THE TRUTH BEHIND NICOLAS FLAMEL: Was This Harry Potter Character Real? Did He Find The Secret To Immortality?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome Weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
unsolved and unexplained coming up in this episode. In nineteen

(00:31):
twenty nine, the Soviet Union decided seven days a week
just was too many to keep track of, and it's
easier to count by five anyway. So in the USSR
they suddenly began to live life with only five days
per week, no more weekends. How do you think the
citizens took that news. While not nearly as well known

(00:56):
as its larger Bermuden brother, the Bridgewater Triangle in southeastern
Massachusetts and the United States is home to strange tales itself,
with the paranormal unexplained, and even home to its very
own cryptid other. Margaret Helen James wrote, there is an
uncomfortable sort of ghostly terror in beast form that haunts

(01:19):
the villages on the borders of the two countries, which
is commonly called the hateful Thing. I allude to the
churchyard or hell beast. Something was terrifying people in the
marshlands of a small county in England and tales of
it can still bring nightmares to those who live there today.

(01:41):
But first, it's what every non Muggle dreams of, to
be able to turn any metal into gold and to
create a magic potion to give one eternal life. So
is the life of wizarding at Hogwarts in the Harry
Potter books. But was there a real Philosopher's Stone? Was
there a real Nicholas Flamel who created it? We begin

(02:05):
there now. Bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off
your lights, and come with me into the weird darkness.

(02:34):
Before we begin, I need to say that I am
a Muggle, so much so that I not only have
no magical abilities, but have only seen one of the
Harry Potter films and have read zero of the books.
So I may get some of the names wrong. If
I do, just chalk it up to my being an
ignorant Muggle. I don't mind. In Harry Potter and the

(02:58):
Philosopher's Stone, Nicholas Flamel is the only known maker of
the Philosopher's Stone, an object capable of turning metal into
gold and granting immortality with its elixir of life. At
six hundred sixty five years old, Nicholas and his six
hundred and fifty eight year old wife Paranel certainly make

(03:20):
use of the elixir, but having lived more than six
centuries in the Wizarding World, they favor a quiet life.
The real Nicholas Flamel, because he was a real person,
was probably born in thirteen thirty in Pantois, near Paris,
which would indeed make an around six hundred and sixty

(03:41):
five at the time of the writing of Philosopher's Stone
as well as the movie, if he had really had
access to the Elixir of life, and some people think
he might have. But how did a little known bookseller
from fourteenth century France become so synonymous with alchemy that
he fetched up in the Wizarding World. We're told that

(04:05):
the Flamel of the Wizarding World met his wife Paranel
at Boubitance, while we don't know where they met. The
real Flamel's wife was called Paranel. She'd been widowed twice
before and brought the fortune of her two previous husbands
to her marriage with Nicholas. After their marriage, Flamel continued

(04:26):
to work as a bookseller. The couple were relatively wealthy.
They owned several properties and donated money to the French
Catholic Church. Their wealth and philanthropy had become part of
the legend that surrounds Flamel's posthumous reputation as an alchemist.
Records show that Flamel died in fourteen eighteen. He was

(04:46):
buried in Paris beneath a tombstone he designed himself, and
his will, dated fourteen sixteen, apparently left the majority of
his library to a nephew, Perrier, of whom little else
is known. This is where the historical facts about Flamel
start to merge with the stories, because some people don't

(05:09):
believe he died at all. There are reports of Nicholas
and Parnel having faked their deaths and escaped to India,
and their immortality is all down to his supposed alchemical genius.
Flamel's interest in alchemy apparently began with a book. It

(05:29):
said that a stranger approached him one day with a
rare manuscript. Flamel recognized it because not long before he
had dreamed about an angel. The angel had appeared holding
a book, telling him, one day you will see in
it that which no other man will be able to see.
The book was written by a man called Abraham the Jew.

(05:53):
It was in Greek and other languages Flamel couldn't understand,
including Hebrew. It was also full of awe inspiring symbols,
which Flamel realized were instructions on alchemy. Flamel supposedly spent
twenty one years trying to decipher it all. When Paris
couldn't provide answers, he set off to Spain to find

(06:15):
a Jewish scholar and came across Maestro Conches, a learned
Jewish man living in Leon. Conchez recognized Abraham the Jew
as one of the earliest masters of the Jewish mystical
tradition of Kabbalah, and translated a few pages Flamel had
with him before agreeing to travel back to France and
translate the rest. Unfortunately, he fell ill on the journey

(06:38):
and died before they reached Paris. Luckily for Flamel, Canchez
had taught him enough over the next three years he
went on to translate the entire book Learning the Secrets
of Hermeticism, an esoteric tradition based on the divine writings
of Hermes Trisma Justus. Those who believe Flamel used the

(06:59):
Book of Abraham the Jew to create a philosopher's stone,
point to the fact that Flamel then became rich. Apparently,
his incredible wealth and generosity brought him to the attention
of Charles the sixth, who ordered an investigation into Flamel
but found nothing of interest. Others say there is no

(07:19):
indication that Flamel had any involvement in alchemy at all,
and the stories about the mysterious book are just that stories.
Some believe that the character of Flamel was invented by
seventeenth century publishers in a bid to sell lots of
supposedly ancient alchemical books. Flamel's reputation was fueled by a

(07:41):
number of books attributed to him long after his death.
One was The Book of Hieroglyphic Figures, which was published
in Paris in sixteen twelve. By the mid seventeenth century,
Flamel had become legendary, with reported sightings and well known
historical figures like Isaac Newton referring to his alchemical prowess.

(08:03):
Interest resurfaced in the nineteenth century. Flamel's mentioned in Victor
Hugoes The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the composer Eric Santi
was said to be fascinated by him, and the freemason
Albert Pike mentions him in his book Morals and Dogma,
a Philosophical Rationale of Freemasonry. Whether or not they believed
he was still alive is another thing, but these learned

(08:26):
figures all identified Flamel as an alchemist. More recently, as
well as Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone, Flamel has
been mentioned in fictional works, including Umberto Echoes, Fucolt's Pendulum
in nineteen eighty eight and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci
Code in two thousand and three. So while the real

(08:48):
Flamel may not have been a genuine alchemist even without
the elixir of life, his legendary reputation has certainly made
him immortal. A terrible sheep shifting horror, a ghost that

(09:28):
rattles the chains that drowned him, a spectral coach and horses,
a phantom donkey. Galdiston in Norfolk, England, boasts ghosts of
plenty in one of the most remote areas of the county,
in the midst of marshland, where waterways criss crossed the land.
The hateful Thing lurks in darkness. In the book bog

(09:53):
Detales of East Anglia, written by Margaret Helen James in
eighteen ninety one, a first cousin of horror writer M. R.
James and sister of Minnie James, the first female librarian
of a national library, we learn of the Hateful Thing.
I've linked to her book on Amazon. In the essential
weblinks section of the show notes, Margaret Helen James wrote,

(10:16):
there is an uncomfortable sort of ghostly terror in beast
form that haunts the villages on the borders of the
two counties, which is commonly called the Hateful Thing. I
allude to the churchyard or hell beast. This charming creature
generally takes the somewhat indefinite form of a swoundling i e.
A swooning shadow, whatever that might be. Whatever it is

(10:41):
met in any locality, it is a sign that some
great and unusually horrible wickedness is about to be committed
or has just taken place there. The writer, when crossing
a field at night, once came across a countryman who
had just seen his apparition, but a slight search for
the goblin was wholly unsuccessful. Margaret also tells the story

(11:03):
of a respectable old charwoman who went walking in Gillingham
and Galdiston with her daughter and the young man she
was courting one night between eight pm and nine pm
and Galdiston they saw something strange by the market path.
It was that time I saw the hateful thing. The
woman told her her daughter had alerted her to the

(11:26):
presence of a dog in front of them, which she said,
then grew before her very eyes into a creature as
big as a horse. Walking slowly and Mindful that her
daughter had been born under the chime hours so she
could see things, the woman looked for the creature but
could see nothing. She could, however, hear a thumping noise

(11:47):
when her daughter came to cling to her in abject fear.
Suddenly she was able to see the object of her terror.
The moment she touched me, I saw the hateful thing.
The beast was black and didn't keep the same size,
and it wasn't any regular shape. We walked slow, for
I was afraid of it getting behind us. The creature

(12:09):
kept ahead of the trio until it disappeared at Geldiston Churchyard,
itself a magnet for the strange. In another of Margaret's tales.
She talks of a path from the village which skirted
a pond which often flooded in bad weather, forcing walkers
to take a different route along Hodbin's path. In order

(12:31):
to put an end to the diversions, the decision was
taken to deepen the pond, and during the excavation it
said that a skeleton was found in the mud, a
millstone chained around its neck. The workmen began to recollect
old stories told to them by their grannies of a
wicked felon who, for his sins, was condemned to be

(12:52):
buried at the four Relite or four crossways, but from
respect to his family, was after all to posited in
the pond, where he had lain undisturbed ever since. The
rector of Galdiston agreed that the skeleton should be freed
from its millstone, a punishment mentioned in the New Testament,
and reburied close to the wall on the north side

(13:15):
of the churchyard, just across the field. It was, it
turned out, a rash decision. Margaret continues, This wicked felon,
relieved of his spiritual clog, rose at once from his
dry and uncomfortable churchyard quarters, and nightly with a horrid
clanking of ghostly chains rambles the unconsecrated space of Gleb

(13:37):
between the churchyard and Lover's Lane. It is said that
the ghost can be heard at night clanking the chains
it once wore. The website Hidden East Anglia, which can
be found at Hiddenea dot Com, believes the location of
the pond to have been just south of Norwick Road
and adds that Lover's Lane is now Snake's Lane and

(14:00):
runs southward from the church to meet with Sandy Lane,
the haunt of the hateful Thing. Additionally, it adds that
both of these lanes were once said to be haunted
by a coach and horses driven by a headless coachman
whose passengers were the restless souls of the infamous Bigot
family on their way to the stronghold at Bungay Castle.

(14:21):
And if you need more reason to take a supernatural
trip to the Norfolk Suffolk border in England, there's also
a ghostly donkey that rattles chains in the village on
dark knights an embarrassment of supernatural riches as it were

(14:44):
coming up. While not nearly as well known as its
larger Bermuden brother, The Bridgewater Triangle in southeastern Massachusetts in
the United States is home to strange tales itself with
the paranormal unexplained, and even home to its very own
cryptid That story is up next on Weird Darkness. We

(15:17):
all know someone who struggles with depression, whether we're aware
of it or not. It's something those who suffer tend
to deal with in silence, in the shadows. But the
organizations we are supporting with our annual Overcoming the Darkness
Fundraiser this month are working to make it easier for
those in the darkness to come into the light, to
find help, and to learn they're not alone, that there
are ways to overcome the darkness of depression and live

(15:40):
normal lives. I do this fundraiser only one month out
of the year, as October is the anniversary month for
Weird Darkness, we launched in October twenty fifteen. It's National
Depression Awareness Month, and this month is spooky and dark,
kind of like depression. If you'd like to make a
donation or learn more about the fundraiser, or find hope
for yourself or someone you know who struggles with depression,

(16:01):
visit Weirddarkness dot com. Slash hope. The fundraiser ends Halloween
night at midnight. Please give what you can Weird Darkness
dot com, slash hope. The ghost stories, personal accounts, and

(16:24):
folklore that make up the legend of the Bridgewater Triangle
are too vast to ever fit in a single book,
though many devoted investigators of the Triangle have tried meticulously
to record them. They encompass what can only be described
as a smorgasboard of the paranormal, cryptozoological, and just plain weird.

(16:48):
In fact, one of the most baffling parts of the
Triangle legends has to be the range of strange sightings
said to be part of this enigmatic approximately two hundred
square mile area of the Bay State. Anything that you
want to be in the Triangle is in the Triangle.
It's a Pandora's box, said folklorist and author of several

(17:10):
books on the Bridgewater Triangle, Chris Balzano. So you're into zombies,
there are stories about zombies. If you're into Bigfoot, he's there.
If you're into puck Wedgies, that's kind of puck Wedgie Central.
If you're into ghosts, you've got it. UFO's black Helicopter
it's there, and one need not believe in the supernatural

(17:31):
to enjoy the mystery and history of an all. Aaron Cadio,
co creator of a twenty thirteen documentary on the Bridgewater Triangle,
said that while he is a born skeptic, he loved
collecting creepy stories about the Triangle just because of the
fun of it. I walked into the project probably like
ninety nine percent skeptic, and walked out of the project

(17:53):
still like a ninety six he said. But there were
a few things in the film that even me, as
a skeptic, kind of had to take a step back
and scratch my head. The modern cultural origin of the
Bridgewater Triangle legend is widely thought to lie within cryptozoologist
Lauren Coleman's nineteen eighty three book Mysterious America, The Ultimate

(18:16):
Guide to the Nation's Weirdest Wonders, strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures,
which I have placed the Amazon link to in the
essential weblinks of the show notes. In it, he coined
the term Bridgewater Triangle, inspired of course, by the Bermuda Triangle,
established its rough boundaries, and identified some of the triangle's

(18:36):
most notable places and legends, calling it a window area
of unexplained currencies. Coleman establishes Rheabath in the southwest, Abington
and the north and Freetown in the southeast as the
three points of the triangle, meaning hundreds of thousands of
people in Tonton, Brockden, Raynham, Berkeley, Dighton, Easton, Norton, Mansfield

(19:03):
and the Bridgewaters live inside it, but modern investigators into
the triangle insists there is by no means a clear
boundary for the haunted and strange area, often pointing to
Fall River, parts of Rhode Island, nearby towns and even
Cape Cod as being under the triangle's unique influence. No

(19:25):
one ever said there's a line on the road, and
if you're on one side that you're fine and outside
the triangle, and on the other side you're in it,
said author and paranormal investigator Jeff Bellinger. It bleeds Out.
Colbyn wrote about the infamous Pockmuck Swamp, located between Easton
and West Bridgewater, as being known for its sightings of

(19:48):
spook lights, unexplainable balls of light floating around, as well
as large, hairy creatures often thought to be bigfoot himself.
He's also penned some of the most famous Bridgewater Triangle stories.
How to WHDH radio reporters from Boston saw a home
plate shaped UFO with red lights and a front headlight

(20:10):
in West Bridgewater in nineteen seventy nine. In how in
nineteen seventy one, Norton Police sergeant Thomas Downey spotted a
gigantic winged creature while driving home through Easton one night
and reported to Easton Police, much to his ridicule. But
the stories go far beyond what Coleman captured in his book.

(20:31):
The mysterious Diton Rock, with its strange writings is often
included Anawon Rock and Rheabuff Lake, Nippinnicket in Bridgewater, and
Profile Rock and Freetown are hotspots for sightings of phantom
campfires and ghosts of Native Americans. Also notable for paranormal
sightings are Solitude Stone, the Raynham Taunton Dog Track, several

(20:55):
cemeteries in Rheabuff, King Philip's Cave in Norton, and the
Hornbying School and chad Factory in Rhabath. What are the
eeries legends has to be the Red Headed Hitchhiker of
Route forty four. It's said that a man with a big,
ginger beard, a plaid flannel shirt and jeans is often

(21:15):
seen on the side of the road near the rheabot
Sekonk town line. He said to get into cars only
to disappear. And then there's the Freetown State Forests, which
has perhaps the darkest reputation of them all. There's assenet Ledge,
the site of many suicides and where people who have

(21:35):
never considered suicide are said to get the sudden urge
to jump, but much of this is apparently due to
its ties to horrifying true crime stories. Retired Freetown detective
Sergeant Allen Alves said he witnessed evidence of regular satanic
cult activity in the forest for fifteen to twenty years,

(21:58):
beginning in the late nineteen six seventies and continuing in
the early nineties. He said he and other officers would
regularly find animals that appeared to be sacrificed ritualistically, with
no blood in the animal but none on sn either.
They'd often find satanic graffiti of upside down crosses and pentagrams.

(22:19):
Alvas said police believed the infamous Fall River cult murderers
Carl Drew and Robin Murphy conducted rituals in the forest,
even having a hut in the middle. Alvas also said
police found an underground bunker with creepy dolls believed to
belong to a Satanic couple who were prosecuted for molesting
children they had adopted. Alvas was the first officer on

(22:43):
scene at the discovery a fifteen year old Mary lou
Aruda of Raynham's body after she was kidnapped in nineteen
seventy eight and found dead in the forest two months later,
tied to a tree. That stayed with me because at
the time my daughter was just a few years younger,
Alvas said, it really stood with me and it stays
with me today. Since Coleman's introduction of the Bridgewater Triangle

(23:07):
to the world, a select group of paranormal investigators and
enthusiasts have stepped up to record and investigate as many
strange occurrences as possible, and in doing so continue the
story of the triangle. Most have their own websites devoted
to their findings and the triangle, but none have any
definitive answers as to what's going on there. It's trying

(23:30):
to solve a mystery that doesn't want to be solved.
Balzano said, you're never going to find the answer, but
you're going to find a lot of clues. So what
is going on in the Bridgewater Triangle there is, of course,
what perhaps most skeptics believe. Is it because the region
has been defined as strange, that people are automatically attributing

(23:53):
things that could be easily explained as paranormal because there's
a heightened sense of awareness living here, Cadoux asked. In
other words, you hear something crashing in the woods, and
it could be a deer, but everyone's minds go to
Bigfoot because they're living in the Bridgewater Triangle. But others
who have dedicated their time to investigating the triangle are

(24:14):
convinced there's something more going on. Bellinger believes it goes
back to King Philip's War, a war between the English
settlers and the Native Americans in the mid sixteen seventies,
the bloodiest war per capita in US history. It took
place largely in the Bridgewater Triangle region and ended with
the Wampanog chief Meticom also known as King Philip, being hung, beheaded,

(24:41):
drawn and quartered, and his head displayed on a pike
for two hundred years at Plymouth Colony. You've probably heard
the trope of the unfinished business. The unfinished business really
has nothing to do with the dead. It has everything
to do with the living. Bellinger said, we don't like
people getting away with even if it happened a long

(25:01):
time ago. So there's this nagging feeling that happened in
this area. But many other Triangle investigators believe King Philip's
war is merely a symptom of the negative energy there
and that its mysteriousness is much older, having something to
do with the land and possibly even being conscious. There

(25:21):
are these areas all over the globe that are nicknamed
window areas, said Andrew Lake of Greenville Paranormal Research. These
are locations that seem to be like a tear in
the veil to other realities. It's a thing. It's not
a location. It's not a random place on a map.
Balzano said, It's a living, breathing thing that has a

(25:43):
hunger and has a dark side to it. But whatever
you believe, the Bridgewater Triangle is just to step out
the door for anyone living in southeastern Massachusetts, and when
you see something strange, you might just wonder if it
was something more than it seemed. These dedicated paranormal investigators, folklorists, writers,

(26:06):
and legend trippers have devoted their time as hobbyists to
recording and investigating reports of UFOs, bigfoot ghosts, and other
paranormal phenomenon in the area in an attempt to help
themselves and others understand these strange occurrences. Sometimes they will
go legend tripping, simply going out to places where hauntings

(26:29):
and sightings have been reported with little equipment, hoping to
see something, while other times they will conduct full blown
investigations using apps and equipment to try and pick up
signals from the unexplained. Many also record the experiences of others,
turning them into books, TV shows, or blog posts, and

(26:52):
some like Tim Wiseberg, digital managing editor of WBSM Radio
and host of Spooky South Coast, even do live investigations
on radio, devoting an entire episode of his show to
investigating the Bridgewater Triangle once a year. But despite what
you might assume about so called believers, the relationship with

(27:14):
the paranormal is complicated. Many of these investigator's interest in
the paranormal stems from their own unexplained experiences. Andrew Lake,
fifty six of Greenville Paranormal Research, said he was eleven
when he encountered a ghost at a family friend's old
house in Skituate one night while he was staying over.

(27:37):
He woke up in the middle of the night while
everyone else was asleep, to hear the sound of someone
in the kitchen directly below him, no lights on, but
going about moving chairs, opening cabinets, moving crockery and silverware,
he said, But yet there were no footsteps accompanying it.
And it happened two nights in a row and exactly

(27:57):
the same time two thirty five as with no lights
on and nobody coming back upstairs. Wiseberg always had an
interest in ghosts, but said he also experienced them himself.
He said often as a child he would see an
image of an old hag in the wall and would
often get the feeling there was some one else in

(28:19):
his room. He also believes his aunt and uncle's house
in Halifax was haunted, having heavy steel doors to the
basement swing open and closed on their own, and fawcetts
turned on and off with no one there. Pre Normal
investigator Kristin Evans fifty said that as an adult, she
moved into a haunted house in Hanson, where she would

(28:42):
hear people moving around when she was the only one home.
And folklorist Chris Balzano, who has written several books on
the Bridgewater Triangle, lived in the famous haunted Charles Gate
Hotel building in Back Bay while he attended Emerson College,
which owned the building at the time. He said his
particular experiences are some of the most quoted. How many

(29:05):
coincidences does it take before you go something unusual is
going on here, he said, But other investigators simply followed
an interest. Paranormal investigator Chris Pittman forty one, started investigating
UFOs and high school when he joined some UFO study groups,
which eventually led him to start investigating other types of

(29:27):
phenomena in the triangle, believing that they were connected. I
think there's a lot of hubris in the assumption that
we know everything about the world around us, especially when
people in every community are consistently reporting experiences that seem
to fall outside of our understanding, he said. There's something
compelling about claims of the paranormal, even if we don't

(29:48):
believe them. The fact that the witnesses insist their fantastic
sounding accounts to be factual. Is itself worthy of attention?
Jeff Bellinger forty six, writer, researcher for the Travel Channels,
Ghost Adventures, and co creator of PBS's New England Legends,
got into the paranormal as a newspaper reporter seeking out

(30:09):
future stories about hauntings. He said he was quickly hooked
and moved into working for TV, as well as writing
books and podcasting about his research. Investigating the paranormal means
asking the biggest questions humans have ever asked? What happens
after we die? Are we alone in the universe? Do

(30:30):
we know every creature who walks the earth with us?
He said. But no matter how they got into the paranormal,
all of these investigators ended up seeking out light minded people,
often finding one another's books and websites. Many of these
investigators have gone out to investigate the Bridgewater Triangle together
and have tag teamed following up on reports. It may

(30:54):
surprise you, but most of these investigators don't care whether
or not people believe in the Bridgewater trucks. They're more
interested in helping people understand their strange experiences and exploring
the unknown for themselves. If someone doesn't want to listen
to any account of paranormal phenomena that lacks ironclad proof,

(31:14):
I can't blame them for that, Pittman said. These mysteries
blur the line between reality imagination, and maybe more than that,
it takes time and effort to sort the fact from fiction.
Not everyone is going to be interested enough to try.
In fact, many say it takes a personal experience to
believe in the paranormal and the Bridgewater Triangle, an experience

(31:39):
like the one Bill Russo had approximately thirty years ago
to the day when he was walking his dog on
Cynthia Street in Raynam after working a midnight shift at
Rainum Iron Works, and he came across something strange. Samantha,
a German shepherd Ruttwiler mix, started shaking like a washing machine.

(32:01):
At first, Russo couldn't see or hear what was bothering her,
but then it reached his ear. Here here, yeah, wan't you,
that's what he said. It sounded like it was a
dark night, but that street lamp made a big circle
on the pavement, a circle of white light, and into
that circle came this creature. He said. Three feet tall,

(32:22):
maybe four feet tall, kind of like a stuffed animal.
Think Teddy Bear, one hundred pounds or so, with a
pot belly, eyes a little bit too big for his head.
I always say, think of a cat. And then was
motioning to me, beckoning me with its arm or paw
or whatever. At first, Russo said he thought it was

(32:44):
a kid in a Halloween costume. But he tried to
talk to it and it just kept repeating its nonsense words.
He said he wasn't scared, being so much larger than it,
but Samantha was, so he decided to leave and go home.
When he got back, he thought long and hard about
the incident and eventually came to the conclusion that the

(33:06):
creature was trying to speak to him in English. He
believes it was trying to say, come here, we want you.
I'm not a paranormal guy. I don't look up in
the sky, I don't watch UFO shows. I had no
connection to them, nor do I now to the paranormal.
He said. I was just the guy out walking with

(33:26):
my dog who saw something that stretches credibility. Russo said
he's still not sure what happened to him. By many
paranormal investigators believe Russo may have encountered a Puckwudgie, the
legendary creature said to lure humans into the woods to
their deaths. But many investigators are also not quick to
use labels using the idea of legendary creatures like Bigfoot

(33:50):
and thunderbirds as a reference point to talk about what
was experienced. When we talk about things like another dimension
or aliens, we're just kind of explaining a mystery with
another mystery, Pittman said. And so the reality is nobody
really knows, and I don't know if anybody ever will
really know. And most investigators say they do question their

(34:12):
belief in the paranormal. Bellinger and Lake said they question
it all the time. Pittman says he's not even sure
if the word paranormal is even appropriate for what he investigates.
But one thing they all agree on is that regardless
of what the Bridgewater Triangle is or how it got there,
there is something strange going on in and around it.

(34:35):
While some like Bellinger and Pittman have never experienced anything strange,
many others have. Wiseberg said he's been thrown against a
wall and down the stairs by spirits, multiple times in
the Lizzie Bordenhouse in Fall River after daring them to
do so. Lake said he has seen phantom fires at
Anawon ruck, as has Belzano, who has also experienced lots

(34:59):
of other strange happenings in the triangle, including losing two
hours of time for apparently no reason. And as long
as people keep experiencing strange phenomena in southeastern Massachusetts, these
people will be there to see if it's an everyday
occurrence or something that needs further investigation. Coming up on

(35:28):
Weird Darkness, imagine being told that starting next month, there
will no longer be any more weekends and that you
will be working every day of the week NonStop because
there is now only five days to a week. Ludicrous
Tell that to citizens of the Soviet Union in nineteen
twenty nine. That story is up next. Weird Darkness is

(36:03):
celebrating our birthday this month. We use this annual celebration
to help those who struggle with depression. Every October, we
raise money for organizations that help people overcome depression, anxiety,
and thoughts of suicide and self harm. It's called Overcoming
the Darkness, and you can make a donation right now
at Weirddarkness dot com slash hope. That's weird Darkness dot

(36:24):
com slash hope. A gift of any amount helps, with
every dollar bringing hope to someone affected by depression. To donate,
to get more information about overcoming the darkness, or to
find hope to battle back the darkness of depression in
yourself or someone you love, visit Weirddarkness dot com slash hope.
The fundraiser ends on Halloween night at midnight, so please

(36:45):
give right now while you're thinking about it. That's weird
Darkness dot com slash hope. On September twenty ninth, nineteen
twenty nine, the USSR had its last Sunday for eleven years.

(37:08):
In an effort to boost productivity and eliminate religion, Joseph
Stalin instituted a new Soviet calendar known as the Soviet
Eternal Calendar. Under the Soviet Union's Continuous Working Week calendar,
the USSR eliminated weekends. Instead, workers operated on a five

(37:28):
day week. Each day, eighty percent of the workforce showed
up to work, while twenty percent stay at home workers
received a color code corresponding to their day off. Husbands
and wives often worked opposite schedules, meaning families lost their
shared day of rest. The move was incredibly unpopular, with

(37:50):
one letter and Pravda complaining, what is there for us
to do at home? If our wives are in the factory,
our children at school, and nobody can visit us. The
five day week wasn't the first change to the Russian calendar,
but it had the greatest impact. The new Soviet Union
calendar tore families apart and wiped out religious communities. Yet

(38:12):
one group ignored Stalin and continued to follow a Soviet
Union calendar with weekends while still taking off the new
state sponsored revolutionary holidays. Maximizing productivity was a top agenda
item in the USSR. Into nineteen twenty nine, Yuri Leeren
came up with a revolutionary plan. Instead of closing the

(38:34):
factories on Sundays, why not switch to a continuous work
week with machines running every day. The Soviets could surely
meet the production goals of Stalin's five year plan. Joseph
Stalin loved the idea. By August of nineteen twenty nine,
the Council of People's Commissars ordered a five day work week,

(38:55):
completely eliminating Saturdays and Sundays. The new calendar went into
effect just weeks later. Known as the Neparivka or uninterrupted
work week, the new calendar changed life radically in the
Soviet Union. Under the new Soviet Eternal Calendar, the USSR
divided the year into five day weeks, with six weeks

(39:17):
in each month. The government added five holidays throughout the
year to equal the three hundred sixty five days. Every
Soviet worker clocked in for a four day shift each week,
with one rotating day off, but the plan never considered
how the staggered rest days would change life for Soviet workers.

(39:38):
To help workers adjust to the new system, the USSR
introduced a color coded system. Each day came with a
color yellow, peach, red, purple, or green. All the green
workers took that day off, while the red workers took
off red days. The Soviet Eternal Calendar also carried new
symbols four days of the week, since the Soviets no

(40:00):
longer recognized old names like Monday or Tuesday. Instead, a
red star and a military cap symbolized different days of
the week. When the Soviet Eternal Calendar went into effect,
husbands and wives were often given opposite schedules. While one
spouse might have the first day off, the other might
take the fifth day off. Under the system, spouses barely

(40:22):
shared any days off in a year. After several months
operating on the Soviet Eternal calendar, the government finally considered
granting simultaneous breaks for spouses. Families could petition the government
for the same day off, but there was no guarantee
of approval. Soviets complained about the five day calendar from

(40:44):
the beginning. Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party,
published a letter from an anonymous worker who criticized the system.
In the letter, the worker complained, what are we to
do at home? If the wife is in the factory,
the children in school and no one can come to
see us. What is left but to go to the
public tea room. What kind of life is that when

(41:06):
holidays come in shifts and not for all workers together.
That's no holiday If you have to celebrate by yourself
with husbands, wives and children on opposite schedules, Soviet families
were torn apart. One worker complained, how are we to
work now? If mother is free on one day, father
on another, brother on a third, and I myself on

(41:29):
a fourth, but some considered the cost to families a
benefit of the calendar. Just before the new calendar went
into effect, Ivan Ivanovitch Schitz wrote in his diary that
the continuous working week would make it impossible for people
to meet as a family or join religious or political groups.
He believed that eliminating these associations would bond people more

(41:52):
closely with the state. The USSR tried to give the
new calendar days revolutionary names. One would be called trade Union,
another was hammer, and a third day was named sickle.
They even considered names like Lenin and Soviet, but the
revolutionary names never caught on. Instead, Soviets simply began to

(42:17):
refer to the days by their number or color. The
colors associated with the five day calendar became shorthand for
the days of the week. Some even marked colors in
their address books as a shorthand code for which day
of the week a friend had off work. Not surprisingly,
Soviets soon socialized by color. A worker who only had

(42:39):
the green day off couldn't easily maintain a friendship with
someone who had the purple day off. In an entire year,
two workers on different schedules would only share five days
off in common. The five day week didn't last long
in the Soviet Union. After protests from workers, the government
finally decided to introduce yet another new calendar. The nineteen

(43:01):
thirty one calendar added back Saturdays, shifting to a six
day week. Under the new system, all workers took a
rest day together on Saturdays, which always fell on the sixth, twelfth, eighteenth,
twenty fourth, and thirtieth of the month. The six day
work week lasted for nearly another decade in the USSR.

(43:23):
Stalin believed the new five day calendar would boost productivity.
When considering the Soviet eternal calendar, the USSR mainly emphasized
factories that fell silent on the weekend. But one major
sector of the Soviet economy practically ignored the new calendars, farmers.
In rural areas, farmers already worked every day of the week.

(43:45):
There were no purple days off on farms, nor were
their staggered shifts. Historian Malta Rolf reports that in nineteen
thirty one, almost all officials were complaining about these still
existing ties of rural people to traditional habit. However, farmers
did adopt part of the Soviet eternal calendar. It took

(44:06):
off the new state holidays in addition to taking off
traditional religious holidays. The Soviet efforts to manipulate the calendar
and the working day didn't start inneteen twenty nine. In
it twenty eight, the USSR announced a reduction of the
working hours. Instead of an eight hour day, workers would
span just seven hours at work. The shorter working day

(44:28):
was part of Stalin's five year plan, and in nineteen
twenty nine the USSR announced that all industries must incorporate
shorter working hours and extra time off throughout the year.
In exchange, industries had to increase production by using a
three shift system, with factories running night and day. Production increased,

(44:49):
though at the cost of workers forced to take the
night shift. The continuous working week wasn't just about productivity,
it was also about breaking the religious associations to the calend.
Sociologist Evatar's a Revolval argues that the main purpose of
abolishing the seven day week in the Soviet Union was
to destroy religion. There without Saturday or Sunday, Jews and

(45:12):
Christians had to completely rearrange their worship times, and with
only twenty percent of the workforce off work on any
day of the week, it was difficult to maintain religious congregations.
Stalin's change to the Soviet calendar wasn't the first time
the USSR tinkered with calendars. Lenin also agreed to change
the Soviet calendar way back in nineteen seventeen. However, Lenin's

(45:37):
change brought the USSR in line with the rest of
the world. Prior to nineteen seventeen, Russia used the Julian calendar,
which was twelve days behind the more common Gregorian calendar
that we used today. Lenin ordered the Soviets to skip
twelve days in February nineteen eighteen and start the month
with February fourteenth to catch up with the Gregory calendar.

(46:01):
The shift, though less major than eliminating the weekends, did
alter history. Under the new calendar, the Soviet October Revolution
actually took place in November. Stalin finally admitted defeat in
nineteen forty. On June twenty sixth, nineteen forty, he reinstated
the seven day week. Sundays were once again holidays. However,

(46:25):
in order to meet its strict productivity goals, the USSR
passed harsh penalties for tarti or absent workers. Those who
missed one day of work or came to work more
than twenty minutes late were guilty of misconduct and faced
mandatory time in prison. The return of the weekends may
have come at too high a cost for some Soviet workers.

(47:09):
Thanks for listening, Share the podcast, Tell somebody about it,
somebody who loves paranormal stories, true crime, monsters, or mysteries
like you do. All stories in 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 Real Nicholas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone is from

(47:31):
Wizarding World. The Eerie Inhabitants of the Mysterious Bridgewater Triangle
was written by Susannah Sudborough for South Coast Today and
Wicked Local. The Hateful Thing of Gealdiston is from Stacia
Briggs and Steal for Connor for Eastern Daily Press. And
What is Life in a Five Day Week? Was written

(47:52):
by Genevieve Carlton for Weird History. And now that we're
coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a
little light Roverbs twenty verse three. It is to a
man's honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick
to quarrel. And a final thought, Faith is not the

(48:12):
belief that God will do what you want. It is
the belief that God will do what is right. Max Locato,
I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in the weird darkness.

(48:33):
And their immortality is all down to this supposed alchemy.
And their immortality is all down to his supposed alchemical chemical.
His legendary reputation has certainly made him immoral. Whatever it
is met in any locality, it is a sign that
some great an unusual It is a sign that some

(48:56):
great an unusually horrible wick. It is a sign as
some great and unusually horrible widow of the hair

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