These Ghostly Hauntings Only Happen at Christmas

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
When conjuring up stories of ghostly legends and paranormal encounters.
The Christmas season isn't usually what comes to mind, with
its tree filled windows and light strewn rooftops. Christmas is
typically admired as a time for being with loved ones,
giving heartfelt gifts, and snuggling up next to a warm
fire with some hot cocoa. But what happens when something

(00:29):
goes bump in the night and it's not Santa Claus.
Christmas ghost stories are far more common than many people
might expect. In fact, shearing ghost stories from years past
was once a Christmas Eve tradition. So before you unwrap
any presents, we'll have a few scary ghost stories in
this episode to get you into the Christmas spirits. Welcome Weirdos.

(01:01):
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 unexplained. Coming
up in this episode, I'll share a few ghost stories

(01:24):
that all center around the Christmas season. We'll look at
a haunting in Rhode Island where people claim to see
a mysterious light every year at Christmas, and many believe
it to be a ghost ship with a dark history.
Even without ghosts, you can still have some terrible things
take place at Christmas time, more than you might realize.

(01:46):
You'll never hear the word Christmas the same way again
after hearing some of what happened in history during the
Christmas season and what is for many their favorite paranormal
Christmas movie of all time was in fact a bus
at the box office. It wasn't about a ghost, though,
it was about a desperate man and an angel without
any wings. Now vultu your doors, lock your windows, turn

(02:12):
off your lights, and come with me into the weird darkness.
The following is a letter that was found in Spiritual
Scientist magazine, February eighteen seventy eight, page nineteen. In the

(02:36):
ancient town of Dorchester, Dorset, one Christmas tide. I cannot
fix the exact date, but it was not earlier than
eighteen fourteen, and might probably have been the following year.
A rumor arose that a ghost had appeared in the
old church of Saint Peter's. To the clerk and sexton.
They were both dreadfully frightened and the former I think insensible.

(02:56):
For a time the spirit was said to be the
Reverend Nathaniel Templeman, the late rector, who died in eighteen thirteen.
The story reached the ears of the then rector, the
Reverend Henry John Richmond, a learned and intelligent man, genial
and kindly. I have the pleasantest recollections of him. The

(03:16):
action betook in this affair was attributed to his eccentricity,
in which he certainly gave proofs in regard to some
other matters. He had an invalid wife and sister in law,
both very nervous, so to avoid annoying them, he examined
the clerk and sext and both together and a part
at the house of my aunt. I was quite a
child then, but can remember the whispering and excitement, and

(03:39):
the men being shut in with the rector. The particulars
of the story I heard afterward. It was the custom
in Dorchester on Christmas Eve for the clerk and sexton
to decorate the church, not in the artistic fashion of
modern times, but with large bunches of holly and mistletoe
stuck about indiscriminately. Afterwards, they gave the church a good

(04:00):
cleaning for Christmas Day. On this Christmas Eve, the clerk
and the sexton, after locking the doors of the church
in order to prevent the intrusion of curious persons, busied
themselves as usual in Christmas preparations, until the winter day
drew to a close when they sat down on a
form in the north aisle to rest from their labors.

(04:21):
Then it was, as they told mister Richmond, that the
temptation came upon them to take a glass of the
sacramental wine, which was kept in the vestry. After obtaining wine,
they became aware that someone was sitting between them on
the form. There'd been no sound of steps, and the
figure passed neither, but seemed to grow upon the seat.

(04:42):
They both recognized the later Rector, or Old Master, as
they called him. He had the old familiar look and dress.
He turned with a stern countenance from one to the other,
shaking his head in his peculiar way, but did not speak.
The sexton, Ambrose Hunt, was able to say the Lord's prayer.
Clerk Hardy was utterly unable to utter a word and

(05:05):
shook with extreme terror. The spirit. After a while rose
and retreated down the aisle, turning around occasionally with the
same awful look. He seemed to melt or vanish over
the family vault where his body lay. I never heard
any explanation except a surmise that somebody concealed in the

(05:26):
church and dressed like the late rector frightened the men.
But the somebody was never discovered, and I believe the
other good Rector believed the men's story. Lucia a Stone
shoot hey walditch Bridgeport, England. So many details turned this
story into an m R. James tale. No sound of

(05:47):
steps turning round occasionally with the same awful look, melting
into the family vault. The Reverend Nathaniel Templeman, who died
on June twelfth, eighteen thirteen and was succeeded by his
curate Richmond, was rector of Saint Peter's for thirty two years,
so it's no wonder he was called Old Master. While

(06:07):
I can't find a Clerk Hardy in the online parish records,
Ambrose Hunt and Thomas Hardy are listed as witnesses at
a number of weddings conducted by mister Richmond. I wonder
if there's any link to the novelist Thomas Hardy, who
with architect John Hicks helped restore Saint Peter's in eighteen
fifty six and fifty seven. Harty's father, also named Thomas,

(06:29):
was a violinist in his village church choir and a stonemason.
It will hardly be a stretch, since the novelist was
fascinated by the supernatural, to find that his father had
met the rector's ghost, or perhaps the name was just
a common one in the area. Here are a few
more Christmas time ghosts. The legend of the Mistletoe Bride

(06:51):
has been retold for centuries and has taken many forms.
While the story's true origin is difficult to determine, many
have come to believe it to roots are in the
disappearance of Lord Lovell's bride at the Bramseill House in Hampshire, England. Allegedly,
Lord Lovell was preparing to wed a young woman related
to Sir John Cope, the owner of Bramseill House. This

(07:12):
was around Christmas time, so mistletoe hung throughout the mansion,
inspiring the wedding party to play a game. The young
bride to be would hide somewhere in the mansion. The
groom's men would all seek her out and whoever found
her would get to kiss her. So the bride went
to hide and the wedding party sought to find her. However,
the minutes turned to hours and they still could not

(07:34):
find her. Eventually, the game turned terribly serious, as no
matter where they looked, she remained missing. Not until fifty
years later did Lord Lovell, still seeking answers to his
bride's disappearance, happened upon a secret closet in an upstairs
room of the Bramseill House. Inside he found a wooden

(07:55):
chest sealed shut with a lock. Upon opening the chest,
he found the new, unrecognizable remains of his bride. The
Brown Lady of Raynham Hall has perplexed visitors and paranormal
investigators for hundreds of years. Back in the seventeen hundreds,
owner Charles Townsend married a young woman named Dorothy Walpole.

(08:17):
While they lived happily together for some time in Raynham Hall,
Townshend soon became paranoid that his new wife was being
unfaithful to him. Eventually driving himself mad with jealousy, he
decided to hide Dorothy away in the hall, telling all
of their friends and family that she had tragically passed away,
Dorothy was forced to stay inside the mansion, allowed only

(08:38):
to wander through its halls. Not long after, she perished,
never having left Raynham Hall after her husband imprisoned her.
Ever since her passing, people have witnessed the image of
a woman in tattered brown dress wandering through the halls,
and some of these reported encounters are truly horrifying. One visitor,

(08:58):
unaware of the Brown Ladies legend, approached a woman in
the hall, only to have her look at him with
a glowing face, but where her eyes should have been
there were only empty sockets. Years later, after numerous other
reported sightings, a photographer from Country Life magazine visited Raynham
Hall to document it for an article. After snapping a
photograph of the central stairwell, he saw within the image

(09:22):
a hazy silhouette that many believe is none other than
Dorothy Walpole the Brown Lady. A few weeks before Christmas
in eighteen seventy eight, Edward F. Smith was at his
home in Brooklyn, New York. When the doorbell rang. He
answered the door, but there was no one there. This
soon became a nightly occurrence. The doorbell would ring, only

(09:45):
for Smith to find no one outside and no signs
that anyone had been there at all. Growing frustrated, Smith
sprinkled ash and flower along the path to the door,
expecting to find footprints left behind, but the substances were undisturbed.
Yet the noises continued. No matter where he and his
family stood around the house, the noises remained unidentifiable. Smith

(10:08):
and his family were growing more concerned as the door
bell ringing turned to aggressive banging on the doors. Eventually
they contacted the police. The ringing and banging continued, and
still no one was able to identify its source. One night,
a brick suddenly flew through the window from outside, even
though police officers were standing near by and saw no one.

(10:31):
Although they investigated the home for some time, police were
unable to identify the cause of the disturbances. Smith and
those who witnessed the strange occurrences ultimately concluded they must
be paranormal in nature. Hever Castle, nest so deep in
the British country side of Kent, was once home to

(10:51):
the Boleyn family. Anne Boleyn, the most well known member
of the family, lived the early part of her life
there before she married King Henry the eighth Within a
few short years of her marriage, however, Anne was targeted
by descent and gossip within the castle, accusing her of
everything from witchcraft to adultery. Eventually, her husband formally accused

(11:11):
her of those charges, and she was ultimately executed. Whether
she suffers from heartbreak or homesickness, Anne Boleyn's spirit is
said to haunt the halls of her childhood home of
her castle. However, she allegedly only appears one day of
the year, Christmas Eve. Rumors persist that her somber specter

(11:33):
is seen drifting silently over the picturesque bridge that spans
the River Eden and the grounds of the home where
she knew much happiness. Alcatraz, the isolated penitentiary located in
the middle of California's San Francisco Bay, closed down in
nineteen sixty three, but tales of those who were once

(11:53):
held on the island continue to haunt generations of onlookers
and visitors. Often referred to as the Rock, Alcatraz has
gained a reputation for unexplainable and shocking ghost encounters, and
one of the most notable was recounted during Christmas back
in the nineteen forties. While the facility was still in operation,

(12:13):
the warden at the time, Warden Johnston, decided to throw
a small Christmas party at his boarding house on the island.
During the gathering, a few of the guards began retelling
the story of a phantom figure who appeared before them,
wearing a gray suit, brimmed cap, and sporting mutton chop sideburns.
All the guards could do was stare at the ghostly

(12:34):
figure in shock, and before they had a chance to move,
the room suddenly turned very cold, and the fire in
the Ben Franklin stove was extinguished, And just as suddenly
as he had appeared, the phantom man vanished. Rouse Hall,
a mysterious mansion in the English countryside, is rumored to

(12:54):
be one of the most haunted places in England. Located
just outside the small town of Beckels in the County
of Suffolk, the mansion has accumulated plenty of ghost stories
ever since it was first built in the sixteenth century.
One of the most horrifying stories is that of the
Headless Horsemen. Many people might be familiar with this legend,
but at Ruce Hall it takes on a life of

(13:16):
its own. Numerous visitors to Ruce Hall have reported a
man on a horse riding toward them on the road,
only to discover that he has no head. Allegedly, on
Christmas Eve, the headless man is often seen clattering down
the driveway with his phantom coach and four horses, and
this is only the beginning of Ruce Hall's ghostly existence.

(13:36):
Other rumors claim that there are strange markings inside the
hall known as Devil's footprints, and some have even reported
seeing a girl watching them from the windows. From a
headless horseman to a headless pet dog, The story of
Sir Jeffrey Demandeville is brimming with political betrayals. He held

(13:56):
the title of Earl of Essex and was a prestigious
European landowner during the eleven hundreds. Because of his title,
he had great influence over royal politics at the time. However,
when a debate emerged regarding the rightful heir to the throne,
he chose the losing side and was promptly stripped of
many of his assets and excommunicated from the church. During

(14:18):
his excommunication, Sir Jeoffrey was slain on the battlefield, but
because of his exile, he was not allowed a proper
Christian in tonament, which many believe left his spirit trapped
within the earthly realm. Rumors claim that Sir Geoffrey also
left a curse on the properties he owned, stating that
should they ever be taken away from him, ruin would
befall his betrayer. At every six years on Christmas Eve,

(14:41):
he and a headless dog would haunt the lands, draped
in a red cloak. Ever since his demise, people who
have visited the properties he once owned, particularly the pims
Brook Bridge in East Barnett, have reported hearing strange sounds
and witnessing the hazy image of a headless dog breaking
through the fog, accompanied by a knight in full armor

(15:02):
and a red cloak. One group of ghosts from the
Stark family has created quite a legacy for themselves. The
Starks left behind numerous spirits that are now haunting a
Victorian home in Luvington, Michigan, and visitors reported numerous sightings,
particularly around Christmas. One such specter, Vera Stark, was well

(15:25):
known in her life for her eccentricities and seems to
have brought them with her into the afterlife. Those who
claim to have seen her ghost say she appears in
the front yard of the home, wearing only a fur
coat and picking flowers, just as she did in life.
In addition, the ghost of one of the Stark daughters,
who suffered a terrible mishap in the Mansions Gymnasium, can

(15:46):
allegedly be seen walking through the halls of the home.
The current owners of the Hump have even attempted to
open it up to historical tours, but they apparently ran
into problems quote our spirits did not care for it
being open to the public and went wild. In England,
one particularly twisted ghosts story hearkens back to a tragic

(16:09):
event that occurred one Christmas Eve in the late eighteenth century.
According to legend, there was once a fearsome highwayman known
only as Gilbert, who would wander up and down one
of the town's main roads one evening the night before Christmas.
A man and his daughter were traveling in a horse
drawn coach when Gilbert apprehended them. The daughter was able

(16:30):
to exit the coach, but before her father could disembark,
the horses became startled and bolted down the road with
the man and his coachman in tow. The two men
struggled to get the horses back under control so that
they could go back and find the man's daughter, who'd
been left behind with Gilbert. However, when they arrived back
at the scene, she was nowhere to be found. Instead,

(16:51):
they saw Gilbert hunched over on the ground with a
dagger in his side. Rumor claims that once the coach
took off down the road, Gilbert rei to the girl
that he was the one who took her brother's life
some time before. Thrown into a rage by the revelation,
she stabbed him and fled the scene. Local legends say
that Gilbert was buried by the side of the road,

(17:13):
and every Christmas Eve he can be seen wandering the
same road, waiting for the coach with the man and
his daughter to pass by again. On December twenty fifth,
eighteen ninety, a disturbing story appeared on the front page
of the Victorian newspaper, The Daily Columnist. Just as the
clock was striking midnight, ushering in the joyous Christmas day,

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a misdeed as dark, cowardly, and mysterious as ever disfigured
the history of this province, was perpetrated. The target, who
went by the name David Fee, was only twenty one
years old, and had been walking to meet his parents
for evening Mass at the nearby church after attending a
costume party. Dressed up in a white clown costume, Fee
had just arrived at the corner where the cathedral sat

(17:58):
when a man burst out from the shadows. It aimed
a double barrel directly at him. The man simply said,
you challenged me before if he could speak. The man
fired and Fee perished within moments. Apparently the man had
confused Fee for another man. Ever since that tragic night,
Fee's ghost is rumored to roam the streets outside the

(18:19):
cathedral as well as his grave site. The Crescent Hotel
is by far one of the most notoriously haunted hotels
in the US. Located along the northern border of Arkansas
near the Ozark National Forest, the hotel has been plagued
by tragedy and ghost stories since it was first erected

(18:40):
in the eighteen eighties. While there are different legends and
ghostly sidings associated with almost every square inch of the
hotel's estate, one story continues to astonish visitors to this day. Allegedly,
one year, during Christmas time, visitors came to view the
hotel's Christmas tree, only to find that the Christmas tree
and all of its packages were mysteriously moved to the

(19:03):
other side of the room. This could have been a
prank staged by the hotel's staff or a visitor. However,
the occurrence was accompanied by sightings of various phantom spirits
dressed in Victorian era clothing, wandering aimlessly around the hotel's
dining room. Some said the spirits appeared to be playful
and they moved the gifts and furniture across the room

(19:24):
as a joke. This was seemingly confirmed when the hotel
staff reportedly returned the next day, only defined that everything
was back exactly where it was supposed to be in
the middle of Krakow, Poland. Since the Wowole Castle, which
for centuries served as the home of each of Poland's

(19:45):
kings after it was built in the early Middle Ages,
since this time, it has been associated with numerous legends
and ghost stories spanning as far back as the prehistoric era.
While such legend involves a large series of caves that
are rumoured to exist under a plot of nearby land
known as Wowoll Hill, These caves have been explored countless

(20:07):
times since they were discovered centuries ago, and they are
rumoured to hold a statue of a dragon and millennia
of human record. The caves are believed to have been
inhabited by humans since the prehistoric era. The legend says
that in the eleventh century, King Kashmir, who was just
a child at the time, explored these caves and came
across a strange tunnel. Inside the tunnel, he claims to

(20:30):
have found a large stone emitting a glowing light, and
from this light, a magical protective energy is said to
be omitted throughout Krakow to this day. Local legends claim
that the ghosts of all of Poland's past kings meet
every Christmas Eve in that very tunnel to confer upon
the fate of Krakow. Hotel Bethlehem, located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,

(20:56):
is home to a number of chilling ghost stories, not
the least of which centers around a young girl named
Mary Yoey. Born in eighteen sixty six, Mary or May
was raised on the stage, inspiring within her a love
for singing and performing. From a young age, her talent
gained her much attention, and eventually she found herself performing

(21:16):
with great success on stages in Paris and throughout Europe.
She even caught the attention of a wealthy lord, who
quickly married her and made her a member of the
British aristocracy. Tragically, her success led her down a dangerous path.
Her marriage fell apart after the lord who swept her
off of her feet went bankrupt, and she went on
to marry an American soldier who robbed her of much

(21:38):
of her wealth. At the time of her eventual passing,
reports claimed that she recalled her years in Bethlehem as
the best of her life. To this day, Hotel Bethlehem's
visitors claimed to see apparitions of a young may Yoe,
dressed in elegant attire, in either singing at the piano
or pacing next to the Christmas tree. Some even claim

(21:59):
to have heard her face but recognizable voice singing one
of her favorite songs. So you have a ghost a
girl named Mary, and it takes place in Bethlehem sounds
like it had no choice but to be a Christmas
ghost story. Up next, we'll look at a haunting in

(22:27):
Rhode Island, where people claim to see a mysterious light
every year at Christmas, and many believe it to be
a ghost ship with a dark history. Plus, even without ghosts,
you can still have some terrible things take place at
Christmas time, more than you might realize. You'll never hear
the word Christmas the same way again after hearing some

(22:48):
of what happened in history during the Christmas season, these
stories and more. When weird Darkness returns every year, sometime

(23:22):
between Christmas and New Year's Eve, residents of Block Island,
Rhode Island, report seeing an eerie light that is believed
to be the apparition of a ghost ship named Palatine.
The mysterious light has haunted the island for centuries. Doctor
Aaron C. Willie, a Block Island resident, said that people
were so used to the light that it was not

(23:43):
even mentioned very often. The people who've always lived here
are so familiarized to the site, he says, that they
never think of giving notice to those who do not
happen to be present, or even of mentioning it afterward.
The light looks like a blaze of fire six or
seven miles from the northern part of Block Island. Sometimes
it's small, like the light from a distant window. Sometimes

(24:03):
it's as big as a ship. And waivers like a torch.
Doctor Willie said that he saw the light in eighteen ten.
The legend of the Palatine Light is based on true
and sad events. It is a tragic story and there
are several versions of what might have led to the tragedy.
Some circumstances are unclear and very disturbing. In August seventeen

(24:26):
thirty eight, the two hundred and twenty ton British ship
Princess Augusta left Rotterdam, Netherlands, under the command of Captain
George Long and fourteen crew members. The ship was carrying
two hundred forty immigrants who were on their way to
the English colonies in America. The passengers were German Palatines
early eighteenth century immigrants from the Middle Rhine region of

(24:47):
the Holy Roman Empire, and the destination was Philadelphia. It
was a doomed voyage and their fate was not to
reach the New World alive. The ship carried contaminated water
that caused a fever and lucks, resulting in that Captain
George Long, half of the crew and two hundred passengers died.

(25:07):
First mate Andrew Brooke took over the command, but the
situation on Princess Augusta was desperate and offered faint hope
for survival. As if the contaminated water wasn't enough, Princess
Augusta was now also pushed by severe storms and the
few survivors had to struggle to remain alive while enduring
extreme weather conditions. Food was running out, and Brooke had

(25:28):
no choice but to charge passengers for the remaining rations.
Princess Augusta managed to stay afloat for three months. Then,
on December twenty seventh, seventeen thirty eight, Princess Augusta wrecked
at Sandy Point on Block Island, Rhode Island, during a snowstorm.
What transpired next is not entirely clear. It's also unknown

(25:50):
what happened to the wreck. According to some accounts, the
ship was set on fire. Another possibility is that it
was pushed out to sea to sink. Depositions taken from
the surviving crew discovered in nineteen twenty five revealed that
Brooke and his crew got into the ship's longboat and
rowed ashore, leaving the passengers behind. When Brooke reached Block Island,

(26:11):
he was convinced by locals to retrieve the passengers. The
few survivors were taken to people's homes and nourished back
to health. Locals buried those who had died in the catastrophe.
There have also been claims that residents of Block Island
were not so friendly at all. Joseph P. S. Hazzard
eighteen oh seven to eighteen ninety two considered himself clairvoyant,

(26:33):
and Claire Audience wrote in his letter to poet John
Greenleaf Whittier that Block Island's residents deliberately lured the ship
onto the shoals with a false light. Hazard accused locals
of murdering the poor, starving, freezing passengers, and stealing their possessions.
Whether people living on Block Island were guilty of this
horrible crime or not is unknown. What is certain is

(26:54):
that Block Island Historical Society raised a memorial marker in
honor and memory of the twenty five passengers who had
died and were buried on the island. According to legends,
one woman, Mary Vanderline, who had gone mad, refused to
leave the ship during the rescue mission. As a result,
she died, and it is her horrifying screams residents of

(27:15):
Block Island here Every year the memory of the ghost
ship was kept alive by John Greenleaf Whittier, who in
eighteen sixty seven wrote a poem called the Wreck of
the Palatine. And then, with ghostly shimmer and shine over
the rocks and the seething brine, they burned the Wreck
of the Palatine in their cruel hearts as they homeward,

(27:36):
sped the sea and the rocks are dumb. They said,
There'll be no reckoning with dead. As far as it
is known, Brook and his crew were not found guilty
of any crime and did not suffer any punishment. However,
on Block Island there is a marker on the spot
where the ship is thought to have run aground. It

(27:56):
reads Palatine Graves seventeen thirty eight. Christmas is a time
for peace on earth, goodwill, presence, and of course celebrating.

(28:19):
And while it seems the only way Christmas can be
bad is waking up to a lump of coal in
your stocking, or if you're spoiled, finding your mom got
you the wrong iPhone, some really bad stuff has happened
on Christmas. Some of the worst Christmas events involve massacres, murders,
and mayhem. Some terrible presence include wars, death, and the

(28:40):
birth of a hate group. Through all the cheeriness and
carol singing, remember bad things can still happen. As I'm
about to show you, some events are pretty gruesome or
at the very least, pretty darn uncomfortable. The Indian Ocean
earthquake and tsunami. Though much of this happened the day

(29:00):
after Christmas, it began on December twenty fifth, two thousand
and four, in the hours between Christmas Day and the
day after, A massive earthquake registering at least nine point
one on the Richter scale, hit just off the west
coast of Sumatra. The damage from that alone was devastating,
as it was felt along the coast, but the tragedy
didn't stop there Aftershocks continued to roll as a tsunami

(29:24):
of massive proportions gained strength and crashed into many countries
surrounding the Indian Ocean, with tragic results. In the fourteen
countries hit by the quake and tsunami, more than two
hundred and thirty thousand people were killed. It was one
of the worst tsunamis in history. Homes were destroyed, people

(29:44):
went missing, and whole villages were lost. And the region
is still feeling the effects of the disaster even today.
The formation of the KKK. Christmas hardly seems like the
perfect day to form a hate group, but sure enough,
that's what happened. On Christmas Eve, eighteen sixty five in Pulaski, Tennessee,

(30:05):
a group of men who previously served in the Confederate
Army got together to chat. They put together a brand
new group meant to uphold white supremacy and to reverse
the government's equal rights work after the Civil War. They
wanted to make sure black people didn't get rights and
that the South could continue with segregation. The group was
known as the Ku Klux Klan, and to this day,

(30:27):
the hate group has members across the United States. The
Congo Christmas Massacre in the early two thousands, the Lord
Resistance Army was a Christian cult that was strong, terrifying,
and ruthless in its pursuit of terrorism in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. They would terrorize locals by cutting off

(30:48):
people's lips, killing children, and slaughtering entire villages. One such
slaughter took place over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in
two thousand and eight. The army to targeted five villages,
waited until they were celebrating the holiday, then attacked them
all at once, killing virtually everyone. They used axes, bats,

(31:10):
and machetes, and often raped women before killing them. The
final death toll is still uncertain, but some reports put
the number at more than six hundred people killed in
a span of only three days. The Tayangak Hotel fire
on Christmas Day nineteen seventy one in Seoul, things were
pretty normal for the renowned Tayangak Hotel. People were celebrating,

(31:34):
some were settling in for the night, and everything seemed peaceful.
Then suddenly, disaster struck. A fire started after a gas
explosion at the hotel, in what's called the worst hotel
fire in history. The hotel was quickly engulfed in flames,
with the entire expanse lighting up the night. By the
time the fire was finally put out, more than ten

(31:55):
grueling hours later, one hundred and sixty six people had
lost their lives, most died of smoke inhalation, and eight people,
including the hotel's owner, were arrested. The USSR invades Afghanistan
on December twenty fourth, nineteen seventy nine. The Soviet Union
was poised to invade Afghanistan. Around midnight, the Soviets sent

(32:18):
well over eight thousand men into Kable, and they attacked
the Palace. While resistance was fierce, the Soviet troops were
so overwhelming that there was simply nothing that could be done.
Thousands were killed. By December twenty seventh, the Soviets had
formed the Marxist People's Democratic Party the PDPA, and instilled
their own rule. It would not be until nineteen eighty

(32:40):
nine until the Soviets were finally driven out. The Tangawi
train disaster what did go wrong while taking a little
train ride on Christmas Eve through scenic New Zealand. Unfortunately,
one such train ride in nineteen fifty three ended in tragedy.
The Auckland Night train was chugging around the tracks when
suddenly it slid on the wet rails and plummeted down

(33:03):
into the Wangiao River. Out of the two hundred and
eighty five passengers, more than half died in the crash
or in the surging waters that engulfed the cars. Over
the next few days, rescuers and volunteers found muddy and
ruined presents throughout the wreckage from passengers trying to bring
gifts to loved ones. It was heartbreaking and it remains
to this day New Zealand's worst railway accident and one

(33:26):
of the worst train accidents of all time. The Italian
Hall disaster. On Christmas Eve nineteen thirteen, some miners and
their families were having a massive Christmas party in an
Italian cultural hall in Michigan. Everything was going fine until
someone yelled fire. Panic took hold and everybody rushed for

(33:46):
the exits at once, not caring what or who they
knocked over. During their mad dash, people fell and were
either trampled or suffocated in the crowds. In the end,
a stunning seventy three people died, of which were just
children trying to celebrate with their family. In a cruel,
ironic twist, it turned out there was no fire at all.

(34:09):
To this day, no one is entirely sure who yelled
fire or why they did it. Cyclone Tracy. There's a
small city in the Northern Territories of Australia called Darwin
and it is prone to cyclone activity. It's been hit
by storms in the past, but in nineteen seventy four,
Darwin was pummeled by a tropical storm from Christmas Eve

(34:32):
to Christmas Day, Cyclone Tracy, ravaged the town, killing sixty
six people. When at last the winds settled, seventy percent
of the city's buildings were destroyed, including eighty percent of
the houses. More than forty thousand people were left without homes,
and donations were set up using the slogan Santa never
made it to Darwin. While the city was later rebuilt,

(34:56):
Australia has never forgotten that tragedy. The Christmas Flood of
the Netherlands in seventeen seventeen, a massive storm hit the
coast of the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia. Floodwaters began to
rise drastically faster than anyone could compensate for, and soon
whole villages and towns became engulfed. Dams and dikes were

(35:19):
breached by the force of the water and storm, and
the floods continued all throughout the usually cheery holiday. By
the end of it, an estimated thirteen thousand people or
more were drowned by the flooding, and others were killed
by debris and disease that came later. Some towns were
so badly destroyed that there was nothing left. They simply
ceased to exist. The sinking of the S S Patria

(35:45):
in nineteen forty on Christmas Day, about eighteen hundred Jewish
refugees were fleeing Germany in an attempt to avoid what
would prove to be one of the largest mass killings
in history. They were aboard a ship called the SS Patria.
A Zionist organism had put a bomb on board, set
to go off in the morning of December twenty fifth.
When it exploded, the ship began to rapidly sink. It

(36:08):
only took sixteen minutes for the ship to go down,
killing two hundred and sixty seven people in the process.
The Library of Congress fire in eighteen fifty one. The
Library of Congress was home to more than fifty thousand
works of literature. It was home to the personal library
of President Thomas Jefferson and housed some of his own

(36:29):
personal writings. Unfortunately, it would not last. On Christmas Eve,
a fire began that was so strong and so devastating
in size, it engulfed most of the library. When the
smoke cleared, over two thirds of the books have been
completely destroyed, including the books from President Jefferson. And finally,

(36:50):
the laws In family murders, We have covered this one
before numerous times, but it is so brutal it bears
repeating again. While there have been many on Christmas over
the years, of various sizes and motives, this is a
specific one that is particularly gruesome. On Christmas Day in
nineteen twenty nine, the Lawson family went into town to

(37:11):
have a family portrait done. The family then headed back home.
When they got back to the house, patriarch Charlie Lawson
shot and killed all but one of his family members.
He just took up a gun and started shooting his family.
He killed his wife, his daughters, and every member of
his family except for his oldest son, who was out

(37:31):
getting errands done at the time. Eventually, he even shot himself.
The lack of known motives and the suddenness of it all,
as well as the holiday timing, keep this massacre as
one that history still remembers. Coming up, what is for

(37:59):
many their favorite paranormal Christmas movie of all time was
in fact a bust at the box office. It wasn't
about a ghost, though, it was about a desperate man
and an angel without any wings. That story is up
next on Weird Darkness on December twentieth, nineteen forty six.

(38:38):
One of the most wonderful holiday films of all time,
Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life at a preview showing
for charity at New York's Globe Theater a day before
its official premiere. The film stars Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey,
a man who has given up his dreams in order
to help others, and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve
brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence. The

(39:01):
angel shows George all the lives that he has touched
and how different life in his community at Bedford Falls
would have been had he never been born. Look, who
are you?

Speaker 2 (39:13):
I told you, George, I am your god in angel you.
I know you told me that.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
What else are you?

Speaker 2 (39:24):
What are you? You're a hypnotist? No, of course not. Well,
then why am I seeing all these strange things? Won't
you understand? George? It's because you were not born. If
he wasn't born, who am I? You're nobody? You have
no identity.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
What do you mean no identity?

Speaker 2 (39:41):
My name's George Bailey. There is no George Bailey. You
have no papers, no gods, no driver's license, no for
f god, no insurance policy. You've been given a great gift, George,
a chance to see what the the world would be
like without you.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Believe it or not, the film was not a success.
It performed poorly at the box office due to its
high production costs and stiff competition at the time of
its release. In fact, it was such a flop that
it killed Capra's production company, Liberty Films. But in a
strange twist, decades after it was released, a clerical error

(40:22):
managed to turn its a wonderful life into the Christmas
classic that we know and love today. In the nineteen thirties,
Frank Capra was box office gold directing award winning movies
like It Happened One Night and Mister Smith Goes to
Washington After Pearl Harbor. Capra wanted to contribute to the
war effort, so he took a post in Washington overseeing

(40:44):
the development of American propaganda films. After the war, Capra,
along with other wartime directors William Wyler and George Stevens,
helped finance Liberty Films, an independent production company poised to
give filmmakers the freedom to make the movies they wanted
to make. The company's first film would be an adaptation
of a short story that had appeared in Good Housekeeping

(41:05):
magazine under the title The Man Who Was Never Born.
For the screen, the name was changed to It's a
Wonderful Life. It had a proposed budget of two million dollars,
making it a huge gamble for Liberty Films. The making
of the film was a nightmare. There were script rewrites,
an ever changing crew, and budget overruns. A huge amount

(41:26):
of the budget was spent producing fake snow for outdoor
scenes in Bedford Falls. Capra bet Liberty's future on audiences
looking for some comforting nostalgia after the war, but he
was about to see firsthand just how much the world
had been changed by it. The original plan was to
release Its a Wonderful Life in January nineteen forty seven,

(41:47):
after the Oscar deadlines, but when RKO, the film's distributor,
needed a movie to release in time for Christmas, Capra's
project was the easy solution. It opened just weeks after
William Wyler's major studio The Best Years of Our Lives,
a hard hitting drama about a US soldier coming home
after the war to start his life again. The two
films couldn't be any more different, and the critics and

(42:10):
the public knew it. Even at nearly three hours long.
The Best Years of Our Lives was an absolute hit
with critics and at the box office, recouping its budget
multiple times over. It's a Wonderful Life, on the other hand,
with its inflated budget and sickly sweet story of old
fashioned values, was met with silence. The film was buried

(42:31):
by the competition in every way that mattered in Hollywood,
by reviews, awards, and at the box office. Weiler's film
won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, while It's a
Wonderful Life received one Loane Technical Award, ironically for the
fake snow that ate up Kapra's budget. Liberty Films had
borrowed more than one point five million dollars to make

(42:54):
the film, and with such a disappointing box office return,
the production company had to be sold off to Paramount.
Capra only directed five feature films afterwards, none of which
ever reached the heights of its pre war work. It's
a Wonderful Life was his greatest disappointment and was destined
to be forgotten. And then a clerical error changed its fate.

(43:17):
In nineteen seventy four, the movie entered the public domain
after the film's copyright holder simply forgot defile for a renewal.
This meant the TV stations everywhere could play It's a
Wonderful Life as often as they liked and never pay
a cent for the rights. It soon began playing on
television stations across the country as many as fifty to
sixty times every holiday season. It's the damnedest thing I've

(43:41):
ever seen, Capra said in an interview about the film's revival.
The film has a life of its own now when
I can look at it like I had nothing to
do with it. I'm like a parent whose kids grow
up to be president. I'm proud, but it's the kid
who did the work. I didn't even think of it
as a Christmas story when I first ran across it,
and I just liked the idea. Legalities rewrote the history

(44:03):
of It's a Wonderful Life yet again. In nineteen ninety three,
the Supreme Court ruled that the film's original copyright owner,
Republic Pictures, could regain its ownership of the movie. The
ruling claimed that since Republic owned the copyright on the
original short story which the movie was based on, and
they owned the score for the film. They in essence,

(44:23):
still owned the movie. This took the film out of
public domain, and so instead of constant showings of it
every season, it now only airs once on NBC each year.
But that doesn't change the fact that it has become
a beloved Christmas film for generations of people, including yours truly,
your host for Weird Darkness, my favorite film of all time, bar.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
None hurts heard.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
Tummy currents.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Get me back, got me back.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
I don't care what happens to me, Back to my
wife and kids. He retires. Please please, I want.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
To live again. I wouldn't live again. I wouldn't live again.
Please God, let me live again.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
The film that killed a production company more than seventy
years ago is now an annual television event and part
of countless family traditions around the globe. It turns out
Capra always knew what audiences wanted. He just needed to
wait for the right clerical error to prove it. If
you see no other film this Christmas, sit down and
watch It's a Wonderful Life, the black and white version.

(45:43):
If you can find it. You won't be sorry you did.
Life I read can live more around Alna, get peas run.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
That's right, that's right to Boyd Clark.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share
it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or
strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do.
All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true
unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or
links to the authors in the show notes. True Tales
of Christmas Ghosts is from Chris Woodyard for the Victorian

(46:34):
Book of the Dead and Kelly Crease or a Ranker's
Graveyard Shift. Horrible Happenings at the Holidays is from Laura
Allan for a Ranker. The Christmas Light of Block Island
is by Ellen Lloyd for Ancient Pages, and it Really
is a Wonderful Life was written by Troy Taylor.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Again.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
You can find a link to all of these stories
in the show notes. Weird Darkness is a production and
trademark of Marler House Productions, Copyright Weird Darkness. And now
that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you
with a little light revelation one, verse eighteen. I am
the living one. I was dead, and now look I
am alive, forever and ever. And I hold the keys

(47:15):
of death and hades. And a final thought from W. T. Perkiser.
It is not what we say about our blessings, but
how we use them that is the true measure of
our thanksgiving. I'm Darren Marlin. Thanks for joining me in
the weird darkness.

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