Beyond The Edge Of Darkness Podcast

In August 1977, single parent Peggy Hodgson called the police to her rented home in Enfield, claiming she had witnessed furniture moving and that two of her four children said that knocking sounds were heard on the walls. The children included Margaret, age 13, and Janet, 11. A police constable said that she saw a chair "wobble and slide" but “could not determine the cause of the movement”.Later claims included disembodied voices, loud noises, thrown toys, overturned chairs, and children levitating. Over a period of 18 months, more than 30 people, including the neighbors, psychic researchers, and journalists, said they variously saw heavy furniture moving of its own accord, objects being thrown across a room and the daughters seeming to levitate several feet off the ground. Many also heard and recorded knocking noises and a gruff voice. The story was covered in the Daily Mirror until reports came to an end in 1979.

Kiev in the Ukraine, the Message of Fatima Still Stands" - Father Malachi Martin during an interview with Bernard Janzen, New York City, 22 March 1997 Malachi Brendan Martin (23 July 1921 – 27 July 1999), also known under the pseudonym of Michael Serafian, was an Irish-born American Traditionalist Catholic priest, biblical archaeologist, exorcist, palaeographer, professor, and prolific writer on the Roman Catholic Church. Ordained as a Jesuit priest, Martin became Professor of Palaeography at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. From 1958, he served as secretary to Cardinal Augustin Bea during preparations for the Second Vatican Council. Disillusioned by Vatican II, Martin asked to be released from certain aspects of his Jesuit vows in 1964 and moved to New York City. Martin's 17 novels and non-fiction books were frequently critical of the Catholic hierarchy, who he believed had failed to act on what he called "the Third Prophecy" revealed by the Virgin Mary at Fátima. His works included The Scribal Character of The Dead Sea Scrolls (1958) and Hostage To The Devil (1976) which dealt with Satanism, demonic possession, and exorcism. The Final Conclave (1978) was a warning against Soviet espionage in the Vatican.

Unlike the Brannock family in The Watcher series, the Broaddus family never ultimately moved into 657 Boulevard, so fearful were they of harm to their children. One night in June 2014, Derek Broaddus had just finished an evening of painting at his new home in Westfield, New Jersey, when he went outside to check the mail. Derek and his wife, Maria, had closed on the six-bedroom house at 657 Boulevard three days earlier and were doing some renovations before they moved in, so there wasn’t much in the mail except a few bills and a white, card-shaped envelope. It was addressed in thick, clunky handwriting to “The New Owner,” and the typed note inside began warmly: Dearest new neighbor at 657 Boulevard, Allow me to welcome you to the neighborhood.

The murder of Cassie Jo Stoddart took place in Bannock County, Idaho, United States, on September 22, 2006, when Stoddart (born December 21, 1989), a student at Pocatello High School, was stabbed to death by classmates Brian Lee Draper (born March 21, 1990) and Torey Michael Adamcik (born June 14, 1990).[1] Both perpetrators received sentences of life imprisonment without parole on August 21, 2007

Frederick Walter Stephen West (29 September 1941 – 1 January 1995) was an English serial killer who committed at least twelve murders between 1967 and 1987 in Gloucestershire, the majority with his second wife, Rosemary West. All the victims were young women. At least eight of these murders involved the Wests' sexual gratification and included rape, bondage, torture and mutilation; the victims' dismembered bodies were typically buried in the cellar or garden of the Wests' Cromwell Street home in Gloucester, which became known as the "House of Horrors". Fred is known to have committed at least two murders on his own, while Rose is known to have murdered Fred's stepdaughter, Charmaine. The couple were arrested and charged in 1994. Fred fatally asphyxiated himself while detained on remand at HM Prison Birmingham on 1 January 1995, at which time he and Rose were jointly charged with nine murders, and he with three further murders. In November 1995, Rose was convicted of ten murders and sentenced to ten life terms with a whole life order.

The I-70 killer is an unidentified American serial killer who is known to have killed six store clerks in the Midwest in the spring of 1992. His nickname derives from the fact that several of the stores in which his victims worked were located a few miles off of Interstate 70 (I-70). His victims were usually young, petite, brunette women. One of the victims was a man, but it is believed that the killer may have expected a woman in the store due to the store having a woman's name. All of the stores attacked were specialty stores and were usually only robbed of small amounts of cash.[1] He is also suspected of shooting three more store clerks in Texas during 1993 and 1994, one of whom survived, as well as a 2001 murder of a store clerk in Terre Haute, Indiana. Despite the case being featured on Unsolved Mysteries, America's Most Wanted, and Dark Minds, the killer is yet to be identified and investigators have not publicly identified any suspects.

Numerous people claim to have woken in the dark to find a shadowy figure, dubbed the Hat Man, looming over them. The phenomenon has attracted widespread attention, inspiring documentaries and the launch of a dedicated blog, The Hatman Project, where people can share their experiences.

The South Shields Poltergeist In December 2005 a family began to experience poltergeist-like phenomena in their home. Slowly but steadily the phenomena escalated, and in July 2006 it got worse than ever imagined. The case, that began at the end of 2005, and lasted most of 2006, is said by some to be one of the best attested, and one of the most significant cases in over 50 years.

In the Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia folklore of the United States, the Jersey Devil (also known as the Leeds Devil) is a legendary creature said to inhabit the Pine Barrens of South Jersey. The creature is often described as a flying biped with hooves, but there are many variations. The common description is that of a bipedal kangaroo-like or wyvern-like creature with a horse- or goat-like head, leathery bat-like wings, horns, small arms with clawed hands, legs with cloven hooves, and a forked tail. It has been reported to move quickly and is often described as emitting a high-pitched "blood-curdling scream"

https://anchor.fm/beyond-the-edge/subscribe elroy Easton Grant (born 3 September 1957) is a Jamaican-born British convicted serial rapist who carried out a series of offences of burglary, rape and sexual assault dating between October 1992 and May 2009 in the South East London area of England. Grant, also known as the Minstead Rapist and latterly the Night Stalker, is thought to have been active since 1990, and has a distinctive modus operandi, preying on elderly women who live alone. He is suspected of over 100 offences from 1990 to 2009. In 1998, the Metropolitan Police launched the dedicated Operation Minstead team to investigate the crimes, based at Lewisham police station. (The name does not directly refer to the village of Minstead, Hampshire; rather it was chosen from an alphabetical list of English villages, the method of operational naming in use at the time). As of 2009, the operation was the largest and most complex rape investigation ever undertaken by the Metropolitan Police. On 24 March 2011, Grant was found guilty on all counts. The following day he was given four life sentences and ordered to serve a minimum of 27 years in prison. Operation Minstead is dramatized over the 2020 second season of the British TV show Manhunt.

https://anchor.fm/beyond-the-edge/subscribe Edward Warren Miney (September 7, 1926 – August 23, 2006)and Lorraine Rita Warren (née Moran; January 31, 1927 – April 18, 2019) were American paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of alleged hauntings. Edward was a self-taught and self-professed demonologist, author, and lecturer. Lorraine professed to be clairvoyant and a light trance medium who worked closely with her husband. In 1952, the Warrens founded the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR), the oldest ghost hunting group in New England. They authored many books about the paranormal and about their private investigations into various reports of paranormal activity. They claimed to have investigated well over 10,000 cases during their career. The Warrens were among the first investigators in the Amityville haunting. According to the Warrens, the official website of the NESPR, Viviglam Magazine and several other sources, the NESPR uses a variety of individuals, including medical doctors, researchers, police officers, nurses, college students, and members of the clergy in its investigations. Stories of ghost hauntings popularized by the Warrens have been adapted as or have indirectly inspired dozens of films, television series, and documentaries, including several films in the Amityville Horror series and the films in The Conjuring Universe. Annabelle Amityville Enfield poltergeist Arne Johnson Smurl family Snedeker house

https://anchor.fm/beyond-the-edge/subscribe  Satanic CIA Cult The Finders ?  Listeners Caution Advised  It came to wider public attention when two members of the movement were arrested in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1987 and charged with misdemeanor child abuse of the six children accompanying them, the two men having responded with silence when, in a public park, the police inquired as to their identity and relationship to the children.The men were Douglas Ammerman and James Michael Holwell, both described as "well-dressed men in suits." They used a van to transport "six scruffy, hungry children" of varying ages. The age range of the children was between age 2 and 11. The men were released six weeks later, with the state of Florida dropping all charges against them. Federal authorities concluded that there was no evidence of criminal activity. The authorities contacted the mothers of the children, who came to Tallahassee and retrieved them. Despite this resolution, the issue was brought to wider attention as Skip Clements, a resident of Stuart, Florida with no direct knowledge of the Finders or its members,[citation needed] alleged without evidence that the Central Intelligence Agency had compelled the U.S. Customs Service to cease the investigation, supposedly because the commune was used as a front to train agents. Clements' unsubstantiated allegations drew the interest of two United States Congress members and an investigation by the Department of Justice. The issue gained wider attention in 1993 when a 1987 "report," by a junior Customs clerk who had no direct knowledge of the Finders or its members,[citation needed] was made public, which stated without evidence that the DC Police Department investigation into The Finders had been dropped as a "a CIA internal matter."[citation needed Despite absence of any evidence or verification by the Washington, DC Police Department, the belief that this "report" indicated a larger conspiracy of child abuse became popular in some quarters, with Vice Magazine assessing in 2019 that "The Finders become a sort of Patient Zero" for the larger network of beliefs in government-linked child abuse such as "Pizzagate or Jeffrey Epstein’s so-called suicide." In 2019, the FBI released hundreds of documents related to The Finders, noting on their FBI Vault website it was their top requested topic.

Spirit possession is an unusual or altered state of consciousness and associated purportedly caused by the control of a human body by spirits, ghosts, demons, or gods. The concept of spirit possession exists in many cultures and religions, including Buddhism, Christianity,Haitian Vodou, Hinduism, Islam, Wicca, and Southeast Asian and African traditions. Depending on the cultural context in which it is found, possession may be considered voluntary or involuntary and may be considered to have beneficial or detrimental effects on the host. In a 1969 study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, spirit possession beliefs were found to exist in 74% of a sample of 488 societies in all parts of the world, with the highest numbers of believing societies in Pacific cultures and the lowest incidence among Native Americans of both North and South America.As Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian churches move into both African and Oceanic areas, a merger of belief can take place, with "demons" becoming representative of the "old" indigenous religions, which the Christian ministers work to exorcise.

https://anchor.fm/beyond-the-edge/subscribe It is mostly known by this name due to the neighborhood in Spain, where it all took place. There is also a movie on Netflix called Veronica, based on this story. This is the first case where paranormal phenomena was reported in a police report, not sure if that applies to Spain alone. This took place between 1990 and 1991, in the Vallecas neighborhood of Madrid, Spain. Estefania Gutierrez Lazario was 18 and the eldest of 4 siblings. In March 1990 she went to school as usual but her friend had snuck in a Ouija board. They had just started dabbling in the occult & and the boyfriend of one of the friends had just died. So they were attempting to contact him with the board in the girls bathroom. Her sister was part of this as well, but she was guarding the door supposedly. A teacher busted them, took the board and broke it in half. At that moment, all the girls & the teacher said they saw gray smoke, which Estefania ended up inhaling. After that day, nothing was the same for Estefania. Her parents stated that she began having fits of rage and began seeing shadow people at night. She said the shadow people had no face, hooded cloaks and wanted her to go with them. She also began suffering from insomnia, hallucinations and seizures. They went to many different doctors and hospitals, but no one could figure out what was going on with her.  Her mental state began worsening and she even attacked her sister so badly she knocked her out, and her mouth was foaming during the attack. After that attack her health continued to decline and after one seizure, she was taken to the hospital, where she fell into a coma and died. There was no official cause of death and the autopsy reported “sudden and suspicious death”. After her death, things worsened in the home. Even before her death, weird things were happening in the apartment, like objects moving on their own, doors opening and closing by themselves and Estefania’s siblings said at times it felt like they were being grabbed by an invisible force. Guests of the family also stated to have experienced things there. Her mother stated she could hear Estefania’s screams. The family heard banging, things kept moving, they heard the disembodied laughter of men and heard glass breaking. 2 years after Estefania’s death, a picture of hers burst into flames, but the frame and the glass were fine, it was just the picture that was burned. On November 27th, 1992, they decided to get the police involved and inspector Jose Negri and the team were sent. The night before, Concepcion (Mrs. Gutierrez) felt pressure on top of her and told her husband “someone is here” and right after that, something grabbed her feet and her hand. When the police arrived, they found the entire family outside, even though it was raining and cold. The team says they all felt a weird presence, as well as nauseated. Here are parts of the police report, which is the first report to ever be filed as paranormal/unexplained.

Listen To Next Weeks episode early Here on spotify or anchor the Ouiji Board Gone Wrong, The Vallecas Case  :   https://anchor.fm/beyond-the-edge/subscribe The Eddy Brothers were William and Horatio Eddy, two American mediums best known in the 1870s for their alleged psychic powers. The brothers were sons of Zephaniah Eddy and his wife Julia Maccombs, natives of Vermont. It was alleged that their family could be traced back to the Salem witch trials, and that they had a long history of psychic ability. Growing up on a small farm in Chittenden, Vermont, both brothers claimed to have exhibited strong psychic abilities from an early age. Both the sons took up mediumship and held séances, in which it was alleged that they produced ectoplasm materializations and communicated with spirit guides. William would work in a séance cabinet on occasion and his brother Horatio would sit outside a cloth screen where it was alleged that spirits would play musical instruments behind the screen. In 1870, William and Horatio were living with their widowed mother Julia in Chittenden. There, the Eddy family opened a small inn, called the Green Tavern. In addition to lodging travelers, the Green Tavern was also the spot of regularly scheduled séances that the brothers put on for visitors from around the world. A typical séance of the Eddy Brothers would have the audience gathered in the "circle" room at the tavern. One of the brothers would enter a special spirit box at the front of the room (essentially just a small room with a chair in it) and lapse into a deep trance, at which point the show would start. It was alleged that instruments would start playing music on their own, various noises could be heard and strange lights would be seen.

https://anchor.fm/beyond-the-edge/subscribe Herbert Richard Baumeister (April 7, 1947 – July 3, 1996) was an American businessman and a suspected serial killer. A resident of the Indianapolis suburb of Westfield, Indiana, Baumeister was under investigation for murdering over a dozen men in the early 1990s, most of whom were last seen at gay bars. Police found the remains of eleven people, eight identified, on Baumeister's property. Baumeister committed suicide after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He was later linked to a series of murders of at least nine men along Interstate 70, which occurred in the early to mid-1980s. By the early 1990s, investigators with the Marion County Sheriff's Department and the Indianapolis Police Department began investigating the disappearances of gay men of similar age, height, and weight in the Indianapolis area. In 1992, they were contacted by a man named Tony Harris claiming that a gay bar patron calling himself "Brian Smart" had killed a friend of his, and had attempted to kill him with a pool hose during an erotic asphyxiation session. Harris eventually saw this man again in August 1995, following his car and noting his license plate number. From this data, police identified "Brian Smart" as Herb Baumeister

The issues began in 1968 when Gerard and Laura Goodin were living in the house and adopted their daughter Marcia. It was during this time period that the Goodin family insisted they could hear pounding noises from inside the walls, doors would slam shut on their own, and items would shift places. By 1974 the events had transpired enough that the media started to get involved. The house was drawing in attention not only from the aforementioned Ed and Lorraine Warren, but also the American Society for Psychical Research and the Psychical Research Foundation. The Goodin family were interviewed by police who were patrolling the area 24 hours a day. It was enough that public civilians began crowding the house and one person even attempted burning it down to the ground. Apparently this is even when the entity which reportedly haunted the house showed itself. As described by author Bill Hall, who wrote The World’s Most Haunted House which includes details about the story via eyewitness reports: The entity “resembled a large, cohesive assemblage of smoky yellowish-white ‘gauzy’ mist.” Aside from this, reports continue to get even crazier, with claims that even the family cat Sam would begin speaking and saying strange phrases like “Jingle Bells” or perhaps even more creepily, “Bye Bye.” As taken from the website Damned Connecticut, there was a story regarding the house. In the comments section one man named Nelson P. said he worked at the City Hall in 1974 when these events took place. He was reportedly able to see records of the incident at the Bridgeport Police Department. As he stated: “…we gained a copy of a written report by an officer who was present when the paranormal s*it hit the fan on Lindley St. The most chilling account was when in his writing ‘and the cat said to the officer “How’s your brother Bill doing?, and the officer looked down and replied “My brother’s dead.” The cat then scowled “I know” swearing repeatedly at the officer then ran off. Other visual events in the report include a levitating refrigerator and an armchair that flipped over and could not be lifted back into place by the officers. One officer who witnessed it all took an immediate leave of absence having been that shaken by the experience. I today firmly believe these events took place in the home.” It must be said, however, that most of these events seem to be the result of a clever hoax. Apparently one of the patrolling police officers at one point noticed the Goodins’ adopted daughter, Marcia, attempting to tip over a television set with her foot. When she was caught in the act, she was questioned, and admitted to being the cause for all the “paranormal” events within the house. Nevertheless, the witness reports from the likes of law enforcement officers and other trusted individuals make for an interesting counter argument. Many claimed to have seen things when Marcia wasn’t even in the house.

The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history, and some of the best recorded of the 17th century. The twelve accused lived in the area surrounding Pendle Hill in Lancashire, and were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft. All but two were tried at Lancaster Assizes on 18–19 August 1612, along with the Samlesbury witches and others, in a series of trials that have become known as the Lancashire witch trials. One was tried at York Assizes on 27 July 1612, and another died in prison. Of the eleven who went to trial – nine women and two men – ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty. The official publication of the proceedings by the clerk to the court, Thomas Potts, in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, and the number of witches hanged together – nine at Lancaster and one at York – make the trials unusual for England at that time. It has been estimated that all the English witch trials between the early 15th and early 18th centuries resulted in fewer than 500 executions; this series of trials accounts for more than two per cent of that total. Six of the Pendle witches came from one of two families, each at the time headed by a woman in her eighties: Elizabeth Southerns (a.k.a. Demdike[a]), her daughter Elizabeth Device, and her grandchildren James and Alizon Device; Anne Whittle (a.k.a. Chattox), and her daughter Anne Redferne. The others accused were Jane Bulcock and her son John Bulcock, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Alice Grey, and Jennet Preston. The outbreaks of 'witchcraft' in and around Pendle may suggest that some people made a living by traditional healers, using a mixture of herbal medicine and talismans or charms, which might leave them open to charges of sorcery.[2] Many of the allegations resulted from accusations that members of the Demdike and Chattox families made against each other, perhaps because they were in competition, both trying to make a living from healing, begging, and extortion.

Harry Price (17 January 1881 – 29 March 1948) was a British psychic researcher and author, who gained public prominence for his investigations into psychical phenomena and his exposing fraudulent spiritualist mediums. Harry Price and 'Rosalie'  The following article is taken from the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 43, No. 726 (1965-66).  Prior to Medhurst's paper, S.P.R. member David Cohen, who was President of the Manchester Society for Psychical Research, had published a book on the 'Rosalie' case - Price and his Spirit Child 'Rosalie', (Regency Press, London, 1965) - which had been reviewed in the December 1965 issue of the Journal.  This was the current state of play with 'Rosalie' in the mid 1960s following Cohen's work on the case. Of all the strange phenomena reported by parapsychologists, that of 'full-form materialization' is perhaps the most difficult for the non-converted to take seriously.  Both Crookes's 'Katie King' and Richet's 'Bien Boa' attracted their share of ridicule.  The physiological difficulty that a structure as complex as a living body, carrying in itself the minutely detailed record of its remote and recent history, should be created and destroyed almost at will in the séance room has daunted more than one otherwise sympathetic man of science. Harry Price's story of 'Rosalie', which is the principal subject of Mr Cohen's book, is, taken at its face value, almost unique among such cases, insofar as Price had a degree of control over the sitters and the conduct of the sitting hardly ever permitted to the earlier investigators of phenomena of this kind. The story was first told by Price in his Fifty Years of Psychical Research (1939), and is reproduced in full in Dr Paul Tabori's Harry Price: The Biography of a Ghost Hunter. Price presents it as a 'verbatim and uncorrected' record, written on the night of the séance it describes. In his account, he says that on the morning of Wednesday, 8th December, 1937, he was rung up by a lady who told him that every Wednesday evening she and some friends held a family séance at her house, during which a little girl spirit known as Rosalie always materialized.  Price was invited to attend, provided that he promised not to reveal the identity of any of the sitters, or the locality where the séance was held.  He 'was not to seek a scientific enquiry, as the mother of "Rosalie", who attended each sitting, was terrified that her girl might be frightened away'.  Price was told that 'these Wednesday meetings were in the nature of a sacred communion with the spirit of her daughter, and would be maintained as such'.  However, he was assured that before the séance he would have complete freedom to search premises and sitters and to introduce any control measures that he wished.

The Great Amherst Mystery was a notorious case of reported poltergeist activity in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada between 1878 and 1879. It was the subject of an investigation by Walter Hubbell, an actor with an interest in psychic phenomena, who kept what he claimed was a diary of events in the house, later expanded into a popular book. The Amherst Mystery centred on Esther Cox, who lived in a house with her married sister Olive Teed, Olive's husband Daniel and their two young children. A brother and sister of Esther and Olive also lived in the house, as did Daniel's brother John Teed. According to Hubbell's account, events began at the end of August 1878, after Esther Cox, then aged 18, was subjected to an attempted sexual assault by a male friend. This left her in great distress, and shortly after this the physical phenomena began. There were knockings, bangings and rustlings in the night, and Esther herself began to suffer seizures in which her body visibly swelled and she was feverish and chilled by turns. Then objects in the house took flight. The frightened family called in a doctor. During his visit, bedclothes moved, scratching noises were heard and the words "Esther Cox, you are mine to kill" appeared on the wall by the head of Esther's bed. The following day the doctor administered sedatives to Esther to calm her and help her sleep, whereupon more noises and flying objects manifested themselves. Attempts to communicate with the "spirit" resulted in tapped responses to questions. The phenomena continued for some months, and became well known locally. Visitors to the cottage, including clergymen, heard banging and knocking and witnessed moving objects, often when Esther herself was under close observation. In December Esther fell ill with diphtheria. No phenomena were observed during the two weeks she spent in bed, nor during the time she spent recuperating afterwards at the home of a married sister in Sackville, New Brunswick. However, when she returned to Amherst the mysterious events began again, this time involving the outbreak of fires in various places in the house. Esther herself now claimed to see the "ghost", which threatened to burn the house down unless she left.