Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Welcome Weirdos, I'm Darren Marlar and this is a Dark Archives episode of Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. If you're new here, welcome to the show and if you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com where you can find the daily podcast and all social media that I'm on, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Miwi and others, along with the Weird Darkness Weirdos Facebook group.  One afternoon in the office, I shared a strange experience I was having on my hour-long commute home with my co-worker Anna. I advised her sometimes I don't even remember being in the car when abruptly I'm at home walking around and have no recollection of the trip whatsoever. I figured everyone has those experiences from time to time. Instead, my confession met with a rather surprised expression.  Curious, I rolled my desk chair up closer to her desk. I've told you several times about me growing up on a farm, she proceeded. We lived in a tiny two-room house, six of us, a fireplace for warmth in the winter. Beds lined the room head to foot. My parents had a curtain hanging from the ceiling to provide privacy in the far corner of the room. One night, I awakened to see a man sitting on the foot of my bed, dressed in white, wearing a turban, one elbow resting on his knee while he rubbed his forehead gazing about the room. I closed and opened my eyes several times in hopes that he would just disappear. Too frightened to shout out to my father snoring loudly behind a thin curtain only a few feet away, I continued quiet surveillance of him. He began pacing the floor quietly as if levitating over normally squeaky wood floor planks. He continued walking about as if no one else were present in the room, not seeing me now sitting straight up in my bed. I felt for some reason he was lost and confused as he continued pacing and rubbing his forehead. A bluish white glow outlined his body, his facial features not clear in the dim glow from the fireplace. I thought to myself, he appeared solid, not a ghost, his movements natural, a real human. I wanted to speak but my gut feeling told me no. He sat a few more times again on the end of my bed. I noticed he was literally weightless. Growing stiff I was much too frightened to stretch my legs in fear of drawing his attention or waking up baby June lying next to me. This went on for a time and as I began to grow sleepy I was less frightened of the stranger. Before scooting down under the covers our eyes met for a brief second pitch black, shiny almost glowing. The next thing I remember my mother was calling me to breakfast. I believe what my friend Anna encountered was a time traveler. Could it be possible that is what happens to some of us when we are suddenly at our destination without remembering? There are very few among those with a love for the supernatural who don't also have a passion for Edgar Allan Poe. Poe wasn't simply a melancholy author who wrote about premature burials, sinister black cats and talking ravens. He was much more. If you have ever read a modern mystery or horror novel you can thank Poe. Poe invented the modern mystery story, mostly invented science fiction and was the first writer to take the horror stories of the Gothic era and set them in modern times starting a trend that continues today.  He invites listeners along to delve into the strange and bizarre world of Edgar Allan Poe, from his early life to his tragic marriage, his insane grief, his dramatically failed career, his links to an unsolved murder and the mystery of what happened to the writer in the five days before his unexplained death. Even more than a century and a half later, no one knows what happened to Poe before he was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland or what killed him. Why did he disappear and then show up in an incoherent state wearing another man's clothes? Where did he go when he vanished and who was the mysterious Reynolds that Poe whispered about in his dying breath? And perhaps strangest of all, does he haunt the mysterious graveyard where his body is buried? Nevermore the Haunted Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe, written by Troy Taylor narrated by Darren Marlar. Find a link to the book on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. There is a neighborhood full of many picturesque views throughout the year. A glimpse of multi-hued stained glass sparkling in the late afternoon sun. A colorful bit of painted detail on a porch behind the delicate scrim of branches covered in dogwood blossoms. A wintry blanket of white draped over a small front yard enclosed in ornate curly cues of wrought iron fencing. Vistas like these come to mind when I think about the seasons in Old Louisville. But as can be imagined, my favorite scenes tend to occur in autumn when the threat of frost has mercilessly scared the green from the shade trees along the sidewalks and pedestrian courts. Fleeting and melancholic, fall weather predisposes one to the meditative side of things and it can turn a simple walk into an evocative stroll in Old Louisville. On October, during such a stroll along Third Street, I had the chance to study the facade of a building that had always captured my imagination. Later I returned home and started to do some research on the place and like so many of the structures in Old Louisville, it turned out to have an interesting story to tell. It's an immense gothic church, a veritable masterpiece of stone and mortar that looms at the corner with St. Catherine Street and when the towering trees that shield the three west-facing entryways put on their fall finery, it is a spectacular sight to behold. Brilliant yellow leaves form a dazzling canopy for the wooden doors in their intricate lancet arches and when offset by a sharp blue sky, the ivory structure radiates grandeur and permanence. It is the Walnut Street Baptist Church and its flock, one of the most active in the community, has a storied history in the state, making it a proud congregation in the midst of many proud residents. Given the fierce sense of pride that Old Louisvillians feel about their style of living, it would then come as little surprise to discover that this hubris extends back to the early days of the neighborhood. The beginning of the 20th century in Louisville was a time of unbridled opulence that culminated in almost two decades' surge in residential construction and public architecture. During the heyday of the famous Southern Exposition, it seemed that new mansions sprang up practically overnight and they would dramatically alter the view along 3rd and 4th avenues. These counted as two of the most popular thoroughfares for this city's elite, for those of established old-money wealth and up-and-coming incomes alike, and it was reported that in 1885 alone some 260 elegant homes went up in that area, signalling as it were the advent of prosperity and easy living for a growing upper middle class. From national publications such as Harper's Weekly poured in and notebooks in hand, they scoured the new neighborhood in search of stories and sketches to send back to their readerships. Illustrations of spacious Louisville residences with solid construction and innovative design painted the city with a very complementary brush, and words soon spread that a Kentucky city in less than a century since its inception no less had carved out an enviable slice of living for itself on the frontier. Local press ran with the accolades and the Derby City soon became the standard bearer for the notion of the house beautiful. In an article that reflected on this incredible building boom, the Louisville Times of December 31, 1909 touted the local sentiment when it claimed that nothing can rob Louisville of the distinction of being the real home center of the country. As if to bolster this assertion, it added, the stranger within our gates has ever remarked that Louisville homes far outclass those of other cities. Those who have enjoyed the privilege to enter many of them regard that privilege highly and take good care that nothing may jeopardize it. Those who own them may realize the truth of these words, and those who do not may doubt, but the Louisville home stands for itself regardless of the spoken or written word. It is the Louisville home. In 1900, the readers of the New York Times got an idea of how protective these homeowners actually were when a September article proclaimed to Boycott Louisville Church, fashionable 3rd Avenue Church indignant at Baptist congregations action. The Walnut Street Baptist Church, it reported, the richest and largest congregation of the South had recently sold its downtown location and had plans to build a magnificent $150,000 structure on a fine lot on 3rd Avenue, the best resident street in Louisville. However, instead of adhering to the accepted property line of some 30 feet back from the thoroughfare, the building line will be ignored and the edifice will go up from the sidewalk. The article then went on to declare that residents are greatly excited over the matter, but the church will not yield. When John Gaethright, an adjacent property owner confronted Dr. Eaton, the pastor of the church with the allegation that disregarding the property line would devalue neighboring homes, the latter replied that the church would buy the land when it got cheap. The article then concluded the church will be boycotted by the mansion owners. The church demolished two homes on the site and went ahead with its plans to construct the grandest church on Millionaire's Row. Today, the lovely front doors open right onto the sidewalks, silent and graceful reminders of the church's disregard for its old Louisville neighbors. This might explain the unspoken animosity towards the beautiful Gothic structure on the corner of 3rd and St. Catherine that still lingers on in the vicinity to this day, or else it could have something to do with the eyewitness reports of a strange winged creature that supposedly haunts the ornate towers and steep rooftops of old Louisville's grandest house of worship. Described as half-human and half-demon, it has become known in local lore as the Demon Leaper, and the many theories as to its origins only serve to muddy the waters of legend and ensure its position among the most bizarre stories the blue grass has to offer. My great-grandmother saw this thing several times when the church was under construction, and she always said it had the appearance of a large bat-like creature, and she said it was jet-black, too. That's how she always described it, like a huge black human bat. Rose Hardy, a former resident of Louisville who now calls Brooklyn home as repeated this eyewitness description of old Louisville's Demon Leaper many times since she first heard it from the family matriarch many years ago. When I was a young girl in the 30s, we lived in a row house on St. Catherine Street, which, I'm told, was torn down in the 60s, says the retired nurse. It was my father's grandmother's house, and we lived with her for a time. It wasn't too far from the big church on the corner, and we had a good view of the towers from our room on the top floor. Although Hardy never witnessed the creature for herself, a vivid image nonetheless remains in her memory. But given the many detailed accounts passed down by her great-grandmother, this is hardly surprising. In my mind, this creature was always a frightening gargoyle-type thing with dark wings and a hooked beak. That's how it was described to me. It terrified me as a kid, she recalls, and I could still see it as an actual living thing, although I must admit now that it most likely never existed. That doesn't mean, however, that Hardy discounts the alleged sightings of the strange creature witnessed by her great-grandmother. I'm convinced she saw something because she never came across as the flighty type to any of us, but maybe she exaggerated what she saw, or else maybe she saw something that had a perfectly normal explanation. Maybe it was a big bird or something. I don't know, but I can still see those images in my head of a big, bat-like man hopping around the roof of the church. Could a human gargoyle or a so-called demon leaper frequent the steep-pitched roofs of the gilded-aged structures in old Louisville today? Hardy's reservations aside, tales of strange winged creatures in this part of the country go back to Native American legend, and early European settlers supposedly reported unnerving encounters with beings of a similar description as well. In addition, it seems that Louisville encounters with frightening flying oddities that began in the past have continued up to the present and seem to now focus on the old Louisville neighborhood. There are also those who claim to have seen this creature face to face, and recently. Jonas Cartwright, a transplant from Florida who moved here in the late 1990s, rented a third floor apartment in a large 1880s house, not more than two blocks from the Walnut Street Baptist Church. It was there that he had an unnerving nighttime encounter in 2005.   I had to work early the next morning. Cartwright, in his late 30s, works at a local factory and usually has to be in for a shift at 7am. I had just put my empty beer bottle down on the table and was getting ready to stand up, he recalls. But all of a sudden, I heard this really strange whoosh sound, like a big bird coming in for a dive. Right then a shadow comes down out of nowhere and lands on the edge of the roof, just two or three yards away from me. Although the startled onlooker says the strange apparition lingered for just a fraction of a second before it bounded over the neighboring rooftop in a single leap and then sprang into the air and vanished, he says the image that presented itself will haunt him. I love ghosts and things like that, but this was something entirely different, he explains.  It was something demonic, maybe a mutant or something, I don't know, but it was totally unnatural. When pressed for a more detailed description of the creature, Cartwright says, It was as tall as me but completely black. It had wings that looked webbed like a bat and its legs were very powerful. When it landed in front of me, it kept the wings raised most of the time so I didn't get a good look at its face, but it did seem to have sharp features from what I could tell, maybe a pointed chin, something like that. I'm not sure, but it could have had a tail, I don't know. Cartwright also remembers one other detail that makes the chance encounter all the more chilling. When the thing landed and then took off again, I could hear the scrape of claws or talons on the tarpaper of the roof. Talons seem to be a common theme when examining descriptions of Old Louisville's demon leaper. I'll tell you straight off, that I don't believe in ghosts and things like that, confesses Mark McConnell another witness to the strange creature, but I saw something in Old Louisville that defies explanation. It had big wings and claws and it scared the life out of me. McConnell currently practices law in eastern Kentucky, but he can still recall his days studying at the University of Louisville and the time he almost came face to face with the so-called demon leaper. Like Jonas Cartwright, he agreed to share his experiences even though he was afraid of being ridiculed once the story came out. I lived closer to campus, but it was a night I was staying over at my girlfriend's place. She had a gorgeous apartment in one of those huge mansions on Third Street and her apartment took up half of the second story. She also had a little balcony that jutted out from her side of the house. It wasn't very big, but there was just enough room for two tiny lawn chairs out there. On the night in question, McConnell claims to have seen a strange form on this very bedroom balcony. It was pretty late and my girlfriend was in the bathroom taking a shower. I had just come from the shower and was drying myself off as I walked over to the window that opened up onto the balcony. It was the only window in the bedroom so I was just going to take a peek outside and see if anything was going on. As with most of the residents in Old Louisville, there is usually not much to see when looking out his side window because the homes have been built so closely together. But even though you couldn't see that much, you could still look down and see the sidewalk that ran between the two houses. There was a very bright outdoor light and you could look sideways and see what was going on out in the street. As he approached the window, McConnell says he heard scratching overhead. It sounded like something was up in the attic or maybe on the roof and that's when something caught my attention on the balcony. At first he thought it might be a raccoon or a possum, but then he saw that a huge form had perched itself on the low railing of the balcony. I hadn't actually gotten there yet and must have been just a foot or two away from the window when something swooped down and landed right outside the window. At first I thought it was just a big bird or something, but then I got a better look at it. McConnell then saw something he can't classify to this day. Even though there were some very flimsy lace curtains over the window, I got close enough where I could actually see through some of the larger holes in the pattern of the fabric and whatever landed on the balcony was not a bird. Fully illuminated in the bright exterior light, the creature then fell into a crouching position and folded in a pair of massive prehistoric looking wings. I'd estimate the wingspan at seven or eight feet before he brought them down and they were black like the rest of his body and he was all leathery and it didn't look like there was hair or fur anywhere. When asked how tall he figured the creature to be, McConnell says it must have stood about six feet when fully erect. When I first saw it, my heart just skipped a beat and my first reaction was that one of the gargoyles from the big church on the corner had come to life, but before I had any more time to study the thing, it jumped up into the air and was gone. As it jumped, I noticed that it had feet like a bird's. I could see curved talons as well. McConnell says that when he checked the railing the next morning, he could see scratchy imprints left on the mossy stone surface that were about twice the size of his hands. Although I was highly doubtful with the first rumors of a strange flying creature in the old Louisville neighborhood surfaced, it had all the trappings of an urban legend to me. I have to admit that the eyewitnesses interviewed came across as highly credible. In a worst-case scenario, I concluded, they had seen something perfectly explainable that had been misconstrued by the cloudy view of rushed judgment or else they had just imagined it. In any case, the strange reports peaked my curiosity, and even though I normally shy away from the stories of cryptid creatures and UFO sightings, I decided to snoop around and see what I could find. The strange apples I discovered did not fall very far from the large and twisted tree of peculiar Louisville history. As it turned out, an interesting story unfolded over the next two weeks, showing that mysterious airborne objects and strange creatures have populated the skies over Louisville since the late 1800s. After no small amount of time searching on the internet, I came across an interesting article in the archives of The New York Times that would prove invaluable in my efforts to track down sightings of Louisville's obscure demon leaper. Entitled An Aerial Mystery, the piece had been published on September 12, 1880, and it described a marvelous apparition seen near Coney Island the previous week. At the height of at least a thousand feet in the air, a strange object was in the act of flying toward the New Jersey coast. It was apparently a man with bat's wings and improved frog's legs. The face of the man could be distinctly seen, and it wore a cruel and determined expression. The movements made by the object closely resembled those of a frog in the act of swimming with hind legs and flying with his front legs. The author astutely pointed out that, of course, no respectable frog had ever been known to conduct himself in precisely that way, but were a frog to wear bat's wings and to attempt to swim and fly at the same time, he would correctly imitate the conduct of the Coney Island monster. When we add that, the monster waved his wings in answer to the whistle of a locomotive and was of a deep black color. The alarming nature of the apparition can be imagined. Although fascinating, the article appeared to deal exclusively with the east coast. I was about to stop reading when another bit caught my eye. About a month ago, an object of precisely the same nature was seen in the air over St. Louis by a number of citizens who happened to be sober and who are believed to be trustworthy. A little later it was seen by various Kentucky persons as it flew across the state. Could this be the same creature spotted in Louisville? With the exception of the frog's legs, the description seemed very similar to those of recent eyewitnesses. The article then went on to say, In no instance has it been known to a light and no one has seen it at a lower elevation of a thousand feet above the surface of the earth. It is without a doubt the most extraordinary and wonderful object that has ever been seen, and there should be no time lost in ascertaining its precise nature, habits and probable mission. But instead of attributing the mysterious aerial phenomenon to superstition or diabolical forces, the analytical mind responsible for the article opined that either the flying man or some scientific person at present unknown has invented the bat's wings and frog's legs with which the flying man now sails through the air. And given the fact that the inventor of the flying equipment had not chosen to reveal himself, the author surmised that the flyer must therefore be engaged in some undertaking which he cannot safely proclaim. In other words, he is an aerial criminal, a fact which explains the cruelty and determination visible on his countenance. Therefore, claimed the reporter, the flying villain must have an object, and we have a right to assume that only a peculiarly nefarious object could induce a man to fly to St. Louis or New Jersey in hot weather and without an umbrella or mosquito net. The author even went so far as to venture a guess as to the identity of the individual who had devised the flying getup and for what purpose. His conclusion, it must have been the notorious American preacher, Dr. Talmadge, who equipped himself with wings in order to study the interesting types of immorality from the lofty height of a thousand feet. And the best part of all, he has flown over St. Louis and Kentucky, precisely the places which might be expected to yield a rich reward to an investigator of crimes, and he is now flying to and fro over Coney Island, preparatory to preaching a scathing sermon on the wickedness and indecencies of our bathing resorts. Intrigued and amused by this little bit of information, I made my way to the Louisville Free Public Library and began the arduous task of scrolling through archived volumes of old Louisville papers on microfilm. I figured if such a creature had trolled the skies over Kentucky, the state's largest paper would surely have mentioned it somewhere in the weeks preceding the September piece from the New York Times. Starting with the first weeks of September, I worked my way back, entertained by the many reports of local and national news, but increasingly disappointed as no reports of winged creatures surfaced. After two fruitless weeks, I had made it to the beginning of the August issues of the Courier Journal and was about to give up when an article caught my attention. On August 6, 1880, the Courier Journal had run a curious piece about the flying machine. After scanning it, I realized that it followed up on a previous article and I traced it back to the original article which had been written on Thursday morning, July 29. Tucked away back on page five, it appeared in the More Monkeying section with other edifying morsels of news. The headline ran, A Flying Machine, What Two Louisvillians Saw Last Evening, and the body told an unusual story. Between six and seven o'clock last evening, while Messers C.A. Youngman and Ben Flexner were standing at a side window of Hatterd's drugstore at 2nd and Chestnut Street, looking skyward, they discovered an object high up in the air. Apparently immediately above the Ohio River Bridge, which they at first thought was the wreck of a toy balloon. As it got nearer, they observed that it had the appearance of a man surrounded by machinery, which he seemed to be working with his feet and hands. He worked his feet as though he was running a treadle, and his arms seemed to be swinging to and fro above his head, though the latter movements sometimes appeared to be executed with wings or fans. The gazers became considerably worked up by the apparition and inspected it very closely. They could see the delicate outlines of machinery, but the object was too high up to make out its exact construction. At times, it would seem to be descending, and then the man appeared to exert himself considerably and ran the machine faster when it would ascend and assume a horizontal position. It did not travel as fast as a paper balloon, and its course seemed to be entirely under the control of the aeronaut. At first, it was traveling a southeastward direction, but it reached a point just over the city, and it turned and went due south, until it had passed nearly over the city when it tacked to the southwest, in which direction it was going when it passed out of sight in the twilight of the evening. The gentleman who saw it are confident that it was a man navigating the air on a flying machine. His movements were regular, and the machine was under the most perfect control. If he belonged to this mundane sphere, he should have dropped his card as he passed over to enlighten those who saw him, and that his friends, if he has any, might be informed of his whereabouts. The August 6 piece that I initially discovered had corroborated a similar sighting reported by a D.F. Dempsey in the Madisonville Times, and an additional article on July 30 that described the hullabaloo created the day after the original sighting when throngs of visitors appeared at the drugstore to hear more about the strange flying object. With this information in hand, I searched the internet for reports of odd aerial activity or other anomalies in the skies of Kentucky in the 19th century and was amazed to find a citation from the book Weird America that described a strange encounter around the time the Coney Island monster had been spotted. A tall and thin weirdo agile as a monkey and with a long nose pointed ears and long fingers appeared in this vicinity, Louisville, around July 28, 1880. He wore a sort of uniform made of shiny fabric and with a long cape and metallic helmet. On his chest under the cape was a large bright light. This big thing seemed to be scaring people, particularly women, sometimes getting so familiar as to pull their clothing off. His favorite method of escape was by springing smoothly over high objects like haystacks or wagons than vanishing on the other side. Since this report varies somewhat from descriptions of old Louisville's demon leaper, it appears that the Louisville area in the 1880s also harbored potential sightings of UFOs, alien visitors, flying human beings, and or any combination of the three. Because of the time frame, my first reaction compelled me to conclude that all these reports somehow centered on the same phenomenon. I assumed that reports of whatever Louisvillians had spotted in the skies on August of 1880, although apparently distinct from those of the Coney Island monster, must have been erroneously identified and misconstrued as the same thing seemed flying toward the New Jersey coast. In any case, the probability of an unidentified flying machine, a strange uniformed prankster with superhuman abilities, and an airborne bat-like creature all in the vicinity of Louisville and all around the same time seemed highly unlikely to me. When I returned to the archived versions of Kentucky papers to find actual articles written about the leaping weirdo agile as a monkey on or around July 28, 1880, I came up empty-handed. That's not to say the reports don't exist, it's just that I didn't find any mention of them. It's very easy to overlook things when you're going through reels and reels of microfilm with tiny print, so there could still indeed be articles written about this strange creature that I just haven't uncovered yet. Once again, I decided to return to the internet to see if I could get any assistance in tracking down verification of the cape-wearing invader that had allegedly been spotted in Louisville. That's when I made some very interesting discoveries. It seems that the Louisville sightings tie into English folklore and reports of an odd apparition known for its terrorizing antics and inhuman jumping abilities. This miscreant first surfaced in the early 1800s and intimidated locals with its menacing subhuman appearance and astonishing ability to elude capture with animal-like leaps and bounds. Many early versions of the unearthly being included descriptions of sharp talons, powerful legs, and pointed facial features with bulging eyes that often glowed red. Most witnesses also claimed the odd being appeared to be cloaked in black at times with something akin to bird-like appendages or wings. This menacing creature was known as Spring-Healed Jack and long before Jack the Ripper began terrorizing the dark lanes and back alleys of foggy London, Spring-Healed Jack held Victorian England to the grip of hysteria. Although his antics never reached the level of gore and brutality associated with those of his infamous successor, this allegedly half-demon, half-human creature managed to frighten both villagers and city dwellers alike for more than four decades before he extended his appearance to other parts of the globe. First documented in 1837 when a London businessman returning home for the evening reported an unsettling encounter with an outlandish being who leapt a high cemetery fence in a single bound, he was described as a muscular man of diabolic appearance with large pointed ears and nose and bulging glowing eyes. Later in that same year, his alleged encounters became more violent when he sexually assaulted a young servant girl and, not too long thereafter, caused a coachman to overturn his carriage and seriously injure himself. In both cases, witnesses commented on the being's devilish, high-pitched laughter and his apparent superhuman ability to leap great distances. As the press gradually publicized details of the frightful accounts, the strange character came to be known as Spring-Healed Jack or the Terror of London. Over the next several years, the attacks escalated and descriptions of the perpetrator grew to include a metallic helmet of sorts and cold, clammy hands with claw-like appendages. Some females experienced serious injuries during these occurrences and some correspondents claimed that others had literally been scared to death or had been frightened into fits of madness. During separate incidents involving assaults on two teenage girls, reports had it that the spectral being had spewed forth flames as well.  The other claimed that the monster had breathed fire into her face, causing her to experience violent spasms for several hours after. In November 1845, the agile assailant became a murderer when he suddenly appeared in the dingy tenements of Jacobs Island and attacked a young prostitute named Maria Davis on a wooden bridge over an open sewer. After reportedly exhaling flames into the petrified girl's face, the mysterious attacker seized her in his talons, lifted the victim above his head, and hurled her to a certain death in the putrid waters below. These incidents catapulted the crazed entity to local stardom when Spring-heeled Jack became the subject of several plays and penny dreadfuls, the serialized fiction publications in 19th century Britain that cost one cent per installation. As the century came to a close, his appearance became less and less frequent, and the once loathsome figure experienced somewhat of a transformation. Ironically enough, some eventually came to view him as a Robin Hood type character, as the memories of his early, albeit somewhat more depraved, antics faded. In her one-line article, The Legend of Spring-Heeled Jack, Sharon McGovern writes that Spring-Heeled Jack was seen leaping up and down the streets and rooftops of Liverpool in 1904, then disappeared from England for close to 70 years. She then goes on to say that by that time, however, he had become notorious in the U.S. Jack's American visits were first reported in Louisville, Kentucky in July of 1880. There he was described as tall, having pointed ears, long nose and fingers, and was clad in a cape, helmet and shiny uniform. He accosted women, tore at their clothing, and emitted flames from a blue light on his chest. In those respects, Spring-Heeled Jack would seem to be a British ancestor of Kentucky's monster-like demon leaper. In other respects, namely the mention of intelligible spoken English and modified garb with mask, helmet and claw-like attachments on the hands, the descriptions would suggest an entity of human design. Other sources report that from Louisville, Spring-Heeled Jack traveled on to terrorize other parts of Kentucky and the nation. On June 18, 1953, a figure bearing similarities to previous descriptions of Spring-Heeled Jack was allegedly sited in a pecan tree in the yard of an apartment building in Houston, Texas. Three witnesses described a man in a black cape, skin-tight pants, quarter-length boots and dark, form-fitting clothing. According to a wealth of information about the legend of Spring-Heeled Jack, provided by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, his most recent appearance took place some 20 years ago in South Hertfordshire, not far from the Welsh border, a traveling salesman named Marshall claimed to have had an encounter with a Spring-Heeled Jack-like entity in 1986. The man leaped in enormous inhuman bounds, passed Marshall on the road and slapped his cheek. He wore what the salesman described as a black ski suit, and Marshall noted that he had an elongated chin. Today, many theories abound as to the origins of this strange creature that supposedly crossed the pond and lurked in the streets of Gilded Age, Louisville, and perhaps lurks here still. Some believe the being arose as a non-human entity of demonic beginnings, a bounding boogeyman, as it were, hell-bent on terrorizing the simple folk of England's secluded hamlets and back roads. Others, however, have argued that sightings dealt with a flying humanoid of extraterrestrial nature, an early Martian visitor to the Britain of the 1800s. But London writer Mike Dash for many years, a contributing editor to Forty in Times, has thoroughly researched the case of Spring-Heeled Jack since 1982, and he thinks otherwise. Jack should be classified not as he generally is, with UFO-occupant reports, but alongside other phantom attackers and with reference to urban terrors and other social panics. In a well-researched paper that sheds light on the fact and fiction surrounding the legend of Spring-Heeled Jack, Dash reveals that many of the initial reports dealing with the mysterious figure proved to be unfounded or had been exaggerated or misconstrued, something not altogether implausible given the excitable nature of the subjects involved. Nevertheless, most of the newspapers were prepared to concede that something must have caused the panic, he writes, and several reported the rumor that a gang of noblemen was carrying out the attacks as part of a wager, a specially appointed investigatory committee contending that the Spring-Heeled Jack gang was made up of rascals connected with high families and that bets to the amount of 5,000 pounds are at stake upon the success or failure of the abominable proceedings. Although many more accounts and variations of subsequent attacks by the Spring-Heeled terror abound as do possible explanations for their causes, it seems therefore that a more practical allegation involves the notion that the original Spring-Heeled Jack incidents might have arisen as nothing more than failed sexual assaults or misguided practical jokes that escalated into copycat pranks and eventually devolved to the stuff of urban legend. Given that 19th century America often looked to Victorian London for the latest in news and fashions, it would come as little surprise that reports of a fleet-footed freak abroad could inspire frontier versions of the same phenomena. So what, if anything, had been seen perched on the rooftop and steeples of the Walnut Street Baptist Church? An errant gargoyle brought to life by the chance encounter of imagination, light and shadow? A demonic aberration brought on by past misdeeds and neighborly disregard? An alien visitor intrigued by gothic architecture? A costumed jokester hoping to liven up a dull evening? I'll leave it up to readers to decide. Be he a gilded age ghost, alien visitor or nothing more than a practical jokester, old Louisville's demon leaper has nevertheless joined the ranks of spectral beings that pepper the haunted past of this grand Victorian neighborhood. The next time I pass the majestic facade of the Walnut Street Baptist Church in October, I'll be making sure to look up at the roof and the towering spires. If you or someone you know struggles with depression or dark thoughts, I'd like to recommend the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. There I've gathered resources to help fight depression with the Seven Cups app, connecting you with people who've also struggled with depression and are there to lift you up, even professional listeners there to listen at all hours of the day. If you're having dark thoughts of harming yourself or worse, there's the suicide prevention lifeline that you can either call or chat online with anytime 24-7. The folks at ifred.org are doing what they can with research and education on depression to give us the tools we need to fight against it in the days ahead. These resources are absolutely free and there when you need them on the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. And talk to him in fact. It was a very sad time indeed. One day I had made myself a cup of tea and set it by my chair. The phone rang and I had quite a long conversation. By the time the call was over, the tea was stone cold and needed to be heated up again. However, at that point, I suddenly felt as if my husband was there in spirit. To my utter surprise, I watched steam coming off of the cup of tea. There really was steam rising from the cup. I touched the cup and of course it was stone cold and yet it steamed. He liked his tea, my husband, and I am sure the steam was assigned to let me know he was there. Back in October 2006, and I was preparing to go to sleep when I finally remembered that I had to remove some clothes from the washer. As I came downstairs to go to the laundry room, I saw that the curtains of the family room were open. I could see through the light coming from outside a creature standing on the balcony, crouching by the window. The face was very striking. It wasn't human and it had kind of an orange color. I knew I was terrified, and I knew I could do nothing but pray for protection from God. I turned, went straight back to my bedroom, and I didn't look back. I was fine, but a few days later I found myself struggling with chest pains. I know the two were related, but what was that thing? This happened to me about 10 years ago. My wife and I were heading out with some friends, camping. My wife was cooking some dinner on the stove and we were about to settle down for the evening. I decided to go for a run and then I would get back before she had finished making dinner. As I started to jog down a narrow trail, I entered a woody area of the track and I could see that there was a sharp drop ahead of me. I thought it would be a slop, but my head exploded with voices telling me to stop. I heard another voice behind me that yelled, Stop Bruce! I stopped and walked to the beginning of the slope. To my horror, I saw that part of the slope was missing and had been replaced by a huge hole, a sinkhole. Had I kept going, I would have fallen about 20 feet into this hole and would have killed myself. My wife wouldn't have had any idea where I was and I didn't have a cell phone on me. What scares me more is that I could have spent a long, long time down there starving to death. Thank God for the voices in my head. My family has lived here for many years. Whenever we passed a small wooden house in Highland Park, my dad always pointed it out as a very haunted house that his grandfather built. My grandfather ran his business from the house and my father always told me of a story. Apparently, there was a dark little room in the back with a painting of an old fashioned hearse on the wall and a small table. Every so often the building got cold and some very strange things would happen. Apparently, my grandfather would hear a loud shaking noise at night and in the morning the small table would be in a different location. If you were in the room, you could hear the sound of horses galloping. My grandfather got sick of moving this table back to its original position and decided to put it outside. The next morning it had moved back to its original position. It was said that the original owners of the table had been practicing Ouija on the table. My grandfather was a hard man and decided to burn it rather than put up with its antics. The building my grandfather built was demolished a few years ago and developers are now talking about building a house on the land. There are two reasons not to buy the house they build. Crime in Highland Park is dangerous and that land is probably still haunted. As a child, my mother was concerned about me as I would talk to people in my sleep. I later began sleepwalking all the time. Although she was concerned about the talking in my sleep and my sleepwalking, she always played along and acted as though she wanted to meet my invisible friend. During the middle of the night, I woke up to see what looked like an old woman sitting at the end of my bed. It was a dark shadow figure, but I could tell from the permed hair that it was female. I literally hid under my duvet and I never told anyone else about it. After that my sleepwalking and talking ended and I forgot about the whole thing. A few years later, after my mother died, I was going through her stuff and found a picture of her mother. I instantly knew that was the lady who was sitting at the end of my bed. The permed hair gave it away. A few years after that, a friend dragged me to a spiritualist meeting and that same grandmother came through. She apologized for scaring me as a child and admitted she often comes to visit me. She also told me that my uncle James spent a lot of time around me. I was freaked out on one hand, but isn't it comforting to know that we aren't always alone? My children, a roommate and I lived in a home that was the first bar room in Somerset, Massachusetts down by the old colony area. I would literally hear furniture moving around upstairs where there wasn't any furniture. There was always a strong smell of alcohol in the dirt cellar where I would hear voices of many and clinging noises like china being stacked. My roommate and I witnessed a toy in the children's room that went off multiple times even after I removed the batteries. Lights in the house would turn on in the middle of the night. The telephone was actually off of its receiver one night, but it woke me up from the loud busy signal coming from it. No one was in the house other than me. It would also sound like my plants which were hanging in certain windows would come crashing to the floor. But when I looked, no plants were on the floor. There was also constant loud creaking of the old barn floorboards like people were walking around. Thanks for listening to this Dark Archives episode of Weird Darkness. 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. And you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Minds, Miwi and more, including the show's Weirdo's Facebook group, on the Contact social page at WeirdDarkness.com. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, click on Tell Your Story or call the Dark Line toll-free at 1-877-277-5944. That's 1-877-277-5944. 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. Weird Darkness is a copyright and trademark of Marlar House Productions. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Want to receive the commercial-free version of Weird Darkness every day? For just $5 per month, you can become a patron at WeirdDarkness.com. As a patron, you get commercial-free episodes of Weird Darkness every day. Bonus audio. And you also receive chapters of audiobooks as I narrate them, even before the authors and publishers hear them. But more than that, as a patron, you're also helping to reach people who are desperately hurting with depression and anxiety. You get the benefits of being a patron, and you also benefit others who are hurting at the same time. Become a patron at WeirdDarkness.com.


Kremlin doesn't care about quality of army. Marginalised groups are recruited for military service. The Kremlin has ordered regional officials to file weekly reports on the recruitment of marginalised people in Russia for its war in Ukraine, the investigative news website iStories reported, citing an official letter it obtained. The letter lists the office of the presidential envoy to Russia's central federal district as the author and states that military recruitment orders have been in place since March 1, 2023. iStories notes that an attached document identified some 22 disadvantaged categories of Russians who are targeted for contract-based recruitment into the military. Additional instructions order regional officials to track the number of people who are approached and agree to sign military contracts on a weekly basis. Priority targets for war recruitment are reportedly given to migrants and recently naturalised citizens as well as debtors and the unemployed. It feels like they're getting rid of a marginalised layer of society. An anonymous recruitment officer in one of Russia's regions was quoted as saying, by iStories, They don't care at all about the quality of the army, the officer added. They don't care what will happen to the recruits' families after they're deployed. The recruitment letter reveals that the Russian military still struggles to motivate people to voluntarily sign up for its war in Ukraine, said Sergei Krivenko, who heads the NGO Citizen, Army and the Law. Signing a contract is still voluntary but it's possible to persuade, set conditions or make life unbearable. Krivenko told iStories, If everything was so good and people were signing contracts themselves, we wouldn't need all these tricks and efforts by regional authorities or monitor and kick those regional authorities.