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August 13, 2025 48 mins
When Charles Peck died instantly in California's worst train crash, his phone somehow made 35 calls to his loved ones over the next 11 hours—and his case is just one of many documented instances of the dead reaching out through our technology.

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IN THIS EPISODE: Charles died in a horrible train accident, but before anyone knew he was dead, his family received 35 calls from his phone after the tragedy. (He Kept Calling His Family After He Was Dead) *** Weirdo family member Christa Aurand describes something about herself that is somewhat unusual. Unusual to her – and kind of creepy to those around her. You see, sometimes people think she’s dead. (I Am Not Dead) *** Army First Lieutenant Paul Byron Whipkey was as brave as he was handsome. After telling his fellow troops that he was going out for a drink he never came back – and was never heard from again, by anyone. (The Vanishing Lieutenant and the Disappearing Cadet) *** Final Destination is a massive franchise with numerous films, novels, and comic books in the universe it has created. Fortunately it’s all from the minds of horror fiction authors. Or is it? There are real cases where some narrowly escaped death, only for death to catch up to them soon thereafter. Very soon. (You Can’t Escape The Reaper)
ABOUT WEIRD DARKNESS: Weird Darkness is a true crime and paranormal podcast narrated by professional award-winning voice actor, Darren Marlar. Seven days per week, Weird Darkness focuses on all thing strange and macabre such as haunted locations, unsolved mysteries, true ghost stories, supernatural manifestations, urban legends, unsolved or cold case murders, conspiracy theories, and more. On Thursdays, this scary stories podcast features horror fiction along with the occasional creepypasta. Weird Darkness has been named one of the “Best 20 Storytellers in Podcasting” by Podcast Business Journal. Listeners have described the show as a cross between “Coast to Coast” with Art Bell, “The Twilight Zone” with Rod Serling, “Unsolved Mysteries” with Robert Stack, and “In Search Of” with Leonard Nimoy.DISCLAIMER: Ads heard during the podcast that are not in my voice are placed by third party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. *** Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised.
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:57.953 = He Kept Calling His Family After He Was Dead
00:13:49.199 = I Am Not Dead
00:19:22.187 = You Can’t Escape The Reaper
00:29:06.011 = The Vanishing Lieutenant And The Disappearing Cadet
00:46:22.286 = Show Close

SOURCES AND RESOURCES FROM THE EPISODE…
“Messages a Deceased Emily Sent To Her Boyfriend”: https://tinyurl.com/ybwjeoza
“He Kept Calling His Family After He Was Dead” by Eric McCann for Ranker: https://tinyurl.com/y926db7g
“I Am Not Dead” by Weirdo family member, Christa Aurand, submitted at WeirdDarkness.com
“You Can’t Escape The Reaper” by Ryan Davis for Ranker: https://tinyurl.com/y6v4hhmv
“The Vanishing Lieutenant and the Disappearing Cadet” from Strange Company: https://tinyurl.com/yan75oha;https://tinyurl.com/yc7f83mt
=====(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46= = = = =WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2025, Weird Darkness.=====Originally aired: June 16, 2020
NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popu
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Daryn Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
unsolved and unexplained. Coming up. In this episode of Weird Darkness,

(00:32):
Charles died in a horrible train accident, but before anyone
knew he was dead, his family received thirty five calls
from his phone after the tragedy. Weirdo family member Christa
Aurant describes something about herself that is somewhat unusual, unusual

(00:53):
to her and kind of creepy to those around her.
You see, sometimes people think he's dead. Army First Lieutenant
Paul Byron Whipkey was as brave as he was handsome.
After telling his fellow troops that he was going out
for a drink, he never came back and was never

(01:14):
heard from again by anyone. And Final Destination is a
massive franchise with numerous films, novels, and comic books in
the universe it's created. Fortunately, it's all from the minds
of horror fiction authors, or is it? There are real
cases where some narrowly escaped death, only for death to

(01:37):
catch up to them soon thereafter very soon. Now bolt
your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and
come with me into the weird darkness. Mysterious phone calls

(02:11):
from the dead make for excellent horror movie plots, but
this eerie phenomenon also happens in real life. Many stories
of unexplained phone calls show that they're not just the
result of grief stricken imaginings. Although people try to explain
these odd occurrences by blaming malfunctioning cell phone technology, reports

(02:35):
of phantom phone calls go back to at least nineteen
sixty seven. Charles E. Pek's Metrolink death is one of
the most prominent and creepy stories about phone calls from
dead people, since author Deane Koontz's deceased mother phoned him
to give him a warning. Peck was killed instantly in

(02:56):
a horrible two thousand and eight Metrolink commuter train accident
where a total of twenty five people died and one
hundred and thirty five were injured, but before anyone knew
Peck was dead, his family members received thirty five calls
from his phone for several hours following the disaster. Whether

(03:17):
it was due to phone damage or Charles reaching out
from beyond. We may never know, but it's nice to
believe that even those who have passed are only a
phone call away. Forty nine year old Charles Peck worked
for Delta Airlines. He was considering leaving his job in
Salt Lake City International Airport for a job at Van

(03:39):
Ey's Airport in Los Angeles to be closer to his fiancee,
Andrea Katz, and had an interview there. Although the couple
was ready to get married, the fact that they didn't
live in the same state was an issue. Then the
disaster occurred. Katz was on her way to pick him
up from the train station when she heard the news

(03:59):
of the accident on the radio. Pack had three children
from a previous marriage, one of whom was on his
afterlife phone call list. Andrea Katz heard about the crash
on the radio as she was driving to pick up
Peck from the train station, and was relieved when she
received a call from his phone. Other friends and family

(04:19):
members of Cats were in the same position. After the crash,
Peck's phone placed calls to his son, sister, brother, and stepmother.
In all, about thirty five calls were made during the
eleven hours that followed the accident. According to one source,
the final call from Peck's phone came at three twenty
eight am, about an hour before his body was found.

(04:44):
Charles Pack was a passenger on a Metrolink commuter train
traveling through the San Fernando Valley in California on September twelfth,
two thousand and eight. It collided headfirst with a Union
Pacific freight train at eighty three miles per hour when
the conductor failed to stop at a red light. The
impact was devastating, and if the two hundred and twenty

(05:06):
five people aboard the Metrolink, at least twenty five died
and more than one hundred were seriously injured. The engineer
sitting at the front of the train was killed instantly
as well. The freight train was carrying only three crew members,
but it was demolished in the accident. The disaster later
became known as the Chatsworth train crash, and it still

(05:29):
considered the worst commuter train accident in the history of California.
At first, Pex loved ones must have been excited when
they saw his name pop up on their phone screens.
As the calls continued, they had hoped that he was
still alive and trapped within the rubble of the crash. Unfortunately,
they were unable to actually talk to him. All they

(05:52):
heard when they entered his calls was static. However, Andrea
Katz used the opportunity to communicate with their fiancee and
to let him know that she was with him, shouting
messages of encouragement like hang in there, baby, We're gonna
get you out. You're gonna be okay. Other people who
claim to have received phone calls from Beyond also report

(06:16):
hearing static or a voice that seemed very faint and
far away. Before rescue workers discovered Charles Peck's body in
the wreckage, they had no reason not to believe the
call's placed to his family meant he was still alive.
As it became clear they probably weren't going to find
any survivors in the crash, their rescue efforts turned into

(06:38):
a mission to recover bodies, but when yet another call
came from Peck's phone, they decided to trace it to
find his location. Unfortunately, they discovered his body and knew
that he died on impact. Police never revealed if Pex's
phone was found, Although rescue teams were excited because the

(06:59):
phone calls might mean Charles Peck was still alive. That
wasn't the case. They discovered Peck's body an hour after
the last phone call was placed. According to anecdotal sources
like forums and unsolved mysteries sites, the coroner was unable
to find signs that pack had survived for any amount
of time after the crash, confirming the calls were not

(07:22):
made while he was still alive. Anyone who has ever
butt dialed a number knows it's possible to make a
phone call accidentally. Perhaps an object was sitting on top
of Peck's phone, causing it to make random calls. The
phone was most likely severely damaged during the disaster, so
it may have malfunctioned. Pax. Broken phone may have called

(07:44):
his speed dial list. When this story was posted on Reddit,
several users shared their own creepy stories of malfunctioning phones
and posted eerie phone activity stories from online forums. The
possibility that Peck's phone suffered from technical issues shouldn't be overlooked.
Although rescue workers were able to locate Charles Peck's body successfully,

(08:07):
his phone was never discovered. It's possible that it was
completely destroyed in the disaster or damaged to the point
of malfunctioning. But why it made calls to several of
the people Peck was closest to we may never know.
Perhaps he was reaching out to tell his loved ones
not to worry or say goodbye. Maybe he took it

(08:29):
with him into the afterlife, like ghosts who are seen
in the clothes they're wearing when they passed. Since the
rescue team was able to trace the calls to locate
his body, maybe Peck was simply leading them to it.
No one will ever know for sure, so this story
may forever remain a mystery. Investigators believe the conductor of

(08:52):
the Metrolink train was responsible for the crash after he
failed to stop at a red light. The commuter train
was running on the same train as the freight train
and was directly in its path. It's likely that the
conductor was distracted by his phone and was too busy
texting to notice his mistake. After the disaster, a team
came forward and admitted that they had received a text

(09:15):
from the conductor immediately before the crash. The last text
sent from the conductor phone happened twenty two seconds before
the impact. Intrigued by the many stories of people receiving
phone calls from the deceased. Cy investigators d Scott Rogo
and Raymond Bayliss did research and published a book about

(09:37):
their findings in nineteen seventy nine. Their research has recently
been continued by another paranormal researcher, Callum Cooper. While some
people have reported seeing the name or number of a
deceased acquaintance appear on their caller ID, others claim to
have spoken to someone they later discovered passed away before
the call was made. According to a li of true

(10:00):
accounts by a paranormal researcher, someone named Crystal S shared,
I was at my mom's house and I was calling
a friend who lived nearby. She was at her cousin's house.
So I looked up the number in the phone book.
It was the only Owen's in the phone book, so
I knew it was my friend's cousin's number. I called
and it didn't even ring, but an old lady answered.

(10:22):
She said hello. I asked, is Amelia there. Amelia is
my friend Jessica's cousin. The old lady said, no, dear,
Amelia isn't here. I should be expecting her any minute now,
so I thought nothing of it and hung up. I
told Jessica about it, and she said, Amelia's Grandma's dead.

(10:42):
And we were there all day long. We were sitting
right by the phone. It never rang all day. In
another anecdote from the same list, a salesperson named Mary
b remembers I made a sales call to Pennsylvania. It
started just like any other call. Yes, I need to

(11:02):
speak to mister or missus B. The woman identified herself
as Missus B, and I continued on with the normal
sales call. She seemed very interested and asked a lot
of questions, but when I came to the decision making,
she quickly stopped me, insisting that I had to talk
to her husband. Her objections were the same every time
I attempted to close. She also quickly pointed out that

(11:26):
since his retirement, he spent a great deal of time
fishing and was not easy to get in touch with,
and did be best to try early in the morning
before he left for his favorite hobby. On the callback,
the husband did answer the phone. I introduced myself in
the normal fashion and explained that I've been talking to
his wife the previous day and she suggested that I
speak to him. You could imagine the shock and horror

(11:50):
when he stated to me, distraught lady, I don't know
who you were talking to, but my wife died and
I'm not in the mood to speak to anyone With that.
He quickly hung up the phone. People who've passed on
aren't limited to phone calls or hauntings. In the modern age.
They often use email and social media sites such as

(12:11):
Facebook to contact their loved ones. For instance, Jack Freese
passed unexpectedly in twenty eleven from a heart arrhythmia, only
to contact his friends through email. Approximately six months later,
Freese's friends reported emails sent from his account that included
details from some of their last conversations. One friend tried replying,

(12:33):
but never received a response. People sometimes claim their deceased
friends have liked their posts on Facebook or sent them messages,
like the viral Reddit thread about messages that deceised Emily
allegedly sent to her boyfriend. But I'll let you read
those for yourself. I'll place a link in the show notes.

(13:01):
Charles was already dead, but one of our weirdo family members,
who is still very much alive, has the problem of
people mistaking her for being dead more than once. Her
story is coming up and speaking of living and dying,
it appears the premise of the Final Destination movie franchise

(13:22):
might not be all that far fetched, as there are
numerous stories of people barely scraping past a fatal incident,
only to meet their demise shortly thereafter. These stories and
more when weird darkness returns. I don't think this is

(13:59):
exactly scary per se, but to me it is weird.
There have been exactly four times in my life that
while sleeping or even just laying still, I have apparently
appeared dead to people. I can't exactly explain why. Maybe
my breathing is too shallow to where they couldn't even
see the rise of my chest, but whatever it was,

(14:21):
I definitely appeared to them as if I were dead.
The first time this happened, I was fifteen. I only
remember the age because this was the two weeks during
the summer my grandmother paid for me to go to
a camp. And I only know that I was fifteen
because that was the last age you could go to
the camp before being considered as a possible counselor. Ages

(14:42):
sixteen to eighteen. It was nighttime and everyone in my
cabin decided to go take their showers for the night.
I was too tired, so I decided to stay behind
and just take my shower in the morning. It must
have been at least twenty or twenty five minutes before
anyone came back. At this point, I was just awake
enough to hear them. She looks dead, one of them

(15:06):
had said. At the time, I didn't think much of
it other than this is the perfect time to pull
a prank. So I shot the upper half of my
body up out of bed and said who looks dead?
They screamed. I laughed and apologized, and then promptly fell asleep.
The second time happened a year or so after high school,

(15:26):
around twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen. It was the summer.
Two friends and I decided to take a week long
vacation from our individual jobs to go to a water park.
My friend, who planned the trip, decided to get each
of us our own separate rooms, so after a long
day we wouldn't get on each other's nerves. Our rooms
were located on a low floor, half finished due to construction.

(15:49):
I don't know if it was because we were two
hours from our home and this was the first time
being in a hotel room by myself, or that the
part of the building we were in was under construc diruction,
but I didn't like it. The only nights I actually
spent the night in my room worthy first and second nights,
usually with all the lights on. The Rest of the

(16:11):
days there, I slept with my friend in her room,
even she was creeped out by the hotel. The night
I appeared dead to her wasn't anything unusual. We had
went to the mall there earlier in the day. I'd
gotten a pullover sweatshirt to sleep in. We went to eat,
and then back to the hotel to sleep. Nothing was

(16:31):
unusual when we went to sleep, but later I woke
up feeling a pressure on my chest. It was her hand.
What are you doing, I asked. It looked like you
weren't breathing, and when I tried the finger under your
nose thing, I still couldn't tell. Couldn't even see the
rise and fall of your chest. So I put my
hand there to test if you were breathing. She told me.

(16:52):
The next thing I noticed was that the pullover sweater
I had on when I went to sleep, was completely off,
tank top on underneath. This wasn't your average large sweatshirt
where there was no struggling getting it on. This was
one where the hole was just snug enough you had
to force your head through. Did you take off my sweatshirt?

(17:14):
I asked her, thinking maybe she did because she couldn't
tell if my chest was rising. No, it was already off,
she responded. I'm not saying I wasn't the one to
pull it off, but I had never had an article
of clothing come completely off when I was asleep. The
next morning, she told me what caused her to think

(17:34):
I was dead. I had a dream, she said, where
I woke up and you were still on the bed.
I thought you were asleep. I was getting ready for
the day and Jay came in. He sat on the
bed next to you and just looked at you. He
said you were dead. I told him that couldn't be,
but sure enough, when I checked, you were dead. She concluded.
That's when I woke up and I had to check

(17:55):
on you to make sure. I was a little freaked
out having the summer camp incident, but once again thought
nothing of it. The third and fourth times were by
my mother. Nothing special really about these times, just she
had to come and check on me when I was sleeping,
just to see how I was doing. And both times

(18:16):
I woke up with her hand either on my throat
or chest trying to see if there was movement to
make sure I was breathing. The same response from her
as all the other times I thought you were dead.
I don't really know why to some I appear dead
in my sleep. I actually find it quite funny, what

(18:37):
for the love of the mysterious and paranormal along with
my love of horror movies. Another weird thing I've noticed
was that it doesn't matter that I shower every day,
or even if I'm in a room with five other people,
flies will just always come to me, almost as if
I were a decaying corpse but still alive. I thought

(18:59):
I'd share this story to see if anyone else has
ever experienced the same thing that I have. And I
recently got really into your podcast, so I thought, why
not the guy. I spend my work hours listening to
love the podcast and can't wait to hear more stories
in the future. The Final Destination films have exposed audiences

(19:33):
to bizarre accidents that could happen to anyone. Although the
movie version is over the top, freak accidents are a
lot more common than one might think. There are many
instances in which people survived tragic experiences, events that most
would likely never have walked away from, only to perish

(19:54):
in an equally unlikely incident shortly thereafter. The following true
stories to pick people who have evaded natural disasters, insect attacks,
mid air malfunctioning, mass shooters, car crashes, fires, terrorism, and drowning,
only to later be felled by unexpected circumstances and, in

(20:16):
one instance, an orange peel. In October twenty sixteen, Austin McGuff,
a twenty one year old soldier stationed at Fort Campbell
on the Tennessee Kentucky border, was on his way back
to base after attending a party. Reportedly, he was disoriented
and tried to break into a nursery. While attempting to

(20:37):
do so, he struck a wasp's nest. Toxicology reports indicated
macguff was intoxicated. In an attempt to evade the wasps,
he inadvertently ran onto Highway forty one A, where an
oncoming vehicle fatally hit him. In April twenty thirteen, an
unnamed California driver lost control of his suv on the

(20:59):
windy mall Bu Canyon Road. The man crashed onto the
mountain side's ledge and was able to jump out of
the vehicle onto the road. He barely managed to escape,
plumbing off a cliff a fatal fall. Moments after abandoning
the car, an oncoming tour bus struck and killed the man.

(21:20):
On July sixth, twenty thirteen, sixteen year old Yimang Won
survived the plane crash of Flight Asiana two fourteen at
the San Francisco Airport. She laid down thirty feet from
the crash site, injured and waiting for help. Yimang remained
curled up in a ball when first responders arrived. A

(21:41):
fire truck didn't see the team and ran her over,
killing her instantly. City officials cited the chaos of the
wreckage as the main factor, but Yimang's family sued the
city for negligence. Jessica Redfield was an up and coming
sports broadcast from Denver, Colorado. In twenty twelve, she died

(22:03):
at the hands of the Aurora shooter, who entered a
midnight screening of the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight
Rises and opened fire on the audience. Before Redfield was
a victim of the Aurora Theater shooting. However, she had
survived an attack at a mall in Toronto only a
month prior. Redfield managed to sneak out of the Eaton

(22:24):
Center when the gunman started shooting. Twenty six year old
Hilda Yolanda Mayle worked in a restaurant on the ground
floor of the World Trade Center. She was present during
the September eleventh attacks in two thousand and one, but
miraculously was not injured. Two months later, on a trip
to the Dominican Republic, mayol died on American Airlines Flight

(22:47):
five eighty seven, which crashed in Queens, New York. At
the time, many feared that the crash was a second
terrorist attack, but the accident was attributed to the pilot's
mishandling of the rudder control during turbulence. In nineteen seventy seven,
the entire University of Evansville men's basketball team, except for

(23:09):
one player, died in a crash only ninety seconds after
the plane took flight. An ankle injury prevented eighteen year
old David Ferr from playing with the Purple Aces, so
he skipped the flight that would ultimately fell all his teammates.
Although the team had previously only ever traveled by bus,
the coach requested they fly in style for this one

(23:31):
particular away game. Two weeks later, Ferr and his sixteen
year old brother were involved in a driving accident that
resulted in both of their deaths. Jessica Dalima Roll had
spent weeks organizing a university party at a local Brazilian
club in Santa Maria, Rio Grande de Sul. However, when

(23:52):
her boyfriend asked her to stay in and skip the event,
Role agreed at the last minute. This proved to be
a life saving descision. Two hundred thirty three died from
a fire that broke out in the nightclub. A week later,
twenty one year old Roll and her boyfriend died when
their car collided with an oncoming truck. Five year old

(24:14):
Aiden Evans and his family escaped a massive tornado in Moore, Oklahoma.
The May twenty thirteen tornado did enormous damage, and the
Evans left their son with family and Jesseville, Arkansas while
they dealt with the aftermath. According to police, the boy
threw a tantrum while his parents were out. Reportedly, fifty

(24:35):
year old Lynn Geeling, the neighbor of Aiden's aunt, went
to comfort him, but her one hundred and fifty pound
bull mastiff, reacted aggressively and attacked the boy. Geeling screamed
for help and tried to pry the dog's teeth away,
but the boy sustained fatal injuries. The dog was euthanized
following the attack. In two thousand and seven, Bud Warren

(24:58):
and his daughter Phyllis Ridings survived a potentially lethal emergency
landing after crashing in an open field. The father and
daughter were a part of the Experimental Aircraft Association. The
incidents near Magnolia, Texas did not change their passion for flying.
Four years later, the duo's plane again malfunctioned. Warren seventy

(25:19):
and Ridings fifty two, were on their way to an
air show in Temple when the cockpit began to fill
with smoke. Their plane crashed near Montgomery County Airport, killing
them both. In June two thousand and seven, six year
old Abigail Taylor from Adena, Minnesota, experienced near fatal trauma
after an accident in a waiting pool. Abigail got caught

(25:42):
in a pool drain at the Minneapolis Golf Club in
Saint Louis Park. She had extensive damage to her organs,
but survived. Nine months later, Abigail died in a special
surgery intended to transplant some of the organs that had
been damaged in the incident. Her death sparked out and
Minnesota state officials in stated new laws to make swimming

(26:04):
pools safer throughout the county. Bobby Leach was a famed
daredevil in the early nineteen hundreds. He was a professional
stuntman in the Barnum and Bailey circus, and he performed
many of the stunts in front of live audiences. His
most notable and illegal achievement is surviving a barrel ride

(26:24):
over Niagara Falls in nineteen eleven, the second person to
ever do so and survive. Leach traveled internationally, and he
toured to New Zealand in nineteen twenty six. While there,
Leech reportedly slipped on an orange peel and gravely injured
his leg. His wound ultimately developed gangrene, leading to doctor's

(26:46):
decision to amputate. Even still, Leech passed two months later
from his injuries at approximately sixty eight years old. Typically
the obituary comes after the death, but not in this case.
Considered a trailblazer for the Black nationalist movement, Marcus Garvey
was a fierce Jamaican politician who advocated the return of

(27:08):
those affected by the African diaspora. It came as no
surprise to Garvey that he had many political opponents. However,
the politician was shocked after coming across a fake obituary
in the Chicago Defender. The obituary, which was reportedly negative
and demeaning about Garvey's opinions, enraged the man so much

(27:29):
that he suffered two strokes and passed away on June tenth,
nineteen forty. And I've left this one for last because
it's the strangest of all. In twenty eleven, medical professionals
had declared a Kasin, Russian woman dead at forty nine
years old. Her family began the grieving process and arranged

(27:50):
a funeral. At the memorial, the woman, who everyone thought
was dead, awoke in the casket to the sound of
prayers as the family prepared her body for baar, realizing
that she was now attending her own funeral. The woman
reportedly bolted upright and screamed for help. At that moment,
she suffered a heart attack and subsequent heart failure, which

(28:13):
resulted in her death. With stories like these, you have
to wonder if perhaps the Grim Reaper isn't in fact
a real entity, and once you're on his list, you
must be crossed off when Weird Darkness returns. RB First

(28:40):
Lieutenant Paul Byron Whipkey was as brave as he was handsome.
After telling his fellow troops that he was going out
for a drink, he never came back and was never
heard from again by anyone. To paraphrase Gilbert and Sullivan,

(29:22):
Paul Byron Whipkey was the very model of a modern
army first lieutenant. The twenty six year old was smart, brave,
serious and disciplined. Described as an all American young man
and a superior officer, he was, in short, one of
the last people you could imagine being enveloped by the weird. However,

(29:45):
since he is featured in this episode of the podcast,
you've probably already guessed that this is exactly what happened.
The young aviator and company commander was stationed at Fort
Ord California, July tenth, nineteen fifty eight, he told some
friends at Fort Ord's Bachelor officer's quarters that he was

(30:06):
going into town to get a drink. Instead, he drove
to Mahave, hundreds of miles away, and checked into a motel.
The next day, he bought fourteen gallons of gas. After that,
the lieutenant was never heard from again. Five weeks after

(30:26):
he was last seen, Whipkey's car was found in a
desolate and forbidding region of Death Valley, about four hundred
miles from Fort Ord. The car appeared to be in
perfect order, containing the missing man's suitcase, dog tags, and
other personal belongings. There was nothing indicating what might have

(30:47):
happened to the car's owner. Whipky's bank accounts had not
been touched immediately before he disappeared, and they had not
been used since The army listed Whipkey as absence without
leave and then as a deserter. His superiors seemed curiously
incurious about what had become of this highly promising young man.

(31:11):
According to the FBI, the Army made only the most
cursory investigation about Whipgy's disappearance, assuming that he would eventually
return there matters rested until the spring of nineteen eighty two,
when the Army Board for Correction of Military Records held
a three day hearing into Whitpkee's disappearance. The board concluded

(31:34):
that WHIPKEI died the day after he vanished. They added
enigmatically that his unauthorized absence is excused as unavoidable, but
his death was incurred in the line of duty, not
due to his own misconduct. The board theorized that Whitki
may have wandered out into the desert and succumbed in
the extreme heat, and that the shifting sands have made

(31:57):
it a near impossibility to find or recover his remains.
The Army at Jutant General's Office issued a certificate of
honorable service, and as far as the Army was concerned,
that was that the military offered no possible explanation for
Whipke's unauthorized absence. All this was not nearly enough for

(32:20):
Whipkey's brother, Carl, though an Army veteran himself, he was
convinced from the start that the military knew far more
about Paul's disappearance than what they wanted to say. His
suspicions were first alerted when, just the day after his
brother vanished, he learned that officers were already packing Paul's
belongings for shipment home. This odd haste, he commented, dryly,

(32:44):
left him super hyper super quick. They must have known
he wasn't coming back, Carl argued, or they'd have waited
before writing him off. Carl also dismissed the Army's contention
that Paul had deserted. They said he ran away into
Death Valley. Then they hinted that he killed himself. I
can't buy that. Nobody would go a wall in a

(33:06):
hell hole like Death Valley, and there are easier ways
to kill oneself and dehydration. Carl was of the belief
that members of the army drove Paul's car into the
desert sometime after the lieutenant disappeared. The government knows what
happened to my brother, Carl said in a nineteen eighty
three interview. They can't shake me of that. There are

(33:27):
so many questions still unanswered. Carl Whipkey made it his
life's work to find the truth about his brother's end.
In June nineteen seventy seven, Carl sought information from the
FBI under a Freedom of Information Act request. His petition
went unanswered until nineteen seventy eight, when he was informed

(33:47):
that the FBI had destroyed all their files on the
Whipki case in December nineteen seventy seven. Undaunted, Karl accumulated
thousands of government documents, as well as many said pathetic
allies in Congress and the military, but all these efforts
just left him going down darker and darker rabbit holes.

(34:08):
Carl claimed to have discovered that Paul flew in five
atomic test explosions in Nevada. His theory was that Paul
was exposed to dangerous levels of radiation and may have
seen evidence that the Army was conducting classified experiments on
human beings. Although the Army confirmed that Lieutenant Whipkey was
assigned to temporary duty at Camp Desert Rock, Nevada, between

(34:29):
July and October nineteen fifty seven, they dismissed Carl's other
claims as unsupported by the evidence. However, even the Army
report acknowledged that after Paul returned from Nevada, he developed
black moles and planter warts on his hands and body.
Whipkey began to complain of unaccountable feelings of sickness. He

(34:52):
lost a large amount of weight, and the normally cool
headed officer became nervous and depressed. Several months before he disappeared,
the lieutenant had all his teeth removed and was fitted
with full dentures. A fellow officer, Charles Lewis, recalled that
after Whipkey's Nevada flights, Paul was interviewed by Army intelligence agents.

(35:14):
It was noted that these interviews left Whipkey nervous and uptight.
Paul's actions were always ethical on and off base, said Lewis,
but Paul became suspiciously silent to others when the agents
were mentioned or appeared on the scene at the airfield
or the officers club. Carl Whipkey developed even more sinister
theories regarding his brother's disappearance. He believed it possible that

(35:38):
Paul was a secret agent murdered by his fellow spies,
or that he flew covert missions over the Soviet Union
only to be shot down, or that he died as
a result of Army testing of nerve gas or atomic weapons,
or that his discovery of the military's use of human
guinea pigs led him to be murdered. Just to make

(35:58):
things even stranger, Carl also learned that his brother may
have used the alias Paul B. Whipper for reasons unknown.
I'd be satisfied if the Army would say they can't
tell us for security reasons. But until then we can't
rule anything out. The truth about Paul Whipkey's fate probably

(36:19):
cannot be called unsolved. Carl Whipkey was very likely correct
that someone somewhere knew the truth about what had happened
to the young lieutenant. However, to date, this information has
never been revealed until that day comes. Carl Whipkey once said,
there will be no peace in our family if you

(36:42):
follow strange disappearances of military personnel. This story may have
sounded somewhat familiar. That's because it does have a resemblance
to another bizarre disappearance of another young Cold Warrior man,
West Point Cadet, Richard Cox's. Curious fact that many of
history's most bizarre mysteries center around people who had appeared

(37:05):
to be the most normal or even ideal figures imaginable.
An outstanding example is Richard Calvin Cox. The twenty one
year old West Point Cadet was handsome, highly intelligent, ambitious,
well liked, hard working and clean living. After a fine

(37:26):
two year army career, where he was stationed in Germany,
he achieved his life's great dream when he secured an
appointment in the military academy. He was very much in
love with his fiancee, a pretty girl from his hometown
of Mansfield, Ohio, and appeared to have a sterling future
ahead of him. In short, he seemed to be the

(37:47):
last person in the world to have his life engulfed
by the weird. But that was exactly what happened. Cox's
golden boy existence began to tarnish. On January seven, seven,
nineteen fifty, the cadet who was in charge of quarters
and Cox's company, received a phone call from a man

(38:07):
asking if Dick Cox was there. The caller left a message,
just tell him. George called. He'll know who I am.
We know each other in Germany. Unfortunately, the cadet who
took the call could only be fairly certain. The man
gave his name as George. When Cox was told of
his phone call, he claimed to have no idea who

(38:28):
the man could be. However, when George came to see
him later that evening, he recognized him at once. The
two men seemed happy to see each other, and they
left together. It was presumed they were headed for the
Hotel Thayer, the one dining establishment opened to cadets other
than the mess Hall. Instead, they sat in George's car

(38:50):
drinking whiskey. When Cox returned to his room an hour
and a half later, he was drunk, which was very
much out of character for him. He was so in
neurated he immediately fell asleep at his desk when the
ten thirty tattoos sounded. His two roommates were startled to
see Cox suddenly spring to his feet and run into

(39:10):
the hallway, shouting something peculiar. The two roommates thought it
sounded like Alice that he was screaming, but it's also
been speculated that he was crying Alice Capute German. For
all is ended, we'll never know for sure what Cox
was saying, or what this unguarded heart cry could have meant.
Cox quickly pulled himself together somewhat. He returned to the room, and,

(39:33):
ignoring his roommate's questions, fell on his bed and went
instantly back to sleep. The next morning, he told his
roommates something about his experiences. The previous night, he claimed
that his visitor, whose name he never mentioned, had been
part of his outfit in Germany. Cox described him as
a morbid guy who liked to talk about all the

(39:54):
killing he had done in the army. Cox added that
this guy had also pregnated a German girl and then
murdered her. Despite his expressed disgust with his acquaintance, he'd
had another meeting with the stranger that afternoon. The following
week seemed perfectly normal. Cox's grades remained high and his

(40:16):
behavior impeccable. Then, on January fourteenth, despite the fact that
he'd expressed hope that he wouldn't have to see that
fellow again, Cox was seen talking with George near his barracks.
Soon afterwards, he told a friend that he'd be having
dinner with his mysterious acquaintance, although he did not appear
to relish the idea. His fellow cadet later said the

(40:40):
Cox seemed to think of seeing George as an unpleasant duty,
but one that for whatever reason, he could not avoid.
A little after six pm, Cox left his room to
see George. That was the last indisputable sighting of Richard
Culvin Cox, although it's signed out. No one reported seeing

(41:02):
him leave the barracks. There's no record of him dining
at the affair that night, or anywhere else for that matter.
He simply vanished. When Cox failed to return the next morning,
the police and CID were called in the search for
the cadet became the biggest manhunt in West Point's history,

(41:22):
and it was all in vain. Although the case has
spawned much fanciful theorizing, no one has ever determined what
became of this young man whose promising life ended so
quickly and bizarrely. George has also remained a phantom. Rigorous
investigation never found a clue indicating who he was or

(41:43):
where he went. Although it is generally assumed that he
was behind Cox's disappearance, it is a complete mystery how
or why he would spear it off the cadet. As
can be imagined, the usual wild theories floated around. Did
the cadet flee in fear for his life as a
result of his testimony in a court martial. Was he

(42:06):
somehow involved in the murder he claimed George should committed.
Was he kidnapped by the Soviets in retaliation for his
counter espionage activities in Germany. Most speculation about Cox's fate
focuses on his earlier military career, where he'd been part
of an intelligence unit. Nineteen fifty was the height of

(42:28):
the Cold War, and it's been suggested that Cox was
involved in some sort of espionage program that led to
him being enlisted as a secret agent by the CIA.
While this is probably the most plausible least implausible theory,
no real evidence for it has been found. In their
book about the Case Oblivion, Marshall Jacobs and Harry Meilhefer

(42:52):
presented a claim from a retired CIA official that Cox
was given a new name by the intelligence community and
spent the Cold War smuggling scientists connected to Russia's nuclear
program across the Iron Curtain. Allegedly, Cox died of cancer
sometime in the nineteen nineties, his true identity still a secret.

(43:13):
These authors believed that Cox was likely gay, a theory, however,
based mainly on thin rumor. They argued that this secret,
which would have jeopardized his career, inspired the cadet to
stage his own disappearance. For what it's worth, Cox's family
rejects this entire scenario, insisting that he would have found

(43:34):
a way to contact his mother, to whom he had
been very close. Missus Cox died in nineteen eighty six,
still tormented by the puzzle of her son's disappearance. It's
impossible to say of Jacob's and Mailhaper's source, who offered
no proof whatsoever, for all of this was credible. Their
theory also fails to satisfactorily explain why it was necessary

(43:57):
for Cox to disappear and take on a new persona
to his very grave. Jacobs and Maielhafer also mentioned a
curious link to the case. They learned of a suspect
in a nineteen eighty five murder named Robert W. Frisbee
many years earlier. Frisbee, under the name of Robert Dion,

(44:17):
had been stationed at Fort Knox at the same time
as Cox. It was probable that the two had known
each other. Frisbee or Dion, who had once been involved
in making phony IDs, was said to resemble descriptions of George.
This was all intriguing, but as no one was ever
able to conclusively tie Frisbee to George and Cox's disappearance,

(44:40):
it all proved to be just another brick wall. There
are released two reports of someone allegedly seeing Cox after
he disappeared. In nineteen fifty four, Ernest Shotwell, who had
known Cox in the army, told the FBI that two
years earlier, he had run into Cox at a bus
station in Washington, d c. The two men spoke briefly,

(45:01):
with Cox mentioning that he was on his way to Germany.
Shotwell said his old friend was clearly displeased to see him.
Cox was agitated and kurt, and after a few minutes,
abruptly broke off the conversation and stalked off. Shotwell said
that he had not spoken of this encounter before because
he had not known at the time that Cox was
a missing person case. Another reported encounter with the vanished

(45:25):
cadet supposedly took place in a Florida bar in nineteen
sixty An undercover FBI contact made the acquaintance of an
RC Mansfield, who eventually admitted that his real name was
Richard Cox. When this FBI agent later learned of the
Cox mystery, he tried to set up another meeting with Mansfield,

(45:47):
but he never heard from the man again. While these
reports are considered plausible, they still don't answer the question
of why Cox vanished, or, to take the simplest theory,
did the sinister George for who knows what personal reasons
murder the young cadet and hide the body somewhere in

(46:07):
the woods around West Point or deep in the Hudson.
Richard Cox will likely always remain one of America's classic
enigmatic disappearing acts. If you made it this far, welcome

(46:32):
to the Weirdo Family. If you like to this episode,
please share it on your social media or tell a
friend or family member about the podcast and maybe they'll
become a Weirdo Family member too. Do you have a
dark tale to tell of your own fact or fiction,
Click on tell your Story at Weird Darkness dot com
and I might use it in a future episode. All

(46:55):
stories in Weird Darkness aren't purported to be true unless
stated otherwise, and you can find links or links to
the authors in the show notes. He kept calling his
family after he was dead is by Aaron McCann for ranker,
I Am Not Dead is from Weirdo Family member christa Arnd.
The Vanishing Lieutenant and the Disappearing Cadet is from Strange Company.

(47:18):
And you Can't Escape The Reaper was written by Ryan
Davis We'd Darkness theme by Alibi Music. We're Darkness is
a registered trademark, and now that we're coming out of
the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. One
Peter five, Verses six and seven. Humble yourselves therefore under
God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in

(47:41):
due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he
cares for you. And a final thought, no color, no religion,
no nationality should come between us. We are all children
of God. Mother Teresa. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining

(48:03):
me in the weird darkness.
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