December 17, 2025 • 34 mins
A painter wished the aviator in cabin 8 a Merry Christmas, but when he turned back seconds later, the man with the scarred neck had vanished — and naval records confirm no one matching his description ever served aboard the HMS Glory.
#12NightmaresOfXmas “THE LAST WISH OF JIM CURRAN” and 5 More Ghostly Holiday Stories! #WeirdDarkness
Episode 5 of 12 in the “Twelve Nightmares of Christmas” series!
In this episode: “The Aircraft Carrier ‘Glory’”, “Number 149 Squadron”, “Back Already?”, “Told You So”, “Dear Theodosia”, “Last Wishes”
SOURCES AND ESSENTIAL WEB LINKS…
All stories in this episode are from the book, “The Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays” by Sylvia Shults: https://amzn.to/3uT2vMA
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Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. Background music provided by Alibi Music Library, EpidemicSound and/or StoryBlocks with paid license. Music from Shadows Symphony (https://tinyurl.com/yyrv987t), Midnight Syndicate (http://amzn.to/2BYCoXZ) Kevin MacLeod (https://tinyurl.com/y2v7fgbu), Tony Longworth (https://tinyurl.com/y2nhnbt7), and Nicolas Gasparini (https://tinyurl.com/lnqpfs8) is used with permission of the artists.
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"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46
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WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2023, Weird Darkness.
https://weirddarkness.com/AircraftCarrierGhost
#WeirdDarkness #HauntedShip #GhostPilot #TrueScaryStories #NavalGhost #ScottishGhostStory #ChristmasGhost #ParanormalEncounter #MilitaryGhost #UnsolvedMystery
#12NightmaresOfXmas “THE LAST WISH OF JIM CURRAN” and 5 More Ghostly Holiday Stories! #WeirdDarkness
Episode 5 of 12 in the “Twelve Nightmares of Christmas” series!
In this episode: “The Aircraft Carrier ‘Glory’”, “Number 149 Squadron”, “Back Already?”, “Told You So”, “Dear Theodosia”, “Last Wishes”
SOURCES AND ESSENTIAL WEB LINKS…
All stories in this episode are from the book, “The Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays” by Sylvia Shults: https://amzn.to/3uT2vMA
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. Background music provided by Alibi Music Library, EpidemicSound and/or StoryBlocks with paid license. Music from Shadows Symphony (https://tinyurl.com/yyrv987t), Midnight Syndicate (http://amzn.to/2BYCoXZ) Kevin MacLeod (https://tinyurl.com/y2v7fgbu), Tony Longworth (https://tinyurl.com/y2nhnbt7), and Nicolas Gasparini (https://tinyurl.com/lnqpfs8) is used with permission of the artists.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =(Over time links seen above 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 ©2023, Weird Darkness.
https://weirddarkness.com/AircraftCarrierGhost
#WeirdDarkness #HauntedShip #GhostPilot #TrueScaryStories #NavalGhost #ScottishGhostStory #ChristmasGhost #ParanormalEncounter #MilitaryGhost #UnsolvedMystery
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome Weirdos. This is Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marler. Here
you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, mysterious, macom unsolved
and unexplained. If you are new here, be sure to
subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Android so you
don't miss future episodes. This is a special twelve Nightmares
(00:29):
of Christmas episode. Each day from December thirteenth through December
twenty fourth, I'm posting a new episode of Weird Darkness
featuring material from the new book The Spirits of Christmas,
The Dark Side of the Holiday by author Sylvia Schultz.
Now bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
(00:49):
put another log onto the fire, pour yourself an eggnog,
and come with me into the Weird Darkness. A few
(01:09):
days after Christmas nineteen fifty five, a mister Harry Mytherall
was working as a painter at Rossith Dockyard in Fife, Scotland.
Early that morning he showed up to work on the
aircraft carrier Glory, which was in the dockyard for renovation.
Matherall had an early breakfast in the dining hall, then
(01:31):
went aboard the ship. He kept his work clothes in
cabinate on the galley deck, so that was where he
headed first. Outside the cabin was a locker where he
kept a lamp needed for work. This was a double
lamp that could light both the cabin and the corridor,
so it had a thick electrical cord attached to it
matheroll opened the door to cabinate and stepped inside to
(01:55):
plug in the cable. When Mytherol switched on the light,
he saw a man standing near the door of the
cabin by the dressing table. The man was quite tall,
about five feet nine inches, and he was dressed in
flying gear suitable for tropic conditions, blue shorts and a
leather flying jacket with a fur collar, the jacket hanging open.
(02:17):
On the right hand side of the jacket, a row
of small bombs was painted in red, and a pair
of pilot's wings were pinned on the left hand side.
The man wore a flying helmet pushed up on the
back of his head, with a shock of blonde hair
sticking out from under the front of the helmet. On
the right side of the man's neck was a long,
(02:38):
red puckered scar. Neither all stared at the man for
a moment before realizing he was probably one of the
maintenance staff, part of a skeleton crew stationed aboard the
carrier while it was docked for repairs. Neither All said
good morning, did you enjoy your Christmas? But the man
made no reply to the cheerful greeting. Neither All shrugged
(03:01):
and stepped out of the cabin to get a leather
jacket from his work locker. Suddenly he stopped, frowning. What
was the man doing in cabin eight dressed in full
flight gear so early in the morning. He poked his
head back into the cabin to ask the aviator who
he was. The room was empty. Neither All grabbed the
(03:24):
double lamp and flooded the cabin with light. There was
only a bunk bed, the dressing table, and a small
locker which was closed. There was no sign of the aviator.
Mether All dropped the lamp and tore down the hallway shrieking.
A workmate stopped him in his headlong flight down the stairs.
(03:44):
He calmed miither All down, and together they went back
to investigate the cabin. They found no one in the room.
When the naval commander came aboard, both men told him
about the strange apparition. The officer too, searched the cabin
and in the corridor he found no sign of the
flyer with the scarred neck. This was just too much
(04:06):
from either of He slumped into a chair in a
state of shock and had to be escorted off the ship.
Rumor spread, and soon the story was making the rounds
on the dockyard. Workman said the phantom was the ghost
of an officer who was killed at a crash landing
on the deck of the Glory after returning from a
flight over Korea shortly before Christmas during the Korean War.
(04:30):
The spectral airmen had appeared before. The stories insisted the
ghost always showed up in Cabin eight, his old quarters,
just after Christmas. There was, however, a flaw in this
spook story. It's true that twenty five of the men
serving aboard the Glory had lost their lives in combat,
(04:51):
but none of them had died as a result of
crash landing on the aircraft carrier's deck. Furthermore, no Royal
Air Force officer had ever served on that particular ship,
So the identity of the scarred ghost of the Glory
was a complete mystery, and so it remains late nineteen
(05:35):
thirty nine, in the early days of the air war
in World War II, was a time of uncertainty for
the Royal Air Force. The German Luftwaffe was strong and aggressive,
striking fear into the hearts of civilians on the ground
and causing tensions and the ranks of the RAF. The
RAAF hadn't yet built up its strength in either pilots
(05:58):
or aircraft. Much of the fighting in nineteen thirty nine
consisted of attacks of limited strength and effectiveness as the
RAF tested itself against the left woff. Those feints and
jabs were still lethal, though many planes were lost and
many pilots died as the RAF struggled to find its
footing in the skies. One of the main forces of
(06:21):
the time operated out of Mildenhall Base in Suffolk, England.
Pilots of number one forty nine Squadron blew Vickers Wellington bombers. Unfortunately,
Wellington's were huge, bulky monsters without much firepower. The British
were still sending their bombers out in daylight and the
German fighter planes were tearing them apart. There were very
(06:44):
few British fighters available to provide an escort for the
vulnerable bombers. Radio silence was of paramount importance, so when
the bombers left, the ground crew at milden Hall had
nothing to do but wait until the planes returned or
failed to return. The missions were timed so that the
(07:05):
Wellingtons took off in daylight, made their bombing runs, then
ran for home As darkness fell on December eighteenth, nineteen
thirty nine. Coming up on the shortest day of the year,
there wasn't much daylight to work with to guide the
bombers to safety. The ground crews lined the runway with
cans of paraffin placed in parallel lines, giving the pilots
(07:28):
a place to aim. When the bomber was close enough
to begin its descent, the ground crews lit a chance light,
which illuminated the runway with a bright yellow beam. Nine
Vickers Wellingtons had taken off from Mildenhall earlier that day.
Two of them developed mechanical failures and limbed tom without
(07:49):
having had the chance to drop their payload. The seven
bombers still out were flying in wretched conditions. There was
heavy cloud cover, snow had begun to fall, and the
temperature dropped to well below freezing One plane straggled in
just past five pm, followed by two more that left
(08:09):
four bombers unaccounted for in the growing winter darkness. The
snow came down more heavily as the clock ticked. The
late afternoon gloom faded till full night. The bombers were
now more than an hour overdue. The ground crews set
up the paraffin flares and the chance light, even though
(08:30):
they had the sinking feeling. The planes were all down.
The men watched nervously, stamping booted feet and blowing on
cold fingers. Half an hour passed. Then an officer lifted
his head, listening hard. A sound was approaching in the
hush of the falling snow. The other men perked up.
(08:51):
A plane was definitely on its way to Mildenhll, but
something was wrong. Instead of the smooth drone of a
Vicker's two powerful engines, they heard a choppy, choking cough.
The bomber was in serious distress. The mechanics on the
ground were men who knew their engines. They could tell
(09:12):
immediately that the plane struggling towards them wasn't a Wellington
light the flares the ops officers shouted pale light flickered
down the runway from the paraffin flares, and the chance
light added its yellow glow. The men on the ground
stood frozen in their tracks, their eyes wide with stunned disbelief.
(09:32):
The plane coming towards them, lit by the weak glow
of the flares, was an ancient, fragile contraption, frayed fabric,
flint taut wires hummed in the cold wind, and two
rotted bicycle tires spun on the plane's undercarriage. Tattered canvas
surrounded the open cockpit of an FE two from the
(09:53):
early days of World War I. The stunned ground crew
stared at the pilot. In the glow of the lights,
they could clearly see the scarf, goggles, and helmet of
a World War One flying ace. The pilot thrust a
gloved hand over the side of the cockpit and dropped something.
An object plinked on the tarmac, rolled a few times,
(10:16):
then was still. Then the pilot pushed the ancient relic
to full power and buzzed out of range of the
runway lights. An airman ran over to the object the
pilot had dropped and picked it up, turning it over
in his hands. It was a wrench with a piece
of paper wrapped around it. The mechanic unwrapped the paper
(10:37):
and the men crowded around to read the handwriting. Wellington
Aircraft N two nine six y' one was down, not
shot down over the continent where the crew would have
had a chance to escape or be taken prisoner. The
pilot had coaxed the Vicar's bomber as far as he could,
trying to get back to milden Hall, but the valiant
(10:57):
plane had lost its struggle over water. The bomber had
gone down in the sea, forty miles from the nearest
air sea rescue outfit. The plane and everyone on board
was lost. So why did a relic of a bygone
age appear in the skies over milden Hall to deliver
the tragic news. In the Second World War, Number one
(11:20):
forty nine Squadron flew Vickers Wellington's out of milden Hall
and a generation before British pilots pioneered the air war,
flying from airfields in France. Number one forty nine Squadron,
flying in the First World War, flew F E two
biplanes in the wide body of paranormal ridings. There is
(11:50):
a very specific type of ghost sighting called a crisis apparition.
In this situation, the witness sees a friend or a
who appears to be present in the room, but who
could not possibly be there because at that very moment
they had just died or were dying. A theory for
(12:12):
this unnerving event is that when someone is going through
extreme physical or emotional trauma, as at the point of death,
they are somehow able to send a telepathic message to
someone with whom they had a strong bond. Crisis apparitions
are fascinating, but sometimes they are hard to verify. Many times,
(12:32):
the witness who experiences the crisis apparition is alone or
tells someone about their sighting after the fact. There is
a famous report, though, that disproves that rule. British Royal
Air Force pilot David McConnell appeared to his roommate at
the exact moment he McConnell was dying. But not only
(12:56):
did the roommate not realize McConnell was a ghost, he
told so several people about seeing McConnell well before he
got the news of the plane crash that killed his friend.
On December seventh, nineteen eighteen, McConnell had orders to fly
his plane from the Scampton base in Lincolnshire to the
base at Tadcaster. He left at eleven thirty that morning,
(13:19):
telling his roommate, Lieutenant Larkin that he planned to take
the train back, and returned to base in time for
afternoon tea. At three twenty five that afternoon, Larkin was
in the room he and McConnell shared, sitting in front
of the stove fire and writing letters. Larkin heard a
clatter in the hallway. McConnell was an energetic guy, and
(13:42):
it wasn't unusual to hear him coming a mile away.
Larkin grinned and turned in his chair to face his friend.
McConnell was already halfway through the doorway. He was wearing
his full flying kit with his cap pushed back on
his head. Oh boy, McConnell called hello. Larkin replied back already, yes,
(14:06):
got there all right, had a good trip. McConnell said, well, cheerio.
He banged the door shut and went off down the hallway.
Arkin turned back to the book he was reading and
lit a cigarette. At three forty five there was a
knock on the door. It was Lieutenant Garner Smith looking
for McConnell. All the men had plans to go into
(14:28):
Lincoln that evening. He's back. He just came into the
room a few minutes ago, Larkin told him. Gardner Smith
left still in search of McConnell. Larkin went down to
the mess hall for tea, then got dressed and went
to Lincoln to join his friends. As Larkin walked into
the smoking room of the Albion Hotel, he overheard a
(14:49):
group of officers talking in solemn tones. Arkin tried not
to eavesdrop on their hushed conversation, but the words he
heard made his blood run cold. Tadcaster McConnell and crashed.
This was too much for Larkin, and he nosed his
way into the officer's conversation. They told him that just
(15:12):
before they had left the base, they'd gotten word that
David McConnell had indeed crashed his camel while trying to
fly the plane through dense fog to Tadcaster. The next morning,
Larkin had a long conversation with Lieutenant Garner Smith. The
other lieutenant tried to convince Larkin that somehow he'd been
mistaken about seeing McConnell at three point thirty the previous afternoon. Larkin, though,
(15:37):
was adamant. Larkin later wrote to McConnell's father, trying to
explain his strange experience. He told the older McConnell that
he and David had known each other for four months,
but had only been roommates for about six weeks. While
they had plenty of discussions about political and social topics,
(15:57):
not once had they ever discussed anything remotely spiritual, let
alone talked about the paranormal. In his letter, Markin tried
to explain his confusion by talking through it. I was
at a loss to solve the problem. There was no
disputing the fact that he had been killed whilst flying
to Tadgaster, presumably at three twenty five, as we ascertained
(16:20):
afterwards that his watch had stopped at that time. I
tried to persuade myself that I had not seen him
or spoken to him in this room, but I could
not make myself believe otherwise, as I was undeniably awake,
and his appearance, voice, manner had all been so natural.
(17:07):
The hunger to know what comes after physical death can't
be denied. It's why we read books like the one
you're holding at this very moment. We'll all find out eventually,
of course, but for some people the compulsion to sneak
a peek behind the veil is very tempting. For centuries,
(17:27):
people have been making arrangements with trusted friends or loved ones.
Whoever dies first should come back and try to communicate
with the one left behind, And if the stories are
to be believed, sometimes it works. The people trying these
experiments aren't crack puts. One of these curious people was
(17:47):
Lord Henry Broham, a British statesman who lived during the
nineteenth century. He and his college friend Jeffrey Garner were
keenly interested in the possibility that a person's soul could
survive the death of their body. So intrigued were they
that the two friends drew up an agreement that whichever
(18:08):
of them died first would appear to the other. They
signed this compact in their own blood. They were not
playing around with this. When the men graduated from college,
Brougham entered government service. Garner also got a government post
and was sent off to India. Over the years, the
(18:28):
two men gradually lost touch with each other. It wasn't
until many years later when Lord Broham was traveling in
Sweden that he had cause to remember his college friend Garner.
Broham and his travel companions had stopped at an inn
for the night, and Brougham wanted a hot bath after
his day's journey. He had a nice relaxing soak and
(18:51):
was just about to get out, towel off and head
off to bed when he turned his head to look
around the bathroom for a towel. There, sitting on a
chair was his friend, Jeffrey Garner. Brougham lunged out of
the bath, tripped and passed out. How I got out
of the bath I know not, he wrote later, But
on recovering my senses, I found myself sprawling on the floor.
(19:15):
The apparition or whatever it was, had taken the likeness
of Garner had disappeared. Braham was shaken by the sudden
appearance of the college friend he hadn't seen in years,
and in his bath. No less, he was further shocked
to discover when he returned home to England that Jeffrey
Garner had died in India on December nineteenth, the same
(19:38):
day Brougham had seen him. To students of history and
many Broadway fans, the name of Aaron Burr is synonymous
with base treachery for his killing of Alexander Hamilton in
(19:59):
a Duel and a eighteen oh four, but fans of
the musical Hamilton also know Burr as the adoring papa
of Theodosia Burr. Theodosia was Aaron Burr's only child, and
she and her father were devoted to each other. After
the duel between Hamilton and Burr on July eleventh, eighteen
(20:20):
oh four, Burr found himself on the outs politically. He
left New York and knocked around for a while, and
even managed to get himself accused of treason in eighteen
oh seven for trying to set up an empire in Mexico.
He was later acquitted, but went off to Europe in
a self imposed exile. Throughout all of this, Theodosia was
(20:43):
Burr's staunchest supporter. She married Joseph Alston, himself a politician,
but she never swayed in her devotion to her father.
In eighteen twelve, Burr returned to New York and immediately
wrote to Theodosia to ask her to come see him
now that he was back home. Theodosia, although she wasn't
(21:04):
in the best of health, jumped at the chance to
visit her father. Earlier that year, in June, Theodosia had
lost her ten year old son, Aaron Burr Alston, to malaria.
She had been frail since the boy's birth, and it's
possible she was suffering from uterine cancer. On December tenth,
(21:25):
eighteen twelve, Joseph Alston had been elected Governor of South Carolina.
With the duties of his new position, he couldn't take
time off to accompany Theodosia to New York. The War
of eighteen twelve was in full swing and travel on
the Atlantic was dangerous, but Theodosia was so eager to
see her father, who'd been away in Europe for years,
(21:46):
that she bought passage on the Patriot and headed north
soon after the ship's departure from Charleston, South Carolina. Though
on December thirtieth, the Patriot vanished without a trace off
the coast of the Carolinas. Rumors swirled around Theodosia's fate.
Stories flew that she had killed herself after resisting the
(22:08):
advances of the pirate Octave Chauvais or that she had
written farewell letters to her husband and her father and
had put them into a champagne bottle, which she threw
into the sea before being executed, or that she had
been captured and taken to Bermuda as a pirate's mistress.
One particularly fanciful tale claimed that she had ended up
(22:30):
in Texas on the Gulf Coast and had married an
Indian chief. A clue of Theodosia's possible fate came in
eighteen nineteen with the execution of Jean Defarges and Robert Johnson.
In an article published in the New York Advertiser. The
condemned men claimed to have been crew members aboard the
(22:51):
ill fated Patriot. They said they had led a mutiny
and had scuttled the ship, killing all on board. But
the most solid evidence came to light in eighteen seventy
eight with the publication of an article in the New
York Times. A fellow named Benjamin Burdick, described as a hard,
(23:11):
rough old salt, had made a deathbed confession at a
poorhouse in Michigan. He told a minister's wife that he'd
been a sailor on a pirate ship that had overtaken
the Patriot. The minister's wife wrote up what Burdick told
her and reported the tale to the paper. He said,
there was one lady on board who was beautiful, appearing,
(23:33):
intelligent and cultivated, who gave her name as missus Theodosia Alston.
When her turn came to walk the fatal plank, she
asked for a few moments time, which was gruffly granted her.
She then returned to her birth and changed her apparel.
Appearing on deck in a few moments, clad in pure
(23:54):
white garments and with a bible in her hand, she
announced that she was ready. She appeared as calm and
composed as if she were at home, and not a
tremor crept over her frame or a pallor overspread her
features as she walked toward her fate. As she was
taking to fatal steps, she folded her hand over her
(24:16):
bosom and raised her eyes to heaven. She fell and
sank without a murmur or sigh. This story lends credence
to an oddity that turned up in Nag's Head, North Carolina,
after the Civil War. A portrait owned by a woman
who was quite elderly at the time. Her family she
(24:38):
said had made a living by looting ships that ran
aground in the outer Banks. In eighteen thirteen, a vessel
had been attacked by pirates and drifted into the family's clutches.
They found no one on board, but they did find
some valuables that the pirates had overlooked, including a portrait
of a dark haired, pretty woman in white. Descendants of
(25:01):
Aaron Burr have noted the portrait's resemblance to Theodosia. Theodosia
Burr Alston's spirit has a wide ranging territory. She is
seen at her plantation house in South Carolina, and her
spirit at least has finally reached her father's home in
New York. One if by Land two if by Sea
(25:24):
is a restaurant in Greenwich Village that is located in
a carriage house once owned and operated by Aaron Burr.
Theodosia has been seen floating through the restaurant wearing a long,
flowing white dress. In life, she is said to have
adored wearing jewelry, especially glittery ear rings. Women sitting at
(25:46):
the restaurant's bar have reported that someone invisible tends to
tug on dangling ear rings. Theodosia's ghost, again wearing the
same flowering white dress, has also been seen near the
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. She appears there most often during foul
weather or on foggy nights. Her ghost roams these sandy
(26:09):
beaches because of one of history's most bizarre coincidences. In
seventeen seventy three, Alexander Hamilton was a passenger on a
boat called the Thunderbolt when it was caught in a
storm off the outer banks. The captain of the boat
tried to make for sure, but there was no lighthouse
to guide him. He then tried to ride out the
(26:30):
storm off of Cape Hatteras, but high waves pummeled the boat.
The rocking of the ship spilled glowing coals out of
the stove onto the wooden floor of the valley and
started a fire that nearly spelled disaster for the Thunderbolt. Luckily,
the fire was contained, and when the gale winds died down,
(26:50):
the ship limped into port. After that harrowing experience, Hamilton
swore that someday he'd make sure a lighthouse was built
on Cape Hatterick. After the Revolutionary War, Hamilton was appointed
Secretary of the Treasury Here was his chance to make
good on his promise of a decade before. He twisted
(27:12):
arms to get a congressional appropriation for a lighthouse at
Cape Hatteras. One of the arms he twisted was that
of Aaron Burr. Burr was irked at Hamilton's manipulations, and
his irritation only fanned the flames of the feud between
the two men. Decades later, the Patriot's gruesome end came
(27:32):
not far from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the same beacon
built by Theodosia's father's bitter rival. Unfortunately for Theodosia, the
lighthouse did nothing to save her, but it could have.
There's a theory that the Patriot was not attacked at sea,
but rather lured to shore by pirates working on land
(27:55):
who shone a light at Nagg's head to confuse the
Patriot's captain. The captain had followed the beacon at Cape
Hatteras instead, he wouldn't have been taken in by the
false light. We wouldn't have the ghost stories we do
if it weren't for the history behind them. Jim Curran
(28:49):
knew he was dying. The old man was nearing the
end of his earthly life, and he had made his peace.
He lived in the small town of Holyroot on Canaan
Atlantic seaboard, and he loved the land he made his home.
When I go, Kuran told his son in law James Butler,
I want to be buried in the new cemetery on
(29:10):
the south side of the village. And if you don't
bury me there, I'll haunt you. You won't have a
moment's peace. The head strong old man passed away just
before Christmas. His funeral was to be officiated by Father Walsh.
As Butler made the final arrangements, he mentioned to Father
Walsh that Kurran's last wish had included burial in the
(29:34):
new cemetery. I'm afraid that's not possible, the priest explained.
Last wishes or no, I can't in good conscience bury
your father in law there hasn't yet been consecrated. We'll
bury mister Kurran in the north side cemetery. If he
does come back to haunt anyone, let it be me.
I'm the one responsible. Butler agreed he wanted to honor
(29:57):
Kerran's last wishes, but he's certain didn't want his loved
one buried in unconsecrated ground. Either, as long as he
haunts you and not me, I'm fine with that, Butler said.
The funeral was held on a snowy afternoon just after Christmas.
Jim Curran was laid to rest in the properly consecrated
north Side Cemetery. Family and friends drifted away to mourn
(30:22):
in private, and Father Walsh and his driver Harry, headed
for home. The snow that had started to fall during
the graveside service got worse, and soon Harry found the
road blocked. He took what he thought was a short
cut across a frozen pond, but he was soon hopelessly lost.
(30:42):
Three hours passed before Harry saw any familiar landmarks. Priest
and driver made it home safely, but they were late,
cold and hungry by the time they got there. Harry,
who was superstitious, swore that Jim Curran's ghost had led
them astray. All that week, as Father Walsh made his
(31:02):
rounds in the parish, he heard members of his congregation
muttering that Jim Curran should have been buried in the
new south Side Cemetery after all. The next Sunday, Father
Walsh took to the pulpit to explain the reasons for
his decision. The parishioners might have been soothed by the sermon,
(31:23):
but Jim Curran's ghost still wasn't convinced. Late that night,
Father Walsh heard a knock at his front door. He
went to answer it, but there was no one on
the porch. Before he could close the door, he heard
footsteps come into the house, cross the floor, and go
up the stairs to the bedroom on the second floor.
(31:44):
The next day, Father Walsh had a visitor, a friend
of his who was a priest in a nearby town.
Without any prompting, Father O'Donnell asked about the visitor of
the previous night. Father Walsh denied that any visitor had
showed up, but Father O'Donnell just lifted an eyebrow, daring
Father Walsh to tell the truth. Three weird occurrences and
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just over a week were enough to convince Father Walsh.
He consecrated the South Side Cemetery immediately. The first burial there,
of course, was a reburial. Jim Curran's grave was opened
and his body was moved to the new cemetery. Neither
Father Walsh nor anyone else ever heard from Jim Curran's
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ghost again, Curran was finally able to rest in peace.
(32:52):
If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with others
and help build the Weird Darkness community by converting your
friends and into weird o's as well. This special episode
is part of my twelve Nightmares of Christmas series, a
collaboration with paranormal blogger and author Sylvia Schultz. The stories
I used in this episode are from her book The
(33:15):
Spirits of Christmas, The Dark Side of the Holidays, and
you can find a link to that book in the
show notes. Do you have a dark tale to tell?
Share your story at Weird Darkness dot com and I
might use it in a future episode. Music in this
episode is provided by Midnight Syndicate. Find a link to
purchase and download this dark, creepy Christmas music in the
(33:38):
show notes. I'm your careator and host Darren Marler. Merry
Christmas and thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness
(34:02):
and cons
Welcome Weirdos. This is Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marler. Here
you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, mysterious, macom unsolved
and unexplained. If you are new here, be sure to
subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Android so you
don't miss future episodes. This is a special twelve Nightmares
(00:29):
of Christmas episode. Each day from December thirteenth through December
twenty fourth, I'm posting a new episode of Weird Darkness
featuring material from the new book The Spirits of Christmas,
The Dark Side of the Holiday by author Sylvia Schultz.
Now bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
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put another log onto the fire, pour yourself an eggnog,
and come with me into the Weird Darkness. A few
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days after Christmas nineteen fifty five, a mister Harry Mytherall
was working as a painter at Rossith Dockyard in Fife, Scotland.
Early that morning he showed up to work on the
aircraft carrier Glory, which was in the dockyard for renovation.
Matherall had an early breakfast in the dining hall, then
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went aboard the ship. He kept his work clothes in
cabinate on the galley deck, so that was where he
headed first. Outside the cabin was a locker where he
kept a lamp needed for work. This was a double
lamp that could light both the cabin and the corridor,
so it had a thick electrical cord attached to it
matheroll opened the door to cabinate and stepped inside to
(01:55):
plug in the cable. When Mytherol switched on the light,
he saw a man standing near the door of the
cabin by the dressing table. The man was quite tall,
about five feet nine inches, and he was dressed in
flying gear suitable for tropic conditions, blue shorts and a
leather flying jacket with a fur collar, the jacket hanging open.
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On the right hand side of the jacket, a row
of small bombs was painted in red, and a pair
of pilot's wings were pinned on the left hand side.
The man wore a flying helmet pushed up on the
back of his head, with a shock of blonde hair
sticking out from under the front of the helmet. On
the right side of the man's neck was a long,
(02:38):
red puckered scar. Neither all stared at the man for
a moment before realizing he was probably one of the
maintenance staff, part of a skeleton crew stationed aboard the
carrier while it was docked for repairs. Neither All said
good morning, did you enjoy your Christmas? But the man
made no reply to the cheerful greeting. Neither All shrugged
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and stepped out of the cabin to get a leather
jacket from his work locker. Suddenly he stopped, frowning. What
was the man doing in cabin eight dressed in full
flight gear so early in the morning. He poked his
head back into the cabin to ask the aviator who
he was. The room was empty. Neither All grabbed the
(03:24):
double lamp and flooded the cabin with light. There was
only a bunk bed, the dressing table, and a small
locker which was closed. There was no sign of the aviator.
Mether All dropped the lamp and tore down the hallway shrieking.
A workmate stopped him in his headlong flight down the stairs.
(03:44):
He calmed miither All down, and together they went back
to investigate the cabin. They found no one in the room.
When the naval commander came aboard, both men told him
about the strange apparition. The officer too, searched the cabin
and in the corridor he found no sign of the
flyer with the scarred neck. This was just too much
(04:06):
from either of He slumped into a chair in a
state of shock and had to be escorted off the ship.
Rumor spread, and soon the story was making the rounds
on the dockyard. Workman said the phantom was the ghost
of an officer who was killed at a crash landing
on the deck of the Glory after returning from a
flight over Korea shortly before Christmas during the Korean War.
(04:30):
The spectral airmen had appeared before. The stories insisted the
ghost always showed up in Cabin eight, his old quarters,
just after Christmas. There was, however, a flaw in this
spook story. It's true that twenty five of the men
serving aboard the Glory had lost their lives in combat,
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but none of them had died as a result of
crash landing on the aircraft carrier's deck. Furthermore, no Royal
Air Force officer had ever served on that particular ship,
So the identity of the scarred ghost of the Glory
was a complete mystery, and so it remains late nineteen
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thirty nine, in the early days of the air war
in World War II, was a time of uncertainty for
the Royal Air Force. The German Luftwaffe was strong and aggressive,
striking fear into the hearts of civilians on the ground
and causing tensions and the ranks of the RAF. The
RAAF hadn't yet built up its strength in either pilots
(05:58):
or aircraft. Much of the fighting in nineteen thirty nine
consisted of attacks of limited strength and effectiveness as the
RAF tested itself against the left woff. Those feints and
jabs were still lethal, though many planes were lost and
many pilots died as the RAF struggled to find its
footing in the skies. One of the main forces of
(06:21):
the time operated out of Mildenhall Base in Suffolk, England.
Pilots of number one forty nine Squadron blew Vickers Wellington bombers. Unfortunately,
Wellington's were huge, bulky monsters without much firepower. The British
were still sending their bombers out in daylight and the
German fighter planes were tearing them apart. There were very
(06:44):
few British fighters available to provide an escort for the
vulnerable bombers. Radio silence was of paramount importance, so when
the bombers left, the ground crew at milden Hall had
nothing to do but wait until the planes returned or
failed to return. The missions were timed so that the
(07:05):
Wellingtons took off in daylight, made their bombing runs, then
ran for home As darkness fell on December eighteenth, nineteen
thirty nine. Coming up on the shortest day of the year,
there wasn't much daylight to work with to guide the
bombers to safety. The ground crews lined the runway with
cans of paraffin placed in parallel lines, giving the pilots
(07:28):
a place to aim. When the bomber was close enough
to begin its descent, the ground crews lit a chance light,
which illuminated the runway with a bright yellow beam. Nine
Vickers Wellingtons had taken off from Mildenhall earlier that day.
Two of them developed mechanical failures and limbed tom without
(07:49):
having had the chance to drop their payload. The seven
bombers still out were flying in wretched conditions. There was
heavy cloud cover, snow had begun to fall, and the
temperature dropped to well below freezing One plane straggled in
just past five pm, followed by two more that left
(08:09):
four bombers unaccounted for in the growing winter darkness. The
snow came down more heavily as the clock ticked. The
late afternoon gloom faded till full night. The bombers were
now more than an hour overdue. The ground crews set
up the paraffin flares and the chance light, even though
(08:30):
they had the sinking feeling. The planes were all down.
The men watched nervously, stamping booted feet and blowing on
cold fingers. Half an hour passed. Then an officer lifted
his head, listening hard. A sound was approaching in the
hush of the falling snow. The other men perked up.
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A plane was definitely on its way to Mildenhll, but
something was wrong. Instead of the smooth drone of a
Vicker's two powerful engines, they heard a choppy, choking cough.
The bomber was in serious distress. The mechanics on the
ground were men who knew their engines. They could tell
(09:12):
immediately that the plane struggling towards them wasn't a Wellington
light the flares the ops officers shouted pale light flickered
down the runway from the paraffin flares, and the chance
light added its yellow glow. The men on the ground
stood frozen in their tracks, their eyes wide with stunned disbelief.
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The plane coming towards them, lit by the weak glow
of the flares, was an ancient, fragile contraption, frayed fabric,
flint taut wires hummed in the cold wind, and two
rotted bicycle tires spun on the plane's undercarriage. Tattered canvas
surrounded the open cockpit of an FE two from the
(09:53):
early days of World War I. The stunned ground crew
stared at the pilot. In the glow of the lights,
they could clearly see the scarf, goggles, and helmet of
a World War One flying ace. The pilot thrust a
gloved hand over the side of the cockpit and dropped something.
An object plinked on the tarmac, rolled a few times,
(10:16):
then was still. Then the pilot pushed the ancient relic
to full power and buzzed out of range of the
runway lights. An airman ran over to the object the
pilot had dropped and picked it up, turning it over
in his hands. It was a wrench with a piece
of paper wrapped around it. The mechanic unwrapped the paper
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and the men crowded around to read the handwriting. Wellington
Aircraft N two nine six y' one was down, not
shot down over the continent where the crew would have
had a chance to escape or be taken prisoner. The
pilot had coaxed the Vicar's bomber as far as he could,
trying to get back to milden Hall, but the valiant
(10:57):
plane had lost its struggle over water. The bomber had
gone down in the sea, forty miles from the nearest
air sea rescue outfit. The plane and everyone on board
was lost. So why did a relic of a bygone
age appear in the skies over milden Hall to deliver
the tragic news. In the Second World War, Number one
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forty nine Squadron flew Vickers Wellington's out of milden Hall
and a generation before British pilots pioneered the air war,
flying from airfields in France. Number one forty nine Squadron,
flying in the First World War, flew F E two
biplanes in the wide body of paranormal ridings. There is
(11:50):
a very specific type of ghost sighting called a crisis apparition.
In this situation, the witness sees a friend or a
who appears to be present in the room, but who
could not possibly be there because at that very moment
they had just died or were dying. A theory for
(12:12):
this unnerving event is that when someone is going through
extreme physical or emotional trauma, as at the point of death,
they are somehow able to send a telepathic message to
someone with whom they had a strong bond. Crisis apparitions
are fascinating, but sometimes they are hard to verify. Many times,
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the witness who experiences the crisis apparition is alone or
tells someone about their sighting after the fact. There is
a famous report, though, that disproves that rule. British Royal
Air Force pilot David McConnell appeared to his roommate at
the exact moment he McConnell was dying. But not only
(12:56):
did the roommate not realize McConnell was a ghost, he
told so several people about seeing McConnell well before he
got the news of the plane crash that killed his friend.
On December seventh, nineteen eighteen, McConnell had orders to fly
his plane from the Scampton base in Lincolnshire to the
base at Tadcaster. He left at eleven thirty that morning,
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telling his roommate, Lieutenant Larkin that he planned to take
the train back, and returned to base in time for
afternoon tea. At three twenty five that afternoon, Larkin was
in the room he and McConnell shared, sitting in front
of the stove fire and writing letters. Larkin heard a
clatter in the hallway. McConnell was an energetic guy, and
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it wasn't unusual to hear him coming a mile away.
Larkin grinned and turned in his chair to face his friend.
McConnell was already halfway through the doorway. He was wearing
his full flying kit with his cap pushed back on
his head. Oh boy, McConnell called hello. Larkin replied back already, yes,
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got there all right, had a good trip. McConnell said, well, cheerio.
He banged the door shut and went off down the hallway.
Arkin turned back to the book he was reading and
lit a cigarette. At three forty five there was a
knock on the door. It was Lieutenant Garner Smith looking
for McConnell. All the men had plans to go into
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Lincoln that evening. He's back. He just came into the
room a few minutes ago, Larkin told him. Gardner Smith
left still in search of McConnell. Larkin went down to
the mess hall for tea, then got dressed and went
to Lincoln to join his friends. As Larkin walked into
the smoking room of the Albion Hotel, he overheard a
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group of officers talking in solemn tones. Arkin tried not
to eavesdrop on their hushed conversation, but the words he
heard made his blood run cold. Tadcaster McConnell and crashed.
This was too much for Larkin, and he nosed his
way into the officer's conversation. They told him that just
(15:12):
before they had left the base, they'd gotten word that
David McConnell had indeed crashed his camel while trying to
fly the plane through dense fog to Tadcaster. The next morning,
Larkin had a long conversation with Lieutenant Garner Smith. The
other lieutenant tried to convince Larkin that somehow he'd been
mistaken about seeing McConnell at three point thirty the previous afternoon. Larkin, though,
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was adamant. Larkin later wrote to McConnell's father, trying to
explain his strange experience. He told the older McConnell that
he and David had known each other for four months,
but had only been roommates for about six weeks. While
they had plenty of discussions about political and social topics,
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not once had they ever discussed anything remotely spiritual, let
alone talked about the paranormal. In his letter, Markin tried
to explain his confusion by talking through it. I was
at a loss to solve the problem. There was no
disputing the fact that he had been killed whilst flying
to Tadgaster, presumably at three twenty five, as we ascertained
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afterwards that his watch had stopped at that time. I
tried to persuade myself that I had not seen him
or spoken to him in this room, but I could
not make myself believe otherwise, as I was undeniably awake,
and his appearance, voice, manner had all been so natural.
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The hunger to know what comes after physical death can't
be denied. It's why we read books like the one
you're holding at this very moment. We'll all find out eventually,
of course, but for some people the compulsion to sneak
a peek behind the veil is very tempting. For centuries,
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people have been making arrangements with trusted friends or loved ones.
Whoever dies first should come back and try to communicate
with the one left behind, And if the stories are
to be believed, sometimes it works. The people trying these
experiments aren't crack puts. One of these curious people was
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Lord Henry Broham, a British statesman who lived during the
nineteenth century. He and his college friend Jeffrey Garner were
keenly interested in the possibility that a person's soul could
survive the death of their body. So intrigued were they
that the two friends drew up an agreement that whichever
(18:08):
of them died first would appear to the other. They
signed this compact in their own blood. They were not
playing around with this. When the men graduated from college,
Brougham entered government service. Garner also got a government post
and was sent off to India. Over the years, the
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two men gradually lost touch with each other. It wasn't
until many years later when Lord Broham was traveling in
Sweden that he had cause to remember his college friend Garner.
Broham and his travel companions had stopped at an inn
for the night, and Brougham wanted a hot bath after
his day's journey. He had a nice relaxing soak and
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was just about to get out, towel off and head
off to bed when he turned his head to look
around the bathroom for a towel. There, sitting on a
chair was his friend, Jeffrey Garner. Brougham lunged out of
the bath, tripped and passed out. How I got out
of the bath I know not, he wrote later, But
on recovering my senses, I found myself sprawling on the floor.
(19:15):
The apparition or whatever it was, had taken the likeness
of Garner had disappeared. Braham was shaken by the sudden
appearance of the college friend he hadn't seen in years,
and in his bath. No less, he was further shocked
to discover when he returned home to England that Jeffrey
Garner had died in India on December nineteenth, the same
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day Brougham had seen him. To students of history and
many Broadway fans, the name of Aaron Burr is synonymous
with base treachery for his killing of Alexander Hamilton in
(19:59):
a Duel and a eighteen oh four, but fans of
the musical Hamilton also know Burr as the adoring papa
of Theodosia Burr. Theodosia was Aaron Burr's only child, and
she and her father were devoted to each other. After
the duel between Hamilton and Burr on July eleventh, eighteen
(20:20):
oh four, Burr found himself on the outs politically. He
left New York and knocked around for a while, and
even managed to get himself accused of treason in eighteen
oh seven for trying to set up an empire in Mexico.
He was later acquitted, but went off to Europe in
a self imposed exile. Throughout all of this, Theodosia was
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Burr's staunchest supporter. She married Joseph Alston, himself a politician,
but she never swayed in her devotion to her father.
In eighteen twelve, Burr returned to New York and immediately
wrote to Theodosia to ask her to come see him
now that he was back home. Theodosia, although she wasn't
(21:04):
in the best of health, jumped at the chance to
visit her father. Earlier that year, in June, Theodosia had
lost her ten year old son, Aaron Burr Alston, to malaria.
She had been frail since the boy's birth, and it's
possible she was suffering from uterine cancer. On December tenth,
(21:25):
eighteen twelve, Joseph Alston had been elected Governor of South Carolina.
With the duties of his new position, he couldn't take
time off to accompany Theodosia to New York. The War
of eighteen twelve was in full swing and travel on
the Atlantic was dangerous, but Theodosia was so eager to
see her father, who'd been away in Europe for years,
(21:46):
that she bought passage on the Patriot and headed north
soon after the ship's departure from Charleston, South Carolina. Though
on December thirtieth, the Patriot vanished without a trace off
the coast of the Carolinas. Rumors swirled around Theodosia's fate.
Stories flew that she had killed herself after resisting the
(22:08):
advances of the pirate Octave Chauvais or that she had
written farewell letters to her husband and her father and
had put them into a champagne bottle, which she threw
into the sea before being executed, or that she had
been captured and taken to Bermuda as a pirate's mistress.
One particularly fanciful tale claimed that she had ended up
(22:30):
in Texas on the Gulf Coast and had married an
Indian chief. A clue of Theodosia's possible fate came in
eighteen nineteen with the execution of Jean Defarges and Robert Johnson.
In an article published in the New York Advertiser. The
condemned men claimed to have been crew members aboard the
(22:51):
ill fated Patriot. They said they had led a mutiny
and had scuttled the ship, killing all on board. But
the most solid evidence came to light in eighteen seventy
eight with the publication of an article in the New
York Times. A fellow named Benjamin Burdick, described as a hard,
(23:11):
rough old salt, had made a deathbed confession at a
poorhouse in Michigan. He told a minister's wife that he'd
been a sailor on a pirate ship that had overtaken
the Patriot. The minister's wife wrote up what Burdick told
her and reported the tale to the paper. He said,
there was one lady on board who was beautiful, appearing,
(23:33):
intelligent and cultivated, who gave her name as missus Theodosia Alston.
When her turn came to walk the fatal plank, she
asked for a few moments time, which was gruffly granted her.
She then returned to her birth and changed her apparel.
Appearing on deck in a few moments, clad in pure
(23:54):
white garments and with a bible in her hand, she
announced that she was ready. She appeared as calm and
composed as if she were at home, and not a
tremor crept over her frame or a pallor overspread her
features as she walked toward her fate. As she was
taking to fatal steps, she folded her hand over her
(24:16):
bosom and raised her eyes to heaven. She fell and
sank without a murmur or sigh. This story lends credence
to an oddity that turned up in Nag's Head, North Carolina,
after the Civil War. A portrait owned by a woman
who was quite elderly at the time. Her family she
(24:38):
said had made a living by looting ships that ran
aground in the outer Banks. In eighteen thirteen, a vessel
had been attacked by pirates and drifted into the family's clutches.
They found no one on board, but they did find
some valuables that the pirates had overlooked, including a portrait
of a dark haired, pretty woman in white. Descendants of
(25:01):
Aaron Burr have noted the portrait's resemblance to Theodosia. Theodosia
Burr Alston's spirit has a wide ranging territory. She is
seen at her plantation house in South Carolina, and her
spirit at least has finally reached her father's home in
New York. One if by Land two if by Sea
(25:24):
is a restaurant in Greenwich Village that is located in
a carriage house once owned and operated by Aaron Burr.
Theodosia has been seen floating through the restaurant wearing a long,
flowing white dress. In life, she is said to have
adored wearing jewelry, especially glittery ear rings. Women sitting at
(25:46):
the restaurant's bar have reported that someone invisible tends to
tug on dangling ear rings. Theodosia's ghost, again wearing the
same flowering white dress, has also been seen near the
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. She appears there most often during foul
weather or on foggy nights. Her ghost roams these sandy
(26:09):
beaches because of one of history's most bizarre coincidences. In
seventeen seventy three, Alexander Hamilton was a passenger on a
boat called the Thunderbolt when it was caught in a
storm off the outer banks. The captain of the boat
tried to make for sure, but there was no lighthouse
to guide him. He then tried to ride out the
(26:30):
storm off of Cape Hatteras, but high waves pummeled the boat.
The rocking of the ship spilled glowing coals out of
the stove onto the wooden floor of the valley and
started a fire that nearly spelled disaster for the Thunderbolt. Luckily,
the fire was contained, and when the gale winds died down,
(26:50):
the ship limped into port. After that harrowing experience, Hamilton
swore that someday he'd make sure a lighthouse was built
on Cape Hatterick. After the Revolutionary War, Hamilton was appointed
Secretary of the Treasury Here was his chance to make
good on his promise of a decade before. He twisted
(27:12):
arms to get a congressional appropriation for a lighthouse at
Cape Hatteras. One of the arms he twisted was that
of Aaron Burr. Burr was irked at Hamilton's manipulations, and
his irritation only fanned the flames of the feud between
the two men. Decades later, the Patriot's gruesome end came
(27:32):
not far from the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the same beacon
built by Theodosia's father's bitter rival. Unfortunately for Theodosia, the
lighthouse did nothing to save her, but it could have.
There's a theory that the Patriot was not attacked at sea,
but rather lured to shore by pirates working on land
(27:55):
who shone a light at Nagg's head to confuse the
Patriot's captain. The captain had followed the beacon at Cape
Hatteras instead, he wouldn't have been taken in by the
false light. We wouldn't have the ghost stories we do
if it weren't for the history behind them. Jim Curran
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knew he was dying. The old man was nearing the
end of his earthly life, and he had made his peace.
He lived in the small town of Holyroot on Canaan
Atlantic seaboard, and he loved the land he made his home.
When I go, Kuran told his son in law James Butler,
I want to be buried in the new cemetery on
(29:10):
the south side of the village. And if you don't
bury me there, I'll haunt you. You won't have a
moment's peace. The head strong old man passed away just
before Christmas. His funeral was to be officiated by Father Walsh.
As Butler made the final arrangements, he mentioned to Father
Walsh that Kurran's last wish had included burial in the
(29:34):
new cemetery. I'm afraid that's not possible, the priest explained.
Last wishes or no, I can't in good conscience bury
your father in law there hasn't yet been consecrated. We'll
bury mister Kurran in the north side cemetery. If he
does come back to haunt anyone, let it be me.
I'm the one responsible. Butler agreed he wanted to honor
(29:57):
Kerran's last wishes, but he's certain didn't want his loved
one buried in unconsecrated ground. Either, as long as he
haunts you and not me, I'm fine with that, Butler said.
The funeral was held on a snowy afternoon just after Christmas.
Jim Curran was laid to rest in the properly consecrated
north Side Cemetery. Family and friends drifted away to mourn
(30:22):
in private, and Father Walsh and his driver Harry, headed
for home. The snow that had started to fall during
the graveside service got worse, and soon Harry found the
road blocked. He took what he thought was a short
cut across a frozen pond, but he was soon hopelessly lost.
(30:42):
Three hours passed before Harry saw any familiar landmarks. Priest
and driver made it home safely, but they were late,
cold and hungry by the time they got there. Harry,
who was superstitious, swore that Jim Curran's ghost had led
them astray. All that week, as Father Walsh made his
(31:02):
rounds in the parish, he heard members of his congregation
muttering that Jim Curran should have been buried in the
new south Side Cemetery after all. The next Sunday, Father
Walsh took to the pulpit to explain the reasons for
his decision. The parishioners might have been soothed by the sermon,
(31:23):
but Jim Curran's ghost still wasn't convinced. Late that night,
Father Walsh heard a knock at his front door. He
went to answer it, but there was no one on
the porch. Before he could close the door, he heard
footsteps come into the house, cross the floor, and go
up the stairs to the bedroom on the second floor.
(31:44):
The next day, Father Walsh had a visitor, a friend
of his who was a priest in a nearby town.
Without any prompting, Father O'Donnell asked about the visitor of
the previous night. Father Walsh denied that any visitor had
showed up, but Father O'Donnell just lifted an eyebrow, daring
Father Walsh to tell the truth. Three weird occurrences and
(32:08):
just over a week were enough to convince Father Walsh.
He consecrated the South Side Cemetery immediately. The first burial there,
of course, was a reburial. Jim Curran's grave was opened
and his body was moved to the new cemetery. Neither
Father Walsh nor anyone else ever heard from Jim Curran's
(32:30):
ghost again, Curran was finally able to rest in peace.
(32:52):
If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with others
and help build the Weird Darkness community by converting your
friends and into weird o's as well. This special episode
is part of my twelve Nightmares of Christmas series, a
collaboration with paranormal blogger and author Sylvia Schultz. The stories
I used in this episode are from her book The
(33:15):
Spirits of Christmas, The Dark Side of the Holidays, and
you can find a link to that book in the
show notes. Do you have a dark tale to tell?
Share your story at Weird Darkness dot com and I
might use it in a future episode. Music in this
episode is provided by Midnight Syndicate. Find a link to
purchase and download this dark, creepy Christmas music in the
(33:38):
show notes. I'm your careator and host Darren Marler. Merry
Christmas and thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness
(34:02):
and cons
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