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