Speaker 1: On a stormy night on the small island of Guernsey,
Speaker 1: a young paranormal expert joins a skeptical history teacher to
Speaker 1: record the first in a series of podcasts based on
Speaker 1: the island's incredible folklore and paranormal history. As the expert
Speaker 1: regales his horrifying stories, the teacher learns that we all
Speaker 1: have our own truth, our own story ghosts that haunt us.
Speaker 1: Starring Olivier nominated actor and former Blue Peter legend Peter Duncan,
Speaker 1: When Darkness Falls is a spine chilling ghost story that
Speaker 1: delivers a twisted, terrifying and thrilling tale that the Guardian
Speaker 1: said will leave you cowering in your seat. Catch the
Speaker 1: brand new UK tour of When Darkness Falls from September
Speaker 1: fifteenth in a town near you. Select nights will also
Speaker 1: feature myself delivering a live episode of Unexplained. For more
Speaker 1: details or to book tickets, visit When Darkness Falls dot
Speaker 1: co dot uk. If you dare welcome to Unexplained Extra
Speaker 1: with me Richard McClane Smith where for the weeks in
Speaker 1: between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for
Speaker 1: one reason or other, didn't make it into the previous show.
Speaker 1: In last week's episode This Woman's Work, we heard the
Speaker 1: story of the Cheltenham ghost, of female apparition dressed in
Speaker 1: morning clothes that is said to haunt a property formerly
Speaker 1: known as Garden Reach in Cheltenham, in the southwest of England.
Speaker 1: It is thought that this woman in Black may have
Speaker 1: inspired Susan Hill's own Woman in Black from her nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three novel of that name, and it's easy to
Speaker 1: see why. Much like hills terrifying antagonist, the supposed Cheltenham
Speaker 1: ghost is similarly believed by some to be stuck forever
Speaker 1: mourning the death of her child, with some believing it
Speaker 1: might be the ghost of former resident Elizabeth Swinhoe, the
Speaker 1: wife of Henry Swinhoe, who died in the property while
Speaker 1: giving birth to her stillborn son. Others, however, have suggested
Speaker 1: it might be the ghost of Henry's troubled second wife, Imogen.
Speaker 1: Despite a bitter and acrimonious separation from Henry and moving
Speaker 1: back to Bristol, where she later died, Imogen's body was
Speaker 1: brought to Cheltenham to be buried near the home she
Speaker 1: shared with her former husband. Reason enough, you'd imagine for
Speaker 1: any ghost to feel a little restless. It's a common
Speaker 1: feature of ghost stories that the supposed ghosts seemed somehow
Speaker 1: tied to one particular location, remaining stuck there through time
Speaker 1: as the living come and go around them. All well
Speaker 1: and good, you might say, if that place is a
Speaker 1: ruined castle, for example, not so simple as the desparred
Speaker 1: family from last week's episode discovered if a supposed ghost
Speaker 1: found itself attached to a residential property on Unexplained. We've
Speaker 1: covered many a haunted house story. However, few have been
Speaker 1: as terrifying as the subject of this week's extra. It
Speaker 1: had just gone one thirty a m. One early morning
Speaker 1: in August nineteen forty two when the call came in
Speaker 1: to her wise Honolulu Police Department down on Bethel and
Speaker 1: Merchant Street. It was hard to make out what the
Speaker 1: caller was saying exactly, as she screamed hysterically that some
Speaker 1: one was trying to kill her children at her home
Speaker 1: in Kaimuki, a quiet residential neighborhood in the east of
Speaker 1: the city. Two officers, Moseley Cummins and Robert AND's Death
Speaker 1: were dispatched immediately to investigate what they found at the
Speaker 1: caller's home. Has been the subject of much conjecture ever since.
Speaker 1: In some reports, the officers arrived to find the woman's
Speaker 1: ten year old son and her two daughters eighteen and twenty,
Speaker 1: being seemingly strangled and thrown across the room by an
Speaker 1: invisible force or the while the mother frantically circled the room,
Speaker 1: shrieking at whatever it was to leave them alone, as
Speaker 1: she waved tea leaves and sprinkled Harwiian salt all around them.
Speaker 1: Salt and tea leaves are traditionally used by practitioners of
Speaker 1: Hawaiian magic, known as cahuna to ward off malevolent spirits.
Speaker 1: After struggling with the apparent entity for over an hour
Speaker 1: and a half, the police eventually managed to pull the
Speaker 1: family out of the property and escorted them to her relatives,
Speaker 1: where they stayed for the rest of the night. As
Speaker 1: the woman later explained, it had all started about ten
Speaker 1: p m. When her son had apparently detected an unusual
Speaker 1: atmosphere in the air and began screaming that a spirit
Speaker 1: was beginning to materialize in their property. Thirty years after
Speaker 1: the terrifying events of nineteen forty two, in the evening
Speaker 1: of October thirty first, nineteen seventy two, another bizarre car
Speaker 1: apparently came into the Honolulu Police Department, once again involving
Speaker 1: strange and terrifying happenings at a house in Kaimuki. This time,
Speaker 1: three young women who had been renting a house together
Speaker 1: for a few weeks reported hearing an intruder in their home,
Speaker 1: moving about, making peculiar noises and talking out loud to them,
Speaker 1: only they couldn't see who it was. When an officer
Speaker 1: arrived at the house, he found the terrified women waiting
Speaker 1: for him outside the property. Too afraid to go back inside.
Speaker 1: Without explaining any more, the women begged the officer to
Speaker 1: drive with them back to one of their mother's homes,
Speaker 1: where they were planning to spend the rest of the night.
Speaker 1: After agreeing to escort them, the officer waited until the
Speaker 1: women got into their truck and drove off, before following
Speaker 1: them close behind. As they drove out onto Wiley Avenue,
Speaker 1: the officer watched with confusion as the truck suddenly darted
Speaker 1: into the Oasis Cafe parking lot just beyond the intersection
Speaker 1: with Harding Avenue. While inside it, the women appeared to
Speaker 1: be fighting with each other in the front seat. The
Speaker 1: officer parked up and jumped out of his vehicle, only
Speaker 1: to then realize it was only one of the women
Speaker 1: who appeared to be fighting off something while her two
Speaker 1: friends were trying to help. Not quite knowing what to do,
Speaker 1: the officer reached into the truck to try and help
Speaker 1: two only to suddenly feel a strong, calloused hand rapids
Speaker 1: fingers around his arm and twist it up behind his back. Terrified,
Speaker 1: the officer ran to his car to radio for help.
Speaker 1: Things had calmed down somewhat when the backup officer arrived
Speaker 1: at the scene to find his colleague as white as
Speaker 1: a sheet, claiming that he had just been attacked by
Speaker 1: some kind of invisible entity inside the women's truck. The
Speaker 1: woman who seemed to be at the center of the
Speaker 1: attacks was then invited to ride with the officers while
Speaker 1: her two friends continued on their way to the relatives home. However,
Speaker 1: as soon as she got in to the patrol car,
Speaker 1: the engine suddenly switched itself off. No matter how many
Speaker 1: times they tried to restart it, a just wouldn't catch.
Speaker 1: With no other options, the woman returned to her friend's truck, and,
Speaker 1: once again with the police following close behind, they attempted
Speaker 1: to drive off. The two officers could only watch on
Speaker 1: in horror as moments later, the truck's front door flew open,
Speaker 1: and the embattled woman rolled out into the middle of
Speaker 1: the road, clawing at her throat as though someone were
Speaker 1: trying to strangle her. As one of the officers tried
Speaker 1: to free her from whatever had her in its grip,
Speaker 1: the other dashed into the oasis cafe and returned moments
Speaker 1: later holding some salt and water. The officer threw them
Speaker 1: over the woman, and moments later she was freed. It
Speaker 1: isn't known for sure whether the two Kaimuki based stories
Speaker 1: originated from but many familiar with the region and its
Speaker 1: history are in no doubt that both of them concern
Speaker 1: the exact same house, a property that once stood at
Speaker 1: the corner of eighth and Harding Avenue, although some belief
Speaker 1: the property was actually located on the left of second
Speaker 1: and Harding Avenue. Either way, it is said that not
Speaker 1: long after it was first built, the father of the
Speaker 1: family who lived there went to berserk and killed his
Speaker 1: wife and children before burying them in the back yard.
Speaker 1: Another story has it that it was actually the mother
Speaker 1: in law of the woman whose children were allegedly attacked
Speaker 1: there in nineteen forty two, who was buried there, and
Speaker 1: it is her ghost that so maliciously attacked its residence.
Speaker 1: With the neighborhood being made up largely of immigrants from Japan,
Speaker 1: it wasn't long before the term yokai was being used
Speaker 1: in connection with the property, a catch all term for
Speaker 1: all manner of monsters and other supernatural entities from Japanese folklore,
Speaker 1: and the yokai most often associated with it was the cashier,
Speaker 1: an especially feared demonic creature that appears in the shape
Speaker 1: of a cat walking on two legs. The coming of
Speaker 1: rain or stormy weather is said to herald the imminent
Speaker 1: arrival of a cashier, which would then appear covered in flames,
Speaker 1: having arrived straight from Hell. The casha were most interested
Speaker 1: in the bodies of the dead, which they are tasked
Speaker 1: with taking back to Hell. If the deceased was considered
Speaker 1: to have lived a sinful life. Other times, rather than
Speaker 1: take them all the way back to Hell, the cashier
Speaker 1: might simply eat the corpse, and according to law, anyone
Speaker 1: trying to stop them might themselves be eaten or ripped
Speaker 1: to pieces for their troubles. In some parts of Japan,
Speaker 1: belief in the cashier is so strong, but mourners have
Speaker 1: even been known to carry out two separate funerals for
Speaker 1: their loved ones. The first funeral would actually be a
Speaker 1: decoy involving a coffin full of rocks in an effort
Speaker 1: to distract any cashier that might have designs on the deceased,
Speaker 1: while a second proper funeral was hurriedly carried out elsewhere.
Speaker 1: At some point, the much feared property in Kaimuki, which
Speaker 1: became known locally as the Cashier House, is said to
Speaker 1: being pulled down to make room for a freeway. Others, however,
Speaker 1: such as writer Keith Man, are convinced that although the
Speaker 1: original house was knocked down, it was replaced by a
Speaker 1: bland looking duplex built on exactly the same spot where
Speaker 1: he himself lived for a short time around twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Man claims that he and his flatmates moved into the
Speaker 1: apartment despite multiple warnings from their neighbors, who said that
Speaker 1: no one had lasted more than three months in the
Speaker 1: property before having to vacate it. But since the new
Speaker 1: duplex was so cheap and not being the kind of
Speaker 1: people to worry about, paranormal superstitions. Man and his friends
Speaker 1: chose to ignore the warnings. All was well for the
Speaker 1: first few weeks, until one day, in the early hours
Speaker 1: of the morning, Keith shot up suddenly in his bed
Speaker 1: with an undeniable urge to run as his heart thumped
Speaker 1: in his chest for no apparent reason. He quickly noticed
Speaker 1: the air around him was freezing cold enough to see
Speaker 1: his breath, when ordinarily the temperature rarely dropped below sixty five.
Speaker 1: His chest also felt oddly cold, as if he were
Speaker 1: freezing up from the inside. Just then, all the smoke
Speaker 1: alarms in the house beeped out at the same time,
Speaker 1: despite not being connected in any way. Convinced that some
Speaker 1: one was watching him from out at the corner of
Speaker 1: the room, Keith leaped from his bed and sprinted into
Speaker 1: the living room, where he immediately felt safer. Staring back
Speaker 1: into the darkness of his room through the gap in
Speaker 1: the door, he had the overwhelming sense that something horrifying
Speaker 1: and sinister was lurking there. Though Keith eventually calmed down
Speaker 1: and went back to bed, he claimed this event was
Speaker 1: repeated throughout his time at the property, always occurring precisely
Speaker 1: at the time of four thirty three am. You can
Speaker 1: read more about Keith's experience at the overly opinionated dot
Speaker 1: com in his twenty eighteen article I lived in the
Speaker 1: most Haunted House in Hawaii, where in a recent update,
Speaker 1: he concluded, You'll never be able to truly explain what's
Speaker 1: in there, but it definitely ain't good and you definitely
Speaker 1: don't want to make it angry. If you enjoy Unexplained
Speaker 1: and would like to help support us, you can now
Speaker 1: do so via Patreon. To receive access to add three episodes.
Speaker 1: Just go to patreon dot com forward Slash Unexplained pod
Speaker 1: to sign up. Unexplained. The book and audiobook, featuring ten
Speaker 1: stories that have never before been covered on the show,
Speaker 1: is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon,
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements
Speaker 1: have Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me
Speaker 1: Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in
Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of
Speaker 1: your own you'd like to share, you can reach us
Speaker 1: online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained
Speaker 1: Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained
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