306: Listener Experiences Recap Of 2022 - Part 1

[00:00:14] And now, let's start the show with our first listener story of the night, which comes to us from John. And John's story is called, Ouija. John says, Back in 2018 I was deployed to Afghanistan.

[00:00:31] A couple of my buddies and I decided that it would be a wonderful idea to play with a spirit board in a war-ridden country. We had played with it on multiple occasions, with nothing worth mentioning.

[00:00:42] One spirit came through, telling us its name was Diablo, which we all thought was odd because of the location we were in. We all thought it was kind of funny and thinking that it was one of us trying to scare us.

[00:00:54] But then the planchette started moving without us asking a question or saying anything to the entity that we were speaking with. It then spelled out, Fire. And as we were trying to figure out what was going on, the fire alarms went off in all

[00:01:08] the buildings that everyone was staying in, so everyone had to leave the buildings. Come to find out the next day that there was no fire and the fire alarms just threw a faulty code.

[00:01:20] I have a lot of paranormal stories if you would like to hear more, and I'd be more than happy to share them with you and the audience. Thanks for the wonderful podcast, and hopefully I will be able to hear this on there.

[00:01:36] Our next story comes to us from Shane. And Shane's story is called, Glitch in the Matrix. Shane says, Hi Nick, still very much enjoying the podcast. It's been a while since I wrote to you last, and I thank you for including my story about

[00:01:51] a possible time slip in episode 110. Now just the day before I wrote this, I experienced what can only be described as a glitch in the matrix. Myself and my family were driving home from running some errands when my wife took notice

[00:02:07] of a uniquely labeled plumbing truck traveling in the lane to our right. After a few seconds, we passed the truck and it wasn't far behind us when we approached an intersection. As we were traveling eastbound through the intersection, I notice waiting at the red

[00:02:21] light to our right going northbound is the exact same truck we saw not a minute earlier. And when I look in my rearview mirror, that truck is now gone. It was only a car length behind us, but in seconds it somehow turned off and flipped

[00:02:36] a u-turn to sit at the light. I said to my wife, Uh, that plumbing truck we just passed is over there now. Did you see that? In total disbelief she said, Uh, yeah. How'd that happen?

[00:02:49] To have someone else actually witness was great because I thought that I was losing it. There's no way the truck could have moved to where it was in such a short amount of

[00:02:57] time since there were no easy ways to turn off and cut across traffic to end up at the light. And here's a weird twist to the story. Where this occurred is just a short distance from where the time slip in my other story happened.

[00:03:11] Keep the bizarre stories coming and thank you for the podcast. Sincerely, Shane Our next story of the night comes to us from Kelly and Kelly's story is called UFO Ocala Florida 1978. Kelly says, In the summer of 1978, my family lived on Southeast 25th Avenue, just south

[00:03:37] of Ocala, Florida, between Ocala and Bellevue off of Highway 441 in a sparsely populated neighborhood that is still there today. I was seven years old and my neighbor was also seven or eight and her name was Christy.

[00:03:52] I'm not sure of her last name as we went to different schools. We would play together and ride our bikes on the paved road between her house and mine and there was a house in between our houses.

[00:04:03] We were not allowed to go past her house or mine at night and there were streetlights paced out between the houses. We could stay out until 9pm and then we both had to be home.

[00:04:14] It was a warm summer's night and we'd been playing and riding our bikes back and forth between the two houses on the street and we stopped under the streetlight in front of her house.

[00:04:23] I had turned my bike around and was facing south back toward my house and she had stopped beside me and was facing the opposite way. We were both getting ready to go home.

[00:04:34] There was about a city block of distance between our house and Highway 441 with a snapper lawn mower business on Highway 441 and some woods that were between the business and our street. It was dark and approximately 9pm as we were saying our goodbyes for the night when I looked

[00:04:51] up in the sky behind her and just above the treetops. The trees were not very tall, maybe 20 feet or so, because the lot had been cleared and then grown back with sparse trees scattered among the open area where wildflowers grew every year.

[00:05:06] There was a very large stationary object with lights circling it on the side that was visible to us. It was so close that we could see underneath and on one side of the craft. It was slightly hovering just off the side of the road over the vacant lot.

[00:05:21] It was very close to us, approximately 25-35 feet away. I said, oh my god, what is that? And I pointed up at it. I saw her turning her head to look at it and then I don't remember anything after that moment.

[00:05:36] After that I was standing in the backyard on the side of my house and my bike was on the ground at my feet in the black dark. I was facing the road and I could see the street light we had been standing under.

[00:05:48] It was 200-250 yards away from me and Kristi wasn't there. I left my bike on the ground and went inside and I remember I was really calm at that moment, almost in a daze I guess.

[00:06:01] I told my mother what we had seen but she was not impressed one bit with my story because I was late getting home. Honestly I don't even know how late I was now that I think about it.

[00:06:12] I must not have been too late because she didn't go looking for me. What happened during all of this I have no clue. Kristi's parents were very strict and I didn't get to see her for several days because she was on restriction for getting home too late.

[00:06:26] When we were able to see each other again later that following week, she said that she thought that it was all a dream but when I told her no it wasn't and I told her about what I remembered, she started crying and ran home.

[00:06:39] Other than that initial sight of the UFO, I have no idea what happened until I was back in my yard and it's still as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday. Kristi would not talk about it period and I had some serious issues with being there

[00:06:52] at that house after dark if my dad wasn't home for several years. They even took me to counseling for it. For whatever reason I didn't connect this incident with my sudden fear of being home after dark until just recently.

[00:07:07] I can't be positive about the date, but May 14th 1978 is the documented Ocala Florida sighting. This is the right time period for what happened to us. I was born in 1970 so the year is definitely right.

[00:07:21] I started to listen to your podcast recently and so I wanted to share my story with you. Thank you. Our next story of the evening comes to us from Isabel. And Isabel's story is called, Prophetic Dreams Running in the Family. Isabel says, Hi Nick.

[00:07:44] My girlfriend who has listened to every episode multiple times and is a big fan introduced me to your podcast a few months ago and we listened to it nightly. I told her about a few of unexplained situations that myself and my family have experienced

[00:07:57] and she recommended that I write in. On my mother's side of the family, all the women have experienced dreams that eventually would come to fruition. Sometimes they served as warnings and a few were letting us know that good was coming soon.

[00:08:13] I was told many of these stories as a child, but due to my mother's side of the family being French speaking, I've only heard second hand translations of them. I don't feel comfortable sharing a story that isn't mine or I don't have permission to share,

[00:08:26] but I do have a couple that I would like to share with the podcast in the hopes of someone hearing this and understanding how or why the women on my maternal side have been granted this odd gift.

[00:08:38] The first dream I will share is one that my mom had about ten years ago. Three years prior to this dream, my brother and I had a friend who died very unexpectedly at the age of 13.

[00:08:50] In my mother's dream, she saw our friend, Scotty, sitting next to a figure. My mother assumed it to be God or some sort of omnipotent being. He was trying to get the other man's attention and excitedly repeating over and over, Can I tell her? Can I tell her?

[00:09:06] Can I please tell her? The god-like figure just looked at Scotty and said, Wait. Afterwards, my mother woke up. She didn't think much of the dream until about a week later when she felt something was off and decided to take a pregnancy test.

[00:09:22] This is when she found out that she was pregnant with my younger sister who is the sweetest kid you will ever meet and carries the same kindness that Scotty did in life.

[00:09:31] I have a few experiences similar in my own life, but one stands out that I would like to also share. Last winter, I was in a deep depression. I felt lonely, and the feeling was nearly driving me insane.

[00:09:44] I am not someone who dreams often, or for whatever reason when I do dream, it's usually nightmares. However, around January of this year, I started to have nearly nightly dreams. All good dreams about going to the beach, seeing shows, just being on fun outings.

[00:10:02] There was always someone accompanying me in these dreams, but I could never make out their face. The only thing I could ever remember was their black hair that was cut into a bob.

[00:10:12] Late April of this year, I went on my first date with who would eventually become my girlfriend of six months now. Sutton. We connected so quickly, and there was an instant trust between the two of us.

[00:10:23] I had an odd feeling that I had known her for a long time, but I knew that that couldn't be true, as she lived two hours away from me, and there was no way that we could have met.

[00:10:32] That's when I realized that she had the same black bob as the girl in my dreams. This could all be just an odd coincidence, but seeing how this has happened to all the women on my mom's side of the family, there has to be some connection.

[00:10:46] If anyone listening has any information or ideas on what could cause something like this, I would love to hear it. Thank you for listening to my stories, and thank you for providing a platform to share. Isabelle

[00:11:03] Our next listener story comes to us from Lily, and Lily's story is called, My Angel Cat Protector Lily says, Hi Nick! I recently started listening to your podcast, and I love it. Thank you for creating an outlet where us empathic and or sensitive people can share

[00:11:21] our stories and experiences. My story is short, but sweet. I am 19 and my kitty that I have had since I was 6, Woo, just passed in July. She was very sick and in pain, and we had to put her down.

[00:11:36] It was one of the saddest days of my life, as me and her were so close. Her favorite thing to do was cuddle with me, and she'd always lay her head on my arm.

[00:11:45] As she passed, I held her in my arms in her favorite spot, with her head on my forearm where she always put it, and I watched her peacefully go to heaven. It's hard to write this because it makes me so emotional.

[00:11:58] I loved her so much, but I know that she is still here, with me. A few days ago, I was sleeping at my boyfriend's house, just to be woken up halfway to what I thought was a dream. It was my cat.

[00:12:11] She was thin and healthy, and her fur looked so perfect and soft. She looked the most beautiful she ever had. She was walking on top of the blankets to get to me and cuddle as she always did at night.

[00:12:23] When I realized it was her, I reached out for her, and just then, she disappeared. I got so emotional because I knew it was her telling me that she was in heaven, restored back to perfect health and happiness once again.

[00:12:36] That gave me chills, and I immediately told my mom who was also very close to my Woo kitty, and she instantly got emotional. I have a light that borders my bed that Woo would always turn on when she was here. She would just tap it with her paw.

[00:12:52] That light now turns on by itself every so often, and I know it's her. I miss her so much, and I know that she's protecting me. I hope you enjoyed my story.

[00:13:03] I'm sorry that it's sad, but at the same time, it's so reassuring, and I hope those of you who have lost your furry loved ones know that they are happy, healthy, and with you still. Thank you, Nick. I hope you and all your listeners have a blessed day.

[00:13:19] Lily Our next story of the night comes to us from Concie, and Concie's story is called Premonitions. Concie says, Hello, Nick. I have had many paranormal things happen to me, and my mom's side of the family are very in tune with the paranormal.

[00:13:39] She's had visions while laying down in her bed at night, awake, sometimes even during the day doing the usual taking care of the house or just relaxing. I would be laying down with her when I was a young lady and she would say, You see? I'm awake, right?

[00:13:54] I see this beautiful landscape. There is a deer grazing. It is a nice sunny day. That is how she would see her visions. One night on September 17th or 18th of 1985, she had a vision of a beautiful vase that

[00:14:10] she was seeing from the top, and it had a nice plant. All of a sudden the plant was no longer there and she saw the soil, then hands trying to get out of the soil. Many many hands desperately trying to come out.

[00:14:24] She felt horrified and she knew something terrible was going to happen. That is when we saw the news on September 19th that an earthquake with the magnitude of 8.0 struck Mexico City, killing at least 5,000 people. My whole family was shocked. She had other visions but nothing that terrible again.

[00:14:44] I had more experiences myself and I would love to write those to you next time. Thank you for your great podcast. I listen to you when driving and going to work. Greetings. Concie Our next experience comes to us from Andrew, and Andrew's story is called

[00:15:05] Dark Looming Presence and Psychedelic Telepathy. Andrew's second story involves drug use and adult situations, and may be inappropriate for some listeners. Andrew says, Hi Nick. I love the show and get a secret kick out of you reading every sentence in the letters

[00:15:23] that are sent to you, even if it is an apology for being too long or a preface for being a couple of stories. Anyway, here's a couple stories that might be a little long.

[00:15:35] The more I think of it, there have been plenty of potentially paranormal aspects to my life. The house I grew up in had a very distinct energy that made me and my siblings afraid to be alone downstairs in the dark, even as young adults.

[00:15:47] There was some kind of looming presence that didn't seem to follow any of us once we all moved away, but for years chills would compel us to run up the stairs as fast as we could,

[00:15:57] or wait for each other so no one would be caught downstairs in the dark alone. We never talked about why we did or what exactly was making us afraid. I don't think it was a case of being afraid of the dark, as there were almost shifts in

[00:16:11] pressure or quick changes in temperature that passed by and gave you the chills. The dark never bothered us anywhere else, and I wish I could be more specific, but part of what was so creepy about this hovering presence was its vagueness.

[00:16:25] Second, and this is less typically paranormal, but at my college there were co-ops, low-cost housing for students, plastered with obscene and psychedelic murals, bathrooms littered with syringes, nudists cooking dinner for sometimes up to 300 residents, and just about everyone was on drugs.

[00:16:45] I visited one night and entered a room of close to 60 people, all of whom had been smoking large quantities of marijuana. There were clusters of conversations, so it almost sounded like the chatter of a cafeteria, but I started noticing patterns in the chatter.

[00:17:01] There was a laugh at one end of the room, and about three seconds later, someone in the next cluster laughed the same way, and then the next cluster, and the next. It was like the same quick high-pitched laugh was being passed around the room from group to group.

[00:17:16] I decided to test the system by clapping in the middle of a sentence to my cluster. Someone across the room in another cluster clapped, and then another, and another as if we were unconsciously playing a game of telephone. One last test with the same results, I shouted, Oh!

[00:17:33] very playfully, and I heard it echo throughout the clusters from different people's mouths. To this day, I don't know if this is pure college student insecurity, if somehow we were communicating telepathically and sending subliminal cues to each other, or if a room

[00:17:47] full of stoned people forms some kind of superconsciousness, but I've never seen anything like it before or since. I have a few more stories, but I think that'll do it for now. Thanks for this podcast. It's perfect. Andrew

[00:18:06] Our next experience of the night comes to us from Richard, and Richard's story is called Sleep Paralysis and the Little Girl. Richard says, Hey Nick, I enjoy listening to your podcast. I listen to it every day on my way to and from work.

[00:18:24] This story is from the first and last time that I experienced sleep paralysis. This happened in 2013, toward the end of my freshman year in high school. My parents had just moved us out of town, but we still had a month left of school to

[00:18:38] finish, so we were staying at a family friend's house until then. I was sleeping on the couch, my brother on an air mattress on the floor next to me, and my parents were in the guest bedroom nearby.

[00:18:50] One night that I was sleeping on the couch, I had a dream that my other two younger brothers were in the backyard playing with a ball. The ball bounced over a short wooden barrier and toward the side of the house.

[00:19:00] On the side of the house was a narrow walkway between the house and a brick wall. So I climbed over the wooden barrier and made my way to retrieve the ball from my little brothers. But once over the barrier, I noticed something eerie.

[00:19:14] That's where, in my dream, I began to feel fear. At the end of that narrow walkway was a little girl, crouched down with her face buried in her knees, facing the opposite direction. Right behind the girl was the ball I went to retrieve.

[00:19:29] I remember slowly making my way and slowly and quietly picking up the ball. Once I grabbed the ball, I looked up at the house and noticed the window. On the other side of that exact window is the couch that I sleep on.

[00:19:43] I then looked down at the little girl, and I remember slowly reaching my hand towards her to ask if she was okay. At the exact moment that I touched her shoulder, she turned very quickly and aggressively.

[00:19:55] And before I could even recognize her face, I woke up from that dream, paralyzed. I remember laying there, and I could feel my eyes wide open because of what was happening to me.

[00:20:06] I laid there staring at the ceiling trying to move something, but no matter how hard I tried, I could feel my body stay frozen in place. At the time, I had never heard of sleep paralysis, so this was new to me, and given the dream

[00:20:18] I was having right before this happened, I assumed I was being possessed. I tried screaming for my mom in the other room, but I had that same frozen-in-place feeling with my lips.

[00:20:29] I could feel my breath come from my chest trying to call for my mom, but I absolutely could not separate my lips or even make a sound. That was the scariest feeling. At that point, I told myself, okay, I just need to calm down.

[00:20:44] So I slowed my breathing and talked myself down and back to sleep. When I finally calmed down and went back to sleep, I was right back in that dream at the beginning of that walkway, slowly making my way to the ball and the girl.

[00:20:58] I thought, what the hell? Why this again? And even though I knew what was about to happen in my dream, I continued to walk towards the little girl. I had no control over my actions, but complete consciousness of why I shouldn't be doing that again. So same thing.

[00:21:14] I grab the ball, reach for the little girl, she turns, and I wake up. I lay there, again staring at the ceiling and wondering why this is happening to me and how I'm supposed to get out of it.

[00:21:27] Again I tried calling for my mom, but I still couldn't let out a sound. I felt the armrest of the couch on the bottom of my feet, so I thought, maybe I can push myself off the couch and someone will hear me fall and come to help.

[00:21:40] But that idea never worked. Just because I felt the couch under my feet doesn't mean that I could move my legs. Finally I calmed myself down and snapped out of that paralysis, and at that point I was

[00:21:51] scared of what just happened, and it was happening again, so I crawled into the air mattress with my brother for the night. He looked over at me with his sleepy face, and I just said, something happened right now, and I'm going to sleep right here.

[00:22:05] He just nodded his head and went back to sleep. After that night I stayed at my grandparents' house for the remainder of my school year. If you get a chance to see this, thank you for taking the time to read my story. Richard

[00:22:23] And now let's start the show with our first story of the night, which comes to us from Joe. And Joe's story is called Paranormal Concierge. Joe says, Hi Nick, I promised I would send in more stories, so here is one from earlier in 1990.

[00:22:42] It started when I accepted a position as a patient care tech in a long-term care facility. I was pretty experienced by this time in my career, and this particular assignment. Back in the day, most of the time, the male staff was limited to the male residents.

[00:22:57] This day I was introduced to a quadriplegic and a new resident named Mr. J. We soon became pretty close, as you sometimes do in this field of care, and as we did, he became more comfortable with personal subjects and conversations.

[00:23:12] We often talked about our lives, hopes, and dreams. I worked the 3-11 shift, and no matter what was planned or scheduled for that shift, it began with first stopping in to say hello.

[00:23:25] Working this shift for most was always kind of eerie, and could be very creepy at times if you were not used to it. This night, I started off my shift as usual.

[00:23:35] As I looked down the wing where Mr. J was located, I noticed that he had a family member visiting as I saw a tall figure enter his room, so I stopped and turned around as to not disturb this quality time.

[00:23:47] Later that shift, when I made my rounds and my way to his room, I was met with a different resident than the normally always cheerful Mr. J. The energy was very different and strange, and I knew something was on.

[00:24:01] This on is a feeling that comes over me when spirits are present. It starts with a tingle, and then a flush of emotions, sights, and sounds. As I stood beside his bed, I saw a dark figure in the corner near the window. It just looked at us.

[00:24:16] Although I couldn't see any details or features, I could clearly see the outline of a tall man-shaped mass about 6 feet tall. I am what I call a trained observer, as I have had my share of encounters with the paranormal.

[00:24:29] I mention this because I noticed his interaction with this dark figure as he switched his gaze darting between both a figure and me. I could see that he was saddened, but not really scared. I assured him that I was there for him, and he thanked me.

[00:24:44] But what he said to me next caught me off guard, to say the least. He first thanked me for our time together, but he continued to tell me that he was passing on and would not be here when I got in the next day.

[00:24:58] Even though I was shocked, I somehow believed him because of what I had just witnessed. He could see that I had so many questions, but before I could ask, he said, I can't tell you or talk about it.

[00:25:09] He told me that he was not afraid, and I believed him. I stayed with him as long as I could, and visited him throughout my shift. The following day, I called myself being smarter than the situation, and I came in two hours

[00:25:22] earlier, determined to be there if and when it was his time. When I passed the nursing station that led to the wing, I was met by a staff member who gave me the news that he was already gone.

[00:25:35] My eyes swelled as it was hard holding back my emotions. I turned to leave the building heading back the way I entered. I was immediately pulled back towards his empty room, which was being stripped as per procedure when someone has passed.

[00:25:48] As I was about to enter the room, things turned on once again, and I felt that familiar tingle. Before I could recover and gather myself, I saw him sitting there on the side of his bed, his feet dangling, and he was swinging them back and forth.

[00:26:03] His face had a huge smile, and a look of wonderment. My eyes never left him as he slowly faded away. I think back and I realize that he was happy that he was about to take his second, first step. Keep doing what you do, Joe.

[00:26:24] Our next story of the evening comes to us from Peggy, and Peggy's story is called, Murdered Spirit, with a Message. Peggy says, I work as a rehabilitation counselor with blind and deaf individuals.

[00:26:38] I was at work when a co-worker came in that morning, upset because someone she knew had been hit by a car and killed after going out the night before. I was heading to see a client that I worked with.

[00:26:50] She lived in public housing, a small one-bedroom cluttered apartment. Faith was extremely hard of hearing and didn't wear hearing aids. She could hear very loud noises, but not speech. She was also legally blind and kept the lights dimmed as the glare hurt her eyes.

[00:27:06] She was also in a wheelchair. Faith communicates by speaking and having others write or type their answers in big letters so that she can read it. The day I arrived, she was so upset. She said that a good friend of hers had been killed in a car accident.

[00:27:21] She said she knew this woman from karaoke nights at a local bar. This woman had been her friend, and she had very few close friends, and she didn't believe that it was an accident. She thought that she had been killed.

[00:27:35] This woman's photo was on her computer screen, which I was about to use to type to her to continue our conversation. Just as she told me about the woman who had died, and said that she thought that she had

[00:27:45] been murdered, a lamp that was sitting next to the computer flew off the desk. I grabbed it mid-flight and looked around to see if I had hit the cord, or if the cord had been pulled.

[00:27:56] Faith was sitting on the other side of the desk, nowhere near the lamp or the cord. I placed it back on the desk and started to type to Faith to explain what had happened. She continued to talk about the woman, and the lamp again flew off the desk.

[00:28:09] This time the plug which was under the desk came right out of the wall and was bent from the force. There was no physical cause for the lamp to move. I picked it up again and tried to explain what happened.

[00:28:21] Faith couldn't see what had happened due to her poor vision, and she just shook her head when I explained. Faith saw something go flying, but didn't seem to comprehend what had happened, even after I, shocked, tried to explain.

[00:28:35] I felt like the woman who had died was communicating, saying, Yes, Faith is right. It was a homicide, not an accident. I wanted to tell the police, but what would I say? The dead woman communicated with us, and the case needed to be investigated?

[00:28:51] After my work was finished with Faith for the day, I left with such a strong feeling that this woman was trying to communicate with us. There was no other explanation. I did tell my co-worker when I returned to the office, and she was shocked.

[00:29:06] I don't know what happened with the case, but I will never forget the incident. Our next story of the night comes to us from Chrissy. And Chrissy's story is called, A Goodbye from My Soulmate From Beyond Chrissy says, Hi Nick.

[00:29:26] It's so nice to be able to tell my story. I met my fiancé by fate. He lived in a different state while going to college. This was in 2001 when I was in my younger years, when we met a couple of boys that were

[00:29:38] cruising town, and they invited us to a party about an hour away from our home. When we went to this party, we were then invited to a party in Indianapolis, and this is where I met my fiancé.

[00:29:50] We dated for a year before he proposed, and we saw each other every weekend. Distance had nothing on us. We were that couple that everyone wanted to have. We loved each other endlessly, and we both knew that we were going to grow old together.

[00:30:06] Christmas was coming up, and we had just bought our first home with some help from my parents, and he had just graduated college, all within one month. So after he graduated, my mom and I took a truck to Indianapolis and gathered his things, and we started our lives.

[00:30:22] He had a job interview the day after Christmas, and I had just gotten the job of my dreams. We had it all. We were happy, and in love. I had a son that was biologically not my fiancé's, but I met him while I was pregnant, and he

[00:30:36] took over as my son's father, even at such a young age. This brings us up to the day of Christmas Eve. He wanted to drive home and see his family for Christmas Eve, and he would be home in

[00:30:47] time for our son that was a baby at this time, to open up presents. He drove my parents' car because they had a very nice luxury car that was comfortable. I kissed him goodbye, and he left.

[00:31:00] This is so hard for me to talk about, but I'm pushing through it. That night, when he was gone, I could not sleep. He was supposed to arrive back home at 2am Christmas morning.

[00:31:11] Like I said, I couldn't sleep, and the baby kept waking up, so I put him in bed with me, and every time I woke up, I kept checking the couch to see if maybe he decided to sleep there so that he wouldn't bother us in bed. But nothing.

[00:31:24] Every time I woke up, I worried more and more, until I got the worst feeling all throughout my body, and I saw my fiancé come to me in my dream. His arms were closed in front of his face, and his head was down.

[00:31:37] He was crying uncontrollably, and he would not speak. He just cried and sobbed. I told him that whatever it was, that we could get through it. It felt so real, and it immediately woke me up.

[00:31:50] When I woke up, I noticed that I had a scratch from the middle of my forehead that went down all the way to my ear, which was odd because we didn't have any animals.

[00:31:59] At 7am, my dad pulled up in the driveway, and I was scared because he wasn't home yet, and I thought that my dad was going to be very mad. But I knew something was wrong when he walked in the door.

[00:32:09] He informed me that the police had been to his house in the very early morning hours, wondering who was driving their car. They even made my brother get up and come downstairs just to make sure it wasn't him because they could not find identification for my fiancé.

[00:32:24] He had driven three and a half hours home, and twenty minutes from home, he fell asleep and wrecked into a very large telephone pole. I did not realize until the end of the day that when I woke up when he came to me in

[00:32:37] my dream, it was 2am. 201 was his time of death, and he had been cut from the middle of his forehead down to his ear. But he was cut down to his brain. This all seemed so surreal to me. How could this be real?

[00:32:52] We had just bought a home. We had just started our lives. And we just had a baby. To this day, I have never been so devastated in all my life. I have carried this depression around with me to this very day.

[00:33:05] Life has not been easy without him, but I am so blessed to have known such a wonderful, caring, and loving man. I don't remember much after my dad came to inform me. The brain has a weird way of blocking trauma.

[00:33:18] I'm glad that he came to say goodbye at the very least, and I still feel him near me all the time. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story.

[00:33:28] This was not easy for me to write, but I felt like it needed to be shared. I'm a bit of an empath, so when he's around I feel it, and I can also feel other people's pain and moods.

[00:33:39] No one deserves to go through what I went through, and what he went through. It changed me as a person entirely. I really hope that I'm able to listen to you read my story on your podcast.

[00:33:51] Thank you so much for this platform, and the chance to tell my story. Our next story of the night comes to us from Kelly. And Kelly's story is called, A Picture of a Ghost. Kelly says, Hi Nick, I'm from Texas.

[00:34:10] I'd like to preface this by telling you what a great job you've been doing. It's amazing that you've created this platform for everyone to share their stories without any judgment. Keep up the great work, and thank you so much for what you've done for us.

[00:34:23] Now, I have a story to share with you. My mother and I had to drive to Oklahoma to stay a night for a doctor's appointment. My uncle lives in Oklahoma, so we stayed there instead of getting a hotel room.

[00:34:35] My uncle's house used to belong to my grandparents, his and my mother's parents. The house was built in 1951, with many occupants before my grandparents bought it. I don't know much on the history of the house. The house overall has an uneasy feeling to it.

[00:34:50] Most of the upstairs is blocked off due to the amount of stuff that my grandparents have kept up there. It's almost a hoarder's house with how many things they have. My grandmother actually passed away in the house. I've always been sensitive to the paranormal, but also extremely intrigued.

[00:35:07] I'm normally not one to think too much of it, but night eventually fell and it was time to go to sleep. There's only one functional bedroom out of five in the house, and it belongs to my uncle,

[00:35:18] so my mother and I had to settle down in the living room. My mother got the inflatable mattress, and I took the couch. We were both exhausted, but I couldn't fall asleep. I just felt so uneasy. The air was heavy and cold.

[00:35:32] There were so many noises, like bumps and creaks, but I chalked it up to the house settling, or raccoons. My boyfriend had gone to a party that night and hadn't been answering for a while, so I just assumed that was what was making me nervous.

[00:35:46] I did my best to try to fall asleep, but I still couldn't. So I decided to get on Snapchat and talk to some of my friends. At about 5am, I accidentally swiped up on my Snapchat and see my saved photos.

[00:36:00] I see one that I had saved from earlier, but I don't remember saving it at all. So being curious, I go to look at it. I hold down on the photo so I can see what time it was taken, and it reads 1138pm.

[00:36:14] I take a closer look at the photo to see a very white, grinning face in the background. I'm frozen in fear. The face showed so much maliciousness. You could see the eyes, which were white, and I was absolutely terrified. I couldn't stop looking.

[00:36:29] I laid there for a moment, whispering to my mom, trying to wake her up. After a bit, I hear her whisper, What? Back to me. Still scared, I get up and walk over to her, saying that there's someone in this picture that I took.

[00:36:44] She's telling me that she doesn't want to see it because she doesn't like that kind of stuff. I'm still terrified, and I curl up into bed next to her. The sun begins to shine through the windows, and I felt a bit more safe with the sun rising.

[00:36:57] I got back on the couch after a bit, and I ended up falling asleep around 6am. I spent the next day thinking about it, and feeling so nervous and nauseous. My mom told me that it was just my imagination, but I was feeling uncomfortable the whole

[00:37:12] night, so I just brushed her off. After that, I've never had any more experiences at that house other than feeling uncomfortable. It may have just been a one-time thing, or just my imagination like my mother said. I'm not sure. But what do you think about it?

[00:37:27] I've attached the photo that I took that night. I hope it finds you well, and thank you once again for allowing us to share our stories. Blessed Be, Kelly As always, you can find Kelly's very interesting picture on our forum, and you can find a

[00:37:44] link to our forum in the show notes. Our next experience of the night comes to us from Hoss, and Hoss' story is called The Man in a Black Suit. Hoss says, Hello. I'm not sure if you still do listener stories. I'm about a year behind on the podcast.

[00:38:05] My story is not directly mine, but I have felt it or him. At my brother's shop there is an entity that stays in the shadows and in the dark. By all of the accounts of the people that work at the shop, this entity is in the form

[00:38:20] of a man with no face wearing a black suit. This being has a history at this shop as well as unexplained injuries. After sightings. We will start with last night when I was last there.

[00:38:33] It was about 9.50 at night in West Texas, and at this time of year it gets dark outside at 6.30. While me, my fiance, my brother and his wife were chatting and messing around.

[00:38:45] My fiance and his wife went to go and find the man in the black suit, and reluctantly me and my brother followed. As soon as we got to the room that he lived in, the moment I had the intention of looking

[00:38:58] into the dark, I felt pain and something so evil that I couldn't take my eyes off of it. That feeling persisted until after I was home. The whole time I knew that I was being watched, but I didn't know by what.

[00:39:12] Everyone that works at that shop that has seen this man in a black suit has lost something to him. A finger. A toe. A foot. Or an arm. And he has made a lathe chuck fly out of its machine with no prior incidents.

[00:39:27] There has been other incidents where machines will turn on randomly like lathes, bandsaws, and even shop cranes will move without warning. Other times the shop forklift will start by itself, even though it requires a tool to start.

[00:39:43] After the people at this shop had lost something to this man in a suit, the dread and evil they felt beforehand seemed to disappear. I'm not sure what this man is, but I know the feeling is always there, and he comes out night or day.

[00:39:58] And he is darker than the dark. Thank you for reading this. I hope it might end up on the podcast. And I love your show. From Hoss Our next experience of the evening comes to us from Dustin. And Dustin says, Hi there.

[00:40:18] I'm writing this in regards to the last podcast I heard which was number 172 I believe. The guide describes everything to a T that has and is happening to me as we speak. Well, all except for the lady in the mirror being upside down.

[00:40:34] Inside my house there are mirages that run around throughout it all the time. I can see them more than my wife, but my son is only three and he can see them too.

[00:40:44] I believe that they mess with him more so than not, and I am scared for him because they are messing with me and they hurt me. Right as I speak, you may not believe this, but these mirages wrapped around my body like

[00:40:56] a snake, constricting me and going into my ear like a worm. They leave scratch marks on me and they break things in my house. They chase my son a lot of times, and he cries.

[00:41:09] I went to a witch woman to try to rid myself of them and the house, but to no avail. I don't know what to do or who to call for help, but I am totally afraid of what they will do next.

[00:41:20] They follow me everywhere I go and are stronger within the house, but even outside the house they still hold power. Every time I sit down on a piece of furniture, you can feel them jump up on it like an animal

[00:41:32] would, and they start walking towards me every time. Last week they really have been active and doing things they haven't done before. They went deep within my ear and it actually hurts. I can pull a mirage out of my ear like a piece of string.

[00:41:47] I know it sounds crazy, but you of all people must have heard something similar to mine. If you can please think of anything that I may be able to do to help in this matter, please contact me. Thank you so much for your time.

[00:42:01] I know you're a busy person, but if you have any ideas to be rid of these things, please tell me as soon as possible, before anything else happens. Thank you again. Respectfully, Dustin If anyone listening has advice for Dustin, please contact me directly and I'll be sure

[00:42:19] to put you in contact with him. Our next experience of the night comes to us from DJ, and DJ's story is called A Haunting on Apache Street. DJ says My husband at the time, he's now deceased, and I moved into a house on Apache Street

[00:42:40] in a small town in Oklahoma with our four children. Everything was going good the first few days. The house had a wall in the middle of the house that separated the living room and the kitchen. Walking around the right side of the wall, you would pass two bedrooms.

[00:42:54] First was our room, and the second was the girls' room. The boys' room was in the back of the house, behind the kitchen. Then you would walk around the kitchen and around the back of the living room to the left of the wall.

[00:43:07] Almost a week after moving in, I was sitting in the living room on the couch that was backed up to the wall. The front door had a small window at the top of it.

[00:43:15] The screen door was heavy and not easy to open, but all of a sudden the screen door opened slowly, like someone was opening it. I assumed that someone was at the door, and as I was waiting for a knock, the screen door then slammed hard.

[00:43:30] It made me jump. I jumped up and ran over to the door, but nobody was there. Then we started seeing this black cat hanging around. It would kill the squirrels and eat the head, and leave the body on the stoop. It was a very strange cat.

[00:43:45] It would hiss at anyone that was close to it, and several very strange things happened the next few weeks. The kids became so frightened that they no longer would sleep in their own rooms. They wanted to sleep on the floor in our room.

[00:43:58] One day I was in the kitchen, and the kids and I were eating crackers. We had eaten them all, and the kids went to go play. I started on the dishes that were left from lunch, when something caught my eye.

[00:44:09] The cracker wrapper was still on the counter, and it started moving slowly, and sliding down the counter to the edge. It then flew, stopped in the air, and then straight down onto the floor. I stood there in shock.

[00:44:23] Then I felt pressure around me from behind, and then a deep scary growling. I screamed, Jesus help me, and the pressure and growling then disappeared. I grabbed the kids and ran to a neighbor's house, and we never went back inside that house.

[00:44:39] Now the kids are grown, and they talk about that cat. They say that the cat would walk around our bedroom, and they say that it walked across the headboard of our bed, and that its eyes would glow.

[00:44:52] We never let that cat in the house, and we didn't have a headboard. Let's start the show with our first listener story of the night, which comes to us from Mike. Mike says, Hi Nick, I've been listening to your show and submitted a couple stories from my past.

[00:45:13] This time I'd like to submit a much more recent story. But first, some history. I lived in a rented ranch-style house for about a decade. It was a good size, inexpensive, had a big fenced-in yard and two-and-a-half car garage

[00:45:28] in a decent area, and the rent was never raised in the ten years that I lived there, which partially explains why I lived there for so long, even though both myself and my dog would see, hear, and even physically feel things.

[00:45:43] After I moved from there, I lived in a couple different places. In one house, I woke up on a Saturday morning and stumbled into the living room to find a child's handprint in the carpet under the coffee table. That was weird because there was no child there.

[00:45:59] Weirder still was about an hour or so after I woke up and saw it, it simply disappeared. But what made it even more weird was that when I went into the attached garage to my car, the same handprint was on the hood of my car.

[00:46:13] I lived at that house for a few years before moving south to Florida. Due to my job, I lived in a couple different cities in different areas of the state. Eventually I made my way to Orlando.

[00:46:25] My friend bought a home there and needed some roommates to help with the mortgage, so myself and another friend moved in. The house was a three-bedroom, two-bath, single-story home. It was a nice size for us and was the typical, relatively new Florida house with high ceilings.

[00:46:41] To better understand what happened there, I have to describe the house. The house was longer than it was wide and the front door and garage situated facing the road. When you walked in the front door, immediately to the right was a bathroom and on the other

[00:46:55] side of that were two of the three bedrooms. Walking in the front door, you'd walk down a foyer area into an open concept-style living room slash kitchen. If you continue walking, you'd walk through the living room.

[00:47:09] To your right is the kitchen and to the left, the third bedroom. Continue on and you'd walk out the sliding glass door into the backyard. The living room was situated so that when you'd watch TV, the kitchen was directly behind you.

[00:47:24] On multiple occasions while watching TV, off to my right, towards the two bedrooms and front door, I'd see something out of the corner of my eye. It looked to me like three glittery or shiny balls of light that were different sizes and

[00:47:38] slightly smashed into an oval or almond shape. They seemed to be at the very top of the ceiling, which was much taller than a person, and when I'd turn to look at them, they seemed to duck around the corner and out of view.

[00:47:52] A few years prior to moving to Orlando, I lost my previous dog of 18 years. I missed him greatly, and after a couple dogless years, I decided it was time for another. I picked a dog from a local rescue and brought her home.

[00:48:07] Not too long after that, I met someone and we were married. I moved him in the place I was at while we saved some money for our own place. So now there were three of us and a dog in the same house.

[00:48:19] At this time, I was working weekdays 10 to 7. Around 6 or 6.30 one evening, I got a text from my roommate asking if I was home. I replied that I wasn't and I asked why. He said he'd tell me more once I got home.

[00:48:34] After I got home, I asked him what was up, and he said that while he was watching TV, the dog was sitting off to his right, slightly in front of him, staring back into the kitchen intently.

[00:48:44] A few seconds later, one of her toys came flying through the air at her. She jumped and caught it while playing with it. It surprised him because he didn't know that I was home and turned to say something to me. But there was no one there.

[00:48:57] That's when he texted, asking if I was home. A few months later, I woke up early and was sitting on the couch killing some time before I had to go to work, playing on my phone when off to the right, I heard deep breathing. Almost snoring.

[00:49:12] Immediately, I thought it was my dog asleep, but she was in the bedroom sleeping. I then thought it was my roommate's dog, but she was in his bedroom sleeping. I then realized I was the only one awake, and when I looked to my right, the breathing noise stopped.

[00:49:28] This area is the same area the dog was looking at when her toy came through the air towards her earlier. A few weeks later, we were sitting on the couch watching TV when my husband looked to his right, got up, and started looking around in the kitchen.

[00:49:43] I asked him what he was looking for, and he said that he had heard breathing. My husband's culture is highly superstitious and doesn't like to discuss such things, so I never told him about either of my experiences with the noise or the dogs.

[00:49:57] This past year, my dog, husband, and I moved out of Florida to a northern state. After a month or two in the new place, we went to dinner. When we returned home as usual, we took the dog out for a walk, and when we arrived back

[00:50:10] inside, she immediately went to a spot in the middle of the floor and started sniffing. Upon investigating, we found an old chicken nugget from a certain fast food restaurant in the middle of the floor.

[00:50:21] Neither of us eat those nuggets, and the dog, having been in the house alone for the previous hour or so, would have already seen it and eaten it. It seemed it appeared during the 30-40 minute dog walk.

[00:50:35] A few days later, we noticed the towel hanging in the bathroom had what looked like small blood droplets on it. Neither of us were bleeding, and even if we were, we certainly wouldn't have used a white towel for any blood.

[00:50:48] A few days after that, when we returned home, a plant that had been sitting on the floor fine for a couple of months was toppled over with no apparent reason. A week or so later, the kitchen table had several water droplets in the middle of the table when

[00:51:01] we woke up one morning. We searched the ceiling and found no evidence of water leak from above. This happened for two to three more days, and then stopped. The most recent things that have happened was while on the couch, the dog would look

[00:51:16] back down the hallway with a concerned look on her face. The last time, I turned my head to follow her gaze and said, Go away, loudly, to whatever she was looking at, and she seemed content after that.

[00:51:30] That was last week, and so far this week things have been… normal. To people with pets, I'd advise them to pay attention to your pets. They oftentimes seem to know more about what's going on around you than you do.

[00:51:47] Our next story of the night comes to us from Marlene, and Marlene's story is called UFO Abduction. Marlene's story may be a little graphic for some listeners, so please be warned. Marlene says,

[00:52:01] Hi Nick, I have been listening to every episode in your podcast and I feel that it is my turn to contribute to the show. I was born in Venezuela and was adopted to Sweden when I was 11 months old.

[00:52:14] Fast forwarding to about two weeks after, I celebrated my 8th birthday. My birthday is the 11th of September. That night, two weeks after my birthday, I had what I thought at the time was a very strange dream. Now I know that it was a UFO abduction.

[00:52:32] And it began like this. I was in my bed and trying to go to sleep when I was drifting off when suddenly woke up in a very bright room. I was standing in the middle of a bright, round room and big tanks with some sort of

[00:52:45] liquid and humanoid creatures were positioned alongside the wall. I could hear a very low humming and my feet felt cold. I started to look around the bright room when I saw him approaching me.

[00:52:57] He looked like a little devil with black, very straight hair, horns on each side of his head, big, round, ice blue eyes, and he was short and had skin that shifted in light brown and red.

[00:53:10] He told me that they wanted to have someone to help them with the babies. Someone to give birth to them and to nurture them. The strangest thing was that he spoke Swedish but he didn't move his lips at all. I could hear his voice in my head.

[00:53:25] He then looked behind him and another creature that looked like him and must have been a woman walked up to him and in her arms was some sort of caterpillar creature that had human eyes, lots of arms, and green fur all over its body.

[00:53:40] When I saw this ugly baby creature thing, I felt provoked, angry, and I remembered how tired I was and that I just wanted this terrible nightmare to end. So I took the small creature baby thing, threw it on the floor, and jumped on it.

[00:53:55] I didn't stop until the small creature was a wet spot on the floor. Then I looked up and looked the man straight in the eyes and I said, I am tired. My feet are cold and I just want this strange and very unpleasant nightmare to end now.

[00:54:10] The man then looked at me and said that it was for the best that he returned me to my bed. When I opened my eyes, I was in my bed and my mother was standing over me, and she asked me where I had been.

[00:54:22] She said that she had been in my room ten minutes ago checking up on me, but I wasn't in my bed. I grew up in a house with two floors, so she went downstairs to see if I was on the toilet,

[00:54:32] and when she couldn't find me there, she decided to go back upstairs to my room. And this is when she found me sound asleep in my bed. As I am writing this, I am 36 years old, and I have tried to forget about this abduction, but I cannot.

[00:54:49] Thank you Nick for the podcast, and thank you all for contributing with your stories. Best regards, Marlene Our next experience of the night comes to us from Don, and Don's story is called Confessions of a Military Witch Don says Merry meet.

[00:55:11] I am a mother of four, retired US Army officer, and schoolteacher of many years. However, none of that for your audience would even be remotely interesting were it not for my lineage as a hereditary witch.

[00:55:24] Aside from a few years where I set aside my practice of the old religion and tried the new one, I have walked, lived, and grown all my life, weaving in and out of the borderlands, where death and life mingle.

[00:55:38] One could easily say, my life is dark and paranormal. There are so many misconceptions surrounding those who follow the witch's way, but it is not my purpose here to address the stereotypes and ignorance that mainstream society attaches to us.

[00:55:53] It is my purpose to relate a few episodes from my lonely soul travel that remain creepy and hitherto still unexplained. Around ten years ago I had just returned from another combat tour to the country of Iraq.

[00:56:07] It was with great joy that I removed the tarp from my old jeep, and threw my gear in and motored out to my farm. I had been gone for over a year. My farm, as the kids and I refer to it, was a farm fifty years earlier,

[00:56:21] but now was just a solitary house at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by spooky wetlands and forgotten woods. It was so remote, and you could just see one light from the porch burning in the distance from a barn door two fields away.

[00:56:35] We loved it there, sitting in front of our wood stove, drinking dry red wine, and listening to owls hooting at the stars above. It was the perfect location to practice witchcraft without having to hide from prying eyes.

[00:56:49] We were lucky to even have one car pass by on any given day. While stationed in Talil Air Force Base, or Camp Adder, Iraq, months earlier, I had become enamored by the idea of conducting an evocation of a spirit to full physical appearance.

[00:57:06] This is a rite where the witch employs devices gleaned from old grimoires to coax a spirit to either use a medium, i.e. copious amounts of incense, or messenger, i.e. willing human host, to manifest in and perform feats on behalf of the magician.

[00:57:22] The work is ancient, creepy, and efficacious in the hands of one who is well-practiced. The impetus for this path of inquiry began when visiting the archaeological dig site of the Ziggurat of Ur, located with the base. This building is a temple where the priest would ascend and commune

[00:57:41] with the Sumerian moon god. There are the ruins of a grand palace, royal courtyards, wealthy homes, and ornate tombs in the shadow of the ziggurat. On a previous tour, my spirit guide told me that I would return to that place again.

[00:57:56] And sure enough, seven years later, not only did I return, I could see the ziggurat out of my office window where I worked every day. A witch and old pagan shrine? Moth to a flame. During times of meditation and trance states,

[00:58:12] I saw a great colossus of a spirit rise up frequently from the ziggurat. He looked to be a 50-foot, dark minotaur, muscular and foreboding. He would proudly walk with enormous strides around the airbase, especially during times of a red crescent moon or dust storms.

[00:58:30] In addition, there was the spirit of a veiled lady, who started presenting to myself and a male witch I simply called Windel. She was becoming ever-present, and when he mentioned during a circle meeting that he was being visited by her too,

[00:58:44] I thought about all I was learning concerning evocation. When he said that her veil was made up of nothing but the night sky, I was hooked. When I saw her, that was my perception too. A hollow emptiness cloaked in nothing but stars. So we set up a meeting.

[00:59:02] I will spare you all of the details, but suffice it to say that I made the preparations to evoke this mysterious lady into Windel. We had about 15 other service members who were practitioners of some form of earth-based religions who wanted to attend.

[00:59:18] I started the ritual, grimoire in hand, using all of the energy the group was focusing toward the intention, confident yet a little apprehensive as to what would, if anything, actually happen. Chant. Chant. Visualize her, I thought to myself. There was a physical flash of white light,

[00:59:37] followed by a crash of falling water bottles and an old DVD player. I saw my spirit guide pass like a shadow before my confused eyes, and then Windel screamed before falling paralyzed to the floor. This group of combat soldiers and airmen scattered,

[00:59:53] most fleeing outside while a few gathered around Windel's stiffened body. A couple just stared at me saying that they could see a ghost of a dead soldier behind me, coming through a door that opened slowly by itself. Success?

[01:00:08] Well, after all of the damage control was over, the place cleaned up and egos repaired, I finally got to spend some time alone with Windel. We were sitting on a bench one night at the Resiliency Center barbecue pit. The stars were blazing overhead,

[01:00:23] and the soft sounds of military generators and trucks moaned in the distance. So what happened, Sergeant? I reluctantly whispered. He had a distant look. I was with her, he finally replied. She and I were sitting, like on the steps of the ziggurat. Do you regret the ritual?

[01:00:41] No, it was amazing. It just took a long time to get back into my body. With this experience in the back of my mind, I still intended to pursue the right, just hopefully in a more controlled and less destructive way.

[01:00:55] After all the post-deployment BS was taken care of, we settled back into life on the farm. It was not long before my son and I had assembled a working temple, with our newly constructed altar of wood, thermatic triangle, nine-foot circle,

[01:01:10] and with all of the consecrated implements and assortments of incense. We researched sigils in old grimoires and started perfecting the art of contacting and communing with powerful entities from the other side. We were extremely successful. Maybe some other moon I will write about some of those encounters,

[01:01:29] especially with demonic lords. That would keep the listeners up at night for sure. This world is not like you believe. Now, during the same couple of years, an entire crowd of party-loving friends grew about my son and daughter until the regular group was about nine.

[01:01:47] We had booze, go-karts, and Xbox Mortal Kombat going nonstop at least one weekend a month. In that group was a Christian man and wife couple who were aspiring ghost hunters. They figured out that we were practicing some heavy occult magic and wanted to do a ghost hunt

[01:02:03] to see if our activities had brought in some spirits who clung to our temple and rites. I thought it would be fun and had no doubt that they would find more than they bargained for. So the night came, approximately in the fall.

[01:02:18] We had just done a ritual a few nights before where a dead man stood in our triangle explaining that he was still looking for his daughter who had passed from a childhood disease. We guessed that they were from the 1930s from their speech and appearance,

[01:02:31] and we later found their graves accidentally in a small country cemetery not five miles from the farm. So I assumed the ghost hunters with their spirit box, iPhone apps, and EVP recorders would catch him or someone like him. They wandered about for about an hour outside

[01:02:48] but were disappointed in finding no signs. I was perplexed. Well, do you want to try in the temple? I offered. They reluctantly entered into the dark room where the kids and I had met with the otherworld entities many, many times. The air was thick and heavy

[01:03:05] and the inky blackness only yielded to the candlelight on the altar and the dull glow of cell phones. Ouija, I proposed. Again our ghost hunting guest slowly relented but I could tell the man, James, was reaching his cringe limit. We worked the board resulting in an unremarkable display

[01:03:25] and energy barely reading on their devices. I was a little bit miffed. I mean, here we were, sitting on the floor of my temple where through the broil of smoke had stepped visible spirits of all kinds and spoke to us.

[01:03:37] These specters were not the product of imagination or inebriation. They were answering the ancient magician's call. How could they not be registering on all of this ghost hunting equipment? Then I had an idea. Do you mind if I call the four? I asked.

[01:03:54] Everyone shrugged, thinking that it was just another dead end. I slipped into trance and whispered a simple enchant. Suddenly the old ones arrived. As a thick darkness flowed from the ceiling causing the dim lights to grow even fainter the spirit box started at first to howl.

[01:04:12] It sounded like a distant animal in pain but quickly became a circular screech resembling the words of a black mass but distorting and growling uncomfortably loud. The wife operating the box was frozen while James' eyes darted back and forth in animalistic fear.

[01:04:30] It has never done that, ever, never, she remarked nervously. James then shot to his feet and flung open the door and disappeared into the living room. He is going to be mad, she said gathering her things to follow after.

[01:04:44] My kids and I also casually left the temple to see them off. Their exit was immediate and they never did another ghost hunt after that. Personally, I was delighted. That is just one paranormal mystery for your most excellent podcast. I respect your integrity

[01:05:02] and if you want more witch confessions I will happily share. These things are true and I'm not sure why I'm sharing them so openly. Maybe I just don't care anymore. Merry meet, merry part. May we merry meet again. Love and light. Dawn. Daughter. Of Heseti.

[01:05:26] Our next listener story comes to us from Ashley. And Ashley's story is called Sandman or Furry Man? Ashley says Hi again, Nick. I was listening to one of your recent episodes involving a person waking up to something entering their room and it leaving peacefully after they gave in.

[01:05:48] This story sparked a creepy memory. When I was a kid, I had an interaction with some entity while sleeping in the living room. My parents set up our mattresses and my sister and I had been indoor camping for a couple of days.

[01:06:02] In the middle of the night on day two or three, I was laying on my side with my back to the long and dark hallway. I woke up because I was cold so I tried grabbing more of the blanket but we didn't have extra.

[01:06:14] A few moments later, I felt something big sit on the mattress behind me and then wrap themselves all over me. It felt like it was laying on me but I could breathe just fine. It was also wrapping slightly around me like a moss or something.

[01:06:29] Fur was wrapping around the back of my head, legs and arms. I was trying to think who was behind me but I quickly realized that I do not know anyone who feels so large. To make this even stranger, this person was a very, very, very furry, hairy thing.

[01:06:48] I felt afraid but it was warming me up and I quickly began to fall back to sleep. When I woke up, I told my sister but she didn't believe me. Her reaction made me dismiss it altogether so I didn't tell my parents. Years and years later,

[01:07:03] my mom was telling me a story of when she was little and sleeping in the top bed of a bunk bed. She said she felt a giant furry man lay behind or on top of her. My mom is a lot more in tune with the paranormal world

[01:07:17] coming from a family of witches in Central America so she immediately knew this was not human and definitely not supposed to be in her bed of all places. Struck with fear, she tried to get up but it's like the weight of the furry thing

[01:07:31] gently pushed her efforts back to the bed, almost feeling like it was telling her to get back to sleep. Reluctantly, she stops fighting, gets comfortable and falls back asleep. The only thing she vividly remembers about this thing is that it smelled of death.

[01:07:49] Her story made me immediately remember that I had the same encounter and almost to the T. I told her and it freaked her out, thinking something or someone follows our family specifically. Neither of us have ever encountered this thing again

[01:08:03] so knowing it's only happened once slightly settled our fears. It's not the only thing that's followed me or her from my grandmother but those are stories for a different day. I wonder, has anyone out there experienced the same or similar furry thing

[01:08:21] hug or lay on you while you were asleep? Thanks again for all you do for the Paranormal Mysteries community. Stay safe out there guys. Ashley Before we continue tonight's episode, please remember that if you have an experience to share with me and the listeners,

[01:08:40] you may contact me through email or voice message at paranormalmysteriespodcast.com or just contact me directly at paranormalmysteriespodcast at gmail.com and if you're interested in supporting the show, please consider following and sharing the podcast. You can also support the show through Patreon, Buy Me A Coffee,

[01:09:00] or even PayPal via the links in the show notes. And of course, please remember that every type of support is greatly appreciated. And now, let's get back to the show. Let's begin with our first listener story of the night, which comes to us from Randy.

[01:09:19] And Randy's story is called The Bobs. Randy says, Greetings Nick. I want to thank you again for taking the time to read the stories that I submitted to you in episode 243. It is always an uplifting feeling when I'm able to confide in someone about my abilities.

[01:09:37] And although no one knows me personally from the podcast, I still was able to get that feeling while you read my stories to the world. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

[01:09:48] I wanted to provide an update to the second part of my story that you read about the blue mist, which occurred about a month after I sent you the story, and I wanted to tell everyone about my two attached spirits. Just for some context,

[01:10:02] I am a long-haul trucker. I love my job on many levels, but the fact that I get to travel across the country while being paid is hands down my favorite part. This allows me to experience my gift of existing in the two worlds of the living and non-living,

[01:10:17] everywhere I go. And I see things that are, well to me at least, beautifully coexisting in harmony. Everything in this universe is perfectly balanced, yin and yang, dark and light, pro and con, living seamlessly together, much like myself and my two travel companions. And I affectionately call them

[01:10:38] The Bobs. Bob Light is my guardian angel, my protector, and he stands about 6'1 in height, no more than 230 pounds I would guess, with the typical angelic garb and brownish hair, and with silver, piercing eyes. Bob Dark is his demonic doppelganger, minus his tattered clothes, dark shadowy hair,

[01:11:00] and blood-red eyes. They are twins, and quite the pair of funny spirits. I do not know exactly why or how both have become attached to me, but they both enjoy very much to possess my body from time to time, and act out if you will.

[01:11:15] Normally I maintain a very calm, cool, and often deemed slacker type personality. I'm never too happy or angry, I'm just content and at ease. Except when The Bobs want to play. This is where I am told I become more bipolar,

[01:11:31] and this is why I was prescribed bipolar medication for many years. I no longer take these medications, as I am not bipolar for one. And two, any cocktail of meds the doctors put me on to stabilize my moods caused me to suffer from severe depression,

[01:11:47] to the point that I have attempted on several occasions to kill myself. The Bobs fully prevented me from going through it though. Along with the occasional possession of these too, they protect me from the spirits or otherworldly beings

[01:12:02] that attempt to possess me or take my essence for themselves, as I described in my previous story. I'm fairly certain that without The Bobs, my life surely would have ended many times over in many different forms.

[01:12:15] I often do not see them though as they maintain a slight distance from me, but are always there in a heartbeat to help me. I often feel a sense of egotism from them also, as I rarely, and I mean one in every 10,000 people I have met,

[01:12:30] are lucky enough to have two spirits attached to them, and the majority have only one. Now, as for my update to the mist, I was in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania when this entity decided to manifest again. I was at a farm doing a simple drop and hook.

[01:12:46] It is the most simple delivery a truck could do. We disconnect a trailer, loaded or empty, then hook the truck to another trailer, and off we go. Simple stuff. I had been to this consignee many times, and around my usual time of 10pm.

[01:13:02] It was a rather warm night given it was November with clear skies. Normally I would just drop my trailer in the back of the property and hook to an empty one in the front, and then spend the night there.

[01:13:13] This is something I have done dozens and dozens of times. This night was different though. The front of the property is lit up like a Christmas tree. Very bright. Hardly a place for a shadow to even manifest, let alone be cast.

[01:13:27] The back where the full trailers are parked is poorly lit by a single light source dangling over the 10 parking spaces for the trailers. It's quite the contrast. I have never seen or experienced the other world at this farm. It is a quiet zone.

[01:13:42] A place where few people, if any, are ever present. This typically translates to the spirit world being typically the same. Empty and void of spiritual activities. As I backed my trailer into its parking spot, I began to get this sickening feeling.

[01:13:58] More than nausea, but less than the feeling of vomiting. I knew something was very wrong and very dark. I quickly jumped from my truck and began to disconnect the trailer. And as I lowered the landing gear, I glanced to the rear of the trailer. And there it was.

[01:14:13] The light blue mist just floating, watching me with intense hatred. I did not have time to speak, move, or even gasp before I felt a sense of calmness fall over me. It was the bobs.

[01:14:27] They must have seen or sensed this mist appear and were quickly at my side. The mist then began to emit an uncontrollable rage. I do not know how to describe what I was witnessing. It was not like it was changing color or trying to yell.

[01:14:41] It just emitted rage. I quickly finished dropping the landing gear on the trailer, jumped back into my truck, disconnected, and floored it to the front of the property, where I hastily hooked another trailer and left.

[01:14:54] I'm not sure what could have happened if I had tried staying, but I know nothing good. I have been back there a couple of times since this, and the mist is still there. Still furious. And raging.

[01:15:07] I just do my best to ignore it and get myself and the bobs out of there ASAP. Well, that is the end of the story and update. Like I said, I have tons and tons and tons of other stories to share.

[01:15:21] I will try to not bombard you with them so often so that others are able to share also and get their stories read. But I wanted to explain the bobs and give that update. As always, be safe Nick, and keep up the amazing job that you do. Randy

[01:15:42] Our next listener story of the night comes to us from Crystal. Crystal says, Hi there. Thank you for the podcast. I recently discovered it and am enjoying hearing all the stories. I've had my own share of unexplained events throughout my life,

[01:15:56] ones that I have pushed aside, hoping to one day make sense of them, only to never find a logical explanation. I would like to share a couple of personal stories, if you will allow. It's July 4th, 1995. I'm 7 years old and up way past my bedtime.

[01:16:15] This is the first time I've ever had something unexplainable happen to me. We have just returned from the hospital. My grandpa has just passed away. My mother is helping my grandmother get ready for bed, and I'm sitting alone in the small living room of my grandparents' house,

[01:16:31] a house that my grandpa built with his own two hands. Something then catches my eye to the left, and I see a small figure run from the hallway out of the washroom and toward the back bedroom. I watch, confused, as it disappears into the darkness.

[01:16:47] The figure is short and small, and looks like it's wearing a glowing white hooded cape. I go and get my mom shortly after, and we walk into the back two bedrooms that connect to the laundry room. But whatever I had seen was now gone.

[01:17:01] I asked my mom what it was that I had seen, and she simply replied, I don't know. I've since heard of shadow people, but I've never heard of a glowing white shadow person. I've never seen anything like it since. My next encounter is much more sinister,

[01:17:18] and happens many years later. It was past midnight, and I had awoken from my sleep for some unknown reason. My bed faces the bedroom door, and I'm lying awake, looking into the moonlit kitchen. On the counter there is a stereo with a menu that flashes,

[01:17:34] and as I'm watching the lights on the stereo, something dark begins to appear in the doorway, blocking out the light. I watch as it becomes larger and darker. It's a tall shadow over six feet tall. The only form I can relate it to is the Grim Reaper,

[01:17:51] although I couldn't make out much about it. It seemed to have a hood on, and in its right hand, an axe. It slowly made its way to the foot of my bed, and was lifting the axe as it came, as if it was having to gather the energy.

[01:18:06] I tried to scream, but I couldn't get my voice out. Finally, just as the axe was about to come against my body, I finally was able to get a scream out of my throat. The form then begins to disappear as my screams ring out to the house.

[01:18:20] My mom, who lives with me now, came running into my bedroom through the open door. Nothing was left to see though. I was fully awake when I started screaming, and saw with my open eyes as it appeared, and then disappeared.

[01:18:35] I'm thankful that I have not seen that figure again. Thank you for listening, and thanks for the stories that you share. Sincerely, Crystal Our next experience comes to us from Laurel, and Laurel's story is called, Lifetime Haunting. Laurel says, Hi, I'm a new listener of your podcast,

[01:19:01] and I really could talk for days about all of the paranormal experiences that I've had. I see spirits all the time, I know something is about to happen before it does, I have had strange encounters with animals and beasts as well.

[01:19:15] This one particular story sticks out in my mind, as I was able to prove it. My whole life I have felt like I was being watched, and at times while sleeping I would hear a very gruff voice yell, Hey! in my ear. This happened my whole life.

[01:19:32] I moved into a condo, and the activity really started to amp up. The being watched feeling, and the hey being shouted in my ear as I slept, was getting more frequent. Often times as I'd walk to work to my job at the hospital,

[01:19:46] I'd feel as though I was being followed. I'd look behind me, but would see nothing. At times it felt so close that I'd try to shoo it away with my elbows in an aggressive manner. I work in a hospital in the pharmacy department. It was a Saturday,

[01:20:01] and almost home time. I had to go into the IV room and mix some emergency IV meds for a patient that was just admitted into the ICU. I had the radio on, and I was alone in the IV room. The only other person working was the pharmacist,

[01:20:17] who was out talking to the doctor. I was mixing the medications, when I saw a shadow person beside me. I watched as they proceeded to walk around our chemotherapy IV hood, and then disappear. I was scared, but I'm no stranger to shadow people, so I continued working.

[01:20:34] But what happened next still haunts me. The radio suddenly went silent. I looked down at it, and I heard a very gruff, deep, and robotic voice say my name. Every part of me wanted to bolt. I was crying, scared out of my mind, but I stood my ground.

[01:20:52] A few nights later, again I heard, Hey, into my ear. That was it. I had had enough. I called out, Show yourself! Come on! Let's see what you got! And the response? Silence. That's what I thought, I said, and then went to bed.

[01:21:09] Well, I learned the hard way never to do that. The next night as I slept, I felt two huge hands on my leg. It grabbed me and tried to pull me out of bed. I have never been so afraid in my life.

[01:21:21] Bawling, I woke my husband and did my white light cleanse, and tried to get rid of this horrible spirit. Fast forward a few years, we had a psychic medium come to my parents' house. I told her the story, well, parts of it.

[01:21:35] What I left out, she filled in the gaps. The medium described where he was in my room, and I knew it because I felt him there. She described me throwing back my elbows as I walked to work. She confirmed that he follows me to work,

[01:21:49] and was the one saying my name in the radio. I then asked who he was. She described him as a very gruff, deep-voiced, not-nice man named Gary. This Gary happened to live in my condo building years and years ago, but died.

[01:22:06] She said that he lived with his mom in Unit 6. So here I am armed with this information, but how was I going to prove it? I knew my answer. My neighbor told me that she lived in the condos since the 1980s.

[01:22:20] I asked her if she knew a Gary who lived in these buildings, and she said, Yes, he lived in number 6. How do you know him? I said, I don't know him. Did he have a scruffy beard and a deep voice? Baffled, my neighbor confirmed.

[01:22:35] He was a drug dealer that lived with his mother, and the last that she had heard, he had gone to jail. She asked me again how I knew him, and she really looked shocked when I told her the story.

[01:22:47] I'm happy to report that the medium successfully cut the ties that Gary had to me, and I no longer experience the yelling, Hey, in my ear. Not so far anyway. Thank you so much for reading my story, and I am loving your podcast.

[01:23:03] Tell your listeners that I'd be happy to talk or answer any questions that anyone may have. Just forward them my email. All the best. Laurel Our next experience comes to us from Lord Will. And Lord Will's story is called Strange Things Are Happening To Me Lord Will says,

[01:23:28] Hello again, Nick. I was going to submit my Ouija board story today, but that will have to wait due to what has happened to me recently. I have begun hearing my name being called in a whisper late at night.

[01:23:40] When I asked my wife what she wanted, she says that she didn't say anything. It has happened a few times now for two nights in a row. Next, I swear to you that I was being followed today by a man in black.

[01:23:53] I was taking my son to the gym, and I had a strange feeling come over me, so I looked in my rearview mirror. And following close behind me in a black car was a man in a black suit, white dress shirt, black tie, sunglasses, and black driving gloves.

[01:24:09] At first, I didn't think much of it, except there was no real need for the sunglasses because it was rather cloudy out. Jokingly, I said to my son, Oh no, look out behind us, we're being followed by the MIB.

[01:24:22] At which point, the man following us then put his finger to his ear in the same way that you see on television when someone is talking into an earpiece. That scared me. I then told my son that it may really be an MIB.

[01:24:35] The man then made the same movement to his ear with his finger again, and then quickly turned down a side road and stopped following me. It felt like he could actually hear my conversation with my son. Why would they have an interest in me, you may ask?

[01:24:50] Let me tell you a little more about my history. For over 30 years, I have studied the paranormal and all the religions of the world. I have also looked into government cover-ups, and what I have learned is that they are all connected.

[01:25:04] I began a YouTube channel about a year ago sharing my discoveries, and it was called Infinite Conundrum. I ended up receiving polite warnings to shut it down. So, I pulled all my videos and put up a nice rebuttal to their warnings.

[01:25:19] They haven't blocked it or asked me to remove it yet. You should go and check it out. Now, over the last couple of days, I've been talking to my family about doing a podcast similar to my YouTube channel.

[01:25:30] And yesterday, I even started looking up info on my phone on how to start up a podcast, when all of a sudden, all this weird stuff started to happen to me. I don't believe in coincidences. I do, however, believe in celestials. Call them aliens, extraterrestrials, ultra-terrestrials, extra-dimensionals,

[01:25:51] angels, demons, djinns, fates, ghosts, or spirits. They are all connected. And therefore, my term is celestials. I feel extremely compelled to help get the truth out there. But at the same time, I know the stories of many people that knew too much. And they ended up disappearing.

[01:26:13] Sorry for the long rant, but I really wanted to share. I promise the Ouija story later. And I have also enjoyed some of the stories about dreams that I recently listened to. I am a dreamwalker, which I will also share stories about at a later time.

[01:26:28] Again, much thanks for what you do. Lord Will Our next experience comes to us from Gabriel. And Gabriel's story is called Tootsie the Ghost Dog Gabriel says Hey Nick, I've been listening to your podcast at work lately and it helps me pass the time.

[01:26:50] I love that it's creepy and believable without the morbid voyeurism of true crime, which I've never really been able to get into, despite the popularity of that genre. My mom, sister, and I used to live in an apartment that I sometimes think

[01:27:04] might have been a place of heightened paranormal activity. My mom always had visit dreams. Sometimes when someone dies, she'll have a dream about them where they have a seemingly random but very vivid conversation, only to find out the next day or a few days later that

[01:27:20] the person has died and suddenly the contents of the conversation make sense. My sister and I have always had sensitivities between us. For instance, one of us will be thinking of a song and the other one will start singing it

[01:27:33] at the exact spot the other one is thinking of. So I've always thought that a lot of paranormal experiences seem like something that just hasn't been satisfactorily explained yet. When we lived in this apartment though, I heard and saw things that weren't there so often

[01:27:49] that it became normal to me. I was a teenager and nothing that happened ever felt threatening, so I didn't really make a big deal out of it since I was used to life containing a little bit of the mysterious based on my family's sensitivities.

[01:28:03] The thing that happened the most often was that I began sleepwalking when we lived there. I had never done this before we lived there, and it never happened again after we moved out.

[01:28:13] I would walk to the bathroom, turn on the taps for the bathtub, and walk back to bed. At first my mom wasn't sure what was happening because the sound of the faucets always woke her up after I'd already left the bathroom.

[01:28:26] As a side note, our downstairs neighbor went a little crazy, swearing up and down that people were living in her walls of her apartment. She went as far as sprinkling flour on the floor to see if they would leave footprints

[01:28:39] while she was gone for the day, and when she came back, the flour had been disturbed, although there were no definitive footprints. My mom didn't really believe her, but when our faucets kept getting turned on,

[01:28:51] she started to think that maybe there were former tenants that still had keys and were breaking into the buildings. Anyway, she stayed awake one night to find out what was happening, and caught me sleepwalking. She woke me up and told me what I'd been doing,

[01:29:05] and I didn't remember what I had been dreaming about, so we dismissed it. After that, the sleepwalking kept happening, and then I started hearing someone calling my name. Sometimes it sounded like my mom, and sometimes my sister,

[01:29:18] but it was always clear and loud, as if they'd been calling me from the other room. I'd go to find out what they wanted, and they'd always swear that they hadn't called me. A few times, though, they said that they were glad I was there

[01:29:30] because they did need to ask me a question or talk to me about something, so I chalked it up to being sensitive to their thoughts before they voiced them. However, hearing about the walkers and doppelgangers your other listeners have encountered has me not so sure about that now,

[01:29:46] especially considering the strangest thing that happened there. I was walking down the hallway, and a fuzzy, grayish-black animal nearly tripped me and ran into my dark bedroom. One of our cats at the time was gray, but the fur didn't seem right.

[01:30:01] It seemed curly, and a different color entirely. Our cat was a diluted tortie, which is a light gray with beige and white flecks. The animal that ran across my path was a salt-and-pepper black,

[01:30:13] but just to be sure, I looked behind me, where I could see both of our cats. The gray and the other one, which was white, were both on the couch. Whatever it was couldn't have gotten back to the couch that quickly without me noticing,

[01:30:26] as I was still standing in the hallway in front of my room. I turned on the light and searched every corner of my bedroom, thinking that somehow some kind of animal had gotten into the house, but I never found anything.

[01:30:39] I later told my mom and sister about it, and said that I didn't see it for very long, but that it looked like a dog. Maybe a toy poodle. My mom, who is very sentimental, told me that she was young when she had a black toy poodle

[01:30:52] named Tootsie that lived to be pretty old and went gray, and one day it died in her arms. I didn't know anything about this dog before this moment, and she said that she had always felt like that was one of the saddest memories in her life.

[01:31:08] Tootsie used to follow her everywhere, even down the street as she rode her bike, until she told him, Tootsie, go home. She thinks that what I saw was Tootsie visiting, letting her know that he remembered her.

[01:31:22] So after I told her about it, she went to my bedroom and said, Tootsie, go home. We moved in with my grandparents shortly after that, and I'm glad that I never met the wall people. Our next story of the night comes to us from Robert,

[01:31:42] and Robert's story is called Potatoes and Paradise. Robert says, My wife's grandmother passed away last year, and as the only grandchild, she inherited many of her worldly possessions, including her cookbooks. Sometimes on weekends we leaf through them to find new dishes to try,

[01:32:02] and one recipe that caught our attention was for potatoes au gratin. What intrigued us was what was scribbled in the margin underneath the directions. Listen to the au gratin when it comes out of the oven, The note said,

[01:32:17] We followed the recipe, and when the au gratin was done, we placed it on the countertop and listened. It gargled and hissed, but the only thing we recognized was what sounded like the word Serengeti.

[01:32:30] We told our friends about this, and they insisted that we make the au gratin for them, and they too heard the word Serengeti. We didn't know what to make of this and didn't think much more about it until we visited Jenny's great aunt,

[01:32:44] her grandmother's only sister, in San Antonio this past fall. In her home on the mantle was a framed photograph of the two sisters on a family trip to Tanzania during their youth. Jenny's great aunt remarked that the stunning landscape and abundant wildlife of the Serengeti

[01:33:01] made a huge impression on her late sister, who hoped to visit again one day. She considered it paradise. Tonight's first encounter comes to us from The Naturalist, and their story is called, Young's Memorial Cemetery. And The Naturalist says, Hello Nick and fellow listeners.

[01:33:26] Since 2012, I have been fortunate and determined enough to work in the environmental sector, with stints in environmental and outdoor education, ecological restoration, wildlife conservation, rare and endangered plant research, and urban agriculture. Nearly a decade of working outdoors in natural areas off-limits to the general public has been humbling,

[01:33:50] but not without its share of unexplainable experiences. I've been listening for over a year and haven't heard a lot of other folks within this sector come forward. Maybe sharing my experiences will help others re-evaluate things they may have experienced while out in the field

[01:34:07] that cannot be summarized by guiding principles of physics, hydrology, and ecology overall. It is why I am writing in under an alias, The Naturalist, as I do have some trepidation, but not enough to stay silent. In 2012, I got my first environmental education job

[01:34:27] at the Theodore Roosevelt Bird Sanctuary in Oyster Bay, New York, on Long Island. The sanctuary was founded by T.R. himself, with several original buildings that T.R. helped construct and design. The property is also home to Young's Memorial Cemetery,

[01:34:44] where members of the Long Island Roosevelt family are buried, as well as plenty of other folks. One of his daughters, Ethel Roosevelt, was a lifelong resident of Oyster Bay and died in 1977. I haven't seen any personally, but I always heard some rumors

[01:35:01] that folks would see her ghost around the places that she liked to frequent. My connection to this site extends beyond 2012, back to 1997. I was brought to the Bird Sanctuary's side for public outreach programming, camps, and volunteering. During those years,

[01:35:19] I heard rumors of the place being haunted by Teddy Roosevelt and ghosts from the cemetery. But being an easily scared kid, I tried to not let those thoughts take over my brain and tried to not call him Teddy because apparently he hated the nickname.

[01:35:35] Over the years attending the sanctuary, I experienced moments that I felt in time would be missing. I would get lost from the group and suddenly find myself completely disoriented and in an unfamiliar part of the sanctuary without much recollection for how I got there.

[01:35:51] There was even a few moments where I felt strange pulling to go to certain parts of the sanctuary, off trail by some kind of greater force or entity. There were times I felt something tickling me or pulling at my feet, causing me to fidget constantly,

[01:36:05] not to mention countless spooky moments while sitting in the bird blind out in the woods. Despite the strangeness, it was the place that cemented my desire to pursue a career outdoors. When I was hired to work at the sanctuary in 2012,

[01:36:21] it had been about six years since I had been on site and everyone who worked there in 2012 was not working there when I attended as a child. As an adult, the site still had this incredible beauty and mystical enchanting appearance to it,

[01:36:35] but now I could not shake the feeling of being watched wherever I went. The office, the bird blinds, locking the gates, taking out the trash to the dumpsters and cleaning the animal enclosures. It was a constant feeling that would often result

[01:36:50] in a chill over my shoulders and down my back. The trails and pathways are heavily mulched with wood chips and when I would leave my shift to walk out into the parking lot alone, there were many days where I would hear someone walking behind me.

[01:37:04] Sometimes I would smell an odd, smoky old leather sort of smell. The site is only 14 acres total, including the cemetery, with three walking trails all next to each other, named the Upper Trail, the Middle Trail and the Lower Trail. There are some paths and steep inclines

[01:37:22] that connect upper to middle, middle to lower, etc. The Upper Trail also curves and directly passes a portion of Young's Memorial Cemetery near the beginning, after a stand of conifers. There was a day when I was leading a hike along the Upper Trail, past a conifer stand,

[01:37:40] past the cemetery, past a meadow with a bench to what I can only describe as a sloping hill. There you are hiking downhill through a dense stand of deciduous trees. The trail neatly cuts right through the middle of this miniature valley, with a steep decline to the side.

[01:37:57] The land here was heavily overgrown with English ivy, steeply sloped up until a property-line fence and beyond the trail it's considered off-limits for visitors and students. I had a great group of kids that day, around 8 to 10 years old, so they're at the age where they are learning

[01:38:13] how to push back against authority, critically questioning, but still motivated to participate in the group. The group had a great dynamic, and I never had much trouble from kids wandering off the trail and away from me. This time, while we were hiking,

[01:38:28] I got the feeling of being watched again. Usually the feeling always felt like it was behind me, but leading the way with 8 kids lined up hiking behind me, the feeling of being watched was coming from my right-hand side. It was so overwhelming that I stopped short

[01:38:44] and the child behind me just walked right into me. I apologized to them and said, let's count off, cueing the group to count off from 1 to 8 as a way of taking attendance while on the trail without having to stop and directly look at each person.

[01:38:59] They began to count. 1, 2, 3, 4, then nothing. I immediately turned around on the narrow trail and saw that I was missing 4 students. The sense of sheer panic was truly primal. I loudly and firmly said, where are they? We need to stick together now. Let's go back.

[01:39:21] I might not be anyone's parent, but out on the trail, the well-being and safety of these children are my responsibility. I ran, shouting their names back down the way we came, with the 4 others following me closely.

[01:39:33] When we got back to the bottom of this hill on the trail, back into the thickly overgrown patch of English ivy, I saw the 4 kids, walking up towards me. All at once they started shouting to me, we saw a man. He was down here.

[01:39:47] We thought you went down there with him. We were following you. Weren't we supposed to go here? He was tall. He looked old. Where were you? He had a hat. The greatest feeling was seeing all of them there, unharmed, unafraid,

[01:40:02] just trying to convince me that they weren't in trouble. But the relief was short-lived as I was ready to cry and take everyone back inside, ready to forget the afternoon's activity. Utterly shaken by the thought of them separated from the group,

[01:40:16] even if only for a few fleeting minutes, I looked down to where they said they went. I saw no man. I saw no adult-sized shoe prints in the soft wet dirt on the footpath leading down the sloping hill.

[01:40:29] I saw nothing but densely grown trees on this downward slope with a carpet of English ivy over the ground. Who was he? And where did he go? Further down the hill, I knew there was a property-lined fence that went up next to a large, multi-million dollar,

[01:40:45] privately owned home. There was no one standing by their side of the property-lined fence. There never would be. But for it being the middle of July, I suddenly felt freezing. I was somehow able to collect myself and get us back on the hike to our final destination.

[01:41:01] During snack time later, I was able to ask some of the four kids a little more about why they went off-trail as part of a bigger conversation about the importance of staying with the group, staying where I can see them, etc. The four kids were insistent,

[01:41:16] adamant that someone was down the side of the trail who waved them to come down. They said they thought they saw me down there with the rest of the group. One boy even said that he followed me down there to meet the man,

[01:41:28] again insistent that they only went down because they thought that it was okay. They thought they saw an adult wave them down. It was hard for me to process listening to them. Plainly put, I did no such thing,

[01:41:41] and I could not have led half the group hiking one way and leading the other half another. To give some greater context to the area, people don't just go walking around Long Island. It's a very car-centric place. There's a few sidewalks, especially around here.

[01:41:58] Also, this deeply interior part of the property is far from any sort of roadway. At this time, this part of Long Island didn't have white-tailed deer either, so truly the biggest thing we'd see naturally occurring on the trail is a turkey. Maybe a fox if we're lucky,

[01:42:14] but no bear, no coyotes, no large mammals. Lastly, the sanctuary has one way in and one way out. I didn't know what to say, how to explain this to my boss, or who to even tell about it. I mentioned it to my co-worker briefly,

[01:42:30] and she looked surprised but also fully believed that any place this old would be haunted. Nine years later, I feel like I'm just processing it all for the first time. All this time, I really thought that it was a ghost of TR

[01:42:45] that was very much present on the site. Maybe he is. But TR isn't the only Roosevelt buried in Young's Cemetery. In fact, therein lies a tragedy from what I can tell. Theodore, Edith, and only two of their children, Ethel and Archie, are buried there.

[01:43:02] All the other Roosevelt children are buried in Alaska, Washington, and even Normandy, France. It's only while typing this that my heart feels inexplicably heavy. The site is only a mile and a half from Sagamore Hill, the Long Island Roosevelt family compound, where the Roosevelt children famously spent

[01:43:21] a lot of quality time as children with their parents. I ponder if the site remains so active in part of because how much they loved each other. How much energy must that love have created? Where does that energy go?

[01:43:35] Maybe they feel a little bit like how I felt on the trail, leading the hike, walking forward, suddenly aware of feeling behind them that it was too quiet, only to turn around and look for the children in my hiking group. Are Edith and Archie looking for their siblings?

[01:43:50] Are Theodore and Edith looking for the rest of the Roosevelts? Do they all feel like they have been separated on the trail too? It has been nearly a decade since I had the humble privilege of working at this site. Many cosmetic changes and native species restoration projects

[01:44:07] have taken place since then, including the removal of carpets on non-native English ivy. But the Roosevelt Bird Sanctuary has endured these changes and remains an incredible example of conservation. I hope to return there someday, whether it be professionally or as a patron.

[01:44:25] But next time I'll bring some native wildflowers and I think I'll climb those 26 steps to properly pay my respects to the 26th president, our former first lady Edith, Ethel, and Archie. I sincerely thank you for taking the time to read my experience.

[01:44:43] I'll be sure to write back with more tales from the field. Forest and Lab. The Naturalist Our next story of the evening comes to us from Annabelle, and Annabelle's story is called Strange Noises. Annabelle says, Hey Nick, I've written before and decided to share another story.

[01:45:08] This one is set in Colorado in a house that my family was renting for a while. One day I was sitting in a room in the basement, making beaded bracelets and listening to music. I was enjoying myself, which I rarely did up there,

[01:45:21] and I decided to open the window to let the breeze in. An ad from the music app I was using started playing, so I turned the volume down. I was listening to the breeze through the trees when I started hearing a strange noise from the woods.

[01:45:35] It sounded like whale sounds, so I was wondering if my brother in the room over had music going, and I was just hearing that. So I walked over to his room and I asked if he had heard the noise too. He said that he thought it was me.

[01:45:51] At this point I was freaked out, so I went outside to see if I could hear it better, and sure enough I did. It sounded like a very large animal groaning in pain.

[01:46:00] It was a deep rumbling and it faded in and out as if it was moving away. At this point I ran upstairs to tell my mom. She thought I was crazy and I took her outside to listen. We then heard one last faint groan until it completely faded.

[01:46:16] I think about this often as it was a very strange experience. Thanks for having a place to share our stories. I love your podcast. Annabelle Our next experience comes to us from Derek, and Derek's experience is called Half Leprechaun, Half Goat and Creature at Salt Springs Reservoir.

[01:46:42] Derek says, Hey Nick, I want to thank you for sharing my story on your podcast about my possible alien abduction on episode 229. To this day, whatever happened that night, whether it be a dream or reality, I still think it was real.

[01:46:58] I have two stories to share with you today. The first one happened a long time ago, probably in the late 80s or early 90s. I was in Modesto, California at what I think was either my grandma's house or my aunt's house. I can't remember whose house it was.

[01:47:14] We lived in a country setting where your closest neighbor was a mile or so away. It was dark and dinner time, so I think it was around the fall when it gets dark earlier. My brother and I were sent outside to the back to get something for dinner.

[01:47:28] There was a fridge or freezer under an open shed. It had a roof but only two walls, one in the back and one on the side. There were small shrubs in front of this area where the fridge or freezer was for decoration. Thinking back now,

[01:47:42] they were probably little box bushes, about knee height to my adult size now. When we went outside, we saw these glowing red eyes like when you shine a light on cat eyes, but they were red, and my brother trying to scare me

[01:47:56] said it was a gremlin or something. At that second of him saying that, the little creature growled at us, almost sounding like the baby Simba growl, but just a little bit deeper, but not by much. We were both scared and yelled for our mom and grandma,

[01:48:11] and when they did this, the creature ran behind the little box bushes, and we turned the light on that was over the shed thing where the fridge or freezer was. It created a silhouette of the creature, and it looked like a leprechaun, but from the waist down,

[01:48:26] it had a goat's body, and it ran on two legs. By this time, our mom and grandma were outside and one of my uncles saw it. They told us to get inside and my uncle grabbed a shotgun to go after it, but it was already gone.

[01:48:41] For the life of me, I forgot the name my grandma called it, but it reminded me now of the little critters on your previous podcast that like to play tricks on people for their own enjoyment. I never saw that little thing after that.

[01:48:55] My next story takes place about eight years ago at Salt Springs Reservoir in California. My wife and I were camping there with our son and his friend and our niece. It was the last day of camping and we just got done eating dinner

[01:49:09] and we were all sitting next to the fire roasting marshmallows. As I was packing up our stuff into our minivan, I noticed two glowing eyes and thought it was a deer at first, but then realized that deer eyes aren't in front of their faces like a human.

[01:49:24] This animal or whatever it was had the predator's set eyes in front, so I assumed that maybe it was a bear. So we all started making as much noise as we could to scare it off and all it did was crouch down and turn its head.

[01:49:39] It did eventually leave, but in the morning we thought that this thing was on a hill because it was pitch black out the night before. However, the morning light showed us that it was actually a pretty level area where we were.

[01:49:51] So this thing's eyes were probably 10 feet high. After listening to your previous podcast about the dogman, it makes me think that maybe this was a dogman or something. Whatever it was, it wasn't a deer or bear or any other local wildlife.

[01:50:09] Thank you for taking the time to read my stories and again, keep up the good work and I love the podcast. Derek Our next story of the night comes to us from Sarah and Sarah's story is called My Experience With Shadow People In The Woods Sarah says

[01:50:30] Hey Nick, I found your podcast in February of last year right before the world shut down due to the pandemic. I've been interested in the paranormal for as long as I can remember and that interest was fueled by my mother

[01:50:43] who has also had a lifelong interest as well. I binged every episode of the podcast that was out up until the point in February of 2020 when I found it over the course of about five days. I couldn't get enough so I actually became a patron

[01:50:57] to have early access to episodes. I've thought about writing in with this story many times over the last year and a half but finally decided to do it tonight. Please accept my advanced apology for the lengthiness of it.

[01:51:11] I grew up in the tiny town of Faith, North Carolina in a subdivision that was once all farmland. It was aptly named Faith Farms. It was surrounded by woods and the woods on the north side of the neighborhood bordered what was left of the farmland

[01:51:26] that wasn't sold off. From what I remember being told the original farmers great-great-great or something along those lines grandson now owned what was left. The woods in that area had an entire network of trails running through it that were wide enough for a car to drive down.

[01:51:44] We used to always joke that they were made for horses and buggies and we honestly may not have been wrong. There was also a creek that all of us neighbor kids would play in year round. It was deep enough in some places

[01:51:56] that we could actually wade in and float. For Christmas, when I was around 10 to 12 years old I got a brand new purple mountain bike that I had been wanting. The day after Christmas I rode my bike door to door to try and get one of my friends

[01:52:10] to come bike on the trails with me. I ended up going alone because everyone was either busy not home or under the weather. This didn't bother me as I frequently spent time in those woods by myself either playing in the creek finding hidden places and cool hangout spots

[01:52:26] looking for rocks or trying to build a clubhouse, etc. I rode my bike down the trail that led to the wide spot in the creek we like to float in and catch crawdads during the summer. I remember wanting to see if there was ice

[01:52:40] along the edges of the part that pools. This was down a fairly large hill and I remember almost wrecking as I was coming down because my tires slipped on the leaves when I hit my brakes to keep from going too fast

[01:52:52] and I knew I wasn't going to be able to ride my bike back up. I leaned my bike against a tree and proceeded to poke around the banks of the creek. My back was turned to the trail.

[01:53:04] As I'm bent down poking at the icy edges of the creek with a stick I hear a whistle and then some leaves rustle up near the top of the hill. I turn around but don't see anything so I continue to poke around.

[01:53:16] A short while later I hear the whistle again but this time it sounds closer. I look up the trail again and see nothing. I suddenly notice that the whole part of the woods I'm in has basically gone silent. It's quiet in the woods in winter there

[01:53:31] because most of the animals have either migrated or are hibernating but there's definitely still ambient noise and some animals making sounds. The only thing I could hear after the second whistle was the creek quietly bubbling. The hair on the back of my neck raises

[01:53:47] and I start to feel as if I'm being watched and decide it's probably time to go. I stand up and wipe my hands off on my jeans and I grab my bike. I begin pushing it up the hill. The hill is pretty steep

[01:54:00] so as I'm pushing I'm looking down while my hands are on each handlebar and I'm digging in my feet with each step and also trying not to slip on leaves. After a bit I look up to see how much farther I have to get to the top.

[01:54:13] There's a large tree on the right side of the trail and what I saw there still pops into my nightmares from time to time. When I look up I see a shadowy figure put a round yet pointy arm on the side of the tree facing me

[01:54:28] and then lean its rounded head around the trunk. I later saw a figure so similar in the movie Howl's Moving Castle later in life that I have to skip that scene when I watch it now. I will attach a photo of it to this email.

[01:54:43] My blood felt like it turned to ice and I was frozen in fear. The figure leaned back around behind the tree and then another does the same thing from behind a smaller tree on the left side of the trail and continues to stare at me.

[01:54:57] My flight instinct kicked in when I saw that figure step a leg out from behind the tree as if it was going to come towards me. I bolted off the left side of the trail and ran toward the tree line that ran parallel to it

[01:55:09] dragging my bike with me. I did not look back but I heard two more whistles in what sounded like a call and response type thing. By the time I reached the trail line I had tears streaming down my face from the pure fear and panic that I felt.

[01:55:23] I crawled under the lowest point of the barbed wire fence and then dragged my bike through as fast as I could. I then hopped on the bike and I never in my life pedaled home as fast as I did that day.

[01:55:35] I tried to tell my dad what I saw but he of course chalked it up to a kid's imagination in my mind, playing tricks on me. After this incident I never went into that part of the woods alone again. Two other kids in the neighborhood

[01:55:50] also had similar experiences while together about a month later. All of us eventually felt too creeped out to play there anymore. I do have a few other experiences I'd like to share if you'd like to hear them.

[01:56:05] Thanks again for giving folks a safe space to share their experiences. Sometimes just having a place to talk about them freely and without judgment makes them less intimidating to think about. Warm regards, Sarah