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Weird Darkness: Stories of the Paranormal, True Crime, Legends, Lore, Mysterious, Macabre, Unsolved

PERIPHERAL DEMONS: The Terrifying Truth About Shadow People

Weird Darkness: Stories of the Paranormal, True Crime, Legends, Lore, Mysterious, Macabre, Unsolved

Darren Marlar

True Crime, History, Society & Culture, Documentary, Science, Religion & Spirituality

4.64K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

They lurk in doorways, stand at the foot of your bed, and watch from the corners of your vision — dark, human-shaped figures that millions of people around the world claim to see, but science struggles to explain. Could they be demonic?

Join the DARKNESS SYNDICATE: https://weirddarkness.com/syndicate

ABOUT WEIRD DARKNESS: Weird Darkness is a true crime and paranormal podcast narrated by professional award-winning voice actor, Darren Marlar. Seven days per week, Weird Darkness focuses on all thing strange and macabre such as haunted locations, unsolved mysteries, true ghost stories, supernatural manifestations, urban legends, unsolved or cold case murders, conspiracy theories, and more. On Thursdays, this scary stories podcast features horror fiction along with the occasional creepypasta. Weird Darkness has been named one of the “Best 20 Storytellers in Podcasting” by Podcast Business Journal. Listeners have described the show as a cross between “Coast to Coast” with Art Bell, “The Twilight Zone” with Rod Serling, “Unsolved Mysteries” with Robert Stack, and “In Search Of” with Leonard Nimoy.
DISCLAIMER: Ads heard during the podcast that are not in my voice are placed by third party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. *** Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised.
IN THIS EPISODE: A college student’s roommate becomes darker and darker after befriending a witch – and then gets marked for death. (Dark Mass) *** If you were to drive from New York to Sacramento, California, it would take you close to 45-hours, non-stop.  If you were to fly? That strips off 40 of those hours – it’d only take you about five hours to fly from New York to California. But one person did it even faster than that… almost instantaneously.  (The Mysterious Case of the Teleporting Skier) *** A simple case of a man making angry threats at another man who had made a pass at his wife goes to court – and that’s when and where it gets really ugly, murderously so.  (Disorder In The Court) *** A man finds out that you don’t necessarily have to believe in ghosts in order to be terrified by them. (The Ghosts of Crosbie Towers) *** Reports are pouring in from all over the world with people claiming to have had an encounter with a Shadow Person. Benign shadows, malevolent shadows, shadows with glowing red eyes, hooded shadows, the infamous Hat Man… what are people seeing?  Can it be explained? (The Lurking Shadow People)

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Lead-In
00:00:50.923 = Show Open
00:02:06.977 = The Lurking Shadow People
00:24:18.357 = Dark Mass
00:38:03.151 = Disorder In The Court
00:42:45.838 = The Ghosts of Crosbie Towers
00:49:45.478 = The Mysterious Case of the Teleporting Skier
00:58:27.740 = Show Close

SOURCES AND RESOURCES FROM THE EPISODE…
“Dark Mass” by Melissa Dietrich: http://www.weirddarkness.com/submit
“The Lurking Shadow People” by Jason Offutt: https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2012/03/the-lurking-shadow-people/
“The Mysterious Case of the Teleporting Skier” by Brent Swancer: https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/06/the-mysterious-case-of-the-teleporting-skier/
“Disorder In The Court” by Robert Wilhelm: http://www.murderbygaslight.com/2018/09/disorder-in-court.html
“The Ghosts of Crosbie Towers” by Michael McKean: (link no longer available)
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(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)
= = = = =
"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46
= = = = =
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2025, Weird Darkness.
=====
Originally aired: October 05, 2018
EPISODE PAGE at WeirdDarkness.com (includes list of sources): https://weirddarkness.com/PeripheralDemons

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hold the kaleidoscope to your eye. Peer inside. One twist changes everything.

0:09.0

A woman awakens in a grotesque, human-sized arcade game. A mysterious cigar box purchased

0:17.4

at a farmer's market releases an ancient gin who demands a replacement prisoner.

0:23.9

An elderly woman possesses the terrifying power to inflict pain through handmade dolls.

0:30.9

An exclusive restaurant's sinister secret menu includes murder-for-hire and harvested organs. With each turn through these

0:41.8

20 tales, Reddit No Sleep favorite AP Royal reshapes reality, creating dazzling patterns of horror

0:49.9

that entrance as they terrify. The kaleidoscope, 20 terrifying tales of horror and the supernatural by AP Royal, narrated

1:01.1

by Darren Marler.

1:02.1

You're a free sample on the audiobooks page at weirddarkness.com.

1:10.0

This scares me, and I don't know what it is.

1:13.5

I've been seeing them since I was a little girl, always out of the corner of my eye,

1:18.2

a tall, black shadow.

1:20.6

I always feel like something or someone is by me.

1:25.1

Last night, I went down to my bedroom. There it was, standing next to my dresser.

1:31.6

I ran upstairs, crying to my mom. She went down and looked, saying it was only because I was

1:37.5

overtired. But I know what I saw. It was so scary. I don't know what it is. I need all the help I can get.

1:49.0

Jessica's cry for help, January 10th, 2010. I'm Darren Marler, and this is weird darkness.

2:06.4

Thank you. is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weird D'OES.

2:07.9

I'm Darren Marler, and this is Weird Darkness.

2:10.9

Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange

2:17.3

and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,

2:23.0

unsolved and unexplained.

...

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