as the undead master of his castle. The long dark cape and white clothes that resemble some kind of tuxedo have been burned into the public's mind as to how a vampire should look. Legosi, however, looked nothing like the description of Dracula in Stoker's novel. A tall, old man, clean shaven, save for a long white mustache and clad in black from head to foot without a single speck of color about him anywhere. Over time, the movies have been good for Dracula. According to an online movie information site, Dracula appears in more than 200 international films. There are undoubtedly more to come. Clearly, there are many versions of the vampire story, and it seems that the history of Dracula may have many inspirations. Some researchers believe that the only thing about Vlad the Impaler that really inspired Bram Stoker was his name, Vlad Dracula, based on Stoker's own notes and his location in Romania. Either way, as is appropriate, the immortal Dracula continues to live on and on. Up next, Ronald G. Simmons went on a 16-person murder spree, and 14 of them were his own family. In the world of Harry Potter, figures like Grindelwald and Voldemort meet in dark rooms to work their evil magic plans against those whom they consider enemies, but is there a real-life version of such black magic meetings? And a dark figure appears out of nowhere to terrify a man in his own home. These stories and more when Weird Darkness returns. Remember staying up late on a Friday or Saturday night, either at home or at a friend's house, and watching your local TV station's horror host presenting a terrible B movie with aliens, monsters, ghosts, alien monster ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and all other kinds of crazy, creepy characters. Those were fun nights, weren't they? That's what the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com has to offer. All day, every day. Thanks to our friends at the Monster Channel. You can visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Watch Party right after listening to this episode, and immediately be entertained by a horror host and horrible movie. Or should I say, horror-ribble movie. And not only can you watch the B movies and horror hosts streaming there 24-7, but once a month we all gather together to watch a movie and talk about it in the chat room on that same page. Get your frights and funnies on the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com. In Arkansas, on December 28, 1987, retired military serviceman Ronald Gene Simmons walked into a law firm and fatally shot a secretary. He then went on to an oil company, a convenience store, and lastly his former workplace at the Woodline Motorfreight where shots were also fired. The whole rampage took 45 minutes. When it was over, Simmons had killed two people and wounded four others. After fatally shooting office manager Joyce Butts at the Woodline Motorfreight, Simmons then surrendered to a secretary there. I've gotten everybody who wanted to hurt me, he said to her. He waited there for the police and when they arrived, he handed over his gun without any resistance. But the most ghastly of the crimes Simmons committed had yet to be discovered and was already days old. When the police couldn't reach Simmons' family, two officers drove to the isolated home in the foothills of the Ozarks. It was there, next to the wrapped gifts below an ornamented Christmas tree, that the corpses of 12 of Simmons' family members lay. Each was covered with a coat. Later, deputies found Simmons' two toddler grandsons wrapped in plastic sheeting and hidden in abandoned cars parked nearby. Investigators realized that Simmons had begun his killing spree with his own family nearly a week before. Ronald G. Simmons was born in 1940 in Chicago. After his dad William Simmons died of a stroke in 1943, his mom Loretta Simmons remarried within a year to a man named William Griffin, who worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 1957, Simmons dropped out of school and joined the U.S. Navy. While stationed in Washington, he met Brasebi Rebecca Becky Yulibari, the two married in 1960 in New Mexico. Simmons then left the Navy a few years later to join the U.S. Air Force. Over the next 18 years, Simmons and Becky had seven kids together. By the time Simmons retired in 1979, he had accumulated several awards for his military service. He had received the Bronze Star Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross, and the Air Force Ribbon for excellent marksmanship. But the Simmons weren't one big happy family. In 1981, allegations surfaced that Simmons had been sexually abusing his 17-year-old daughter and that he had fathered a child with her. The Department of Human Services in New Mexico launched an investigation and, fearing prosecution, Simmons fled with his family. They wound up on a large tract of land known as Mockingbird Hill in Dover, Arkansas. The property was desolate, isolated with no phone and no plumbing, and was surrounded by a tall makeshift fence. The remote location for Bode, the kind of parent Simmons was, harsh and exacting. The final task before their death was to dig a four-foot deep ditch in the yard, which Simmons told them this was for an outhouse. But it would really be a grave for half of them. Right before Christmas of 1987, Ronald Gene Simmons decided to kill his whole family. His reasoning has never been made clear, but in the years following the tragedy, there have been several speculations. One theory was that Simmons had learned that his wife was secretly planning to divorce, which drove him into a murderous rage. I don't want to live the rest of my life with dad. I am a prisoner here and the kids too, Simmons wife had written to their son shortly before the murders. Every time I think of freedom, I want out as soon as possible. Other theories included spurned advances of love from his own daughter Sheila, who eventually left home to marry. It is speculated that the secretary Simmons murdered at the law firm had also spurned his romantic gestures, which led to her demise. On the morning of December 22, Simmons shot his wife and his oldest son using a .22 caliber pistol. After that, he savagely strangled his three-year-old granddaughter. Ronald Gene Simmons then waited for the other four kids who were living at home at the time to return. When they did arrive, he told them he had presents for them. He killed them all in the same way, one at a time, by strangling them and holding them underwater in a rain barrel. On December 26, the remaining members of the family showed up for the annual Christmas visit. When Simmons' son Billy and his wife Renata got there, he shot them both dead before strangling their 20-month-old son. He did the same to his oldest daughter Sheila and her husband and child. The last victim was Simmons' 21-month-old grandson, Michael. Simmons dumped seven of his family members in the backyard and left the rest in the house, covering their corpses with coats. Then Ronald Gene Simmons went for a drink at a local bar. When he returned home, he watched TV and drank beer surrounded by the dead bodies of his family. The spree continued on the morning of December 28. Driving to the nearby town of Russellville, he killed the 24-year-old secretary, Kathy Kendrick, at the office of Peel and Eddie Lawfirm, shooting her four times in the head. Next was the Taylor Oil Company, where he shot the owner, Rusty Taylor, who survived, and an employee, Jim Chaffin, who died on the spot. Frightened workers at the oil company had already called the police while Simmons was on his way to his third destination, the Sinclair Mini Mart, where he used to work. There, he shot two employees who survived. His last stop was another former workplace, the Woodline Motor Freight, where he shot Joyce Butts. I just wanted to kill Joyce, just Joyce, he said to the secretary that he surrendered to. Ronald Gene Simmons was in a cell at a local detention center when the police showed up to his Dover home to find the bodies of his family. Simmons was sent to the Arkansas State Hospital in Little Rock for a competency evaluation, where staff psychiatrist Dr. Irving Kuo found him sane and capable of standing trial. Simmons had two trials. After the first one, he was convicted on May 12, 1988, for the deaths of Kendrick and Chaffin. Two days later, Simmons was sentenced to death by a lethal injection plus 147 years. He did not appeal. Then governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton, signed Simmons' execution warrant. In the second trial that concluded on February 10, 1989, Simmons was also found guilty of 14 counts of capital murder for the deaths of his family members. Simmons was consequently to be lethally injected on March 16, 1989. In his final trial hearing, he said, in my particular case, anything short of death would be cruel and unusual punishment. Simmons had chosen lethal injection himself as his method of execution. He was ready to die. He was at peace with it. He wanted it, said John Harris, one of Simmons' defense attorneys. I think he felt like they're going to take him out. He's going to take them out first, said Harris of Simmons' abused family. I think that was his mindset. But Harris also said that there was more than one person to blame. If authorities had successfully arrested him back in 1981 on the basis of abusing his daughter, the murders likely wouldn't have happened. Prosecutors at the time said they dropped the charges at the family's request. Nobody claimed his body, and so Ronald Gene Simmons was buried in a common grave. At the end of the Harry Potter fantasy prequel novel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, we find out about the dark wizard Grindelwald, as well as his plan to expose the magical community to the wider non-magical world. In the next installment, The Crimes of Grindelwald, the wizard escapes from captivity and begins his campaign to take the wizards out of hiding and into the ascendancy. His actions threaten to disrupt the secrecy about magic that ensures the safety of both the magical and non-magical populations. Like the evil Lord Voldemort and his death eaters in the Harry Potter books and films, Grindelwald and his followers resemble a secular version of a coven with Grindelwald fulfilling the role of the Devil. His followers must swear their loyalty and do his bidding. In secret meetings, they plot to overthrow society as we know it. Perhaps because the wizarding world of J.K. Rowling is intended for family entertainment, few details are provided about the activities at these meetings, but it is clear that Voldemort and his death eaters have no qualms about tormenting muggles, that is, non-wizards, as well as wizards who aren't pure-blooded for amusement, as well as to further their plans. We don't know much about Grindelwald yet, except that he was expelled from Durmstrang, a wizarding school known for its tolerance of the dark arts for conducting twisted experiments. Throughout late medieval and early modern Europe, it was increasingly believed that witches met in secret to engage in dark rites and to plot society's downfall. In the early 14th century, Alice Keidler, a moneylender in Kilkenny, Ireland, was accused of using witchcraft to first infatuate and then murder her four husbands. She and her accomplices would supposedly meet at night to renounce their Christian faith and make potions in the skull of a decapitated robber, using ingredients such as worms, fingernails, and hairs from dead bodies, as well as clothing from unbaptized children. Keidler's trials notable for the way it treats witchcraft as a serious act of heresy, rather than a petty secular crime. Keidler herself managed to escape punishment by fleeing Ireland, but her servant Petronella was tortured and later executed. A century later, Johann's knighter described in the Formicarius how witches met in secret in the presence of a demon to reject Christianity. Knighter described how witches' curses caused the death of infants who were then stolen from their graves to be cooked in a cauldron and made into potions. The Formicarius in turn was an important source for the Malleus maleficarum, the hammer of witches, which was written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Springer, and first published in Germany in 1487, just in time to take advantage of the invention of the printing press. It was reprinted multiple times. As time passed, the depictions of these secret meetings, or Sabbaths, became increasingly extreme, with the witches' meeting to perform unspeakable rituals and obscene sexual acts. In 1612, Pierre de Lancer, a French magistrate and witch-hunter, describes hearing confessions by accused witches of attending Sabbaths presided over by devils. After kissing the master's backside, they would dance naked and then couple with demons and with each other. Artistic depictions of these dark rites also became increasingly extravagant, witchcraft was seen as a growing threat to Christendom, justifying countless trials and executions. It is possible to trace these claims back to accusations made against heretics throughout the Middle Ages and even against Christians in ancient Rome. A letter written by Pope Gregory in 1233, Vox in Rama, describes rituals in which initiates into a heretical sect kiss a monstrous toad and then the hindquarters of a large black cat, followed by an orgy with other members. Before Christianity was widely accepted in the Roman Empire, there were concerns that Christians conducted secret orgies and cannibal feasts, possibly a misunderstanding of the Christian mass with its consumption of the body and blood of Christ and the kiss of peace. Christians, like the heretics and witches whom they would later persecute, were also once perceived as a threat to society, embodying values that were seen as abhorrent. In this way, villains such as Grindelwald and Voldemort reflect contemporary concerns about social justice. They seek to produce a society that would be less tolerant and inclusive, and yet their beliefs are actually more extreme versions of prejudices held more widely in the world of wizards. Destroying the villain does not destroy that which we fear because it is so deeply embedded in society and often within ourselves. There is little evidence to suggest that there is any truth to these centuries-old accusations. Rather, they serve as dark fantasies of human society's deepest anxieties. Throughout history, we have projected our worst fears onto our perceived enemies, imagining how they plot in secret together to overthrow everything that we hold most dear, whether it is the established social order, religious faith, or values such as mutual respect and tolerance. Villains such as Grindelwald and Voldemort are so compelling because they embody these fears and anxieties. The concern that secret groups still plot in the shadows, even if they probably don't conduct orgies or eat human flesh, is ancient and enduring. But we should be cautious about demonizing those with whom we don't agree. When we project our deepest fears onto others, we can lose sight of their humanity. And that's when the witch hunts start in earnest. When we sleep, we sometimes fall into a deep slumber. Quite often people fall into moments of contentment, or they will fall to the wayside of nightmares while they dream. One man shared what happened to him this year on the 30th of January. It was a Sunday evening, and he just finished up a conversation with a good friend of his on the phone. As he was laying down on a futon, which folds into a couch, he suddenly felt a strange disturbance happen seemingly out of nowhere. This strange disturbance gave him the heebie-jeebies, making him uncomfortably nervous. This disturbance happened quickly, and when he opened his eyes, to his surprise, was a shadowy figure standing before him. His dog began barking loudly as he felt a strange sensation overcome him. The shadow figure was standing in the archway of his front door. The man then screamed as he backed away while his dog kept on parking. Whatever this thing was, it then disappeared after only a few moments. The man's dog then ran into the bedroom, where it then jumped onto the bed. The dog was both confused and frightened, it seemed. The man thought to himself, whatever this was, it wasn't human. He had heard about shadow people before, and then wondered if this may well be one. This isn't the first time he had seen one of these. However, it was the first time he noticed one in person and not in his dreams. He estimated that this encounter lasted for around 20 seconds or so. Wondering if this shadow being made its way through some kind of portal, his imagination soon took effect. After thinking back to what he had seen, his best guess was that this shadow-type man was around six feet tall. It was definitely a masculine shape, but the lighting in the room made it tough to see every detail. The illumination was strong, almost as if there was a glow behind him. Thinking back to what he had seen, the color of its skin was that of a grayish color. There were no physical signs that stood out like scars or predominant facial features. While whatever this was, it was weird. He didn't think that it was an alien being of some kind, but that of something else, perhaps demonic even. The moment this happened, it wasn't long after when the shadowy man seemed to disappear back through a portal of some sort much like how he once appeared. It was like he came out of something and then went back into it. One can only imagine if this was some kind of interdimensional time traveler of some kind. It seemed like the shadow man was sucked back into the portal of light that illuminated behind him. All of this was quite a sight to see, the man claims. The room was dark as it was night, so all of the light was rather intense. There was one light on in the bathroom that shined into the room. That's it. This man sleeps in his living room because so many weird things have happened to him in his bedroom. He just can't sleep there anymore whatsoever. More than anything, he believes that this thing is something interdimensional. Reflecting back on the situation, he believes this only further frightened his dog as all of this was happening and how he reacted towards it. Now, one can only wonder just how this man sleeps at night, if he sleeps at all. When Weird Darkness returns, the largest haunted place in the world isn't a house, mansion, asylum, or even a forest or lake.  That story is up next. No matter the time of day or season, sometimes you need to find a way to rid yourself of those ghostly chills that bring raised hairs and goosebumps to your skin. Other times you're looking for those ghostly chills. Either way, it sounds like you need a mug of Weird Dark Roast Coffee. Weird Dark Roast Coffee has deep notes of cocoa, caramel, and a touch of sinister sweetness that'll send shivers down your taste buds. This is an exclusive coffee that I selected specifically for you, my Weirdo family. Weird Dark Roast is not available in stores, coffee houses, mad scientist labs, or even the dark web, but you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. Weird Dark Roast Coffee, fresh roasted to order so it's as fresh as it can be when it lands on your doorstep and knocks three times. Grab yours now at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. Weird Dark Roast Coffee, it's not actually knock on your door because it doesn't have arms or hands, so if you hear knocks at the door and no one answers when you ask who it is, it's probably paranormal and you should just leave the door shut and locked. Hidden among the forests and hills of southwest Kentucky is Mammoth Cave National Park. It is the largest cave in the world and impossible for any casual visitor to see in just one day or probably even in just one week. There are many passages, paths, and tunnels that are not open to the general public, thus adding to the mystery of the place. But in addition to the secrets of nature, there is much in the way of legend and lore about the cave. The place has a strange and unusual past, and there are thousands of secrets in the dark corridors of the cave and, according to some, a myriad of ghosts as well. The first people came to Mammoth Cave more than 12,000 years ago, when bison and mastodons still roamed the wilderness of what would someday be called North America. These early cave explorers also used Mammoth Cave as a burial place for their dead, perhaps believing that it provided some sort of passage to the next world. There have been a number of mummies found in the cave over the years. Some of them have been left behind in former burial postures, while others have been the bodies of early explorers who lost their lives in the cave. All of the remains have been remarkably preserved thanks to the minerals found here. In the early 1700s, there were few permanent residents of Kentucky, which was then still part of Virginia, although the Shawnee and the Cherokee Indians used the region as a hunting ground. During the French and Indian War of the late 1750s, a British soldier became the first reported European to reach the Mammoth Cave region. By that time, many of the colonists along the eastern seaboard were starting to feel the crush of civilization. The more adventurous of them began crossing the Appalachians for the western territories. They recognized the lure of the wilderness and the frontiersmen often heard from their Native American friends of the natural wealth of King Taki. Despite the skills of these men when it came to living off the land for food and shelter, though, they were still at the mercy of other suppliers when it came to gunpowder and a method of preserving food. It was in the discovery of the Salt Peter deposits that Mammoth Cave's greatest riches were realized. The Salt Peter led to the first legal ownership of the cave. Legend has it that the first white man to venture into the cave was a frontiersman named Houchens who chased a bear into an entrance to the cave in 1797. Valentine Simmons, however, was the first owner of the cave. He claimed 200 acres of land, which included the cave in 1798. He then sold the cave to the McLean brothers, who began processing the Salt Peter deposits. In 1810, the operation was taken over by Charles Wilkins and Fleming Gatewood, who began mass production in the cave. Prior to buying the rights to Mammoth Cave, Wilkins had already established himself as a Salt Peter merchant, supplying the DuPont gunpowder works in Delaware with product from Kentucky. The men were excited at the promise of the cave, already realizing that a fortune was to be made from the increasingly hostile relations between the United States and Britain. The War of 1812 would drive up the cost of Salt Peter and production in Mammoth Cave would follow suit. The war progressed, and Wilkins used more than 70 slaves to work the leaching operation that would remove the Salt Peter from the cave. To prepare for the work, square wooden vats were built, and wooden pipes were made from long, straight, poplar logs. The logs were then bored out with augers and then tapered so that they would fit together end to end. The slaves dug into the soil, placed the dirt into the vats, and then saturated it with water that was piped in using the wooden tubes. The water trickled through the soil, and the calcium nitrate leached out. The solution was then filtered through ash and boiled to concentrate the Salt Peter. It was bagged and transported to Mills in Philadelphia, where it was combined with powdered charcoal and sulfur to make gunpowder. The business proved to be quite profitable, but after the war ended though, the price of Salt Peter plummeted, and the Mills were able to get the product more cheaply from other locations. The operations in Mammoth Cave were closed down for good. Fortunately though, all was not lost. The fame of Mammoth Cave had started to spread. Numerous newspaper articles had been written about the cave's contribution to the war, and had also discussed its natural wonders and the strange mummies that had been found in the cave. Soon people began traveling from the east to the Kentucky wilderness, and Mammoth Cave began to receive its first tourists. In 1815, Hyman Gratz became a partner with Charles Wilkins in the ownership of the cave. Gratz was a showman and an entrepreneur, and he quickly realized there was money to be made in exhibiting the cave. After Wilkins died in 1828, Gratz continued showing the cave to anyone who was interested and actually stepped up operations to make the place more profitable. He used veterans of the mining operation as guides to accompany curious travelers. The cave was originally called Flat's Cave, but the name had been gradually changed to Mammoth Cave during the War of 1812. The Rotunda, the first large room that was entered, prompted the name and gave visitors a taste of the massive chambers ahead. At first, the guides rarely ventured any further than the old mining operation and tunnels that they were familiar with. As they grew more comfortable with the passages, though, they started to venture a little deeper with each excursion. Travelers were then led into what they called the Haunted Chambers, and they risked the dangerous, wet and rocky canyons known as the bottomless pit and the crevice pit. As the century grew older, the fame of Mammoth Cave grew larger and more widespread. Guidebooks began to boast of the caves hundreds of miles of passages and word of mouth combined with newspaper and magazine articles, travelogues and first-person accounts brought people from all over the world. People came from everywhere to see the marvels of the cave, and some said that more visitors had come from England to see Mammoth Cave than those visitors hailing from Kentucky. Some celebrity guests of Mammoth Cave included historic personages like Jenny Lind, Edwin Booth, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Prince Alexis of Russia, and many more. People from all walks of life came to the cave, however, not just the wealthy and famous. None of them walked away from it unimpressed. While the list of early visitors is indeed impressive, it is hard for us to appreciate just how dangerous the cave could be at that time. These intrepid visitors were forced to brave slick floors, narrow passages and dangerous pathways. The greatest challenge, though, was lighting. Throughout the 1800s, a variety of lights were used in the cave. Visitors carried open-flame lanterns, fueled by refined lard oil on occasion, but the most popular method of light was the full-flame torch. The guides would wrap wooden poles with oiled rags and set them ablaze. Then, to show off the wonders of the cave and their own skills, they would fling the torches onto ledges and into narrow gaps in a way that few could duplicate today. The visitors of the 1800s were also fond of smoking their names onto the smooth white ceilings of the cave. Today you can still see names and dates carefully scripted with fire that were left behind by visitors more than a century and a half ago. Mammoth Cave had many early guides as the first floods of visitors began arriving here in 1818. The cave was famous by that time, thanks to a number of writers and authors who were already beginning to spread the word about the place, but the lack of decent and accessible roads discouraged many of the tourists. Stagecoaches stopped miles from the entrance at Bell's Tavern and the remaining distance had to be covered by way of a narrow, rugged trail. The tavern was located in Three Forks, which is now known as Park City, and the place earned an excellent reputation as a dining and lodging place and the primary stepping-off place for the eight-mile trip to Mammoth Cave. There was an inn of sorts at the cave, but it was as bad as the roads were. It was simply a log building with two rooms on the ground floor, and so most overnight visitors preferred to eat and sleep at Bell's Tavern, which was revered for its peach and honey brandy. In 1838, the cave was purchased by Franklin Goren, an attorney from Glasgow, Kentucky who envisioned great things for Mammoth Cave. He paid $5,000 to the Gratz family for rights to the cave and immediately began to improve the roads and accommodations and to bring in skilled guides. He became the most important man in the cave's early history. He improved the inn, renaming it the Mammoth Cave Inn and enlarging it to sleep up to 40 people, smoothed the roadways, added fences and stables, and introduced a young slave to the cave named Stephen Bishop. This young man, who was just 16 years old at the time, would become a legend in his own lifetime. Bishop would go on to live the rest of his life in and among the passageways of Mammoth Cave, becoming the first person to explore and map the cave system. He was a self-educated man, with a remarkable wit and humor and he acquired a considerable knowledge of geology. During that first summer of 1838, Bishop familiarized himself with every room, corridor and passageway known to the previous guides. In addition, he began to explore parts of the cave that had been untouched before. He found confusing mazes, dead ends and hidden wonders. One of the passages led to a deep hole that had always been known as the Bottomless Pit. On October 20th, Bishop placed a rickety wooden ladder over the pit and carefully made his way across, becoming the first man to ever do so. It was soon spanned with a bridge, and Bishop began leading visitors to share in the wonders on the other side. Bishop also became the first to discover the cave's underground water system and the strange, eyeless fish that lived in the caverns. Reports of these discoveries brought even more visitors to the cave, so in 1839, Goren hired two slaves from Thomas Branford of Nashville, Tennessee. He paid Branford the annual sum of $100. The new guides were brothers, Matt and Nick, and they have taken on the last names of their master in writings of the cave. They became known as the Branfords, and along with Stephen Bishop, they became the leading explorers and guides of Mammoth Cave. The three of them would continue leading cave tours until the 1870s, and their offspring would continue a tradition here for more than 107 years. Time marched on, and the Civil War brought unrest and trouble to Southern Kentucky. However, the manager of the cave, a staunch supporter of the Union, continued to conduct tours throughout the years of the war. Stories that have been passed down tell of encounters within the cave between Northern and Southern soldiers, each taking a moment from the war to marvel at the natural wonders of the cave. After the war ended, some of the former slaves in the Mammoth Cave community left the area to find new homes. Others, like the Branfords, chose to stay on. They, like Stephen Bishop, had been offered their freedom years before in return for their services in the cave. They had refused to leave though, and they stayed on at Mammoth Cave. Stephen Bishop had died shortly before 1860, but his wife, Charlotte, and son Thomas remained at the cave. Even though the cave had remained open through the war, tourism had been damaged, and reconstruction and continued problems between the North and the South kept things slow for years after. A revival in tourism did not occur until the middle 1880s with the expansion of steamboat traffic, better connecting stage lines, and the completion of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, a spur of which was built directly to the mouth of the cave. Another Bishop, Ed, became one of the cave's greatest explorers. Accompanied by a German cartographer named Max Kemper, Bishop climbed and slid through a collapse of rock and dirt that had previously been thought of as the end of Mammoth Cave. The exploration, and the map that came from it in 1908, is still thought of as the most important accomplishment in the cave's history. Bishop's discovery led to the realization that Mammoth Cave is actually several different caves that all connect in some way underground. No one knew this for many years and different people owned separate caves. It was so confusing that some people owned different parts of the same cave with different entrances on different parcels of land. In the early part of the 1900s, as automobile vacations became popular in America, the ownership of the caves would have strong consequences in southern Kentucky, and sometimes this would have dire results. William Krogan and his wife Lucy built their brick home called Locust Grove in 1790, in what was then wilderness near Louisville, Kentucky. Their first child, John, was born that same year. He grew up at Locust Grove, spending many hours enthralled with the stories told him by his famous adventurer uncle George Rogers Clark. After graduating from Priestley Seminary in Danville, Kentucky and from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, John studied medicine and received a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1813. He then returned to Kentucky and opened a medical practice in Louisville, taking an active part in the establishment of the Louisville Marine Hospital. After the death of his father in 1822, John inherited Locust Grove and a large plantation which he farmed and used to produce salt. In time, though, John gained his own taste for adventure, perhaps remembering the stories told him by his famous uncle, and he went abroad to tour the world. In 1839, he returned home and visited Mammoth Cave. He walked the passages with his guide and was amazed by the size of the rooms and the chambers they found. While in London, John had heard much of Mammoth Cave and he agreed with the current owner's plans for publicizing the cave in the East and in Europe. He also understood the difficulties of getting tourists to the cave and then finding them suitable lodging once they arrived. He believed that not only should a grand hotel be built at the entrance to the cave but underground in the cave as well. He envisioned a carriage road leading into the cave, a dining room, a library and a grand ballroom. Krogan quickly purchased the cave from Franklin Gorin in 1839. The deal included the cave, the inn, Stephen Bishop and the Branford Brothers and set about turning his dreams into reality. Mammoth Cave prospered under Krogan's ownership, although the underground hotel was never realized. He did however construct the spacious Mammoth Cave Hotel, a large inn constructed from two log buildings. It was equipped with rooms to sleep several dozen visitors, a dining hall and ballroom. It would continue to serve travelers until it burned down in 1916. Krogan also spent huge amounts of money on advertising and continued to attract visitors from all over the world. He established a reputation for the cave as an international show place. At Krogan's own expense, he began building public roads to the cave. The first road was opened from Cave City to the Mammoth Cave Hotel and then continued on across Green River to connect to a road at Grayson Springs. Another road began at the Louisville and Nashville turnpike near Rowlett's Station and led to the hotel before continuing on to the southwest where it connected with another turnpike. This was said to be an excellent road in those rugged times and also became the shortest route between Louisville and Nashville. It also just happened to travel right past the Mammoth Cave Hotel and bypassed Bell's Tavern completely. Krogan not only saw the cave as a tourist attraction, he also saw medical benefits to it. As a doctor, he had read of underground hospitals in Europe in which those suffering from consumption, tuberculosis, had been cured. He believed that Mammoth Cave just might have the same curative powers. He and many other doctors believed that the moist air and the constant temperature of the cave might slow or even reverse the ravages of the disease. In 1842, Krogan directed Bishop and the Brandfords to construct wood and stone huts within the cave and then he invited 15 tuberculosis patients to participate in his experiment. Unfortunately, several of the patients died in the cave and the trial was considered a failure. The surviving patients were sent home and the huts were abandoned. They still exist though and can be seen in the cave even today. Several of the patients who died were buried in the old guide's cemetery near the cave entrance. Ironically, Krogan also contracted tuberculosis himself and died in 1849. Being a bachelor, he left the cave in trust for his nieces and nephews. In this way, his death began more than 70 years of tenants and resident managers at Mammoth Cave. The years that followed were strange ones for the cave with no clear-cut route to follow. Mammoth Cave enjoyed success for most of these years, only slowing down after the Civil War. David Graves of Lebanon, Kentucky leased the cave in the 1870s. His time at Mammoth Cave is best remembered for the fine food that he served and the billiard hall that he operated inside the cave. He finally left Mammoth Cave after a number of legal disputes with the owners of the cave and with a competitive stage line that was used to ferry passengers to it. At that time, stage lines were the best methods of bringing tourists to Mammoth Cave, but stagecoach travel was not without danger. One evening in 1880, a group of visitors were returning from the cave when they were stopped by bandits at the Little Hope Cemetery. The robbers took more than $1,000 and many personal items from the travelers, including a fine gold watch that was engraved with the name of Judge R.H. Roundtree of Lebanon. Later, a newspaper article reported that the same watch was found in the possession of Jesse James after his death. Was this famous outlaw responsible for the Mammoth Cave stage robbery? In 1886, Francis Klett brought a mushroom farm to the cave, but more importantly, W.C. Comstock established the Mammoth Cave Railroad and greatly improved travel for cave visitors. The railroad connected to the LNN line at Glasgow Junction. The rail cars were pulled by an engine called Hercules and the little train served Mammoth Cave and the surrounding communities until 1929, when automobiles made an obsolete. All the remains of the train today is an overgrown spur line, the engine, a single coach car, and mostly forgotten memories of a bygone era. The 20th century did not come quietly to the cave country of southern Kentucky. The rivalry that flared up between David Graves and a rival stage line in the 1870s was only the beginning. As it turned out, there would be two realizations that brought about what's been called the cave wars of the early 1900s. The first was that cave tourism could actually be profitable and that it was also very popular. The attention given to various caves in the area had been substantial already, but as the new century dawned, it became obvious that it was no passing fad. With this realization in southern Kentucky, it became necessary for the locals to simply get in on the idea. The second event was the beginning of the automobile vacation era. More and more people in America were buying cars and they were using them to travel to places where they had never been before. To folks in the surrounding states, Mammoth Cave became a natural destination point. Soon, this type of travel would gain the attention of the entire country and historic monuments like Route 66 would be born. Unfortunately though, the interstates would bypass these small highways and regional attractions in later years and many of them would die and fade away. The area around Mammoth Cave today is like a time capsule of the past. The boom years of the 1920s through the early 1970s had a lasting effect on the region and the attractions and motor hotels, most of which barely eke out in existence in these modern times. There are faded signs here that depict the wonders of caves and petting zoos that have been closed down for years. But it wasn't always this way. From the early days, the residents of central and southern Kentucky used the caves for a wide variety of purposes. They provided shelter from storms, preserved their milk, canned food, turnips and potatoes, provided a playground for their children and even served as hiding places for moonshiners and their stills. But as the turn of the last century approached, it was becoming obvious that Mammoth Cave was a huge commercial success and so residents became less interested in the caves for their mundane uses and more interested in using them as a draw for tourists. Many of the local farmers and landowners began to pursue a sideline of cave hunting and developing. Since the Krogan Estate controlled most of the land of the ridge where Mammoth Cave was located, the exploration began to focus on neighboring Flint Ridge, which was separated from the Mammoth Cave Ridge by Narrow Hutchins Valley. The locals desperately wanted to get into the cave business and to start promoting their own caves as competition for well-known Mammoth Cave, or at least to take away a bit of their business. Flint Ridge became the site of a number of commercial cave operations and the source of a number of lurid advertising campaigns as well. The owners were promoting and conducting tours of their own caves, located on their own property. As the years passed and Mammoth Cave became a national park, many of these caves were absorbed into the park system. Most of these smaller caves merely beta portions of the much larger one. At that time, however, people either didn't suspect this or just didn't care. If a person had an entrance to a cave on his property, then he had his own cave. The caves were advertised and marketed wildly and each owner would extol the virtues of his cave above all the others in the area. Each would post as many signs as possible between major roads and the entrance to Mammoth Cave, hoping to lure travelers away from the most popular attraction. Prior to the 1890s, major interest in the caves along Flint Ridge had been confined mostly to Salt's Cave, thanks to the artifacts that had been found there. This remote offshoot of Mammoth Cave was the object of freelance exploration and exploitation and open to anyone. It had been plundered of old torches, Indian pottery, decay moccasins, and even a male mummy that had been discovered in 1875 by William Cutliffe. Legend has it that he also found three other mummies and hid them away in the cave somewhere. To this day, they have never been found. The development of the Flint Ridge caves really began in 1895, when Lute and Henry Lee opened up a sinkhole on the south side and dubbed their discovery Colossal Cavern. Officials of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad immediately began trying to purchase it and eventually succeeded. Afterwards they blasted an opening about a mile and a half from the Mammoth Cave's entrance but their intent was not so much to exploit the cave as to find out if it connected to Mammoth. Many had come to suspect that Mammoth Cave, as it had been explored by Stephen Bishop and other guides, was located under land that extended out from property owned by the Krogan estate. This was confirmed by Ed Bishop and Max Camper in 1908, but the Krogan heirs were so desperate to keep this a secret that they refused to publish the maps or findings of their expedition. People suspected it anyway, including a man named Edmund Turner, a young civil engineer with a passion for underground exploration. He came to the Mammoth Cave region in 1912 and when looking for someone to act as a guide, he met another young man named Floyd Collins, a native who had given up farming for caving. With Collins, Turner explored Salt's Cave and while finding some new unexplored passages, did not find any connections to Mammoth. Turner traveled all over the area and dug in blasted holes into any spot he thought looked promising. At one point, he came close to discovering the frozen Niagara entrance to Mammoth but ran out of dynamite and moved on to another spot. He boarded with many families in the region, including L.P. Edwards, whose farm he believed was located over a sizable cavern. The two entered into a verbal agreement to split anything they found and Turner believed that he could trust the man since Edwards was a preacher. The result of this agreement was the discovery of Great Onks Cave in 1915. Turner named the place, helped to build the entrance and developed the trails. Because the cave possessed the finest onks columns in the region, Reverend Edwards was quick to capitalize on this and also took advantage of the verbal agreement he had with Turner by cheating him out of his half and claiming the whole thing for himself. Turner died a pauper from pneumonia less than a year later and only a small fund raised mostly by local cave guides provided him with a decent burial. Edwards refused to donate a dime to the fund. Turner was buried in the Mammoth Cave Baptist Church Cemetery with small, uncarved sandstone rocks at his head and feet and the grave can still be found there today. More about Kentucky's Mammoth Cave when Weird Darkness returns The first letter seemed harmless enough, possibly even just the result of a mistaken delivery. The second one drew concern and paired with the unexplained visions of something darkly unsettling, Sam Morris finally caves. The every man safe world he lives in is about to take a drastic and dark turn. He quickly falls into a world of insanity, the morbid and the macabre. He's drawn into a darkness that is just as deadly as it is mysterious, a darkness that dwells in a house that could only be conjured up by a mad brain. It is a house that calls you, a house that haunts you with its ghosts. They'll scratch and claw through your fragile hide, bringing madness bubbling to the surface. Come see the ghosts for yourself, if you dare. Weird Darkness Publishing presents of A Mad Brain by Scott Donnelly, now available on paperback, ebook and audiobook versions through Amazon and WeirdDarkness.com. In the years that followed, Great Onks Cave became one of the most successful of the caves on Flint Ridge, in spite of the fact that a number of the joining neighbors filed lawsuits against Edwards, claiming the cave was under their property. Although Edwards lost all of these suits, he still controlled the largest portion of the caves and later passed it on to his daughter, Lucid Cox. She continued the cave's success and built the Great Onks Hotel at the cave which offered overnight accommodations and delicious meals. Around this same time, another caving enthusiast named George D. Morrison turned up in the area. He was a mining engineer and oil prospector from Louisville and also became fascinated with finding new entrances into Mammoth Cave. Morrison founded the Mammoth Cave Development Company and took out options on land south of the Mammoth Cave property. He began running illegal surveys of the cave, trying to determine if the passageways went under land he had recently leased. He even sent people into the cave to listen for drills and to set off charges of dynamite so that he could watch for erupting ground or smoke. Mammoth Cave officials caught him on one occasion and he was arrested and fined $75 for trespassing. Morrison maintained that he was prospecting for oil, but everyone, including the cave owners, knew precisely what he was up to. Morrison later left the area to acquire additional money to fund his ventures, but World War I stalled his plans and he did not return until 1921. This time he found what he had been looking for all along, another entrance to Mammoth Cave on his own property. Not only that but he also discovered new sections of the cave that were even more beautiful than the older part. To make matters worse, his property stood between the old entrance and the primary tourist route, which meant that travelers had to pass his cave first. Morrison quickly improved the entrance and constructed a hotel that he called the New Entrance Hotel. He even started plans for an elevator that would take patrons from the lobby to the wonders below. The Mammoth Cave managers were furious, especially when Morrison began setting up roadside signs that called attention to his new entrance and began selling tickets that actually had Mammoth Cave printed on them. The location began siphoning off tourists from the original site and the Krogan estate, not surprisingly, sued for an injunction to stop him from using Mammoth Cave in his name and advertising. But when Morrison showed the jury his maps and proved that it was all the same cave and that tourists could visit either entrance, the court found in his favor. The Krogans appealed the verdict and while a higher court supported Morrison, it did direct him to be more precise in his advertising. Morrison s success was electrifying to the other cave owners in the area and those who did not have caves on their land opted for the next best thing, they sold souvenirs of all types. Shacks and stands sold everything from bookends to paperweights, all made from polished cave onyx, much of which had been stolen from area caves in the dead of night. By the middle 1920s what became known as the cave wars were in full swing. Kentucky Cavers acted ruthlessly and in highly competitive ways. In order to cut into their competitors business, rivals lauded their caverns and often spread rumors about Mammoth Cave being flooded or that the Mammoth Cave hotel was closed or falling down. The owners of caves often told visitors who came to see them that they shouldn t visit another nearby attraction for a variety of reasons ranging from poison gases in the rival cave to a tourist being killed there in an accident. As more caves were discovered and developed, competition for the tourists became even more heated. Those who found a cave on their land borrowed heavily from the bank to develop it and to build a ticket office and curio shop. Then they roamed the countryside looking for tourists and herded as many as they could into their caverns. Sometimes the competition between the operating caves became more than just who did the most advertising. In this mainly Baptist area, shootings and killings were forbidden but just about anything else seemed to be allowed including harassment, lying and tricks of all kinds. Some natives estimated that by 1925 as many as a third of all the visitors to the area were diverted away from Mammoth Cave and to the smaller caves by nefarious means. On many occasions, violence and vandalism marred the countryside. Signs were torn down and destroyed. Fires were set and even shots were occasionally fired. On a few occasions the visitors themselves even got into the act. One incident involved rival caves that were located right next to one another. Offense separated the two entrances and as visitors fled into each cave for a tour, the owners encouraged them to throw rocks at the opposite tour group. The ultimate high point in the cave wars came with the death and the strange afterlife odyssey of Floyd Collins which began in 1925. It all came to an end a year later though when Mammoth Cave became a part of the National Park System. In the early 1920s a group was formed called the Mammoth Cave National Park Association for the purpose of trying to get the government to grant National Park status to the cave. By this time many were starting to realize that the numerous caves in the area were undoubtedly connected. By turning the underground system into a national park it would protect the entire region for future generations. Most of those who started the association were businessmen and politicians, not the people who owned smaller caves in the area and who made their living from guiding tours through the attractions. Obviously these people were opposed to the government coming in and taking over their property but they lacked both the funding and the political clout to do anything about it. In 1926 legislation was passed that officially authorized the preparation of Mammoth Cave as a national park. Congress authorized the cave to receive national park status that same year. However it was not made official until President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the papers in July 1941. The delay was caused by the refusal of the local people to sell their land. The national park was slated to absorb all of the land both above and below ground where the cave was located. This created a huge parcel of land to be sold to the government. It was the duty of the Kentucky National Park Commission formed in 1928 to acquire the land but they met with nothing but opposition. The acquisition became a heated subject in southern and central Kentucky while some sold their homes and land willingly others were forced out by eminent domain. It did not make for a pleasant climate in the area and not surprisingly there are hard feelings that still linger in the area now more than 70 years later. Many things have changed at Mammoth Cave over the years including the cave itself. At every moment monumental changes are taking place underground that will have an impact on the future of Mammoth Cave. The underground rivers continue their journey through the rock. The calcium droplets of water slowly slide lower and lower creating artistic fixtures of stone and cave formations grow in size that can only be measured by the eye over a span of hundreds of years. In every moment time marches on and brings changes here. However some things remain the same remaining lost and forgotten with time. They are the ghosts and spirits of Mammoth Cave. There have been many stories of ghosts at Mammoth Cave spanning several generations of visitors, guides and service personnel. This isn't surprising considering that caves can be very spooky places filled with dark corners, shadowed crevices and odd noises. But are the stories of Mammoth Cave merely figments of overactive imaginations? That remains to be seen although we should take into account that ghostly tales have been told about the place almost from the time when the first cave tours roamed the darkened corridors with only a small lantern to guide the way. These eerie stories tell of unexplained sounds, strange lights, bizarre noises, disembodied footsteps and of course apparitions and spirits. However skeptics maintain there are explanations for these things. A person's imagination can play tricks on them in the dark and footsteps and voices can seem ghostly where there are echoes from other parts of the cave. They also state that stories of encounters with ghosts in Mammoth Cave are told by tourists and visitors who have no previous experience with caves and with the natural phenomena that accompanies them. But there are others who would say that this isn't true. While many of the stories are indeed accounts told by visitors to the cave, others are not so easy to explain away. Many of the tales are experiences shared by park rangers, cave explorers, spelunkers and even geologists who are fully aware of what strange things a cave can do. Believers and the resident ghosts can cite a number of reasons why the cave might be haunted. The long history of the place includes accidents from the days of the Saltpeter operations, Native Americans who wandered into the cave and never found their way out, stranded travelers, missing cave explorers, tragic tuberculosis victims and even those who loved the place so much that they have never left or saw the stories go. I'll let you judge that for yourself. I have visited Mammoth Cave many times in years past and while collecting ghost stories I had the opportunity to talk with many of the people who work here. I've also been able to find other accounts from those who have gone on the record about the resident haunts in years past. In my own experience I have found most of the park rangers reluctant to talk about ghost stories, although I have found a few who don't laugh off the odd tales and who will share their own strange experiences. One such ranger has served as a guide in the cave for a number of years. She told me that weird things often happen along the route leading from the historic entrance to the cave. One day she had been leading a tour group into the cave and had stopped to point out a site along the passage. She paused to wait for everyone to catch up and noticed a man in the back who was lingering behind the rest. He was wearing a striped shirt, denim pants and suspenders but that was all she remembered. After her discussion the group moved further along the passage and she looked for the man again but he was gone. There was no one else in the tour group who matched the description of this man so she sent another guide back a little way to look for him. The man was never found. Another story told by an experienced tour guide named Joy Lyons tells of a tour that was taken a few years ago in the company of a large group of two guides. When they reached a point on the trail called The Methodist Church they usually turned out all the lights so that visitors could experience what the cave was like in pitch blackness. She was standing at the back of the group when the lights went out and she could hear the lead ranger talking about the experience. Then she felt a strong shove against her shoulder. The assault was hard enough that she had to step forward to keep from falling over. She turned to another ranger who was supposed to be standing next to her and she whispered to him to stop clowning around. A moment later the lead ranger ignited the wick on a lantern and she saw that the other ranger she had thought was close to her was actually about 70 feet away. There was no way that he could have shoved her and then walked so far in complete darkness. There was no one near me she said but it was a playful shove. There are a number of us who feel things in various parts of the cave. It's not frightening but it's something else. An additional story comes from Charlie Hanion, a former cave guide who became a nature writer. He and a friend were leading a lantern tour of the cave, a historic tour designed to give the visitor an idea of how early tourists saw the cave and as his friend was talking to the assembled group a girl of about 14 years old turned to Hanion and asked him who the man standing near the rocks was. Hanion looked about 40 feet away and saw a man in old fashioned formal attire. He was dressed in a fashion that tourists from decades past would have dressed to tour the cave. The man quickly vanished. But the really weird part came the following week when we were on the same tour Hanion added. As the tour group reached the same point in the cave, a guide asked if there were any questions. A woman raised her hand and asked if strange things were ever seen in this part of the cave. The woman was a tourist and claimed to be a psychic. She pointed over to the place in the rocks where Hanion had seen the man the week before and she asked who that person was. It was the same spot where we'd seen it before. I didn't see it at all that time, Hanion recalled. He also admitted that while he hadn't seen anything, the entire experience gave him chills to think about. Based on these accounts, it would seem that apparitions are fairly common at Mammoth Cave and this is especially true when it comes to the most famous ghost connected to the cave. It is said to be a fictional account, but many wonder if the story might contain elements of the truth, especially those who believe they may have encountered the main character in the story. In February 1858, an article appeared in Knickerbocker magazine called A Tragedy in Mammoth Cave. The story tells of a girl named Melissa, who confessed the entire tale on her deathbed, having succumbed to tuberculosis. Melissa was a southern girl who lived in the vicinity of Mammoth Cave and she had fallen in love with her tutor from Boston, a young man named Beverly. The tutor had ignored Melissa's affections and began courting a neighbor girl instead. Melissa plotted her revenge. Having grown up in the area, she knew well the twists and turns of Mammoth Cave and with careful planning, she lured Mr. Beverly to the cave. She conducted him on a tour to the depths of the cave and to a place called Echo River. Here, she vanished into a side passage and left the poor man to find his own way out. Days passed and Beverly did not return. Melissa had only meant the whole thing as a cruel joke and so, in despair, she went back to the cave to look for him. She made daily treks underground, searching and calling out to him, but Beverly was never seen again. Melissa was later diagnosed with consumption and died a short time later, never recovering from her guilt over the tutor's death. Many believe that her ghost is still seen and heard in Mammoth Cave, desperately searching for the missing man. While the story sounds incredibly melodramatic, the reader is warned not to dismiss it too quickly. According to Gary Bremmer, a former Mammoth Cave guide, there just might be something to the tale. Several years ago, Bremmer and four others were in a boat on Echo River, an underground stream that lies deep in the cave. One of the men had left to get another paddle for the boat. Bremmer remembered what happened next. The three of us in the boat all heard a woman calling out. It wasn't screaming but it was as though she was looking for someone. The next day, they asked some of the other guides if anyone else had ever had such an experience.  Bremmer had never heard the story before that time. Strangely, it would not be his last encounter here either. A short time later, he was again on the Echo River, this time with a new employee who had never seen the river before. She suddenly turned and grabbed his shoulder. Did you hear a woman cough? She asked him. Bremmer felt a cold chill. Melissa had died of tuberculosis, he remembered. The other employee would later verify Bremmer's version of their experience and would also add that she had also heard garbled voices in the cave and one night believed she heard someone whisper her name. Not all of the accounts of Mammoth Cave come from parts of the cave that are accessible to the public. Many of the strangest tales come from Crystal Cave, which was once believed to be a separate cave and was once operated as a private attraction. This cave is located along Flint Ridge, now well within the boundaries of the National Park. It is not, at this time, open to the public and yet the stories that surround this portion of the cave are too mysterious to not be included here. Most of the legends involve the ghost of a man named Floyd Collins, the former owner of Crystal Cave. Collins was not only an avid cave explorer but an established businessman too, always on the lookout for new caves that could be developed and put into service as a money-making enterprise. Floyd had grown up in the area around Mammoth Cave and, through his early years, his family eked out a living with a farm on Flint Ridge. He had been fascinated with caves as a boy and spent most of his childhood crawling in and out of holes that were scattered all over the farm. His life as a professional keaver began in 1912, though, when he met Edmund Turner. The enterprising young man roomed with the Collins family for a time and he paid young Floyd to act as a guide and to help him find caves that could be explored and developed. Turner gave him more than just money though and instilled in Floyd a knowledge of cave formations and geology. Turner's discoveries and initial success only heightened Floyd's interest in developing his own caves and by World War I he was spending little time on the family farm and was instead mining onyx and exploring the caverns of the area. In the winter of 1916 to 1917 he made his greatest discovery by accident. One day, while slipping into a crevice that he described as breathing, meaning that air was coming out of it from a cave below, he uncovered a crawlway that led deeper into the earth. After two weeks of digging, he emerged into a huge cavern that was encrusted with white and cream-colored gypsum flowers. Delirious with excitement, Floyd rushed back to the house and even though it was well past midnight, he roused the family and rushed them to the cave while they were still in their nightclothes. The stunned family members did not emerge until after dawn. Floyd called this discovery Wander Cave but William Travis Blair, his next-door neighbor, suggested that he call it Crystal Cave instead, referring to the wondrous gypsum flowers. Floyd's father, Lee, and his brothers helped him to enlarge the entrance and they smoothed the floors and made trails during what ended up becoming more than 12 months of hard work. While all of this was going on, Floyd was exploring new passages and chambers and continued to make discoveries that made the cave one of the showplaces of the Flint Ridge. In 1918, the Floyds opened the cave and hired a manager and with that formally entered the cave wars. The family began prowling the highways looking for tourists because, unfortunately, the cave was located off the beaten track and could be reached by an almost impassable dirt road. Floyd and his family fought for their share of the local traffic but the odds were against them, which was too bad. Crystal Cave was reportedly amazing and tourists were given an especially rare treat if Floyd himself showed them through. He often told them of adventures that were beyond the tourist trail or would, in his enthusiasm, reach over and break off one of the gypsum flowers and hand it to the astonished visitor. Those who came loved the cave but few made the trip and Crystal Cave refused to make money no matter how much work was put into it. In the lull between tourists Floyd continued to relentlessly explore the cave but this did nothing to alter the poor business situation. The cave was only occasionally profitable and the Collins still had to rely on farming and other activities to remain in business. In 1920 Floyd even invested in a still and for a short time before prohibition made legal whiskey to supplement the cave's income. Some say he continued this after prohibition was passed as well. The rough economic times as well as family problems caused a division between Floyd and his father who wanted to sell off the cave and get out of the business. Floyd refused and in fact the arguments between them stiffened his resolve. He was convinced that Crystal Cave's many passages led to connections with surrounding caves. He'd already explored five or six miles of passageways and had uncovered many leads some of which ran toward Mammoth Cave. He wanted to, like George Morrison, find a commercially exploitable opening and one that was found in the right place could even displace Morrison's new entrance and ensnare the largest share of tourists. Floyd carefully researched his plans. He talked with old timers and cavers about their experiences and looked over old charts and maps. From all of this he concluded that the most likely spot for a new opening was just over the line in Barron County on the narrow piece of land that connected the Mammoth Cave Ridge with Flint Ridge at the latter's southeast corner. An opening here just might, Floyd thought, connect Crystal Cave with Mammoth. Floyd recalled from his past explorations that a sandhole existed on the farm of Beasley Doyle. Since Doyle was only one of three farmers controlling this area, Floyd began negotiations with him as well as Edward Estes and Jesse Lee, the other owners. Of the three of them, only Estes was a caver, often raiding local caves for the onyx which he sold to tourists. Floyd offered to search their land for caves in return for one half of the profits and the three farmers could split the other half. Only Estes originally balked at the deal but finally prodded by the others he also agreed. Floyd began his explorations starting with the hole on the Doyle farm. The press later called this hole sand cave but this was a misnomer. It was not so much a cave as a narrow twisting crevice that led downward. It had been opened due to the collapse of a larger cavern centuries before and the passageway skirted the edge of an overhanging shelter's back wall. Floyd chose this route which was covered with sandstone debris because he thought it might be a shortcut to what he hoped was solid limestone below. He had no idea where it might lead but hoped for either a new passage to Mammoth Cave, a backdoor to his own crystal cave or even an entirely new cave altogether. Floyd stayed with the Doyles for the next two weeks as he began to dig out an entrance and to begin a descent into the crumbling passage. He returned home to his parents' house on weekends and his father constantly chastised him for his time and attention that he was paying for this new project. Not only that, Lee Floyd insisted but the hole was dangerous and he warned Floyd that he was liable to get caught in it. His mother also chimed in. She confided to her son that she had dreamed that Floyd would get caught in a rockfall and would be rescued by angels She was convinced that the dream had been a warning from God. She begged him not to return to the cave but Floyd did not listen. At the beginning of his third week of work at Sand Cave, Floyd moved over to stay with the Estes family but left his work clothes at the Doyle Farm because it was closer to the site. His progress in the cave was rapid especially after his use of dynamite on Monday. On Thursday, he hauled some stalactites out of the cave to show to Doyle and Estes as evidence of the wonders that he was sure were waiting below. On Friday morning, January 30, 1925, Floyd Collins entered Sand Cave for the last time. When Floyd did not return to either the Doyle or estate homes by Saturday morning, he was realized that someone should go and check the sandhole and to make sure that he was all right. Unfortunately, he was not. While winding his way through the narrow passage, a rock worked its way loose from the shattered stone and fell on his left foot. He became wedged in against the wall and was unable to work himself out. He was lying on his right side and his right leg was locked at an awkward angle. His left arm remained free but in the cold dampness of the cave it quickly became numb. During the night, Floyd had fallen asleep and when he awakened, he discovered that his lantern had gone out. He could only wait and hope that someone came to his aid. There is still more to learn about Kentucky's Mammoth Cave and we will do that up next. Are you a member of the Darkness Syndicate? The Darkness Syndicate is a private membership where you receive commercial-free episodes of the Weird Darkness podcast and radio show. Behind the scenes, video updates about future projects and events I am working on. You can share your own opinions on ideas to help me decide upon Weird Darkness Contests and events. You can hear audiobooks I am narrating before even the publishers or authors get to hear them. You also receive bonus audio of other projects I am working on outside of Weird Darkness. You get all of these benefits and more, starting at only $5 per month. Join the Weird Darkness Syndicate at WeirdDarkness.com slash Syndicate. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Syndicate. When Floyd's family and friends arrived on Saturday, they immediately set to work trying to free him. They managed to work his upper body loose and to warm him up with a gasoline lantern. But that was all. With Floyd still trapped, they began widening the narrow opening into the cave and removed two bushels of rocks. But even this did not help. Floyd's brother, Homer, climbed down into the passage to spend the night with his brother as rescue attempts were called off for the day. Not sure of what else to do, Lee Collins offered a $500 reward to anyone who could free his son. It was becoming clear to the crowd that was beginning to gather outside that the rescue would not be a simple one. By Monday morning, newspapers across the United States had begun to report his predicament. Hundreds of people congregated outside Sand Cave. Members of the Louisville Fire Department were on hand as well as experienced cavers, concerned locals, and many who simply meant well but had no real experience with such predicaments. Many of them tried to reach Floyd with supplies and comfort, and while many of them made it, most turned back, paralyzed with fear at the narrowness of the passageway. As mentioned, newspapers all over the country reported on the trap that Floyd had gotten himself into. A number of reporters tried to reach Floyd for interviews, but the most successful was a cub reporter from the Louisville Courier Journal named William Burke Skeets Miller, who later won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage. Miller's nickname Skeets, short for Mosquito, came from his diminutive size, which enabled him to slide down the narrow path and sit with Floyd where he was trapped. He made eight descents into the cave and conducted a series of interviews that were quickly relayed to his readers as a firsthand account of what it was like to be literally buried alive. Days passed and began to turn into several weeks. There had been attempts to bodily hoist Floyd from the cave. He had requested it even if his foot was pulled off, and an assortment of wild schemes, but none of them had worked. The local attempts soon became a national crisis involving dozens of miners, the National Guard, the Red Cross, and a number of engineers. Thanks to the inclement weather, the crumbling walls of the cave passage and often just confusion, Floyd could not be freed. Many would later claim that Floyd became secondary to the scene on the surface. Fascinated by the daily reports from the reporters on the scene, an estimated 20,000 onlookers streamed into the area. Some of them hoped to help or catch a glimpse of the now heroic Floyd, but others simply wanted to exploit the event by selling food, drinks, and souvenirs. The circus-like atmosphere reached its peak in mid-February, and the steady stream of curiosity seekers continued. Finally, a group of men managed to work their way into the cave and began trying to pry loose the rock that trapped Floyd's leg. They had widened the passageway, and as they worked, the rock finally came free. Then immediately slipped back into place, wedging Floyd's leg even more securely into place. They worked it back and forth, but it was no use. Then, to make the situation even more dire, a series of small key-vins occurred, crashing down onto Floyd and cutting him off from the surface. His would-be rescuers, after discovering that Floyd was still alive, scurried back to the surface. From that point on, none of the workers would return to the cave, fearing that the entire shaft might collapse. Homer Collins was enraged that no one would attempt to save his brother, and he clashed with the authorities. Eventually, he was banned from the site. Since no one would go back into the hole, a new plan was devised. A vertical shaft was started a short distance away with plans for it to intersect with the spot where Floyd was trapped. Friends, family and volunteers worked feverishly and on February 16th, the shaft finally reached Floyd. Tragically, though, he had died three days earlier, on Friday the 13th, from exposure and exhaustion. People all over America had been riveted to the story of Floyd Collins and his plight had been front-page news and newspapers and the source of constant updates on the radio for weeks. The press had descended on the Mammoth Cave area and had turned the region upside down. What was not reported so widely was the fact that it took an additional two months to finally remove Floyd's lifeless body from the cave. The tragedy brought national attention to the Kentucky Cave Country, but it also created a backlash, leading many to wonder if the caves were safe. The tourist trade was temporarily affected, with the small commercial caves suffering the most. This was at the height of the previously mentioned cave wars, and now the smaller caves were fighting one another for an even smaller piece of the pie. Even Crystal Cave, which should have still managed to draw business thanks to Floyd Collins' name, was hurt by the slump. As a result, Floyd's father, Lee Collins, was even more anxious to sell the place than he had been when Floyd was alive. In 1927, he accepted an offer from Dr. Harry B. Thomas, a local dentist, to take Crystal Cave off his hands for $10,000. Dr. Thomas already owned two other commercial caves in the area, Hidden River Cave and Mammoth Onyx Cave. In the transfer of property, Thomas was authorized to move Floyd Collins' body from its resting place and relocate it in Crystal Cave, where it would be given a new burial spot. The Collins family, of course, objected to this, but it was too late. Lee Collins had already signed the deal. Thomas wanted to move Floyd's body because he was sure that it would be a huge moneymaker for Crystal Cave. He had the body exhumed and then placed it in a glass-covered bronze metal coffin, opening it for public viewing in June 1927. It was placed in the middle of the tourist trail, leading to Crystal Cave's main concourse. Here, visitors could pass by and look at him as they walked deeper into the cave. He had a large granite tombstone placed at Floyd's head. Granted, the stunt was ghoulish, but it worked. Hundreds flocked to see Floyd's body and, in his death, he became the cave's greatest advertisement. The guides would lecture solemnly about the exploits of the world's greatest cave explorer while the tourists gawked at the white, waxed face of the man in the coffin. The Collins family sued Thomas and the case was battled out in court for several years. In 1929 the courts ruled, hopefully reluctantly, that Collins' body could stay where it was. Dr. Thomas had the legal right to the macabre display. Floyd would remain where he was in Crystal Cave, or at least that was the general idea. At some point on the night of March 18, 1929, Floyd's body was stolen from its glass coffin and spirited out of the cave. The theft was discovered the next morning and authorities from three counties were enlisted to help in the search. The casket was dusted for fingerprints and blood hounds after being given Floyd's scent scoured the surrounding area. Before the day was over, the missing body was discovered, minus the left leg, about 800 yards from the cave's entrance. It had been wrapped in burlap bags and hidden in the brush along the Green River. The cadaver was back in its coffin the following day, a little worse for where, although the missing leg was never found. The identity of the thieves was also never discovered, although many of the local folks had their suspicions. The prime suspect was Dr. Thomas himself. Although he maintained that he could not guess the motives of the body snatchers, there were those who believed that he had stolen the body himself in an effort to boost business at Crystal Cave, which it did. Others however blamed competing cave owners jealous over Thomas' new found success and some believed that the Collins family had nabbed the course or had hired it done and they had lost the body before they could get away. Regardless, after the attempted theft, the casket was covered each night with a metal lid and was securely locked. As time passed, the body was shown infrequently, although tourists were still asked to pause at the casket and listen to a short spiel offered in memory of the fallen cave explorer. The body continued to be displayed on occasion as late as 1952, although it remained in the cave for eight years after, long after it was closed to the public. Many years after his actual death, Floyd Collins was finally buried at the Baptist Church Cemetery on Flint Ridge Road. His grave can easily be found there today. The last time I visited there I found a plastic bag that had been left behind on his tombstone with a note that was inscribed to Floyd. Inside the waterproof bag were a handful of matches and a candle, the best friends of an old-time cave explorer. Even after all this time, Floyd Collins has not been forgotten. Could that be because his ghost is still around? Over the past several years, Crystal Cave has not been accessible to the public, although it has been sharded and explored by national park employees and by a limited number of spelunkers. The fact that these veteran cave explorers have encountered weird phenomena in the cave dismisses the idea that the ghost stories here are merely the result of the overactive imaginations of tourists who are unfamiliar with the ordinary happenings in a cave. A few years back, a group of mammoth cave employees were on an after-hours excursion in Crystal Cave and they noticed an old whiskey bottle that was resting on a rock ledge. One of the men in the group picked it up and looked at it and then placed it back on the ledge where he had found it. The group walked on deeper into the cave. Later on in the evening, one of the men was walking back toward the cave entrance and was just passing by the old whiskey bottle when he heard a strange sound. It was just behind my ear, he stated. I heard a sound as though someone had flicked a finger against glass, a clink. I turned around just in time to see the bottle hit the ground. Another man who was with him jumped back in shock. He claimed that the whiskey bottle had not just fallen but that it had come straight out from the wall and had just dropped.  It was very bizarre. Could the ghostly activity in the cave be attributed to the ghost of Floyd Collins? If there were an identity to be given to this ghost, he would certainly be everyone's first choice. Another tale from Crystal Cave is attributed to a former employee named George Wood, who filed it as a report back in 1976. He wrote that he and another employee, Bill Cobb, had spent a day in June checking springs for a study on groundwater flow in Central Kentucky. They didn't make it to the last spring until dark and it was located near the old and abandoned Collins House on Flint Ridge. Cobb went to the spring, while Wood waited near the truck. After a few moments, he heard the sound of a man crying out in the darkness. At first he thought it was his friend calling for help, but the voice seemed too high-pitched. It was also so faint he had to listen carefully to hear what it was saying. The voice cried, Help me! Help me! Help me! I'm trapped! Johnny, help me! He called out over and over again. As he stood there on the edge of the dark road, he felt a cold chill run down his back. He vividly recalled hearing and reading about Floyd Collins and how he was trapped in Sand Cave, which was located just a short distance from where he was standing. A few minutes later, Cobb returned and Wood asked him if he had been calling for him. The other man had heard nothing while at the spring, but after hearing Wood's account, admitted that he was spooked. In fact, they both were and didn't waste any time in getting back to the truck and driving off. Could the spectral voice have really belonged to Floyd Collins? And if so, could the Johnny that was heard in the mysterious cry have referred to Johnny Gerald, a friend of Floyd's and the last person to speak with him before the cave collapse sealed him off from rescue? Is his spirit still trapped in the cave, or could the sound have been merely an eerie echo of yesterday? So are there really ghosts in famous Mammoth Cave? If the stories of witnesses and guides from almost the past two centuries can be believed, there are. Combine these accounts with hesitant reports from scientists and trained skeptics who can't explain what they have encountered in the cave and you certainly have an unusual situation on your hands. But if nothing else, the cave is certainly ripe for a haunting and the legends alone draw thousands of eager visitors each year. The mystery, the history the cave explorers who have never returned, the tragedy, the terror and the death have created just what may be one of the most haunted places in the world. Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find all of my social media. Listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, visit the store for Weird Darkness t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, phone cases and more merchandise, sign up for monthly contests, find other podcasts that I host, and find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. Serial killer Ronald Gene Simmons was written by Cara Goldfarb for all that's interesting. Grindelwald and Secret Societies is by Marta Cobb, posted at Ancient Origins. Interdimensional Shadow Person is posted at FreakLord.com. Bram Stoker's Inspiration was written by Doug McGowan for Historic Mysteries. And Kentucky's Mammoth Cave was written by Troy Taylor for American Hauntings, Inc. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Psalm 119 verse 1, Blessed are they whose ways are blameless who walk according to the law of the Lord. And a final thought, you see better when you're scared. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.