WEBVTT 00:00.171 --> 00:08.775 [SPEAKER_00]: We've all been away and brought something back from holiday, but what do you do when nothing you bought start to make your home feel wrong? 00:09.495 --> 00:17.519 [SPEAKER_00]: How would you react if some nice little piece of memorabilia began to feel like it had a history it didn't want you to know? 00:18.219 --> 00:21.901 [SPEAKER_00]: How would you handle the feeling that something in your home had changed? 00:22.481 --> 00:24.342 [SPEAKER_00]: But you couldn't prove what? 00:25.522 --> 00:29.187 [SPEAKER_00]: What do you do when your rational explanation works perfectly? 00:29.868 --> 00:30.669 [SPEAKER_00]: Until it doesn't. 00:31.790 --> 00:36.576 [SPEAKER_00]: And how would you feel emotionally if something you did bring into your home? 00:37.257 --> 00:39.020 [SPEAKER_00]: Brought Hell with it. 00:40.195 --> 00:45.497 [SPEAKER_00]: On the terrifying finale of Season 24, we don't promise to answer those questions. 00:46.237 --> 00:55.980 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, we ask you to draw your own conclusions as we regal to you, the final true listener experience for this season of the Dark Paranormal. 01:10.402 --> 01:14.765 [SPEAKER_00]: the dark paranormal with Kevin Duce's. 01:18.188 --> 01:24.773 [SPEAKER_00]: Hello everyone and welcome to the season finale of Season 24. 01:25.974 --> 01:36.542 [SPEAKER_00]: This season for me has brought forth some of the most terrifying tales and experiences that has ever been performed by you, the listener. 01:37.633 --> 01:45.896 [SPEAKER_00]: And with Season 25, as we add a video format to the show, we want your experiences. 01:46.537 --> 01:52.779 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we have next season all mapped out, but as you know by now, this is a fluid show. 01:53.679 --> 01:58.321 [SPEAKER_00]: So your experiences may still find their way in Season 25. 01:59.562 --> 02:04.944 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you're sat on an experience that maybe you've not felt comfortable telling other people. 02:05.705 --> 02:07.167 [SPEAKER_00]: This is a safe space. 02:07.708 --> 02:09.891 [SPEAKER_00]: It always has been and it always will be. 02:10.903 --> 02:21.552 [SPEAKER_00]: and the place to submit your experience is in the show notes, or you can go direct to the darkparanormal.com and click submit my experience. 02:22.432 --> 02:29.438 [SPEAKER_00]: And as you'll know by now we don't care whether your experience is several pages long or just merely paragraphs. 02:29.958 --> 02:33.902 [SPEAKER_00]: One thing we do guarantee is your story will find an audience. 02:34.502 --> 02:37.585 [SPEAKER_00]: If you took the time to write it out, we will take the time 02:40.747 --> 02:48.756 [SPEAKER_00]: Before we begin the finale, a huge shoutout and thank you to our patrons who allow this show to stay free for everyone listening right now. 02:49.117 --> 02:55.524 [SPEAKER_00]: The same patrons who will receive uninterrupted dark paranormal content throughout our two week downtime. 02:55.924 --> 03:02.891 [SPEAKER_00]: And we'll have more information on how to join that wonderful group of individuals at the end of the show, but more information on dates. 03:03.352 --> 03:10.900 [SPEAKER_00]: So today is our finale, and our pre-show, as we tend to do, is the week before the start of season 25. 03:11.420 --> 03:13.162 [SPEAKER_00]: So these are the dates for your diary. 03:14.003 --> 03:24.610 [SPEAKER_00]: Friday 3rd of July, we will have our pre-show, which will consist of an interview with the two hosts of a wonderful podcast, Charlie and Tyler from Believing the Bazaar. 03:25.271 --> 03:33.997 [SPEAKER_00]: And then, the following week, Friday 10th will see the launch of Season 25 in both audio and video formats. 03:34.839 --> 03:47.202 [SPEAKER_00]: For those who've asked, you don't need to change a single thing, you can listen still as audio as you do, or you could find the video version on YouTube by going to youtube.com forward slash the dark paranormal. 03:48.002 --> 03:54.163 [SPEAKER_00]: But right now we're about to bring to you one of the most intriguing submissions I believe we've ever received. 03:54.603 --> 03:56.864 [SPEAKER_00]: This submission has split our team. 03:57.737 --> 04:00.760 [SPEAKER_00]: one individual simply does not believe this submission. 04:01.220 --> 04:11.008 [SPEAKER_00]: Something which I've stated on a previous episode, one of our other members cannot read this submission again because they're in fear of this submission. 04:11.933 --> 04:30.547 [SPEAKER_00]: Now when I declared on one of our episodes previously that one of our members did not believe, what I did not expect was for the individual who submitted this experience to send me photographs of what you're about to hear or something within what you're about to hear which will become very clear. 04:31.472 --> 04:49.148 [SPEAKER_00]: and I can only say that this individual who wishes to remain anonymous has either gone through some exceptionally troublesome lengths to perpetuate a lie and given their warmth for anonymity and no mention of books coming out, etc. 04:49.709 --> 04:54.994 [SPEAKER_00]: that would seem a fool's errand, or what you're about to hear is the absolute truth. 04:56.092 --> 05:06.816 [SPEAKER_00]: Now of course, as well as named anonymity, they've also asked I keep those photographs to myself, which of course I will, because they contain the individual who submitted the experience. 05:07.936 --> 05:19.900 [SPEAKER_00]: But I will say after reviewing them, I have lost a lot of skepticism that I may have had, and I'm now in the Believers camp, and after rereading their submission following 05:26.065 --> 05:41.692 [SPEAKER_00]: So please, for the final time this season, lower the lights, make yourself comfortable, and of course most importantly of all leave your disbelief at the door, as we hear all about the dark, relic. 05:43.013 --> 05:47.215 [SPEAKER_00]: Hello Kev, I want to be upfront about something before I begin. 05:48.375 --> 05:51.797 [SPEAKER_00]: I spent a long time deciding whether to send this at all. 05:52.900 --> 05:57.765 [SPEAKER_00]: and the reason I almost didn't is the same reason I think it's important that I did. 05:59.286 --> 06:01.188 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not a credulous person. 06:02.009 --> 06:03.591 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't say that to be defensive. 06:04.472 --> 06:05.833 [SPEAKER_00]: I say that because it's relevant. 06:07.154 --> 06:11.118 [SPEAKER_00]: What I'm about to describe didn't happen to someone who was primed for it. 06:11.639 --> 06:12.580 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me state that. 06:14.000 --> 06:22.867 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm 38, I work in academic publishing, which is essentially reading good-to-people's arguments and deciding whether they hold up. 06:24.028 --> 06:32.774 [SPEAKER_00]: I have a master's degree in history, and my final paper was on the structural changes within the Catholic Church across the last millennium. 06:33.795 --> 06:38.719 [SPEAKER_00]: Which means I know more about the church, relics, pilgrimages and the theology of St. 06:43.933 --> 06:54.863 [SPEAKER_00]: So, what I mean is I've spent years studying this material as history, as documented human behavior, as culture, never as anything else. 06:56.444 --> 07:01.128 [SPEAKER_00]: In September 2023, I took two weeks in Italy on my own. 07:02.490 --> 07:04.151 [SPEAKER_00]: I'd just been through a difficult 18 months. 07:05.597 --> 07:17.203 [SPEAKER_00]: a relationship that ended badly, a restructure at work that left me doing the job of two people, and I needed to go somewhere just to be myself, to think, to decompress. 07:18.904 --> 07:24.247 [SPEAKER_00]: I chose the Veneto because I knew it reasonably well, academically, not personally. 07:25.168 --> 07:29.370 [SPEAKER_00]: I chose Barona for the first few days, then for Chenza, then Padua. 07:30.627 --> 07:40.272 [SPEAKER_00]: Padua is spelled pd over a, if you're using the English it's Padua, and it's not a city people tend to visit for pleasure. 07:40.993 --> 07:51.378 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a university city, one of the oldest in Europe, and it has the Basilica of Sant'Antodio, which draws enormous numbers of pilgrims every year. 07:52.559 --> 07:57.922 [SPEAKER_00]: If you're not Catholic, nor a medievalist, you might well walk through the main square, see the outside 08:00.791 --> 08:06.392 [SPEAKER_00]: I spent two full days there, because I find that basilica extraordinary. 08:07.292 --> 08:11.513 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't mean in any spiritual sense, I want to be precise about that. 08:12.473 --> 08:19.395 [SPEAKER_00]: But as a material record of eight centuries of human devotion, it's genuinely overwhelming. 08:20.655 --> 08:24.516 [SPEAKER_00]: The relics of Saint Anthony are displayed in a chapel of the main nave. 08:25.500 --> 08:43.706 [SPEAKER_00]: Namely, his tongue, his chin, the chords of his vocal box, all removed from his body when it was exhumed 32 years after his death, because, according to the Franciscan fryers who opened the turn, they had not decomposed. 08:43.726 --> 08:47.067 [SPEAKER_00]: I stood in front of that display case for quite a long time. 08:47.867 --> 08:50.668 [SPEAKER_00]: My academic brain was cataloging the history. 08:51.457 --> 08:56.038 [SPEAKER_00]: Another part of me was doing something else that I didn't examine too closely. 08:57.558 --> 09:00.059 [SPEAKER_00]: The following morning I found the antique market. 09:01.099 --> 09:06.801 [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't listed anywhere I'd looked, but I stumbled across it on a side street of the Veer San Francisco. 09:07.461 --> 09:16.383 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it doesn't stall, smoothly furniture, old prints, the sort of things that accumulate when a house is cleared and no one knows what to do with the contents. 09:17.575 --> 09:19.636 [SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't looking for anything in particular. 09:20.316 --> 09:22.537 [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I was killing time before my train. 09:23.658 --> 09:32.482 [SPEAKER_00]: The store-all I stopped at was room by an elderly gentleman who barely spoke English, and whose Italian was several registers above mine. 09:33.743 --> 09:46.789 [SPEAKER_00]: He had a folding table covered in small objects, metals, rosaries, old watches, a few framed photographs, miscellaneous brass fittings, and I gazed over it all without any real attention. 09:47.757 --> 10:00.026 [SPEAKER_00]: When I saw it, it was small, maybe four centimeters long, cylindrical, made of brass that had gone very dark with age, hinged along one side. 10:01.067 --> 10:06.611 [SPEAKER_00]: I recognized it immediately from my previous work, I knew it was a relictory capsule. 10:07.472 --> 10:12.035 [SPEAKER_00]: The type that would have been the centerpiece of a household shrine, or worn round the 10:15.252 --> 10:21.413 [SPEAKER_00]: These were common objects in Catholic Europe in the medieval period, right through to the early 20th century. 10:22.573 --> 10:26.654 [SPEAKER_00]: Owners of these items believed that a genuine relic was held inside. 10:27.574 --> 10:33.215 [SPEAKER_00]: Usually, third-class relics, according to the Catholic Church, we have three classes. 10:33.675 --> 10:39.816 [SPEAKER_00]: First-class relics are, as I mentioned earlier, part of the saint themselves or blessed person. 10:40.696 --> 10:43.277 [SPEAKER_00]: Second-class relics will be items they want. 10:43.984 --> 10:46.867 [SPEAKER_00]: For example, rosaries or a Bible they owned. 10:47.707 --> 10:50.470 [SPEAKER_00]: Third class relics are known as touch relics. 10:51.190 --> 10:56.114 [SPEAKER_00]: Things that the saintly or holy person allegedly touched in their life. 10:56.755 --> 11:04.642 [SPEAKER_00]: For example, a prayer card cloth, a metal, or something someone has reached out and touched the saint's bones or garments with. 11:05.892 --> 11:08.833 [SPEAKER_00]: I picked it up, and it was heavier than I expected. 11:09.553 --> 11:12.733 [SPEAKER_00]: The hinge was tight, but I managed to pry it open. 11:13.414 --> 11:23.496 [SPEAKER_00]: And inside, held under a small disk of old glass, sitting to one end, was a fragment of dark waxed parchment with Latin text on it. 11:24.216 --> 11:28.917 [SPEAKER_00]: Pressed close against a small dark object, I couldn't clearly identify. 11:29.745 --> 11:36.529 [SPEAKER_00]: The glass was clouded with age and the seal around it, some kind of resin or wax, had partially cracked. 11:37.270 --> 11:43.914 [SPEAKER_00]: The object beneath the glass sat loose in a way that suggested it had adds some point, being fixed more securely. 11:45.275 --> 11:49.778 [SPEAKER_00]: I offered the man 10 euros, he shook his head, he held up five fingers. 11:50.650 --> 11:51.951 [SPEAKER_00]: I thought he meant 50. 11:52.671 --> 11:57.673 [SPEAKER_00]: So I pretended to check my purse before waving the 10-year-old note and shaking my head. 11:58.473 --> 11:59.353 [SPEAKER_00]: This is all I have. 11:59.814 --> 12:00.974 [SPEAKER_00]: I said waving the note. 12:01.494 --> 12:06.236 [SPEAKER_00]: He shook his head and in broken English said, no, no, 5-1-2-3-4-5. 12:09.853 --> 12:25.507 [SPEAKER_00]: I think there was genuine surprise on my face as I handed him the 10-year-old note, and he handed me back five euros, and then, in a very swift move, he pulled a tissue from a box, picked up the item, and placed it in my palm. 12:26.468 --> 12:29.311 [SPEAKER_00]: I said thanks and took it into my side pocket of my bag. 12:30.332 --> 12:35.837 [SPEAKER_00]: He said something under his breath, in Italian, that I didn't catch, and I thanked him and walked away. 12:37.077 --> 12:39.738 [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't register he hadn't touched the object. 12:40.498 --> 12:45.859 [SPEAKER_00]: Mind you, we were not far removed from the pandemic, so I guess I didn't question it. 12:46.859 --> 12:55.541 [SPEAKER_00]: After fastening my side pocket and feeling growl pleased with my bargain I looked up to look for a cafe so I could investigate the object in more detail. 12:56.321 --> 13:02.922 [SPEAKER_00]: But as I looked up, I noticed in the window ahead of me the reflection of the man at the stall. 13:03.948 --> 13:09.250 [SPEAKER_00]: He was still still watching me walk away, and he made the sign of the cross. 13:10.690 --> 13:14.791 [SPEAKER_00]: Now my pace slowed, but I didn't stop or turn my head. 13:15.531 --> 13:19.252 [SPEAKER_00]: I told myself he was crossing himself for an unrelated reason. 13:20.113 --> 13:24.274 [SPEAKER_00]: He was simply a devout-held man, and the gesture was merely reflexive. 13:25.234 --> 13:28.535 [SPEAKER_00]: That was something I told myself for quite a while. 13:29.956 --> 13:32.460 [SPEAKER_00]: I was back at my hotel by early afternoon. 13:33.241 --> 13:35.604 [SPEAKER_00]: It was a small place, maybe 30 rooms. 13:36.265 --> 13:42.774 [SPEAKER_00]: The kind of family run hotel that'd be in the same building on the same two floors, since at least the 50s. 13:43.696 --> 13:46.199 [SPEAKER_00]: The reliquary had long since gone from my mind. 13:47.026 --> 13:53.168 [SPEAKER_00]: As my search for a cafe turned into finding a wonderful old bookstore that also contained a cafe. 13:53.528 --> 14:01.510 [SPEAKER_00]: I'd purchased a 1940s English translated version of the history of the area, and I could not wait to start reading it. 14:02.111 --> 14:09.893 [SPEAKER_00]: However, after ordering a coffee and sitting down with the book, I'd basically scan through the wonderful illustrations of some of the churches of the area. 14:10.353 --> 14:12.754 [SPEAKER_00]: Thinking I would read it when I got back to my hotel. 14:13.767 --> 14:16.750 [SPEAKER_00]: So, once I did get back, I began to read. 14:17.550 --> 14:21.914 [SPEAKER_00]: As I tend to do, I fell asleep maybe a chapter in and I woke around 10pm. 14:22.374 --> 14:27.318 [SPEAKER_00]: But I clearly needed the rest, so I put my pajamas on and I started brushing my teeth. 14:27.779 --> 14:32.042 [SPEAKER_00]: I was going through my nighttime bath, when all the lights went out. 14:32.603 --> 14:35.465 [SPEAKER_00]: Not a flicker, just a bull's then out. 14:36.526 --> 14:39.309 [SPEAKER_00]: I stood in the dark with my toothbrush still in my mouth. 14:40.105 --> 14:45.671 [SPEAKER_00]: My hands still on it, and I slowly kept brushing whilst feeling my way to my main door. 14:46.572 --> 14:50.056 [SPEAKER_00]: Opening it to see if it was just my room or the entire building. 14:50.977 --> 15:00.367 [SPEAKER_00]: The corridor was dark too, and from somewhere below, a man's voice called out in an Italian unhurried accent nobody worry quick fix. 15:00.932 --> 15:11.034 [SPEAKER_00]: I liked this place a felt very homely, so I lent against my doorframe, continuing to brush slowly, and I heard that flicker, and the lights came on again, and went off. 15:11.955 --> 15:17.896 [SPEAKER_00]: This time, the same voice called out with slightly strained confidence, and I actually laughed. 15:18.496 --> 15:23.277 [SPEAKER_00]: But the lights did come back on, steady, and from downstairs I heard, all done. 15:23.737 --> 15:25.938 [SPEAKER_00]: Still smiling, I turned back into the room. 15:26.937 --> 15:29.019 [SPEAKER_00]: he was on the far side of the bed. 15:29.679 --> 15:43.972 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how else to describe what I saw except to say that it was there for less than a nano second, the length of a blink may be less, but it's absolutely sculpted into my memory in a way that three years hasn't touched. 15:44.712 --> 15:54.641 [SPEAKER_00]: A figure, kneeling in mid-air, just above the height of my mattress, facing me, head tilted back and to one side as if staring at the ceiling. 15:55.581 --> 15:58.404 [SPEAKER_00]: What it was wearing, I couldn't tell you just something dark. 15:58.685 --> 16:08.597 [SPEAKER_00]: What I can't tell you was the face pale and jutting from the skin above each eye were two skin-colored almost neat horns. 16:09.593 --> 16:12.115 [SPEAKER_00]: Not large, not dramatic, just there. 16:12.675 --> 16:17.218 [SPEAKER_00]: Like they were always part of this thing's face, and then it blinked out of existence. 16:17.878 --> 16:23.081 [SPEAKER_00]: I've heard of the phrase silent scream before, but never truly understood it, but I made one then. 16:23.101 --> 16:25.863 [SPEAKER_00]: No noise came out, but I was screaming. 16:26.323 --> 16:31.746 [SPEAKER_00]: I dropped my toothbrush on the tile floor and stood in that doorway frozen with my hand over my mouth. 16:32.347 --> 16:37.470 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't sleep a wink that night and I used the paper back I'd bought to wedge the door open. 16:38.390 --> 16:45.633 [SPEAKER_00]: I used to chair against the handle every night of the trip for safety, but that night I needed access to the corridor ASAP. 16:46.414 --> 16:50.015 [SPEAKER_00]: I needed that small strip of light between the doorframe. 16:52.537 --> 16:58.239 [SPEAKER_00]: The next morning at breakfast, I convinced myself it had been a hypnogogic hallucination. 16:58.940 --> 17:01.581 [SPEAKER_00]: The kind your brain generates between sleep and waking. 17:02.281 --> 17:03.722 [SPEAKER_00]: The dark, the adrenaline, 17:06.769 --> 17:15.416 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm aware of the phenomena I've read about it, and I believe that explanation for approximately two weeks. 17:15.436 --> 17:17.538 [SPEAKER_00]: I flew back to Bristol on the Thursday. 17:18.358 --> 17:24.083 [SPEAKER_00]: Two days later on the Saturday, something in my flat felt wrong. 17:25.450 --> 17:37.113 [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't one thing, it was more an accumulation of things that, separately, were completely explainable, but collectively seemed strange. 17:38.033 --> 17:40.334 [SPEAKER_00]: I stopped sleeping well on the second night back. 17:41.074 --> 17:44.215 [SPEAKER_00]: Not in Somnia, I fell asleep without difficulty. 17:45.135 --> 17:46.476 [SPEAKER_00]: My problem was waking. 17:47.436 --> 17:54.098 [SPEAKER_00]: Fully awake, completely alert, no transition, and I'd be there, mind clear, and I'd reach 17:56.218 --> 17:57.518 [SPEAKER_00]: 123 AM. 17:58.599 --> 18:02.940 [SPEAKER_00]: I think the way my phone showed 0123 was what made it stick. 18:04.180 --> 18:10.902 [SPEAKER_00]: The next night I woke at the exact same time, staring at 0123 again. 18:11.962 --> 18:14.143 [SPEAKER_00]: The third night I was awake before I looked. 18:14.983 --> 18:16.904 [SPEAKER_00]: I knew exactly what time it would be. 18:17.804 --> 18:20.025 [SPEAKER_00]: I looked anyway. 18:20.045 --> 18:21.105 [SPEAKER_00]: 0124. 18:21.965 --> 18:24.046 [SPEAKER_00]: But I had left it a good 60 seconds 18:26.058 --> 18:32.281 [SPEAKER_00]: However the following night, I slept through without waking, and that morning I was relieved. 18:33.362 --> 18:37.164 [SPEAKER_00]: By midday the last few night had more or less been resigned to memory. 18:38.424 --> 18:44.447 [SPEAKER_00]: The returning home from work, it was replaced by a smell that hit me as I opened the door. 18:45.708 --> 18:54.873 [SPEAKER_00]: Old wax, and something faintly sweet, not unpleasant, not pleasant, just present, and exceptionally 18:56.912 --> 19:01.935 [SPEAKER_00]: I checked every possible source, candles, the kitchen, the bathroom, nothing. 19:02.915 --> 19:05.957 [SPEAKER_00]: It was simply there in every room. 19:07.078 --> 19:12.721 [SPEAKER_00]: Every time I came home for the next three days, I was greeted by this smell. 19:14.082 --> 19:18.865 [SPEAKER_00]: But on the fourth day, I arrived home and it completely vanished. 19:19.885 --> 19:24.688 [SPEAKER_00]: I went in and out a few times to be sure, but no, officially gone. 19:25.988 --> 19:27.829 [SPEAKER_00]: that night I went to bed relieved. 19:28.769 --> 19:36.733 [SPEAKER_00]: I put it down to something someone else in the building had been doing and they'd simply stocked or completed whatever project they were working on. 19:38.134 --> 19:40.935 [SPEAKER_00]: That night, I jumped awake from a nightmare. 19:41.756 --> 19:44.597 [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't tell you of what, but I checked the time. 19:51.767 --> 19:54.549 [SPEAKER_00]: I am not someone who makes patterns out of coincidence. 19:55.249 --> 20:00.373 [SPEAKER_00]: Professionally, I'm trained specifically not to, but I keep coming back to that. 20:01.753 --> 20:04.235 [SPEAKER_00]: For some reason, my mind jumped to the relic rig. 20:05.356 --> 20:08.598 [SPEAKER_00]: I taken it out of my bag and returned and placed it on my bookshelf. 20:09.438 --> 20:14.001 [SPEAKER_00]: I took it down, I opened it and looked at the Latin text through the glass. 20:21.598 --> 20:22.579 [SPEAKER_00]: and that's being kind. 20:23.840 --> 20:30.124 [SPEAKER_00]: The parchment was small, the writing cramped, most of it obscured by the dark object beneath the glass. 20:31.224 --> 20:35.707 [SPEAKER_00]: But I've got enough to understand, this was no conventional prayer. 20:36.848 --> 20:39.090 [SPEAKER_00]: It read more, like an instruction. 20:40.391 --> 20:44.894 [SPEAKER_00]: The word continentur, or contained, 20:51.402 --> 20:52.984 [SPEAKER_00]: let it not move. 20:54.066 --> 21:03.098 [SPEAKER_00]: And a final phrase that I had to look up myself, subceil your santi or under the seal of the saint. 21:06.394 --> 21:14.719 [SPEAKER_00]: I took as many photographs as I could of the text and the object, and I sent it to a colleague I know who works in ecclesiastical Latin. 21:15.559 --> 21:21.763 [SPEAKER_00]: I told him I'd found it at a market in Padua, and was curious about the full context of the text. 21:22.823 --> 21:27.766 [SPEAKER_00]: He came back the next morning, saying the text was a binding formula. 21:28.807 --> 21:34.490 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, constructions like this had appeared in Franciscan liturgical manuscripts from 21:36.533 --> 21:38.815 [SPEAKER_00]: Not common, but documented. 21:39.795 --> 21:47.260 [SPEAKER_00]: Object placed under a saint's protection, not for veneration, but for restraint. 21:48.561 --> 21:55.886 [SPEAKER_00]: He used the word interesting three times, which from knowing him translators enthusiasm. 21:57.187 --> 21:58.728 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't reply straight away. 21:59.388 --> 22:01.290 [SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking about the cracked seal. 22:02.085 --> 22:04.286 [SPEAKER_00]: about the object beneath the glass. 22:05.147 --> 22:09.350 [SPEAKER_00]: The one that had come loose, from whatever had originally held it fixed. 22:10.891 --> 22:15.934 [SPEAKER_00]: My friend Rosie was coming to stay that weekend, and I didn't tell her about the relequery. 22:16.894 --> 22:22.398 [SPEAKER_00]: I put the capsule on the bookshelf again, hidden behind a book on the top shelf in the main room, and didn't mention it. 22:23.238 --> 22:26.681 [SPEAKER_00]: She arrived, we had dinner, opened wine, and we laughed 22:30.217 --> 22:35.499 [SPEAKER_00]: I lay a woken till one twenty-three, laying still staring at that number. 22:36.740 --> 22:38.561 [SPEAKER_00]: In the morning, Rosie was already up. 22:39.461 --> 22:45.063 [SPEAKER_00]: She looked at me when I came through into the kitchen and she said, did you have the radio on last night? 22:46.524 --> 22:47.464 [SPEAKER_00]: I shook my head. 22:48.885 --> 22:56.248 [SPEAKER_00]: She said she'd woken, didn't know what time it was, but had had a low male voice in another 22:57.662 --> 23:04.468 [SPEAKER_00]: She said she'd almost come through to ask me to turn it down, but by the time she was actually awake, it stopped. 23:05.548 --> 23:12.514 [SPEAKER_00]: My mind was doing summer-sold, says I found myself asking if she thought it was a different language being spoken. 23:13.595 --> 23:19.220 [SPEAKER_00]: She looked at me rather bemused, and said actually it sounded like it was a different language. 23:19.900 --> 23:23.243 [SPEAKER_00]: Though I can't say exactly what, I was half asleep. 23:24.678 --> 23:33.986 [SPEAKER_00]: She left after lunch, and as she drove off, and as she was getting into a car, she said, are you okay? 23:35.167 --> 23:37.569 [SPEAKER_00]: I nodded, fine, why? 23:39.030 --> 23:40.812 [SPEAKER_00]: She stared at my apartment block. 23:42.033 --> 23:50.280 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm not trying to rattle you or anything like that, but don't you think the flap feels a bit off, like the air's 23:55.012 --> 23:56.612 [SPEAKER_00]: ever tactful was rosy. 23:57.793 --> 24:00.593 [SPEAKER_00]: I just agreed I would do and I waved as she drove away. 24:01.694 --> 24:08.955 [SPEAKER_00]: As I climbed the stairs back to my apartment I wondered if she had smelled that smell, and I just grown accustomed to it. 24:09.656 --> 24:11.676 [SPEAKER_00]: But when I walked in I couldn't smell a thing. 24:11.696 --> 24:14.777 [SPEAKER_00]: Either way I still began opening windows. 24:15.735 --> 24:21.340 [SPEAKER_00]: As I was on my third or fourth my phone buzzed, a text from Rosie, it read. 24:22.020 --> 24:29.806 [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry if I seemed off there, I never had you down as someone who was into art like that. 24:29.826 --> 24:31.748 [SPEAKER_00]: I type back, art like what? 24:32.869 --> 24:40.175 [SPEAKER_00]: That painting she replied, the one above the bookcase, like a heronum-a-most Bosch version of Dante's and Fernou. 24:41.092 --> 24:46.375 [SPEAKER_00]: Christ on the cross in the centre and those de-many things around it, prodding him etc. 24:46.816 --> 24:52.439 [SPEAKER_00]: But I guess it's worth something, she put, followed by some pound signs and a laughing emoji face. 24:53.300 --> 24:58.703 [SPEAKER_00]: I ran into the front room, I looked above the bookcase and as I expected, no art. 24:59.663 --> 25:02.125 [SPEAKER_00]: There has never been anything above that bookcase. 25:02.905 --> 25:05.187 [SPEAKER_00]: The wall is as bare as it was when I moved in. 25:06.269 --> 25:13.262 [SPEAKER_00]: I checked every room in case you got the room wrong, but I knew I had no such painting, especially like that. 25:14.295 --> 25:23.224 [SPEAKER_00]: But for some reason, I found myself sending a message back that read along the lines of, oh god, that thing, it was a gift, it's a bit much isn't it? 25:23.644 --> 25:30.471 [SPEAKER_00]: I've just taken it down actually, have been meaning to bin it for ages, thanks for the reminder, laughing face. 25:31.492 --> 25:36.377 [SPEAKER_00]: She replied with a laughing face and said probably for the best, sleep well. 25:37.221 --> 25:41.023 [SPEAKER_00]: I placed my phone down and went back to opening every window in the flat. 25:41.623 --> 25:47.665 [SPEAKER_00]: This time it was needed, as during that short text exchange, the smell had returned. 25:49.826 --> 25:56.609 [SPEAKER_00]: The following Thursday my colleague came round in person, the one who had helped me initially with the Ecclesiastic Latin. 25:57.449 --> 26:01.751 [SPEAKER_00]: He spent his first 20 minutes here turning their relicory over under the lamp. 26:07.853 --> 26:17.042 [SPEAKER_00]: Cross referencing the Latin against notes on his phone, muttering to himself in the way he does when he's studying something that has properly got his attention. 26:18.363 --> 26:31.817 [SPEAKER_00]: Over the kitchen counter, he explained that the binding formula was consistent with a strand of Franciscan protective theology, largely expunged from the official record after the Council of Trent. 26:32.545 --> 26:42.793 [SPEAKER_00]: the 16th century series of church reforms that standardized Catholic doctrine and quietly buried practices considered to irregular. 26:43.974 --> 26:54.483 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, this particular approach, my reliquary, involved sealing objective uncertain spiritual provenance beneath a contact relic. 26:55.727 --> 27:00.949 [SPEAKER_00]: As mentioned earlier, something physically pressed against the primary relic of the saint. 27:01.469 --> 27:11.732 [SPEAKER_00]: The proximity of this contact relic to the item of uncertain spiritual provenance was understood to act as a suppression, a litre-sancial. 27:12.872 --> 27:18.554 [SPEAKER_00]: The cracked seal troubled him, he said, because the integrity of the seal was the whole point. 27:19.669 --> 27:26.111 [SPEAKER_00]: I asked what he thought the object under the glass walls, this object of uncertain spiritual provenance. 27:26.891 --> 27:30.912 [SPEAKER_00]: He said he had no idea, but he very much wanted to find out. 27:32.153 --> 27:34.454 [SPEAKER_00]: I found a magnifying glass and we both looked. 27:35.334 --> 27:40.936 [SPEAKER_00]: It appeared to be something organic, something old, but that was as far as we got. 27:42.076 --> 27:45.077 [SPEAKER_00]: I decided to crack and I told him what I'd seen in the hotel. 27:46.028 --> 27:48.008 [SPEAKER_00]: I said it quickly, I said it plainly. 27:48.489 --> 27:56.270 [SPEAKER_00]: The lights going out in the hotel and coming back on and me seeing that figure kneeling in the air, head angled back with horns. 27:56.850 --> 28:03.271 [SPEAKER_00]: He laughed, short, reflexive, not unkind, and then he looked at my face and stopped. 28:04.412 --> 28:07.512 [SPEAKER_00]: After a moment he said, can I see it again? 28:09.113 --> 28:10.853 [SPEAKER_00]: I gesture towards the bookcase. 28:11.840 --> 28:14.441 [SPEAKER_00]: He crossed the room, reached out, picked it up, ah! 28:14.921 --> 28:19.143 [SPEAKER_00]: His pain was clear as the capsule hit the carpet, before I'd registered what had happened. 28:19.804 --> 28:21.725 [SPEAKER_00]: He stepped back shaking his hand. 28:22.505 --> 28:23.686 [SPEAKER_00]: God's sake, he said. 28:24.146 --> 28:25.286 [SPEAKER_00]: He held out his palm to me. 28:26.187 --> 28:33.190 [SPEAKER_00]: Three fingers and part of the palm shaking, but all red already blistering along the inside of the index finger. 28:33.950 --> 28:38.913 [SPEAKER_00]: The kind of bend you'd get from a hot oven rack, to the right of us lay the capsule on the carpet. 28:42.320 --> 28:46.264 [SPEAKER_00]: His face remained in utter shock as we kept his hand under the kitchen tap. 28:47.325 --> 28:49.987 [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't know what to say, I didn't know what to say. 28:51.388 --> 28:54.751 [SPEAKER_00]: He then said, you can get that look that you know. 28:56.653 --> 29:01.457 [SPEAKER_00]: I thought he was talking about his burn and was just confused with all of the panic. 29:02.118 --> 29:03.299 [SPEAKER_00]: I said, you mean your hand? 29:04.214 --> 29:10.959 [SPEAKER_00]: He said, no, the relegaring, the Catholic Church have a department that look at things such as these, historical items. 29:11.299 --> 29:16.062 [SPEAKER_00]: I think you need to get in touch with them before, well, God knows, literally. 29:17.943 --> 29:26.589 [SPEAKER_00]: I should state that both he and I, but more so, he are not ones for paranormal things, for him to say something like this. 29:27.230 --> 29:29.832 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it forced my hand into action. 29:30.565 --> 29:39.411 [SPEAKER_00]: And shortly after he left, I was on my laptop, eventually finding a site, which I won't mention, but dealt with religious artifacts. 29:40.132 --> 29:47.877 [SPEAKER_00]: I will say the site belonged to the Franciscan chapter of Catholicism, because allegedly that's where this relicory came from. 29:48.918 --> 29:58.525 [SPEAKER_00]: And so I sent my email along with a description of both what I thought I'd saw and what had happened to my friend, as well as what rosy witnessed. 29:59.351 --> 30:02.636 [SPEAKER_00]: the full explanation including where I purchased it from etc. 30:03.177 --> 30:07.523 [SPEAKER_00]: I expected to get no reply or if I did it would maybe be in a week or two. 30:08.585 --> 30:10.948 [SPEAKER_00]: I've got to reply 30 minutes later. 30:11.822 --> 30:30.565 [SPEAKER_00]: This senior friar who shall remain nameless asked me to send as many photographs as I could of the object, which I did, and the transcript of text that my friend had verified on my behalf, and I explained that my friend believed this was some form of medieval Franciscan containment. 30:31.765 --> 30:38.047 [SPEAKER_00]: I began texting my friend to say that I'd got in touch with someone, and immediately received an email. 30:39.147 --> 30:40.127 [SPEAKER_00]: It was the friar again. 30:41.068 --> 30:42.109 [SPEAKER_00]: one simple question. 30:42.869 --> 30:44.390 [SPEAKER_00]: Is that a crack in the glass? 30:45.431 --> 30:48.493 [SPEAKER_00]: I replied, yes, is my friend correct? 30:49.399 --> 30:55.042 [SPEAKER_00]: The fryer replied, but he didn't answer my question, instead he gave me an Italian address. 30:55.662 --> 31:01.665 [SPEAKER_00]: And said as soon as I possibly could, I should box the objectal and send it to him, record delivery. 31:02.145 --> 31:04.426 [SPEAKER_00]: And once done, send him the tracking details. 31:05.026 --> 31:10.268 [SPEAKER_00]: Preferably, today, I replied and asked, am I in any danger? 31:10.789 --> 31:13.330 [SPEAKER_00]: He replied, simply saying, please, 31:14.158 --> 31:22.801 [SPEAKER_00]: He repeated the address and said, send it to me as soon as possible, don't forget to send it recorded delivery, or to send it to the tracking number. 31:23.682 --> 31:29.804 [SPEAKER_00]: Within an hour I was in the queue of the post office with a box in my hand containing the relegory. 31:31.065 --> 31:34.546 [SPEAKER_00]: It was sent and I emailed the fryer with the tracking details. 31:35.507 --> 31:36.367 [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't respond. 31:37.507 --> 31:41.029 [SPEAKER_00]: Around three weeks later I emailed asking if he'd taken receipt. 31:41.847 --> 31:44.049 [SPEAKER_00]: he replied, yes, thank you. 31:45.510 --> 31:54.158 [SPEAKER_00]: I then replied with, well, almost an essay worth of questions, and said could you please answer this at your convenience? 31:55.219 --> 31:56.140 [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't respond. 31:57.681 --> 32:03.306 [SPEAKER_00]: I've sent that email two more times, and still not received any response. 32:04.297 --> 32:07.700 [SPEAKER_00]: and so care if I have no idea what I bought home. 32:08.120 --> 32:24.533 [SPEAKER_00]: I do in terms of it being a reliquary, but what it was, I have no earthly idea, and it seems I never will, but I am thankful to say, whatever was in my flat does seem to have left with that box. 32:26.014 --> 32:27.696 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for taking the time to read this. 32:28.536 --> 32:29.037 [SPEAKER_00]: Anonymous. 32:31.074 --> 32:36.479 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, anonymous, thank you for an experience fitting for the ending of this season. 32:37.140 --> 32:51.754 [SPEAKER_00]: It's strangely, and I cope with my finger on why, feels very fitting to end this particular season with an experience that is literally an explosion on the topic of belief. 32:52.795 --> 32:54.857 [SPEAKER_00]: Be that religious, be that paranormal. 32:55.695 --> 33:25.154 [SPEAKER_00]: be that you can trap an evil entity or spirit of uncertain providence, inside such a object, because the belief of the alleged saint is allegedly stronger in God than that of the evil that it's beneath it, and my mind is almost frazzled at the several different spinning plates of belief that need to be held aloft in order for all of this to actually be real. 33:25.694 --> 33:27.736 [SPEAKER_00]: and I don't mean your experience. 33:28.636 --> 33:37.063 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, theologically looking at the entire belief system from a Catholic perspective, as a very, very laps Catholic of course. 33:37.603 --> 33:47.051 [SPEAKER_00]: But like I said, after seeing the photograph you kindly sent through, reading this again for about the seventh time now, it hits different. 33:47.811 --> 33:51.354 [SPEAKER_00]: And as I said that, I got a shiver genuinely down my spine. 33:52.510 --> 33:55.834 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I want to thank everyone who took part in this season. 33:56.315 --> 34:09.491 [SPEAKER_00]: You are all pivotal members of this podcast, whether you're a patron member, whether you're not a patron member, everyone who listens or talks about or shares this show helps this show. 34:10.352 --> 34:17.479 [SPEAKER_00]: And I cannot wait to bring you season 25 on July the 10th, so make a note of that in your diaries. 34:17.799 --> 34:36.537 [SPEAKER_00]: Friday July the 10th is the start of season 25, but we have an interview with the two wonderful hosts of believing the bizarre on the Friday before that, the 3rd, and do not forget as well as sending your experiences in by the show notes within those show notes, there is also the link for our patron. 34:37.177 --> 34:47.129 [SPEAKER_00]: Now our patron team, in my opinion, as I've said, have created a space which is, for me, the most perfect paranormal community anywhere online. 34:47.590 --> 34:55.339 [SPEAKER_00]: And now, with the break in seasons coming up, is the ideal opportunity to get your free week trial at our highest tier. 34:56.165 --> 35:08.194 [SPEAKER_00]: And when you do get that, you will receive ad-free early episodes, and also an hours extra content each and every week, solely for paid thrones on the highest tier. 35:09.134 --> 35:15.959 [SPEAKER_00]: You also get full access to the entire 200 plus hour back catalogue of dark bikes. 35:16.900 --> 35:24.626 [SPEAKER_00]: And during this two week window, whether there is absolutely no content coming out, it's the ideal time to join. 35:25.545 --> 35:31.370 [SPEAKER_00]: you can find the link in the show note to go to patreon.com forward slash the dark paranormal. 35:31.651 --> 35:39.658 [SPEAKER_00]: And yes, our patrons do gain early access to the debut episode and new video episode of Season 25. 35:40.098 --> 35:47.044 [SPEAKER_00]: And so until the third, when we interview the two giants from believing the bizarre and the 10th of July, 35:47.785 --> 35:53.649 [SPEAKER_00]: Make a note of that again, please stay safe and I cannot wait to bring you season 25. 35:54.169 --> 36:00.133 [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, it takes two seconds to hit subscribe and that way you don't have to put anything in your diary. 36:00.673 --> 36:04.195 [SPEAKER_00]: The debut episode of season 25 will simply appear. 36:05.176 --> 36:14.802 [SPEAKER_00]: But until then, stay safe and remember, when you're discussing the paranormal, always leave some of your disbelief at the door. 36:15.960 --> 36:17.201 [SPEAKER_00]: and I will speak to you again. 36:17.841 --> 36:23.765 [SPEAKER_00]: Very soon, right here on your show, the dark paranormal.