The Mexican Mine Starchild Skull: Too Many Abnormalities to Be Human?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Many theories have been proposed over the years, yet still
no known human deformity, illness, or cultural practice has been
identified that explains what has come to be known as
the star Child skull. The bone of the skull is
much thinner, lighter, and stronger than normal human bone. It
contains unusual reinforcing fibers. The brain of the skull would

(00:26):
be thirty percent larger than a normal human of the
same size. The entire star Child's skull is over ten
standard deviations from the human norm, a highly significant statistic.
In two thousand and three, trace genetics were able to
recover some human DNA from the nine hundred year old skull. However,

(00:46):
despite DNA clearly being present in the sample, the technology
was unable to identify much of the genetic material as human.
More modern DNA testing has found that a significant percentage
of the DAS in the skull appears to not be human.
The shape of the skull, along with the odd characteristics

(01:07):
it has, leads many to believe that not only is
the skull indeed not human, but also non terrestrial, or
perhaps even the combination of human and alien interbreeding. What
is the star Child? I'm Darren Marler and this is

(01:27):
Weird Darkness. Welcome weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this is
Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore,
the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and

(01:54):
unexplained coming up in this episode. In the seventeen hundred,
life saving techniques were obviously not as advanced as those
we have today. Jason point one doctor wanted to know
if and how a drowned person might be brought back
to life. The solution go to a hanging and try

(02:15):
to revive the executed man. How do you think that went.
We've spoken often here on Weird Darkness about shadow people,
with their purposes, where they come from, whether they are
malevolent or not. But are they ghosts or something else entirely?

(02:35):
A Reddit user shares his true story of hiking in
the wilderness and suddenly being tracked and hunted over several
days by a stranger with unknown intentions within the walls
of one of England's most picturesque castles. A queen gave
birth to her only child and set in motion a
chain of events that would become one of tudor England's

(02:57):
most intriguing mysteries. But first, if you're in aliens or conspiracies,
you've likely heard of the Starchild skull, a strange skull
that appears either misshapen or, as many believe, is the
skull of a hybrid between extraterrestrials and human beings. What

(03:18):
is the truth behind the Starchild? Now, bult your doors,
lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with
me into the weird darkness. Starchild is the name given

(03:44):
to a misshapen skull claimed by some to be an
alien human hybrid. You might have seen videos about this
skull online or on television. The skull is in the
possession of Lloyd Pie, who believes mainstream science has oppressed
and tried to explain away his claims. Thus, not surprisingly,

(04:05):
the sources for this review are not peer reviewed journals,
but the publicized claims made by those who have examined
the skull, and the publicized opinions of those like us
who have evaluated their claims. From Afar, a teenage girl
found two skeletons in a Mexican mind tunnel in the
nineteen thirties. The misshapen skull was reportedly associated with a

(04:29):
small skeleton and the normal skull with an adult sized skeleton,
but the skeletons were lost. The skulls changed hands over
the years, and in the nineteen nineties they came into
the possession of Lloyd Pie. Pie dubbed the misshapen skull
star Child and began investigating it. He's had the skull

(04:49):
examined by about a dozen people from various specialties, including
doctor Ted Robinson, a craniofacial reconstructive surgeon, who reports he
searched the little literature and found no similar skulls. Other
experts have included other surgeons, radiologists, pediatricians, optomologists, and a

(05:10):
forensic tooth specialist, as well as geneticists, some of whom
remain anonymous. Pie is perhaps best known for his campaign
to have Starchild recognized as an alien human hybrid. Central
and South American Indian legends tell of star beings descending
to Earth to mate with Indian women, so the find

(05:31):
fits the legend as well as Pie's own beliefs about
human origins. Hi recently authored a book, Intervention Theory Essentials,
outlining his beliefs about the origin of humanity. He denies
biblical creation as well as evolution with equal vigor. In
his e book, he states, interventionists like me anchor our

(05:53):
search for origins on evidence rather than faith, on logic
rather than magic. We don't think that God did it
or that life spontaneously generated, he says. Instead, Pie takes
an intelligent design position, but his intelligent designers are aliens.
Pi writes that these intelligent aliens are non human, non

(06:17):
earth based human like entities, aliens or gods, but gods
with a small g. He believes these aliens genetically engineered
primitive bipedal ape like Harry hominids, hybridizing their primitive hominoid
genes with their own superior alien genes to create test
two people. He hopes his findings in the Starchild investigation

(06:40):
will lend credence to his position. Pie reports carbon dating
on the skulls showed them to be about nine hundred
years old. Further investigations addressed both skeletal morphology and genetics.
He's currently trying to raise funds to continue the investigation
and sequence the whole genome of Starchild. Starchild's cranium has

(07:02):
all the usual bones present in a normal human skull.
The oddly shaped skull is symmetrical, but the cranial bones
are shifted and misshapen and thinner than normal. The frontal
sinuses and brow ridges are absent, the orbits are shallow,
the eyes are low sets, and the lower face is
somewhat reduced, with the zygomatic arches or cheekbones small and

(07:27):
shifted downwards. The chewing muscles are thought to have been
smaller than normal. Examination of a tooth showed it to
have a well developed root, consistent with a child of
about five or six years old. High in one of
his videos, asserted the tooth indicated the skull belonged to
an adult, but several of his experts say the tooth
did belong to a child. Several teeth are impacted above

(07:50):
this tooth, although these distortions make the face appear smaller
than normal. The overall cranial capacity is about sixteen hundred seats,
which Pie's experts have described as two hundred c c
above normal. The lack of frontal sinuses and the diminished
orbital size account for at least some of this extra volume.

(08:13):
The back of the skull is fairly flattened, with the
parietal bones sloping sharply downward and without the usual occipital protuberance,
and the bump on the back of the skull the
innion in the region where the trapezius muscles and a
ligament from the cervical vertebra normally attach. Therefore, the neck
is presumed to have been thin and detached farther forward

(08:35):
than normal. The condials bony protrusions that articulate with the
first cervical vertebra are somewhat oversized on first look. Many
suggest the skull belonged to a hydrocephalic child, but one
of the radiologists who examined it said that it could
not be the case because there was no erosion of
the inner surface of the skull. Also, the sutures between

(08:59):
the skull bones were separated. While modern medicine has fortunately
made untreated hydrocephalis a rarity, erosion of the inner skull
is described as a common consequence of increased innercranial pressure
in doctor Arter Schuler's nineteen eighteen text Rontengen Diagnosis of
Diseases of the Head. Doctor Schuler notes, however, that such

(09:20):
erosion is not usually seen when the onset of hydrocephalus
is in early childhood prior to age four or five. Thus,
since the age at which this child developed his problems
is uncertain, the presence or absence of such erosion is inconclusive.
The bone chemistry has a lower content of calcium and

(09:41):
especially phosphorus than normal Pie says. Cut sections of the
bone show some sort of unidentified red residue and durable
fibers on scanning electron microscopy, but those findings are missing
from the accounts of the various experts describing the skull.
Initial efforts to recover DNA from the skulls in two
thousand and three, after some difficulty getting the bone to dissolve,

(10:04):
resulted in finding human mitochondrial DNA. Both skulls were consistent
with Amerindian ethnicity, although being of different haplogroups, they are
not a mother child pair. Initial efforts to recover nuclear
DNA from the smaller individual skull were reportedly minimally successful,
but finally were reported to reveal both X and Y chromosomes,

(10:27):
indicating human parentage. Now pi's online material claims the difficulty
extracting nuclear DNA in two thousand and three suggests Starchild's
father was not human and that partial genomic sequencing confirms
the presence of non human DNA. PI now reports Starchild's
DNA has been examined using a different method and found

(10:48):
to have some clearly human DNA in addition to a
three forty two DNA sequence that doesn't match anything in
the NIH genetic database. The NIH database currently includes the
entire higher human genome, as well as genome sequences from
numerous species of plants and animals. His website features a
screenshot of the report from the NIH database inquiring showing

(11:12):
the report no significant similarity found. Pie is now trying
to raise funds to have the DNA fully sequenced, confident
the DNA will prove Starchild was a product of genetic
engineering involving an alien or alien human hybrid with a
human surrogate mother. Though PI claims the skull must be

(11:32):
something other than human. Other suggested explanations have included head
binding and genetic abnormalities. South American cultures that practice head
binding usually bind above the Indian, but this skull is
flattened below that level. Pie points out that the shape
did not result from cradle boarding, as the position required

(11:52):
to achieve its shape would have obstructed the child's airway.
Most agree the skull is not typical of skulls artificially reshaped.
Prominent among Pie's detractors is doctor Stephen Novella, a Yale
neurology professor well known as a skeptic of pseudoscience in
alternative medicine. Novella published an online letter in two thousand

(12:14):
and six, and Pie has, of course published his counter claims.
Novella asserts that the child probably had untreated hydrocephalus. Hydrocephalus
results from a blockage and the drainage of cerebrospinal fluid,
with a resultant build up a fluid in the ventricles
of the brain. Today, the disorder is treated by surgically

(12:35):
placing a shunt to drain the fluid. The cerebrospinal fluid
could have built up slowly in this untreated individual, expanding
the skull while creating many distortions, and as mentioned previous,
the lack of bony erosions does not rule out this diagnosis.
The lack of frontal sinuses is easily dismissed. One or

(12:57):
both frontal sinuses are occasionally at absence in normal people.
Although no one has been able to point to a
single known genetic abnormality or congenital syndrome that causes all
the specific abnormalities seen in the starchild's skull, there are
a number of genetic abnormalities manifested by these sorts of
findings seen here. Many genetic defects are rare and may

(13:20):
produce a group of physical defects that are still compatible
with life, at least for a time. When an unusually
malformed child was born in the Middle Ages, some would
attribute the cause to demons, as any devoted reader of
Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame will quickly recall. Of course,
Pi does not claim supernatural demonic influence, but his proposed

(13:43):
aliens would certainly be outside the realm of both mainstream
science and biblical Christianity. However, the fact that medical literature
hasn't reported a child with this particular constellation of symptoms
should not cause anyone to leap on the alien bandwidth.
Although normal human cranial capacity varies greatly, the capacity of

(14:05):
this skull, presumably a child's, does exceed the average norm
for morphologically normal adult skulls. Increased cranial capacity obviously can
arise from hydrocephalus, but it has also been reported without
hydrocephalous and children with autism. The enlarged cranial capacity likely
results from the lack of frontal sinuses, reduced orbits, and

(14:27):
the distorted growth of the skull. Whether or not hydrocephalous
was part of the picture, there are sufficient distortions to
explain the enlarged cranial capacity, however, without suggesting a larger
than normal brain or the conventional Sci Fi type of
alien portrait. Some of associated with the skull. The abnormalodies
in bone chemistry could be related to a genetic disorder,

(14:50):
as some of them cause abnormal phosphate metabolism, resulting in
a ricket's like softening of the bones. The abnormal bone
chemistry can also be a result of the su skull's exposure
in a wet mind tunnel for years. While the durable
fibers and red residue pie describes on video as a
mystery remain unexplained. No results of any tests addressing those

(15:12):
findings are reported. They may well represent a foreign contaminant
or some sort of artifact resulting from the years in
the mind The thinning of the cranial bones may be
related to untreated hydrocephalus or to some other underlying syndrome
causing the bones to distort. Such distortion can be caused
by premature fusion of some of the cranial sutures, causing

(15:36):
the head to stretch and grow in the dimensions left
to it. While some have asserted such a condition would
lead to asymmetrical growth, a condition called brachycephaly causes symmetrical
distortion of the skull with severe flattening of the back
of the skull. In fact, Starchild's skull bears remarkable similarities
to bracisilaphics. Two experts on craniofacial abnormalities, doctor Patricia Hummel,

(16:00):
and doctor Jeffrey A. Fearn, according to reported personal communications,
agree that Starchild fits this description. The shallow, low set
orbits would have probably caused the eyes to protrude somewhat.
This condition is called exorbitism and its scene with some
of the syndromes causing premature closure of cranial sutures. One

(16:21):
such syndrome is Krousan's syndrome. Children with this mutation tend
to have bulging, low set eyes, and an underdeveloped lower
face with cleft lip and palette, all associated with premature
fusion of cranial sutures. While the star child does not
fit the full criteria for cruisons, the example makes it

(16:41):
clear that genetic defects can produce constellations of abnormalities, such
as those seen in the starchild's skull. Much has been
made of the apparently thin forward shifted neck, with claims
it matches supposedly documented aliens commonly held to exist by
the UFO crowd. Given the magnitude of this skull's flattening

(17:02):
and distortion. Posteriorly, however, the next muscles and ligament attachments
would naturally have to accommodate the head's shape. The impacted
teeth are another abnormality commonly seen in children. In short,
the skull abnormalities, while not fitting any particular named syndrome,
are all consistent with the sorts of abnormalities seen in

(17:24):
human children with genetic problems. But the website starchildproject dot
com has rebuttals to a lot of the skeptics who
seem to think they have the answers to these questions.
For example, the shallow eye sockets caused by cruisons or microcephaly.
These conditions rely either on abnormal fusion of the cranial

(17:45):
sutures or microcephaly, but neither are present in the star
Child's skull, as proven by CT scans and visual examination
of the skull. Doctor Robinson and some of his colleagues
are on the record stating that the suit the lines
where the bones of the skull meat like puzzle pieces,
were unfused and healthy at the time of death. The

(18:08):
missing frontal sinus is often attributed to the rare but
very real human condition progeria. The problem with this answer, however,
is that other features in the skull prove it did
not have progeria. The extremely strong bone of the skull
explained away by osteopatrosis, the opposite of osteoporosis or fossilization

(18:29):
of the bone, is also refuted by the website. The
skull didn't have any of these conditions as proven by
X rays and CT scans, and the star Child's skull
is not a fossil. Fossils are over ten thousand years old.
Star Child skull is only nine hundred years old according
to Carbon fourteen dating. Much has been discussed regarding the

(18:52):
childlike teeth and the star Child skull, with skeptics claiming
it's a child of about five years old and possibly
had progeria, which causes dental problems. As indicated before, the
skull had no signs or pergeria. Plus, no child could
grind its teeth down so much in such a short
period of time as those in the skull appear. Those

(19:14):
who believe the skull is human claim the actual brain
tissue was the same size as a human. It just
looked bigger because of hydrocephally flew it inside the brain,
pushed it outwards and made it look bigger. But it
was hollow filled with fluid on the inside. But there
is a problem with that answer. Too fluid inside the
brain causes pressure that would have pushed out the weakest points,

(19:38):
the suture lines where the plates of the skull join outwards,
and that didn't happen. There is no evidence of internal
pressure at all. Of course, you can't argue against DNA evidence.
We believe in it so much we use it in
our court cases. But skeptics do argue against it, saying
that the DNA collected from the skull could have been

(19:58):
contaminated or possibly a one off genetic mutation in a human.
While contamination is indeed the biggest challenge for dealing with
ancient DNA, the sample from a bone buried in Earth's
soil can be contaminated only with DNA of earthly origin,
which could be identified by at least a partial match
to sequences in the existing databases. The extent of genetic

(20:23):
variation found in the preliminary DNA tests on the starchild
skull is far greater than normally observed and viable able
to survive offspring within the human species. It is possible
to find a way to explain virtually every aspect of
the Starchild's skull if each unusual feature is taken individually,

(20:45):
But when you start trying to add all of those up,
it soon becomes obvious that no human could survive so
many conflicting deformities, and that is the key factor that
keeps getting swept under the carpet. The idea of whether
it's possible in a test tube and a lab, but
is it possible to create a live being that can

(21:06):
live long enough to wear down its teeth? The most
plausible answer here is no No human could survive all
of these deformities. Therefore, it's possible, and some may argue
probable that this is not a human skull. When we're

(21:31):
darkness returns, a Reddit user shares his true story of
hiking in the wilderness and suddenly being tracked and hunted
over several days by a stranger with unknown intentions. But
first in the seventeen hundreds, life saving techniques were obviously
not as advanced as those we have today. Case in
point one, doctor wanted to know if and how a

(21:54):
drowned person might be brought back to life. The solution
go to a hanging and try to revive the executed man.
How do you think that went? We'll find out up next.

(22:24):
Is it possible to bring a drowning victim back to life?
Given the numerous cases of drowning that occurred in eighteenth
century London and the lack of any proper system of
saving drowning victims at the time, the need for a
new organization to teach resuscitation techniques seemed desperately needed. Inspired

(22:44):
by a rescue organization in the Netherlands that had been
founded years earlier, doctor William Hawes and another physician, Thomas Cogan,
founded the Royal Humane Society in seventeen seventy four to
promote training in first aid and artificial respiration for d victims.
To advertise the potential benefits of artificial respiration, Hawes and

(23:05):
Cogan hit on a rather novel scheme. They offered a
cash reward to anyone who would bring them a drowning
victim that had been taken from the water anywhere within
thirty miles of London. Hawes paid the reward out of
his own pocket. The Royal Humane Society would later serve
as a model for similar organizations around the world. As

(23:26):
part of their effort to improve existing medical techniques, Hawes
and Cokean approached the famous surgeon John Hunter for guidance.
The highly distinguished medical researcher and surgeon Hunter was an
obvious choice. Being blunt and argumentative by nature, Hunter had
no problem challenging existing views on when death occurred, and

(23:46):
was forthright in presenting the fledgling Humane Society and later
the Royal Society with his own views on resuscitation. Doctor
John Hunter was certainly the right man for the job.
A brilliant anatomist and re researcher, his medical expertise was
in constant demand. Among Hunter's patients were Benjamin Franklin, who
had consulted him for bladder problems, and Adam Smith for hemorrhoids.

(24:11):
Hunter's unorthodox methods made him the envy of all his
fellow surgeons, and his outspoken manner earned him any number
of enemies as well. Among other things, he has also
become an authority on venarial disease, and even went so
far as to inoculate himself with tissue taken from a
patient to test his theories. Hunter contracted syphilis and gonorrhea

(24:32):
as a result, and unfortunately used his infection to argue
that syphilis and gonorrhea were essentially the same disease. They aren't,
and that misconception would linger for decades. Though the medical
science surrounding resuscitation was still in its infancy, Hunter's insights
were certainly inspired. He stressed that drowning victims should not

(24:54):
automatically be assumed dead, and that only the suspension of
the actions of life has taken place. In treating the
drowning victim, Hunter recommended aggressive measures, including using a double
bellows to force air into the drowning victim's lungs, applying
stimulating vapors to the nose, keeping the body warm, and

(25:14):
a vigorous massage in essential oils. When all else failed,
Hunter advised the use of electrical stimulation to the heart.
He also argued that resuscitation should be viewed scientifically, with
a notebook on hand, so that the physician could carefully
record what worked and what didn't in reviving the patient.
To test his own resuscitation methods, John Hunter turned to

(25:37):
a different source. Through his years of dissecting executed criminals,
Hunter knew that hangmen were often fairly sloppy with their
workmanship on the gallows. This was long before the invention
of the marwood drop, which ensures that convicts died quickly
and cleanly by a broken neck. During Hunter's day, convicts

(25:57):
being executed were usually only given enough rope to slowly
strangle to death as their oxygen was cut off. Even then,
death was not assured, and there were cases of executed
convicts waking up after believed dead. The notion that an
executed criminal could be successfully revived appealed to Hunter, and
a famous case then working its way through the English courts,

(26:20):
provided him with the perfect opportunity. The Reverend William Dodd
was never your typical clergyman. Ordained an Anglican priest in
seventeen fifty three, his flamboyant lifestyle and manner made him
a popular figure in British society and earned him the
nickname of the Macaroni parson Macarronie was a popular slang

(26:41):
term for fashionable. While being forced to leave England after
disgracing himself by attempting to use bribery to gain a
lucrative position for himself, DoD returned to England after a
short time abroad. Unfortunately, Dodd's extravagant lifestyle and financial problems continued,
and he was later caught out in a scheme in
which he attempted to defraud a wealthy former pupil of

(27:03):
thousands of pounds to clear his own debts. Since forgery
and fraud were capital offenses in those days, Dodd was
quickly arrested and went on trial for his life. He
confessed to the crimes and was sentenced to death. Despite
pleas for leniency from prominent figures such as Samuel Johnson.
There was a last ditch appeal for a royal pardon,

(27:26):
including a petition with twenty three thousand signatures, but Dodd
went to the gallows on June twenty seventh, seventeen seventy seven.
Given that William Dodd had been an early supporter of
the Humane Society, John Hunter was well aware of the
details of the case. As Dodd was being led up
the gallows at Tyburn, Hunter and his Humane Society colleagues

(27:47):
were waiting at the Undertaker's establishment with all the tools
needed for the revival. While Hunter himself never wrote about
his attempt at reviving Dodd, a fellow Royal Society member,
Charles Hutton, later provided an account of what happened next.
Despite Hunter's attempts to get Dodd's body as soon after
the execution as possible, the huge number of people in

(28:10):
attendance made that impossible. Due to the pressing crowds, Dodd
was left hanging for at least an hour before being
taken down, while the hearst took an additional forty minutes
to deliver the body to the waiting Hunter. Although Hunter
and his colleagues were dismayed by the delays, they proceeded
to work on Dodd's body with all means possible for

(28:31):
the reanimation. Unfortunately, the attempt was a total failure and
Hunter eventually admitted defeat. Dodd's body was released for burial
and that was the end of it. Except for years
after Dodd's execution, there was a lingering rumor that Hunter
had not failed and that Dodd had been successfully revived.

(28:53):
The press recorded various Dodd sightings throughout the United Kingdom,
and stories of the Macaroni parson cheating mc gallows persisted.
As recently as seventeen ninety four, a Scottish newspaper reported
that Dodd was living in Glasgow, happily beyond the reach
of his enemies. As for John Hunter, he moved on
to other things. Along with his legendary fame as a surgeon,

(29:16):
he also amassed one of the most amazing collections of
medical and natural history specimens in Europe, including the skeleton
of the Irish giant Charles Byrne, which he put on
display in a custom built teaching museum at his home
in Leicester Square. Following Hunter's death in seventeen ninety three
due to an angina attack likely linked to his syphilis

(29:37):
weakened heart, his collection of papers and specimens were purchased
by the government and presented to the Company of Surgeons,
now the Royal College of Surgeons. Visitors to the Royal
College of Surgeons at London's Lincoln's Inn Fields can still
see Hunter's vast collection as part of the College's even
more extensive museums. It is quite an experience for those

(30:00):
they taste for them a cop I was camping in
the middle of nowhere in Washington, near Mount Rainier, like,
not an official campground, just way out in the forest
where I wouldn't have expected another human for miles. One night,

(30:24):
I wake up and I hear something open my tent
and there's a guy sitting by where my fire had been,
right outside my tent. Nothing particularly noteworthy about the guy,
just a fairly regular looking dude, just sitting there a
couple feet from my tent. No bag or pack or
anything with him, just a guy. He saw me open

(30:45):
the tent, his eyes got huge, like he had just
seen a ghost, and he took off. It took me
up pretty badly, but over the next day I managed
to put it out of my mind fairly well after
writing it off as just some odd occurrence. And the
guy that was probably high on something. It had somehow
managed to set up a camp coincidentally not far from
mine then two days after that, and ten to fifteen

(31:08):
miles away in totally random directions that nobody could take
the same path as on accident. I was sitting by
the fire that night and started hearing noises that I
got more and more convinced were a person. I called
out to them, and out of the darkness, someone was like,
do you know how to get to Bell's Canyon? I

(31:29):
said no, I don't even think that's a real place there.
They kept talking from just out of my line of vision.
I tried to see them with my flashlight, but they
yelled aim that away and kind of spooked and not
wanting to tick off a potentially crazy person, I did.
After like fifteen minutes, me being very freaked out and

(31:50):
then talking and asking completely random questions from the darkness,
it sounded like the voice had gotten closer, so I
shined my light that way again. It was the same
dude who'd been outside my tent two nights before. He
had to have followed me almost fifteen miles over two days,
because there is no way he could have just accidentally

(32:12):
wound up in the same spot as vast as that
wilderness is no possible way. As soon as my life
hit him, he took off again. I started to chase him,
but didn't want to get lost in the wilderness in
the dark, so stopped quickly after probably only one hundred
or two hundred feet. This one could not be written

(32:33):
off because the only way he could have been in
both places is specifically if he was following me. I
decided the trip was over first thing in the morning
and hiked back out over three days, constantly doubling back,
trying to throw anyone following off my trail, and occasionally
hiding and waiting to see if he would come by

(32:53):
following me. I really can't describe how terrifying it was
to feel like I was being hunted through the woods
and to actually have to brainstorm on things that I
could do to best avoid potentially being murdered. On the
first night of hiking out, twice I heard what sounded
like a person walking circles outside my tent, but by

(33:14):
the time I mustered the courage to look, nobody was there.
On the second night, I heard what I thought was
an animal making noises At first in the distance, but
slowly decided sounded more like a human making animal calls,
but could have actually been an animal. But I didn't
actually see the guy again, but it really sounded like

(33:34):
a person making howling noises. I literally almost cried when
I finally got back to my car. The relief was
so strong. To this day, probably the most terrifying experience
I've ever had. I have no idea who the guy
was or what his intentions were, and no way of
getting an explanation, but I really can't articulate just what

(33:59):
a terrifying few days that was. Later in the show
Shadow People, are they ghosts or a different entity altogether?
We'll try to answer that question up next. England's royal
family has eyes upon them at all times from those

(34:19):
both in the country as well as around the world.
We are fascinated with the royal life and it's always
been that way. So imagine if the Queen were to
give birth to a child. The child, just like royal
children of today, would be lavished upon, beloved by the
people of the world. The excitement would be momentous, with

(34:39):
so many attendants, guards and the like. How then, could
that newborn child disappear? In the official records that story
When We'd Darkness returns. Within the walls of one of

(35:08):
England's most picturesque castles, a queen gave birth to her
only child and set in motion a chain of events
that would become one of Tudor, England's most intriguing mysteries.
The birth had been much anticipated and much talked about.
The baby, a little girl, was immediately taken off to
a nursery decked in scarlet and gold, where a string

(35:31):
of attendance awaited her every demand. And yet within days
this child's life was turned upside down, and just a
few months afterwards, her whole future was called into question.
For later historians, her very existence has led to endless speculation,
and now only scraps of evidence remained to tell the

(35:52):
story of Mary. The Queen's daughter. Mary Seymour was the
only child of Catherine Parr, Henry Yight's last wife. She
was born at Sudley Castle in Gloucestershire after a long
labor which ended a pregnancy that had come as a
great surprise to her parents, for by the time the
king died in fifteen forty seven, Mary's mother had been

(36:14):
married three times for a total of almost twenty years
without ever having had a baby, But just months after
her fourth wedding that same year to Thomas Seymour, she
became pregnant for the first and only time. The news
was as welcoming as it was surprising. Catherine had been
stepmother to the families of two husbands, and their children

(36:38):
were all genuinely fond of her, but her first adopted family,
the Latimers, were now grown up themselves, while her second broute,
the royal children of Henry the eighth, were apart from
her for different reasons. Baby Mary would be the start
of a new era in Catherine's life. Mary's father was
Thomas Seymour, Baron Sudley, whose secret marriage to Catherine just

(37:01):
months after the death of Henry the Eighth had caused
shock waves at the Tudor court. Thomas was the brother
of Jane Seymour, Henry the Yight's third wife and the
queen who provided the longed for Tudor heir who was
now reigning as Edward the sixth. Thomas and Jane's brother
Edward served as Lord Protector running the boy King's government.

(37:23):
Thomas wasn't happy about this and wrote to Catherine in
the summer of fifteen forty eight, that their child will
revenge such wrongs as neither you or I can. Thomas
and Catherine felt they should have a say in the
government of Edward the sixth, but they had been effectively
sidelined by those in power. The first mystery of Mary's
life is whether both her parents really thought their child

(37:45):
could help unpick the power of Edward Seymour, or whether
this line, just one in a long letter, is more
indicative of the headstrong Thomas's attitude to life, speak first
and worry later. The arrival of the girl stemmed those
ambitions to a certain extent, but Thomas seems to have
been overjoyed at Mary's birth, writing to his brother about

(38:08):
the prettiness of his daughter. The baby was named in
honor of Catherine's eldest royal stepchild, Mary, daughter of Catherine
of Arragon, and on her birth she became one of
the most eligible women in England. Her mother may not
have been born of royal blood, but she was a queen.
The boy King, Edward the sixth had long called Catherine

(38:28):
his mother, while the dowager Queen was also held in
great respect by the people most likely to succeed him
on the throne, Henrythiate's daughters Mary and Elizabeth. Mary Seymour
was connected to some of the most important people in
England and beyond. She looked set to grow up, enjoying power,
wealth and privilege, and with the future filled with opportunity

(38:49):
ahead of her. In less than forty eight hours, everything changed.
For while Catherine seemed well if tired after the birth,
she soon began to show symptoms of poor peril or
child bed fever. Catherine had employed the best medical team
she could find, including her trusted doctor Robert Heike, but

(39:09):
there was nothing any of them could do given the
medicine of the time. Records show that Catherine railed against
her husband as delirium took hold of her, accusing him
of keeping her doctor from her, But when she realized
she was going to die, she became calm and dictated
a will in which she left everything to him. This
is another mystery in Mary's life, for the little girl

(39:31):
wasn't mentioned at all as Catherine distributed her worldly possessions.
She was left in the complete care of her father,
and if anyone realized how reckless and foolhardy Thomas Seymour
could be it was Catherine Parr. During the five years
that they knew one another, Catherine saw plenty of examples
of Thomas's rash and impetuous behavior. They had first met

(39:53):
at the court of Henry the Eighth in early fifteen
forty three, when she was a widow and he was
the man every woman wanted to marry. He was handsome,
charming and uncle to the Princess of Wales, while she
was pretty clever and determined to climb even higher in
society after an already impressive and meteoric rise almost straightway.

(40:14):
There were rumors of a relationship between Seymour and Lady Latimer,
as Catherine was known then, but when Henry the Eighth
decided to marry her, all of that came to an end.
On Henry's death, Catherine and Thomas had married with almost
indecent haste, but the groom had caused his new wife
huge problems. The dowager Queen had brought her stepdaughter, Elizabeth

(40:35):
to live in her household, and her husband's behavior toward
the teenager soon became inappropriate. He flirted with her, came
into her bedroom dressed only in his nightclothes and tickled
and slapped her. In the end, Catherine had to send
Elizabeth away and the pair would never see one another again.
Set against this backdrop, the Queen's decision to leave her

(40:57):
newborn daughter completely dependent on a man known for his
reckless behavior is perhaps even more mysterious. Catherine died on
September fifth, fifteen forty eight, and was buried in the
chapel of Sudley Castle, as was customary at the time,
Thomas did not attend. Very Soon afterwards, he took the
queen's daughter to London and left her with Edward Seymour.

(41:21):
But while this gesture might indicate brotherly affection, Thomas's other
actions of the time were anything but friendly. As Mary
was raised with her Seymour cousins, her father began to
plot the overthrow of his brother and gain influence over
Edward the sixth. He'd always been a passionate, ambitious and
headstrong man, and was known to deeply resent his brother.

(41:44):
In January fifteen forty nine, he was caught trying to
break into the King's chambers while armed with a pistol,
and in the fight that followed he killed his nephew's
favorite pet dog. He was quickly accused of treason, and
many other things, including his past indie discreet behavior with Elizabeth,
was investigated. He was executed in March fifteen forty nine.

(42:07):
Mary was now an orphan. She was also technically a
poor one, for traders like Thomas lost all their possessions,
and as her mother had bequeathed everything to her father,
Mary was left with nothing. Her uncle Seymour certainly didn't
want his treacherous brother's offspring in the house and set
about making arrangements for Mary's care. In just seven months,

(42:30):
Mary had gone from being the queen's daughter to an
aristocratic inconvenience. Catherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, was appointed guardian
to Mary soon after the execution of Thomas Seymour. But
this wasn't the first time that this Catherine had played
an important part in the affairs of Catherine Parr, for
in fifteen forty six, the last of Henry's wives, found

(42:52):
her position under threat. The king was apparently tired of
her religious interests and opinions, and the Duchess of Suffolk
recently widowed. In about seven years Younger was reported by
some at court to be in line to become wife
number seven. Clever Catherine Parr talked her way out of
an execution, and the Duchess of Suffolk became the Queen's
friend rather than Queen herself. That doesn't mean she was

(43:16):
happy to bring up Mary. Most of her woes were financial.
Mary had nothing, but as the daughter of a queen,
there was an expectation that she would be royally looked after.
Catherine Brandon was soon writing to William Cecil, an important
man at the court of Edward Seymour, asking for funds
with which to care for her baby Mary. She persisted

(43:36):
in pressing for Mary's estate to be made available, and finally,
in January fifteen fifty her father's lands were restored to
her by an Act of Parliament. But this is where
the story of the Queen's daughter becomes even more mysterious,
because no claim was ever made on that estate. Mary
was entitled to use what was left of her father's

(43:57):
possessions and money, but no one else attempted to spend
a penny of it on her behalf, and that has
led many historians to conclude that the Queen's daughter must
have died young in an age when many children succumbed
to illnesses. It seemed clear that Mary Seymour became poorly
and probably didn't live beyond the age of two. No

(44:20):
record or even mention of her death is found around
that time, which might be explained by the fact that
although parishes were meant to keep records of all events
by then, many still only managed to register a portion
of the births, deaths, and marriages that took place within
their boundaries. It could be that the record was lost,
as so many were in the centuries since, or, as

(44:43):
some have argued, the record could maybe never have existed
at all. Those who believe Mary lived far longer point
out that such an important child as the daughter of
a queen would surely have merited some kind of memorial.
The Victorian writer Agne Strickland claimed that Mary lived to
adulthood and that she married, while others have speculated that

(45:06):
the decision not to claim on Seymour's estate, by then
quite small, was to keep Mary safe by making people
believe she was dead. By the time the estate was released,
the Seymour family had fallen from power. Edward was arrested
in October fifteen forty nine and imprisoned in the Tower
of London. There were plenty of people who wanted to
see the Seymour's suffer, and Mary's position was even more

(45:29):
precarious with her uncle in such deep trouble. But in
twenty ten, Linda Porter argued that a poem by John
Parkhurst published in fifteen seventy three probably takes Mary as
its subject. The verse is an epitaph for a child
who died young and who had a queenly mother. Whatever
the reason, Mary disappears mysteriously in fifteen fifty and is

(45:53):
never officially heard of again. Her fate remains unknown today.
One thing we really do know about Mary is that
she was the daughter of a queen. It's easy to
speculate that had her mother been able to provide some
counter to the chaotic influence of Thomas Seymour, Mary's life
might have turned out very differently, or that had she

(46:15):
emerged as an adult at the court of one of
the later Tudor monarchs, she might have played a great
part in the dramas that unfolded. Her disappearance from the
records only deepens the intrigue around her. Mary Seymour was
born to a glittering life, but sank into the shadows
almost immediately. She is a real royal mystery. You know,

(46:41):
we've spoken often here on Weird Darkness about shadow people,
what their purpose is, where they come from, whether they
are malevolent or not. But are they ghosts or something
else entirely we'll find out when Weird Darkness returns. In

(47:13):
the world of paranormal research, there are two distinct types
of non corporeal creatures, ghosts and shadow people. In many instances,
it can be nearly impossible to tell the difference between
ghosts and shadow people. But after some exhaustive research into
these scary monsters and super creeps, here's a handy guide
to help you figure out whether you're dealing with an

(47:35):
energy sucking shadow creature or a full bodied apparition. Are
ghosts and shadow people the same things. It's a question
that is bogged down believers and the supernatural for a
long time. While they do share similarities, they are definitely
not the same thing. Not only are there different classes
of shadow people, but the types of ghosts that you're

(47:57):
likely to bump into aren't anything like that the ominous
figures cut by a shadow person. The following guidelines will
teach you how to see if you saw a ghost
or a shadow person lurking in your room, and what
to do about it. Paranormal experts have been debating for
decades about whether or not ghosts can actually understand what's

(48:18):
happening around them, or if they're simply going through the
motions of a past life. It's believed that ghostly apparitions
are simply the residual energy left over when a person dies,
meaning that while you might be able to see them,
they can't see or interact with you. On the other hand,
shadow people are sometimes corporeal beings who are at best

(48:39):
believed to be from another dimension, and at their worst
they may be demonic in nature. People who have had
interactions with shadow people believe that the creatures make conscious
decisions for how they'll treat a person, something that a
ghost can't do. While no one knows exactly why shadow
people exist, one in terresting idea is that they are

(49:01):
similar to poultergeists, meaning that humans create them from their
own negative energy. While most ghosts are created through outside
means like murder suicide, a poultergeist tends to be created
when someone with a lot of pent up negative energy
becomes a vessel for their awful feelings. This is usually
done subconsciously, although you could probably manifest a poltergeist or

(49:25):
shadow person if you try it hard enough, not that
you'd ever want to. If you believe that you've created
a shadow person on accident, then your best bet is
to try and clear all the negative energy in your life.
Start meditating, bless or cleanse your home, do whatever you've
got to do to stop feeding that horrible creature. Trying

(49:46):
to determine the intentions of a ghost is nearly impossible. You
might find depending on what type of paranormal phenomenon with
which you're dealing, the ghost doesn't have any intentions at all.
If you have a poultergeist in the home, it's taking
cues from you or whomever's negative energy helped manifest the creature,
and it's going to keep doing what it's doing until

(50:07):
you cleanse the home. If you're dealing with an interactive ghost,
it could be re enacting something from its life over
and over without any ill intent towards you. Despite the
negative ramifications of a ghost clanging and banging around your house,
the intent of a shadow creature is nothing but malicious,

(50:28):
since the first report of a shadow person. There have
not been any claims of one of these creatures doing
anything positive whatsoever. Many paranormal experts believe that shadow people
want to feed off of your negative energy and fear.
If you've never been visited by a ghost or a
shadow person, your first experience with either can be terrifying

(50:49):
and confusing. How do you know with which type of
entity you're dealing? When it comes to ghosts, there are
a few different types of entities that you can encounter.
There are ghosts with interactive personalities like Bruce Willis at
the end of the sixth Sense. Sorry spoilers on that,
or maybe a Civil War battlefield ghost. But there are

(51:09):
also ectoplasmic mists that are just as visible as interactive
full body apparitions. Aside from the two visible and easily
recognizable types of ghosts, there are poltergeists or noisy ghosts,
which are essentially pure energy. You're most likely to experience
one of these if you have a teenager in the

(51:30):
home or a large amount of pent up negative energy.
They knock things down, break windows. Finally, there are orbs
and the swirling bits of light that are most commonly
seen in photographs. Shadow people, though, are usually described as
being tall and human like, but as if their bodies
are made of shadows rather than flesh and blood. The

(51:52):
most notable shadow person is the hat Man, who has
been appearing since at least two thousand and one, since
he was discussed on art Bells Coast to Coast am.
It's been theorized that hat Man is a separate phenomena
from shadow people, even though he appears in the same
way as the rest of his creepy brethren. An interesting

(52:12):
theory positive about shadow people is that they're likely aware
of other types of paranormal creatures, and that they feed
off of them the same way they feed off of
us humans. If a spirit or an entity is trapped
in a particularly haunted location, meaning that it is rich
in negative energy, then it's likely that a shadow person
or shadow people are aware of this location and use

(52:36):
it as a feeding ground. It's been theorized that shadow
people prefer the fresh negative energy of someone that they
have trapped, but the residual energy of an entity trapped
in its own torments for eternity is probably just as good.
The most out there theory about shadow people posits that
they are not technically ghosts or creatures of any kind,

(52:57):
but rather they are people who are having of body experiences.
Some paranormal researchers believe that our consciousnesses can leave our
body while we sleep and allow us to show ourselves
to other people who are tuned into our frequency. This
differentiates shadow people from ghosts in a major way, because
it means that shadow people aren't even dead. It could

(53:20):
be argued that if our consciousness leaves our bodies while
we sleep, that they are technically the ghosts of the living,
although it's likely that we'll never be able to determine
if this is actually what's happening. While shadow people could
be a figurative shadow of a person who's still alive,
spiritual medium James Van Prague claims that actual ghosts are

(53:41):
usually what's left of a person who cannot move on
past the mortal plane of existence. Sometimes they just can't
accept that they are dead. One of the things that
ghosts in shadow people have in common is that they
are drawn to negative energy and people who are spiritually open.
The main difference in this is why ghosts and shadow

(54:02):
people are drawn to someone. Ghosts may simply be making
themselves visible to you because you're open, or something happened
to you at a young age that made you a
magnet for spiritual activity. While shadow people are also drawn
to someone who's open, it tends to be a more
malicious reason. They want to feed off of you in
one way or another. If they can feed off of

(54:24):
your fear when you see them, great. If they can
feed off of the entities around you and the fear
that creates, that's also good. One of the many stark
differences between a ghost and a shadow person is that
ghosts used to be a physical person, while shadow people
have always been the creepy crawleys that come to you
when you sleep. No one knows why the residual energy

(54:46):
released when humans die creates ghosts for some people and
not for others, but it very well may have something
to do with that person having unfinished business on the
corporeal plane. Shadow people have always existed, whether they're from
another dimension, a time traveler, or a demonic entity. It's
believed that these creatures are fully aware of what they're doing.

(55:10):
No one knows exactly what ghosts or shadow people are.
While they can both take on characteristics of a human,
that doesn't necessarily mean that they are or were human
at one time or another. Some paranormal researchers believe that
ghosts and shadow people are both creatures from another dimension,
and that they're simply manifesting in different ways. Some scientists

(55:33):
believe that alternate dimensions exist directly next to ours, it's
just their vibrations are slightly off. It's possible that shadow
creatures and ghosts are actually entities from another dimension that
are somehow bleeding through to our own. Whether you have
found yourself haunted by a ghost or a shadow person,

(55:54):
there are a few things that you can do to
get rid of both entities. Unfortunately, clearing your heard of
an extreme haunting is harder than it sounds. Since ghosts
tend to be residual energy, you could always try to
ignore them and wait around for the haunting to disperse,
although in the case of a poltergeist, the haunting could
increase if you ignore it. Paranormal researcher Lloyd Auerbach says

(56:18):
that telling the ghost or shadow person to leave tends
to work if you are forceful enough. However, if you
engage the creature and you waiver, you could end up
with an even larger haunting. Than you had to start with.
If you can swing it, have a paranormal expert or
even a priest's come out and bless or sage the

(56:40):
haunted area. That should do the trick. Thanks for listening.
If you like to show, please share it with someone
you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime,
monster or unsolved mysteries like you do. All stories in

(57:03):
Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise,
and you can find source links or links to the
authors in the show notes. The Hanged Man was written
by Romeo Viatelli for Providentia. Our Shadow People Considered Ghosts
is by Jacob Shelton for Ranker's Graveyard Shift. A Strange
Man Hunted Me through the Park is by redditor Valerian Jedi.

(57:27):
That Unexplained Disappearance of the Queen's Daughter is by Lydia
Starbuck for Royal Central, and What Is the Star Child
was written by doctor Elizabeth Mitchell from Animalian and from
Starchild project dot com. Again, you can find links to
these stories in the show notes. Weird Darkness is a
production and trademark of Marler House Productions and now that

(57:49):
we're coming out of the dark. I'll leave you with
a little light Lamentations three, verses thirty one and thirty two,
for no one is cast off by the Lord forever.
Though he brings green, he will show compassion. So great
is his unfailing love. In a final thought, being okay
if it happens and okay if it doesn't is a

(58:12):
very powerful place to be. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for
joining me in the weird darkness.

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