Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Thousands have stepped off marked trails and into America's wilderness never to be seen again, and the retired lawman who spent years cataloguing them found the same strange details surfacing case after case.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/Missing411

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/34vb6kex

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Thousands of people have vanished without a trace from America's wilderness areas, leaving behind baffling clues that defy conventional explanation. From children who disappear within seconds while picking berries to hikers in bright clothing who seem to evaporate from marked trails, these cases share disturbing patterns that suggest something beyond ordinary misadventure. What is happening in our national parks? And what strange forces might be responsible for those who seemingly step off the face of the earth?

SOURCES and RESOURCES:
David Paulides' "Missing 411" Book Series (Missing 411: Western United States & Canada * Missing 411: Eastern United States * Missing 411: North America and Beyond * Missing 411: The Devil's in the Detail)https://www.canammissing.com/missing-411.html
CanAm Missing Project Website: https://www.canammissing.com
George Knapp's Interview with David Paulides for Mystery Wire: https://www.mysterywire.com/ufo/david-paulides-missing-411/
National Park Service Missing Persons Database: https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/foia/foia-reading-room.htm
Documentaries on Missing 411: "Missing 411" (2016), https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5864680; "Missing 411: The Hunted" (2019), https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10524262
Coast to Coast AM Interviews with David Paulides: https://www.coasttocoastam.com/guest/paulides-david/49441/
Mysterious Universe: https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2024/08/Don-t-Want-to-Mysteriously-Vanish-Don-t-Do-These-Things-/
The Charley Project: https://charleyproject.org/
National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs): https://www.namus.gov/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Dennis_Martin,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Alfred_Beilhartz,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Jaryd_Atadero, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kecksburg_UFO_incident
(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.)

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: March 26, 2025
Across North America, more than two thousand people have vanished in and around national parks under circumstances that resist every ordinary explanation. Former law enforcement officer David Paulides has spent years documenting these cases in his Missing 411 series, isolating the ones that can't be written off as voluntary disappearances, accidents, or animal predation — and finding that what remains follows a disturbing set of recurring patterns he calls profile points.This episode of Weird Darkness walks through those patterns one by one. It opens with the national park clusters and the failure of search and rescue dogs — trained trackers that lose the scent at a dead stop, panic, or never catch it at all — then moves to the berry-picking connection, with more than a century of cases: Lillian Carney in 1897 Maine, Alice Rachel Peck and her account of "The Black Man" who carried her, Eddie Hamilton, Wesley Piatote, Jack Pike, Simon Skogan, Gary Bailey, and the strange 1965 Kuninga family encounter in Finland. From there it examines the bright-clothing factor through the best-known cases in the catalog — Dennis Martin's 1969 vanishing in the Great Smoky Mountains, Alfred Beilhartz in Rocky Mountain National Park, and Jaryd Atadero in Colorado's Poudre Canyon — followed by the recurring role of granite boulder fields, nearby water, sudden weather, and victims who step out of sight around a bend and are gone.The episode also weighs what happens when bodies are recovered, often in previously searched areas or terrain the victim could not have reached, and lays out the range of proposed explanations — from unreported crimes and disorientation to cryptids, folklore entities, and Indigenous traditions of places where the veil between worlds runs thin — without landing on any of them. It closes with practical wilderness-safety guidance for anyone who'd rather not become a Missing 411 case themselves.

A Marine pilot vanished over the Atlantic in 1945 with no wreckage, no body, and no explanation — and more than thirty years later, forty people would swear he was still alive.

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Window to Oblivion” (May 23, 1978)
00:44:05.587 = Mysterious Traveler, “The Visiting Corpse” (January 09, 1944)
01:12:38.749 = CBC Nightfall, “The Telltale Heart” (August 01, 1980)
01:40:47.122 = Obsession, “Solitary Genius” (July 30, 1951) ***WD (LQ)
02:04:08.135 = Origin of Superstition, “Knock On Wood” (1935) ***WD
02:17:51.431 = Pat Novak For Hire, “Joe Candono Blackmail Pictures” (March 27, 1949)
02:49:57.789 = Peril, “Man Against The City/Purple Death” (1953) ***WD
03:11:08.909 = Mystery Playhouse, “Man In Velvet Hat” (December 19, 1944) ***WD
03:39:06.839 = Philip Morris Playhouse, “Leona’s Room” (February 25, 1949)
04:07:58.182 = Price of Fear, “Soul Music” (October 27, 1973) ***WD
04:36:05.849 = Adventures of Ellery Queen, “Three Frogs” (April 29, 1948) ***WD
05:04:54.373 = Show Close

(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.
CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0736

I swear, I could start a whole new podcast called "They Shouldn't Be Parents" with these stories coming from all directions. So sad. A follow-up welfare visit to a six-week-old in Florahome, Florida ended with the baby in intensive care and four adults from the same household in jail, after deputies described the conditions inside as among the worst child neglect they had ever encountered.

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/CannonCase20260806

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736

*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Elizabeth Siders' attorney tells a national television audience that the photos and video claiming to show inside the house may not be genuine. The judge in her case still has not ruled on whether she will be evaluated at all.

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/SidersCase20260806

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736

*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

“The Girl He Left Behind”: A young nurse turns down her soldier sweetheart's marriage proposal but keeps the ring he insists she hold onto, and when word arrives that he was killed on the drive back to base, she discovers that the dead do not always accept being refused.

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Girl He Left Behind” (May 22, 1978)
00:44:53.033 = Michael Shayne, “Mary Noble Suspects Uncle Briggs” (June 11, 1945) ***WD
01:14:29.830 = Beyond Midnight, “The Thing in Cabin 105” (February 28, 1969) ***WD
01:45:19.270 = MindWebs, “Gas Mask” (April 02, 1983)
02:08:37.602 = Chamber of Horrors, “The Waxwork” (ADU) ***WD
02:34:53.987 = Mystery In The Air, “Black Cat” (September 18, 1947) ***WD
03:00:40.112 = Molle Mystery Theater, “Hands of Mr. Ottermole” (June 21, 1946)
03:30:03.061 = Mr. Keen, “The Woman In Blue” (June 15, 1944)
03:59:15.197 = Murder At Midnight, “Creeper” (May 15, 1950) ***WD
04:24:31.631 = The Black Museum, “The Telegram” (February 26, 1951) ***WD
04:48:07.485 = Calling All Detectives, “Jerry Witnesses a Murder” (July 08, 1948) ***WD (LQ)
04:56:12.567 = Tales of the Frightened, “Shakespeare’s Hometown” (December 17, 1957)
05:00:30.682 = Show Close

(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.
CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0735