THE JONESTOWN TAPES: Audio of the Final Hour When The Socialist Paradise Became Hell on Earth
Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories
Darren Marlar
4.6 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Jim Jones started the Peoples Temple preaching racial equality and winning civil rights awards, but by 1978 his Jonestown compound had become an isolated nightmare of beatings, forced labor, and "suicide rehearsals" where followers practiced drinking poison. On November 18th, when a congressman's investigation threatened to expose the truth, Jones ordered his followers to feed cyanide-laced punch to over 300 children first—then recorded audio as 900 people died in the largest loss of American civilian life before 9/11.
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IN THIS EPISODE: We’ll look not only at the horrible events of the Jonestown massacre itself, but what life was like for those in The Peoples Temple cult before the mass suicide took place. Plus, we’ll look through the eyes of first responders who came upon the grizzly scene immediately after, and how they dealt with the horrors they stepped into.
SOURCES AND RESOURCES FROM THE EPISODE…
“Jonestown: Modern History’s Largest Mass Suicide” by Kellen Perry for AllThat’sInteresting.com:https://tinyurl.com/y3ccb3q5 (Includes links to videos with audio files used in this episode.)
“Life in the People’s Temple” by Beth Elias for Ranker.com: https://tinyurl.com/yygj5gey
“The Shock Felt By Jonestown First Responders” by Andy Kopsa for Time.com: https://tinyurl.com/y55coj9u
=====(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: September 14, 2020
EPISODE PAGE at WeirdDarkness.com (includes list of sources): https://weirddarkness.com/JonestownTapes
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.
#JonestownMassacre #TrueCrime #CultDocumentary #JimJones #UnsolvedMysteries
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode is sponsored by Awful Movie Reviews on YouTube. |
| 0:03.6 | I've been a fan of awful movie reviews for a couple of years now, and I never miss an episode. |
| 0:08.8 | Every Friday, you get a new comedic video covering a gosh, awful, horrible, terrible, wretched, |
| 0:13.9 | or just plain boring movie in the horror or sci-fi genre. |
| 0:17.6 | B-monster movies, films directed by notorious names like Ed Wood or Roger Corman, |
| 0:22.4 | flicks made on budgets lower than your monthly grocery bill, special effects you'd swear |
| 0:26.6 | were created by someone who's colorblind, cinematography so shaky, you'd swear a three-year-old |
| 0:31.0 | was trying to hold the camera, audio recording in the film that, well, you see where I'm going |
| 0:35.6 | here. They even take requests for awful movies you'd like to see them review in the future. You'll probably learn about flicks you've never even heard of while laughing along with the host. You can find awful movie reviews on YouTube by simply searching for awful movie reviews. I've also placed a link to them on my sponsors page so you can find them easily. And if you're like me, at the end of each |
| 0:54.5 | awful movie review, you'll be saying it aloud with the host, what an awful movie! |
| 0:59.0 | Hey, weirdos, just wanted to let you know that on the Weird Darkness YouTube channel recently, |
| 1:04.8 | we've been having fun doing a live chat each weeknight at 10.30 p.m. Central Time. I set up |
| 1:10.2 | the YouTube channel to premiere a video at that time, |
| 1:12.8 | usually the podcast episode for the day, and then during the premiere, we all hang out in the |
| 1:17.3 | YouTube live chat. Even if you've already heard that day's episode here in the podcast, you're |
| 1:21.9 | still welcome to join us for the YouTube chat. It's every weeknight at 10.30 p.m. Central time, |
| 1:27.2 | and sometimes I do it over the weekends, too, |
| 1:29.6 | because I have no social life whatsoever. You can find my channel at weirddarkness.com slash YouTube. |
| 1:35.5 | That's weirddarkness.com slash YouTube. Hey, weirdos, as we get closer to Halloween and our 10-year |
| 1:41.8 | anniversary of this podcast, I'd love to get your |
| 1:44.2 | opinions on how I'm doing, what you like, what you don't like, what you'd like to see more |
| 1:48.9 | of, what you'd change if you were in charge, well, you get the idea. I have a new weird |
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