The Bizarre Smiling Men - Jim Harold's Campfire 747

One of the most bizarre and creepiest campfire stories we've heard. Up next. Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold's Campfire. He's a newer listener, but he is all in. Braden is a Plus Club member and a big fan of the show and now a storyteller. We're so glad to have him. And I love this story. story and I think you'll you'll know why once you hear it Brayden welcome to the show thank you for all your kind words and support and tell us what happened thank you Jim yeah I uh I wanted to share this story like you said I'm a newer uh listener and this story has stayed with me since I was six years old and um when I was a young kid the tradition was uh with my paternal grandmother my mom my grandmother and all my aunts on my dad's side we would go have lunch every friday at the same restaurant um for your salt lake city listeners you might know it it's higher big h combined with lisa's pizza in west valley or taylorsville but anyway we'd go have lunch with my grandma and it was a cool little tradition and uh we sat in the same booth every week and it was just kind of this consistent thing where we got to spend time. And when I was six years old in 2001, my grandmother passed away. And the week of her funeral, her funeral was like on a Wednesday or Tuesday. And so we went to the funeral and then sort of to commemorate her and to continue the tradition, we went to the same restaurant, of course, that following Friday after the funeral. and we sat in the same booth and I remember this clear as day. I was sitting on the end of the booth as a six-year-old and we were all just sort of chatting and eating. And I remember sitting on the end of the booth. I looked to my left. I turned my head to the left across the aisle. And I can still remember it so vividly. I turned my head across the aisle and I see very clearly a silhouette of my grandma. And I've heard some storytellers describe these experiences as sort of like darker than dark. And it's sort of like this void that is contrasted with three-dimensional reality. And that is exactly how she appeared. And she was sitting with one of her knees crossed over the other, how she always sat with her hands in her lap, very elegant. And I remember her big poofy hair still appeared in the silhouette. And so I knew it was grandma. but at that age remember I I you know I knew sort of about death but I really didn't distinguish like okay grandma's not here now and I I really didn't think much of it and I just remember thinking I was like oh yeah grandma's here and so I turned to her and I'm looking at grandma or her this silhouette that I'm seeing and I held my pizza up to her across the aisle and I said look grandma I'm eating pizza. And the way my mom described it, everybody just stopped, like everybody just froze. And I was looking across this aisle at something they couldn't see. And I was showing my grandma my slice of pizza that I was eating. But I like that image of that silhouette is still engraved in my memory. It's always stayed with me. And yeah, you know, I think just at that age, I just think we're able to perceive a little bit broader spectrum of reality because we haven't been conditioned or, you know, had that conditioned out of us. And so, yeah, I still remember seeing that, but totally believe my grandma was in that restaurant with us and is still with us in some way. Wow. Wow. What a great story. I love it. And I'll comment on it further. But first, I want to ask you, I mean, you see this as a positive, even though she was kind of a silhouette and everything, you still see it as a positive, not a negative, right? Certainly. Yeah. Yeah. It was just, you know, some sort of presence that was there. Yeah. Well, you kind of hit on the head, but I'll reiterate it. The thing I love about this story, this is coming from somebody who is six years old. You're not jaded. You know, you're not listening to Paranormal Podcast. You're not watching a lot of paranormal media and those kind of things. You're kind of a fresh slate. and yet you honestly experienced this. And not only did you experience, because it'd be one thing if you said, well, Jim, you know, this happened. I saw my grandma and said, hey, I'm eating this pizza. And then nobody said anything. But your mom validated the story and said, we all saw it. We all stopped. Sounds like they were all a little freaked out. And just to have that extra validation, I mean, you know, it's just fantastic. It's just fantastic. And I like to think that your grandma probably knew where you were going and wanted to say goodbye or be with you guys. And that's the way she did it. And to your point, because you were young and you were close to the veil, it hadn't been erased from you like it is from all of us. And I really believe young children can see exactly what you said. You hit it on the head. Can see beyond what adults can see. And you got a glimpse of that. How cool is that? certainly yeah it's a story that'll stay with me forever it was really cool it's awesome brayden thank you so much for sharing your story thanks for all the support we love to hear from new listeners who are enjoying the show and stay spooky stay spooky jim thank you welcome to jim harold's campfire i'm jim so glad to be here if you are new this is the place where real people like brayden tell real stories and wow was that a great story brayden And thank you for sharing that. That was fantastic. And it shows the reality of this stuff. This stuff is real, folks. And that's what we specialize in. And welcome to the program. And I do want to say a couple of things. First of all, thank you for everyone who has signed up to tell Campfire Stories. I appreciate it. That's at jimherald.com slash campfire. And that's available right now for you to do. One note I would like to say, though. If you have signed up, Dar will send you an email saying, And please pick your time from some available times. And then sometimes we get ghosted, no pun intended, and we never hear back from the person. Now, maybe they get shy or maybe they get busy or whatever. But if you've taken this step to sign up, we do ask you. And I think she said we have something like 10 people right now who have not responded. So please, if you have taken the time, please take this as a reminder to take that next step. We're kind. We're nice. We don't bite. And we'd love to have you on the show. So if you've signed up, thank you for taking step one. Please take step two and complete that. Sign up and follow up with Dara and get your time to tell your story on the campfire like the folks you're going to see today. Also, we have some live events coming up next week. We have a live event in the Cleveland area. And then later in February, we have a live event in the Cleveland area. Some free talks, absolutely free, but you have to register first. There's some of the local libraries. And you can do that by going to jimherald.com slash events, jimherald.com slash events. Now, I promised you a super creepy campfire story. And Gary, you might remember him from a few weeks ago, he delivers with this one. I love when we get repeat callers, especially when they've got tremendous stories. Now, Gary was on a few weeks ago and talked to us about that very strange family that he met. It's very weird indeed. Very weird indeed. And now he's going to talk to us about flying and the experience he's had as a business person over the years flying. He's had some strange ones, and he's going to tell us all about it. Gary, welcome to the show. Welcome back, I should say, from Canada. Thank you, Jim. And tell us this next series of stories. You've got a lot to follow up on. That first story was something else, but go ahead. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, let me start with I've been a salesman my whole life. I'm no spring chicken anymore. I'm more of a fall turkey, I guess. But anyways, yeah. But being in sales and marketing my whole life for decades and decades and decades, I've traveled a lot. And I've traveled a lot on airplanes. And I've probably been on between 400 and 450 flights over my lifetime, commercial flights. and there's been odd things that have happened you know people on board that are drunk or on drugs once we landed and there was you know the landing gear was stuck halfway down so we had an emergency landing that's all fine and dandy but what i have what happened here was something far more bizarre and the first time it happened there were two flights the first time it happened was about 20 years ago i'm up in canada so flying from toronto pearson airport to atlanta georgia so I drive, I don't live too far away from the airport, so I drive to Toronto Airport, I go in the parking lot, it's a multi-level dark parking lot, I get out, go to the elevator, and go to the departures level, so it starts as I get off the elevator at the departures level, you walk through kind of a dark garage area before you get into the actual terminal, so as I'm walking through there pulling my luggage suddenly i just noticed one strange guy leaning up against the wall you know he didn't seem strange at first because he was a well-dressed in a beautiful tan colored suit pants and top a thin black tie and leather shoes i figured looking at him he was probably 65 maybe 70 years old gray hair that's fine he wasn't looking at me as i start approaching and pulling my suitcase, suddenly he swivels his head around and looks at me and suddenly produces this very creepy smile, meaning just a huge smile. The rest of his face is emotionless. His eyes are dead, but he's wide open and he's just staring at me. And I'm thinking, okay, either this guy's nuts or maybe I know him or he knows me. so as i look at him as i walk by his head swivels along the rest of his body doesn't move he just swivels with that creepy smile and just follows me as i walk away and over to get into the terminal and what i found interesting too is maybe he had new dentures but his teeth were pure white is you know so that's fine i go into the terminal i go down i i check my bag and uh check the bag and on my way to the gate uh but just before i get to the gate there's a little stone floored uh walkway with tiles on the floor on the walls and as i'm approaching this i'm kind of looking and i'm seeing is that the same guy there's a guy standing there in the same color pattern tan suit the thin black tie leather shoes and as i approach he turns around he looks at me and then i realized oh how did how the hell did this guy run ahead of me that quickly i would have seen him but then i realized it's not the same guy it's the same clothing to a t the same body structure a thin elderly gentleman again 60 to 5 to 7 years old but he's got a different face so he's his his cheek structure was different he had you know sunken eyes kind back so i look at him and as soon as he sees me he produces that same bizarre cheshire cat creepy smile just his mouth open as wide as possible again displaying these perfect white teeth his eyes are kind of dead but he's staring right at me glaring at me like laser beams into my as if he knows me and again as i walk by i almost said something as to what's going on here why are staring at me uh he he looks at me follows me as i walk away and i go sit down i go to my gate and i just find a seat i sit down and uh so i'm sitting there and as i'm looking around trying to forget about that i suddenly notice two more people in in the in the gate area one fairly close to me another guy standing over by the window again in tan suits same you know same suits same age same build and i'm thinking this must be a convention maybe everybody's dressed the same i'm i'm just racking my brain saying what how do you make sense of this that's a logical explanation that's a logical explanation because i think what and these two guys you know it's fairly crowded there aren't many seats left and there's people there are people on their iPhones, people on their laptops. Nobody's looking at me. These two guys are both staring at me with that same creepy smile. So I got four people. So I'm thinking that's weird. So I, anyways, I try to forget about it. I'm saying this, there's got to be a logical explanation. Is it a practical joke? One of my colleagues or someone's playing on me. So I check in, I get on the plane. I'm back around seven rows. I sit down, get settled. And as I'm sitting there putting my seatbelt on getting ready i noticed one of the guys that was in the terminal in the gate area comes on the plane and he's a few rows ahead of me so he's in the third or fourth row so he goes and he sees me stares at me sits down and then the second guy comes on the plane he walks by me just staring at me again and he goes i don't know eight or ten rows behind me and he sits down and he's looking at me, just glaring at me through the seats. At this point, I don't know what to think. I'm thinking it's got to be a practical joke someone's playing on me, but how would they play a practical joke like that and pay that kind of money to get people on the plane? They'd have to have tickets, right? So that's an expensive practical joke. Yeah. I'm just trying to think logically. I'm not trying to think anything beyond that. So anyways, these guys are staring at me. I kind of stare back and I, you know, settle down. We take off and I order a couple of drinks just to relax. You know, it's a bit of a flight. So I go to sleep and I, you know, kind of look at him a bit, go to sleep. and then suddenly I wake up, got a booming headache, just like a migraine headache, just throbbing, and I feel really dizzy. I know it's not from the drinks. I had a couple of drinks. I know what it feels like. But I wake up, and I look right away. I'm thinking, okay, what are these guys still staring at me? I look over. Neither one is in their seat. Interesting. So that's interesting, and they're saying we're going to land. So I'm thinking, okay, they're both in the bathroom at the same time, or where are they? So I wait and wait and wait. So we're just getting ready to land, and they're telling, you know, please fasten your seatbelts, we're getting ready. Still, there's nobody in those seats. And I don't get it. So we, I can't remember whether I asked one of the staff, one of the attendants, before we landed or after we landed. But at some point I said, you know, where's the person that was over there and, you know, ahead of me and over here at the end there the one they're both on the aisle seat across from each other like one was up in the third row one was that back about the 17th row where are those guys the guys in the tan suits and she kind of looks and rolls her eyes and said what are you talking about those seats are vacant we've got we've got pretty much a full plane but those seats were vacant so how you must be mistaken and i say i'm not mistaken i saw them clear as day um but later when i thought about it too i thought i never saw them talk to anybody i never saw them interact with anybody i only saw them staring at me and kind of looking over i never saw anybody bump into them or make physical contact so anyways we we land and i'm just my brain is on fire i don't know what to make of that where they could have gone and uh i get off that's that so now i've had time to chew on that and i kind of forget about it many years later again like i say i've been on 400 450 flights many many years later i'm on a small commuter flight and i remember it was out of lax going to fresno which is also in california it's about an hour hour and 15 minute flight pretty it's a commuter flight pretty quick anyways i go there this is out of my mind haven't thought about it for years all of a sudden i get to the gate and i sit down and there's two guys sitting there not in tan suits this time they're in a it's hard to describe they were it was a kind of a gray suit Both have identical gray suits. I can't remember if they were red ties, but again, skinny little ties, pointy shoes, same build. But looking at their suits is the one thing. I forget little details, but the one thing that sticks out is that those suits, when you looked at them, it was kind of like a mother of pearl, luminous, glimmering. It's almost like when you look at, how do I describe it? it's almost like a metallic blue i don't know if you know there's a mineral called labradorite which originally was found up in labrador canada but it's also found in other countries around the world it's a mineral that when you look at it from different angles there's a metallic sheen that suddenly appears and they come in blues pinks greens reds and it's really quite cool but you have if you look at it dead on you see nothing you start to change the the degree of the angle and all of a sudden there's a bright metallic glow in your face and that's what these guys suits when i looked at them sounds bizarre but when you looked at their suits it was kind of a glowing metallic blue i don't know luminescence or glow so as they kind of turned it would go away but as you turn it would kind of glint a blue glow at you from different angles but just a bizarre little fact about what that was so anyways these guys sat down yeah well again they were in the sat down in the uh sorry in the uh at the gate area so at this point i'm uh i'm pissed because i'm thinking these guys are somehow related to those ones from years ago is it an ongoing practical joke well and i just said i'm gonna confront these guys so the guy that's sitting out far from me i go over to him and i said do i know you do you know me and the guy just stares at him he says nothing i said you know what's going on just tell me what's going on so finally he talks and there's no emotion on his face he's still smiling and don't even see his lips move he just said so nice to see you again it's been a while in a monotone voice wow and i'm yeah it's kind of it's one of those stories i i want to tell but i don't want to tell because it's like i had a story i haven't told my colleagues or it's kind of makes me look i'm like i should be in the loony bin or something so so no further contact with him well that was that guy so after i got nowhere with him i went over to the guy that was kind of standing over by the by the window where you and he was kind of standing so i went over confronted him so i went over to him and i said you know what's up with you guys i think i've seen you guys before you know why are you staring at me like that what's the reason for that same thing smiling not saying anything and finally talking without his mouth moving he just looks at me he said so nice to see you we'll be seeing you later but really in a monotone so he's saying nice to see you we'll be seeing you later what does that mean we're gonna be seeing you later and so i got on the plane they get on the plane and this time i know it's a short flight i'm not gonna fall asleep i kept my eyes on these guys they were on the plane i watched them they stared at me the whole flight they were just watching me and then when they announced that we were gonna land you say okay get ready we're gonna land suddenly they looked at each other for the first time their smiles just went to a resting face we landed everybody was getting off the plane and they kind of looked at each other and walked off the plane and as i got off i was waiting for them and never never saw them again couldn't explain it and i kept turning you know once i got off the plane i was looking around over my shoulder trying to figure out where are they are Are they waiting for me? So those two incidences were connected somehow. Yeah. Many years apart, same body shapes, same creepy smile to the T. If you had a lineup of creepy smiling faces in front of you, a hundred different ones, those were all identical, like they came out of the same, you know. Yeah. It's a nagging, crazy story that it has no. logical explanation. But there it is. It happened. But it happened. Well, let me tell you this real quick. I do have to go soon because we have another caller, but I want to get this in because I think it's important. We had a story that reminded me a little bit of this. Oh, really? Had to be back in September or October. A young lady in her 20s by the name of Aubrey, who attended a school in Pennsylvania, major school. I can't remember which one. It was in a downtown area. Maybe it was Pitt. I not sure She saw this strange looking woman kind of staring at her It was like from across the quad or something then she walked to where she had to cross the road And then this woman was like right next to her all of a sudden And she had this weird smile on her face and she described it as a Cheshire cat smile. Oh, no kidding. Then this woman followed her to her car, stood in front of her car to try to stop her from going and was looking at her almost demonically with this almost impossible Cheshire cat smile. And she said that it appeared that she had too many teeth. And that reminded me of what you said. That is it. But these were pure white, all teeth. And the other thing is that looking at these people, it reminds me, it reminds me like many years later of the movie that came out, Smile and Smile 2. Did you ever see that movie Smile? Yeah, I know what you're talking about. And these people with these smiles that are just a permanent smile. Yeah. And somebody told me, and I need to research this. I need to look back. There's something in Japanese lore about something similar to this with the impossible smile. So maybe you've tapped into something, Gary. Maybe you've tapped into something. Let me know. let us know if you see them again i hope for your sake you don't but if you do let us know well for sure but the side the side effects or the bad thing of this is that ever since those two flights especially when the second one ended i still travel a lot to this day uh whenever i'm at an airport or i parked my car and walking to the airport on a plane i'm i'm now that guy that guy who's staring around at everybody and people think i'm some creep but i'm looking to see who's staring at me see yeah a little too much guys in the tan suits yeah gary thank you for sharing the story a great one uh a great bookend to the other story you told us thanks so much for having me and listening to me and thank you and stay spooky thank you you stay spooky as well thank you well not only is she a campfire storyteller now she's also a 15 year listener to the program wow Now, that deserves some kind of award if I had one. Chenea from Oklahoma is on the line, and she's going to talk to us about a spirit. Chenea, welcome to the show. Thanks for listening all these years, and tell us what happened. Thanks, Jim. I appreciate you having me. So I want to preface this story by saying that I come from a family of full-blood Cherokee people. So I was raised very traditionally. and by that I mean all the old ways prior to colonization. So we believe in a lot of things and we're not really scared of a lot of things when we see it. So there's been a lot that has happened in my life and I'm cool with it. So in 2007, my kids' dad and I bought our first home and it was built, I think it was 1935 and it was one of the only homes that had survived a big tornado in the town we lived in. Like everything else was leveled and this was one of the only ones. So everything seemed fine in the house. I never had any issues with it. And one night our baby had spent the night with the grandparents and we're laying there in bed talking and it was all dark. And I said, I'm thirsty. I'm going to go get me something to drink. and the kids' dad said, well, do you want a flashlight or do you want me to go turn the lights on for you? And I said, no, this is my house. I'm not scared to walk through here. I'm not scared of the dark. And he said, you will be when you see her. And I said, what? And he said, nothing, nothing. And I said, no, you can't say something like that and not tell me what you mean. And he said, oh, I'm just playing with you, just trying to scare you. And I'm like, okay. So I turned the lights on when he said that, but did go get me something to drink. So later, as time went by, I had to get up early in the morning to get ready. So I'd get up at five, get a shower and do my hair and makeup and everything. He had to get up later. And so he was able to sleep in when the baby slept with us. So I would be in the restroom, which was just off of our bedroom. and sometimes I would hear a woman and it sounded like singing, like a lullaby. But I would open the bathroom door and stick my head out and listen and it would stop. And so I thought, well, maybe I'm just hearing things, you know, maybe it's my imagination. And it did that almost every morning. And I'm just thinking, well, maybe I'm going deaf. You know, lots of loud music when I was a kid, you know, maybe that's it. So one morning, though, I was so whenever I didn't want to turn the lights on and wake them up. So what I would do is I would open the closet door. I would go in and like I said, it was an old house. So it had like the pool stream. And so I would go in, close the door, then search for the string to pull it. And then I would get dressed in the closet. Well, I get in the closet, shut the door. And I heard plain as day in my left ear, someone, a woman say, good morning. Whoa. Oh, man. I froze. Yes, I absolutely just froze. I didn't know what to do. So all I said was, good morning. And then I turned the light on and I looked around. Of course, I'm alone. And I was like, that was really weird. so later that evening I tell the kids his dad I'm like oh my gosh you know this happened to me this morning and he said I told you about her and I said no you did not tell me about her you said something about a woman but you didn't tell me anything you refused to and he was like well when we first were viewing the house he said I could have swore I heard a woman scream And he said, I didn't want to say anything because I was afraid you wouldn't want to buy the house. And it was a really good deal. So I said, well, she doesn't seem to be causing any trouble. So I guess, you know, it's not a big deal. We go about our lives. At the time, our little one was about 18 months old, I want to say. And it was a Sunday. I remember it being Sunday because her dad had gone in to do some work, get some overtime. I was in the living room. She was laying on our bed taking a nap. And I heard her wake up. You know how you hear the baby rustling on the bed and moving around. I stood up to go to her because it's really dark in our room. And she was crawling to the foot of the bed toward me. and I saw two arms reaching out like as somebody was going to pick her up. And she was going to whoever that was because they were standing at the foot of the bed. But from where at the angle I was, all I could see was the arms. So I immediately said, Alex, that's my baby's name. And Alex stopped and she looked in front of her and then she looked to me and then she looked in front of her again like she didn't know what to do. and so I went in and I reached in, flipped the light on real fast, but when I said Alex's name, those arms pulled back real fast because I guess I startled both of them. So I grab Alex up and we go in the living room and just sat on the couch because that did kind of unnerve me a little bit. Well, yeah. So I still thought, well, maybe everything's okay, but come Monday I told a friend of mine at work about it and she said you need to get rid of whoever that is and I said well she doesn't seem to be causing any harm and she said yeah but what if what if Alex had fallen because she obviously can't pick her up if she's a ghost what if she had fallen and broken her neck and I got to thinking well maybe she's right so I contacted a psychic medium that I know out of Oklahoma City and asked her about it. And she said that she felt like the woman meant no harm, but she said it was somebody attracted to our little one. And she said, perhaps your little one reminds her of a child that she once had. And so that's why, you know, she likes. And I didn't tell her that she was singing to her. I just said, I think there's somebody in my house. But she said that's why she likes to sing to her. And just kind of watches over the baby. And she said the reason that she probably hadn't crossed over is because she said there was some religious trauma that she was afraid. Like maybe she had done some things and she was afraid of where she would go. So she told me, she said, you can try yourself to contact her. and just kind of talk out loud to her and just tell her like, hey, you know, you don't belong here. You need to move on. And so I tried it and I basically just made a promise to her. I said, you know, I understand you might be scared, but but where you're going, I believe that it's going to be a good place and you don't need to be frightened. And, you know, after that, we never saw her again. I never heard her voice again. She left. So the kids' dad had actually, he had also seen her full body because I guess she was standing in the bedroom as he walked by. And I was looking at him and he stopped and went back and looked and kind of shook his head. But he said she looked like he said it was like white and filmy. But you could tell it if there was a woman there. Wow. And that's something that good morning. Oh, man. Yeah, it was clear. Oh, man. Yeah. But it seems like I mean, yeah, I jarred you and especially the other part with the arms and everything. That was particularly kind of chilling. But it seems like you're kind of, I don't know that you'd want it to happen necessarily again, but you dealt with it. You seemed to deal with it very well. Like you didn't totally freak out. No, like I said, because of the way I was raised, I've always believed in supernatural things. And I just, I didn't feel like anything was wrong. Like I was taught to kind of follow my my gut instinct, like how I feel inside. And I never felt afraid of her. And like I said, I don't think I would have even contacted my friend had the lady at work not pointed it out that Alex really could have been hurt if she had fallen off the bed. Yeah. Good point. Good point. Janiya, thank you so much for listening all these years and for sharing your story. And it sounds like you might have some other stories. I hope you'll share them. Stay spooky. I do. Thank you. Stay spooky, Jim. Next up on the campfire is Sarah from Pennsylvania. And, you know, we've talked about these cases where maybe technology gets involved in the paranormal. And that's kind of the direction we're going in with this call. And we thank Sarah for sharing her story. Sarah, please tell us what happened. Thanks, Jim. Um, so this takes place in 2023 and it was my, um, my late uncle, we'll call him for all intents and purposes. So he passed away suddenly, um, in April of that year, he had a heart attack in his house. Um, and he was, yeah, he was, he was a man who was, you know, life of the party, um, literal party. I think that's, you know, what led to his heart attack. He didn't really take that great of care of himself, but everybody loved him. and he was really close with his, you know, his, the mother of his children and, you know, his grandchildren, his, his own children, everything. So he was a man that, you know, was really missed. So he passed in April around Easter time and fast forward to that summer around July, his family were out at their, at their pool. You know, this was a bright sunny day. They're out there enjoying themselves. And everybody was accounted for. Everyone's outside. Kids are in the pool. The adults are sitting on the porch. Everybody's there. And my aunt gets a FaceTime call from him. His name was Ted. So it comes up on her phone. Ted is calling you via FaceTime. And my aunt is a pretty religious person. She thinks that those kind of things are dark. So she did not pick up the phone. Oh, man. Yes, she did not pick it up. So everybody was shocked at this. And for verification, they had one of the kids go in the house and find the phone. It's like, okay, where was his phone? Do we still have it? What's going on? They did have his phone, but it was turned off in a kitchen drawer, not on. He had No other devices, no iPad, no nothing. And they did check the call history and found nothing. And that's the thing. I mean, again, I'm not a tech expert, but Apple is pretty locked down. Yes. Their IDs and things. And typically even – I don't even know if somebody had somehow – first of all, somebody else, his account could have lapsed. Somebody else could have gotten his phone number, but then why would it call her? I mean, there's almost no logical, quote, logical explanation for it, particularly with Apple, the way that they're locked down because that identity is tagged to an Apple ID. Yes, that's what we thought of all of that. And we thought, you know, they do reassign phone numbers. I know when someone has passed on, but like you said, they wouldn't have had her number. They wouldn't have had her number and they wouldn't have had his Apple ID because that's tied to your email address. Yeah. And he had no other devices that it came from. So it was just so, so crazy. And I think about it to this day and I think, you know, I asked my aunt, I'm like, what if you had just answered that? What would have been on that other side? You know? Wow. That is a question and that's something she'll probably wonder the rest of her life. But it sounds like she's very much like this stuff is evil. Yes. Don't mess with it, those kind of things. She thought it was some kind of demon or devil or something. You know, I think, and I've said this on the shows before, so I'm kind of repeating myself. But I think we have like this mental leap that, you know, maybe ghosts can open drawers and open cabinet doors and make TV remotes fly across a room and do all this incredible stuff. But then when we say, well, it made the technology do this, we have people on who said they got a text from their mom a year after she died. And then people are like, well, if they can move physical objects, why can't they move electrons? Yeah, that has to be it, you know? Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Yeah. Now, would you have answered? If that would have been you, would you have answered? Oh, 100%. Yes. So if we have time, real quick. My best friend had passed away actually last year. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, thank you. She had a similar occurrence. her dad had passed several years ago and she got a missed call from her dad a couple years after he died and his phone was not you know not in their possession anymore but again this is years later yeah the phone number is probably somebody else's but how do they have her number and this was before iPhones yeah yeah yeah that was unusual too I think it can happen I mean and there's a gentleman out there Dr. Callum Cooper we've been trying to get him back on the shows he was on years ago but he has written a book about telephone calls from the dead it is a thing and um yeah it's uh it's an interesting subject sarah thank you so much for taking time and coming on the campfire and sharing this story stay spooky stay spooky jim a return caller on the line ali from california we're so glad to speak with her once again and uh she's going to talk to us about something that's been coming up on the shows lately and it fascinates me. It always has. The subject of premonitions. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for joining us. Tell us what happened. Thank you, Jim, for having me. I have three premonitions that I have. I don't know if it's a real premonition because I didn't think something bad is going to happen. It was just the feeling of don't go. So the first one, I was working in a hot coffee shop with my friends. We used to go out every Friday. We did this for months. We used to close up together and then go to a bar. And for some reason that day, something just came over me and I said, you know what? I can't go. I shouldn't go. And I'm like, I'm not going to go. And everybody's like, why will we go trying to convince me? And I'm like, no, I'm sorry. Like, I don't know why, but I feel like I shouldn't go. But it was not a feeling of nobody should go. Something bad is going to happen. It was more of I shouldn't go. I shouldn't be there. I'm not going to go. They couldn't convince me. I didn't go. That night there was a fight in the bar and they were shots fired and somebody lost their life. And my friends were like right next to them and they had we were in medical school. So they had to basically attend another person who was wounded. So it was pretty traumatic, obviously, for all of them. And next day they tell me, like, why you didn't want to go? I mean, do you feel something? And I'm like, honestly, I didn't feel something bad is going to happen. It was just I shouldn't go. So I don't know if it was my, you know, guardian angel or something, but I shouldn't be there. I was not there. It was good. Second time, about six months, seven months later from that, again, we were out. We were at a party. I was going to stay the night with one of my friends. And her sister was a chef and her shift and that around 2 a.m. in the morning. So she came to pick us up from the party. And again, I thought I shouldn't go with him. And I said, I'm just going to stay here at the house party. And I was just going to spend the night, go to my house the next day. And she's like, by why? And I'm like, I don't know. I just feel like I should stay here. There's something in me that says don't go. Again, tried to convince me. I said, no, I'm going to stay. I stayed. Six a.m. in the morning. Another friend calls me, where are you? And I'm like, well, I'm here sleeping. And my friend and her sister got in a car accident and they were in the hospital. They were fine. Thankfully, nothing major happened, but the car was a loss. And again, it was not, I didn't feel something bad is going to happen, but I did feel this strong urge. You shouldn't go. I stayed. That's the second time. Nothing happened to me. The third time I was doing my rural service. In medical school in Mexico, you have to go and do a rural service for a year. So it was this rural community in the central part of Mexico. I was alone there with nurses and other health professionals. We were going to go to the party for a little town that they do, You know, like the big, you know, church party and everybody goes out in town and it's like a big thing in Mexico. So we're going to go. And again, this feeling I shouldn't go and trying to convince me. I said no. But at the end, they convinced me and I'm like, well, maybe nothing's going to happen. Everything is going to be good. I go with them. We were parking in the side of the road And this car comes high speed Loses control Tries to gain control It was a pickup truck and we were in a sedan So when he tries to gain control He barely brushes against our car Wow In the back passenger seat Which was where I was sitting brushes the car and the window shatters and all the shatters going to me because I was sitting there. Again, nothing bad happens. I just got, you know, all the window that crashed in, you know, on me. But thankfully, no injuries, nothing. And my friends were like, I can't believe you were the only one who got, you know, the glass shatter and you were the only one who didn't want to come. so i don't know again those are the three things times that that has happened to me so strongly that i felt this really strong don't go um so i don't know now let me let me ask you this i mean obviously with your medical background and training you're a woman of science so how do you you know some people you know who are very scientifically based and have a science background, they're like, hey, it's what you can weigh on a scale, measure in a test tube. Science is, you know, basically God. And, you know, this other stuff is a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Sounds like you've had personal experiences with the supernatural. How do you feel about how do you kind of split those two in your mind? I think there's always something that you cannot explain through science. even in science there are things that doctors can't explain like this is the treatment the cancer is one of them right you have a treatment line and then all of the sudden somebody gets cured against all odds so I always thought that yes there's science yes there are things that you can measure and and repeat and confirm and there are things you can't and I think you should always be intuitive and trust what you know your God is telling you or whatever And these are the three times that I think somebody told me not to go Yeah, I mean, first of all, I love that approach. Hey, yay science. Science is great. You know, if science wasn't here, many of us wouldn't be here through various health crises and so forth. And plus, we couldn't do what we're doing right now without science. So I'm pro-science. But yet there is still room for the unknown, the unexplained. I think both can live healthily side by side. And your story reminds me a little bit of something that happened to me. And I've told a lot of the shows before, but it's been a while. And I'll just briefly recap it. Because I do believe there's something to be said about fate. and when my wife and I were dating, this is almost 32 years ago, to give you an idea, before we were married, we were relatively new dating. I lived in the city. I live in the Cleveland area. I lived in the city. She lived in the eastern suburbs. And we were going to go that weekend to an amusement park here, Cedar Point, which is a big roller coaster palace. I mean, it's one of the great roller coaster parks in the world, actually, maybe the best. And it was on the far west side of Cleveland. And so we drove out there, had a fun day, whatever. And then I was going to basically slingshot past the city and go far, not far east, but, you know, a bit east of the city and then go back home. And it was like 2, 2.30 in the morning. I was exhausted. and my not yet fiance, we weren't engaged even or anything. She was still living at home because she was at grad school. And she said, you know what? I'm going to ask my dad if you can sleep on the couch. You're going to fall asleep. And that may have happened. And so I stayed overnight. I was very reticent to do it. I didn't want to do it. We just started dating. In my early 20s, I'm scared to death. Her dad's going to kill me. but I did it because I thought, you know what, she's probably right. So anyway, next morning I go back to the city and I lived in a pretty low-income area. It wasn't that bad at that point. It got much more crime-ridden in the years to come. But at that point, it was still considered a very working-class kind of area. And I walked up to my house and the landlord's son, who lived in the back half, It was an old style A-frame house, if people can picture that, probably built around 1900 or something. Anyway, so the neighbor's son is pointing at the house or towards the other side of the street as I pull up. And I go, and I'm like, hey, how are you doing? He's like, we got to talk a minute. I'm like, well, what's the problem? And he said, well, there's been a drive-by shooting. I'm like, oh, my goodness, whose house got hit, my lord? He's like, our house got hit. Wow. AK-47 armor piercing. I kid you not, I still have a piece of shrapnel. I still have pictures of where it penetrated the glass in the house. And it went through the house. It actually, I had an old, this was my first apartment ever by myself. My uncle had given me one of those avocado gold refrigerators that many of us at a certain age will remember, a double door. A bullet went through one side of it, hit a ketchup bottle and went out the other side. I had gotten a microwave, which was my first microwave ever, took a direct hit right to the door. And I may have been okay because I did sleep on the upper level, but maybe I would have gotten thirsty where the kitchen was on the lower level in the middle of the night and come down and got a drink of water. Who knows? Maybe whoever did this was lying in wait looking for movement that never happened. So it turns out I lived in a dark blue house and we live next to a light blue house. And under the amber colored streetlights, our house looked blue. Their house looked white. They hit the wrong house. It turns out the next door, some unsupervised teenagers had crossed a motorcycle gang. Obviously not a good idea. But the point was is that For some reason you were not there I just could have easily Very much like your story And it wasn't a direct premonition that I had But it was a feeling that Dar had And there you have it I'm still here, you're still here And that's a good thing And it's a good thing that you share these stories Because premonitions I believe in them, I certainly do Thank you so much for joining us once again And stay spooky Thank you James, stay spooky Well, we always love a good Ouija story around these parts, and that's what Brad has for us tonight. He's calling in from his home in Georgia. And I got to tell you, it's early in 2026, but I think Brad has an early lead on best background. So, you know, we'll see what happens through the year. But Brad's going to be hard to beat. I mean, that looks like it's a TV set. That is awesome. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, that's great. That's great. When we were talking earlier, you credited your wife. So if it was her choice, she did a really good job. She did a really good job. Well, Brad, I know you've been listening for a few years. Glad you're here. Tell us about this Ouija board story. Tell us what happened. Okay. It starts at a Pentecostal church. We're going to say it's somewhere between 91 and 93. and the preacher started talking about Ouija boards, which I, back then I was 21, 22, 23 years old. I didn't know really anything about him. I heard of him and he piqued my interest. I don't think that was his goal, but. I don't know. Absolutely positive that was not his goal. Having gone to a church like that, that wasn't his goal, but go ahead. It wasn't. So anyway, I had this friend of mine He was a drummer, I'm a guitar player And we were playing different little bands together And he was into that kind of stuff So we went to a toy store And bought Milton Bradley Made a Ouija board And so we bought one and took it to his house So I don't remember It might have been three or four days later we decided to do this thing and we kept it spooky. We set it up in the floor. We had candles and kept it dark and all that. And him and I sat down and my wife and his wife were there. My wife is Lutheran, so she was not participating. and uh i sat down with my buddy and it wouldn't work we follow the directions you got the the fingers like this on the i think it's a planchette planchette right that's right and it wouldn't work and i couldn't get my wife to come do it so his wife sat down with and it took 30 seconds i had two fingers she had two fingers and it started moving and we were looking at each other. I was like, you're moving this thing. She said, no, you're moving it. And we kind of turned our head. They could see our fingers weren't actually touching that thing. And it started just moving around. And so I took from the Pentecostal preacher's thing. He said that he had asked how much money he has in his pocket. So I said, how much money do I have on my pocket? And he just went to no. Okay, that's not going to work. and we just asked it a bunch of questions i mean this is close to 30 years ago or more so i don't remember everything but we did ask it this name and it started spelling out this name and we were like okay we're done we're just totally done but while we're doing this this is the crazy thing like i said we had the candles and stuff when we asked it this name people aren't going to believe this but all these little candles we had lit everywhere the flames just got bigger oh man just lit the room up and we were like holy crap which is why when it started spelling on a name that we were like okay we're done so the next day I get a call from my buddy it was an apartment that they lived in and he said man you gotta come by the house and see what happened like what are you talking about he's like something bad happened so oh boy oh boy yeah so i go over to his house and when he opens the front door he says look at that and when he opens the front door i notice his face is all cut up when he opens the front door he points to the dining room at the other end of the apartment i says look at that and you could see in the carpet there was just this black ring where we have the ouija board but if you walked over to it you walked over to it you couldn't see it you had to stand way off to the side of it so I'm like what's with your face he said well I got up this morning to make a cup of coffee and when I opened the cabinet every glass in the cabinet blew up in my face oh lord yeah he would go ahead like you know I could be shaved with a really dull razor that's what his face looked like That's what it makes everybody. Huh. We're like, all right, let's burn this thing. And it wouldn't burn. You had a little burn about that. I've heard that before. Yep. Yep. We had something very similar. We could burn drink boxes, cardboard, all that with that thing sitting in there. And just the outer edges would burn, but nothing else. So we ended up just throwing it away. Yeah. I've had similar calls. early in the days we've had calls i think someone had a ouija board that wouldn't burn and someone said they have one that kind of like you remember those old inchworm toys you know when we were kids um that one of them walked across the floor like one of those and i'm like okay that's when i'm leaving that's when i'm like exactly i'm done i don't know i i think you know I don't want to get in trouble with the Ouija folks, but I think it can, you know, weird things can happen. I definitely think that's the case. Stories like yours, I've heard too many of them. I do really think that weird things can happen. Go ahead. Go ahead. I don't know, you know, because I was at a Pentecostal church, but I don't know that it's evil or not. It might be a portal. Yeah. Maybe just. Yeah. But the whole thing in the carpet and the glasses blowing up in his face. You know, it's really interesting you say that because I went to a church like that when I was in high school. And you wouldn't think so. But people, I'm just going by my experience, people that I went to that church with, they were very interested in supernatural stuff. You wouldn't think that would be the case if you were from the outside. But in my experience, people of that faith are very interested in supernatural stuff, which, I mean, makes sense because the whole religion is supernatural, right? Well, if you think about it, they're the ones that do the snake handling thing, the Pentecostals. Some of them, yeah, some of them. Now, that wasn't the one I went to. But the one I went to, they did the talking in tongues and the whole thing. Yes, absolutely. And the slain and the spirit and the whole thing. Yeah, I've seen it all. I've seen it because somebody was showing me something on Instagram or something. It's like, that's nothing new to me. I've been in the church when it happened. So, so, yeah, people falling out. The spirit is falling out in the freaking floor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen it. You have been there. Yeah, I have been there. I have been there. That's for sure. Well, Brad, it was nice to meet you. Very interesting story. Very interesting story. Tell your wife a double plus on the background. And I thank you. I thank you for being on the show and stay spooky. We'll keep it spooky, man. Well, thanks for tuning into the show. We're going to get right back to it, but I got to talk to you about two things are very important. First one is absolutely free. VirtualCampfireGroup.com, VirtualCampfireGroup.com. That is our personalized spooky studio social network. It's its own platform. It's not Facebook. 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Well, gosh, what's it been? 14, 15 years ago, something like that. So there's a plethora of interviews, the back catalog of Campfire going all the way back to 09, the Paranormal Podcast going back all the way to 05, and plus your support. It's how we keep this thing rolling. And we want to keep it rolling, but we can only do it with your help. So please join today at jimherald.com slash plus. That is jimherald.com slash plus. And we thank you for your consideration. Back to the show and stay spooky. A relatively new listener, been listening, I think for a couple of months or so, Anne is on the line from the great state of Nebraska. I was telling her, she's too young to remember this, I'm sure, but the birth state of the great Johnny Carson on Weird Wild Stuff. Anne is here to tell us about something that happened to her when she was the young age of six years old, but she remembers it to this day, and she's going to tell us all about it. Anne, welcome to the show and tell us what happened. Thank you so much, Jim. I really appreciate it. Yeah, so basically, I was about six years old, And I can remember this super vividly. At the time, my family and I were living in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we were living actually kind of a little bit on the outskirts in Henderson. So we weren't like really close to the city. It was visible, but not super close. Anyway, so I was about six years old and I was sitting in the car with my dad. We were waiting for my mom. She had to go to the store. And so, you know, the typical you wait in the car for mom to come out kind of thing. And so I'm pretty sure my dad was on the phone, probably talking to somebody. And I was, you know, just looking out the window as you do when you're six. And you have, you know, just like looking out, looking at the sky, you know, in Vegas, you can see a few stars. But, you know, there's so many lights. Yeah. I like that sometimes. Yeah, you don't see too many of them, but like, but they're still somewhat visible. But anyway, so I was just kind of looking out into the sky. And out of nowhere, this orange fireball, almost like what I can describe as a flame, appeared in the sky and started kind of almost doing like a little dance. And when I say like appeared, I know it's not like it had come from another part of the sky or like it was in my peripheral or like it wasn't in my peripheral and now it was it was like it was like an instantaneous right a period which I think was like I thought what the heck you know I'm like but I was sick so I don't know um anyway and so it starts kind of doing this dance around the sky and it and it was close enough that it looked like a flame like like a flame or an orb like it wasn't like a it was really interesting but it started doing like circles and then kind of making a triangle movement and and i was just kind of looking at this thing in awe you know um and then from that one fireball it like split into two others um and it it was like now they're all kind of like dancing around each other but they were making like geometrical shapes in the sky yeah it's really interesting and so i was just kind of looking at this thing you know it starts kind of they start kind of making a triangle shape and like like moving one where the other one was and kind of doing that and then making like triangles kind of like uh square well not square there weren't four of them but like kind of like following one after the other and then they kind of get into that like triangle formation and I thought what the heck this is so weird but I was six you know so as much as a six-year-old knows I was like that's so interesting anyway um but yeah and so that's kind of started happening I told my dad I was like dad what is that in the sky and he saw it too so it wasn't just me who saw this in the sky and he was like oh I don't know like I'm not sure and I thought maybe my dad would know so when he said he didn't know I was like oh it kind of like not freaked me out but I was like okay so so nobody knows because dad at six years old dad's supposed to dad mom are supposed to know everything yeah exactly and so I was like oh um but so yeah we both just saw it and um to this day like I remember I remember seeing it and I was like you know it's so vivid to me and I've looked it up so many times since then, like every now and then I get online, try to find something because surely I'm not the only one who saw that, but I can never find anything on that. And, you know, it's just really interesting how that works. I don't believe that this is the case. I'm just going to throw this out there because I figure somebody is going to ask this question. So I'll ask it for them. No chance you think that it was like one of the casinos or hotels doing some kind a weird light show or anything like that it was totally unlike something like that yeah oh it was definitely unlike that and you know what that had also crossed my mind so so we weren't like living close enough to the um like what is known as the strip we weren't living close enough where like that was like not even within our radius gotcha so we were kind of in like suburbia like in the walmart parking lot there and i know there's casinos scattered here and there but like we weren't close to anything um and i the thought had crossed my mind you know later on like maybe it was a drone possibly like could it have been a drone show but but they were close enough that like they looked like plasma balls almost or like and i don't like i i mean i don't know how old you are but even now you're certainly not six years old so i mean even if it were you know 12 14 16 years ago or 18 years, whatever it was, still drones weren't as common back then. They were around, I think, but not as common. Right, yeah. And I think this was around 2007 or 2008. So it was a while ago. Right. And I've been looking for answers, but I haven't found any. Do you think it sounded like it almost had intelligence? Yeah, honestly. And you know what? I've actually heard that before. Like I've heard of similar stories, you know, since while listening to your podcast and a couple others, like there seems to be a pattern with like the geometric shapes and that like following one after another. It's yeah, it's really interesting to think about like like what that could have been. And I know people, when I tell the story to the few that I have, they always bring up, well, you know, like you're in Vegas, like Area 51 is around there, especially because I was in Henderson, too. So that's not necessarily like the middle of Vegas. It's a little bit kind of further out. I mean, not by too much, but, you know, I I do think like, was it possible that that was some kind of like Area 51 government experiment or something? I have no idea, but because I also can't find anything on it, it's almost like it just kind of leaves you wondering, you know, like maybe you had something to do with that. And I don't know. Maybe no one's talked about it. Well, as I often say, some of the most interesting campfire stories end with a question mark, not a period. And that sounds like yours, Anne. Anne, thank you for being a part of the campfire. I hope you find the answers you're looking for. If anyone else has a story like Anne's, please do sign up and tell it. Anne, thank you so much and stay spooky. Thank you, Jim. Stay spooky. Well, we have another Buckeye on the line, another Ohioan. Jenny is on the line So glad to speak with her today And she going to talk about some things that have happened since her dad has passed And Jenny thank you I know that these kind of stories can be maybe tougher to share than maybe sharing a ghost story or, you know, just something that happened, somebody you don't know or something. These are very personal stories. So I really appreciate it every time somebody shares one of them. Please tell us what happened. Well, thanks, Jim. So my dad passed away in May of 2023. So a lot of these stories, all of these stories are afterwards. But so shortly after he passed away, I was sitting in my son's room and I was rocking him to sleep. And my dad's goal was to make it to my son's first birthday, which he did, but just barely. um and it felt like somebody was pushing the rocker it was oh you know like you you know when somebody's behind you pushing a rocker yeah so like i definitely thought that was him there was another instance and my son really didn't take pacifiers except for when he was teething. One night he's like chomping on pacifier and he pulls it out, looks over my right shoulder, waves, and then says goodnight and rolls over in my arms and goes to sleep. Oh, wow. So he saw someone. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. there was one day I was getting him ready for preschool and where he was facing me there's a corner of the living room and there's pictures of my family and I'm trying to get him dressed and he's going no no and he's giggling and I'm like who are you talking to? And he looks at me and goes, Grandpa. Whoa. Whoa. And I just told you that he barely made it past my son's first birthday. My son really couldn't say much at his first birthday. Like not, it's not a huge vocabulary there. Right. And so I look at him like, okay. Okay. I go, does grandpa tell you to be a good boy? And he goes, kind of shakes his head. And I was like, sounds about right. Okay. Does grandpa keep you safe? And he goes, yeah. Wow. Like, okay, dad, I need to get him dressed for school. Wow. That's, and when you said grandpa, that's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah, it was, It was like a definitely more affirming. And why would he say that out of the blue? You know what I'm saying? It's like he could say anybody. I'm talking to Goofy, you know, I mean, you know, cartoon character. I mean, specifically the fact that he said grandpa. I mean, to me, that carries a lot of weight. Yeah, and all of his other grandparents go by different names. So there's Mimi, there's Papa, there's Papa, there's Alma, there's Grandma, and my dad was Grandpa. But he didn't get to spend a whole lot of time with him because he was sick for the whole year, basically. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. Now, your son now, I mean, I just saw something that said that children basically, and I'm assuming this is true, Neil deGrasse Tyson said it, so it has to be true. But he said that children, their memories are basically erased from years one to, I mean, from birth to three years old. Like, you know, very few people can remember anything that happened when they were two years old, for example. How old is your son now? he's three and a half and he will tell you about going to the indians game he'll tell you oh wow monster jam he'll tell he'll tell you a whole bunch of stuff that we've done in his short three years well then maybe he's a maybe neil degrasse tyson is wrong but let me ask you does he still uh mention grandpa and does he remember seeing and talking to grandpa he doesn't say much unless you ask him, but usually he'll talk to you about our dog because our dog also had to go to heaven. Oh, my goodness. Well, I'm very sorry for your loss, but it certainly sounds to me like your dad is still there and he's making his presence known, which I think is so cool. And, yeah, that's a pretty neat story, Jenny. Thank you for being a part of the campfire today. You have something else you want to add? I forgot about the fire detector story oh yeah please tell us again shortly after he passed away I was getting ready for work my son had already gone with my mother-in-law for the day and the fire detector started going off and it wasn't like the beep beep beep the battery's low it was like going off so I walk over and I press the button And then it goes off and I go back to making my coffee or whatever. And it starts going off again. I'm like, what is going on? And so I walk over and I look at the smoke detector and I'm like, fine, fine. I will be extra cautious today. And it stopped. Interesting. Very interesting indeed. Jenny, thank you for being a part of the campfire and stay spooky. Stay spooky, Jim. Next up on the campfire is Deanne from New Mexico, and she's been listening, oh, for, well, since about 2013, so a dozen years or so, and we're so appreciative. And she's got a very special story to share with us tonight. Deanne, thank you for listening for all these years, and tell us what happened. Yeah, thank you, Jim. It's great to be here after being a listener for so long. So, yeah, my story is about my cat named Pepper. He unfortunately passed about two years ago. He had what's called fatty liver disease. And, um, at, yeah, when I first, the first vet I took him to, I guess, didn't realize how serious an issue it can be if a cat hasn't eaten for even a couple of days. So I did just want to kind of throw a PSA out there for any cat owners that that is something you should be really concerned about if, if that happens. um so you know I took him to all the specialists that I could and I did everything that tried everything under the sun but unfortunately he did um end up passing so this this was a cat that we I've heard the term heart pet and soul pet so I really felt that that's what he was for me so it was it was really tough losing sure sure and um so i also just felt really guilty because even though i'd done everything i could once i realized what was happening i always kind of wondered if things would have gone differently if i'd have been able to to catch things earlier um And so there was there was a day the same week that he passed that I remember I was just I was sitting on my bed. Just, you know, sobbing and I had my phone and I asked him if he was able to send me a sign if he could. And then almost immediately after that, this one of those photo memories came up. I don't know if Androids do that, but I have an iPhone that does that. And it was of a rainbow. And I know I've heard the Rainbow Bridge mentioned a lot on the show. Sorry, that was one of my one of my other casts that just jumped on the counter, made a noise. So, yeah, I really I really felt that was. Well, at first, I wasn't sure, honestly, because I am a bit skeptical. But actually, over the next month or over the next couple of weeks, I kept I just kept getting those rainbow photo memories really frequently, a lot more frequently than I ever have. So I really felt that that was a sign from him. He was letting me know that he was OK and that he was doing doing better now that he was free of of suffering. and then the other interesting sign i'm sorry go ahead no no no no go ahead the other interesting sign that i got was um i was also just kind of being a lump on the couch a lot afterwards and um and i was watching tv one day and there was uh in the show i was watching there was a character named pepper which was his name and it was a human character and i thought that was interesting because i had never i never have and i never had before and i never have since seen um met anybody in real life named pepper or seen anyone fictional named pepper so uh that kind of stood out to me and then the last thing was i actually ended up uh both out of curiosity and because i wanted i did want to be able to try to connect with him one last time i actually hired a pet psychic and um she one thing that stood out to me from that experience was that she mentioned without me really saying anything about his medical history and why he had passed she mentioned um that she was picking up on issues with his bowels and with a blood clot and obviously the bowel thing the uh the fatty liver disease was definitely related to digestive issues and then the blood clot he had kind of they never really figured out what had happened but he had a he had a sort of stroke so that was one of the possibilities that was suggested so um Um, so yeah, that was a short one, but, um, those were significant events to me after he passed. I believe pets are part of our family. I believe they have souls. So why couldn't they get signs to us? And we've had, you know, a whole, as you know, from listening to the show for so long, we've had a whole range of different signs. And so I believe, you know, this could be Pepper getting in touch with you and trying to comfort you. And I believe they're still around. I mean, I know we're a dog family and we've had dogs the whole time. And it's a special bond. It really is. It really is. And I'm repeating myself, but they are a member of the family. Deanne, thank you so much for joining us and being a part of the campfire tonight. I appreciate it. Thank you so much and stay spooky. Stay spooky. Oh, I love to hear from return callers and Allison from South Carolina is back and she's going to talk to us about when she brought her baby home and the strangeness that ensued. And I assume we're talking about more than just diaper changes. Allison, welcome back to the show and tell us what happened. Thanks, Jim. So back in 2007, I had my third and my last child, and I lived in a co-op with my new husband and so forth. But the co-op was always a little hinky, and there was always things going on to the point where I had people come in, and even before I moved in permanently, I gutted it, I blessed it, I had everything done. But there was always a lot of activity. You could pick up things quite easily there. and um and as this child began to develop um she was picking up a lot it was ridiculous but we bring her home in 2007 and my husband at the time he wasn't a huge believer like you know he looked like he loved me you know he's like a little little strange but i still love you you know and i'm like okay you don't have to believe me but this stuff really happens and i would tell him things my past and stuff so we bring the baby home and we had the bassinet set up and that particular day um as we're bringing her home while in the room this music box starts going off now i knew the melody and so i'm like i know that i'm like but where is it like and it was it was buried in my drawer and on top of clues now this music box was um gifted to me pretty much you know like my in my first in-laws it was something that i got you know upon everybody you know leaving the earth and so forth i got a lot of their stuff and but this is from like 1918 1919 she was born so and i'm like oh my goodness so i i walk over to my dress i open up and i'm like not like anybody was playing with it like i really forgot about it there it was like okay just like under everything and we're all looking at each other like well that's weird i'm like oh they must be welcoming the baby. My husband looks at me and he's like, don't they realize this is, this is our child. This is not, you know, their, their son's child. Like it doesn't matter. They always love the grandchildren. Like I had two older daughters and so forth. So within the three days, and then he was like, I don't know about that. He was kind of doubting it. Like, I'm like, okay. I said, no, they're here. I could feel them. And so within the three days of her being home, this is what made him a believer so I'm in the kitchen, it was a galley kitchen and my back was toward him and my husband, I said I go, go check on the baby, you know, it's a new baby but he, you know, he was very attentive and he comes into, this is like the next day, he comes into the kitchen and he goes, hon and I turned around and I go, yeah and he looked like he saw a ghost and I'm like, what's the matter with you and he goes there's a doberman pincher sitting next to the bassinet looking at the baby i'm like oh my gosh it's blackie that's their dog hey man he goes excuse me he was so frightened though because he's not he doesn't like he takes things a little bit slower and i'm like oh they're definitely here now i gotta tell you so that dog when that dog he didn't know about the dog so when blackie had passed like we had him cremated and then when my mother-in-law had passed it kind of slipped the dog urn with the mother-in-law like they all loved each other so yeah so he was like from that point on it seriously the whole afternoon he was like he couldn't handle it he's like i i i saw a dopamine picture that is wild he's a believer though now he is an absolute believer and um that that that's the story i had um written in and told you about but another thing regarding like my husband and believing it's over it so as isabella starts getting a little bit older she um she starts she starts talking to a lot of people it was getting ridiculous like she wasn't really sleeping and i was told now she's playing with them they're playing with her and blah blah blah and i'm like oh this is not great and then i would be like can everybody just leave her alone but i was told there was like a portal like a portal of and there was also a death in that apart i was just gonna say but the person died of an illness but it wasn't like a murder or anything of the sort but it was getting really bad where we like she was losing sleep and it was just too much activity and i i had to kind of intervene so another thing that happened with him that really pushed him over the edge I hear we hear on the baby monitor and I'm like oh can you go in there and see what she's doing what she's talking about so he goes in there and he comes once again he comes back into the room and he has that look again like what I'm like what happened he goes well I was standing near the door now her back was to him so I go standing near the door and I open the door very quietly he's very stealthy so he opens it quietly the little girl is sitting my daughter's sitting there and She's looking. She's, hey. And then she doesn't know her father's there. And she's, like, talking in the ear. And she's like, hey, hey, hey, wait, wait, wait. Where are you going? And then she turns around. She goes, oh, hi, Daddy. Oh, wow. He was like, yeah. And he, once again. So I would say at this point, my husband would get the 24 years now. He is a very, yeah, he believes. He believes the dog is what really set things in motion. and we had been together. Well, yeah, that would do it, seeing a Doberman pincher ghost dog. I would think that would do it. I had a white Persian. I mean, I had a little cute little kid. Yeah, I'm like, you didn't even, because I didn't know they had a dog. I'm like, oh, yeah, they had Blackie. And what you just called. Wow. And then his daughter. Yeah, and your daughter talking. And we just had a, I don't know if they'll air in the same episode, but we had another person who talked about that her dad passed and the baby said, oh, hi, Grandpa, you know, a year later, just in the blue. Or I think the baby was three or three and a half child, by that point, not a baby. Or who you were talking to? Oh, I was talking to Grandpa. You know, Grandpa had been gone for years. So it happens. I believe it happens. I believe these young children have this insight because they're closer to the veil. and uh you know in the early part there when she came home maybe family wanted to say hi you know oh yeah that's that that's the feeling like you could pick up the energy like what is going on between the music i mean it doesn't sound like much like if you experience it you're like oh my gosh but like and then if you opened up the music box there's a little baby bracelet that was on my mother-in-law's once again 1919 to have her name on it so i really think it was yeah i really think it was welcoming the baby because of her own baby and i forgot about that like i might have looked at it years many years ago right but like when i'm like oh her baby bracelets in there no and she's from germany so they it's a hand beaded one with her name on it oh i totally know they were saying hello and the dog i'm like whoa how would you even know that you didn't know i never told you about blackie and the look on this poor man's face god bless him he is so he does not know initially he was just like okay but now he sees the light now he's seen the light he's seen the delverine pincher he saw the way and he sees my daughter like hey daddy oh hi daddy pretty cool pretty cool allison thank you for being on the show and stay spooky yes you too jim stay spooky thank you for doing all your work you and dar all right be well friend thanks so much for tuning in to yet another edition of the campfire. I appreciate it very much. It means so much to us to have our great audience and our great storytellers. We couldn't have a campfire without them. And please, if you want to tell your story, sign up at jimherald.com slash campfire. And then once you do and you get that email from DART, please follow up and actually schedule a time. And that's a reminder to the folks, as I said at the head end of the show, please follow through. We'd love it. Another thing we'd love is if you share the show with a friend, that means so much. That's how people find out about the campfire and they share their stories. And you get to hear all these great stories because somebody shared the show. So text a link to somebody. It could be if they're a YouTube person, send them a YouTube link. If they're a Spotify person, send them a Spotify link. If they're an Apple podcast person, send them the Apple podcast link. Wherever they're at, we are too. 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We'll talk to you next time. And as always, stay safe and stay spooky. Bye-bye.