Hundreds of People Have Reported Seeing Santa — Here's What They Might Actually Be Encountering - Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
In the weird world of the paranormal. There are certainly
a lot of strange, often eyebrow raising things that are
reportedly seen and encountered, from ghosts, du aliens, UFOs, bigfoot demons, angels,
and everything in between. There's no shortage bizarre things that
people claim to see. Yet these are all perhaps pretty

(00:29):
small time compared to the sheer, utter outlandishness that is
Santa Claus sightings. I'm not making this up, and I'm
not talking about saying a fat bearded guy dressed up
like Santa at the mall or something set in jest
or to encourage a small kid waiting for the big guy.
I'm talking about actual, real reports from otherwise seemingly perfectly

(00:53):
sane and sober people who insist that they have really,
actually seen or even encountered none other than Santa Claus.
And it's all every bit as bizarre as it sounds.
Fasten your seat belts, because we're going for a whirling
ride to some deeply weird reports and onto theories that

(01:14):
lie on the very fringe of the paranormal world. I'm
Darren Marler, and this is weird darkness. Welcome weirdos. I'm
Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find

(01:35):
stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
unsolved and unexplained coming up in this episode. Many of
us are familiar with the flip side of Father Christmas,

(01:56):
the darker entity who visits and kidnaps bad Chillildren Crampis,
But when it comes to true fear, even Crampus would
run in terror at the site of Iceland's Griela, the
Christmas Witch with roots dating back to the thirteenth century.
Greela is not to be messed with. It was Christmas time,

(02:17):
nineteen thirty eight and nineteen year old Margaret Martin had
just graduated from Wilkes Barre Business College with honors and
was eager to secure a secretarial job. Her eagerness would
lead to her disappearance. Ask anyone over the age of
twelve what they think about the existence of Santa Claus
and you'll most assuredly get the same answer. But that

(02:39):
is not stopped people of all ages reporting sightings of
the Jolly Old Elf, and some of the stories are
downright creeping. But first two murders committed in the same
house during the holidays of nineteen twenty eight appear to
have resulted in the spirits of Christmas past haunting the
place today. We begin with that story. Now, bulture doors,

(03:05):
lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with
me into the weird darkness. On December twelfth, nineteen twenty eight,

(03:31):
two murders were committed in a historic home in Carbondale, Illinois,
and those who've lived and worked in the place since
that time have come to believe that the spirits of
the dead still linger within its walls. The legend of
the house claims that you can bury the bodies in
Oakland Cemetery, but you can't make them rest there. Such

(03:54):
stories are spread about a myriad of allegedly haunted houses
in the state of Illinois, but few of them have
seen the kind of carnage and violence that occurred in
the Hunley House in nineteen twenty eight. John Charles Hunley
was a prominent, wealthy citizen of Carbondale at the time
of his death. He had been the mayor of the
city in nineteen oh seven and in nineteen oh eight,

(04:15):
and enjoyed many friendships and business acquaintances throughout the area,
but Hunley's life had not always been perfect. In fact,
in eighteen ninety three, he had committed murder. At that time,
Hundley had killed a music teacher in town, but was
acquitted by a jury after pleading the unwritten law, meaning
that he had murdered the man who had been sleeping

(04:37):
with his wife. The incident led him to divorcing his wife,
which caused bitter feelings between him and his son, Victor.
Although the problems between them had supposedly been settled years
before the elder Hunley's death, some witnesses would later claim
that the quarrel continued. This led to Victor becoming the
chief suspect in the murder of his father. Remarried a

(05:01):
few years later, and in nineteen fifteen, he and his
wife Luella purchased a lot at the corner of Maple
and Main Streets and constructed what became their sprawling and
luxurious home. Llewella Hunley was the daughter of Ruffan Harrison,
one of the founders of the city of Heron and
the owner of numerous coal mines in the region. She
was the sister of George Harrison, president of Herron's first

(05:23):
national bank. She was said to have been an accomplished
musician and very involved in local charity work. Perhaps for
these reasons, she was regarded as having no enemies, which
made her murder all the more puzzling. The lives of
the Hunleys were destroyed just before midnight Wednesday, December twelfth,

(05:44):
nineteen twenty eight. Investigators believed that mister Hunley was murdered first.
His body was found in an upstairs bedroom, dressed only
in a night shirt and socks. He even shot six
times from behind by a forty five caliber revolver. His
face had been ripped apart as the bullets exited his head.
Missus Unley was killed downstairs. She'd been shot twice in

(06:06):
the back of the head and once in the heart.
She'd been shot in a rear stairway up which she
had apparently started to climb in order to aid her husband.
Her body had rolled into the kitchen, and a pencil
was resting next to her left hand. An unfinished letter
on the table in an adjoining room was mute evidence
of what she was doing when she was alarmed by

(06:27):
the shots that killed her husband. According to newspaper reports,
police officers called by neighbors across the street to heard
the shots being fired, arrived at the scene of the
crime within minutes. Chief of Police Joe Montgomery told the
press the following morning that robbery seemed to be the
most likely motive for the murders, even though the house

(06:48):
was not disturbed when officers arrived. The only evidence that
pointed to a robbery of the house, which contained valuable artwork,
expensive furnishings, and a large amount of cash, was the
discovery of an empty potucket book on the floor near
Luella Hunley's body. Neighbors told police they believed the purse
was kept in a writing desk downstairs. For this reason

(07:09):
and others still to be discovered, the police soon began
to believe that there were other darker motives for the crime.
On the morning of December thirteenth, police investigators thoroughly searched
the Hunley house. Tracking dogs were brought in and placed
on the trail of the killer, and four times the
dogs led their handlers straight to the home of John Charles,

(07:30):
Hunley's son Victor, a prominent coal dealer in the city.
Investigators believed that the killer might have been known to
Missus Hunley, because it appeared that she had opened the
door and led him into the house, as she would
have done even at that late hour for her step son,
Victor also seemed to have a motive for the murders.

(07:51):
At an inquest that was held that afternoon, Job Goodall,
a friend of the Hunleys and the last person to
see them alive, testified that the elder Hunley had recently
told him that he planned to make a new will
and disinherit Victor because quote he was no good. A
bitter feud had long existed between father and son, and
while allegedly patched up, it had possibly flared into existence again.

(08:16):
If this was the case, then Victor Hunley stood to
lose a great amount of money. If his father changed
his will with an estate worth more than three hundred
fifty thousand dollars, Victor would be left with only his
trust fund, which amounted to less than fifteen thousand. Goodall
also told the coroner Sury, that the Hunleys had been
in excellent spirits when he visited them on the night

(08:37):
of the murders. They were planning a motor trip to
their winter home in Florida, and they planned to leave
on Sunday. Goodall left the Honley home around eight pm
on Wednesday evening and stated that Missus Hunley had locked
the rear door behind him. Officers who arrived at the
house four hours later found this door unlocked. Another neighbor,

(08:58):
Olga Casper, who lived next door to the Hunleys, testified
at the inquest that she had heard the fatal shots
fired and had seen the lights in the house turned off.
Immediately after, she said she heard someone running past her home,
coming from the direction of the Hunley house and toward
Victor's house. A short time later, the person was so
close to the house she said that they stumbled against

(09:19):
a radio ground wire. Investigators from the Jackson County Sheriff's
Office searched the route described by Missus Casper and followed
it to Victor Hunley's home, which was just two hundred
yards away. Along the path, officers found several slips of
paper that were presumed to have been lost in flight.
One paper, dated December fifth, was a notice of the

(09:40):
termination of partnership of mister and Missus J. C. Hunley
with Victor Hunley in his cold business. Another paper was
a bank deposit slip the back of which bore notes
that figured out the interest on a loan that amounted
to five hundred thirty two dollars. The note was in
Llewella's handwriting, and at the top of the paper was
written VIC. Victor Hunley was brought in for questioning and

(10:02):
subjected to seven hours of interrogation by Sheriff William Flanagan
and his investigators. His house was also searched and a
blood stained khaki shirt was discovered. Hunley claimed that he'd
been wearing the shirt when he was told about the crime.
Police officers awakened him and told him that his father
and stepmother had been murdered and asked him to come

(10:23):
to the house. While he was wearing the shirt, Hunley
said he had picked up the body of his stepmother.
According to investigators, Hunley had never touched the body though,
so the blood had to have come from somewhere else. Suddenly,
Victor recalled that he'd been wearing the shirt while quail hunting,
and that was where the blood had come from. Victor
denied that there was any trouble between him and his father.

(10:45):
They had gone through some troubles in the past, he admitted,
but that was all over. He told investigators that on
Wednesday night, he had been home all evening, reading and
playing with his son. He gone to bed early and
was awakened by the police. Hunley also admitted that he
owned a forty five caliber revolver, but he claimed that
he'd recently loaned it to his father. A search of

(11:07):
both of the Hunley's houses failed to turn up the gun.
To this day, it has never been discovered. After hours
of exhaustive questioning, Victor broke into tears and cried out,
oh my god, this is terrible. He again swore that
he had nothing to do with the murders. He was
taken home, but was placed under house arrests as the
investigation continued. On December fifteenth, immediately following the funeral of

(11:32):
the Hunleys, Victor was arrested for their murders. While the
coroner's jury was unable to name the killer, Fletcher Lewis,
the state's attorney, believed that he could prove that Victor
was guilty in a court of law. Unfortunately, it wouldn't
work out that way, and on December thirty first, Lewis
was forced to let Victor go. He filed emotion during
Hunley's preliminary to dismiss the case due to insufficient evidence.

(11:56):
The judge sustained the disappointed prosecutor's motion. Lewis made a
statement to reporters after the hearing. While the facts and
circumstances learned from the investigation amply justified the holding of
Victor Hunley and the filing of a complaint charging him
with murder, I have decided to prosecute this particular case
no further, he said, and then he added, I feel

(12:18):
quite sure that the atrociousness of this crime will compel
the conscience of the person who committed it to some
day make public his guilt. But Lewis was wrong. No
one ever came forward, and the killers of J. C.
And Llewella Hunley were never found. The case languished in
limbo for a time and then was relegated to the

(12:38):
unsolved section of the city's law enforcement files. There were
many who believed that Victor Hunley had gotten away with murder,
but they could never prove it. Victor never spoke of
the crimes again, and he continued to live on in
the Carbondale area for the rest of his life. Eight
decades later, the murders of Carbondale's former mayor and his

(12:59):
wife remain unsolved, and perhaps for this very reason, many
have come to believe that their spirits do not rest
in peace. The Hunley Mansion, at the corner of Maple
and Main Streets, remained empty for two years after the murders.
The only physical reminder of the horrific crimes that occurred
there was a bullet hole in a wall near where

(13:21):
Luella's body had been found, but the memories of that
night remained in the minds of people in town. The
house remained vacant until nineteen thirty, when it was purchased
by Edwin William Vogler Sor. He bought the house and
all of its contents from the Hunley estate. It remained
in the Vogler family until nineteen seventy two, when it

(13:42):
was sold to a family named Simons, who converted the
huge residence into a gift shop with apartments upstairs. In
the year two thousand, it was sold again, this time
to Victoria Spray, who ran the gift shop for five
years before selling it to make more time for her
young son. It was later turned into a bed and
breakfast for time rumors that date back many years claimed

(14:03):
that the Hunlies still haunt this house. A number of
the past owners and tenants in the building have had
strange encounters that they're unable to explain. One former resident
told of loud knocking sounds that reverberated in her room
at night, and the faint sound of the downstairs piano
as the keys tinkled by themselves. Her family also recalled

(14:26):
hearing footsteps going up and down the stairs, as if
perhaps the killer of the Hunleys was doomed to repeat
his walk to J. C. Hunley's bedroom again and again.
Former owner Victoria Spray said that whenever she was alone
in the house, lights would turn on by themselves, as
if someone were watching over her. She said that she

(14:47):
believed that Lleuella's ghost followed her home from work on
at least one occasion. Walking into the empty house, she
heard pots and pans clanging and noticed that lights were
on in the kitchen. However, she noticed that it was
not like a scary presence. It was a very peaceful vine.
Perhaps it's not a scary presence, but it could be unnerving.

(15:09):
Spray was sometimes bothered by a door that opened by itself,
and by footsteps that she heard walking on the stairs,
the same stairs where a previous family also reported disembodied steps.
Tenants who lived in apartments on the upper floor also
told stories of the creaking stairs in what definitely seemed
to be the sound of boots or heavy shoes clamping

(15:31):
on the wooden risers. One tenant laughed and stated this
was only the sound of the old house settling, and
then lost his grin when he admitted that he had
never heard of a house that settled in just that way.
Victoria Spray's daughter, Nina Bucciarelli, also recounted odd incidents in
the house, like the front porch swing that would move

(15:51):
by itself even when there was no wind. Spray's husband
had also noticed this odd occurrence. Nina had her own
explanation for the swing's strange movement. Though at night, if
you drive by the port swing, it's just swinging away.
I think mister and missus Hunley still like to swing
at night, she said, And perhaps she's right, because if

(16:12):
the stories of the past decades are to be believed,
the Hunleys have not yet departed from the house they
called their own and the place where their lives were
taken away too soon. Up next, ask anyone over the

(16:34):
age of twelve what they think about the existence of
Santa Claus, and you'll most assurely get the same answer.
He doesn't exist. But that has not stopped people of
all ages reporting sightings of the Jolly Old Elf, and
some of the stories are downright creepy. That story and more.
When Weird Darkness returns, anywados, if you enjoy the narrations

(17:10):
that I bring you throughout the year, I'd like to
ask for a Christmas favor this month, Please ask two
or three people you know to give Weird Darkness a listen.
It's the perfect time to share some holiday stories with
people you know who typically love paranormal and true crime content. Plus,
you'll be helping Weird Darkness grow, which is the best
Christmas gift you could ever present to me. Drop a

(17:31):
link to the show or a favorite episode in your
social media. Maybe send a text to a few people
to wish them a very scary Christmas, along with a
link to the website. Email a coworker or two and
give them something even more terrifying than the annual performance
review they receive. Those always scared me. However, you share
the show with others, please know it makes a world

(17:52):
of difference and I appreciate it more than you know.
From all of us here at Weird Darkness, Robin, myself
and Pumpkin Spice. Robin calls her pumpkin butt, but that's
only because Pumpkin doesn't understand the English language. Have a
very merry Christmas. By far, the most in depth collection

(18:19):
of supposedly real Santa sidings has been compiled by a
paranormal researcher named Stephen Wagner, who has long been collecting
serious reports from seemingly otherwise sane and rational people who
truly believe that they have seen the Christmas Icon in
the flesh. These reports run from the wondrous to the
frankly creepy, and one was told by a woman named

(18:42):
Carrie Kay, who claims that in nineteen sixty one she
went to bed Mount Christmas Eve and was awoken by
her bedroom door slowly creaking open to allow the light
from the night light in the hall to trickle in
and to illuminate quite a bizarre sight. Indeed, she says,
of what happened next, I was so astonished, however, at
who opened the bedroom door. I found myself looking at

(19:05):
a man dressed in a red suit. He had white
trim around his waist like fur, a long white beard,
and was wearing a Santa hat. He had red pants
and black boots. If I closed my eyes, I can
still see Santa standing in my door. It made such
an impression on me. He stood there and looked at
me for a few seconds, then closed the door. I
pulled the blankets over my head for a while. I

(19:27):
was so scared. Finally I looked out, but no one
was there. The next day, I asked my mother if
she or my father had been out of bed the
previous night. My mother said no. In fact, my sister
was only four months old, and my mother said that
she had slept to the night for the first time,
and neither of my parents had gotten up. They were
tired and they both slept. So I don't know who

(19:49):
or what looked in my bedroom that night. I told
my mother I saw Santa, and she got really mad
at me and told me that I did not, But
I know what I saw. It was Santa Claus, and
I swear this story did happen. I know I wasn't dreaming.
There's also the perhaps even stranger account given by a

(20:10):
woman named Sarah, A who says that her sighting happened
at a very young age, but that it has stayed
with her into adulthood as clear as day. On this evening,
Sarah was sleeping on the floor and her aunt had
been visiting and taken her bed. Because of this, she
was unable to really get into a deep sleep, and
at around two thirty am, she noticed a faint glow

(20:31):
coming in from the crack under the door. She got
up and wandered to the door, opened it, and looked
out into the hallway, saying of what she saw next.
When I fully opened my eyes, I could see that
Santa was standing in my door with a mystical, magical
glow around him. It was silver and gold and glittery.
Santa looked right at me, and without moving his mouth,

(20:53):
he said to me, Now, you know you're supposed to
be asleep while I'm here, don't you. I told him
that I knew I was supposed to be asleep, but
how could I? He told me, close your eyes and
at least pretend. I was shocked. I knew this could
be a dream, but I knew that I was awake.
People have told me maybe it was my father, and

(21:13):
maybe it was. How he got the hallway to glow
with glitter would be beyond me. But as far as
I'm concerned, it was one hundred percent the spirit of
Santa Claus. It was the beautiful golden glow around the
man in the big red suit that told me it
couldn't possibly be my father. It was glittery like a parade,
but the pieces were not falling to the ground. I

(21:35):
am now forty one years old and still believe that
I saw him. There's also a report from a witness
who tells of how one Christmas Eve, when he was
eight years old, he woke up at midnight, mostly out
of sheer excitement because of the coming joyous day. It
was then that he heard something out in the hall
which sounded like quiet footsteps, as if someone were trying

(21:57):
to stealthily creep down the hallway. The witness says he
then got up, cracked open his door, and peeked out
to see something very strange, indeed, of which he says, slowly,
a man in boots carrying a sack looked into my room,
my parents' room, and then my brother's room. I am
absolutely one hundred percent positive I was awake too. I

(22:18):
could see him fairly well because we had a night
light on across the hall. In our bathroom, I remember
hiding my entire face under the covers with a small
portion of my eyes to see. He then walked away
quietly and he was gone. Of course, I told my
parents and brother in the morning about my sighting, and
of course they thought I was crazy. To this day,
I'm twenty eight now. I asked my parents if they

(22:40):
had anything to do with this, and they still deny
it and say that I was dreaming. I strongly believe
I saw a spirit or some kind of entity of Santa.
Some people have even claimed to have had multiple encounters
with Santa, such as is the case with a witness
called Claxton Combat. The witness says that the first sighting

(23:02):
happened in two thousand and two, followed by additional encounters
in two thousand and four and two thousand and seven.
He explains the strange series of experiences as follows. It
was Christmas Eve of two thousand and two in New
York City. My parents had invited some friends and relatives
over for dinner, sort of like a Christmas Eve celebration.

(23:23):
After that, I decided to go to my room to
watch some television, but there was nothing good to watch.
I then found myself piecing back and forth in the hallway.
My house is big, so there was no one with me.
Everyone was in the living room watching a movie that
I wasn't interested in. About seven minutes into my pacing,
I saw a tall, fat figure scurry away about twenty

(23:43):
feet from me. It was crouched down too. He was
even wearing some sort of Santa Claus suit. I didn't
believe in Santa, but this just freaked me out. There
was a strange man in my house. I quickly ran
to where my parents were and told them all about it.
They grinned at me and said jokingly, maybe it was
set a clause. I didn't believe that, so I just

(24:05):
sat down in the living room with my family and
everybody else. Then it occurred again on Christmas Eve two
thousand and four. I remember it more vividly than the
last one. I was lying on the couch in the
living room. My parents were in the kitchen having a
conversation about a business blog or something. Suddenly I saw
a huge man about seven or eight feet tall, crawl

(24:27):
underneath the tree and just vanish. Before it disappeared, it
looked at me and said, ssh, very strange. So I
went into the kitchen and sat with my parents. Similar
happenings occurred the following Christmases. I recall one in two
thousand and seven. It was daylight this time, and I
just happened to see another tall figure with a Santa

(24:48):
hat trudge by me for two seconds that it was gone.
This really happened. Some encounters sure do have a rather
creepy aspect to them that make them seem almost menacing.
One witness named Anna, says her encounter happened when she
was just five years old. On this evening, she crept

(25:08):
downstairs after hearing something moving around down there, and to
her surprise, was met with the sight of Santa Claus
standing there in the living room, complete with red, black
and white outfit and snow white beard. Only there was
nothing jolly or jovial about this Santa, and indeed he
seemed to emanate a certain sense of creeping dread. Anna

(25:29):
says of her experience, he must have felt my presence
because he turned around and looked at me. He didn't
look jolly or kind and happy like you would expect
Santa Claus to look. He looked kind of eerie, like
he was staring into my soul. Automatically, I ran into
my parents' room and hid under the covers. I don't
know why I was so scared at the time, but

(25:49):
I wrote it off as a dream for a while
before I forgot about it completely. Years later I remembered it.
I thought it could have been a burglar, but when
I asked my parents, nothing was ever missing from that apartment.
The only time we were ever robbed was when we
moved later on. The only explanation I have now is
that he was some kind of apparition. Another rather spooky

(26:12):
account comes from a thirty seven year old witness who
was certain that he saw Santa one evening as he
was walking outside his apartment complex on the chilly evening.
He explained what happened as follows. Being thirty seven at
the time, I was a little old to believe in Santa.
I had the faith he existed and felt in my
heart he was real, but not physically real until I

(26:35):
was in our parking lot, dumping trash in the dumpster,
walking on the sidewalk. Next to me was a chubby
old man with long snow white hair and a long
white beard, round glasses, wearing a green flannel shirt, blue jeans,
and red suspenders. He said hell, oh Richard as he passed.
I said hi, and he kept walking. It wasn't until
a few seconds later I realized I didn't know him

(26:57):
yet he knew my name. We did not name tags
or anything. He wasn't a customer, but he knew. I
watched him as he continued down the street, and as
he came to the intersection, he didn't stop to wait
for the light to change. It just turned green and
he walked on a site. Weird, yes, but it changed
my mood knowing I wasn't nuts. There have been a

(27:20):
surprisingly large number of accounts like these, hundreds of such sightings,
in fact, many of them collected by Wagner and others,
posted on forums and sites like Reddit. And at first
it all seems rather ridiculous. After all, Santa doesn't really exist, sorry, folks.
He's a piece of pure loure and obviously does not

(27:40):
really come to houses to leave presents, And yet the
sightings and encounters persists from people who seem to very
seriously believe they saw what looks like the actual Santa Claus,
in some cases even seeing him riding in his sleigh
through the sky, complete with a complement of reindeer. So
what's going on here? How can they be seeing Santa

(28:01):
Claus when we know there is no Santa Claus. One
possible key that can be found is the fact that
even in some of the reports I have covered here
and others like them, the witness mentions that they felt
that what they saw was something that looked like Santa,
which is quite different than saying it was the actual Santa.
In blood report I've mentioned, the witness says it was

(28:24):
a spirit or some kind of entity of Santa, and
in another the witness says it was some kind of apparition.
Herein could lie a possible answer, and that these people
are not really seeing the literal Santa at all, but
rather something merely taking on that appearance and pretending to
be Santa. Lloyd Auerbach, a parapsychology professor at Atlantic University

(28:48):
in Virginia, gives his thoughts on this possibility. Thus, I've
never even heard of people seeing Santa the Grim Reaper, Yes,
but not Santa the only possibility of this being real,
as if it's an alien or a ghost pretending to
be Xanda, we can't investigate that. There's nothing we can
do with that. It's unclear as to just what sort

(29:09):
of entity would do this or why. For some it's demons,
for others, aliens or ghosts, and one prominent theory is
that these could be some sort of interdimensional interlopers or
trickster spirits that appear as whatever the witness is most
expecting to see. In this line of speculation, these very
same entities could be behind some of the more bizarre

(29:32):
paranormal encounters to be found, including gnomes, unclassifiable entities, demons, angels,
impossible animals, or even more traditional phenomena such as bigfoot ghosts, aliens, UFOs,
the Lochness monster. But in this case Santa Claus. All
of them connected and coming back to these tricksters, who

(29:53):
are the same thing in each case, merely appearing differently
to different people for inscrutable reasons we do not yet
understand and perhaps are not meant to understand. The prominent
paranormal researchers, John Keel and Jacques Vallet devoted much time
to discussing this possibility in their works. Another report of
Asanta sighting from a Reddit poster called person ten thirty

(30:16):
one included the witness's own suspicion that this might be
the case. He claims that he was about seven years
old and he'd woken up at night and came across
a very strange sight, saying, as I opened my door,
standing there blocking my path with Santa Claus, he was
dressed exactly how I'd imagined him. He looked like the
typical Coca Cola Santa, down to his white woolen trimmings,

(30:40):
thick black belt with a golden buckle, and red nightcap.
He had small, circular gold rimmed glasses, a white curly beard,
blue eyes, and liver spots on his cheeks. I froze
and looked up at his eyes. He had what I
took to be a stern expression on his face, almost
glaring at me. Just after we made eye contact, his

(31:00):
head down towards me slightly, in a manner that suggested,
what are you doing up? You shouldn't be awake. Go
back to bed. I gasped, took a few steps back,
and then jumped into bed, turned my back to the door,
closed my eyes, and then fell asleep. Despite my state
of shock. I remember thinking at the time, Santa doesn't
like kids being awake because he can't drop off the

(31:22):
presence otherwise, So it was as if I knew that
I should go back to sleep. The song about Santa
Claus comes to mind. He knows when you are sleeping,
he knows when you're awake. I didn't get a menacing
feeling from him. I didn't feel that I was in
any danger. I felt maybe that I was in a
bit of trouble for seeing him, that he was annoyed
at me. He didn't seem joyful or loving either, just neutral.

(31:45):
I guess it seems par for the course so far,
just as bizarre and absurd as any of the other
reports we've looked at. But there's an interesting comment made
by this witness that hints at his sense that he
did understand that this could be the literal Santa, but
was rather something merely masquerading as Santa. The witness continued,

(32:07):
I do not still believe in Santa, as I know
he is a completely fabricated character. I think Coca Cola
actually created his modern image, the image of him that
I saw. I believe what I saw took the shape
of Santa. Over the years, I've thought that maybe what
I saw was possibly a spirit or some form of apparition.
I still have no idea how or why this event occurred.

(32:29):
It appeared to me that Santa was just wandering around
our house checking things out. He didn't seem to have
an objective. The biggest mystery to me of this entire
story is the fact that I fell asleep so soon
after seeing him. That is just unnatural. I didn't pass
out from shock, and I didn't feel him touch me.
I've read other stories on the Internet to people who

(32:51):
have apparently seen Santa. Some of the people explain seeing
Santa and then immediately falling asleep, just as I did.
Many others report saying a light or orb. I know
this all sounds ridiculous, but I know what I saw.
I know the difference between a dream state and a
conscious state. What could this mean? Another possibility, much discussed

(33:12):
by Kiel, was that some of these truly outlandish manifestations
could have their origins with the human mind, with apparitions
called tulpas. These are basically a type of thought projection
images from the mind conjured up into actual existence by
the pure strength of belief of a person or group
of people, often without their even being aware they're doing it.

(33:34):
Far from just an illusion, these tulpas are said to
actually manifest into reality, emerging of the mind and the
physical world with more potency and permanency. The more strength
the belief there is fueling it, which can make them
free roaming entities. According to the lore, they are then
able to act independently with enough power, and can appear

(33:55):
as almost anything. What of Kiel's inspirations for this idea.
A Belgian explorer named Alexandra David Neil once wrote of
the mysterious tulpas in his book Magic and Mystery in Tibet, saying,
once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be
capable of playing the part of a real being, it
tends to free itself from its maker's control. This, say

(34:18):
Tibetan occultists, happens nearly mechanically, just as the child, when
his body is completed and able to live apart, leaves
its mother's womb. If any of this were true, then
one could easily see the collective belief in Santa Claus
of so many people, perhaps invoking him into reality in
a sense, a real, seemingly solid phantom figure acting of

(34:41):
its own volition. In addition to shape changing entities and
Tulpa's there is also, of course, the idea that people
are just seeing things and that their imaginations are running wild.
Yet there are some problems with this idea. In every case,
the witness truly believes this is what they saw and
that they saw Santa, regardless of how absurd they realize

(35:03):
that must be, or saying they are to perfectly healthy
people with no mental issues and who are not on
any kind of drugs at all hallucinate something so potently
vivid that they truly believe it to be real and tangible,
completely unhinged from their ability to distinguish fantasy from reality.
Does this happen even with strong convictions? Is this really

(35:26):
a thing? It seems to me that it would be
easier to believe they just made it all up, and
of course that is a possibility as well. There is
no doubt that the idea that the actual literal Santa Claus,
with his North Pole workshop elves and magical reindeer driven
sleigh actually exists is untenable, completely outrageous to the extreme.

(35:49):
Let it be clear that I am in no way
trying to support the notion that Santa Claus is actually real,
and indeed most witnesses don't seem to think he is
real either, Yet these real, non ironic sightings continue to
come in. So, considering that we know illiteral Santa Claus
is not real, just what in the world is going

(36:10):
on with these very seriously presented accounts of Santa Claus encounters.
Is it all just tall tales, poaxes, and urban legends
every bit as ridiculous as they sound, or is there
perhaps something more mysterious at work here? Are there perhaps
forces from beyond the outer fringes of what we know
behind such sightings. Whether those be demons, interdimensional travelers, tulpa

(36:34):
thought forms, or something else, there's no way for us
to know, but it's intriguing to think about the deeper
phenomena that could possibly lie under what on its surface
appears to be just about the silliest thing imaginable, And
it's scary to think that those Santa Claus entities could
be something even stranger than the real thing. Up next,

(37:05):
true stories of Santa sidings are creepy enough, but many
of us are familiar with the flip side of Father Christmas,
the darker entity who visits and kidnaps bad children Crampus. However,
when it comes to true fear, even Crampus would run
in terror at the site of Iceland's Greela, the Christmas
witch with roots dating back to the thirteenth century. Greela

(37:29):
is not to be messed with. Plus, it was Christmas
time nineteen thirty eight and nineteen year old Margaret Martin
had just graduated from Wilkes Barre Business College with honors
and was eager to secure a secretarial job. Her eagerness
would lead to her disappearance. These stories are coming up
on weird Darkness. Ebenezer Scrooge learned the lesson in just

(38:04):
one night that it is more blessed to give than
to receive. Of course, it took three ghosts scaring the
crap out of him to get the point across. But
there's an easier and less terrifying way of going about it.
Just scare it forward. The next time you're in a
drive through buying fast food, donuts or coffee, tell the
attendant you want to pay for the person behind you.

(38:24):
In fact, you can miss it Weirddarkness dot com slash
scare it forward and download a print out to give
to the drive through worker that they can pass on
to the person behind you in line, so you don't
have to explain everything. It's a great way to bring
a little joy to someone during the holiday season, a
time that's offen tough for many. And hey, maybe the
car behind you will want to pay for the car
behind them and keep the streak going. It's scare it Forward.

(38:48):
Get started at Weirddarkness dot com slash scare it Forward.
That's Weird Darkness dot com slash scare it Forward. Those
who prefer the darker side of the holiday season have
had it pretty good lately. Thanks to the fast growing
popularity of Crampus Wants, a mythological character on the fringes

(39:11):
of Christmas lore, the horned and hoofed Germanic monster has
gone mainstream in the US. There are Crampis parades taking
over the streets of major cities, an influx of merchandise
bearing his long tongued creepiness, and a horror comedy film
about him starring Adam Scott and Tony Collette. While Crampus
may be king of holiday scares, his fans might be

(39:34):
overlooking an equally nasty, much more formidable queen. A Christmas
monster who lives further north in the frigid climates of Iceland,
who goes by the name Griela, the Christmas Witch. This
tough ogres lives in a cave in Iceland's hinterlands, the
matriarch of a family of strange creatures, launching attacks on

(39:55):
nearby townships, snatching up misbehaving children and turning them into
delicious stew. You don't mess with Griela, says Terry Gunnell,
the head of the folklorist's department at the University of Iceland.
She rules the roost up in the mountains. Tales of
the Ogris began as oral accounts, with the earliest written
references found in the thirteenth century. In historic sagas and

(40:18):
poems throughout the region. One reads, here comes Grila down
in the field, with fifteen tales on her, while another describes,
down comes Grila from the outer fields with forty tails,
a bag on her back, a sword or knife in
her hand, coming to carve out the stomachs of the
children who cry for meat during Lent. In Iceland, the

(40:39):
midwinter holiday known as Yol, a version of the Old
English and Old Germanic word Yule, which describes this time
of gathering together, feasting and celebrating, and which evolved into
modern Christmas, is generally darker than in the US, and
not just because the sun barely comes out during that
time of year. According to Ganell, the earliest celebrations the

(41:00):
season were viewed as a time not only to bring
together relatives living and deceased, but also elves, trolls, and
other magical and spooky creatures believed to inhabit the landscape.
Sometimes these figures would visit in the flesh as masked figures,
going around to farms and houses during the season. Griela,
whose name translates loosely to growler, would be among these,

(41:23):
showing up with a horned tale and a bag into
which she would toss naughty children. She was certainly around
in about thirteen hundred, not directly associated with Christmas, but
associated with a threat that lives in the mountains. He
never knew exactly where she was, says Ganell. Long poems
were written about her and her husband, but he didn't

(41:44):
last long. As Ganell explains, she ate one of her
husbands when she got bored with him. In some ways,
she is the first feminist in Iceland. Other bits of
folklore describe a second troll like husband and a giant
man eating yule cat, known to target any body who
doesn't have on new clothes, making a new pair of
socks or long underwear, and imperative for any Icelandic holiday

(42:07):
shopper filling out what Ganell calls this highly dysfunctional family
are Grella's mob of large adult sons, the thirteen Yule Lads.
Each of these troublemakers visits Icelandic households on specific days
throughout December, unleashing their individual types of pestering. One is
partial to slamming doors, another eats any leftovers from pots

(42:29):
and pans, and yet another lives up to his nickname
of sausage swiper. Grila did not get connected to Christmas
until around the early nineteenth century, when poems began to
associate her with the holiday. It was also about this
time when the Yule Lads and the Yule Cat, which
had been standalone Christmas characters with no connection to the

(42:50):
Christmas Witch, then became part of her big, creepy family.
Prior to that, she was really a personification of the
winter and the darkness and the snow getting closer and
take over the land again. According to Ganel, not only
did she represent the threat of winter, she was seen
as actually controlling the landscape. Ganell explains that the Icelandic

(43:11):
people understood themselves to be more like tenants of their
harsh environment where glaciers, volcanoes, and earthquakes dominate, and would
view mythical creatures like Greela as the ones who were
really running the show. Crampus only wishes he had such power.
Greela is the archetypal villain, and the fact that she
is a matriarch makes her somehow more frightening, says Brian Pilkington,

(43:34):
an illustrator who has drawn some of the definitive depictions
of Greela and the Eulads. In the twentieth century, as
American Christmas and its depiction of Santa Claus proliferated through
Europe and beyond, attempts were made to santify the Eulelads.
Their bellies widened, their troll like whiskers grew a bit bushier,
and they acquired red and white fur costumes. They also,

(43:56):
like Santa, began leaving gifts rather than taking soft usages, snacks,
and so on. The Dutch tradition of children leaving out
their shoes to find chocolates and treats the next morning
also influenced this shift. Some critics tried to snuff out
Grila altogether, attempting to sideline the scary character with more
family friendly fare. One popular Christmas song describes her death.

(44:19):
In more recent years, Iceland as a whole, led by
the National Museum of Iceland, have worked to return the
Yule Lads to their pre Santa roots, trying to get
them dressing in seventeenth and eighteenth century ragged clothes, bringing
them back to the browns and the blacks, the local
wool colors, as Ganell puts it, looking like aged Hell's
Angels without bikes. The characters appear in person, with adults

(44:43):
dressing up like them to entertain and sing with the
children who visit the National Museum. It's a little bit
like hanging onto the language and traditions of that kind
to avoid the global Santa image, even if it has
the same roots to the past. They'd rather hang on
to their Icelandic version, says Ganel. Pilkington, working alongside the
National Museum, has worked to do this in his illustrations,

(45:06):
including The Yule Lads, a celebration of Iceland's Christmas Folklore,
a kid's book about the characters that is ubiquitous around
Iceland during the holidays in both English and Icelandic. Likewise,
Greela has proven a tough figure to dislodge, with their
likeness found throughout the capital city of Rachevic and beyond,
sometimes in the flesh. Children are truly terrified of Grila

(45:29):
in Iceland, says Pilkington. I've visited children's play schools to
demonstrate drawing skills, and if I draw Grila and two
or three terrified children have to leave the room because
it's too strong for them. This is living folklore. Gunnell
agrees she has never stopped being embraced here, he says,
as a living figure, you see her all around. She's

(45:49):
never really gone away. On December seventeenth, nineteen thirty eight,
nineteen year old Margaret Martin vanished from her hometown of Kingston, Pennsylvania.

(46:12):
She had just graduated from Wilkes Barre Business College with
honors and was eager to secure a secretarial job. Her
eagerness would lead to her death. It was the promise
of a job interview that led her to meeting with
a strange man that morning. His identity remains unknown after
all these years, but it's believed that the sandy haired,

(46:32):
overweight man was Margaret's killer. Leaving her home that Saturday morning,
Margaret was last seen getting into a brown or black
Plymouth sedan. Aside from the scant details mentioned already, no
solid description was ever found for the man behind the wheel,
and no one noticed the auto's license plate number. But
one thing is sure, that was the last time that

(46:54):
Margaret was ever seen alive. Later that evening, after Margaret
had failed to return home from her interview, her parents
called the police and reported her missing. The authorities were notified,
but no one else had any idea that she had vanished.
The local press was on strike that winter, so it
was never reported. Most people in the community had no

(47:14):
idea that she had disappeared. Four days later, Anthony Razikowski, nineteen,
was hunting from muskrats in the woods of Wyoming County, Pennsylvania,
about twenty five miles northwest of Kingston, A friend, Stanley Shelkowski, nineteen,
had come along on the outing. As the two young
men crossed a creek, they noticed a lumpy, burlap bag

(47:35):
floating in the water below a nearby bridge. They prodded
it with a stick until they managed to get it open.
Inside they found the naked, brutalized body of a young woman.
It was soon confirmed as the body of Margaret Martin.
According to the autopsy findings, she had been dead for
at least twenty four hours before the Hunter's founder. Her
body showed signs of torture, and she had been sexually

(47:58):
assaulted before her death. Police believed that the murder had
occurred at a nearby mill. They also believed it was
likely that he planned to dismember the body and destroy
it in the mills firebox, but was spooped by the
mill's owner, who had recently scared off a trespasser. Unfortunately,
he had not gotten a good look at the man,
so he was little help to detectives. On Christmas Eve,

(48:20):
Margaret's family held an evening funeral service for their daughter.
Hundreds of people from the community gathered for the service,
along with plain clothes detectives who hoped to spot the
peculiar actions of Margaret's killer in the crowd, Nothing was
learned from their surveillance, and in fact, no solid leads
have ever materialized in Margaret's case. Local rumors pointed fingers

(48:43):
at several suspects, including a Wyoming County undertaker, a teacher
at the college where Margaret had studied, a local assistant pastor,
and a teenager who had a crush on the young woman,
but there were no clues, no evidence, and nothing solid
that could be used as an excuse to investigate in
the murder of Margaret. Martin was cold from the very beginning,

(49:05):
but a small, very small glimmer of hope remains in
this unsolved murder. Pennsylvania authorities never close the cold cases
in their files. Unsolved murders are reopened and reviewed every year.
Police are skeptical that Margaret's killer will be caught after
eight decades, but stranger things have happened. Thanks for listening.

(49:34):
If you like the show, please share it with someone
you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters,
or unsolved mysteries like you do. All stories in Weird
Darkness aren't purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and
you can find source links or links to the authors
in the show notes. The Strange World of True Chris
Kringle Sightings was written by Brent Swanzor from Mysterious Universe.

(49:59):
Iceland's Crisp Witch is by Alex Palmer for Smithsonian Magazine,
and The Murder of Margaret Martin and the Hunley Murders
were both written by Troy Taylor. Again, you can find
links to all of these stories in the show notes.
Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marler House Productions,
Copyright Weird Darkness. And now that we're coming out of

(50:19):
the dark, I'll leave you with a little light, John twelve,
verse forty six. I have come into the world to
be a light. No one who believes in me will
stay in darkness. And a final thought from Charlotte Bront
For my part, I am almost contented just now and
very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion. It fills the heart,

(50:42):
but not to bursting. It warms it but not to fever.
I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.
Fo

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Hundreds of People Have Reported Seeing Santa — Here's What They Might Actually Be Encountering

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Hundreds of People Have Reported Seeing Santa — Here's What They Might Actually Be Encountering