Who Owns a Novel a Ghost Claims to Have Ghostwritten?

In 1917, a dead Mark Twain "wrote" a novel through a Ouija board — and the lawsuit that followed forced everyone to ask who really owns a book authored from the afterlife. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/ghostwriting READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/366f2sny FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Did Mark Twain write a new novel after he was dead? If so, how? ** Though David Parker Ray's girlfriend Cindy Hendy helped him commit numerous rapes and murders in the 1990s, she was released in 2019 and walks free today. ** Louis Le Prince vanished under mysterious circumstances, but did he willingly decide to hide from the outside world, or was he murdered? ** A man has a dream so disturbing that he’s deeply affected by it well after he dreamt it. And the reason it stuck with him could be that it wasn’t a dream after all – but a premonition of something horrible to come. ** Shortly after finishing her junior year of high school, Alissa Turner disappeared, never to be seen alive again. Her murder would’ve gone unsolved if not for the social media platform, TikTok. ** Humans have been fascinated with Mars ever since we learned it was a planet. But why are we so obsessed with it? Is it simply our next step towards deep-space travel, or are we drawn to it for a more basic reason… because our ancestors originated from there? ** There are many UFO sightings on record, but ones that are accompanied by missing time are particularly interesting. Perhaps not least as they might suggest something more akin to alien abduction than just a mere sighting. We’ll look at one particular incident that took place in Nebraska in 1966. CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = Show Open 00:02:26.278 = Do Copyright Laws Apply To Spirit Writing? 00:13:54.317 = The Murder Solved Through TikTok *** 00:19:27.188 = The Nebraska Time Affair 00:35:44.438 = The Strange Dreams of Mr. Moir *** 00:40:33.850 = Did Our Ancestors Live On Mars? 00:52:06.275 = The Toy Box Killer’s Girlfriend *** 01:01:04.695 = The Strange Disappearance of Louis Le Prince 01:06:58.396 = Show Close *** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: 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.com/wdapps No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast SOURCES and RESOURCES: “The Nebraska Missing Time Affair” by Marcus Lowth for UFO Insight: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckjf4xe “The Toy Box Killer’s Girlfriend” by Marco Margaritoff for All That’s Interesting: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8k8j79 “The Strange Disappearance of Louis Le Prince” by Jan Bartek for Ancient Pages: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p9f5zdd “The Strange Dreams of Mr. Moir” posted at Anomalien: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/33za3tej “The Murder Solved Through TikTok” by Olivia McCormack for Bust.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/42s9je2z “Did Our Ancestors Live On Mars?” posted at Earth-Chronicles.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4j8pcrwe “Do Copyright Laws Apply to Spirit Writing?” posted at Esoterx.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/nzsen4v5 (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: December, 2022 This episode of Weird Darkness moves through posthumous authorship, serial murder, a vanished film pioneer, a TikTok-cracked cold case, alien abduction, Martian origins, and a premonition dug out of the ground.It opens in 1990s New Mexico, where Cindy Hendy helped David Parker Ray abduct, rape, and torture as many as sixty women inside the trailer he called his "Toy Box," a space fitted with ceiling mirrors that forced victims to watch their own suffering. Hendy tracked down targets and stood by while Ray tormented them with electric shocks and medical instruments, until Cynthia Vigil escaped on March 22, 1999, running naked into traffic in Elephant Butte with a dog collar around her neck after stabbing Hendy in the neck with an icepick. Sentenced in 2000 to thirty-six years, Hendy was released on July 15, 2019, because her plea deal predated a law requiring violent offenders to serve eighty-five percent of their terms, and she walks free today.From there the episode crosses to France and the case of Louis Le Prince, born in Metz in 1841 and credited as the forgotten father of motion pictures for building a sixteen-lens camera in 1888. He boarded a train from Dijon to Paris on Se...