question is ok, so we have to create this structured activities. But how do we achieve learner-learner interaction and design such activities to bring in the learners in the forum? That is where the LXI component of the LCM model comes in. So, you have the focus question that will drive the discussion in the discussion forum and then you have the reflection quiz. The purpose of the reflection quiz is to make the learners reflect and synthesize the learning that has happened through the discussion that they have just now participated in the discussion forum. So, so far what have we discussed? We have discussed why learner-learner interaction is important in a MOOC. We have seen what research says about it and we now know that LXI is one of the possible solutions. Now, how to design the LXI activity? As a practitioner what I have found is when you sit down to write the LXI question there are actually three parts to the question which we should not forget at all. The first one is the focus question of course which drives the discussion in the discussion forum. The second part is guiding how to interact with a peers post. Now, see focus question gives them a task to perform in the discussion forum that go to the discussion forum and respond to this question. But then if you don't give them clear instructions on how they are to engage in a discussion then what we have found is MOOC instructors is discussion does not happen. So, the B part please do not miss out when you are designing the LXI activity question and I'm going to soon show you an example so that what I am now speaking becomes clear to you. But before I go to the example let me go to the third part of the activity question. In the activity question you need to give clear instructions to them that once you have participated in the discussion please go and respond to the reflection quiz questions. Now, let's see this example from a teacher training MOOC that we conducted. Now, the highlighted portion is the focus question. So, what is this focus question? The focus question is giving the learners in this teacher training MOOC a task to perform in the discussion forum and the task is that you create a activity question using one of the learner centric instructional strategies that we discussed in the course either peer instruction or think-peer share and you post this activity question in the forum. We had also given them a checklist to evaluate the quality of their own activity question. So, we tell them you create the question you do a self assessment and then post. So, posting is done. The second part B that now comes is how are they going to engage with the peers in the forum. So, here we have the second part of the activity question and we tell them that look at the other postings made by your course mates and do a peer evaluation based on the checklist we have given and see whether it's a good or a bad activity question that they have posted in the forum and the third part is when you direct them that once you have done the peer evaluation go and respond to the reflection quiz. Now, the next question you might ask me is okay fine this is my LXI activity question that I have posed. What type of question do I pose in the reflection quiz? Let's see an example of this. Now, the reflection quiz here is building up on their experience of doing peer evaluation with the checklist we had given them. The task was what remember they had to post a activity question and then do peer evaluation and the reflection quiz is asking them to now I have given you our activity question you judge whether it's good or bad harping on the experience that you have gained through the discussion forum activity or the LXI activity on evaluating the quality of the activity question. Is it learner-centric enough or not? Is it good or bad? So that is the reflection quiz that follows the focus question task we had given. Now you can ask me that okay fine so you have told me how to create an LXI activity question these are the parts that you have shared with us from your experience but is it effective? Is LXI effective in bringing learners to the forum? So let me share with you some data that we analyzed from the teacher training MOOC which we conducted as instructors. Now here if you see the graph on screen the y-axis gives you the number of unique learners participating in the discussion forum. In this particular course which was a MOOC on the pedagogy for effective use of ICT for school teachers we introduced LXI from week 3 that's why in the x-axis you have data from starting from week 3. The blue line represents your LXI discussions and the red line represents the regular discussions that is discussions that were seeded by not via focus question but some teacher would have come and post their own question. Now we saw that with the progress of the course the number of learners participating in the forum has increased and we also found that 40.1% of the active learners in the course have actually participated in the discussion forum meaning that we were able to draw in 40% of the active learners that is learners who are watching the videos or doing activities 40% of them came into the discussion forum and actually responded in terms of posting a thread or commenting to a post. Now let's see some further data on the effectiveness of LXI from the same course what we found is if you see the graphs on screen the graph represents the number of threads that were posted and the second graph represents the number of responses that were posted in response to the threads and in both cases you again see that the blue line is showing a what increasing trend with the progress of the course so the interpretation can be that learners are actually engaged because they are not only viewing the posts they actually came and they responded to the posts made in the forum and when will they come back and post only when they feel that some learning or some benefit is happening to them so this is an evidence of the effectiveness of LXI leading to peer learning in our MOOC. With this we come to the end of the part one of this video where I'm sharing my experiences as a MOOC instructor for the LXI component.


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. If you're new here, welcome to the show, and while you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, newsletter, to connect with me on social media, and more. Coming up in this episode, it's another fireside frights, so as you can hear, it's not the usual fare that you normally receive from me. Tonight, I'm stripping away all the music and the fancy production and it's just you, me, this campfire, and stories sent in by you, my Weirdo family members. And I'm always in need and looking for new stories for fireside frights, so please send yours in so I can use them next month. And by the way, we are planning on using fireside frights episodes, the stories that you send in for a book series coming out. Still trying to figure out the title for it. At the moment, I'm debating calling it Tales of the Weird and Dark from the Weird Darkness podcast, and I'll figure out some way of saying it's from the listeners. But I'm really excited about that. I've already signed a deal with a publisher and we're hoping to get that taken care of or at least started sometime this year. So I'm pretty excited about that. So if you feel like you'd like to send in your story and have it in the book, please send it in. And you don't have to use your real name if you don't want to. You can stay anonymous or you can just use whatever name you feel like using, which you'll actually hear a couple of stories here saying just call me Frank or just call me Sarah or whatever. And I'm not using any last names, just for reasons of privacy more than anything else. So you shouldn't have to worry about that anyway. But hey, I would love to hear your stories. I'd love to show them, share them that is not just here in the fireside frights, but possibly in a book in the near future. To send in your story, just go to click on tell your story at WeirdDarkness.com. And that way you can send in the true story of the paranormal or something creepy that's happened to you. Again, that's WeirdDarkness.com and then click on tell your story. Okay, here we go. Bolt your doors. Lock your windows.  Our first story is called Night Shift at the Hospital and it was sent to us by Patrick. By the way, before I get into his story, if you do have a title for your story, I'll be more than happy to include it. But you don't have to have a title. Some people just like to title their stories, which I think is pretty cool. So anyway, this is called Night Shift at the Hospital by Patrick. Many years ago, I worked for a security company and I was offered more hours by taking the hospital post. The hospital was in a mid-sized city in East Texas and the shift was from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. night shift. The hospital itself was decent sized, with three floors and a central breezeway connecting the two towers on either side with the doctor's clinic and the breezeway on the second floor. Now when I came in, I was taking over for another security officer who was leaving the company, so I worked with him at the hospital for a week so he could show me the ropes. On my first night, I found out that Westside Tower of the facility was the old hospital and that the rest of the hospital had been built off of it and the West Tower was no longer used except as storage for old equipment and files. So every night, our first duty was to enter the old tower on the first floor and walk every hallway and all three floors to make sure that it was secure before moving into the main facility. Basically, picture the old abandoned hospital from a typical horror movie and you'll know what it looked like in the West Tower. There were only a few lights that worked in the hallway and all the rooms were completely dark.  And that was fun. Anyway, as you walked the gauntlet of halls, which were lined with open doors to dark rooms, you quickly began to feel thousands of eyes on you and the feeling that not only you were not alone but also not welcome. Nurses and hospital staff refused to go in after dark and would only enter with an escort in the day. I have more stories about the creepy things that happened, but we'll save them for later. Now, after checking the third floor, you had to walk back down to the second floor to the door that connected the old to the new hospital, which was locked, and you had to unlock it in the dark and the lock was stubborn, which made for some interesting times. Once through the door, you entered the waiting room to the clinic with chairs and a TV mounted on the wall. Then a hallway which made up the interior of the breezeway that then connected to the east tower and in the hallway was an elevator which ran from the basement to the second floor. The east tower had its own elevator that went to all three floors. The central elevator was generally used for going to the clinic and would only go to the basement with a special key, which I had because my office was in the basement off the loading dock in the back. The back of the hospital was built into a hill for those of you wondering how a basement also had a loading dock. Once I was working on my own and I noticed the TV would always be on in the waiting room and so I would turn it off as I walked through after checking the west tower and sometimes the TV would be on again later when I returned. So one night, I started my usual routine and I turned off the TV as I walked through, but on this night the TV turned right back on and I had to turn it off again and then it turned on again as I was walking down the hallway. So I turned around and walked into the room and turned the TV off and said, OK, enough of that. I straightened up some chairs in the waiting room and went on with my business. A few hours later, I returned to find not only the TV on, but the chairs in the waiting room had been moved from straight lines, as you would see in a doctor's waiting room, to two rows of semi-circles in front of the TV as if they were watching it. Now, I must point out that no one besides me came into the clinic at night because it was not part of the hospital, so this was a new one for me. Anyway, this new scene irritated me a bit and so I walked in front of the chairs and I turned the TV off again and said, all right, everyone, it's late and I need this TV to stay off and I need those chairs put back, too. And I turned and walked away to the elevator to return to my office. And when the elevator opened, I stepped in and I put my key in and pressed the button and the doors began to close and something hit the door causing it to open again. So I looked to see if somebody was in the hallway trying to catch the door, but I saw no one. So I stepped back in and the door began to close, but again, something hit it and the door opened back up. I just stood there and the door began to close again and again something hit the door and it opened back up. Well, this time I had lost my patience and with an authoritative and raised voice, I said, look, I don't have time for this foolishness. I have things to do now. Stop it. And just like that, the door closed without further incident. Later I returned to the room and the TV was off and the chairs had returned to their original alignment in the waiting room. But I kind of felt bad for scolding the spirits, so later I just started to make it a point that when I saw the TV on, I'd leave it on and say hello to the room and I would wait until around two or three in the morning and then announce to everyone that it was late and time to turn the TV off, which seemed to work and I never had an issue in the waiting room again. The West Tower never stopped being unnerving, but I always just told myself they're just spirits of people who died here and if I was stuck here, I'd want to watch TV too. So I'd always make it a point to talk to them and let them know that I was there and was willing to work with them. Although I never actually saw anything, I always felt the presence and in case anyone is curious, it wasn't the first time I've dealt with the supernatural and I try to be respectful and yes, I have found that just talking to them as if they were any other person has seemed to work for me. Once I know I'm in the presence of a ghost, I'm just not scared for whatever reason that I've never understood, it's always been the unknown that gets me. Great story and you mentioned in there that you have other stories, please send them in. I would love to hear more stories from what is obviously a haunted hospital, somebody that actually works there, I'd love to get those stories, so please send them in. Here's a short one from Jessica. Okay, so I've got a strange one. Last weekend, which apparently was December 11, 2021, last weekend I was driving around town getting a few things here and there before getting together with friends and I saw a handful of crows and didn't put a lot of thought to it, but in the back of my mind, I thought, who's going to pass or already passed? Well, my mother called me the next day to tell me that my uncle passed from cancer. I also thought it was weird that I haven't seen a crow for days afterwards, but saw one, just a single one, yesterday. So I guess now that I see a handful of crows, I should say a prayer and say goodbye, because I have no idea who is going next. That's a new one for me, Jessica. I have not heard that if you see a flock of crows, or excuse me, a murder of crows, as they're called, that somebody is going to die. That might just be because I'm sheltered and haven't heard that before, but apparently that's something that you've grown up believing. So if anybody else has heard that, drop me an email. Let me know. I'm just kind of curious.  This next story comes from Carly. Hi, Darren. My name is Carly and I'm from Kansas. Well, hello, Carly. I'm a Kansas boy myself, Olathe, Kansas, by the way. That's my hometown. I don't live there anymore, but that's where I'm from. Anyway, Carly continues. I've submitted a few stories now, but just listened to your fireside frights and heard that you needed more stories. I have several of my own, but I want to share my friend's experience. My friend's name is Cheryl. We have a mutual friend named Marilyn. Marilyn's sister had a son. Marilyn's nephew got a brain tumor and passed away. His name was Adam. I've never met him ever. My friend Cheryl has never met him either. But when she's about to go through something, he appears to her. Not in any boom, pop out of the dark corners of her room. Now, he falls from the sky and almost lands on the hood of her car while she is driving. But he stops just before landing and looks up at her and smiles and either disappears or floats for a while and then disappears. He never says anything, but every time she sees him, she knows something is about to happen. Recently she was at my house, prior to me finding out some very bad news for her, and he ran down a set of cement stairs leading to my side yard.  I've never met him, nor seen his spirit. I mostly see shades unless they want me to see them. Was he trying to tell me? I'll never know. I haven't seen him since. But I'm sure he'd be attracted to my house. It's kind of a magnet. I think it has to do with the little boy buried in my tree line. There's a lot of spooky stories that happen here. I'll send you more. I'm sure if you need stories, I have stories. Stay blessed and lifted, my friend. And may you have many blessed migraine-free days. Thank you, Carly. I appreciate that. The migraines have definitely been coming on recently with the weather changes here and weirdling woods. I say weirdling woods just because I want to call it something weird, but I'm actually in the Rockford, Illinois area. But we've had a lot of weather changes here and then the winds bringing in a lot of stuff. So yeah, the migraines have been pretty severe as of late. So thank you for that. I will take those blessed migraine-free days. And you said you have a lot more stories. I'd love to hear them. That's odd. You have a tree line where a boy is buried. I don't know how you know that. There must be some sort of history that you know that. But I've never heard of somebody, I guess in the really old days, I guess they would do that, bury a relative on their property. But that would be strange, though. Knowing that? Knowing that you bought a house where a boy is buried in the tree line, like on the outskirts of your property? Right then and there, you'd be expecting something weird to happen on your property. This next one comes from Jessica. Hey, Darren, I've been listening to your podcast for a few months. As many have said before me, it's my favorite by far. Well, thank you, Jessica. It's nice knowing that there's a safe space out there for us weirdos. I also appreciate all the work you do for a mental health awareness. I've struggled as well, on and off since I was a teen. I was listening to a recent Fireside Frights episode where you were asking for more stories, and I'd been playing with the idea of writing in for a while, so I figured, why not? I'm an odd mixture of staunch skeptic as well as a dreamer. So basically, I believe in the possibility of anything until given evidence of its non-existence, but I also don't just arbitrarily believe in things without proof. So because of this, I know that I've had a lot more of these experiences than what I can remember because I usually just write them off as a coincidence or an anomaly. I'm telling a couple of them here, and I'll try to keep it relatively brief. I might write more at a different time. And then Jessica sends me two stories, and the first one is called The Old Man in the Window. And I did go back to her, by the way, to make sure these were true stories, and she said yes, they are. So okay, they're her first stories called The Old Man in the Window. For the majority of my childhood, I grew up in a very old farmhouse in southeastern Minnesota. It was in need of a paint job and many other upgrades. My dad did what he could to spruce it up, but we were just renting, so he didn't want to invest too much. After I was a grown adult, my mom told me that an old man who used to live in the house was murdered by his nephew in his bedroom, and I believe his body was stashed under his bed. The mailman found him sometime later in his upstairs bedroom after not seeing signs of him for several days. My mom said they never told us this as kids because they didn't want us to be scared, and it seemed to work.  One day, when we were really little, like three and five or so, I think we were playing in the back of the house in this area where my mom always told us never to go, especially if there was water. It was like a small dam that was set up to keep the house from flooding. It had flowed over several times and washed out our driveway, but nothing major ever happened, except on this one day when we were playing back there on a rainy day. I remember snooping around and my brother ended up slipping down into the basin of water and got his boots stuck in the mud. I wasn't able to free him and went running and screaming back to the house to get my mom. She went running out in a panic. She was able to rescue my brother but was still unsure how he survived the loan stuck in the mud in that flooded area. Some other instances like this happened as well, but not as major or memorable. Luck over active imagination, I don't know. The only scary thing I remember is having to come back to the house at night by myself down the driveway from my dad's home-based mechanic shop. When it was dark and I was alone, I always felt like someone was watching and following me. I pretend that I was being chased by wolves so that I could run faster and get back to the sanctuary of the house sooner. So, fast-forward to several years ago, I'm an adult with a son. We'd been gone from the house for probably 25 or so years. My mom and I had heard that the old house wasn't doing so good. It had been abandoned for years and was falling into even more disrepair. I wanted to show my son where I grew up before it was too late. The three of us took a road trip to the old place to do some snooping around. After looking at the woods and what was left of the buildings and the driveway, etc., we meet our way to the house. We poked around, looking in the windows, played with the idea of going inside, but were smart enough to realize the house was in really bad shape and we didn't want to get hurt, so we just looked from the outside. Looking back, I kind of wish we had ventured into the house, or at least into the front entryway. Reason being, I've had recurring dreams about that house and, most specifically, one about the closet in the front entryway. Like, it was something there I was supposed to find. I guess I'll never know. I also have a history of dreams coming true, kind of like premonitions, so I'll probably regret not going in there for the rest of my life.  And we went around to the windows. We noticed an ever-increasing cold draft coming out of the house. This was especially apparent when we were by my old bedroom window. Keep in mind this is summer and we didn't think that there should be any cold air coming from anywhere. It felt like someone was blowing an air conditioner out the window. We could also feel a looming sense of heaviness in the air, and some kind of unexplained presence. This kind of weirded us out a little, so we decided to make our way back to the car. As we turned around to leave, I put my hand to the old weathered sighting and just whispered, goodbye, old house. Before getting in the car to leave, we decided to take a selfie of the three of us, my mom, son, and I, to commemorate what might very well be the last time we see the old house. We took the photo in such a way that you can see much of the house, the front of the house, in the background, including the window of what was once the old man's bedroom. In the photo, you can distinctly see what appears to be the image of a man longingly staring out the window. It didn't seem menacing or evil, just longing and maybe sad.  What I believe is that he knew we were coming to say goodbye. I think the years our family was in that house were probably the best since he died. In the years since then, I was told that there was a lot of instability and even drug use and possibly manufacturing going on in the house. I think the old man was standing in the window, giving us one last send-off. I think he missed us. He never hurt us. I think he actually helped us and was sad to see us go. My mom thought the same thing. Maybe now that we said goodbye and once his house finally crumbles, the old man will be able to rest in peace. And the other story she sent that, excuse me, the other story that Jessica sent is called John's Knife. The house that my wife and I have owned for six years used to belong to our neighbors' parents. I'll call them John and Anna. Anna's dad originally built the home. We actually bought it from the couple's estate. A handful of family members have lived in the house since John and Anna moved into an assisted living facility and subsequently passed away. But as far as I know, we're the only non-family members who have ever lived here, or at least for any length of time. We found this house when looking for an affordable country home with land as we have several animals and a small budget. When we came to view the house with our realtor, the couple's daughter, I'll call her Penny, was at the home to meet us. We immediately fit right in with her, visiting and talking as if we'd known her for years. The house is quite old, almost a hundred now. It's in need of several updates and upgrades, but it was cute, affordable, on land, and a good sturdy old comfy house. We immediately pursued the purchase of the home and after many months of problem after problem, we were able to move in. We actually were allowed to move in before the purchase went through because we'd become good friends with the family and they knew that we needed somewhere to live, pretty much immediately. Since moving into the house, we randomly and somewhat frequently hear disembodied footsteps upstairs. Things go missing all the time, either to be put back later just where they were or they're putting some random out of the way spot. Our furnace was out in the beginning of winter this year for almost seven weeks. This is in northeastern Minnesota, so you can imagine how cold it got. My wife kept noticing that the space heaters that we had all over the house were mysteriously getting turned up. Even with all the odd occurrences that happen all the time, I think the oddest one is when we moved into the house. My son went up to his new room to look around and found a small pocket knife in the center of the floor of his room. We've been in and out of that room multiple times since viewing the house. The family had also been there cleaning and things several times. I can guarantee you there was no knife in that room. I think John left that knife there specifically for my son to find. My kid has a small knife collection and it's one of his prized treasures. I think John wanted someone to have it whom he knew would appreciate it. As I'm sitting here writing this, I hear what appears to be a scurrying or scratching noise on the siding just outside our front door. It started on the stairs from the upstairs of the house. After I checked to make sure one of our dogs or cats wasn't up there, I sat back down and it started outside. It's the dead of winter and I know that there are no animals climbing horizontally on the outside of our house. The family who used to call this house home are all tricksters, so to a certain extent, I think that John and Anna are entertaining themselves by playing tricks on us. I told their daughter Penny this and she told me next time just to invite them for a drink or something. I told her I probably will. They don't scare me. I mean it is a little unnerving, but I know they mean us no harm. So I have the attitude, live and let live, if you know what I mean. John and Anna did not die in this house, but I think that because we keep the house somewhat like it was when they lived here and because we care for Anna's lilacs and roses, they stick around to watch over us and make sure that we're taking care of their house. Honestly, I'm hoping that telling this story won't make them leave. Thanks for reading. Keep up the good work. Well, if you want them to stick around, I hope they don't leave, Jessica. And if they continue to give you some great stories, feel free to send them in. Let me take a real quick sip of my drink here. Drink of choice this time is Diet Mountain Dew. And if you follow me on Facebook, you'll know that Miss Mocha has been playing in the box that I took it from. Okay. Moving on, this next story comes from Frank.  I'm a very private person, and so writing you publicly like this is a little uncomfortable. However, I listen to your show at work all the time, and have decided to divulge some of my lifelong experiences. Yes, I'm an amateur writer, but what I will write about here is the absolute truth. Well, as best as I can remember. I'm an army brat, and have lived in quite a few places in my life. Arizona, Japan, California, Massachusetts, Germany, Corpus Christi, Texas, Nevada, and now Colorado. In all of those places, in all of that time, I have lived in apartments, trailers, and houses, not one that wasn't, well, weird. I say weird because haunted, possessed, inhabited by monsters doesn't cut it, so let's leave it at weird. From this weirdness is more a thousand stories.  Today's story starts in Littleton, Massachusetts, a relatively sleepy town, surrounded by large hills and pines as far as the eye can see, small roads and tight-knit communities. In the spring, the whole place smells of flowers and pine trees. In the winter, there are snow flurries the size of your fist. Not long before this, my parents noticed that I had a keen sense of the history of places. We looked at a lot of houses in the area. We would look around and at some point in checking out a potential place to live to a live, my mom and dad would look at me and ask, so what do you think? And I would tell them if it was good, not so good or bad. It had become a thing before Littleton. In Littleton, Massachusetts, there was this old brown house. We didn't have any options, so when I was asked about this house, I kept my mouth shut. There was something about it I couldn't put my finger on. So firstly, there was this blotch on the concrete floor in the laundry room. It felt bad to me. All wrong in every way. However, there was something that lived in the kitchen. All good in every way, and completely intangible. When I walked in the kitchen, I was overwhelmed with this welcoming, warm feeling. I could smell roses and that baked good smell from a bygone yesteryear. The downstairs laundry room tasted of ash. No one else could taste it. It felt cold, but no one else could feel it. Anyways, I said the house was fine. Just fine. I gave no further description. My dad gave me that look like he knew something was up, but didn't know what. We didn't talk about it, nor anything else that went on in the house. Strange started happening almost as soon as we were fully moved in. I've been plagued by terrible nightmares my entire life. For as long as I can remember, anyway, I woke up one night crying.  My dad came in to check on me, all sleepy-eyed. He asked if I was all right. I muttered something from my nightmare, and he told me everything would be all right. Tucked me back in, went back to bed. I laid there listening to him snoring for, I don't know, how long. I got out of bed to use the bathroom, and a soft voice that sounded and tasted a Betty Crocker asked, do you want some warm milk? I spun on my heel and saw nothing.  Leave the kid alone. It's just bad dreams. He'll be okay. There was a tangible tension in the air. I darted into the bathroom, used the bathroom before I peed myself, stepped out with the intention of booking it to my covers, and then I smelt it. Warm milk, just a little chocolate, and a slice of buttered toast. I walked cheerfully into the kitchen, and it was just sitting there on the counter. I went to grab it all and run to my room when I hear and taste Betty Crocker again. Manors. I sort of nodded and sat down at the dining room table, ate my midnight snack, put my dishes in the sink, and toddled off to bed. As soothing as it was, this was one of the most terrifying moments in my life. You're not supposed to taste words, let alone hear them from the house. This continued. The blankets would tuck me in. I'd come home from school to hot snacks laid out for me. Understand, my parents were business-type folks. They weren't home, and when I got home from school for hours, I would be alone in that house. The day I knew this was not a haunting and that the house itself was the weirdness was when I came home from school and the house itself looked at me. Two sets of windowpane eyes and two bright and happy smiles. The walls reverberated with voices and smells. Welcome home, Frank. That same day, my mom came home early. Sick. We walked into the house to the warm smell of freshly baked, homemade, thick and walnut stuffed from scratch brownies. My mom looked at me and asked, did you make these? I looked right at her with my snide eight-year-old self. Mom, I don't cook. The house made them. She looked at me sternly. What do you mean the house made them? I took a deep breath and did my best to explain. Mom, the house is alive with two spirits. The spirits and the house are one thing. Sometimes the house cooks. Sometimes the house talks. My mom rolled her eyes and went to her room where a glass of water and coffin-cold meds were waiting for her.  I smiled and nodded. The house? Then I went about my business playing with my G.I. Joe's. Life went on.  Then the day came. I came home from school and the house was looking at me. A mixture of fear and a firm no. The house spoke to me inside my head. Not so much words as feelings. The feeling said, not today, kid. Wait for your parents to come home. I sat at the end of the lawn, closest to the road, under a tree. Someone must have seen me sitting out there because my dad came home early with a very concerned look on his face. Why aren't you in the house? It's cold out here. I sighed and said, the house said no. The look on my dad's face turned to fear and he ran into the house, searched from top to bottom, walked right back up to me and said, there is no one in the house. He was mad. I know dad, the house sometimes talks. It said, no, not today. He scratched his head and asked, why? I shrugged my shoulders. Angrily, my dad said, we live here and you're not allowed to sit in the cold. Go inside now. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I smelled it. A smell that I didn't know then but know now. Blood. Instinct said trouble and I looked all over the house. No Betty Crocker taste, no ash taste. The smell was coming from downstairs. I ran, almost falling down the stairs. My dad freaked out, chased after me.  He yelled after me. I ran into the laundry room and there they were on the blotch in the laundry room. A Betty Crocker looking lady and a slightly overweight man in a dress shirt and tie, a cigar still burning on the ground, stabbed to death and laying in a pool of their own blood. The house spoke in my head again and the feeling said, we didn't want you to find us like this. It happens this time of year, every year. We're sorry. I looked at my dad and said plainly, people died here this day. They were stabbed to death. They just didn't want me to see. My dad immediately called the landlord and asked a lot of questions including, were the previous residents murdered? The answer shocked my dad. There was a murder in that house, sir. In the 60s, why do you ask? It wasn't long until my dad decided it was time to move from that house. Not long after he was deployed to Germany. We followed, soon after. I hope you liked the story. Ever since COVID, I've been kind of in a funk. The doctor calls it depression. I just don't like the direction the world is taking and, well, I feel stuck, old and as silly as it sounds, unattractive. I've been in a funk before and I'm sure I will again. Being creative, it helps. Thanks for the outlet. And keep being weird for heaven's sake. We need more weirdos. Next time, I'll tell you the story of a crowd of ghostly aspersions. Or maybe the one I met in Japan. Or maybe the missed girl from Germany. Anyways, until next time, God bless you, sir, and all your loved ones. Wow, Frank, that is an incredible, incredible story. I don't know why you consider yourself an amateur writer. If you have as many stories as you say you do, you mentioned that you have, let me look around here. What did it say? Did you say you had thousands of stories? Devulgible, lifelong experience, prior to first writing? Okay, you didn't say. I guess I was imagining that. But you have so many stories from just this house alone, though. I mean, if you've been in all of these different places, oh, there it is, from this weirdness is bore a thousand stories with time I intend to tell them all to you. Okay, Frank, I would love to see those stories and share them here. But let me say you really need to write a book. If you've got all of these stories from all your time being an Army brat, you've got some great potential there for an amazing book, either an anthology book of just all the different stories or maybe putting something fully together like in a novel. But whatever it is, just this house alone is movie worthy, novel worthy. This is just incredible stuff, man. I mean, the whole thought of coming home, excuse me, the whole idea of coming home and not only smelling the baked goods and even hearing that voice, but showing up an actual real food being there for you to consume, getting up in the middle of the night and having the midnight snack already there, the house made it. I mean, that is just, I have never heard of anything like that before. I've heard of visions, you know, like people imagining, you know, the food smell or whatever, maybe even seeing something almost like a mirage type of thing, you know, but ghostly in sense. But when you approach it, it disappears. But no, yours is real.  Wow, that is just, I cannot imagine growing up in a house like that. Yes, you really need to write a story and you've got some great skills here for writing to Frank. I mean, the more I read into this, the more the more I got into it, I could picture everything in my head. So don't don't think negatively of yourself when it comes to your writing. You've got some great stuff there. And all you have to do is just find an editor and fix, you know, fix grammar or something like that and you're good to go. But I also understand how depression will lie to you. I've had that so many times. And just let me along with others tell you that you've got some skills that even though I know the depression isn't going to let you believe it, you are amazingly talented and you've got you've got a future ahead of you as a writer, you really do. The doctor calls it depression and I totally buy that it is depression. Hopefully he's got meds that can help you or some kind of therapy or whatever works for you. You mentioned being creative ish helps and I totally understand that too. It's one of the reasons I actually started Weird Darkness is because I was feeling uncreative and when you're so right brained and you're not being able to be creative, it's going to drag you down. And so that's why several years ago I started this. So kudos to you. Good luck to you. I would love to hear more from you, but that being said, if you can write it all out for yourself and publish your own book, you definitely have something here. But if you decide not to do that, I'll take your stories. I will read them. I will publish them. I'll do whatever. But man, great stuff there. Okay, moving on. This one comes from Francis and I believe this is probably the shortest story that I've ever been ever been sent. It's called just a whisper. One day I was cleaning the master bath as I was bending down to do a last brush before flush. I heard the family name by nog being whispered in my right ear. Haven't even thought this name since childhood. This was no one but my daddy. I sure miss him. This next one comes from Christina and she calls it My Story About Santa. When I was eight years old, I was at my mother's house. I woke up just after midnight because of the sounds of bells. I could hear the sounds of footsteps and the feeling of joy was overwhelming. I got up and everyone was asleep. My brother and I shared a bed at her home and my mother and her husband in their bed. There was one of these dividers between the beds due to her living in a one-bedroom house. No one was awake, as I said, but I could still hear the sounds. I know for a fact Santa is real, and I've always told my kids this story as well as anybody who would say that he isn't real. Santa is an elf and elves are real. I never saw him but the feeling that he was there. Anyway, I love the spirit of Christmas and I'll never forget that night. Well, Christina, we had several stories during the Christmas season that I shared about people who actually had real experiences with what looked to be Santa Claus. Whether it was really Santa or not, that's debatable. I know so many people don't believe in Santa. You grow out of it. But there are even adults who have seen the spirit of Santa or something pretending to be Santa. You never know. That whole spirit of Christmas thing, maybe it's not just feeling. Maybe it really is a true spirit. But thank you for sending that in, Christina. And from somebody who likes to play Santa every year, vocally at least, I really do hope that there's a spirit of Santa out there, that it's a real thing. I would love to know that for a fact that it really is true. Okay, this next story comes from Mark. I have an event that happened to me during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school in 1980. I grew up in a small town in the southernmost part of Erie County of western New York. It was the third week of June and we had just finished our regions testing and a group of us just wanted to unwind. So we decided to meet up and go see a movie at the Joyland Theater for the first show at 7 p.m. The Joyland only showed movies that had been out for a while, but since it was the only place within 20 miles you took what you could get. So about a quarter of I showed up in front of the theater waiting for everybody else to show up. About seven, no one had shown up yet, but I really wanted to see this movie so I went in. When it was over, I came out to find that the sun was just setting and a light fog was starting to roll into town. There were a couple of end-of-the-year parties going on, but I decided just to go home. Once I got away from the theater, I noticed that there was no one around as I walked up Main Street. Normally, Julie's pizza was pretty busy along with the Leland House with at least some kind of traffic on the road. I thought that it was strange but not unheard of so I kept on my way through town. As I left downtown, there was still no traffic on the road and the fog was starting to get thicker. I walked up past the hospital toward Newman Street and still no cars and the fog was getting worse. I finally reached Newman Street. When headlights came into view with many multicolored lights with them, three tractor trailers came rolling by all brightly colored and lit up displaying different logos. As I stood at the corner watching them go by, I could see across the street to the funeral parlor. From around the back, I could see someone come around the corner. I could not see them clearly. It was more of a silhouette of a very tall, thin man. What was really odd was the way he moved. It was very fluid and almost cartoonish and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up along with making me feel very cold on a warm summer's night. So I decided to get moving again up Newman at a good pace. The fog was getting thicker with each passing moment, but I looked up and I could see stars overhead, which was pretty eerie. I heard a noise of steps behind me, so I glanced back and saw the silhouette of the tall man just starting to walk down the street. I'm six foot two, 200 pounds, so I'm not a small guy, but the shape behind me seemed more than a head and shoulders taller, still moving at that weird fluid motion. So needless to say, I picked up my pace a little. Not running, just walking quickly. As I crossed over Maple Street, a car came up Maple to stop at the sign. It made a right away from me and I glanced back to see that the tall man was closer than I thought, but stopped and was keeping a tree between itself and the headlights of the car. Starting to get unnerved, I continued on my way home, not letting any grass grow under my feet. Now I've come to the point where I had to make a decision. I could continue down Newman Street to North Street, then up North to go home, or I can cut across the elementary school grounds and save a good half mile. I glanced back and saw no one, so I cut across the school. The school itself sits on a small hill, and I make it across the parking lot and the playground to the top of the hill to the back of the school.  I rounded the corner to see that there is an even thicker fog bank that the moon, which is now up, is glistening off the top of. I was about to turn around when I looked back and saw the tall man coming around the curb of Newman and into the school parking lot. He passed right under a streetlight and with a bright moon I can still see pretty well, but I can't make out any features on his face. Although I see that he is moving at a good clip in that same strange fluid motion. Not having any choice, I plunged down the hill into that wall of fog. My feet were immediately soaked from the wet grass and it was slippery, so I had to take care when I stepped, even though I could barely see the ground. I looked back just as the school was lost from view to see the silhouette come around the corner. I moved as quickly as I could until something loomed up in front of me. It was the backstop from the furthest diamond. Now this backstop is large with the ends reaching well down both the first and third base lines and I found myself a little right of home plate. I whirled around thinking to myself that I had just trapped myself and I was straining to hear any kind of noise that might let me know if I was being pursued and if so from what direction. I worked my way down the backstop until I came to the end and tried to get my breathing under control. From this point I know that I can sprint home as I have done it many times, so I started up the small hill behind the diamond and started home. I only slipped once on my way there, but soon I was up and across North Street, through our neighbor's yard and to our house. There was nobody home and I was about to turn the light on when something told me not to. So instead I looked out the living room curtain and out of the fog, to stop right at the top of our lane was the silhouette just standing there as if waiting for something. With all of a sudden I felt something next to me. It was my brother's dog. Now this dog normally didn't come anywhere near me, but now he was right there, whining. So I just stood there, watching the tall man from the crack in the curtains for about 15 minutes until a pair of headlights illuminated him and he moved off into the woods across the street. And my parents pulled into our lane.  I told them what had happened. My mother said, I told you I saw someone go to the woods. Thank you for listening to the story. There were plenty of other stories I can tell you about the town that I grew up in. Well, if you have several stories, send them in, Mark. I love to hear more. I think that's the first tall man story that we've had in fireside frights, kind of like a slender man experience. I think so. So whenever we finally make the book on these, that might be a chapter all by itself. I don't know what other category would put that in except for tall man. And you'd have a whole chapter to yourself, at least at this point. Let me take another sip of my drink before we continue on. I'm really enjoying the stories this month. These are really great. And by the way, I am looking for more stories for next month. I'm always looking for them. I gathered up a lot of them over the years, so I was good for a few months. But now that I've actually started using them, going through them, I work through them pretty quick. So for me to get as much material as I need for each episode, I really do need the stories. So if anything paranormal or strange has happened to you, go to WeirdDarkness.com, click on Tell Your Story, and let me know about it. Or, as you've heard from others, tell one of their stories, too. That's perfectly fine. Okay, this next one comes from Sarah, and she's actually titled it. It's called Malcom. When I was young, I had several paranormal experiences.  I'm currently a 43-year-old married nurse with two young adult children. This story happened to me just about 12 years ago. At that time, I was a single mother of two young children. I also am working full-time and going to nursing school. Sleep was a luxury as I spent as much quality time as I could with my children. I had no family in the state we were living in. We had a black lab mix named Malcom. He was an amazing dog, and I felt our little family was protected and loved. I always waited until after I put the kids to bed to start my homework, which meant that I was up until 1-2 a.m. Malcom would lay on my feet under the kitchen table as I worked. One particular night, I had not been asleep long when I awoke to Malcom growling. I was laying on my left side facing the closed walk-in closet.  He was in a position that appeared like he was preparing to lunge off the bed at any second. My eyes were open, but I saw nothing in the darkness. I was filled with the most intense sense of fear and panic. My heart was pounding. At first, I had no idea why I was frightened. Had a stranger entered the house? Was something wrong with one of my children? I thought perhaps I was experiencing sleep paralysis, but I was able to move my fingers and my feet, which I did very slowly as to not be detected. I laid there in complete terror while Malcom started to snarl for what felt like several minutes. I could not see anything or anyone. I then started to hear a male whispering. It was quite soft at first, coming from the area of my closet. It sounded angry like I was being berated. I had the impression the voice was trying to intimidate me. The whispering became louder and much closer, like a man spitting out angry words. I had the distinct feeling that I had to pretend I did not hear anything in order to make it go away, so that is what I did. I am not sure if I was too scared to pay attention to what it was saying or if it was just not loud enough to decipher. I remember feeling that the words were meant to break me down, to make me feel not good enough. I laid there trying to breathe evenly, trying to fake that I was still asleep. Malcom was now full out barking. It was a bark I had never heard from him. He was ready to tear into something. abruptly the whispering stopped. I shot out of that bed and put the lights on. There was no one in the room. I got my children out of their rooms and we spent the rest of the night downstairs in the living room. They fell right back to sleep and were never aware that anything had happened. I do not consider myself a particularly religious person. I do not go to church, but I do believe in God. I had always prayed to thank God for my children and everyone that I love, but I never prayed to ask for help. That night I started praying for strength, for help in protecting my children and myself. I prayed for God to help me to be the best mother I could be. I prayed to be able to keep up the exhausting pace of supporting us alone and finish school. I never had another experience like this again. We lost Malcom to cancer two years ago. He was with us as I became a nurse, bought a house, found the man I would marry. He stayed until he knew his family was safe. I will never forget the way he protected us. Wow, you got a great dog there, Sarah. Malcom sounds like a real treasure.  Is that what you said? There it is. I remember feeling that the words were meant to break me down, to make me feel not good enough. It makes me wonder if that would actually be a spirit, an actual presence, a spirit of depression. I've heard people describe it that way. I've never actually believed it, but now after that, why not? I guess it could possibly be something. I'm not saying that all depression is spiritual in nature. I'm not saying that at all. I mean, there are so many different reasons for somebody to suffer from depression. There could be issues with their metabolism, with their body in some ways, or it could be a mental issue, but who's to say it couldn't be spiritual as well? I know that it can be spiritual, but that actually, I've not seen an instant where it could be a physical spiritual presence, manifestation like that. But you know what? It very well could be. If anybody else has had that type of experience, like an actual true spirit of depression, I would love to hear your story. This one comes from Juan. Hello, Mr. Marlar. This is a story from my wife that she told me as we love to share our paranormal stories and experiences with each other after every episode of Weird Darkness. That's pretty cool. You inspire us to talk more about the weird and unexplainable things and stories that we have come across and experienced in our lives. So for that, thank you so much. Anyway, here's the story. She narrates an old story to me from Mexico many years ago about an elementary school teacher's grandfather. Apparently the old man was quite the ladies man in his time, and although he was married at the time, this did not stop him from exploring his options with local young ladies. Mind you, this experience happened in the early 1900s in a small rural town in Mexico. The robust man met a young lady one day in his travels that caught his eye and, unbeknownst to his wife, he began to gradually make his move on the young lady until he began to enjoy a sorted love affair with the young lady. This went on for quite a while until one day his business took him away from the small town to a larger city for personal business. After a long day being in the big city, he mounted his trusty horse, as was the means of his transportation in those days, and made his way home with the intention of spending a day with his young love before heading home to his wife. A riding close to the small town just after dark, his attention was peaked as he looked out towards the road and saw what looked like his young lady love walking towards him in the opposite direction. Startled at the fact that she was out alone after dark, he immediately began to call out to her to inquire as to why she was out so late, alone. As he got closer to the young maiden, the horse stopped abruptly and began to backpedal rather nervously. The old man anointed this, kicked the horse with his spurs to entice him to get closer to the young maiden. At this point the young maiden had stopped just a few yards away from the old man and his frightened horse. The old man again tried to kick the horse to get him to move closer to the lady, but to no avail. The man, visibly angry, took out his whip and struck the horse to move forward, at the same time yelling at the young maiden to answer his inquiries. Suddenly the horse lifted upwards onto its hind legs causing the old man to fall backwards. As he hit the ground, he looked up to the young maiden. She was neither young nor a maiden, but an evil spirit cloaked in white, jaw agape, and an ungodly look of violent and fierce aggression. The old man's face went from a look of frustration to a look of absolute horror, and the last thing he saw was this demonic and evil spirit leaping towards him with an earpiece, with an earpiercing shriek. The old man awoke in the morning, sitting on his trusty steed in front of his farm, completely out of sorts, wondering how he got there, and not quite sure about what he saw the night before. He did not come out of this horrific ordeal unscathed. When he went to undress that day for a warm bath, three large scratches were noticed by his wife from the small of his back to just below his neck. The old man's wife did not ask him about this injury, curiously, and he did not provide reason for them either. Needless to say, he was never unfaithful to his wife again, and to the day he passed away refused to give any more details as to what exactly he saw, that dark and eerie night on his way back to see his young maiden. The only other being to know what happened is his trusty steed, and he's not talking. Thanks, Mr. Marlar. More stories to come. Blessings. I know most of these stories are supposed to be true stories. I don't know if that's a true story, but it is a great story, so thank you for sharing it, Juan. I really appreciate that. What I really, really like, though, and one of the reasons that I wanted to share this, is because you mentioned that you listened to the show with your wife, and then afterwards you will talk about weird experiences and tell each other ghost stories. I think that is just adorable. I love that. You're not the first person either to tell me that you share, or not just share the show, but enjoy the show with somebody while listening.  You're actually listening with your wife, which I think is just so cool. I remember hearing back some time ago, probably a year or so or more ago, that somebody for their very first date sat and listened to weird darkness together, which is just the strangest thing to me. But they apparently not only was that their first date, but they ended up having more and more dates, and they're married now, if I remember the story correctly. So something that they heard gave them at least enough enjoyment to come back and have another date later on. But for that to be the first date is just okay. This world, it takes all, as they say, it takes all kinds. But you've got to be a special person to even suggest that for a first date. I can understand being dating for a while, and you find out that person has a love for the creepy stuff, and you want to watch a horror movie together, or something like that. I can totally see that. I understand that. Even for a first date, going to a horror movie, if you know that that person likes that kind of stuff. But sitting, listening to an episode of weird darkness as your first date is just, it is the ultimate compliment. I can't think of any other way to do that. And for them to eventually get married. I'm not suggesting that I do it, but I actually, one of these days, somebody's going to come to me and say, hey, will you marry us? Because I do have the Church of the Undead and I did get my reverence license, minister's license online. So I could technically marry somebody, but that is just so cool. Anyway, your story, Juan, it reminded me of that.  I don't know if that's true or not because he said that he never talked about it. And yet here you have the entire story. So I'm guessing that the story itself isn't actually true. But it's still a great story. So thank you for sharing it. Okay, this next one comes from Stacey. Hello, my name is Stacey. I'd rather just leave it at Stacey. I'd like to start by saying that I am a huge fan of your podcast. Listen to it all the time, even while I am working. I am sure that many people say this, or at least start with this. But I'm rather more of a skeptic than an immediate believer in pretty much anything. I like to find a logical answer before I give up and say, I just don't know. Although I am a skeptic, I am open-minded about many things. If something can be proven, or I can see it for myself, I'll accept it for what it is. I also do not scare easily. I'll say it makes life a little boring when the typical things people usually fear don't bother me much at all, like spiders, snakes, rats, scary movies, the dark or things that go bump in the night. Nope, not even a little phased, but fear interests me, and so does the paranormal. This all changed for me one night when I was about 16 years old. At the time, my friend Jason lived with us. He usually stayed up pretty late. I did too, but for some reason I felt incredibly exhausted out of nowhere. My boyfriend was visiting with me and I had to ask him to leave because I felt so out of it. At the time, I was very straight edge, so that meant no drugs, no alcohol, so it wasn't like I was under the influence. After I made sure my boyfriend left, I said goodnight to Jason who was watching TV in the living room. Even he thought that it was weird I was going to bed so early. It was just Jason and I in the house for the weekend, so he was getting his fill with late night TV without my mother getting on him about it. I went into my room that had these blackout curtains and black and purple walls. The only light in my room was the little green light from my TV, the little blue one on my stereo, and the red glow of my digital clock. I got into my terribly squeaky bed and pretty much fell right to sleep. I woke up a few hours later and noticed in the red glow of my clock a figure in my room and what looked like a hoodie with the hood pulled up. It looked like his hands were in his pockets. I could see slight features of his face silhouetted in the red light. At this point, I could feel that one of his knees were knelt down into my mattress as he was leaning over me. I could feel the weight of him close to my body. The room smelled incredibly strong at my boyfriend's cologne, but he hadn't worn it that day and he never wore it that strong. My immediate thought wasn't fear. I was annoyed and also humored that my boyfriend was trying to scare me or that he came back after all and after I had asked him to leave. So I asked him with a playful giggle, what are you doing? He didn't say anything. I remained very still and quiet. He just kept staring down at me. What are you doing? Why aren't you talking? I asked it with a hint of annoyance in my voice. Again, nothing from him. At this point, I began to move, but as I did so, he lifted his knee off the bed. The bed even squeaked to his movements. He momentarily blotted out the light of the clock with his looming figure as he went past it. I leaned my body far off the bed trying to bat him, but I couldn't feel him. He then passed the green light of my TV, the blue light of my stereo, stopping in the darkest corner of my room. I shot up angrily and flipped on the light. No one was there. I screamed and moved quickly down the hall toward the living room yelling at Jason, who was still peacefully watching TV. I accused him of being in my room. I kept insisting that he was in there as I began to cry. Then I lost feeling in my knees and I almost collapsed that I was panicking so hard. He grabbed me by my shoulders, looking me dead in the eyes, trying to reassure me that no one was in my room. I knew he would not do something like that, as a joke, but my mind was frantic looking for logic. I guess because I looked so unusually terrified, he became scared and went into protector mode. He rushed through the house, turning on all the lights, checking every closet and corner. He came back and said that there was nobody there but us. He stayed near me all night, and I didn't sleep in my room for almost a year. I'd only sleep on the couch. I'd only go in my room to drop something off or to quickly grab something out of there. That was the most terrified I ever was. It made me question many things I thought I understood.  Anyway, if you made it through the long message, thank you for your time and all that you do. Keep up the amazing work. Thank you, Stacey. Not a great story. You wrote it out very well, but it's not great that it happened to you. Terrifying.  But quite often, people will have that experience.  They'll even feel like the person's on the bed or actually on their chest. So as I was reading this, I was thinking, oh, this is a sleep paralysis event. But then when you started talking to him and you could move your head and see where he was going and everything, that's not sleep paralysis. You had something in there. And it's interesting because I've never heard of a shadow person having a hoodie. And you could actually tell that the hands were in the pockets. I've heard of the Hat Man. We've had quite a few stories about that. So you could actually see the silhouette of the man with the hat. But I've not seen the hoodie one. Whatever I think of hoodies, I think of the black-eyed kids. But that's not what you're talking about here. So anyway, really strange stuff. I hope that never happens to you again. I'm glad you got through it. And I'm with you. I'm kind of the same way. Things don't really scare me. Like you mentioned spiders, snakes, rats, scary movies, dark things that go bump in the night. I really don't get scared either. So I'll watch a scary movie or what's supposed to be a scary movie, a horror movie, and they don't faze me at all. Very, very seldom will I watch something that'll really kind of bug me. The Ring was one of those. And I refused to watch The Etrusist ever again. Not because it was so scary, which it was, but just because I felt like I needed to take a shower afterwards because I felt like there was so much evil on me. I just felt like I had to get clean. If I had thought about anointing myself in oil, I would have jumped into a giant tub of Crisco or something to get rid of that feeling. But most of the time I don't really have any scary things. So I can understand what something does frighten you at this point. It's got to be over the top to affect you like that. So I'm glad you got through that, Stacey.  I doubt you are. But I wonder what you said to him afterwards because you thought it was him. I would love to hear his response as to what happened, what you told him what happened. This next one comes from Stephen. This experience took place when I was around the age of 11. I think it was the summer of 86. Our family hosted a Japanese exchange student. Now, I, being the oldest of four, made the sacrifice of giving up my room to the new kids on the block. See what I did there? Gen X reference, baby. Anyway, I usually slept on the top bunk and my little brother on the bottom. But since I was sleeping on a fold-out couch in the basement family room, our exchange student took over the bottom bunk and my little brother took over the top bunk. I still use my room for getting dressed because all my clothes were in the dresser in the room. So, like so many times before, I got into the room and our exchange student was sleeping so hard he was snoring. I noticed he was laying on his back and sort of looked dead, but because of his snoring I knew he was just in a deep sleep. At this point in my experience, it was just another normal day in Brooks, Oregon. So my brother and I went about getting dressed and were just about to walk out of the room, went out of nowhere. He flew into the air about six feet above the bed and twisted 360 degrees and crashed back onto the bed. He was completely prostrate. He didn't convulse or curl up in any fetal position before or after. His entire body just flew straight up, went full rotisserie chicken style and landed in the same spot. My brother and I looked at him in astonishment and then to each other in disbelief at what we had just witnessed. Then we both looked back at him to see if he was going to wake up. My brother and I couldn't help but laugh and that's what woke up our exchange student. He then sat up and looked at us like we had done something mean to him. I've always wondered how he was able to do this ninja-like action. For some reason, it came to my memory a couple days ago and I wondered if it was a paranormal experience involving our bunk bed. Thank you, Darren, for your hard work and sacrifice. Thank you for enduring your many trials and tribulations so others may be enlightened.  Your brother and Christ, Stephen. Well, thank you very much, Stephen. I don't have all that many trials and tribulations. It's everybody else's that I share, but thank you very much. I appreciate it. What an issue. What a deal with the exchange student. I don't know if it'd be your bed, though, because you didn't have any problems with your bed until he got there. I think it's not the bed. It's him. Something's going on with him. I love the way you said rotisserie chicken style. That was hilarious. Okay, this next one come... Let me get a sip here, my drink real quick. I'm having so much fun tonight. Okay, this one comes from Rose. This happened to my husband about 22 years ago in Joliet, Illinois. We lived in a house across the street from two very old cemeteries. One was named Olivet. All that separated us was a fence. A deep wooded area backed both cemeteries, and the back was not fenced in so that you could walk through and into the woods. My husband liked to walk our old wolf dog, half wolf, half German shepherd, in the cemetery. One night he was walking her and it was very foggy. The dog stopped and just refused to walk, and my husband heard a woman crying in the fog. He walked a few steps and saw a young woman sitting on a tombstone crying. She looked up at him, said she was sorry that she'd scared him, got up and in two steps totally dematerialized. He was so shaken it took him 20 minutes after he got home to tell me about it. He never walked in that cemetery at night again. I don't think I would either. This one next one comes from Mariah. Excuse me, and this is our last story for the evening. Hi, Darren. My husband and I love listening to your podcast. We even have proud-to-be-a-weirdo t-shirts and copy mugs. Here's just one of the true events that have happened to us. Thank you for all that you do to bring attention to the struggles that people face with depression.  Thanks, signed Mariah. Well, thank you, Mariah. So here's your story. Locked the doors.  I quickly did as I was told. What's going on? I asked Carlos, searching his eyes for answers. Carlos and I had a whirlwind courtship and were married within three months of dating. He was the most honest man I had ever known.  Carlos was just the opposite. He was brutally honest. He would rather you hate him for who he is than love him for who he isn't. We moved to a very small town in Missouri shortly after we got married. We found a little two-bedroom duplex in a quiet neighborhood. The town only had about 800 people, and most of them were in the country. There were chicken houses and cow pastures surrounding the two-block residential area that we called home. The weather outside was typical springtime Midwest weather. Cool days and even cooler nights had us choosing to leave our windows open for the fresh air as much as possible. Hearing the crickets and all of the typical nature sounds as we were falling asleep became an every night thing. Our cat Baby loved to sit in the window sill and listen to the sounds as well. Baby was a cat that my daughter had given me for my birthday right after Carlos and I had started dating. He wasn't too crazy about the cat at first, but she loved him and his opinion soon changed. Our old landlord had accidentally let her out of the house before we moved and so now we were expecting kittens. She spent her days lying around the house and watching the outside from the windows. One night we were laying in bed ready to be lulled to sleep by the usual sounds of the country when Baby started hissing and ran from the window sill and out of the room. Something had startled her. Carlos and I jumped up and looked out the window but didn't see anything. As we laid back down, we commented on how the familiar sounds outside were silent that night. This went on for a few nights. Baby would be hissing and we still didn't see anything. We eventually shrugged it off as a neighborhood dog running through the yard. After about a week getting scared out of the window, Baby had decided to lay somewhere else in the house at bedtime. We were listening to the crickets and all of a sudden there was a screech outside. The kind that makes your eyes fly open but you can't move because you're listening, trying not to miss it if it happens again. Then it does. Screech right in our yard, right outside the window. We both fly up out of bed and run to the window. It's so dark out there we can't see anything, but all the neighborhood dogs are going crazy, barking, howling, all the while letting me know that I was not just hearing things, something was out there. The crazy screeching noises and Baby hissing at invisible creatures continued for about another week. Then, one evening, Carlos and I had built a fire in our fire pit in the backyard. After an hour or so, it had started to get too cool out from my liking and I decided to go back inside. He helped me gather up the lawn shares and we went back in the house. Once inside, we heard the screeching again and he said he was going back outside to look and see what the noise was. It was dusk so there was enough light out to not need a flashlight. He walked out and I went about putting away the chairs. Seconds later, he comes crashing back to the front door screaming, lock the doors! I run to the back door to make sure it's locked without asking any questions and as I spin around, Carlos was frantically running around the house checking the locks on the windows and by this time, grabbing his hunting knife. Now I'm scared. What's going on? I asked. He looked at me with the kind of seriousness that is never good and says, I don't know what I saw, I just don't know what it was. What does that mean? I asked. He goes on to explain to me that as he rounded the corner of the house, something passed between our house and the neighbors on its hind legs, standing almost as tall as him. It was eye level with a full grown man. He described a hairless dog half hopping, half walking on its hind legs through our backyard. He said he immediately felt scared, not threatened, but fearful because he couldn't register what he was looking at. The houses were about 30 feet or so apart, so there was enough time to see it clearly. Was this thing dangerous? Would it attack? Were there more of them? Was this the noise out our window scaring the cat and then disappearing into the night? As crazy as it sounded, I trusted this man with everything and I knew that this was what he did see. The very next morning, I was up and in the backyard trying to find some sort of tracks or evidence that this thing existed to make sense of it all. Next to our shed, the grass was smashed down as though something large had been laying there as a bed for quite some time. But what sealed the deal for me was while I was looking for tracks, I looked up and a few doors down, my neighbor is out in the backyard, pointing to his shed very aggressively. He is talking to his wife and obviously trying to show her something very serious, that he does the hopping motion, the exact same hopping motion that Carlos had shown me the night before. My heart leaped, my neighbor had also seen the creature. We spent the next few days searching the internet for pictures of anything even closely resembling what he had seen. The closest we have found is the chupacabra, the creature once said to attack farm animals, such as chickens, goats, and livestock. We may never know. If you hadn't said chupacabra, I was thinking werewolf, but with it being hairless, I'm thinking like a werewolf with mange. I don't know. That would have been terrifying though. It's too bad people can't get photos of these things. Thank you very much for that, Mariah. I really appreciate it. And I hope you and Carlos are having a great marriage. That was my last story and I could definitely use more for next month's fireside frights. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, I do plan to take all of these and make a book out of them, possibly a book series, because we're going to continue doing these every month as long as you send me the stories. I'm going to use them because I love doing fireside frights. So if you've got a story that you would like to send in, again, you can be anonymous if you want to, or just tell me your first name or tell me to only use your first name. I'm totally fine with that. That's what I do here anyway. Even if I know your last name, I always use only the first names just for privacy reasons more than anything else. So if you have a story, I would love to hear it be it your story or a story somebody has told you, just go to WeirdDarkness.com and click on tell your story and you can get it to me. So thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, and I'm guessing you are or you do because you've made it all through this whole thing, share this episode and the podcast itself with somebody that you know who also likes all this creepy stuff that we talk about. And also, if you could, leave a rating and review of the show in the podcast app you listen from. If you do that, it actually does help the show to get noticed. And we started doing something very recently. My friends over at Spreaker, I host my show on Spreaker and they've got a podcast app that you can listen to, listen to podcasts on all podcasts. But Spreaker is setting it up where if you leave a message there on one of the episodes, if you comment on one of the episodes on the Spreaker app, it's going to inform me that you did and that way I can not only see your comment, but also reply to it. They're working on that right now. It should be ready within the next couple of weeks, which I'm so excited about because that's something that I've always wanted, something that YouTube does, but most podcasts don't. And so we've been talking back and forth about it. And I love Spreaker because they actually listen to their podcasters with ideas and they see if they can accommodate them. I love that. I have great customer service over there. So they're setting that up right now. So if you don't have the Spreaker app, you might want to download it. It's free. Just like anything, any other podcast app you might listen through, but that way you can listen to the show through the Spreaker podcast player. I think it's what it's called. If you go to your app store and download it and that way you can comment on the episodes there. I can see them and then also reply to them. Look, I'm really looking forward to getting that started. All stories, of course, in Weird Darkness are purported to be true. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions copyright Weird Darkness. And even though this is a fireside frights episode, I am going to leave you with a little light as we come out of the dark. Psalm 37 verses 23 and 24, If the Lord delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm, though he stumble he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. And a final thought from Harry A. Ironside, we would worry less if we praised more. Giving thanks is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction. I'm Darren Marlar. Thank you so much, Weirdos, for joining me in the Weird Darkness.


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