304: Duendes (Gnomes), Shadow People & A Mother’s Paranormal Experiences

[00:00:04] Tonight, I'll be talking about a bizarre shared sighting of a duende, multiple encounters with a shadow person in a living room, and several unsettling experiences involving a mother who can sense spirits. All this and more coming up on this edition of Paranormal Mysteries.

[00:00:43] Thank you for joining me and welcome. I am your host as always, Nic Ryan. Before we start tonight's show, I'd like to recognize Richie for their contribution on Patreon. Thank you so much for your support and your generosity.

[00:00:58] And of course, the show wouldn't be possible without all of my amazing listeners around the world. I appreciate each and every one of you for listening. I'd also like to mention that Richie, a long time listener, supporter, and contributor,

[00:01:11] has published a book entailing all of his experiences with the paranormal. His book is entitled, A Journey Into The Unknown. My Experiences With All Things Paranormal. For anyone that's interested, you can find Richie's new book on Amazon, and I've added a link to it in the show notes.

[00:01:32] And now, let's begin with our first experience of the night, which comes to us from Ashley. And Ashley says, Hey Nic, I have quite a few stories, but I'm going to tell you about my earliest memory of seeing something.

[00:01:47] I was around 7 years old around 1989, and it was the weekend, which meant that my parents' friends were coming over, and I was happy because I was best friends with their kids. So our parents were in the living room, listening to music and playing cards.

[00:02:01] I should tell you that we lived in a single wide trailer, so our home wasn't big at all. My friends and I were in my room playing, when all of a sudden we looked up, and there was this thing.

[00:02:13] I have no clue what it was, but it was not tall at all, maybe an inch or two smaller than me, and remembered that I was around 7 years old. It had some sort of cloak on, and the cloak covered the entire entity.

[00:02:26] I couldn't see any part of the body. It was all hunched over, and walking slowly down the hallway toward my parents' bedroom, which was at the end of the hall. After it passed my room, I looked at my friends, and I could tell by their expressions that

[00:02:40] they all saw the same thing. Me trying to rationalize it, I thought it was my brother or one of his friends playing a joke on us, and had put a blanket over themselves, and was walking on their knees down the hallway just to scare us.

[00:02:54] It took us a few minutes to get over the shock, but we kept our eyes on the bedroom door, to hopefully see my brother pass by and scream, Gotcha! However, he never did. We then worked up the courage and peeked down the hall, but nothing was there.

[00:03:09] We then worked up more courage and slowly went to my parents' bedroom, but it too was empty. We then checked the bathroom, which was the room right before their bedroom, and it was empty as well.

[00:03:21] The back door was in that hallway, but it was hard to open, and we would have heard it open as it made a loud squeaking sound when it opened. There was nowhere else for it to go.

[00:03:32] There was no other way out of the house, and it definitely did not walk back up the hall. To this day I have no clue what it was, but it scared us to death. If anyone knows what this may have possibly been, I would love to know.

[00:03:48] Thank you so much for everything, and keep up the great work that you do. I'll be submitting more stories later on. Ashley After sharing her experience with me, Ashley reached out with an update. And she had this to say. Hey Nick, it's me again.

[00:04:06] I was listening to your podcast at work like any other day when I came across episodes 185 and 190, and a story was read about duendes. I don't remember the exact story, but it was something about a baby being found underneath its crib or something like that.

[00:04:23] Well, that sparked a memory of when my son was just a newborn. He was about four weeks old, and my ex-husband said that he'd take the night shift with him so I could sleep. He and my son stayed in the living room while I went to bed.

[00:04:38] A couple of hours later, I woke up to the baby crying, so I waited for my husband to get him and the crying to stop. But that never happened. I got irritated and went to the living room, and when I walked in, I was shocked.

[00:04:52] My husband was asleep on the couch, and when I say asleep, I mean he was out. Our newborn son was crying, and was underneath his bassinet. Not only was he underneath the bassinet, but he was fully wrapped up like a little burrito.

[00:05:08] His blanket hadn't even come undone or anything. It was as if someone had laid him under there. I woke my husband up, and he was as shocked as I was. He had no clue how the baby had gotten underneath the bassinet.

[00:05:21] Obviously, we were awake for the rest of the night because we were so shaken. It never happened again, thank goodness, but that one event was enough for us. Fast forward to me being at work and listening to your podcast, when I heard the story of

[00:05:36] the baby being under its bed, I of course sat straight up and listened closer. The story went on to say that it was the work of the Duendes. I'd never heard of them, so I decided to do research, and the first hit after my search

[00:05:50] made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. There was the picture of the figure that I saw walking down the hallway, at 7 years old. I've attached the picture for your viewing. The one I'm referring to is the one in the middle of the picture.

[00:06:05] Now I didn't see its face when it was walking down the hallway. I only saw the side of it, and it is spot on the middle figure in the picture, complete with the long clawed fingers, and my friend that was with me that night kept talking about

[00:06:17] seeing the long sharp fingers on it. I am 99.999% sure that this thing was in my hallway, and probably what put my newborn son under his bassinet. Thank you for helping me to find some answers.

[00:06:33] I am eager to see if any other listeners have had any other encounters with the Duendes, or similar stories. I've got lots of other stories, but I'll send them in at a later time. As always, thank you Nick for all you do. I love your podcast.

[00:06:52] Our next experience of tonight comes to us from Danny, and Danny's story is called, Shadow Person in My Living Room. Danny says, Hey Nick, I've been listening to the podcast for quite a while, but I've always thought the idea of sharing my story would be strange.

[00:07:10] I'm incredibly skeptical about all things supernatural, so it almost feels like my submission wouldn't quite fit with those from other people who deeply believe in this stuff. With that being said, it's hard for me to find an explanation for the story that I'm about to share.

[00:07:26] This was probably around four or five years ago, the summer before my sophomore year of high school. One night I fell asleep on the couch. I didn't check the time, but I'm assuming that it was around 3 or 4 am when I woke up.

[00:07:40] I'm not usually able to get through the night without waking up at least once, but I'm always tired enough to fall back to sleep fairly easily. Tonight though, it was like I was jerked awake. Once I was awake, I was awake. I wasn't groggy or anything.

[00:07:56] That's when I noticed a shadow on my wall. Being the skeptic that I am, I initially thought that I was just experiencing sleep paralysis, which I've had a couple of times and is a perfectly natural experience.

[00:08:08] Whenever I have had sleep paralysis in the past, I always try to wiggle my fingers a little just to feel the strangeness of not being able to move. So I start to wiggle my fingers and toes, and I find that I do have full control over my body.

[00:08:22] I'm not frozen at all. At this point, I start to think maybe I'm just seeing a shadow from something else. However, that's when this thing adjusts itself. I use that specific word because that is the word that adequately describes how subtle this movement was.

[00:08:39] It was subtle but definitely noticeable. If I recall correctly, he seemed to have his arms crossed but switched which arm was on top and which was on bottom. It was the most realistic and natural movement you can think of.

[00:08:53] Many people report feeling a malevolent force when seeing shadow people, but this one did not feel evil. In fact, it almost felt a little comforting. The key word being almost because as non-evil as its presence felt, I still just saw a freaking

[00:09:09] shadow on the wall change its position. Once I realized I wasn't having sleep paralysis and I knew that this shadow did not belong to anything, I rolled over so that I would be able to fall asleep.

[00:09:21] I tried to roll over like how you might in your sleep, but looking back at it, I guess an entity like this would probably know if you were asleep or not. I was able to get back to sleep pretty easily. However, here's where stuff gets really freaky.

[00:09:37] One night, I'm up playing Xbox with a couple of my buddies, and we're talking about our supernatural experiences. Now I'm a pretty quiet person, so I'm mostly just listening to them while I play the game. That's when one of my friends goes,

[00:09:50] Hey Dan, not to scare you or anything, but I think your house is haunted. Now this friend loved to scare me, so I was just kind of like, oh really? Very interesting. But then he says, No dude, I'm serious. Do you remember that time I spent the night?

[00:10:06] We were sleeping in the living room, and I woke up to get in your bed. I definitely saw something in the living room. What he described really did happen. At the time, I thought it was strange because this friend is fearless.

[00:10:19] He's usually the one doing the scaring, not the one getting scared. I figured that he just wanted to go to my room to sleep in a more comfortable bed. So now I pull my attention to the conversation rather than the game. I say, Wait, hold up.

[00:10:34] In the living room? What was it? He then says, Are you sure you want to know? I'm serious. I'm not just trying to scare you. So after convincing him to tell me, he describes the same thing that I saw. A shadow man on the living room wall.

[00:10:49] However, while he was over, the TV was on. Meaning that absolutely nothing could be casting a shadow on the wall where he says that he saw it. The next day, I'm talking to my mom about it, and my sister walks by as I'm describing it. And she says,

[00:11:04] See? I told you mom, and you didn't believe me. Now that's two people in the last day that confirmed to me that what I saw was real. My mom is into all that spiritual type stuff, so she gets some crystals and stuff, and asks it to leave.

[00:11:19] No one has seen it since then, to my knowledge. Like I said, I'm a major skeptic, and I'm completely open to the idea that maybe something else was at play that I didn't know about.

[00:11:31] However, it is hard for me to reconcile my skepticism with the strange stories of both trusted friends, and my own experience. Anyway, thanks for sharing the story, and keep up the good work. Before we continue, please remember that you can share your experience with me through

[00:11:52] email or voice message at paranormalmysteriespodcast.com or now at sharemyevp.com. And if you're interested in showing your support, please consider following and sharing the podcast. You can also help me out by giving me a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show.

[00:12:11] You can also support me on Patreon, buy me a coffee, or PayPal by making a one-time donation, or become a member and listen to every episode ad-free. If you're looking for additional ways to get involved, please visit our website and join the forum.

[00:12:26] And be sure to follow me on social media for show updates and future content. And as always, links to all of my contact and support information can be found in the show notes. Our next experience of the night comes to us from Dave. And Dave's story is called,

[00:12:46] Several Different Experiences and Spirit Prompting. Dave says, After listening to your latest podcast, I thought I would send in this story told to me by my mom. She said that this happened to her when she was in her late teens.

[00:13:01] She was visiting a large group of friends one evening, and during this little party, her friends decided to make a spirit board by drawing one on top of one of those old folding card tables.

[00:13:12] They also used an inverted teacup with the handle as the point of a planchette. The group was asking questions, and the teacup would move. My mom made the accusation that someone must be pushing the teacup because she did not believe what was happening.

[00:13:27] At several points in this session, the spirit board stopped working. After a few times, someone noticed that it always stopped when one of the young men came into the room. So after he left the room again, they asked why it always stopped when he was in the room.

[00:13:43] It then responded with the word, Presthod, meaning priesthood. She said that it could not spell very well, and apparently the young man was a priest in his church. Her friends kept denying that they were moving the teacup, so my mom wanted to do it on her own.

[00:14:00] The group told her that it does not work with just one person, but my mom said that if it really is working, it would work with only one. She then tried it by herself, and she said that it worked.

[00:14:12] She said there was an oppressive feeling, dark responses, and she got really uneasy. Then, in order to lighten things up, she asked, Is Santa Claus real? But it did not respond. She then started singing, Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus.

[00:14:29] She got the impression that she had ticked this thing off when the cup suddenly flew out from under her hands and shattered on the wall across the room. My mom had always taught me not to mess with these things because of the evil associated with them.

[00:14:46] I remember when this next experience happened, but I did not understand it at the time because I was so young, and because my parents kept details from us until we were older.

[00:14:56] They did this in order to protect us, so my siblings and I found out details later on. We were living in Rancho Cordova, California, near Sacramento. I remember how my folks always had trouble getting us kids to go to bed each night while living in that house.

[00:15:13] Once mom and dad forced us to go to bed, we would run down the hallway to our rooms. We were all afraid while in the hallway, so we ran down the hallway. We had no conception of the paranormal at such an early age.

[00:15:26] What we did not know then was that my mom and dad's clock radio would go off at odd times in the day and at night. Mom was being poked in the back while praying, and other strange poltergeist-type nonsense was happening like knocking and things being moved.

[00:15:43] For context, my mom had a very spiritual experience at around 17 or 18 years of age. Afterwards, the veil between our worlds and the spirit world was very, very thin, and she could see spirits that exist around us.

[00:15:57] My mom said that once the evil ones realized that she could see them, they started to cause her problems by trying to drive her crazy. So one night, because of the juvenile poltergeist stuff that she was enduring, she made a really, really big mistake.

[00:16:12] She commented out loud about how stupid and juvenile they were, and if they thought that they were going to cause her to do something wrong, that they were fooling themselves. Well, they were listening, because everything changed as soon as she said it.

[00:16:26] The less capable juvenile acting ones were now gone, but the replacements were very scary. A very evil presence began to stand in the doorway of her bedroom, and he just glared at her.

[00:16:38] I guess this lasted for several days, and she tried to ignore it, but she said that it was unnerving. One evening she looked up while sitting in bed waiting for my dad who was in the bathroom, and this demon suddenly rushed her without any warning.

[00:16:53] She threw the blanket over her head, screamed, and cried out for my dad. She was terrified. The mattress then depressed next to her. This was all while hearing my dad in the bathroom asking what was going on.

[00:17:06] She had the impression that if she had not resisted this thing's advances with everything she had, that she would have died. She was frantic in crying for my dad to help.

[00:17:16] Now, this has been a sore spot for my mom ever since, because the way she puts it, I could have been murdered and he was acting like, oh my neurotic wife, and he was taking his own sweet time.

[00:17:29] When dad finally came into the room, mom was angry with him and demanded that he call one of the local officials in our church, immediately. This official met with my parents that night and listened to my mom's experience.

[00:17:41] She described the different evil beings as well as what they did and what they looked like. The church leader reprimanded my dad, telling him that what my mom was saying was true. He told my dad that he was not meeting his responsibilities in the home by doing nothing

[00:17:57] and ignoring what was happening in the home. He also said that we are in a war, a war between good and evil. He said that this is not just a euphemism, that this is reality and it's an actual war.

[00:18:12] He also included that in his experience counseling others, that when someone has had something special happen or about to happen, the evil tries to counter these special experiences. He then taught my dad how to force these beings out of our home.

[00:18:28] Later that day, as my dad was in our home doing as he was instructed, my mom sat with us kids out in the car. Due to our age, we had no clue what was going on. I just remember a feeling of tension in the car.

[00:18:41] When my dad came out from the house, he was as white as a sheet. My mom then asked him, You saw them, didn't you? My dad said no, but that they made their presence known as they left. And he felt them go. She then asked,

[00:18:56] You did not believe me, did you? And to his chagrin, he admitted that he had not. Of course, us kids were clueless, asking, What are you talking about? What's going on? Who left? But my mom's response was, Never mind. You don't need to know.

[00:19:12] Of course, we found out the entire story, once we were old enough. Mom also found out from our neighbors that there was a lot of speculation in the neighborhood about the woman that lived there before us.

[00:19:23] Apparently, there was a lot of gossip due to so many men constantly in and out of the home all day and night. They inferred that she was possibly a prostitute or something, and we wonder if that may have been what invited them in.

[00:19:38] Later, mom also told us why we were so afraid going down the hallway each night on the way to bed. She said the hallway was a type of conduit, in that it was filled with entities appearing at one end, and fading away at the other.

[00:19:53] She said that these entities were miserable, and so self-absorbed in their own misery, that they did not seem to know that anyone else was around them. She said the best description of them was coming from scripture. Weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

[00:20:09] I guess we just felt them, because none of us kids actually ever saw them, and since they never noticed us, my mom did not think that we were in harm's way. I don't know why,

[00:20:20] but I seem to always become very skeptical when someone claims to have many experiences. It's weird, because my family has had a lot of experiences as well. I know that it just makes no sense. My mother is a very special person, who has had many incredible experiences,

[00:20:37] and I will share another one with you. I was a very young child when this one happened. One day we were driving on the freeway in our new green Plymouth Duster, when my mom asked my dad to pull over. She said that something was wrong.

[00:20:51] She asked my dad to check the car. He did, and said there was nothing wrong, and we started down the freeway once again. After a little time, my mom insisted there was something wrong, and had my dad pull over once again.

[00:21:05] This time she told him to check the wheels. Dad checked, and this time, obviously irritated, he got back in the car, and again he said that there was nothing wrong, and we started off again. Once again, after a few miles, my mom said there was something wrong.

[00:21:21] Dad was having none of it, so an argument started up. Mom finally told him to pull over, and said that she and her kids were getting out of the car. So dad, angry, pulled over once again, and started to inspect the car. While he was doing so,

[00:21:36] mom rolled down the window and told him to check the side of a specific tire underneath the car. Dad was not happy that he would have to get down on the ground, and stick his head under the car to see this location. While loudly grumbling, he checked,

[00:21:50] and then it suddenly got quiet. The trunk opened, and the car was jacked up, and that wheel was replaced with the spare. Apparently dad discovered a massive blister on the inside wall of that tire. A blister the size of a large fist,

[00:22:06] right where my mom had asked him to look. Even the mechanic was uneasy working on replacing the tire because of the danger that it posed. He said that it was a good thing it did not burst while on the freeway,

[00:22:18] because it could have led to the loss of control of our car. So listen to those promptings, especially when they persist. Thanks, Dave Our next story of the night comes to us from Drew. And Drew says, Hello Nick.

[00:22:40] This 4th of July weekend triggered my memory of what I seem to forget happened last year at this time. On the 4th of July of 2021, I was at a lifelong friend's lake house on Lake Lanier in Georgia. Lake Lanier itself is known for having supernatural activity

[00:22:57] for its disturbing conditions during its formation back in the 1950s. Many people were forcibly displaced to create hydroelectric power and water supply for Atlanta. Although I don't believe this event was directly related to the happening, I felt that it may be important information.

[00:23:15] Anyway, getting back to this strange experience, my friend who we will call Gary picked me up early in the morning from my apartment, which was about 20 minutes from the lake house. We arrived and everything was going well while spirits were high. I then started to feel rather irritable,

[00:23:31] which isn't super unusual due to me having bipolar type 2. So mood swings are a normality. As the day went on, I could feel the irateness developing more so into the starting symptoms of depression.

[00:23:45] We had just got off the boat after being on the water for a few hours, which usually puts me in a great mood. But still, I was rapidly becoming pessimistic and extremely hard on myself. I started thinking to myself, no one likes you, you don't belong here,

[00:24:00] you're better off dead. And of course it's never a good sign when my thoughts trail off that fast. We then all got together on the ground floor for lunch, but for some reason I wanted to eat alone, which is very unlike my extrovert self.

[00:24:16] I went upstairs to the guest room where people had dropped their overnight bags all over, and I ate by the window. Thoughts terribly spiraling into suicidal idealization. It just didn't make sense to be around lifelong friends eating great food

[00:24:30] and having a lake day for me to be that low. So after lunch we all went down to the dock and fished and played a variation of games. But I still felt off. Around 8 hours later, we were all wiped and called it quits for the day,

[00:24:45] and went to bed. I took my sleeping medication which usually has me out like a light, but for some off reason it just wasn't working. I finally got into a super light sleep before waking up, which I assumed was around every hour to every half hour.

[00:25:00] I distinctly remember waking up and feeling like I was covered in cockroaches crawling on top and under my skin. I felt awful at this point, mentally and physically, and I then decided to go down to the dock for some fresh air.

[00:25:15] There were a few guys awake and smoking cigarettes, and for some reason I asked for one. I do not smoke. It's like I was just in self-destruction mode. Nothing was making sense with my actions, my mood, or anything.

[00:25:30] Sunrise had finally come and Gary and I went to get a breakfast biscuit, and on the way he tells me that he woke up at around 3 AM to a shadowy figure standing in the room that we were both sleeping in. Now everything made sense

[00:25:44] with that piece of information. It took about a week after that short trip to feel normal again, but I truly believe that a demon was attacking me for some reason. Another weird thing is that we were in a house that was full of mostly Christians,

[00:25:59] so I thought that that would have protected me. But I guess there's always something in the shadows wanting to be ignored. Thanks for the podcast. Drew As we bring tonight's episode to an end, I'd like to thank Ashley, Danny, Dave, and of course Drew for sharing their experiences.

[00:26:23] And remember that if you have a story to share with me, you can find links to all of my contact information in the show notes. Until next time, thanks to all of you for listening, and I look forward to having you back here for my next episode,

[00:26:37] as we continue our journey into the unexplained, right here on Paranormal Mysteries.