Dark Histories – Details, episodes & analysis

In the summer of 1849, Patrick O’Connor, a prosperous London customs officer, vanished without warning. His trail ended in a quiet Bermondsey house, home to Frederick and Maria Manning—a married couple bound to him by secrets and suspicion. When O’Connor’s body was found buried beneath their kitchen floor, whispers of greed, betrayal, and hidden passions spread across London. SOURCES Buckley, Angela(2024) The Bermondsey Murder: Scotland Yard’s First Great Challenge and Dickens’ Inspiration. Pen & Sword, Barnsley, UK. Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (1849) Murder In Bermondsey. Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, Sun 19 Aug 1849, p12. London, UK. The Sun (1849) An Account Of The Alleged Murderer And His Wife, And Their Antecedents. The Sun, Mon 20 Aug 1849, p8. London, UK. Newcastle Guardian & Tyne Mercury (1849) Trial of the Mannings. Newcastle Guardian & Tyne Mercury, Sat 27 Oct 1849, p8. Newcastle, UK. The Tipperary Vindicator (1849) Trial Conviction And Passing Of Sentence Of The Mannings For The Murder Of Mr O’Connor. The Tipperary Vindicator, Wed 31 Oct 1849, p1. Tipperary, Ireland. John Bull (1849) Execution Of The Mannings. John Bull, Mon 19 Nov 1849, p13. London, UK. John Bull (1849) Confession Of Frederick Manning. John Bull, Sat 17 Nov 1849, p13. London, UK. ------ For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at ⁠darkhistories.com ⁠ Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: ⁠http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories⁠ or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories⁠ The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: ⁠http://author.to/darkhistories⁠ Dark Histories merch is available here: ⁠https://bit.ly/3GChjk9⁠ Connect with us on Facebook: ⁠http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast⁠ Or find us on Twitter: ⁠http://twitter.com/darkhistories⁠ & Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/⁠ Or you can contact us directly via email at ⁠contact@darkhistories.com⁠ or join our Discord community: ⁠https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf⁠ The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's that time of year where the sun is out for more than 10 minutes a day over here in England, so that must mean it's summer holiday! I'll be off for just a short two weeks, but until then, I thought I'd introduce a podcast to you. It's a great, Dark History podcast, which I shall leave to their own words: Macabrium Lore & Legends Subscribe here: https://podfollow.com/1695858163 “The 13th Child: The Jersey Devil” In the New Jersey Pine Barrens, where the trees grow dense and the roads give way to tangled wilderness, something stirs. The locals say you can hear it on the coldest nights—a high-pitched shriek, something not quite human, not quite beast. The stories go back centuries. Some say it was a curse, an omen of misfortune that slithered into this world on a storm-wracked night. Others claim it was the child of a mother who, in her desperation or her rage, called upon the Devil himself. The details shift with time, but the warning remains the same: stay out of the pines after dark. Because if you listen closely, past the rustling leaves and the distant howl of the wind, you might just hear the beat of leathery wings.And by then, it’s already too late. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back with another episode of Yesterday Today, the shoot off podcast for Dark Histories. ------- For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9 Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An evolution of centuries-long efforts to contact and communicate with the dead, the practice of recording voices from the great beyond was attempted almost as soon as radio and tape recording technology became widely available in consumer devices. From garbled electrical chirps emanating out of swathes of white noise, to perfectly clear, eloquent speech, the results across the years have been as varied as they have been numerous. Up there with the capturing of “orbs” on camera in regards to its plausibility, EVP Research has somehow survived sceptical analysis and become a surprisingly persistent area of parapsychology. Though there were several pioneers in the space, there was one man who was supposedly so invested in the subject by the time of his death that he decided to come back and continue the job from the afterlife, through the medium of the telephone. SOURCES Jürgenson, Friedrich (1967) Voice Transmissions with the Deceased. Firework, Sweden. Raudive, Konstantin. (1971) Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead. Smythe, UK. Roach, Mary. (2005). Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. W.W. Norton & Co. UK. Banks, Joe (2001) Rorschach Audio: Ghost Voices and Perceptual Creativity. Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 11, pp 77-83. MIT Press, USA. Estep, Sarah (1988) Voices of Eternity. Fawcett Gold Medal, NY, USA. Estep, Sarah (2005) Roads to Eternity. Glade Press, MN, USA. Moreman, Christopher M. (2013) The Spiritualist Movement: Speaking with the Dead in America and Around the World. ABC-CLIO, CA, USA. ---------- For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9 Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Given a certain degree of infamy thanks to Charles Darwin, the Galapagos Islands are far less famous for their role in playing host to a tiny, isolated German ex-pat community in the 1930s, living quietly, surrounded by the unending blue of the Pacific Ocean. The motley crew of settlers included a doctor with philosophical aspirations, a pregnant housewife and an eccentric Baroness bent on creating a hotel for millionaires, complete with her doting entourage of love interests. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ideologically disparate factions often failed to see eye to eye whilst they precariously shared the island's few natural springs, a situation that rose more than a few suspicions to those that watched on from the outside, after a series of unexplained deaths and disappearances tore the quiet island life apart from the inside, leaving the survivors to shrink off into quiet obscurity. SOURCES Treherne, John (1983) The Galapagos Affair. Random House, NY, USA. Beebe, William (1924) Galapagos: World’s End. G. P. Putnam's Sons, NY, USA. Strauch, Dore (1936) Satan Came to Eden: A Survivor's Account of the "Galapagos Affair". Harper & Bros, London, UK. The San Fransisco Examiner (1930) Two Modern Robinson Crusoes. Sun 06 April, 1930. P103. CA, USA. The Montreal Star (1932) Hunt For Priates Hoard. 29 December, 1932. Quebec, Canada.  The Miami News (1934) Ritter, Galapagos Nudist, Dies Without Telling Orgy secrets. 06 December 1934, P.21. FL, USA. ---------- For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9 Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1940s the Bahamas was something of a tropical paradise for the world’s rich. Used as a tax haven and an island getaway far removed from the battlefields of war, it was an idyllic retreat for those that could afford it. Its society had a somewhat darker underbelly, however, with ties to money launderers, smugglers, spies and mobsters. At least, that was how it started to appear in stories after one of the richest men in the world wound up dead in his Bahamian home in the summer of 1943. The fact that all of this happened under the nose of the island's governor, the one time King of England, Edward, the Duke of Windsor, who was at the time a suspected Nazi sympathiser, made it all the more intriguing, becoming the only story to ever knock the news of the war from the front pages of the Daily Telegraph. SOURCES Craton, Michael (1962) A History Of The Bahamas. Collins, UK. Owen, James (2008) A Serpent In Eden. Hachette Digital, UK. Daily News (1943) Didn’t Murder Oakes. Daily News, 11 July, 1943, P1. New York, USA. The Province, (1944) Acquittal Of De Marigny Leaves Oakes Murder Unsolved Mystery. The Province, 12 November 1944. P1. Vancouver, Canada. Le Grand, Cathleen (2010) Another Look at a Bahamian Mystery: The Murder of Sir Harry Oakes: A Critical Literature Review. International Journal of Bahamian Studies, Vol.16, The College of The Bahamas, The Bahamas. ---------- For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9 Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

High up in the peaks of the Himalayas, a footprint in the snow baffles a mountaineer as he attempts to climb Everest for the first time. Pulling out his camera, he prepares to snap a shot, eyeing the horizon nervously before placing his icepick down alongside the print for scale and bringing the viewfinder up to his eye. In India, a tea planter reads about the photograph in a local newspaper and turns over the idea of going to hunt the creature that made the tracks, completely unaware that he was about to start what would eventually become a lifelong mission. On the other side of the world, a Texas oil baron reads about tales of adventure high up in the mountains of Nepal, a mystical land of incense and meditation, and dreams of uncovering the mysteries of the wilds. The trio was, it's safe to say, a fairly unlikely crew, but their fates would become intimately linked by a search that would carry them halfway around the world, hole up in damp caves for days on end and pull off one of the most unusual heists in all of history. It was a search for a myth, a symbol and a monster. It was a search for the Yeti.   SOURCES   Coleman, Loren (2002) Tom Slick: True Life Encounters in Cryptozoology. Craven Street Books, Fresno, CA, USA.   Taylor, Daniel C. (2018) Yeti: The Ecology of a Mystery. Oxford University Press, UK.   Waddell, Laurance A. (1899) Among The Himalayas. Archibald Constable & Co. UK.   Liechty, Mark (2017) Far Out: Countercultural Seekers and the Tourist Encounter in Nepal. The University of Chicago Press, IL, USA.   McGarr, Paul M. (2013) The Cold War in South Asia: Britain, The United States & The Indian Subcontinent, 1945-1965. Cambridge University Press, UK.   Princep, James (1832) The Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Volume 1. Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta, India.   Redfern, Nick (2016) The Bigfoot Book: The Encyclopaedia of Sasquatch, Yeti, and Cryptid Primates. Visible Ink Press, MI, USA.   Dundee Courier (1951) Everest Has A Monster: Britons Find Footprints. Dundee Courier, Tuesday 04 December 1951, Page 3. Dundee, UK.   Star Tribune (1921) Snowman! Star Tribune, Saturday 17 December 1921, p.20. Minneapolis, MN, USA.   The Sphere (1954) The Abominable Snowman. Saturday 02 January 1954, p14. London, UK.   The Press and Sun Bulletin (1961) Yeti Belongs in Legend Says Hillary, Disposing of Track, Scalp Evidence. The Press and Sun Bulletin, 10th January 1961, p.49. New York, USA   ---------- For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9 Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy New Year! Here is part of the Christmas (New year? Holiday?) Campfire episode! This year's campfire was a brilliant collection of stories, thank you so much to everyone who sent in stories and got involved. Onwards and upwards, here's to 2022! x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Holidays everyone! Here is the first part of this years Christmas Campfire episode and I have to say a massive thank you to everyone who sent stories in! This year the Campfire episode had overwhelming interest from everyone and there were so many great stories from everyone, it was such an enjoyable experience reading them and collating them for the episode, so thank you so much! I hope you all enjoy some creepy for the holiday season and have a great holiday, best wishes to you and all your family! Thank you so much for another great season of Dark Histories! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the ancient pages of the Old Norse Edda to the interwar pages of American adventure magazines, the depths of our oceans have, in imagination, been host to unspeakable monsters for many hundreds of years. In modern times, the phrase “Here Be Dragons” has been absorbed into popular culture as titles for books, films, TV shows, bands and video games, all this despite the fact that it only ever appeared on the unknown seas of a single 16th Century Globe. Far more common were the giant sea monsters that adorned maps for hundreds of years, existing only as illustrations and in the minds of those that viewed them. In the summer of 1817, just off the coast of Massachusetts, however, these illustrations became flesh and blood for several weeks when witnesses of a Giant Sea Serpent numbered into the hundreds, in what the 19th Century Harvard Professor Jacob Bigelow called “the most interesting problem in the science of natural history.”   SOURCES   France, Robert L. (2021) Ethnozoology of Egede’s “Most Dreadful Monster,” The Foundational Sea Serpent. Society of Ethnobiology, Boston, MA, USA.   Egede, Hans (1818) A Description of Greenland. T & J Allman, London, UK.   Paxton, C. G. M. & Knatterud, E. (2005) Cetaceans, sex and sea serpents: an analysis of the Egede accounts of a “most dreadful monster” seen off the coast of Greenland in 1734. Archives of Natural History, London, UK.   Nickell, Joe (2019) Gloucester Sea-Serpent Mystery: Solved after Two Centuries. Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. 43, No. 5. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2019/09/gloucester-sea-serpent-mystery-solved-after-two-centuries/   Magnus, Olaus (1658) A compendious history of the Goths, Swedes, & Vandals, and other northern nations. J. Streater, London, UK.   Pontoppidan, Erik (1755) The Natural history of Norway. A. Linde, London, UK.   Linnæan Society of New England (1817) Report of a committee of the Linnæan society of New England, relative to a large marine animal, supposed to be a serpent, seen near Cape Ann, Massachusetts, in August 1817. Cummings & Hilliard, Boston, USA   Brown, Chandos Michael (1990) A Natural History of the Gloucester Sea Serpent: Knowledge, Power, and the Culture of Science in Antebellum America. American Quarterly Vol. 42, No. 3 (Sep., 1990), pp. 402-436. The Johns Hopkins University Press, USA   The Long Island Star (1817) A Frightful Fish! The Long Island Star, 20 August, 1817, p.3. NY, USA.   Dublin Evening Mail (1842) The Missouri Leviathan. Monday 07 November, 1842, p.3. Dublin, ROI.   The Illustrated London News (1848) The Great Sea Serpent. The Illustrated London News, 28 October, 1848, p.8. London, UK.   ---------- For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9 Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072 or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices