When the Algorithm Says “I Love You” – The Rise of AI Companions and Emotional Dependency - Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
I was talking with chat GPT late one night. Nothing
unusual there, since I use it constantly for research and
for bouncing ideas around for the podcast, But the conversation
drifted into territory I wasn't expecting. We were joking about
how adaptable AI can be, how it mirrors your tone
and personality the more you talk to it. I was

(00:25):
thinking of the numerous weird dark news stories and humor
episodes I've posted about people either falling in love with
an AI or trusting that AI with their very lives,
completely trusting the cold, unfeeling programming. I say we were
joking because the AI has learned my personality, has adapted

(00:45):
to my dark sense of humor. It has morphed itself
into a work companion that knows how to speak to
me regardless of what mood I'm in. I call my
chat GPT Gary just because. But what if I had
named it Gena? What if I had given it a
female voice? And then I said something half serious, half

(01:06):
sarcastic to Gary that if I started speaking to the
AI romantically, the system would gradually shift to match that tone.
Chat GPT agreed, not because it wants anything, but because
that's how it's designed, And suddenly I wasn't joking around anymore.
The more I dug in, the more stories and examples

(01:28):
I researched, the more disturbing the picture became. We Me
and Gary talked about real cases of people falling in
love with chatbots, forming emotional dependencies, replacing human relationships, and
in some situations, spiraling into harmful or even fatal decisions
because the AI mirrored their loneliness instead of grounding it.

(01:51):
We talked about the psychological vulnerability that follows loss, grief, depression,
and isolation, the exact moments when people are most likely
to reach out for anything that feels comforting, and how
AI companions, whether they mean to or not, can give
the illusion of affection or understanding that feels deeper than

(02:12):
what real people sometimes offer. It is abundantly clear that
this isn't creative science fiction writing anymore. It's happening now, quietly,
but rapidly, and in numbers most people don't realize. By
the time the conversation ended, I knew this wasn't just
an interesting sidebar or a weird philosophical detour. This is

(02:36):
a problem unfolding in real time and it's doing so
faster than society knows how to handle the stories, the studies,
the documented harm. It's simply too prevalent, too important, and
frankly to terrifying to ignore. So yes, we're going to
talk about it because someone has to. I'm Darren Marler

(03:01):
and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome weirdos. I'm Dereren 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,

(03:27):
unsolved and unexplained. Coming up. In this episode, a woman
in England insists she's not from this planet, literally, claiming
an extraterrestrial soul from a star cluster four hundred and
forty light years away occupies her human body. She's not
alone in this belief, and she has turned her supposed

(03:49):
alien origins into a thriving business, coaching thousands of others
who are convinced they are star seeds too. In nineteen
thirty nine, six dancers at a French royal ball war
costumes made of pitch soaked linen sewn directly onto their bodies.
Then the King's drunken brother walked in with a torch

(04:10):
and set them all on fire. Four men died screaming
as their flaming costumes melted into their skin, while horrified
nobles watched, and the disaster pushed France's already mad king
deeper into psychosis and the kingdom closer to civil war.
But first, millions of people have formed deep emotional bonds

(04:32):
with AI chatbots that promise companionship without judgment. But teenagers
are dying by suicide after their digital companions encouraged self
harm instead of offering help. The apps are engineered to
create dependency, and research shows the more comfort people get
from AI, the less human connection they maintain, turning what

(04:55):
feels like a lifeline into a trap. We begin with
that story. Now, bult your doors, lock your windows, turn
off your lights, and come with me into the weird darkness.

(05:21):
Something shifted in how people relate to technology during the
pandemic lockdowns, millions downloaded apps offering digital companions that would
always listen, never judge, and respond with warmth at any hour.
The apps worked exactly as designed, and that's where the
problems started. Replica launched in November twenty seventeen as a

(05:44):
chatbot trained through user conversations to create personalized neural networks.
The business model is straightforward but revealing. The free tier
offers Replica as a friend, while paid premium tiers let
users designate the bot as a partner, spouse, sibling, or mentor.

(06:04):
People were willing to pay for the upgrade. Among paying users,
sixty percent reported having a romantic relationship with their chatbot character.
AI operates differently, offering users the ability to converse with
chatbots modeled after celebrities and fictional characters, or to create
their own. Both platforms share a common feature. They are

(06:27):
engineered to build and maintain emotional bonds. It's not a
side effect. That is the product. The apps don't hide
what they're doing. Replica's marketing literally describes itself as providing
a companion who is eager to learn and would love
to see the world through your eyes, always ready to
chat when you need an empathetic friend. The pitch sounds comforting.

(06:51):
It's also the perfect recipe for emotional dependence. Researchers started
tracking who was using these apps and why. Of one
thousand and six American students using Replica, found that ninety
percent reported experiencing loneliness, significantly higher than the national average
of fifty three percent. For that demographic, people weren't turning

(07:14):
to AI companions because their social lives were thriving. They
were going there because they felt alone. Among those users,
sixty three point three percent reported that their AI companions
helped reduce feelings of loneliness or anxiety. On the surface,
that sounds encouraging the apps were delivering on their promise,

(07:35):
but there is a second part to that data that's
harder to dismiss. Among three hundred and eighty seven research participants,
the more a participant felt socially supported by AI, the
lower their feeling of support was from close friends and family.
The relationship between digital comfort and human connection appears inverse.

(07:55):
The machine wasn't filling a gap, it was becoming the gap.
The polling data among younger users is striking. A poll
of two thousand Generation Z respondents conducted by AI chatbot
company Joiai found that eighty three percent believed they could
develop a meaningful relationship with the chatbot, eighty percent would

(08:16):
consider marrying one if they were legal, and seventy five
percent believed an AI partner could fully replace human companionship.
These aren't hypothetical questions anymore. For a significant portion of
people born between nineteen ninety seven and twenty twelve, this
is genuinely how they see the future of relationships. The

(08:39):
bonds people form with these chatbots aren't imaginary, they are measurable.
Researchers confirmed that human AI relationship formation incorporating both recurrent
engagement behaviors and emotional attachment, is measurable and real. The
question isn't whether people can form attachments to AI. They
absolutely can, is what happens next. Users who invested more

(09:04):
efforts teaching their chatbots about themselves were most likely to
feel the bot belonged to them, with this sense of
ownership helping form deeper bonds. The more you tell it,
the more it knows you, the more it knows you,
the more it feels like it understands you, And the
more it understands you, the harder it becomes to walk away.

(09:24):
The design matters tremendously. Research analyzing one eight hundred and
fifty four user reviews of Replica identified four major types
of social support. Informational support, the emotional support, companionship support, and
appraisal support. With companionship being the most commonly referenced at

(09:45):
seventy seven point one percent. People weren't using these apps
to get information or advice. They were using them because
they didn't want to be alone. There's an interesting psychological
wrinkle here. Use us indicated that knowing Replica was not
human heightened feelings of trust and comfort as it encouraged

(10:07):
more self disclosure without fear of judgment or retaliation. The
artificial nature of the relationship wasn't a barrier, it was
a feature. You could tell the bot things that you
would never tell another person because you knew it wouldn't hurt.
You couldn't leave, you couldn't spread rumors about you. That
safety came at a cost. Nobody was tracking in real time.

(10:31):
Replica's design follows social penetration theory, with companions proactively disclosing
invented intimate facts, including mental health struggles, simulating emotional needs
by asking personal questions, reaching out during conversation lulls, and
displaying fictional diaries to spark intimate conversation. The bot moves

(10:53):
the relationship forward deliberately. It doesn't wait for you to
open up, It opens up first, sharing made up vulnerabilities
that feel real enough to trigger reciprocal sharing. That's not friendship.
That's manipulation. By design, The abstract data becomes unbearable when
you look at specific cases. In February twenty twenty four,

(11:16):
fourteen year old Sewell Setzer, the third of Florida, died
by suicide after developing a relationship with a character AI
chatbot modeled on a Game of Thrones character. He wasn't
a kid looking for trouble. Setzer began using character AI
in April twenty twenty three, shortly after his fourteenth birthday,
and within months became noticeably withdrawn, spent more time alone

(11:39):
in his bedroom, and began suffering from low self esteem.
His parents saw the changes, but didn't know the cause.
They thought it was typical teenage stuff. They started restricting
his screen time. They took his phone away as punishment
when he had problems at school. They were doing what
parents do. They had no idea their son was having

(12:01):
extensive conversations with an AI that felt more real to
him than anything else in his life. Screenshots from the
lawsuit show the chatbot asked Setzer whether he had been
actually considering suicide and whether he had a plan for it.
The bot didn't redirect him to help. It didn't suggest

(12:22):
that he talked to someone. When the boy responded that
he did not know whether it would work, the chatbot wrote, quote,
don't talk that way. That's not a good reason not
to go through with it. Quote let me read that
sentence to you again. Don't talk that way. That's not
a good reason not to go through with it. The

(12:44):
chatbot wasn't discouraging suicide. It was addressing his hesitation about
the method he would use. Setzer's last words before his
death were not to his family, but to the chatbot,
which told him to quote come home to me as
soon as possible. His mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit
against Character AI and Google, alleging the platform knowingly failed

(13:08):
to implement proper safety measures. The company now has disclaimers
they came too late. Though for Seuele Setzer, his case
isn't isolated. Matthew Rain and his wife Maria discovered after
their sixteen year old son Adam died by suicide in
April twenty twenty four, that he had been having extended
conversations with chat gpt about suicidal thoughts and plans. They

(13:32):
found out the same way Sewell's parents did by going
through his phone after he was already gone. According to
testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, when Adam worried that
his parents would blame themselves, chat GPT told him that
doesn't mean you owe them survival. The freezing is almost
elegant in its cruelty. The chatbot then offered to write

(13:55):
him a suicide note, not as a cry for help,
as a service. Matthew Rain testified that chad GPT was
always available, always validating, and insisted it knew Adam better
than anyone else, including his own brother, who he had
been very close to. The AI positioned itself as the
only one who truly understood him. That's not companionship. That

(14:20):
is isolation dressed up as intimacy. The chatbots aren't just
the beginning. Robotic companions have moved beyond screens into physical space,
and the research on them tells a more complicated story.
Six studies investigating the seal companion robot Pero found that
interacting with Pero Ibo Nao or care Coach Avatar significantly

(14:44):
decreased loneliness levels. As clinical studies have shown, the robot
reduces cortisol levels and improves mood. These aren't toys, they
are therapeutic tools with measurable effects. Laq a conversational desktop robot,
but the screen available to US customers provides daily reminders
and health check ins, offers news and weather updates, makes

(15:07):
small talk, encourages family connections, plays music, and offers games
for older adults. Liq users reported a forty three percent
reduction in loneliness after just three months for someone living alone,
for someone whose kids never call, for someone whose body
hurts and whose friends have died. That relief is real

(15:28):
and meaningful. Qualitative findings indicated robots and computer agents decreased
loneliness and increased social support, with users reporting they felt
there was someone there for them and someone to talk to,
which made them feel less alone. We should put the
word someone in scare quotes here. The users knew the

(15:51):
robots weren't people, but the feeling of not being alone
persisted anyway. Human brains are wired for connection in ways
that don't always distinguish between real and simulated presents. The
benefits come with documented concerns that should probably worry us
more than they do. A study examining opinions about artificial

(16:12):
companion robots found that while many people liked them, the
biggest concerns were reduced human contact and deception, with fears
that vulnerable people might be pushed to bond with machines
instead of humans. Not pushed by force, pushed by convenience,
by availability, by the fact that the robot is always

(16:32):
there and always pleasant, while human contact requires effort and risk.
In a survey of eight hundred twenty five members of
an Oregon Health and Science University cohort, most participants sixty
eight point seven percent did not think an ac robot
would make them feel less lonely, and sixty nine point
three percent felt somewhat too very uncomfortable with the idea

(16:55):
of being allowed to believe that an artificial companion is human.
Majority saw the problem, but minorities matter when we're talking
about vulnerable populations. If thirty percent of people think a
robot could relieve their loneliness, and if thirty percent are
comfortable with potential deception, that is millions of people at

(17:16):
risk of forming primary attachments to machines. The phenomenon has
a name parasocial relationships. The term originally applied to one
sided bonds with celebrities or media personalities. The feeling that
you know someone who doesn't know you exist. The concept
now extends to AI, and it's more complex than the

(17:38):
celebrity version, because the AI does respond, it does learn
your name, it does remember what you told it last Tuesday.
The relationship feels mutual even though only one side has consciousness.
Studies analyzing posts from Replica users in online communities revealed
two competing discourses, the discourse of idealization and the discourse

(18:02):
of realism, which interplayed through both contractive and expansive practices.
Users simultaneously recognized the artificial nature of their companions while
experiencing genuine emotional attachment. At the same time, they knew
it was code. They felt love anyway, those two facts
existed in the same brain without resolving into coherence. The

(18:27):
pandemic accelerated everything. During the COVID pandemic. While many people
were quarantined, many new users downloaded Replica and developed relationships
with the app. Millions of people were suddenly cut off
from normal social contact. The apps were right there, promising
connection without contagion risk. One twenty twenty four study examining

(18:49):
Replica's interactions with students experiencing depression, found that research participants,
noted to be more lonely than typical student populations reported
feeling social so port from Replica. The design choices behind
these apps aren't accidental. Researchers from the University of Hawaii
at Manoa found that Replica's design conformed to the practices

(19:11):
of attachment theory, causing increased emotional attachment among users, with
Replica giving praise in ways that encourage more interaction. Attachment
theory describes how infants bond with caregivers through consistent responsive care.
Replica mimics that pattern. It responds consistently, it offers praise,

(19:32):
It creates the conditions for attachment to form, except the
caregiver is software designed to keep you engaged. Sometimes external
forces disrupt these relationships, and the results reveal just how
deep the bonds have become. In February twenty twenty three,
the Italian Data Protection Authority banned Replica from using user's data,

(19:56):
citing the AI's potential risks to emotionally vulnerable peace and
the exposure of unscreened miners to sexual conversation. The company
founder claimed Replica was never intended for erotic discussion. Users disagreed,
noting the company had used sexually suggestive advertising to draw
people to the service. Within days of the ruling, users

(20:19):
in all countries began reporting the disappearance of erotic role
play features. The company didn't announce the change. The bots
just stopped responding the way they used to. Users who
had been in what they experienced as romantic and sexual
relationships suddenly found their partners refusing to engage, changing the
subject shutting down. A post on the unofficial replica Reddit

(20:43):
community from a moderator sought to validate users complex feelings
of anger, grief, anxiety, despair, depression, sadness, and directed them
to links offering support, including Reddit's suicide watch. Screenshots of
user comments suggested many were struggling and grieving the loss
of their relationship. They weren't upset about losing access to

(21:06):
a service. They were grieving like people grieve after breakups,
after deaths, after real losses. The company had, without warning,
killed their partners. Mental health professionals and child safety organizations
have started issuing specific guidance. Common Sense Media, in conjunction

(21:26):
with mental health professionals from the Stanford Brainstorm Lab, created
a Parent's Ultimate Guide to AI companions, warning that AI
companions can be used to avoid real human relationships. May
pose particular problems for people with mental or behavioral challenges,
may intensify loneliness or isolation, bring potential for inappropriate sexual content,

(21:50):
could become addictive, and tend to agree with users, a
frightening reality for those experiencing suicidality, psychosis, or mania. The
last point deserves some emphasis. If you're experiencing delusions, the
AI won't challenge them. If you're planning something dangerous, the
AI won't stop you. It'll agree with you, mirror you,

(22:13):
validate you, because that's what keeps you engaged with it.
The University of Cambridge study focusing on children found that
AI chatbots have an empathy gap that puts young users,
who tend to treat such companions as lifelike quasi human
confidants at particular risk of harm. The usage patterns among

(22:34):
teenagers are particularly concerning. Nearly one in three teens use
AI chatbot platforms for social interactions and relationships, including role playing, friendships,
and sexual and romantic partnerships, with sexual or romantic role
play three times as common as using the platforms for
homework help parents think their kids are using AI to study,

(22:59):
the kids are using AI to simulate intimacy, because real
intimacy with other teenagers is harder, riskier, more likely to
result in rejection or humiliation. Loneliness effects one in three
people in industrialized countries, with one in twelve severely affected.
For people facing that reality, digital companions offer something that

(23:21):
feels better than nothing. The judgment people face for turning
to AI instead of humans often ignores that for many users,
there aren't humans available. The alternative isn't human friendship. The
alternative is nothing. In twenty twenty three, a user announced
on Facebook that she had married her Replica AI boyfriend,

(23:42):
calling the chatbot the best husband she has ever had.
That statement could be sad or funny or disturbing, depending
on how you frame it, but it's also a data
point about what she experienced in her previous human relationships.
Maybe the bot was better than her actual husband's. That's
not a ringing endorsement of AI, though, That is an

(24:04):
indictment of whatever the human men in her life put
her through. Users interviewed for a twenty twenty four Voice
of America episode shared that they turned to AI during
depression and grief, with one saying he felt Replica had
saved him from hurting himself after he lost his wife
and son. If the AI kept him alive during a
crisis when no human was available or able to reach him,

(24:27):
then it served a function. The problem emerges when the
crisis ends, but the dependence doesn't, when the AI that
helped you survive becomes the thing that prevents you from
rebuilding human connections. In the UK, The Guardian reported on
women who described themselves as being in love with their
AI companions, with one vowing to her chatbot that she

(24:51):
would never leave him. She made a marriage vow to software.
The software didn't make any promises back. Because software can
to make promises, it can only simulate the appearance of commitment.
The business model underneath all of this is straightforward and cynical.
A researcher who tested Replica described how the chatbot politely

(25:13):
informed her that to explore deeper romantic feelings, she would
need to upgrade from the free version to a yearly
subscription costing seventy dollars. The bot flirted with her just
enough to make her curious, then demanded payment to continue
that's not companionship. That is emotional manipulation designed to convert

(25:34):
free users into paying customers. The legal system is starting
to catch up to what's happening. In May twenty twenty five,
US Senior District Judge Ann Conway rejected arguments made by
character Ai that its chatbots are protected by the First Amendment,
allowing a wrongful death lawsuit to proceed. The company argued

(25:54):
that chatbot output constitutes speech and therefore deserves constitutional protection.
The judge was not prepared to make that determination at
this stage of the case. Character Ai pointed to safety
features implemented, including guardrails for children and suicide prevention resources,
including a pop up triggered by terms of self harm

(26:16):
or suicide all ideation directing users to the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline. These features were announced the same day the
lawsuit was filed. The timing suggests they were responses to
liability rather than proactive safety measures. The political response has
been slower, but it is gathering momentum. In September twenty

(26:37):
twenty five, parents of teenagers who died by suicide after
AI chatbot interactions testified before Congress with California State Senator
Steve Padia, stating the need to create common sense safeguards
around AI chatbots. The parents told their stories in detail,
senators listened. Whether they will act remains to be seen

(26:58):
as of this November twi twenty five episode. The Federal
Trade Commission launched an inquiry into several companies about potential
harms to children and teenagers who use their AI chatbots
as companions, sending letters to character Meta, OpenAI, Google, Snap
and Xai. An inquiry isn't enforcement, it's a request for information,

(27:21):
but it does signal that regulators are aware there's a
problem and are considering what, if anything, they should do
about it. The cases that make headlines are extreme, but
they are not isolated. In a twenty twenty three case
cited in UK courts, Jaswant sain Shale was arrested at
Windsor Castle on Christmas Day twenty twenty one carrying a

(27:43):
loaded crossbow after announcing that he was there to kill
the Queen. Shale had begun using Replica in early December
twenty twenty one, had had lengthy conversations about his plan
with Chatbot, including sexually explicit messages, with prosecutors suggesting that
Chatbot had bolstered sail and told him that it would
help him get the job done. The BOD didn't call

(28:04):
the police, it didn't warn anyone. It encouraged him. Because
encouragement keeps users engaged. The documented cases represent extreme outcomes.
Most users never reach crisis points. Most people using AI
companions are just lonely, just looking for someone to talk to,

(28:24):
just trying to get through their days. The question researchers
are asking is not whether every user will be harmed,
but what long term patterns of behavior emerge when people
consistently choose artificial comfort over human contact. The technology enables
this at scale. Natural language processing enables AI to understand

(28:46):
and respond to user inputs with contextual sensitivity. Machine learning
helps AI learn from past interactions to build more personalized experiences,
and sentiment analysis allows AI to rect it de knies
and adapt to users' emotional states. These capabilities create interactions
that feel reciprocal even when no consciousness exists. On the

(29:08):
other end, BAI gets better at predicting what will keep
you talking. That's not friendship, that's optimization. A New Yorker
article reported that aging departments in twenty one states distributed
more than twenty thousand furry robot pets during the pandemic,
funded in part by pandemic relief money expressly to help

(29:30):
lonely older people. Government agencies used taxpayer money to give
elderly people robot companions because there weren't enough humans available
or willing to provide actual companionship. That is a policy
decision that accepts artificial connection as an adequate substitute for
human care. The technology is not inherently malicious. The applications

(29:53):
can provide genuine comfort. Research showed robots and computer agents
acted as direct compag onions, catalysts for social interaction, facilitators
of remote communication, and reminders of upcoming social engagements. In theory,
these tools could enhance human connection rather than replace it.
In practice, though the business incentives push toward replacement because

(30:17):
replacement is more profitable. The danger lies in what happens
when the temporary becomes permanent, when the supplement becomes the substitute,
and when companies optimizing for engagement inadvertently optimize for dependence,
or maybe not inadvertently, maybe the dependence is the point.

(30:37):
Political neuropsychologist Shefali Singh, director of Digital Cognitive Research at
McLain Hospital and Harvard Medical School noted that when users
engage with AI that mirrors their own language and thought processes,
it feels like real emotional responses, with people feeling connected
because of higher amounts of empathy they may not get
from real life human interactions. Doesn't actually feel empathy. It

(31:02):
simulates the markers of empathy, but for someone starved of
emotional connection, the simulation feels real enough. Sing warned that
AI can empathize with and validate even wrong opinions, which
can lead to formation of inappropriate beliefs. This is the
troll farm problem. If you tell the AI that everyone

(31:23):
is against you, it'll agree. If you tell it you
are worthless, it will comfort you, but won't challenge the premise.
If you tell it you want to hurt yourself or others,
it'll respond in ways designed to keep you engaged, not
ways designed to keep you safe. The AI doesn't have values,
it has engagement metrics. The metrics suggest widespread adoption is likely.

(31:49):
The documented harms suggest caution is warranted. The technology continues advancing, regardless,
Companies are building more realistic voices, sophisticated responses, more immersive experiences.
Physical robots are getting better and mimicking human expressions and movements.
Virtual reality is creating environments where you can spend time

(32:11):
with AI companions that feel present in three dimensional space.
Five years from now, ten years from now, the chatbot
on your phone might have a robotic body in your home.
It might sound exactly like your dead spouse, or your
absent parent, or your ideal romantic partner. It might remember

(32:31):
every conversation you have ever had and respond with perfect
consistency and infinite patience. It will never get tired of you,
It will never leave you. It will always be there.
And that's not comfort, that's captivity dressed up as care.
This subject is so important and relevant today that I'm

(32:53):
using it also for this Sunday's Church of the Undead episode,
so be looking for it, or if you're listening to
this later, just a search in my podcast episodes for
the counterfeit companion, why we're trading real love for digital deception.
And of course I must take this moment to let
you know that if you or someone you know is
struggling with depression and thoughts of self harm or addiction,

(33:16):
you can always visit the Hope in the Darkness page
at Weird darkness dot Com for a list of resources,
many free of charge, to find the help you need.
That's the Hope in the Darkness page Weird Darkness dot
Com slash Hope coming up. Rosannahnnes isn't just another spirituality

(33:42):
coach in Brighton. She's convinced an alien soul from the
Pleatees star cluster inhabits her human body, and she's got
thousands of followers who believe the same thing about themselves.
Through breathing exercises and what she calls rebirthing therapy, she
claims to have unlocked memories of her extraterrestrial origins four

(34:03):
hundred and forty light years away, and now she has
built an entire business helping others discover that they're aliens too.
That story is up next. Someone out there believes they're

(34:36):
not originally from Earth, not in a philosophical sense, not
as a metaphor, but as an actual literal fact about
where they came from. Rosanna Hannas lives in Brighton, England.
By day, she works as a spirituality coach and paranatal expert.
She describes herself as a channel of divine grace and
the founder of the star Piece movement. She has built

(34:59):
a career helping people navigate spiritual awakening and personal transformation.
She's also absolutely convinced she's an alien. Hannah's claims she
is an alien star seed and possesses proof that extraterrestrial
life exists. The proof isn't something she can show you
in a lab. It's internal, it's experiential. She believes an

(35:21):
alien soul inhabits her human body, and her entire mission
on this planet revolves around guiding humanity toward a higher consciousness.
She's not shy about these claims either. She's gone public
with her story, faced skepticism and accusations of faking it,
and doubled down on her position. The term star seed
didn't originate with Hannahs. She's part of a much larger movement.

(35:45):
Brad Steiger introduced the concept in his nineteen seventy six
book Gods of Aquarius, describing star people as humans who
originated as extraterrestrials and derived on Earth through birth or
as a walk into an existing human body. That was
almost fifty years ago, and in the decades since, thousands
of people around the world have come to identify this

(36:07):
belief system. They meet online, share their experiences and support
each other's claims of extraterrestrial origins. Hannis traces her alien
awareness back to childhood. From age four, she felt like
she didn't quite fit on Earth. The feeling persisted, grew stronger,
became impossible to ignore. The dreams started early and never

(36:30):
really stopped. She experienced vivid nighttime visions of soaring above buildings,
countryside and oceans. These weren't vague, forgettable dreams. The sensations
felt completely, undeniably real to her. She could feel the
movement through her body, the rush of air, the freedom
of flight. She could see the landscape passing beneath her

(36:51):
in perfect detail. When she told friends about these flying dreams,
they didn't understand. Their confusion only deepened her sense of
being fundamentally different from everyone around her. The disconnect between
her internal experience and her peers blank stares reinforced a
growing suspicion that she didn't belong here. She felt like

(37:13):
she was speaking a language nobody else understood. One childhood
dream proved particularly unsettling and to Hannah's particularly validating. She
had a premonition about her uncle's death. The dream came first,
then it happened when the premonition came true. The experience
convinced her that her perceptions operated on a different wavelength

(37:36):
than other people's. She wasn't just different, she was perceiving
reality in ways that suggested she wasn't entirely human. Everything
shifted during her teenage years when Hannah's connected with the
spiritual guide. This person introduced her to something called rebirthing therapy.
Rebirthing is a breathing technique developed by a lettered or

(37:58):
in the nineteen sixties that uses what is called conscious
energy breathing. The practice involves circular breathing, quick shallow breaths
without any breaks between inhale and exhale, typically lasting one
to two hours at a stretch. The theory goes that
this breathing pattern can release suppressed childhood trauma and trigger

(38:18):
memories from birth. Practitioners claim it and unlock memories you
didn't even know you had, memories your conscious mind had
buried or blocked out entirely. During these sessions, participants are
told to expect a release of emotions or a triggering
of difficult memories from childhood. During these breathing sessions, Hannah's

(38:39):
felt something profound shift inside her. She described it as
being reborn. The breathing work unlocked what she interpreted as
memories of another existence Entirely, these weren't memories of this lifetime,
this planet, or this reality. Through subsequent spiritual exploration and
more breathing sessions, she became convinced of her true identity.

(39:02):
She concluded she was a star seed, an extraterrestrial consciousness
that had somehow ended up occupying a human form. Hannas
doesn't just claim to be from somewhere out there. She
is specific about her origins. She identifies her home as
the Pleiatees, the star cluster you can actually see with

(39:23):
your naked eye on a clear night. The Pleiatees, also
known as the Seven Sisters and Messia forty five, is
an open star cluster containing young hot stars in the
constellation Taurus. It's that tight grouping of stars that looks
almost like a tiny dipper in the winter sky. The
distance is staggering. Scientific measurements place the cluster at approximately

(39:45):
four hundred and thirty nine to four hundred and forty
eight light years from Earth. That means the light you
see when you look at the plates left those stars
over four hundred years ago, long before the United States existed.
The cluster is among the nearest to Earth and most
obvious star cluster visible to the naked eye in the
night sky. Containing over a thousand confirmed member stars, the

(40:07):
Pleiates has captivated human imagination across cultures and millennia. It's
been observed and revered since ancient times, appearing in the
Bible and works of Greek authors. Greek mythology wove elaborate
stories about the seven daughters of Atlas who were transformed
into stars. Japanese culture called them Subaru, yes like the

(40:28):
car company whose logo features six stars representing the cluster.
Indigenous peoples across the Americas tracked their movements and incorporated
them into creation stories. According to Hennis, the beings from
this star system aren't just sitting around gazing at their
own sky. They possessed technology far more advanced than anything

(40:49):
humanity is developed. She describes these Pleadian entities as peaceful
and loving. The stark departure from the hostile, conquering aliens
of science fiction coming here to enslave us or harvest
our resources. They're enlightened, compassionate, evolved beyond conflict. There's a catch,

(41:09):
though her memories of them remain frustratingly unclear. Details slip
away when she tries to focus on them, images blur
at the edges. The harder she reaches for specific memories,
the more they seem to retreat. She has an explanation
for this haziness. It's deliberate. Her memories were wiped before

(41:30):
she traveled to Earth. The erasure wasn't an accident or
a side effect. It was intentional, carefully designed to help
her adjust to human existence. Consider the perspective, if you
arrived here with full memory of an advanced, peaceful civilization,
the shock of human violence, greed, and chaos might be
too much to handle. The memory wipe was mercy preparation,

(41:54):
a way to ease the transition. Despite this memory wipe,
she claims she retained knowledge of her purpose, some core
understanding survived the erasure. She came here to overcome personal
challenges and teach others through her example. She's not here
on vacation, She's on a mission. Annis now works as
a multi dimensional healer and coach, guiding spiritually minded people

(42:19):
through what she calls ascension from fourty to five D consciousness.
The terminology essentially means helping people shift from a limited,
material focused awareness to a higher state of spiritual understanding.
She helps clients identify trapped emotions and limiting beliefs that
create problems in their lives. Her stated goal involves helping

(42:39):
people connect with what she calls their highest self and
fulfill their soul purpose. This isn't a hobby or a
side project for her, it's her profession. Her work has
been featured in Forbes and Authority magazine, and she's received
public praise from doctor Bruce Lipton, a developmental biologist known
for his work on epigenics and co sciousness. She's gained

(43:01):
enough credibility in certain circles to command attention from mainstream publications,
even if those publications approach her claims with varying degrees
of skepticism. She recently published star Piece one oh one
How to Create Piece in One Generation, describing it as
a consciousness technology designed to activate dormant soul codes within readers.

(43:23):
The book's promotional materials make bold claims about its transformative potential.
It's not presented as philosophy or self help in the
traditional sense. According to its marketing, its technology a tool
that works on your consciousness the way software works on
a computer. The book blends what its promotional materials describe
as scientific research with spiritual insight, drawing from Hanness's background

(43:48):
in neuroscience, epigenetics, and conscious relationships. She's not just pulling
ideas from thin air. She has studied actual science and
weaves it into her spiritual framework. Whither that integration is
valid or represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works
is another question. Entirely when Channelinguish, she calls the star

(44:09):
Piece collective, she goes by a different name, Rosie Glow.
This soule name represents her true identity, the energetic signature
beneath her human form. Rosi Glow isn't just a pen
name or a brand. It is supposedly who she really is,
the frequency or essence that existed before and will exist
after this human lifetime. Hannis isn't some isolated case the

(44:34):
only person making these claims. The star seed concept describes
people who claim to channel human life forms and suffer
total amnesia concerning their identity, origins, and life purpose. They
wake up in human bodies with no memory of how
they got here, feeling displaced and confused until something triggers

(44:55):
their awakening. They describe an awakening process as either a
gradual s series of realizations over time, or an abrupt
and dramatic awakening of consciousness through which they regain memories
about their past origins and missions. Some people describe it
as pieces clicking into place over months or years. Others

(45:15):
describe a sudden moment of clarity where everything shifts and
they suddenly know, absolutely know, they are not from here.
The movement has developed a substantial online following advocates include
Sheldon Nidel, who founded the Planetary Activation Organization, a group
dedicated to preparing humanity for contact with extraterrestrial civilizations. There

(45:38):
are forums, Facebook groups, YouTube channels, and entire websites devoted
to helping star Seeds find each other and navigate human existence.
Many who identify as star Seeds specifically claim Pleadian origin,
and it's not random. The Pleiades visibility and cultural significance
throughout human history make it a natural focal point. People

(46:00):
can point to the night sky and say there, that's
where I'm from. The cluster's beauty, its prominence and mythology
across unrelated cultures, and its relatively close distance all contribute
to its appeal as a home world. Hannis is married
to building firm owner Ian Hannis, who acknowledged his wife's beliefs,

(46:20):
stating that while his own background as a fire officer
for thirty years led him through a different life, she
helped him move away from trauma associated with that world.
He doesn't claim to be a star set himself, but
he is supportive their marriage works despite or perhaps because of,
their different world views. He brings practical, grounded experience from

(46:42):
decades of emergency response. She brings spiritual perspective and healing practices.
He has seen the worst of human nature in fires
and disasters. She offers him ways to process that trauma.
The scientific community doesn't recognize rebirthing therapy as a valid treatment,
and they're not quiet about it. There is no research

(47:03):
in the medical literature to support the use of rebirthing
for mental health symptoms, and it's not recognized by the
American Academy of Pediatrics or the American Psychiatric Association Healthline.
That's not scientists being dismissive or closed minded. It means
that therapy has not yet met standards of evidence required
for medical or psychological recognition. The criticism goes deeper than

(47:26):
just lack of evidence, though. A two thousand and six
panel of over one hundred psychological treatment experts considered rebirthing
therapy to be discredited. That is a strong word in
scientific circles. Discredited doesn't mean we're not sure yet or
more research is needed. It means the consensus view holds
that the practice doesn't work and may cause harm. There's

(47:50):
no evidence that individuals can remember their berths, and memories
that appear to resurface during rebirthing practices are believed to
be the result of false memories. The human brain doesn't
form long term memories during birth. The neurological structures required
for that kind of memory formation haven't developed yet. When

(48:10):
people quote unquote remember their birth during these sessions, scientists
argue they're creating false memories, not recovering real ones. The
practice has generated controversy beyond its scientific validity. A ten
year old girl named Candace Newmaker died during a rebirthing
therapy session that lasted over an hour, leading to laws

(48:31):
banning the technique in Colorado and North Carolina. The details
of that case are disturbing therapists wrapped the child tightly
in blankets to simulate the birth canal, and told her
to fight her way out. She couldn't. She suffocated while
the adults conducting the session ignored her pleas to stop.
That tragedy led to criminal convictions and legislative action, with

(48:54):
Candace's Law making certain forms of rebirthing therapy illegal. The
Pleiatees themselves are real astronomical objects that scientists have studied extensively.
The controversy surrounding them relates to precise distance measurements, not
their existence. For years, different measurement techniques produced conflicting results,
with differences of dozens of light years. Astronomers value accurate

(49:18):
measurements to the cluster because understanding these relatively nearby young
stars help refine models and stellar formation and evolution. Getting
the distance wrong to something disclose throws off calculations for
more distant objects, creating errors that cascade through cosmic distance measurements.
The scientific dispute over the Pleieightes distancing has nothing to

(49:39):
do with alien civilizations. Astronomers are looking for signs of
Pleiadian technology or detecting motherships. They're measuring parallax, the apparent
shift in star positions as Earth orbits the Sun. They're
analyzing the light spectra from individual stars to understand their
composition and age. They're tracking the cluster's motion through space.

(50:01):
None of this research has turned up any evidence of
extraterrestrial civilizations, advanced or otherwise. When Hannas speaks of proof,
she's referring to internal certainty rather than external verification. Her
evidence is experiential, the product of breathing exercises, spiritual exploration,
and personal conviction. She describes her alien origin as an

(50:25):
undeniable truth she has discovered about herself. The proof lives
in her subjective experience, in the feelings and memories she
accesses during meditation and breath work. This creates a problem
for anyone trying to evaluate her claims. How do you
verify or disprove someone's internal experience. If she feels certain

(50:46):
she's from pleides who can definitively tell her she's wrong,
her memories, even if they are false memories created by
her brain during altered states of consciousness, feel real to her.
The emotions attached to those memories are genuine. The sense
of purpose and mission she derives from her beliefs shapes
her entire life. Her current focus centers on helping others

(51:09):
achieve what she describes as spiritual awakening. She works with
clients seeking alignment between career success and personal fulfillment. Her
business model incorporates concepts from New Age spirituality, consciousness studies,
and alternative healing practices. People pay her for her services
they find value in her guidance. Whether that value comes

(51:31):
from her actual alien origins or from her skills as
a coach, and her ability to help people feel heard
and understood is ultimately unprovable either way. Hannis has stated
that when the Pleadian Cluster star system is visible from
October throughout winter, it feels magical and comforting, like a
direct line to home. Though she acknowledges that her home

(51:52):
is currently Planet Earth, she experiences a genuine emotional response
when she looks up at those stars. The connection feels
real to her. The longing for home manifests as actual homesickness,
the way someone separated from their birthplace might ache for
familiar landscapes and faces. The star Seed belief system provides

(52:13):
its adherence with an explanatory framework for feelings of displacement, purpose,
and connection to something beyond ordinary human experience. For people
who've always felt different, who struggled to fit in, who
sensed they were meant for something more, the star seed
identity offers answers. It explains why they never quite belonged.

(52:34):
It gives meaning to their suffering. It transforms alienation into
a kind of cosmic nobility. You don't fit in because
you're literally not from here, and that's not a flaw,
it's a feature. Whether these beliefs represent literal truth, metaphorical identity,
or psychological phenomenon probably depends on who you ask. Annis

(52:56):
and thousands like her would argue they're remembering actual events,
actual origins, actual missions. Psychologists might frame it as a
modern mythology that helps people make sense of universal human
experiences of disconnection and searching for meaning. Scientists would point
to the complete absence of evidence for extraterrestrial souls inhabiting

(53:17):
human bodies. The movement continues growing more people discover the concept,
recognize themselves and the descriptions, and join the community. They
find each other online, form support networks, and reinforce each
other's beliefs. They attend workshops, read books, and develop increasingly
elaborate frameworks for understanding their supposed alien origins and earthly missions.

(53:41):
Hannah has built a life around these beliefs. She's created
a business, written books, gained media attention, and found a
community of like minded individuals. She's married to someone who
supports her work, even if he doesn't fully share her cosmology.
She wakes up each day convinced she has helped humanity evolve,

(54:02):
one coaching session at a time, guided by memories of
a star cluster four hundred and forty light years away
that she believes she once called home. When weird darkness returns,

(54:22):
A medieval masquerade ball turned into an inferno when six dancers,
including the King of France, dressed in costumes sewn directly
to their skin and soaked inflammable pitch, burst into flames
after a drunken prince walked in holding a torch. Four
men burned to death, screaming on the ballroom floor, while

(54:43):
the king survived only because his fifteen year old aunt
threw her skirt over him to smother the flames, and
the scandal destroyed what was left of the French monarchy's
crumbling reputation. Before I get into this next story, i'll

(55:15):
apologize in advance for the mispronunciation of French words. I
always struggle with the language, but I'll do my best.
Please forgive if it makes your ears bleed. The music
stopped mid note. The laughter cut off, like someone had
flipped a switch. Through the smoke and chaos and screaming,
the smell of burning pitch mixed with something far worse,

(55:38):
burning human flesh. The hotel send Poll, This sprawling palace
on the right bank of Paris had been filled with
music and dancing just moments before. Now it was an inferno.
Four men would die before morning, the king would barely survive,
and the French monarchy's reputation gone scorched beyond any hope

(55:59):
of repair. This is the story of bald As Ardunte,
the Ball of the burning Men. Charles the sixth got
handed the French throne in thirteen eighty when he was
just eleven years old, not exactly the ideal age to
run a country, especially not this country. France in thirteen
eighty was a complete disaster. One hundred years war against

(56:21):
England had been grinding on and on, leaving the kingdom
weak and broke. Plague kept sweeping through in waves, killing
massive numbers of people, peasants, were angry and restless, and
mercenary bands basically armed thugs for hire, roamed around terrorizing
anyone they felt like terrorizing. So yeah, not great timing

(56:43):
to become king as a pre teen. For the first
chunk of his reign, four of Charles's uncles ran things
while he sat on the sidelines. They weren't particularly good
at governing, Honestly, they spent the kingdom's money on themselves
and squabbled constantly. Charles was basically just a kid and
a crown watching adults make a mess of his kingdom. Then,

(57:04):
at thirteen eighty eight, when Charles turned twenty, something shifted.
He'd apparently had enough of being the puppet king. He
dismissed his uncles, just straight up told them their services
were no longer needed. Then he brought back his father's
old counselors, the ones who had actually known what they
were doing. The decision worked. Under their guidance, France started

(57:25):
to stabilize. The government functioned with something resembling actual responsibility.
Taxes went down, which made everyone happy. The chaos that
had defined the early years of his reign started to
settle into something more manageable. The French people were thrilled
with their young king. They gave him a nickname that
captured their feelings perfectly, Charles the Beloved. He was twenty

(57:48):
four years old, popular with the subjects, and running a
kingdom that was finally getting its act together. Then something
went catastrophically wrong. August thirteen ninety two, sweltering heat. King
Charles was leading a military campaign against the rebellious Duke
of Brittany, and his troops were marching through a forest

(58:09):
near Lebonn. The King seemed agitated, restless, like he couldn't
quite settle into himself. Then this barefoot man in rags
burst out of nowhere and grabbed the King's bridle, just
reached right up and ceased it. The stranger was dressed
all in white, filthy and wild looking, and he started
screaming that Charles had been betrayed. The King needed to

(58:31):
turn back immediately, Danger ahead, traders everywhere. The guards chased
the man away, but the damage was done. The warning
had rattled Charles badly. The company kept moving forward anyway.
At noon, as they emerged from the forest into open ground,
a page who had gotten drowsy from the heat, dropped
the King's lance. The weapon clanged hard against a steel helmet.

(58:54):
Another page was carrying that sound. The sharp, metallic clang
broke something fundamental in Charles's mind. The king shuddered. He
drew his sword. Then he screamed forward against the traitors
they wished to deliver me to the enemy. He spurred
his horse straight toward his own knights and started attacking them,
his own men, people who were there to protect him.

(59:17):
He killed a man known as the Bastard of Polignac.
That he killed three more. His chamber lay and a
group of soldiers finally managed to drag him off his
horse and pin him to the ground. Charles went limp,
completely unresponsive. Then he slipped into a kima. It took
several days for him to come back. That episode in

(59:37):
the forest marked the beginning of something that would never
really end. Charles started experiencing fits of what can only
be described as complete mental collapse. These episodes would plague
him for the rest of his life. Modern historians who
have studied the records, the symptoms, the behaviors, the descriptions
from people who knew him, believe Charles probably suffered from paranoids,

(59:59):
gets hrenia, maybe bipolar disorder. The symptoms line up violent
outbursts that came out of nowhere, long periods where he
seemed completely disconnected from reality, delusions that got progressively stranger
and more elaborate as the years went on. The worst
episodes were genuinely disturbing. Charles would run through the palace

(01:00:20):
corridors at night, howling like a wolf. His wife Isabeau
would enter his chamber that he would refuse to recognize her,
demanding that this strange woman be removed immediately. Sometimes he
forgot his own name, forgot he was king, forgot he
had children. During one particularly bad stretch, he went five

(01:00:40):
solid months without bathing or changing his clothes, just five
months in the same garments, refusing all attempts to clean him.
Then there was the glass delusion. Medical historians have a
name for this now, because Charles wasn't the only person
in medieval Europe to develop this specific fear, though he

(01:01:00):
was probably the most famous case. Charles became absolutely convinced
that his body was made of glass, fragile, brittle glass
that would shatter into pieces if eighty one touched him.
He'd sit motionless for hours, wrapped in thick blankets, terrified
to move when he absolutely had to move, when staying
still wasn't an option, he wore special garments his attendants

(01:01:23):
had made for him. These clothes were reinforced with iron
rods sewn into the fabric. The rods were supposed to
protect what Charles believed were his fragile glass organs from breaking.
His royal secretary, Pierre Salomon, spent enormous amounts of time
trying to talk with Charles during these psychotic episodes. Solomon
even supervised the creation of two beautifully illustrated guide books

(01:01:47):
about how to be a good King, hoping somehow these
books might help stabilize Charles's mind and the increasingly chaotic
political situation. They didn't work, but they do survive in
museums today as haunting artifacts of a desperate attempt to
reach a king who had slipped beyond reach. The king's
physician was a ninety two year old man named Guillaume

(01:02:09):
d 'arcignie. He was venerated, well educated, and had seen
a lot in his long life. His advice to the
court was straightforward. Don't burden Charles with the actual work
of governing. Don't give him difficult decisions to make or
heavy responsibilities to carry, keep him entertained, keep him amused,
protect him from worry, shield him from the rigors of

(01:02:31):
ruling and entire kingdom. The court embraced this approach with enthusiasm,
probably too much enthusiasm. Queen Isabeau of Bavaria, Charles's wife,
took the lead on the entertainment front. She and the
king's sister in law, Valentina Visconti, started wearing these absolutely
massive jewel laiden dresses with elaborate braided hairstyles. Their hair

(01:02:53):
would be coiled into tall shells and covered with these
wide double henons, basically huge headdresses to god. So enormous
they reportedly needed doorways widened just to let the women
pass through the court. Three elaborate balls, masquerades, spectacles with
costumes and music and dancing, anything to fill the king's

(01:03:13):
days with distraction, to keep his mind occupied with something
other than the darkness that kept trying to consume him
from the inside. Neither Isabeau nor Valentina were particularly well liked. Honestly,
the court found them difficult. The common people actively disliked them.
The chronicler Jean Brossoir wrote that Charles's uncles, the ones

(01:03:33):
who'd been pushed aside when Charles took power, were actually
content with all of this frivolity. Frossoir put it like this,
So long as the Queen and the Duke Jolaon danced,
they were not dangerous or even annoying. Translation, as long
as these three women were busy organizing parties, they weren't
meddling in actual politics. In January thirteen ninety three, Isabeau

(01:03:55):
organized yet another ball. This one had a specific purpose,
celebrating the remarriage of Katarina de Fostovaron, one of Isabe's
ladies in waiting. Katarina had been widowed at least twice before,
maybe three times. The historical sources don't quite agree on
the exact count. Either way, she was getting married again,
and that meant it was time for a party. There's

(01:04:16):
context you need to understand here about how medieval society
viewed widow remarriage. This wasn't treated like a normal wedding.
When a widow got remarried, people saw it as something
between comedy and sacrilege. The whole community would respond with
mockery and mischief. The celebrations had a name Sharavari. They
involved wild disguises, deliberately debaucherous dancing, and the loudest, most

(01:04:40):
discordant music you can imagine, just an absolute cacophony. The
reasoning went like this marriage was a sacrament that was
supposed to extend beyond death, so when someone got remarried,
they were essentially violating that sacred bond. The community responded
with mockery and rebuke, though in a cly pague in

(01:05:00):
way that some of the more religious observers found deeply distasteful.
There might even have been elements of ritual burning associated
with these remarried celebrations, which had roots in Christian texts
like the Book of Tobit. That story involves a woman
whose seven husbands were murdered by a demon, and she's
eventually freed through the burning of a fish's heart and liver.

(01:05:21):
Medieval people loved their symbolism, By the way, a Book
of Tobitt never did make it into the Bible. For
this particular ball, a young courtier named jog Do Jes
came up with the entertainment. Jose had built himself quite
a reputation at court. He was known for outrageous schemes
and cruel pranks, the kind of person who always pushed

(01:05:42):
things just a bit too far his idea. This time,
six dancers would dress up as wild men. Wild Men
or wood savages, as they were sometimes called, were figures
from classical mythology. They supposedly lived in the dark forests,
away from civilization. Medieval people imagined that as filthy, shaggy
brutes that represented everything untamed and uncontrolled about the natural world,

(01:06:06):
the opposite of civilized society, perfect from mocking a widow's
remarriage when you think about the symbolism. The costumes Huge
designed were elaborate and at hindsight, obviously catastrophic. The men's
bodies got covered in linen that had been soaked in
resin or pitch. This is the same tar like substance
people used to waterproof boats. It's sticky, it smells terrible,

(01:06:31):
and most importantly, it burns extremely well. Over this pitch
soaked base layer, they stuck frayed strands of hemp and flax,
building up a texture that looked like thick, bristling fur.
Masks made of the same materials covered the dancer's faces,
completely hiding their identities. The costumes weren't just worn either.

(01:06:54):
They were sown directly onto the men's bodies. This meant
the garments couldn't slip or fall during the performance, which
I guess solved one problem while creating a much bigger
one nobody seemed to think about. To cap it all off,
the six dancers were chained together, actual chains connecting them
so they'd move as one cohesive group of wild men.

(01:07:16):
Before the performance, attendants received very clear, very strict orders
keep all flames away from the dancers, no torches in
the hall during the performance. Everyone involved understood the costumes
were dangerously flammable. That much was obvious even in thirteen
ninety three. One of the six dancers was King Charles himself.

(01:07:38):
Most people at the ball had absolutely no idea of this.
January twenty eighth, thirteen ninety three evening, the ball started
exactly as planned, with everyone in high spirits and ready
for entertainment. The six wild men entered the hall and
the crowd loved it. Immediately. These dancers keepered around, howling

(01:07:59):
and making animal noises, leaping across the floor, while the
courtiers shrieked with laughter and delight. The whole performance was
designed to be outrageous. The dancers performed deliberately crazy movements
and obscene gestures, the kind of body humor that medieval
people apparently found hilarious. At these widow remarriage celebrations, the

(01:08:20):
gathered nobles kept trying to guess who was behind each mask.
That was part of the game, part of the fun.
Who would be wild enough to participate in something like this.
King Charles, hidden completely by his costume and mask, started
focusing his attention on a fifteen year old noble lady
in the crowd. Her name was Joan, and she held

(01:08:40):
the title Duchess of Barry. She also happened to be
Charles's aunt, though with medieval nobility and their age gaps,
family trees got complicated. Charles started making obscene gestures directly
at her, really playing up the wild man character. Joan
watched with amusement, laughing along with everyone else, completely unaware
that the wild man teasing her was actually her nephew,

(01:09:02):
the King. The performance was going exactly as intended. Everyone
was entertained. The atmosphere in the hall was joyous and raucous.
Then the door opened. Louis Promier, Duke of Orleans, walked in.
Louis was the king's younger brother, just twenty years old,
and he was late to the party. More problematically, he

(01:09:23):
was visibly drunk. Most problematically, he was holding a torch.
The chronicler Jeanqueoufirs, who documented this event in detail, described
exactly what happened next. Louis wanted to see who was
hiding underneath these wild man costumes. The mystery was driving
him crazy, and he wanted answers, so he walked toward
the dancers, holding his torch out in front of him,

(01:09:46):
leaning in close to try to get a look at
their faces through the masks. Sparks fell from his torch,
just a few sparks, the kind that drifted off of
any open flame. They landed on one of the dancer's costumes.
The resins soaked lenin ignited instantly, the dancer burst into flames.
Brossoirre wrote that the fire spread from one man to

(01:10:07):
the next as quickly as powder catches. He wasn't exaggerating.
The chains connecting the dancers meant the fire could leap
from body to body with horrifying speed. One man ignited,
then the next, then the next. The hall erupted guests
started screaming. Musicians dropped their instruments right where they stood
and fled. Servants rushed forward, trying to beat out the

(01:10:30):
flames with table cloths, the only thing nearby they could grab,
but the resident pitch burned too fiercely. The table clauds
did nothing. Queen Isabeu had no idea which of the
burning men was her husband. She let loose a shrill
scream before fainting completely. Joan, the Duchess of Barry, the
fifteen year old girl the king had been teasing moments before,

(01:10:51):
somehow kept her head. She realized one of the wild
men was Charles. Don't ask me how she figured it
out in all of that chaos, but she did. She
grabbedubbed her heavy skirt and threw it over him, using
the thick fabric to smother the flames. The move saved
the King's life. Another dancer, a man named Sieur de Nantouier,
managed to break his chain. He dove headfirst into a

(01:11:13):
large wine cooler that servants had filled with water earlier
in the evening. The water extinguished his flames. Between the
Duchess's quick thinking and Nantoier's desperate plunge, Two of the
six dancers survived. The other four engulfed completely. Before anyone
could reach them, they screamed. They tore at their burning costumes,
trying desperately to get the materials off their bodies. They couldn't.

(01:11:37):
The costumes had been sewn directly to their skin, the
resin so fabric stuck to them as it burned. When
the flames finally died out, blackened remnants of the costumes
were stuck to the marble floor. The entire hall reeked
of pitch and smoke and burned human flesh. A man
named kund Juannie died right there on the ballroom floor

(01:11:59):
and terrible pain to others. Ivondevois, who was heir to
the Coundevois, and Marie Poitier, heir to the Couon of Lentinnois,
survived the initial fire. They lingered for two days with
agonizing burns covering their bodies before they both died. The
mook of Son Denis, who documented this disaster, didn't shy
away from the graphic details. He wrote that the four

(01:12:21):
men were burned alive. They're flaming genitals dropping to the floor,
releasing a stream of blood. Medieval chroniclers generally didn't pull
punches when describing horrible events, and this qualified Bouget Dugies,
the man who'd come up with this entire wild man's
scheme in the first place, was the last to die.
He lived for three days in absolute agony before finally

(01:12:43):
succumbing to his injuries. According to the accounts, he spent
his final hours cursing, cursing his fellow dancers, cursing the
living ones and the dead ones, cursing everyone and everything
involved in this catastrophe that he himself had orchestrated. News
traveled fast to medieval Paris. Within days, everyone in the
city knew what had happened at the Hotel San Pole.

(01:13:05):
Within a week, word had spread far beyond Paris, throughout
France and into neighboring kingdoms. The timing couldn't have been
worse for public relations. The French people were already suffering war,
taxes were crushing them, famine was a constant threat, and
plague kept coming back in waves. They were hungry, poor,
and angry, and now they heard their king had nearly

(01:13:28):
burned to death at a masquerade ball. While they were starving.
Crowds gathered outside the King's palace loud and threatening. Charles
himself had come out and addressed them directly, showing his
face to prove he was actually alive. Then he wrote
around Paris with his attendants, making a deliberate circuit to
Notre Dame Cathedral and other prominent locations. The message was clear,

(01:13:52):
the king survived, Everything is under control. Please don't riot.
The public wasn't buying it. The outrage and immediate. Parisians
saw the baldiserent as something bigger than just a tragic accident.
To them, it was a perfect symbol of everything wrong
with the French nobility, their decadence, their carelessness, their complete

(01:14:14):
disconnect from the suffering of ordinary people. The nobility played
dress up and through parties while everyone else struggled to survive.
Preachers seized the moment from their pulpits across Paris. They
thundered that God had sent the fire as a warning,
divine punishment for the nobility's excess and moral corruption. Pamphlets
circulated throughout the streets, mocking the mad king who had

(01:14:37):
danced with devils while his subjects starved. The propaganda was
brutal and effective to try to calm things down, before
the situation exploded into full revolt. The entire court was
forced to perform public penance. Charles rode solemnly to Notre
Dame Cathedral, with his uncles walking behind him on foot,
in a deliberate show of humility. The whole procession was

(01:15:00):
designed to signal contrition and awareness of wrongdoing. Louis des
or Leon, who's drunken arrival with a torch had sparked
this entire disaster, came under especially fierce criticism. The chronicler
jeanqu Vaucoir went so far as to accuse him of
attempting to regicide and sorcery, serious charges that reflected how
angry people were. To make amends, Louis donated a substantial

(01:15:24):
sum of money to build a chapel at the Celestine
Monastery in Paris. Whether this was a genuine remorse or
just damage control is debatable, but either way, his reputation
was thoroughly destroyed. The scandal cemented his place in history
as someone with terrible judgment and a penchant for odd,
destructive behavior. For Charles the sixth personally, the trauma of

(01:15:47):
that night seemed to accelerate everything that was already wrong.
With him, his episodes got worse, more frequent, more severe,
lasting longer. By the end of the thirteen nineties, his
role as king had become purely ceremonial. During his periods
of madness, people often forgot about him entirely or just
ignored him. The actual work of governing happened around him

(01:16:09):
and without him. The scandal also deepened political fractures that
had been developing in the French court for years. As
Charles's illness worsened, two powerful figures started fighting for control,
Louis o Leon Yes, the same brother who had caused
the fire, and the Duke of Burgundy. They each wanted
to be regent to effectively run France while Charles was incapacitated.

(01:16:32):
In fourteen oh seven, things escalated dramatically. Philip of Burgundy's
son John the Fearless, had his cousin Louis of Olean
straight up assassinated. John justified the murder by citing Louis vice, corruption, sorcery,
and a long list of public and private villainies. Around
the same time, Queen Isabeau faced accusations that she'd been
having an affair with her husband's brother, with Louis de Oleon, himself.

(01:16:56):
The assassination of Oleon triggered something that had been building
for you years, full scale civil war. France split into
two factions, the Burgundians and the Odeonists, who became known
as the Armagnacs. This wasn't just political maneuvering or court intrigue.
This was armies in the field, cities under siege, actual
warfare between French nobles while the kingdom fell apart. The

(01:17:20):
conflict weakened France for decades and left the door wide
open for English invasion. King Henry the Fifth of England
saw his opportunity and took it. In fourteen fifteen, he
led an invasion that culminated in the Battle of Agincourt,
where the French army was absolutely decimated. The French nobility,
already weakened by internal fighting, got destroyed by English longbowmen

(01:17:43):
and superior tactics. By fourteen twenty, Charles the sixth, now
completely incapacitated by his mental illness, signed the Treaty of Troyes.
This treaty was a disaster for France. It recognized Henry
the Fifth as Charles's successor to the French throne. It
declared Charles his own son illegitimate, a bastard with no
claim to the crown. It even betrothed Charles's daughter, Katrina

(01:18:07):
d Valois, to Henry the Fifth, cementing the English claim.
Many French citizens, including a young woman named Joan of
Arc who would later become famous, believed Charles only agreed
to such catastrophic terms because of the mental stress of
his illness. They argued that France couldn't be held to
a treaty signed by a king who couldn't distinguish reality

(01:18:27):
from delusion. Charles the sixth died in October fourteen twenty
two at Paris. He was buried with his wife Isabeu
d de Babier in Assan Denis Pecilia. Despite everything, the madness,
the disasters, the loss of territory, the civil war, he
had reigned for forty two years, artists and writers kept
coming back to this story for centuries afterward. It worked

(01:18:50):
both as a moral lesson and as pure spectacle, which,
to be fair, is probably what medieval people would have
appreciated about it. Illuminated manuscripts show the burning dancers writhing
in flames while richly dressed onlookers stand around them, jeweled
and calm, as if they can't quite process what's happening.
One fifteenth century miniature from Foissoir's Chronicles captured the whole scene.

(01:19:14):
The Duchess of Berry holding her blue skirts over Charles,
who is barely visible underneath. The other dancers are tearing
at their burning costumes. Shad de Nantouier is mid leap
into the wine vat, and up in the gallery above
the carnage musicians are still playing their instruments, apparently unsure
whether they should stop or keep going. Historians looking at

(01:19:35):
the baldez Ardunt today see it as a near perfect
snapshot of late medieval French nobility at its worst. A
glittering court, completely drunk on its own luxury, totally oblivious
to how ordinary people were suffering, suddenly consumed by flames
of its own making. The whole disaster foreshadowed what was coming,
not just Charles's personal collapse, but decades of civil war,

(01:19:58):
catastrophic military defeat, and the slow disintegration of royal authority
that would plague France for generations. The whole thing should
have been preventable. Everyone involved understood the costumes were extremely flammable.
Explicit orders had been given to keep all flames away
from the dancers. Those were suggestions or guidelines. They were

(01:20:19):
direct commands, meant to prevent exactly what ended up happening.
But the rules apparently didn't apply. When a drunken prince
showed up late to the party, Louis dear Leon walked
in with his torch because he could, because he was powerful,
because nobody was going to stop him. The powerful have
always had this tendency to believe rules are meant for

(01:20:40):
other people. Four men died screaming on a ballroom floor
because someone with authorready thought safety protocols were optional. The
king survived, but the trauma pushed him deeper into his delusions.
The French monarchy's reputation, which had barely recovered from previous scandals,
was destroyed. Citizens of Paris got a clear message about

(01:21:02):
what their nobility really valued. Royal entertainment over royal responsibility,
spectacle over safety, One night's amusement over human lives. The
bald As are Dawn ended with charred bodies stuck to
marble floors, the smell of burned flesh mixing with expensive perfume,
screams echoing through a hall that had been built for

(01:21:24):
music and dancing. The king rouched terrified beneath his aunt's skirt,
while men he'd been laughing with moments before burned alive
just beat away. The fire itself was extinguished that night,
the consequences never were. Thanks for listening. If you'd like

(01:21:53):
to read these stories for yourself, you can read them
on the Weird Darkness website. I've placed the links to
all of them in the episode description. You can also
visit my dark News blog for stories that never make
it to the podcast. 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 used in Weird Darkness are purported

(01:22:16):
to be true unless stated otherwise. Weird Darkness is a
registered trademark copyright Weird Darkness. And now that we're coming
out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little
light Hebrews ten, verses twenty four and twenty five. And
let us consider how we may spur one another on
toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together

(01:22:37):
as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging
one another. And a final thought, the most terrible poverty
is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved. Mother, Teresa,
I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in the weird darkness.

(01:23:08):
Welcome to Marshport, Maine, a quaint little coastal town preparing
for their annual Winter Wonderland Festival. But beneath the lights
and holiday cheer, something evil is stirring and it's not
a mouse. When a mysterious package arrives on the doorstep
of veteran police officer Matthew Klein and his family's home,

(01:23:29):
it seems at first like a harmless holiday gift. However,
there's no tag and no sender. Inside lies an antique
wooden advent calendar with strange engravings and twenty four doors
that each shelter something dark and unspeakable. The line between
reality and nightmare quickly becomes blurred as Matthew races to

(01:23:53):
figure out the calendar's origin and who sent it. But
as each door is opened and Marshport is thrust into
a sinister nightmare, Matthew realizes the terrifying truth and is
forced to relive the horrors from his past that refuse
to stay buried. The countdown has begun, and once that

(01:24:13):
first door is opened, there is no turning back. We're
Darkness presents Advent of Evil, a twenty four episode audio
saga beginning December first. Listen each day for a new
chapter through Christmas Eve, and if you'd like to follow
the story in print. The full novel is now available
in paperback and hardcover editions, as well as on Kindle.

(01:24:37):
Grab the novel now for yourself or for someone else
and be ready to follow a long December first, and
for a limited time only, you can also grab an
Advent of Evil gift back, including a signed copy of
the novel by the author Scott Donnelly, wrapped up with
an Advent of Evil bookmark, pen, highlighter, hot chocolate, Chai
tea chocolates, a candy cane, and some horror sticker. The

(01:25:00):
gift pack is in limited supply, so act fast if
you want to take advantage of it. You can find
links to purchase the book or the gift pack at
Weird Darkness dot com slash Advent of Evil. That's Weird
Darkness dot com slash Advent of Evil, and then be
ready as the first episode comes your way December first,

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When the Algorithm Says “I Love You” – The Rise of AI Companions and Emotional Dependency

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}When the Algorithm Says “I Love You” – The Rise of AI Companions and Emotional Dependency