“UNCOVERING UFO CRASHES BEFORE ROSWELL: Hidden Incidents Before 1947” #WeirdDarkness

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ads heard during the podcasts that are not in my
voice or placed by third party agencies outside of my
control that should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness
or myself. Stories and content and Weird Darkness can be
disturbing for some listeners, and as intended for mature audiences only,
parental discretion is strongly advised. In the annals of American

(00:32):
UFO history, few incidents have inspired as much fascination and
speculation as the one in Roswell, New Mexico. It began
in the summer of nineteen forty seven, at the dawn
of the Cold War, when the US Army Air Forces
sent out a shocker of a press release announcing that
they had recovered a flying disc from a ranch near Roswell.

(00:55):
More than seven decades later, the incident remains a defining
aspect of the area's identity. The town boasts a UFO
museum and research center, a flying saucer inspired McDonald's alien
themed street lights, even an extraterrestrial family stranded in a
broken down UFO on the side of State Route two

(01:16):
eighty five looking for a jumpstart. But behind all of
the UFO mania lies an uneasy truth The events that
transpired that summer are anything but clear cut, with admitted
cover ups and conflicting explanations. It was a saucer, it
was a spycraft, it was the Soviets, and new ones

(01:38):
are still emerging. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Welcome weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the Paranoi, supernatural legends, lower

(02:04):
the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and
unexplained coming up in this episode. Numerous travelers have gone
missing in Nahani Valley, and many whose bodies have been
found have been decapitated. It's no wonder that it's been

(02:26):
nicknamed the Valley of Headless Men. In twenty sixteen, construction
in a San Francisco family's backyard unearthed a terrifying find,
a glass coffin, and the history behind it tells a
morbid history of the city. Former Green Beret Jeffrey MacDonald
claimed that a gang of acid crazed Manson family copycats

(02:49):
brutally murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters in nineteen seventy,
but then he was found guilty. Did he commit the
crime or did the law convict the wrong man. It's
understood that scientifically alchemy attempting to turn a substance or
element into gold, is impossible. But then there is that

(03:10):
one incident that took place in the early seventeenth century
that has some people wondering if that's wrong. When you
hear the words UFO crash, you likely think of Roswell,
New Mexico, in nineteen forty seven. And while that is
the most famous of supposed extraterrestrial spaceship crashes, it is
by no means the first. In fact, there were several

(03:34):
taking place before Roswell became a household name. But first
we'll take a look at Roswell itself and what might
have been behind the crash, the UFOs and the aliens. Now,
bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
and come with me into the weird darkness. Sometime between

(04:13):
mid June and early July nineteen forty seven, rancher WW
mac Brazil found a wreckage on his sizable property in
Lincoln County, New Mexico, approximately seventy five miles north of Roswell.
Several flying disc and flying saucer stories had already appeared
in the national press that summer, leading Brazil to believe

(04:36):
that the wreckage, which included rubber strips, tinfoil and thick paper,
might be something of that ilk. He brought some of
the material to Sheriff George Wilcox of Roswell, who in
turn brought it to the attention of Colonel William Blanchard,
the commanding officer of the Roswell Army Airfield RAAF. The
next day, the RAAF released a statement writing that quote

(05:00):
in many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality
yesterday when the Intelligence office at the five hundred ninth
Bomb Group of the eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Airfield
was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through
the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the
Sheriff's office of Chaves County. According to that statement, Major
Jesse Marcel, an intelligence officer, oversaw the RAAF's investigation of

(05:24):
the crash site, and he recovered materials. The following day,
the Roswell Daily Record ran a story about the crash
and the RAAF's astonishing claim, but U S Army officials
quickly reversed themselves on the flying saucer claim, stating that
the found debris was actually from a weather balloon, releasing

(05:44):
photographs of Major Marcel posing with pieces of the supposed
weather balloon debris as proof. For decades, many UFO researchers
were skeptical of the government's changed account, and in nineteen
ninety four, the US Air Force released a report in
which they conceded that the weather balloon story had been bogus.

(06:05):
According to the nineteen ninety four explanation, the wreckage came
from a spy device created for an until then classified
project called Project Mogul. The device, a connected string of
high altitude balloons equipped with microphones, was designed to float
furtively over the USSR, detecting sound waves at a stealth distance.

(06:26):
These balloons would ostensibly monitor the Soviet government's attempts at
testing their own atomic bomb. Because Project Mogul was a
covert operation, the new report claimed a false explanation of
the crash was necessary to prevent giving away details of
their spy work. Other elements of the Roswell story, namely

(06:47):
that some eye witnesses claimed that there were alien bodies
taken from the site, were explained as fallen parachute test dummies,
and a more extensive follow up report in nineteen ninety seven.
Roger Lnyis, a historian and retired curator for the Division
of Space History at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum,
says those two reports close most of the remaining questions

(07:10):
about Roswell. This story has been resolved, Lonnia says, has
absolutely every question been answered. I can't say that, but
I'm not sure that there are any significant holes. You
do not divulge state secrets in the context of national security,
he says. My surmise is they probably saw the initial
flying saucer explanation as a useful cover story. Donald Schmidt,

(07:33):
a UFO researcher who has spent nearly three decades investigating
the Roswell incident and is the co founder of the
International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, says that
explanation makes little sense. The flying saucer story, he contends,
was so ostentatious that it was bound to draw attention
to the area with its sensitive military operations at the time.

(07:56):
Doing so would seem highly counter to the interests of
the War Department. Two hours west of Roswell, the first
atomic bomb was detonated. You had ongoing atomic research at
Los Alamos, you had all this testing of captured German
V two rockets at White Sands, and at Roswell, you
had the first atomic bomb squadron headquartered. According to Schmidt,

(08:18):
the thought that they would have intentionally set up any
type of publicity as a distraction. If anything, they needed
less attention, Schmidt said. Another questionable theory advanced by the
book Area fifty one, An Uncensored History of America's top
secret military base, states that the crashed flying vehicle was
neither extraterrestrial nor the work of US spies. Rather, it

(08:42):
was an unconventional plan to induce widespread American panic, implemented
by Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin. An unnamed source who worked
as an engineer at Area fifty one for the defense
contractor EG ANDNG, told the book's author Annie Jacobson, a
veteran national security journournalist and Puliter Prize nominee, that the

(09:02):
program had been designed by Nazi concentration camp doctor Joseph Mangela.
According to the source, adolescent children were deformed by the
Soviets to resemble aliens and then deployed in an aircraft
to fly over New Mexico. According to this book, Stalin's
plan was for the children to climb out and be
mistaken for visitors from Mars. Panic would ensue An America's

(09:26):
early warning radar system would be overwhelmed with sightings of
other UFOs. That theory could go some way in explaining
the wreckage described by Jesse Marcel Junior, the son of
the intelligence officer named in the initial press report. According
to Marcel Junior's book, The Roswell Legacy, his father brought
some of the UFO wreggage home, allowing his son to

(09:49):
handle the debated debris before he took it to his base.
Marcel Junior wrote that the material was metallic and quote,
I could see what looked like writing. At first, I
thought of Egyptian hieroglyphics, but there were no animal outlines
or figures. They weren't mathematical figures either. They were more
like geometric symbols, squares, circles, triangles, pyramids, and the like.

(10:13):
Marcel Junior was eleven years old at the time, the
Cold War only just beginning. Could the young boy have
been reading this cyrillic alphabet for the first time, allowing
his imagination to do the rest. On this, Schmidt and
Laudius agree, it's not likely. There's no evidence in any
Soviet archives that there were such experiments as this, says Lonias.

(10:36):
And if the intent was to generate panic, it failed
utterly miserably. Some skeptics, what have you believed that the
Roswell UFO crash set the trend for reporting this type
of strange event. It certainly sent it into the stratosphere,
but it wasn't the first to be reported. Unidentified objects

(10:57):
had been falling from the skies years before that. Here
are six of the most intriguing cases. Aurora, Texas, eighteen
ninety seven, a good fifty years before the Roswell event
started the craze, a large UFO allegedly crashed in the
small town of Aurora, Texas. The object was silver in

(11:18):
colour and shaped like a cigar. According to an article
published in the Dallas News, the UFO had been steadily
losing altitude when it struck Judge Proctor's windmill. The explosion
wrecked the windmill tower and scattered debris over several acres.
The article also reported that a well had also been
damaged in the crash and its water tainted, leading the

(11:39):
locals to bury it. The article read, the pilot of
the ship is supposed to have been the only one
on board, and while his remains were badly disfigured, enough
of the original has been picked up to show that
he was not an inhabitant of this world. A small
ceremony was held at the local cemetery where the small
alien body was buried. The tombstone was stolen in twenty twelve,

(12:02):
but from the existing photos one can clearly see that
it depicted a crudely carved cigar shaped object with portholes
on its sides. Unfortunately for everybody, at the time of
the crash, a spotted fever epidemic was wreaking havoc in
the area, so the event quickly faded out of view.
Another interesting aspect is that in nineteen forty five, Judge

(12:23):
Proctor's property was bought by Brawley and Etta Oates. The
entire Oats family began suffering serious health problems because they
had redug the well before her death, Eda became convinced
the water was radioactive. Indian Ocean September eighteen sixty two.
This unusual incident was reported in the May second, eighteen

(12:46):
ninety seven issue of the Houston Daily Post and centered
around a story told by one of the few men
who had survived. To tell the story, a Dutch sailor,
he'd been part of the crew aboard a ship called
Christine in the autun of eighteen sixty two. Following a
storm in the Indian Ocean, the ship sank. The crew members,
who had been lucky enough to survive, suddenly found themselves

(13:09):
on a small, deserted island, completely devoid of life. While
on the island, they witnessed an extraordinary event. A giant
ufo fell from the sky, crashing into a jagged cliff.
It was as big as a battleship and had four
huge wings on its sides. The man mustered the courage
to examine the wreck, and amid the debris, found the

(13:31):
bodies of several twelve foot tall men with strange clothing
and bronze colored, silky beards. This gruesome discovery was too
much to bear for the starving, desperate men, and some
of them even went mad. Only a handful of people
survived until rescue came in the form of a Russian trawler,
among them the Dutchmen. While this might be nothing more

(13:53):
than a sailor's story, it does make for a very
interesting one nonetheless. Stravopol, Russia, late eighteen hundreds. In the
nineteen sixties, a Soviet investigation uncovered clues about a UFO
crash landing that took place towards the end of the
nineteenth century. Several witnesses reported that a strange apparition flew

(14:14):
into a village of the Stavropol province, and that its
passengers had survived the crash. Three dark skinned men came
out of it. They were breathing hard, making signs, and
soon died since they could not breathe air. The village
residents quickly pulled apart the thing in which they landed.
As the investigation progressed, the officials began receiving letters corroborating

(14:36):
the story. A woman named Irina da Dilova recalled the
craft was shaped like an arrowhead and was quickly dismantled
by the locals, who used the metal to manufacture household goods.
The bodies were buried without cross or ritual. The Carolinas
nineteen forty one. This report comes from noted UFO researcher

(14:59):
Leo string Field's book UFO Crash Retrievals, Search for Truth
in a Hall of Mirrors. Stringfield tracked down and spoke
with the mother of Guy Simone, a soldier in the
twenty sixth Infantry Division prior to the United States involvement
in the Second World War. In October nineteen forty one,
Simone was taking part in a military maneuver in the

(15:20):
Carolinas when an unidentified object crashed in the area. Interests
rapidly shifted towards recovering the crashed round metallic object and
little dead bodies from space. The craft was taken to
a nearby army post. It measured about fifteen feet in
width and ten feet in height and housed a control

(15:41):
room with four seats. The silver UFO had other worldly inscriptions,
both on its exterior shell as well as inside. The
four recovered bodies were described as small and with large
insect like eyes. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to support
this incident. Apart from the accounts of secondhand witnesses. Nobody

(16:02):
knows what happened to the craft or the bodies of
its passengers. Dundee County Nebraska, eighteen eighty four. The June eighth,
eighteen eighty four edition of the Nebraska State Journal read
an article about the crash of a mysterious object and
subsequent retrieval of very unusual debris. According to the journal,
local rancher John Ellis and other locals witnessed a burning

(16:25):
object similar to a meteor falling from the sky. The
men rode their horses to the crash site in order
to investigate the incident. When they arrived, they found a
large number of incandescent objects strewn across the crash site.
The objects were so hot and burned so bright that
none of the men dared approach them. The ranchers resolved

(16:46):
to come back the following day. When they returned, the
men noticed the objects were in fact mechanical parts resembling gears, wheels,
and propeller blades. All of them appeared to have been
made from an extremely light and durable metal. No bodies
were found, and nobody knows what became of the wreckage. England,

(17:07):
World War II former intelligence officer and Flying Saucer Review
editor Gordon Crichton launched an investigation into the crash of
a UFO on British soil at the height of the
Second World War. The craft wreckage was reportedly retrieved and
studied by British authorities. He learned about the incident from
a nineteen fifty five article published in the Los Angeles

(17:29):
Examiner by journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. Here's an excerpt. I can
report today on a story which is positively spooky, not
to mention chilling. British scientists and airmen, after examining the
wreckage of one mysterious flying ship, are convinced these strange
aerial objects are not optical illusions or Soviet inventions, but

(17:49):
are flying saucers which originate on another planet. The source
of my information is a British official of cabinet rank,
who prefers to remain unidentified. We believe, on the basis
of our inquiry thus far, that the saucers were staffed
by small men, probably under four feet tall. It's frightening,
but there's no denying the flying saucers come from another planet.

(18:11):
This official quoted scientists as saying a flying ship of
this type could not have possibly been constructed on Earth.
The British government, i learned, is withholding an official report
on the Flying Saucer examination at this time, possibly because
it does not wish to frighten the public. After the
article was published, Criton attempted to contact Dorothy Kilgallen and

(18:31):
ask for further information. She died shortly after, leading the
researcher to believe that she had been effectively silenced. But
as it turns out, Killgallen was not the only source
of information regarding this incident. Brazilian UFO researcher Alivo Defontes
also claimed to have found out about this retrieval from
sources inside Brazil's naval intelligence, but had only sparse details.

(18:55):
Another interesting detail was revealed in nineteen eighty eight by
a former CIA pilot on Leir. His sources revealed that
the UFO had been strapped to a Boeing B seventeen
and transported to the States. Seems the British government managed
to keep a tight lid on this enigmatic crash because
nothing else is known about it. Coming up. Numerous travelers

(19:20):
have gone missing in the Honey Valley, and many whose
bodies have been found have been decapitated. No wonder it's
been nicknamed the Valley of Headless Men. Plus in twenty
sixteen construction in a San Francisco family's backyard unearthed a
terrifying find. A glass coffin and the history behind it
tells a morbid history of the city. These stories and

(19:45):
more when Weird Darkness returns. This episode is dedicated to

(20:12):
the men and women of our armed forces and first responders.
Whether you are currently serving or have served in the past,
you are appreciated. It is because of your courage and
sacrifice that we enjoy the freedoms and liberties we hold dear,
and I, for one, appreciate every single one of you
for protecting what many of us take for granted. So

(20:34):
thank you. The Northwestern territories of Canada are truly one

(20:57):
of Earth's last true wild places. One of its special
National Park reserves, called the Nahani Valley, is, however, a
little bit wilder than most. It is home to some
strange myths and mysteries, and boasts a fearsome reputation for
being a haunted and deadly place. This remote wild valley

(21:18):
is not just inhospitable due to its rugged terrain, extreme weather,
and predators, but it's also deadly due to some unexplained circumstances.
Over the decades, many unfortunate travelers and explorers have gone missing,
or they have turned up dead and beheaded. The number
of decapitated bodies found within Nahani Valley have earned it

(21:40):
the nickname Valley of Headless Men. So what is the
explanation to this mystery? Many have said that the Nahani
Valley is one of the last truly unexplored places in
the world. Situated within the rugged Northwest territories of Canada,
while over five hundred kilometers or three hundred eleven miles

(22:00):
from the nearest city, Yellowknife, It's one of those nature's
nooks that has preserved in spite of mankind's busy expansion.
Reaching the Haney can be a challenge, if ever, you
find a reason to journey inside it. It is hard
to reach and the best roots into it are via air, water,
or a long overland journey from the abandoned village of Tungsten.

(22:22):
The valley is situated above the sixtieth parallel North, which
puts it in line with the rest of Canada's wild territories.
Cities and civilization up north are few and far between,
and surviving the wilderness can be challenging or even fatal
for the inexperienced traveler. Thanks to its remarkable natural beauty,

(22:42):
its unique geography, its features, and wealth of flora and fauna,
the Haney Valley has been proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage
Site in nineteen seventy eight. In fact, it was one
of the first four Natural Heritage locations to be given
this status, but this lofty proclamation has not given it
a flurry of visitors. Due to its remoteness, Nahani Valley

(23:05):
has remained largely untouched over the centuries. It is home
to many diverse animal species, many of which are predatorial.
Large grizzly bears and timberwolves are the chief carnivores here,
and people are seldom seen in this nature. Historically, the
lands around the Nahani Valley were home to the peoples
of the Dne indigenous tribes, who dwelt here for in

(23:28):
many centuries. However, it seems that they never lived exactly
along the Nahani River and its tributaries, from which the
Nahani Valley gets its name. Their oral histories passed down
through generations speak of another tribe living there, the one
called Naha. The Dane tell that the Naha were a
warlike tribe living in the high mountains and descending into

(23:51):
the lowlands to raid and kill. They became the main
foes of the Dne peoples and were greatly feared by them.
The name Nahani itself is of Dne origin. It means
the river of the land of the Naha people. These
oral histories and the name itself are very important, as
they are certain proof that a different indigenous tribe wants

(24:12):
dwelt here. However, the Daae state that the Naha people
simply vanished at one time, seizing their raids and disappearing altogether.
Mystery surrounds these so called Naha, but no trace of
them has ever been found. So far, they are only
found in stories. Could they have migrated elsewhere, succumbed to

(24:34):
a disease, died out, or have they simply stayed in
the Nahana River valley to this very day, hiding in
plain sight. Some speculate that it might be so. This
mystery would likely have died out quickly, being dubbed just
another legendary story of an indigenous tribe, But several eerie
deaths and disappearances within the Hani Valley achieved the opposite result.

(24:58):
The mysteries surrounding this s place were only fueled further,
and the honey became the focus of many mystery hunters,
and most of this focus was on a special place
within the valley, one called the two hundred mile Gorge.
The Dene natives speak of an unknown evil dwelling there,
and few ever enter, especially because of the events that

(25:19):
transpired there. For it's the two hundred mile Gorge that
gained the grisly epithets of the Valley of the Headless Men.
The origins of this eerie nickname can be traced to
the early twentieth century, at the time of the famous
Klondike Gold Rush. At this time, many would be prospectors
wanted to test their fortunes and head out to the

(25:40):
remote Canadian wilderness, especially the Yukon. It was known to
contain gold in its rivers and soils, and a treasure
could be quickly made by those lucky enough to strike gold.
Two of these prospectors decided to forego the traditional routes
and locations leading to Yukon and to instead try their
luck in the Nahami Valley. They were two brothers of

(26:02):
Matisse ancestry, Willie and Frank MacLeod. In nineteen oh six,
They canoed upriver to reach the Nahani Valley, and that
was the last time anyone saw them alive. In nineteen
oh eight, two years later, a search party discovered their
skeletons at the remains of a camp. Both were headless,

(26:22):
seemingly they were asleep when they were attacked. The body
of one of the brothers lay reaching out towards a gun,
indicating a need for defense. A third man, their companion,
surnamed Weir, was missing. From here on, the mysteries deepened.
Who would decapitate so ruthlessly two peaceful prospectors in what

(26:43):
happened to their heads? Rumors began spreading, and many wild
theories were put forward. Some spoke of feuding prospectors killing
one another. Others attributed the deaths to wild animals, while
some spoke of inhospitable warlike natives leaving the headless corpses
as a warning to other trespassers. Theories floated about until

(27:05):
another corpse was discovered in nineteen seventeen. It was that
of a Swiss prospector named Martin Jorgensen. His body was
discovered decapitated next to the remains of his cabin. It
was burned to the ground. It supposed that he struck
gold in the vicinity, as he wrote of it back home,
before ending up beheaded. An article from the February fifteenth,

(27:29):
nineteen forty seven issue of the Deseret News newspaper titled
Headless Valley Myths Dispelled goes into depth while trying to
bash all the mystery and find logic for the murders.
Much of the article's contents are unsubstantiated and mere guesswork.
There it is said that Jorgensen and the McLeod brothers
were all murdered for the gold that they had discovered.

(27:52):
No evidence for this, however, was ever found. In nineteen
twenty seven, another body was discovered in Nahani belonging to
a man nicknamed Yukon Fisher, variously dubbed an outlaw and
a prospector. This man was sought by the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police for several years before his death. The officials
found his skeleton on the banks of Bennett Creek, quite

(28:14):
close to the place where the bodies of the McLeod
brothers were found in nineteen oh eight. His death was
never fully explained, nor was the fact that he was
known to possess a solid number of gold nuggets with
which he purchased goods on the frontier. Then, in nineteen
thirty one, another body was found. This time it was
that of Phil Powers. His charred remains were discovered in

(28:37):
the ashes of what was his cabin. The RCNP were
quick to attribute his death to a faulty stovepipe, but
their explanation was repeatedly debunked by various sources. Phil Powers,
for what it's worth, was likely murdered and his cabin
set ablaze. Many others simply disappeared without a trace in

(28:57):
the remote wilderness of the Nahani Valley. In nineteen twenty eight,
one prospector named Angus Hall ventured ahead of his party
and was never seen again. Another pair of prospectors, Joe
Mulholland and Bill Eppier, disappeared in nineteen thirty six. For
many years, they were searched for but never found. The
only thing discovered was their cabin, burned down to the ground.

(29:21):
A woman named Annie la Ferte also went missing in
Nahani in nineteen twenty six with her hunting party. She
was present in the valley near Flat River, but got
lost in the wilderness and disappeared. Many months later, an
Indian by the name of Big Charlie claimed to have
seen the woman climbing a hill while totally naked, seemingly
having lost her mind. She became just another of the

(29:44):
many victims of the wild Nahani Valley. So inhospitable was
the Nahani Valley that even in the nineteen twenties it
was still unexplored. Maps of the region showed almost nothing
except two flat lines that indicated the two main rivers,
the Hawny River and Flat River. It would take decades
for an accurate map to be created. Of course, over

(30:07):
the years, many sources tried to discredit these mysteries. To
that end, some claim that the original headless corpses, the
McLeod brothers, were not really headless, but in fact were
identified by the remnants of the hair on their skulls. However,
there's no evidence for either of the theories. Much of
this can be attributed to the advanced age of the

(30:28):
event happening in nineteen o eight, but discrediting or not,
deaths continued to pile up in the Haney Valley. In
nineteen forty five, a miner from Ontario whose name is
now lost, was found dead still in his sleeping bag.
His head, however, was never found. Around that time, another
trapper succumbed to the inhospitable wilderness. He was John O'Brien

(30:51):
and was found frozen next to his camp fire, his
rigid hands still clutching a match. His death was clearly
due to freezing, and it is true. In winter the
Nahani Valley really is inhospitable. With the freezing cold and
the ravaging timberwolves, this nature can claim the lives of
the most experienced outdoorsmen. But in the warmer months, this

(31:14):
valley transforms into a truly unique environment, so much so
that many dubbed it tropical. It can turn into a
true oasis, being warm and lush with vegetation. One can
even bathe in the creeks and streams fearing no coldness.
And that's all due to the hot sulfur springs that
can be found here. Hot springs lie all beneath the

(31:37):
valley and give it an additional dose of mystery. The
sulfur can often fill the air with an odd smell,
and more than that, the combination of the hot sulfury
air and the cooler Arctic air above it created thick
and mysterious mists that often cover the entire Nahani Valley,
obscuring it from view and creating an eerie, other worldly ambience.

(31:59):
This gave rise to ti tales of a mysterious tropical
valley that exists somewhere within the huge Nahani Valley. While
there is a chance that the clash of the hot
sulfuric acid and the cold Arctic climate can create a
unique environment, a tropical valley still seems far fetched. Nevertheless,
legends just keep mounting up. Scientists, those few that ever

(32:22):
set foot in the valley discover numerous remains of prehistoric animals,
chiefly bones of mastodons, that is, mammoths and ancient bear dogs.
To that end, many have said that these animals still
live within the deepest most remote nooks of the Nahani.
Tales exist of trappers seeing fresh tracks of prehistoric mammals
and bringing back huge ivory tusks with flesh and hair

(32:46):
still attached. Other tales state that many of the Dene
tribe elders living in the area were able to accurately
draw pictures of mastodons as if from memory. Another prevalent
story tells of the previous or bear dogs still roaming
the valley. In the end, no one can accurately say
what is transpiring within this mysterious Nahani Valley. Up to

(33:09):
forty four people have either died or disappeared within it,
starting from nineteen oh eight, and that is an eerily
high number for just one albeit enormous valley. Plenty of
odd facts contribute to the prevalent sense of enigma here.
The indigenous Dene locals have avoided the valley for centuries,
claiming that it is haunted by evil. Others state that

(33:32):
Nahani Valley is the entrance to the so called hollow Earth. True,
the valley is dotted with subterranean caverns, some two hundred
and fifty of them, and many remain unexplored. However, we're
quite sure that the Earth's belly is rather hot, more
than hollow. Nevertheless, Nahani remains veiled in enigma. Perhaps it

(33:53):
was the territorial Naha tribesmen who have not disappeared, who
have claimed all those lives, seeking to protect their last
natural refuge. Or it was simply the harsh and inhospitable
wilderness of remote Canada they claimed those lives. Still, harsh,
nature cannot be head bodies and burned down cabins, and

(34:14):
for that the mystery remains. When a nineteen oh six
earthquake San Francisco, the death toll was substantial. Too many
bodies buried within the city created health concerns, so most

(34:37):
of the tombs were relocated to make way for development. However,
it turns out workers missed a view. While many people
find bizarre objects buried in their backyards, most of the
time the items have simply been abandoned by previous owners,
but occasionally they have a spookier story. In twenty sixteen,

(34:58):
a construction crew working in the backyard uard of John
and Erica Carner's San Francisco house unearthed a coffin made
of glass and cast iron. Inside the homeowners discovered the
well preserved body of a child. Carner's children nicknamed the
unknown little girl Miranda Eve until genealogists in conjunction with

(35:18):
the nonprofit Garden of Innocence determined that the body was
that of a two year old Edith H. Cook, who
died from an illness in eighteen seventy six. The tiny
glass coffin was left behind when her family's burial plot
was moved to the City of Coma in the nineteen thirties,
Using hair samples, volunteers worked tirelessly to find Miranda Eve's

(35:39):
living relatives, later identifying one man as her grand nephew.
Since the mass relocation, locals have unwittingly uncovered one hundreds
more of forgotten graves. In twenty sixteen, John and Erica
Carner hired construction workers to remodel their Lone Mountain home
in San Francisco, and the workers unknowingly excavated the tiny cars,

(36:00):
often the Carner's contact at the Office of Public Administration,
who turned to genealogist Alyssa Davey. Davie operates the nonprofit
Garden of Innocence, a project which aims to bury unidentified children.
Davy and her team used preserved strands of the unknown
girl's hair to perform a DNA test and determine her identity.

(36:21):
They discovered that the deceased child is Edith Howard Cook,
the daughter of Horatio Nelson and Edith Scoofy Cook. Edith
passed on October thirteenth, eighteen seventy six, at two years,
ten months and fifteen days old. Davy compared old plot
maps of odd Fellows Cemetery from the eighteen hundreds with
current scaled street maps to determine which plot the coffin

(36:43):
belonged to. She found evidence at the Cook family plot,
where Edith's mother and father were laid to rest. After
discovering Edith's identity, Davy teamed up with Yalmer Erkins, an
anthropologist at the University of California. The two tracked down
Edith Cook's grand nephew, Peter cook Book, via genealogical records.
He is her only known living relative. Peter had never

(37:06):
heard of Edith, so they swabbed his saliva to guarantee
that it was a match. Miraculously, they confirmed that Edith
Cook was Peter's great aunt. This discovery came as a
surprise to Peter, whose father passed away when he was
only three years old. As a result, he didn't know
much about that side of the family. Through much research,

(37:27):
Garden of Innocence tracked down Edith's funeral records. According to
the report, young Edith suffered from marasmus, a form of
severe malnutrition common in the eighteen hundreds. The illness can
be caused by viral, bacterial, or parasitic infections. And prevents
the absorption of nutrients. Irkens speculates that Edith contracted another

(37:47):
disease that her weakened, undernourished immune system couldn't fight. Public
records indicate that Edith also had a brother and sister,
both who lived into adulthood. In trying to figure out
how little Edith Cook ended up in the backyard of
the Carner family's Richmond District residence, Davy discovered that the
San Francisco neighborhood used to be a cemetery. People were

(38:09):
buried in the odd Fellow's cemetery between eighteen sixty five
and nineteen oh two and later transferred to Coma, California
during the nineteen thirties. Edith was accidentally left behind in
her family's plot during the massive relocation. According to those
who spearheaded the Edith Cook investigation, the one hundred and
forty year old body was unaffected from the elements. When

(38:32):
researchers opened the coffin, they could easily discern the lavender's
placed in Edith's blonde hair, as well as her white
christening dress. She'd been extraordinarily well preserved due to the
air tight casket. Funerary boxes made of glass and cast iron,
were popular in the eighteen hundreds among wealthy families. The
little window on top used for viewings is unusual by

(38:53):
modern standards. However, at the time of Edith's passing, such
decor was common. Hundreds of thousands of graves were moved
from San Francisco to Colma in the nineteen thirties because
city developers saw housing potential on those plots of land.
According to researchers, all the work was performed manually, as
excavating technology did not yet exist at the time. As

(39:15):
a result, some bodies were simply missed. The former graves
are now permanently stationed in the Green Lawn Cemetery of Coma.
According to Garden of Innocence, at least three more unidentified
bodies have been uncovered in what was the Odd Fellows Cemetery.
These discoveries came after Edith's exhumation and identification in twenty sixteen,

(39:37):
when officials relocated the graves from San Francisco to Colma.
Unclaimed and broken headstones were repurposed. While the plots were
moved at no cost to the families, the headstones were not,
causing many markers to be left behind. Reportedly, the city
and County Department of Public Works restructured the abandoned stones
into sea walls and gutters around San Francisco, grave markers

(40:01):
still occasionally wash up on the beaches. In twenty twelve,
visitors discovered the intact marble tombstone of Delia Presby Oliver
on Ocean Beach. She passed in eighteen ninety and her
gravestone was used in a makeshift sea wall when the
city piled tombstones and rocks on the beach in an
attempt to prevent erosion. Trekking the identity of anyone is challenging,

(40:24):
but discovering the identity of an infant child in a
one hundred forty year old lost casket is particularly difficult.
According to the La Times, Davy and her team of
three spent an estimated three thousand hours conducting research and
driving the efforts to illuminate who Miranda Eve was and
why she was in the Carner's backyard. They began by

(40:46):
finding a map of Odd Fellows Cemetery and comparing it
with records of the neighborhood built where it used to stand. Next,
the team used the Internet to locate open records of
births and deaths, and they were ultimately able to trace
Edith H. K. Book's family tree. Several clues led archaeologists
to believe that Edith Cook came from a distinguished family.

(41:07):
She was buried in a beautiful white dress, and her
family had woven flowers into her hair and placed lavender
on her chest inside the casket. Through research into her
family tree, the Garden of Innocence determined that Edith's family
was prominent in San Francisco in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Extensive research revealed that the Scuffi's family members on Edith's

(41:29):
mother's side, arrived in San Francisco during the Gold Rush.
These Greek immigrants were California pioneers. On the Cook side,
Edith's father operated a leather belting business which was passed
down through generations until the nineteen eighties. Both Horatio and
Ethel were well respected within the community, and Ethel was
revered as a beauty. Edith was originally buried under the

(41:51):
name Miranda Eve. Her eighteen hundred Serra casket was placed
inside a new and slightly larger wood coffin with a
bouquet of flowers on top after researchers discovered her identity,
though Edith was laid to rest in Coma's Green Lawn
Cemetery with her proper name. Davy attended Edith's twenty seventeen
memorial along with Cook's grand nephew, Peter Cook. Many local

(42:14):
residents came to show their support, and those who want
to know more are encouraged to research Edith Cook. Her
gravestone literally reads Google me. For a number of years
leading up to the discovery of the coffin, the Carners
reported that on numerous occasions they heard what appeared to
be a toddler's footsteps coming from the floor above them.
Erica Carner, who grew up in the house and as

(42:35):
two daughters of her own, explained how she and her
husband know very well what a toddler sounds like, and
it wasn't their kids. Adding another element of the bizarre
to the story is the fact that construction workers who
had been remodeling the house claimed to have heard the
unexplainable footsteps as well. However, once the coffin was removed
from the yard and reburied, the footsteps reportedly disappeared. Since

(43:00):
the mass relocation of graves was carried out from nineteen
twenty nine through nineteen thirty five. There have been numerous
occasions during which additional forgotten graves had been rediscovered. One
of the first, and perhaps most shocking of these discoveries
was made during the remodeling of the Gleason Library, which
had been constructed over a former Masonic cemetery. During this

(43:22):
accidental exhamation, nearly two hundred bodies were found when construction
workers plowed directly into a hidden mausoleum. Another discovery was
made in nineteen ninety three at the Legion of Honour
Museum when the site was undergoing renovations. Here, workers stumbled
upon approximately seven hundred and fifty bodies that had been
buried in what was once the Golden Gate Cemetery. A

(43:45):
photographer by the name of Richard Barnes happened to be
present during the resulting excavations and published a compelling collection
of images from the site. When cemeteries around San Francisco
finally began to comply with new city ordinances requiring the
graves be relocated, they ran into some unique challenges. First,
not all of the recovered bodies were in funerary boxes,

(44:07):
as caskets were not required for burial at that time,
and those that were in caskets were found in varying
states of decomposition. As a result, remains would be placed
into new caskets or small boxes, depending upon the state
of decomposition that they had reached, often somewhere between bone
and dust. To make matters more complicated, this mandatory exhumation

(44:29):
was not free. According to the Planning Department documents from
the nineteen fifties, a new burial box could cost anywhere
from eight cents to two dollars seventy five cents, depending
on the amount of space required to store the remains.
Garden of Innison's volunteers crafted a new personalized funerary box
for Miranda Eve, which they lined with purple, felt and

(44:50):
yellow flowers. Collectively, the nonprofit spent nearly ten thousand dollars
to identify and rebury Edith H. Cook. When weird Darkness returns,
it's understood that scientifically alchemy attempting to turn his substance

(45:12):
or element into gold, is impossible. But then there is
that one incident that took place in the early seventeenth
century that has some people wondering if that's wrong. But first,
former Green Beret Jeffrey MacDonald claimed that a gang of
acid crazed Manson family copycats brutally murdered his pregnant wife
and two daughters in nineteen seventy, but then he was

(45:35):
found guilty. Did he commit the crime or did the
law convict the wrong man? That story is up next
on Weird Darkness. It is the morning hours in the

(45:57):
small town of Hammond, and the town wakes up. It
finds that there is something spreading, something that is not
seen until it is too late, because by then you
are already infected. At that point, they are already hatched.
Hatched Invisible Spiders by Jason R. Davis, narrated by Darren Marler.

(46:22):
Here are a free sample on the audiobooks page at
Weird Darkness dot com. Jeffrey McDonald had it all. Not

(46:47):
only did the US Army surgeon mary his high school sweetheart,
but he had a flourishing career, two beautiful young daughters,
and a son on the way. However, his American dream
suddenly became a nightmare in nineteen seventy when his family
was found brutally stabbed to death in their home. As
the only survivor. MacDonald claimed that a mysterious blonde hippie

(47:10):
oversaw three male intruders who slaughtered his family, but his
story crumbled under scrutiny, and he was charged with killing
his own family. It appeared to investigators that McDonald had
staged the scene, inspired by the recent Manson family murderers,
to blame hippies for his crime. Tragically, the comparisons to
the Sharon Tate killing were striking. Not only had the

(47:33):
word pig been scrawled on the bedroom headboard in his
wife's blood, but she and her unborn baby were dead.
Currently serving three life sentences for their murders, McDonald continues
to maintain his innocence, even as a new documentary series
digs into his case. Born Jeffrey Robert McDonald on October twelfth,
nineteen forty three, in New York City, the fledgling doctor

(47:56):
grew up in Patchog Long Island. Friends since Grave School,
he and Collette Stevens began dating as teenagers and grew
serious during college. Two years at the McDonald's undergraduate studies
at Princeton, Stevens became pregnant in the fall of nineteen
sixty three. They decided to get married, and in April
of the following year, their daughter, Kimberly, was born. The

(48:18):
family moved to Chicago after McDonald was accepted into Northwestern
University Medical School. Their second child, Kristen, was born in
May nineteen sixty seven. Despite the young family's financial burdens,
the important things seemed secure. It dawned on McDonald after
graduating in nineteen sixty eight, that the U. S. Army
could help him advance his career, and he wasn't wrong.

(48:40):
Shortly after relocating to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he was
made group surgeon to the Green Beret. By the end
of nineteen sixty nine, everything seemed in order. Collette was
relieved to find out her husband would not be stationed
in Vietnam, and the whole family was overjoyed to learn
that she was pregnant for a third time. Sadly, the
family would not survived the next year. After three a

(49:03):
m on February seventeenth, nineteen seventy, dispatchers at Fort Bragg
received an emergency call from the McDonald's five forty four
Castle Drive address. McDonald said that there had been a
stabbing and begged for an ambulance. Four Military Police MP's
arrived at four am to find an unspeakable crime scene.
First responder Kenneth Meeka discovered the bonnies with McDonald laying

(49:26):
wounded but alive next to his battered and lifeless wife.
Twenty six year old Collect McDonald had been stabbed nearly
forty times with an ice pick and a knife, while
pig was scrawled on the headboard of her bed in
her own blood. Two year old Kristen had thirty three
knife and fifteen ice pick wounds in her torso, while

(49:46):
five year old Kimberly was bludgeoned to death. McDonald had
only one stab wound, which the hospital surgeon later described
as a clean, small, sharp incision that made his left
lung partially collapse. After Meka performed mouth to mouth McDonald
came to. McDonald claimed that his daughter Kimberly wet his
side of the bed, prompting him to go to sleep

(50:08):
on the couch. He awoke to the sound of screaming
and found three male intruders being overseen by a blond woman.
Desperate to save his family, he said he fought back
until they stabbed him and beat him unconscious. McDonald claimed
the mysterious blond woman who oversaw the birders, was wearing
a floppy hat and high heeled boots, and was holding
a candle while chanting, as it is groovy kill the pigs.

(50:33):
Meeka remembered seeing a woman who fit the description while
enroute to the scene, but said the Army's Criminal Investigation
Division CID omitted this during their subsequent inquest. No attempt
was made to locate the woman that night. The CID's
five month long interrogation, referred to as an Article thirty
two hearing, began an April, with official's intent on using

(50:54):
only physical evidence and McDonald's own statements to form their view.
It ultimately concluded that McDonald's wounds were self inflicted and
his story entirely fabricated. Not only did the living room
show few signs of a struggle, but the murder weapons
were found outside the back door. The surgical gloves used
to scrawl pig on the headboard were identical to the

(51:17):
supply McDonald kept in his kitchen. The chanting blonde, meanwhile,
had not been found. Though the U. S. Army formally
charged McDonald with the murders, Presiding Officer Colonel Warren Rock
recommended the charges be dropped. He claimed there was insufficient evidence,
while civilian defense attorney Bernard Siegel argued the CID had

(51:37):
improperly handled the scene and that alternative suspects, like local
drug addict Helena Stokely, believed to be the blonde woman
at the scene, continued to roam free. Released and honorably
discharged by the Army, McDonald seemed to be in the clear.
Even his in laws, Mildred and Freddie Cassab believed him
and testified at his hearing, But soon after MacDonald moved

(52:01):
to Long Beach, California to continue his career at Saint
Mary Medical Center, the tide turned once more. Colette's grieving
parents grew suspicious after a November nineteen seventy phone call
in which McDonald claimed that he found and killed one
of the intruders, and the media appearances like his interview
on the Dick Cavot Show, MacDonald appeared suspiciously at ease.

(52:23):
After reading the full transcript of his article thirty two hearing,
the Cassobs were convinced that McDonald's story did not add up.
Freddy Cassob and CID investigators returned to the crime scene
in nineteen seventy one to contrast McDonald's claims with the
evidence and found his narrative implausible. Cassob filed a citizen's

(52:44):
criminal complaint in April nineteen seventy four, petitioning a federal
court to convene a grand jury and determined if MacDonald
could be charged. They were successful, and a grand jury
indicted MacDonald for murder the following year. Jeffrey McDonald was
arraigned in May nineteen seventy five and pleaded not guilty.
He also tried to get the case dismissed, claiming double

(53:05):
jeopardy and starting an appeals process that would delay his
trial for years. In nineteen seventy eight, McDonald's case went
to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, who rejected it.
He tried to take his case to the Supreme Court
in nineteen seventy nine, but they declined to review the
lower court's decision. Next his trial in Raleigh, North Carolina,

(53:26):
presided over by Judge Franklin Dupree, began on July sixteenth,
nineteen seventy nine. The prosecution, led by James Blackburn and
Brian Murtaw, argued that McDonald staged the crime scene to
blame hippies, They introduced a nineteen seventy issue of Esquire
found in McDonald's house, containing a detailed account of the
Sharon Tate murders, to suggest that he had created a

(53:47):
copycat story based on the Manson family's crimes. Furthermore, an
FBI lab technician re enacted how McDonald claimed that he
defended against the intruder's attacks and proved his testimony contradicted
the evidence. Most notably, the holes in the shirt McDonald
had been wearing appeared too smooth and clear cut to
indicate self defense. Additionally, McDonald's medical records showed that he

(54:12):
had no defensive wounds on his arms or hands consistent
with the alleged attack. Next, the defense decided to call
the suspected blond woman, Helena Stokely, as a witness. They
hoped to get a confession, but she stated firmly that
she had never been inside McDonald's home, contrary to previous
claims she purportedly made to defense attorneys during witness hearings.

(54:35):
Other witnesses claimed that Stokely had confessed at various times
that she thought she might have been present during the murders.
She allegedly told one person that she recalled holding a
candle that dripped with blood. Unfortunately for McDonald, she would
never admit any memory of her involvement in the killings
in court. In the end, McDonald himself took the stand.

(54:57):
He adamantly denied all charges, but was at a lost
for words during cross examination by the prosecution. Despite a
lack of motive and no history of violence, McDonald was
convicted of the second degree murders of Collette and Kimberly
and the first degree murder of Christen. He was found
guilty and given three life sentences on August twenty sixth,

(55:17):
nineteen seventy nine. But even though Jeffrey McDonald has spent
decades behind bars, this case doesn't seem to be closed
just yet. McDonald invited author Joe McGinnis to write a
book about the case before it reached a verdict. The
writer had full access to the trial and appeared sympathetic. However,
instead of the firm defense McDonald expected, the nineteen eighty

(55:40):
three best seller A Fatal Vision described him as a
narcissistic psychopath. McDonald sued McGinnis for fraud in nineteen eighty seven,
with a mistrial, leading them to settle out of court
for three hundred twenty five thousand dollars. Then, in twenty twelve,
Jeffrey McDonald's most famous defender, filmmaker Errol More Morris, was
so intrigued by the case that he wrote the five

(56:02):
hundred page book A Wilderness of Error, since adapted into
a documentary series of the same name directed by Mark Smirling.
The project aims to detail how much evidence Morris believes
was lost, mismanaged, or glaringly unreliable from the start. However,
critics of the book say that while it paints an
emotional picture of a man wrongfully tried by the media,

(56:25):
it cherry picks evidence and largely ignores the physical evidence
that led to McDonald's nineteen seventy nine conviction. Additionally, much
of what Morris introduces as new evidence was already included
in the trial that convicted McDonald. But of the evidence
that Morris presents, perhaps most convincing is the piece cided
in McDonald's twenty seventeen federal appeal. Not only were three

(56:49):
hares discovered at the crime scene that did not match
any of the family's DNA, but an affidavit revealed that
Blackburn had allegedly threatened Stokely not to tell the truth
in court. While none of the haris found the scene
matched Stokely's DNA or that of any of her known associates,
McDonald maintains they prove something more essential to his freedom,

(57:10):
that someone else was there that night. Many events that
took place in medieval Europe were interesting because this was
a time when magic and science were coming together, though

(57:31):
many could not distinguish the differences between them. Most medieval
people believed in the power of magic, but the emergence
of science was slowly replacing and explaining the unexplainable. The
quest to find a universal elixir goes far back in time,
practiced throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia. Alchemy originated more than

(57:53):
two thousand years ago in Hellenic Egypt. Alchemy was a
combination of Greek philosophy, Egyptian technology, and the mysticism of
Middle Eastern religions. In the twelfth century, scholars translated Arabic
words into Latin, and alchemy was revived in medieval Europe.
Many started to conduct experiments, and everyone was eager to

(58:14):
create the elixir of immortality. Or transmute common substances into gold.
The desire to become famous attracted many swindlers who claimed
they were able to create gold using any earthly material.
Many pseudolchemists were exposed as fraudsters, but there was also
a group of more serious scientists who achieved more than

(58:35):
most realize. Were alchemists really able to transmute lead into gold?
Most will say that it was impossible, but there is
one particular incident that has never been explained. Has the
greatest alchemy secret of all time been lost? Forever? In Europe?
There was a very intelligent medieval alchemist who shunned publicity.

(58:58):
Unlike those who sought fame, he was a person who
enjoyed working alone and not discussing his achievements. When the
outside world learned about his incredible alchemical accomplishments, metas science
became curious and wanted to learn more about the occult
knowledge that this man possessed, but was unwilling to share.
It's a story dealing with secret knowledge. An intriguing alchemist

(59:20):
who was visited by a respected and skeptical scientist. After
observing the demonstration in person, the scientist was forced to
conclude the secretive alchemist was indeed capable of transmuting base
metal into gold. The skeptic accepted the evidence and documented
what he had witnessed. Later, something terrible happened. Students of

(59:40):
the occult might have heard of the gold maker. Alexander Seaton,
sometimes called Seethan. He was one of the most mysterious
alchemists to have ever lived. To many today, his name
means nothing, and he would not have been sad to
hear that he never became famous because he was reluctant
to reveal his secret knowledge. Anyway, much of his life
remains shrouded in mystery, and we don't even know when

(01:00:02):
he was born. It's generally believed that he was from
Scotland and lived in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century.
During this time, Setan was known under the pseudonym the Cosmopolitan.
He repeatedly surprised skeptics of alchemy with his demonstrations. The
most famous and curious incident took place when he met
Professor at Wolfgangdrenheim in Fribourg, Switzerland. The year was sixteen

(01:00:26):
oh two, and the Professor, who was an adversary of
all occult practices, met Seeden, who changed the scientist's opinion.
Not knowing what to think anymore. In a work titled
The Minerali Medicina, Drenheim told of the experiment that he'd
witnessed with Jacob Swinger, a goldsmith from Basil. Drenham wrote
about his meeting with Setan in the following We went

(01:00:47):
to the house of a gold miner with several slabs
of lead which Swinger had brought from home, a crucible
which he had borrowed from a goldsmith, and some ordinary
sulfur which we had bought. On the way. Seathan touched nothing.
He told us to make a fire, place the lead
and sulfur in the crucible, put on the lid, and
stir the mass with rods. Meanwhile, he spoke to us.

(01:01:08):
After a quarter of an hour, he said to us,
drop this little piece of paper into the molten lead,
but make sure it falls exactly in the middle, and
try to let nothing fall into the fire. Wrapped in
the paper was a rather heavy powder of a color
that appeared to be lemon yellow. It took good eyes
to distinguish it. Although we were as incredulous as doubting Thomas,
we did everything he said When the mass had heated

(01:01:31):
for another quarter of an hour and stirred continuously with
iron rods, the goldsmith was told to extinguish the fire
under the crucible by pouring water on it. We found
pure gold, which, in the goldsmith's opinion, was of even
higher quality than the fine gold of Hungary and Arabia.
It weighed as much as the lead whose place it
had taken. We were stupefied with amazement, and we scarcely

(01:01:53):
dared to believe our eyes. There's no reason to doubt
the authenticity of this account. Professor was a skeptic and
an enemy of those who engaged in occult practices. He
met with Setan to expose the alchemist as a fraudster. Instead,
he left the demonstration being convinced that he had seen
some powder magically transform something into gold. He saw the

(01:02:17):
procedure with his own eyes and wrote what he'd witnessed.
According to later documented correspondences, Setan did a new successful
alchemy demonstration in the house of the goldsmith Andre Bletz.
Another similar demonstration was performed in the house of the
goldsmith Gustenhover. Setan avoided publicity, and he used different names,
one of them was the name Hirschborgen. Knowledge of how

(01:02:41):
an alchemist successfully transmuted base metal into gold reached Emperor
Rudolph the Second, who summoned goldsmith Gustenhov to his castle.
Emperor Rudolph the second told Gustenhover to reveal the secrets
of his transmutation, but the poor goldsmith could provide the
ruler with no valuable information. He told the emperor he
he had absolutely no idea how one could use the

(01:03:02):
powder to make gold. The Emperor didn't believe Gustenhofer, who
ended the rest of his life in prison. Season did
his best to avoid publicity, but he was lured into
a trap and ended up in the Christian the seconds
Elector of Saxony, where he was tortured. The poor man
was pierced with sharp iron spikes, burned with molten lead,

(01:03:24):
and beaten with rods. Despite the pain he had to endure,
Setan did not reveal his alchemical secrets, and in sixteen
oh three, his Polish friend Michael Sendevog helped him to
escape the prison. By this time Setan was an old
man and his health condition was bad. He passed away
shortly after being a free man again. It is said

(01:03:45):
that Setan wrote down his alchemical formula in a work
known as the Book of Twelve Chapters, but the work
was destroyed by Sundebug. Was Setan a fraudster or did
he really accomplish what every alchemist dreamt of by transmuting
metal into gold. If he was successful, then he took
the greatest alchemy secret of all time to his grave.

(01:04:16):
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. Weird Darkness
is a production and trademark of Marler House Productions, Copyright

(01:04:40):
Weird Darkness. And now that we're coming out of the dark,
I'll leave you with a little light Hebrews thirteen, verse six.
So we say with confidence the Lord is my helper.
I will not be afraid what can mere mortals do
to me? And a final thought from Napoleon Hill, victory
is all always possible for the person who refuses to

(01:05:02):
stop fighting. I'm Darren Marler, thanks for joining me in
the weird darkness, but at the evidence that me but
at the evidence, but of the evidence that Morris presents,
perhaps most can. After discovering Edith's identity, Davy teamed up

(01:05:26):
with Jelmer Erkins. After discovering Edith's identity, Davy teamed up
with Yalmer Erkinson Erkins. After discovering Edith's identity, Davey teamed
up with Yelmer Erkson. Yeah, j E L emmy is Jelmer.
I want to say Yalmer Erkins E A r K

(01:05:48):
E N S Erkins Irkins, Yalmer Irkins, Let's go with you.
Let's go with Yealmer Ierkins and see if I can
say that

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