By Tim Binnall
A Missouri man who collects various pieces of Americana picked up an eerie jukebox that just might be haunted. Richard Loban reportedly purchased the 1954 record player last year and noticed something weird about the classic piece almost immediately as it randomly ejected some records after he plugged it in for the first time. As an electrical technician by trade and skeptic of the supernatural, the collector's first thought was not that the machine was possessed, but that it simply had a broken part. He was correct in that regard and fixed the issue, but it turns out that the tale of the strange jukebox had only just begun.
According to Loban, he had been told by the previous owner of the jukebox that it had been featured on an old TV show, but he never learned what specific program. Upon receiving the machine, which was half full of records, he proceeded to fill out the rest of the empty slots with his favorite songs, including the 1972 Jerry Wallace tune 'If You Leave Me Tonight I Will Cry.' He subsequently did some research into the question of the jukebox's brief 'star turn' on television and determined that it probably appeared in an episode of the Rod Serling-helmed Night Gallery.
Upon sitting down and watching this particular show which featured his newly acquired piece, Loban was absolutely astounded by what he saw. It turned out the plot of the vignette centered around a seemingly possessed jukebox that plays only one song which haunts the main character due to his failing marriage: 'If You Leave Me Tonight I Will Cry.' Adding another astounding twist to the tale is that in both the program and in real life the song is selection number G-5, which is something that Loban had no idea about when he loaded the record into the jukebox. "I was floored when I saw that," he marveled, "I got shivers."
Beyond that truly baffling bit of synchronicity, Loban says that the jukebox sometimes starts on its own and he went so far as to replace the electronic workings of the device in order to fix it, but the problem puzzlingly persists. Additionally, the machine only plays three songs and one of them is, you guessed it, 'If You Leave Me Tonight I Will Cry.' Although his friends have suggested that there is something paranormal afoot with the jukebox, Loban concedes that "I don't necessarily believe in that sort of thing." That said, he concedes that he has no explanation for the machine's odd quirks nor its mystifying connection to the song featured in Night Gallery.