Haunted Rental - Jim Harold's Campfire 755

A haunted vacation rental and much more on this edition of Jim Harold's Campfire. Sit back, relax and warm yourself by Jim Harold's Campfire. I love these stories that bring in the experiencers of folks and their kids. They say out of the mouths of babes comes great insight and great truth. That very well may be the case of this story here that Isaac is going to share with us. Isaac from Virginia, thank you for joining us from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. Please tell us what happened. Yeah, it's a funny story for me. It's around a holiday that I truly love, Thanksgiving. So I guess the background is we bought and moved into our house during about March of 2020. It's a hard time to buy a house and a lot of strange things happened around that time. But yeah. So we bought the house, we're looking at it. Everything seemed fine, moved in and nothing like totally strange happened. But we did have a child, we do have cats. And it was a new father at the time. So I think our son, whenever we moved in, was just about just over a year old. So we're going about our lives in the house and the strange things that started to happen was like we would just have things be misplaced that you set down maybe a minute prior. So like you'd go to watch a movie, turn on Netflix, put the remote down, go out to the kitchen, make popcorn or whatever, and then you'd come back to the remote would be missing. And I swear I just put this remote on the couch or on the coffee table, something like that. And you'd look and look and look. And then you'd leave the room and come back and it'd be in the same spot that you thought that you had put it before. So I just chalked that up to just to like, well, maybe we're still tired new parents and whatnot. I'd hear a couple things up and down the stairs, little thumps upstairs, chalk that up to the cats. No big deal. So the strange thing that happened, the strangest thing that happened, I guess. Happens in 2022 for Thanksgiving. I was cooking dinner and we were going to transport everything to my wife's parents' house. They're just 15 minutes up the road. So everything planned out. I was packing things away into coolers to keep it warm and everything. Mm-hmm. And I had this last thing, last dish that I had to make. And all I needed to do was add some like chili and cheese honey to it. Ooh, that sounds good. That sounds good. You're making me hungry, Isaac. Oh, good. Yeah. So I bought some that week. I bought it on Tuesday or whatever. I'd put it in our spice cabinet. I knew exactly where I put it. So on this middle shelf. And my wife and kids had already drove over to her parents' house. So I'm like, I'm kind of in a rush getting things together. And I'm like, okay, I just need to add this honey and put this in the tray and then I can head out the door. I open the spice cabinet and I'm looking in there and it's nowhere. It's not in there at all. I'm moving things out. Like, oh, maybe I put it, like, maybe it got bumped in the bag, maybe it fell over. It's not in there. I'm taking things out, putting things back. It's not in there. So then I'm thinking like, okay, maybe I put it, maybe I got it out, moved it, maybe my wife moved it. So I'm checking some other cabinets, like the logical spots. I'm not finding it. And I've always been like kind of suspicious of just like the weird things that happened. So I closed all the cabinets and I just like, I just said out loud, please bring my honey back. I'm going to check the cabinet in two minutes. And I'd like that honey back so I can head out. So I continued getting things ready. About two minutes later, I checked the cabinet and it is directly in the middle shelf, in the very center of that middle shelf. And everything that's on that shelf is pushed back. So it's like front and center. There's nothing around it. It's just this bottle of honey that I needed. And I looked at it and I saw it and I didn't know what to say at first. So I just said, thank you. And I used it, did my thing and put away, got packed up and put into Thanksgiving dinner for that. So it's super strange. It was like, just showed up. So went over, we had dinner, it was great. And on the way home, I was thinking about it more. I was like, man, that's super strange when I tell my wife whenever I get home. We had driven separately and get home unpacking stuff, putting stuff in the refrigerator. My son's, I guess, around three or four years old at this point, he's talking well enough. And he's in the kitchen playing and I'm telling her, he's like, yeah, it's the weirdest thing. I couldn't find it. I said this and my wife already got creeped out and I told her that I was talking to the air and this bottle of honey shows up. And it's like without missing a beat, my son goes, oh, that was probably Mr. Shadow. Who is Mr. Shadow? That's what I want to know. Right. Yeah, both of us are like, what did you just say? He's like, yeah, Mr. Shadow. And we're not trying to be dismissive of him or anything. It's like, oh, well, who's Mr. Shadow? Like how, how do you know him? He's like, yeah, it's Mr. Shadow. He lives in the woods behind the house. Good Lord. Okay. Maybe maybe we won't play outside for a little bit until we figure out who Mr. Shadow is. But yeah, he said, Mr. Shadow likes to play, play games and that he was just playing a game with me. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So, so any further insight on who Mr. Shadow was or what was going on? No, no, I mean, our house was built in like 51, I think. Not necessarily like the oldest house in the world. But yeah, it was just, this is the only time that my sons mentioned it too. But I have, I have noticed like since that, that event, we haven't had too many more instances of things. I mean, we've definitely had some like toys that turned on that didn't really make sense that they're turning on. But I think the biggest one that I've had recently is, so I work, I work nights and I was having some, there's a during the afternoon just wasn't able to go to sleep. And I was laying on the couch and I swear on my life, I was seeing something out of the corner of my eyes, like going, like peeking down our stairs. Mr. Shadow. It's just a shadow in the corner of my eyes and made me giggle a little bit and that's whenever I was like, oh, that must be Mr. Shadow. And it just kind of clicked that maybe I should share the story. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing it. You know, it's interesting. It reminds me of a story we had years ago. Somebody was a woman called in and she had been listening to Coast to Coast AM and the topic of reptilians came up, which I don't necessarily believe in the existence of a, you know, reptilians ruling the world or anything, but it came up on Coast to Coast AM. And the next day she was talking to her husband who was very skeptical about any of this stuff. And she was saying, you know, this is why this person who was on Coast to Coast AM was talking about reptilians and his theories and his justifications. And her husband said, well, if all is this true, why wouldn't the people know? Now, his, their son was like three years old or something playing in his peas and carrots, very barely verbal. And he looks up and says, people not ready yet. So sometimes kids say the spookiest things. They say the spookiest things. Now, are you familiar now? You've been listening for a while. Are you familiar with a book called Jot? Just one of those things that we talked about in the show. Yeah. Yeah. About things going away and showing back up by Mary Rose Barrington. Unfortunately, I think she passed around COVID time or shortly after. And she had been on the show and I ended up talking about, I probably mentioned this show about, this book about 40 times on the shows and people have read it and things talking about these weird things when things like go missing. It's just very, very strange. But so no idea who Mr. Shadow is and does your son and your son never mentioned Mr. Shadow anymore. He doesn't. His younger brother's getting to about the age where he mentioned his older brother mentioned it. So we'll see if he shows back up for him. I hope. The good thing is he doesn't seem to be, he seems to just be a little prankster, kind of helpful sometimes. Sometimes you're like, where are my keys? And then they show up. There's three things about us, Isaac, and two of them we have in common. We both love Thanksgiving. We both love a good spooky story, but whereas you can cook, I can barely make noodles. So you got me there. You got me there. But thank you for being on the show. I appreciate it. Stay spooky. Stay spooky, Jim. Welcome to the campfire. I'm Jim Harold. So glad you're here. And that first spooky story, well, that was just the start. We have much more to come on this edition of the campfire. I can't believe we're almost onto 17 years, April of 2009. A little later in the month, we started this show. So thank you to everyone over the years who has told their stories and so forth. And I counted it up. I have spreadsheets going back to 2018. So that's the last, what, eight years of the show. But I don't have spreadsheets for the first nine, although I have records here and there. But just from 2018, we're talking about over 4,000 stories featured. Amazing. So thank you to all of our storytellers. Speaking of which, I should mention, if you want to access to that whole treasure trove, well, we know it's at least 4,000 actually. It's probably closer to 6,000 or 7,000 stories that we've covered over the years. 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We got a little aggressive in our ordering when we ordered those books, and we had a bunch of them. He said, why don't we pass the savings along to you and clear out some space in the studio here? So again, jimherald.com, slash merch, jimherald.com, slash merch for that. We thank you so much. And now on to another great campfire story. We have a return caller. And how much I love to hear from our return callers, particularly when it's a nice one like this, Steve from Alabama rejoins us. And he has a story about his mom and dad. Steve, welcome back to the show, as I told Steve. And this goes for all of our storytellers today and every day. We thank you so much because there would be no show without you. Steve, could you please share this story? Thank you again. You're welcome. Thank you for allowing me to come back. My last story, I talked about what happened that changed me from a skeptical physician to a believer in the paranormal. And today I've got a couple of stories about my family, some end of life things that happened. And our family never really talked about paranormal. It just wasn't a big issue. I certainly never heard my parents talk about it. But in my dad's last years, he got chronic kidney disease and went on home dialysis. And in the fall of 2015, he told me one day that while he was going through his dialysis, his father, who had been dead 40 years, walked into the room from a central hallway, walked into the room that my dad was in, sat down next to him. And my dad said, you know, I was startled. And I said, Dad, where have you been? And he just said, I've been away, son. And that's all he said. He would just smile at him that wouldn't answer any other questions. And in a few seconds, he disappeared. And so from that point until almost a year later, when my dad passed, every month randomly, my granddad would either look at dad from the hallway, just appear in a chairbomb or walk in the room again, but he never said anything else. And it always just lasted a few seconds. And my dad still out of his mental faculties really well, until he passed. So then fast forward to 2021, my mom, who was living by herself and very independent in good health. She told Judy, my wife and I in January that she was starting to see either her mother or my dad poking their head in her bedroom door at night. So she would be in bed watching some TV, get ready to go to sleep. And she would see one or the other of them randomly and never saw them together. They never said anything. And so when Judy and I left that day, we said, oh, my gosh, you know, mom's probably not going to be with us after a year. So these episodes continue, you know, pretty regularly for, you know, month after month. And then kind of as an aside, I had to retire as a dermatologist and nose surgeon. And I had to retire unexpectedly, because there's some issues with my dominant hand and you know, clumsy surgeons aren't much good to anybody. So I retired, but it ended up being a blessing because less than two weeks after I retired, my mom was rushed to the emergency room and very short version of the story, she had an aggressive leukemia and some forced retirement allowed Judy and I to stay with mom pretty much 24-7 until she passed away. And when she was in the hospital, she, again, all her faculties were very sharp. She mentally, she recognized everybody, you know, could tell stories and whatnot. But she told us that she saw the cutest little blonde-haired boy and she'd actually had a dream about him about a month before the hospitalization. And I asked her, you know, does he say anything? And she said, he asked me, where do you want to go? And I said, I don't know. And after that, he never spoke another word. He really, pretty much either by right shoulder or left shoulder. And she knew nobody else could see it, but I'd ask her regularly, you know, is he here today? And she get a little frustrated sometimes because I was asking maybe too much. But her story was very consistent. And when she got to go home, the little boy was there too, you know, she, she said he was right there by her side the whole time. And towards the end, probably about a week before she passed, she told me it's not going to be long now because he's closer. And she told us, she thought that he was her guardian angel. And so the weekend before she passed away, that was one of the two weekends that Judy and I went back to Alabama. So before we left, I gave my McKess told her I loved her and she'd open her eyes, but she said, I love you too. And that ended up being the last word she ever said. We went home, got back in late Friday night and on Saturday, I walked into my bedroom and I saw my mom. And she was directly in front of me that face into the right. And she looked like she was probably in her twenties, like in her prime of health. She was monocratic or black and white. There was almost like a glow coming off of her. And she didn't turn to face me. She didn't say anything. She was just there for a few seconds and she was gone. So I thought I may be more sleep deprived than I realized or, you know, maybe mom just passed. So I called my siblings and said, you know, hey, how's mom any updates? And they said, you know, nothing's changed. She isn't responsive, but she's still breathing. She still seems to be comfortable. So, uh, Sunday, my wife and I drove back up to Kentucky and, uh, I guess within 24 hours of that, mom passed. And so I wondered, you know, had that been like a shared death experience had mom's soul maybe left her body when I saw her and her, his body just stayed on autopilot a couple of days? Uh, or was she aware that she was about to pass and she was just getting a message to me that I'm fine. It's beautiful here. Don't worry about me. And then fast forward again to, uh, the summer of last year, my older sister, uh, she got really sick and, uh, was in the hospital and we went up to see her and, uh, you know, we're visiting with her and it seemed like, you know, she was going to pull through this and be okay. So we went back home and, uh, a couple of days after I got back home, I was coming out of my office, walking to the kitchen and my sister's there in front of me. And she's walking away from me and she turned and looked over her right shoulder at me and kind of like my mom, she was black and white. She looked like she was in her 20s. She was in great health and then she just smiled and disappeared. So I thought, oh my gosh, you know, did Holly just pass? And I called my nephew and I said, you know, and he updates on Holly and he said, yes, she's doing well. We think she's probably going to get to go home in three or four days. So two days later, I was talking to her on the phone and she said, I'm really hurting. I'm really uncomfortable. And so I said, well, I don't want to keep you. I'll let you go. Maybe you can get some rest or they can get you something, you know, for pain. And so we said our goodbyes and hung up. And then less than 30 minutes later, my nephew called me and said, Holly had just passed. So there were a lot of similarities with what happened with her and mom, except Holly, I know was conscious and cognizant when I saw her. So I wouldn't think of that as possibly being a shared death experience. So I think both of them kind of were just aware they were getting ready to leave and they wanted to say their goodbye and let me know they were fine and not to worry about them. Do you think that your family has, because I think this exists for a lot of people, but I think do you think that your family is a group has a heightened sensitivity and maybe a heightened ability to detect these kinds of things? I think there's a very, very, very special bond that was between my older sister and my mom and also to some degree between Holly and my mom and myself. There was a time that I was in my residency and I was driving and I got this urgent feeling I need to pray for mom and unbeknownst to me, she was on a flight and the flight was going through horrible turbulence. And then after that, you know, it all calmed down and mom and Holly had several times where one needed something and the other instantly knew. So I think we did have some kind of connection. I also think, and it's my opinion that, and I do firmly believe in an afterlife and I firmly believe these kinds of things like you're describing happened and you know, the work that's been done on near-death experiences and shared death experiences you mentioned and those kinds of things and we featured that on a lot of the shows. There's really something to it, but I do think death is a lot more complicated on one level than I think. I think we kind of try to simplify it and I think, you know, the idea of almost those loved ones preparing your mom and dad, they were almost seems like they were preparing them and getting ready for the transition, but also very interesting. You saw your mom and your sister both in black and white and another thing that you pointed out was in the prime of life. So many people talk about that when they see somebody who has passed or something along those lines. They don't describe seeing them when they were ill and you know, dealing with whatever health challenges they were dealing at the time of their sickness or death. They said, they look great. They look better than they ever did. They looked like they were in their absolute prime of health and in the consistency of those kind of reports to me says a lot that there really is something to this and we don't understand it. Don't know if we're supposed to understand it. Don't know if we'll ever understand it, but there's certainly something there. I definitely agree. Steve, thank you for sharing your story with us. I appreciate it very much. Thank you very much. I appreciate all you do. Stay spooky, Jim. Stay spooky. She's back. Return caller, Elita is back from the Show Me State of Missouri. Actually, she's not going to show us, but she's going to tell us. But if you're on the video, she has shown us that she has her paranormal podcast shirt on. We appreciate it. We almost love when people have the shirts and things. You know, yeah, we make a little bit of money on it. It's not, believe me, it's not the majority. Most of it goes to the shipping and the processing and the like. But what I love about it, it starts conversations because somebody's going to see Elita and says, what is the paranormal podcast? And that's how it helps us. Yeah. That's what helps us the most. That's what helps us the most. So we really appreciate it. So Elita, thank you. And everybody out there who's bought merch at JimHero.com slash merch, we appreciate it. But we're not here to talk about merch. We're here to talk about Elita's story. And it has to do with all haunting. Elita, tell us all about it. Welcome back to the show. So I'm going to try and give you the reader's digest version. So many things have happened there. My pair of partner and I have been doing paranormal investigations for 20 something years. And we've been all over. We've been the WEMP, Gettysburg, Crescent Moon. And we've had experiences and we've actually stayed in haunted places that had nothing. So I was networking and found out about this haunted Airbnb. I don't want to give out the name or anything, but the history is phenomenal. It's and I'll go right into the history. The history is 1865 Victorian two story. And it was a couple and their daughter that lived there. The daughter was psychic. And back then they thought she had schizophrenia. So they sent her to a mental institution. And she ended up passing away there. A year later, there was a young girl down the street that said she was possessed by their daughter. And they took her in to live with them. And for a year, two years, this girl was their daughter. In the meantime, the spiritual phenomena was coming where they were doing seances and things. So they became spiritualists. And in that house, they were doing seances. So and then eventually, after a year or two, the young girl said, guess what? I'm not possessed anymore. And she went back home. But it's a whole history. And if anyone is into history and paranormal know where I'm talking about. My parent partner lives in Chicago, I live in St. Louis. So we found this place. It's south of Chicago. It's north of St. Louis, I'll say. So when we get there, and the men that own this place, when you walk in, you're back in 1865, the parlor, it's cool. That sounds very cool. It is. So we got there in the afternoon. And when you walk in, you walk into the living room with piano and, you know, all the, I don't know what kind of baroque furniture, you know, and then you walk back and there's the parlor. And then there's the staircase that's in the living room. The first day we got there, it's, this was the afternoon, we were getting set up, we were going to meditate, and we were talking, you know, in the parlor. And then we hear the footsteps upstairs. And we, it was like a woman in heels walking around. And we kept trying to, we tried to debunk a lot of it, okay, because we're kind of skeptical. But there were definitely footsteps. And it was running around, it sounded like they were cleaning or something. And we, and this was happening in the afternoon. So we would go upstairs and it would stop. And we'd come back down and we'd say hello. And you could hear her tiptoe to the top of the step and take a step down. So that was phenomenal. I mean, so afternoon, this was happening. At, we were doing, and as we were there, we did get EVPs, and we did the Estus method, which you know what that is, which was, was phenomenal because we were having actual kind of, I was having an actual conversation. You know what, Alita, can you give a people a brief thumbnail description of what the Estus method is because it is interesting. So the Estus method, Diane went into one of the rooms and she, we have a spirit box and we have earphones connected. You put the earphones on, then you put on headphones and then you put on a mask. So she cannot hear or see, she is not free to pry. I go in another room and I'm asking questions. Now she's connected to the spirit box and whatever comes through, she will say. So I'm in the other room talking and I said, who, you know, who was here? And she said, I'm a female. And I said, Oh, okay. And she said, you guys make me laugh. Because we were, her, Diane and I cut up a lot. So she said, you make me laugh. We enjoy you here. We said, okay. And she was answering my questions. I was having a full conversation. And then suddenly something happened to where Diane was saying, I have to take, I have to remove everything because she was starting to scream that he was coming into the, the room. So we're like, okay, that's a little scary. The way this Victorian place is set up, when you go up the steps, you go up the steps and there's the bathroom over to your right is one bedroom door. And then there's a second bedroom door. And those two are connected by a door. So you can shut your door, but open the one that you can connect them. And then to the left was the bedroom that that young girl stayed in. So I'm going to just skip right to nighttime, because this is our first night there. We were done at about 3 34 o'clock that night. And we, I, we got in our bed, you know, I got mine, she got hers, we had the door open. I have a habit of putting my suitcase up against the closed door. And we're reading, trying to settle ourselves down. And we hear footsteps, men's footsteps. And you could hear the keys jangling, as it was coming up the stairs. And she's looking at me and I'm looking at her in our rooms. And it, you could hear him coming around. And we're just sitting there. And he started tapping on my door. And Jim, he, he punched my door half open. Oh man. And the door is punched half open. I jump out of this bed, run into her room. He goes over to her room. And he's wiggling the door knob. So nonetheless, all night, we were in her room in her bed, as he was jiggling the door knob, tapping on the door, you could hear him walk in, you know, walk back downstairs. I think we, we finally went to bed, maybe at six o'clock or whatever. In this house during the day. So I'm downstairs and I hear Diane call my name. And I hear Alita and I turn around and I'm looking for, and she's outside looking around, you know, the house. So they, it, it called my name. At one time, it called her name. There's another time, oh my God, there was so many things that happened. And now I'm trying to bring all of them up. There was another time that we were, it was afternoon, we were talking again. And suddenly we hear this man whistling. And we're, we thought maybe it was a maintenance man or something because we heard kind of the door open. We hear this man kind of whistling away. And we get up, there was nobody there, nobody. So this is during the afternoon. With this place, during the day, all these wonderful little things happen like you hear the whistling, you hear the footsteps. And at around seven o'clock at night is when all heck breaks loose. Okay. The whole atmosphere, it's, I can't explain it. The whole atmosphere turns, it doesn't turn malicious, it just turns heavy. Okay. And that's when things start happening. I'm sitting in the parlor facing the stairs, the stairway. And as Diane's talking to me, I can see this strip of white coming down the steps like this flinky. And all of a sudden it comes up and over the banister and it just, it just dissipates. And I'm sitting there going, she said, what did you see? I said, I don't, I, I couldn't tell you. I can't tell you. I don't know what I saw. Seriously. It was the weird, it, it was the weirdest thing. Another time we have a paranormal music box and there's a laser and we had it upstairs and nothing was happening. But if you break that laser, it plays this really creepy music. So we just, we decided to go to lunch and Diane said, I'm going to go upstairs and get the music box. And I said, okay, and I see her coming down the steps and we meet. And all of a sudden I hear the music box going off. And I said, Diane, I thought you got the music box and she has the saucer eyes and she just says, it's in my hand. So it's mimicking the music. Oh man. Oh man. As yeah, it's mimicking the music box. I think the one time we were in the room trying to meditate, this is during the day, we're trying to meditate and footsteps are going. You could hear the footsteps walking. It was a woman walking around. She's, she's walking up and down, you know, and I yelled, will you stop? And you, she stopped the footsteps stop and you hear her tiptoe over and Diane looked at me. She goes, I think you shouldn't have done that. We hear the little footsteps creep over to the stair, top of the stairs come down like three steps. There's nothing there. And we're just, this is happening during the evening, you know, the evening. The one time we went, I said, Diane, I'm going to sleep in my room. You sleep in yours. It's going to be okay. Jim, at four o'clock in the morning, I hear a door rustling. I thought it was her having to get up. Yeah. The door is rustling next to my, because the bed is right next to the door. Next thing I know, I hear at four o'clock, men's footsteps coming into my room and walking around my bed. I am sitting there with the covers up. But I'm like, oh my God, this is really happening. But I'm trying to debunk it at the same time thinking, okay, maybe it's the water heater or, you know, but I hear his footsteps. He goes to the window. I hear him turn around. He goes into Diane's room and I hear him stop. And this happened from four o'clock to 445. So I am sitting there. And finally, finally, when it stopped, I jumped up and I'm going, Diane, wake up. Did you not hear what was happening? The last thing that happened, and this is a first, I've seen full body apparitions in different stories, but at this house, we were sitting in, it was the afternoon. We were sitting there, starting to meditate. The parlor, it's a couch, a couch and a couch. So it's like a horseshoe and you're looking out a big window. Her and I are starting to meditate. And out of the corner of my eye, I see a man, I can tell you what he was wearing, sitting on the edge of the couch, watching us. And he had a checkered shirt, he had blue jeans, he had yellowish brown, yellowish hair. And the minute she looked at me, she said that my face went white. And I just, she said, what are you seeing? I said, do you not see him? She goes, no. And I turn, of course, he disappears. So that was the last thing that happened there. So there's a portal there, evidently, because they held say on this. So we don't know who's coming through half the time. But we're going back, actually, March 24th and stay in five days. Oh, wow. You'll have to report back. So, I mean, you feel as some people would run away, but you're running into it. You want to see what's going on. You want to solve the mystery for yourself. Yes, yes. We've never stayed in a place. And like I said, we were in Gettysburg. We were at the Lemp mansion. We stayed at the Crescent Moon in a very haunted room with nothing happened. This place you walk in, first of all, it draws us in. It's during the day, it is, it's the most comforting place you've ever been, even though these things are happening, the voices, the whistling, you know, oh, the clapping. I forgot that we were meditating it and right in the middle of our meditation, we hear this right in the middle of our meditation. And I think Zoom cut it out, but a leader was clapping there. Yeah. Wow. Yes. I mean, this place is, and the history, and the history of where it's located is phenomenal. It's just really a really cool place. And we'll go back. Well, please do come back and tell us how that goes and what happens. And thank you so much for sharing your story once again on the campfire and Stay Spooky. You too, Stay Spooky, Jim. Thanks. Long time listener, first time caller. Kathy is on the line from North Carolina. We're so glad that she is. And she has a story about, well, a very unique and a very vivid dream. Kathy, thank you for joining us. Please tell us what happened. Well, give you a bit of a backstory. I work at a church school. So the church is upstairs, and downstairs are most of the school offices and school classrooms. And my dream was set there. And again, a bit of a backstory is if you've ever had kids, you kind of know the preschool community that you often encounter the same adults through birthday parties, through Sure. daydates and what have you. So the stream involved a woman whose daughter was in my daughter's class at the same age. We live in a Raleigh, North Carolina, and kind of a three degrees of separation type of community. So our daughters went through preschool together and went on to separate elementary schools. So we kind of lost touch. We were even just acquaintances just to begin with. So one night, I had quite often some of your listeners describe as the most vivid dream. It was just different and just very clear and very powerful. I saw, I must add, this mom ended up passing away from colorectal cancer and left a young family, a devastated husband, and a very sad community that she was very much a part of. So a couple of years after she passed away, I had this dream. And it was that I bumped into her in the hallway at the school. And she was just going 20 miles an hour, almost like she was planning an event or something. And she was moving really fast. And I was aware that she shouldn't be there in my dream. And I stopped her and just to say a name. I was like, Jane, oh my gosh, what are you doing here? How are you? And she wouldn't stop for me. And so I was literally following her like a duckling trying to, well, how are you? Where have you been? Or what do you know? And I asked her all these questions. And she wouldn't acknowledge me. And so she finally turned and hit the steps. And again, I'm following her going, how are you? Are you okay? Oh my gosh, this is amazing. And you know, the stairs where you start up and then there's a landing and then you proceed to go further up the stairs. She stops and almost like out of one of those comedy sticks, I run up behind her and she turns around and she looks down a couple of steps at me and looks me dead in my eye and goes, Kathy, tell them that the bird that they see that it's me. And so and then I woke up immediately. What the heck? But Jim, the odd thing about this was I had this dream, never said anything about it, never just it impacted me. I remember it to this day like it was yesterday. Right. So subsequently, my daughter and her daughter met again for high school, they ended up going to the same high school. And when my daughter said that she saw the girl, her daughter, I said, Oh my gosh, I had this dream one time about her mom. It was so weird. Told my 14 year old daughter about it, which thinking about it, I should have thought better because she goes and tells the girl, my mom had this dream. You know what I'm going? Oh my gosh, they're going to think, you know, you know, so she tells the daughter, well, the daughter and her family, her grandparents and the family, they were about to go on vacation. And they rented an Airbnb in Hawaii and went on this trip. Well, at the trip, they were all sitting at dinner and a bird flies into the family room. And they couldn't get the bird out and they couldn't get it, whatever. And they, they get that bird out. And so fine. Then another evening, the dad was sitting on the bluff, look overlooking the ocean, watching the sunset and kind of contemplating things. And a bird swoops down and brushes him on his shoulder. And the funny thing about this was they, it was so long between when I had the dream and when I told my daughter and then when my daughter told their daughter and that it happened to be before they went on this vacation where this happened. And I was like, you know, wasn't like I had the dream on Wednesday, woke up on Thursday, told them and they left that weekend. This was a couple of years in the span of the story being, being told. And I don't know, Jim, whether to classify it as your head scratcher, whether your prophetic dream, I never had those dreams before. I've never had one since. But the dad and I never mentioned anything about it. We never spoke to each other about it. But her mom, the woman who passed away, his mom came up to me one time at the girl's high school graduation and said, I just want to thank you for sharing that dream because that brought us such peace. Wow. And now again, another one of those too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence for sure. Exactly. Exactly. Kathy, thank you for sharing. And I think it's really important, really vibrant and they find their way to get their message across. Thank you. Thank you for being a part of the campfire. Jim, thank you and stay spooky. Stay spooky. On the campfire, we always hear about ghosts. This is a different kind of ghost and Kai from Arizona is back and Kai is going to tell us about this type of ghost. Kai, welcome back to the show. Thank you for joining us. Hi, Jim. Thanks for having me again. Yeah, so this is a story that takes place in the mid-August, I guess. I was in my mid-20s. I was living in San Francisco at the time. And I just moved into my very first apartment. And it was one of those kind of classic first apartment. It was just cute as I'll get all. It was 1906 was the building. Cool. So yeah, I was kind of an older building, lots of charm, absolutely tiny apartment, but beautiful views. And so I had lots of friends who come over. They called it the tree house because it was about the size of a tree house, but also because it had some trees around it that made it kind of feel like you were up in the trees. So I had this great little apartment that I shared with my two cats, Max and Charlie. And Max was kind of a younger adult cat. Charlie was a much older cat. He was pushing 20 at the time. And so we moved in and it was a lot of fun. We were enduring our time there. And after about a month or two, I'd say I started noticing like the shape of a cat sort of out of the corner of my eye, just right, you know, running through my peripheral vision. And I didn't think anything of it because I have two cats, you know, but I would turn to look at the cat and I would notice that there's nothing there, you know, and really, really expecting to see one of my cats sitting there or having just run into the corner or something. And so I think, oh, it's a small apartment. They may have run into the bedroom or something. And so I go check and both cats would absolutely fast asleep on the bed. Or they'd be down in the garden. I used to let my cats out back then. And so this kind of kept happening. I would just every now and then out of the corner of my eye, I just see the shape of a cat just kind of, you know, running past or I'd see them kind of go in past me coming up the stairs to the apartment or up on the railing down in the garden, different places kind of around that area around the apartment. And yeah, I didn't think too much of it, but it was starting to feel a little weird because it just kept happening. And then after a few months, I started hearing noises at night. And so the way that the apartment was laid out was that you had a, you know, bedroom and then a ensuite, you know, connected bathroom that was really tiny. The bedroom's tiny, the bathroom is even way more tiny. There was room for a sink, a toilet, and a shower. That was it. And it was right near my bed because everything's real small. And so I started hearing what sounded like my cat, Charlie. He's an older cat. I used to leave the shower dripping just a tiny, tiny bit so that he could kind of look at it because older cats like to do that sometimes. And there was a very specific sound that he would make when he would do that, which was that I would hear him kind of, you know, move the shower curtain aside a little bit. And then when he jumped into the shower, it was one of those kind of cheap plastic insert ones. So the floor was a little wonky. And when he jumped into it, you'd hear a little like, kind of sound as the plastic kind of pressed under his feet. And then you'd hear him go in there and he'd lick, lick, lick, lick, lick at the water. And then he would sometimes kind of scratch, scratch in there a little bit. And then you'd hear him kind of the wonk, wonk as he jumped out again, the shower curtain. So very specific sounds. And I wouldn't usually really wake up all the way when I would hear them because I knew it was just Charlie in the bathroom. But one night I did wake up and I couldn't figure out at first why I had woken up. But something felt really weird about it. And what I finally realized that was weird was that I had two cats purring at the foot of my bed on either side of my feet. And there were still sounds going on in the bathroom. So what was going on in the bathroom? So I thought it must be an animal, there must be a raccoon or, you know, not a skunk, because I would have smelled it, maybe a possum, but something kind of cat sized in there. Make that sound on the plastic. And living alone, I thought, shoot, I have, you know, I have to go deal with this. And I love wildlife, I love animals, but I do not love the idea of going into a tiny little space, you know, and trying to flush out an animal that's in there. So I laid there for a while, finally like put on my courage cap and went into the bathroom, pulled back the shower curtain. And I'm sure that a lot of your listeners and definitely people who have called in over the years know this feeling, but there's a really weird feeling when you fully expect something to be there. And it is just not there. And there was nothing there, like nothing at all. And I stood there kind of dumbfounded for a while, because those sounds had been going until I pulled back the shower curtain. I heard them all the way into the bathroom. And there was just nothing there. There's no way it could have gotten past me. So at that point, I thought, okay, that that was weirder than just normal weird, that was, you know, put that in the file with some of the other weird things that have happened in my life. And so I kind of laid down and pondered it. And I thought, well, you know what, it's cool. I have another cat basically in my house. I have a little extra bonus cat that I don't have to feed. I don't have to take to the vet. But there it is. And so it just kind of happened from time to time. I told my boyfriend about it at the time, who's now my husband. He's a skeptic. He did not believe me to this day. He was very kind about it, but he didn't believe me. But one night he was sleeping next to me in the bed right next to where the bathroom door is. And the sound started up and I like elbowed him and the ribs. Wake up. There it is. Tell me there's not noises coming from the bathroom. And he was like, yeah, that's real weird. And went in there. And of course, there was nothing in there. And he actually put on the headlamp. He's like, there must be something under the apartment, went down into the garden below, and went and looked under the under the apartment there. And there was nothing there. So he just told himself that there was something there and scampered off. But it was the same exact sounds that I would hear Charlie make the same, the shower curtain, the womp, womp, the lick, lick, all of that just with no cat. And so that was my ghost cat. When my friends would come over and visit me at the tree house, they would all kind of sometimes come in and just be like, hey, cat, what's going on? And we just kind of had an ongoing little joke about the ghost cat that lived in my apartment. So very cool, very cool. And we have heard other, one of the more touching ones that I heard was, and this is very early on with the campfire, there was a one who unfortunately, like many of us have had to do, you have a pet who, you know, reaches that stage where they're suffering, and you have to make that decision, which is very difficult. And she had to make that decision. And now dog collars are changing a little bit, the tags are incorporated and things. But back in the day, and still a lot of dog collars have the tags. And you know, if you've had dogs, for example, different ones sound different ways. And you can tell which dog is coming by the jangle of their collar. So unfortunately, she had to make that decision. And she was coming home from the vet that day after everything was completed. And she had the collar, of course, and she put it in the garage. And for a few days after that, she would hear the jangle of those tags throughout her house. Wow. And I can't remember if the dog actually came to her. And then it didn't happen anymore, that may have happened again, this is probably a story from 2010. So I'm a little foggy on the details, but that was the idea. And hey, if we can have human ghosts, why can't we have cat ghosts? Kai, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. Two-time storyteller, you deserve a Super Double Award. So thank you so much for doing it. Thank you very much. And stay spooky. Stay spooky, Jim. Thanks so much. Next up on the campfire, we're talking to Gabe from Washington and his wife told him about the show. I believe it's Melissa, right? Is that right, Melissa? Right. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for telling Gabe about the show. And let that be a lesson to everybody. That's how we get these great stories. People tell other people about the show. Then they come on and share like Gabe does. So be like Melissa. And thank you, Melissa, and stay spooky. Appreciate it very much. Gabe, you have a story about a strange man. Tell us about this strange man. Okay. So me and my friends, so to begin with, me and my friends would go rock climbing and always plan trips in Southern California. And we were planning a trip and one of our friends got really sick, which we got really worried about. But he assured us, hey, everything's gonna be fine. And just go without me. So me and my friend Nick decided to go on this trip. And before we did, we were going to get some fast food. And as we're waiting to pull into the parking lot, we saw this mountain of a man, probably six, five, 300 plus pounds. And he was mumbling to himself. And we just really didn't think anything of it at the time. And when we got into the fast food restaurant, we're waiting in line. And we the guy just all of a sudden was there. And we didn't see him walk in. We didn't hear him. And he's just right in front of us now. And he comes right up to us. He puts his hand on my friend Nick's shoulder. And he's mumbling, it's going to be all right. Oh, man. And we were just awesome. And we've, we were, we had this anxiety come over us. But we felt somewhat relieved. It was very strange feeling. So cut to we go on the rock climbing trip. We're had a great time. We come back. We're driving down the 395, which is in Northern California, very long stretch of highway, just like nothing on every side. And you can get a little, you know, tiresome and just there's nothing much to see. So like a lot of young dumb kids, we, you know, speed up, we're driving really fast. We're, we're passing cars on, you know, as the cars are on the right, you know, we're trying to pass them go faster, get in the next lane, pass them go forward. And we kept doing that a couple of times. And as we're doing it the final time, there's another car coming just as fast on the opposite direction towards us. And we thought, Hey, we'll just pull back into the lane we started in. But the car we were passing was now right next to us. Oh man. So we had very little choices. None of them were good. We either hit the car, we hit the car in front of us, or we somehow just go off the road. No good choices there. Right. Somehow we, we feel this big wind hit us and there's a flash of light that's almost blinding. And we don't, we're not sure if it was the cars headlights in front of us. But when we were able to see again, we were in the lane we started in, but in front of the car, we were trying to pass in the first place. And we weren't really sure how we got there. There was no honk. There was no skidding. There was no other sound. And we just heard this ringing in our ears. And we just drove in silence for like the majority of the rest of the way back down to Southern California. We really had no words, no explanations. And as soon as we get, my friend drops me off first. And then he calls me when he gets home in a frantic, panic, stricken voice tone and everything. And he's like, you're not going to believe this. But I walk into my house and my mom is reading her Bible. And when I look over to see what she's reading, it's Hebrews 13,2, which is a verse that says, do not forget to be, do not forget to show hospitality to strangers. For by doing so, some have shown hospitality to angels and fed more into that. And angels, I guess, in human form, according to the lore, can be kind of different. Sometimes they have some type of mental illness. It just doesn't cope well with the human body. And he told his mom the story and she was convinced that we had met an angel that day that helped us. And that explanation for it, but we were happy to survive and lucky to survive. And if it was an angel, then that's amazing. You know, the thing is, is that we've had stories like this before and I believe this is things sometimes I think we're delivered. So you kind, you were like, I mean, I'll give you an example I had. I had one time when we were moving and I was going back and forth across town with our van and dropping off boxes and stuff. And there was this one very busy day and I had to make this uncomfortable merge. And I thought for sure, I'm like, oh, I'm stuck here. I'm merging and I can't stop and somebody's going to hit me. I thought for sure there was some, it was on, there was nowhere to go. It was kind of like what you said. And then I merged fine. And I'm like, what just happened? Like I was just delivered. And it sounds like you had a similar thing where you guys were bracing for impact and you were just kind of delivered. That's what it sounds like. It sounds like it. I mean, we, the only, the other thing we thought of is, did we switch timelines or something? Like something drastically different, but some oversight by a higher power that helped us that day because we were out of luck in that moment. Well, Gabe, I believe it happens. I do believe it happens. Thank you for joining us on the campfire. Thank you, Melissa. Stay spooky. And Gabe, you stay spooky too. Stay spooky. Thanks, Jim. Bowser is back. Everyone calm down. The Super Mario Brothers can take care of the kingdom. Let's go. This April. Toad pack our things. The galaxy is waiting. So some cool dinosaur just shows up and he's now part of the group. Cool. The Super Mario Galaxy movie in cinemas now. Chanae is back from Oklahoma. She has a continuation of some stories. She was telling us before and Chanae, welcome back to the show. And if you can give us just a little brief recap, maybe some people didn't hear the first part of your story, just a little brief recap of the first part of the story and then do please continue. Okay. Thanks for welcoming me back, Jim. I appreciate it. So my story was about a ghost that was living in my kids' father and I. We had bought our first house and she's living there. I contacted a friend who had helped me get her to crossover and continue on. So this is basically what happened after that. And I will admit I'm a little bit more nervous because this one's a little bit more creepy to me than that first one. I know I originally said that I don't usually get creeped out, but I will say that this actually did really creep me out. So what happened was the medium that I spoke to, she had told me at that time, this was kind of a beginning for me because I'd always been kind of a searcher in the spiritual sense and she had told me this was kind of a beginning for me. And she said, you know, you actually have a gift that I've never seen before. She said, I've heard of it, but I've never seen it in person. But she said that gift is that you are able to help people cross over because I thought, I thought everybody could do that. Apparently, she said, no, but not everybody can. So thinking like, I mean, it's kind of corny, but you know, like Ghost Whisper, you know, that old show. So that's kind of what I started doing after this. She taught me how to do it. And I'm telling you, we had ghosts coming and going in that house all the time. And my kids' dad was not very happy with me because at night, we would hear footsteps, you know, running around in the house because it was an old house. And he would say, you need to tell your little friends, they need to be quiet at night. I'm trying to sleep. So after I started doing that, then came the actual medium abilities. So when I say that, I mean, I hate to use the word possession, but that's similar to what it was like. And one night, my kids' dad and I were sitting on the couch because I really had no control over this gym. It would just happen because I, like you said, I was fairly new. I didn't know how to control it. It began to happen. And what it feels like is like you're there, but you're way in the back. So it's almost like a dream. Like you're watching everything happen in front of you, but you have no control over it. It's almost like an out of body experience to some extent, in a way. Yes. Yes, I would say that. And at first, the first time it happened, there were people around, and they just thought I was crazy, you know? And I was beginning to think that too. And I, but this night, my kids' dad, he said, you are not you. He said, your eyes changed, your voice changed. He said, everything was different. And I remember, I remember thinking to myself, how funny this is funny because I couldn't do anything. So funny in like, how weird this is, you know, it just feels different. And I remember everything that was discussed. And I could remember, I could see this person that I was. And he was tall. He had a hat on. He had a pinstripe suit, kind of like a zoot suit type thing. And he had a coin and he would flip that coin and he was leaning up against the wall. And he was just, I wouldn't call it a smile, I would call it more of a smirk. And he's just watching. So my kids' dad, he asks the, starts asking questions, you know? And he asked, why are you here? And he said, I'm watching. And he said, watching what? And he said, I'm watching her. And he said, they sent me. And he asked him, who sent you? And he said, they, that's all you need to know is they. And he was like, well, why are you watching? He said, because they want to know what she can do. He said, they don't like it. And they want, want me to watch. And he said, you know, she is like a light in a dark place. He said, that's why they all come, is because she's a light in the dark. And it was, it was too weird for my kids' dad. So he, you know, kind of shook me out of it. And, and I will say it really was strange to them. Oh, the man did say, when he asked his name, the man said, you can call me Scout. And that's all he would say. So after that, some things did start showing up that were a little bit on the creepier side. And I honestly believed I was going crazy. And I even went to our medicine man who had been practicing with our family for many, many years. And I told him, I said, you know, I think I'm going crazy. And he laughed at me. He said, you're not crazy. He said, people might try to tell you you are and you might think you are, but I promise you're not. And he said, I know what you've been seeing. And I said, why didn't you say something before? And he said, I was waiting for you to come to me. And I said, Well, what do I do? And he said, use it. So he said, it's a gift given to you by creators. So you use it. So fast forward, the kids is that and I split up. And so this has been, this is a good year. I had kind of stopped doing that kind of work, no spirit work, because you know, if you, if you don't use it, you lose it. Right. And so I had just kind of pushed it to the back, you know, because you know, divorces came and things were happening. Sure. Well, I had been seeing this guy, we had only dated a few times, found out we were better friends. And he helped me move and stuff. And we would talk not daily. But he called one night. And he said, I need to talk to you. He said, I have I've been having this weird dream. He said, and it keeps happening. It's a recurring dream. He said, and I need to tell you about it. I feel like I need to. And I was like, okay. So he said, in my dream, it's storming outside. I can hear it. Because he's in his house. And he said, it's thunder and lightning. He said, and I hear a knock at the door. I go to the door. He said, and you're standing there and you're soaking wet. And you're crying. And he said, and over your head, I can see a man standing at the street. Oh my. He said, so I let you in. And he said, as soon as you step in, this man starts running. And he said, and when I say run, he said, he's completely full blown running to the door. He said, so I push you behind me and I'm standing at the door thinking I'm getting ready to fight. But when he gets to the door, he stops and he can't come any further. Huh. And he said, what do you think that means? And I said, well, I don't know. I said, tonight, maybe ask him. I said, so before you go to bed, you know, tell yourself, I'm going to talk to this man if I dream this again. So the next night he calls me back. And he said, I did what you said to do. And I talked to him. And I said, Oh, what did he say? You know, I was kind of excited. And he said, well, he said, I asked him, what do you want? And he said, he pointed at you and said, her. Oh boy. And he said, why? And he said, and I'm just telling you what was told to me. I know it sounds, I don't want to sound presumptuous, you know, right? But he said, you need to watch her, take care of her because she's special. And then he turned, he turned and walked away. Oh my goodness. So I said, I said, well, John, what did this guy look like? And he said, well, when I would see him standing, you know, down at the street, he said, he always had a hat on and he was kind of tall. And he said, he had like these old shoes on, like an older. And I said, was he wearing a suit suit? And he said, yes, he said it was like an old suit from like the 30s or 40s or something. Like a gangster. And I said, John, did he have a coin in his hand? And he said, Chenea, who is this guy? He said, yes, he had a coin and he would stand there and flip it. Oh, wow. Yeah, I just, it gives me goosebumps even. So, and you know, that's the last I ever heard from him. And like I said, I haven't tried over these, over many, many years to do that kind of work. And I'm kind of wondering if bringing it up now isn't going to make it start happening again. Because, you know, occasionally I'll see things out of the corner of my eye or I might hear a small whisper. Right. But it's so, it's so little things that make you think, well, I'm just hearing things, you know. So, but anyway, I thought, you know, after all these years, maybe it's time to share that story. But I know it, it may not seem really creepy to some people, but to me for, because, well, you know, like I said, I thought I was crazy. And for then, for John to have that dream, and he kind of confirmed that I wasn't crazy, like yet that really happened. And because John did not, I never even met him until after I was divorced. Well, you, you, you just have come across with a, you know, a sincere story. I don't want people ever have to feel, well, my story is not creepy enough. It's too creepy. It's not scary enough. It's too scary. I want people to come on and say, this is what happened to me. And I don't, you know, things that don't have, quote, logical explanations. And other than it's supernatural, which I think is, you know, perfectly, I'm biased, but I think that's perfectly logical. So I don't feel that people think shows have, stories have to have a scare factor. And they don't. I mean, for example, one time I saw a critique of somebody about this show and said, it's not scary enough. And it's like, good, because this show isn't about being, not making things scarier than they are, or making them less scary. It's about communicating real experiences. And that's what you've done, Chenea. So I appreciate it very much. And thank you for sharing it. How do you feel about having this sensitivity or connection? How is it something you've come to peace with? What do you think about it? I think it's really, it's like our medicine man told me it's a blessing, you know, I feel like I, actually, I know there's, there's not really a way for me to know that I've helped. But I, in my heart, I know that I have helped a few to go where it is that they need to go. For instance, and my niece was with me when this happened, but we helped one man who, who stayed because he wanted to be with his brother. They were very close. His brother passed on, and then he was still here. And so I helped him and we would use like a spirit board, not a Ouija board. It was something a little bit different. But I know I helped him because like the planchette literally came off of the board onto the carpet and across the floor to me. And he said thank you. And you would just, I would have to show you to just know. But so I really feel like it's a blessing. Again, I don't know that I will continue that work. I feel like it's probably a waste if I don't. So I probably will at some point and we'll see what happens, you know. It's different. We appreciate very much. Thank you for sharing the show or sharing the story on the show. We appreciate it very much. Have a great day and thanks for being a part of the campfire and Stay Spooky. Stay Spooky, Jim. Thank you. Alex is on the line from the great state of Missouri, the Show Me State. And he's not going to show us, but he's going to tell us a story tonight. Specifically, science from his grandma. He's been listening for 10 years. We're very appreciative of that. Alex, welcome to the show and tell us about these signs. Of course. Thank you so much, Jim. So I have been told when my grandma was alive that I was her favorite. And when I was younger, I was like, oh, that's not true. But then as I reflected on life, I thought, oh, maybe it is true. My siblings would tell me that and my cousins would tell me that. So I feel like when she passed, she wanted to let her presence known, basically. So what I feel is actually my grandma visiting me was our first event happened when I was traveling with my wife to go visit her family. It was snowing outside on the roads in Utah. And we were driving with the heat blasted on. And out of nowhere, this smell of perfume came through the air vents. And me just thinking to myself, like, oh, that's a little weird. I don't, that's not a smell we use. That's not just something we have in the car. And I was like, well, maybe it's just me. And then my wife turns to me and says, hey, do you smell that? And I was like, okay, okay. So it's not just me. And it was the smell that my grandmother would use all the time. Yeah. So she would, that's just how I recognize it was hers, because that's, that is her smell. And the fact that we both smelled it was just confirmation that she was there with us while we were visiting family. So it was pretty neat. Yeah. And that was the, that was the first event. The second one. So my grandmother and my mom look a lot alike. And my daughter, when she was one or two years old, and this was years after my grandma had passed. So she'd never met her. I don't even think she's really seen a picture of her to this day. But we're sitting in her room and we're just playing. And she looks up above the bed and she says, hi, Amma, which is what my daughter calls my mom is Amma. And I was like, well, that's, there's no one in here. Who are you talking to? She says, I'm talking to Amma. Or who am I looking at? You know, who are you looking at? She says, she's looking at Amma. And I looked over the bed. Of course, no one was there. But it was interesting for her to think that she saw her mom and who I feel was actually my grandma coming to pay her a visit. And then the last one, this one, I, I was resting because I had a late school event. And I was getting, you know, just some sleep in after work before class started. And I thought I had set my alarm. And I did not. And I was sleeping just in a dream. And I hear a large knock above my head. And oh, he had wooden headboards at the time. And this loud knock happens and I wake up, I'm like, oh, that must have been a dream. What was that? And I look at my phone to see what time it was. And it was right at the time when I was supposed to wake up. But I realized I had not set an alarm. And so I think that was my grandma saying, Hey, you got to wake up, it's time to get up and go to class. So, oh, that's so cool. I think, you know, I think they do have signs. And specifically because they do things that are meaningful to you and that will resonate with you. And I do think they give a sign. I really do. I really do. And it sounds like your, your grandma is, is kind of still around. And that's got to be comforting, no? It is because she was very important in our lives with me and my family. And having her pass away from cancer, you know, it's sooner than you want. But it's good to know that she's still with us. And being as religious as we are, believing in life after death, believing in, you know, resurrection and angels and all that. You know, it's more of an affirmation of that, that, you know, that really is a possibility of that out there. And especially when things happen that you just can't explain. So. That's a good point. Well, Alex, thank you for joining us tonight and sharing this very special story on the campfire. Thanks so much, Jim. Stay spooky. Stay spooky. We have a return caller. Sarah is on the line from Wales. We're always so glad to hear from our friends over in the UK. And it's interesting, I was telling Sarah is she had called before and I didn't immediately recognize her because before we used to do audio only. Now we do audio and video. So, you know, it's the first time I'm getting to see a lot of our callers. So it's like, oh, yes, we did talk before. So I'm so glad. Sarah, I know you have a story about your sister. Please, please tell us your experience. Well, it's kind of about messages from beyond the grave, really, and, and a way of proving myself right, which is always a good thing. Now, my sister, I was my sister's third birthday present. She was a very feisty, strong-minded, no-nonsense person, a little bit scary when you're young, but she was a very kind and decent person. Didn't spend an awful lot of time with her because she ran off to live in North America in the early 20s. So we spent a long time not being close, but, you know, with FaceTime and everything like that. We got close again. And then very sadly, she ended up living in Vancouver. I stayed in the UK. She ended up getting breast cancer. So she went through some terrible, terrible treatment. She was allergic to the chemotherapy and she really suffered. Briefly got the okay that it was all gone. And then only weeks later, it returned with a vengeance. And this time she knew that she wasn't going to survive. And she was devastated because she had a family. But in Canada, you've got assisted dying at home. So she arranged her own last day. And in the days leading up to it, because we used to talk very candidly, I said to, okay, well, you need to send me a message from beyond the grave. And she said, no, don't be ridiculous, because once you're dead, you're dead. And that is the end of it. But on the off chance, let's say on the off chance that there are there are options to send messages from beyond the grave. Let's decide on what it's going to be. And she was getting exasperated with. And I didn't really want to press her. But she went, oh, okay, hummingbirds. And I said, well, that's not overly helpful to me, because there are no hummingbirds in the UK. But anyway, she went, well, that's that's it. And then we moved on. I didn't want to press her. And as I say, days later, she she died. And then she'd been trying to force me an offender that she'd gone to school with who lived near me together, we both missed her. So we, we went to lunch together. And I didn't really know her. But we met. And she was saying, Oh, did you know I paint foxes? I said, I didn't know that, actually. But she said, I was I knew this morning I was having trouble. And I couldn't get this fox's face right. So I googled foxes. So I got a whole page of thumbnails of foxes and except one picture in the middle. And she said it was weird. And I said, Well, what was it? And she said it was a hummingbird. And I said, Oh, but you know, but you don't know that's not the carpet all your eggs in that basket. So I went, well, that's weird. Because also, you know, when you when you talk by your computer, you get all these things coming. So you know, you just don't. So I mean, after after she died, I got invited to an online hummingbird seminar, which was like, odd. But yeah, I think, I think Facebook was listening. Anyway, as time went on, she became winter. So her niece, who had had a little boy who was only one when my sister died, she rang me and she said something so weird is happening. And I said, What, what is it? She said, There's a hummingbird that's been tapping on my balcony window all day is if to get attention in the middle of winter. And we, you know, you get chills because that's so weird. And then the next day, it was still there tapping on the window. And she had she was so concerned for it, she went out and bought a heated hummingbird feeder. And then something I've missed, which is very relevant is just about that time and incredibly unexpectedly, this was two years ago, my husband was killed. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, well, me too. But he rolled his eyes when I ever started talking about anything which he thought was slightly out there. Anyway, so after she bought the heated feeder, the next day, there were two of them. And my niece rang me and she said, Now there are two of them. And I thought, Oh, but that's not it. I mean, that's that. Well, that is probably the most major thing because it was apparently a very rare type of hummingbird. And obviously, they'd all cleared off. They should have migrated south. But then a couple of months ago, my niece was going to Europe, Euro Disney or whatever it's called, with her little boy who's just turned four. And he and she'd had subsequently had a little baby. So she's one who she's named after my sister. And she said, Would you like to meet up in Portugal after we've done all the Euro Disney stuff? And I said, Yeah, sure. So we met up in Portugal. And we were walking along. And my sister's spirit seems to be incredibly strong, because the little lad would not remember my sister. So he's four now, she died nearly three years ago. And we was met, my niece was saying it's so lovely here and the work she does, she could work anywhere. So she said, Okay, do you know where I could live here? I could live in Portugal. It's so nice. And then the little lad said, No, granny says we have to go back to Canada, however nice it is here. You know, because he was he apparently chatted to my sister every night. And it wasn't granny says I can have ice creams or granny says you need to buy me lots of presents, it was always relatively sensible stuff. So, you know, that was amazing. So me and my niece were walking along the street and this enormous white feather fell out of a clear blue sky, we were just walking down this medieval town. And that was all because there were no trees, it was, oh my God, I forgot to tell you. And I said, Yes. And she said, On the way here, we were in the airport. And you know, those message boards notice what those ones that give you all the the plane updates, she said it was completely blank. So we're just standing there waiting. And she said, suddenly it went and it was a hummingbird. And I just oh, ha, ha, ha, ha. And we were so that's convinced me that I have been right all these years. But when I came home, I was telling a friend of mine on the phone and I said, My sister is like she's got powers from, you know, extraordinary. And I said, you know, I wish I could hear from my husband more. And we'd always had a little site, you know, in I don't know if it's the same in America, do you not have the same birds as us? But we have those little robins. And then you have your own, but these are our little European robins. And they always say in British folklore, something like if a robin appears, loved ones are near. And we had an incident when my husband was alive where our beloved dog died. And we had to take our other dog for a walk. And we walked across the road. And a robin sat on a fence, honestly, about a foot away from our faces, and just sang for about two minutes. And we were just standing there. So maybe robins are a thing. So anyway, so I was telling a friend of mine about the hummingbirds and the airport and everything. And I was kind of laughing saying, you know, my husband, he needs to step up his game. Yeah, she said left, right and center. And then the very next day, I was talking to another friend on the phone went up to my bedroom, which is far into this little house I now live in. And on the bed was a robin sitting under the photograph I've got by the side of my bed of my husband. And it didn't panic. It wasn't flushing. We're having a nervous breakdown. It just sat there looking at me and I got the dog with me. So I got the dog out, closed the door, opened all the windows, and went, you've sent me a seriously good message here. And then it hopped around a bit and fluttered out the window. Wow. And as I say, my husband would have been rolling his eyes, but he has certainly changed his tune. And likewise, my sister. They get across their messages in ways that are meaningful to us in ways they recognize or we recognize. And I am utterly convinced of I've heard too many stories. It's a real thing. Sarah, again, I'm sorry for your loss, but I'm glad that you've been able to get these messages. And I thank you for sharing your stories today on the campfire. You're welcome. You're welcome. Next up is Eric from Iowa. He's been listening for a couple of years. We're so glad to have him on the show. And he has a unique story. I don't know that we've, we may have had a story something like this way back in the annals of campfire. But not what, and it is an interesting thing. And I may actually have something to add on this one. Eric, tell us your story. Okay. Well, thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me on. This story goes back a number of years. So it was, it would have been in the mid 80s when this first started. So when I was a preteen teenage, you know, 12 to 14 years old, I grew up in a small town in Iowa. So in the summers, you know, around that time, there wasn't a whole lot on TV in the summers. I know TV, we didn't have as many channels and wasn't a whole lot to do. We didn't have central air either. So in the summer evenings, I would occasionally go out and just walk around town. Again, it was a small town in Iowa. And so no big deal. But occasionally, at night, I would come across, as I'm approaching a streetlight, a streetlight would flicker off as I approached. And now what happened every time? It happened a handful of times. I just kind of figured, you know, maybe it's reading my, you know, I'm casting a shadow on some sensor and it's reading that. But I remember specifically one time I stormed out of the house upset about something. And I got a couple of blocks from the house and I don't know if I did it, but I noticed that there was probably three or four lights in a row. Walked three to four blocks in a row with the light, would go off, flicker off, I'd get halfway through the block and then, you know, then it would start flickering back on and the next light would go off. I thought that was pretty weird. I didn't really think too much about it other than that's kind of awkward. It doesn't normally happen. And as I got older, I was still able to do, you know, still able to do it once in a while. Again, I could never do it intentionally, but it was still one of those things that would happen occasionally, even in a car. I would drive by slowly and once in a while, a light would flick her off. Just thought something unusual didn't think much more about it. Now, the story gets a little more interesting. About 20 years later, I was teaching a martial arts class in a different town, not too far away, but teaching a martial arts class. And these were kids who were probably 11 or 14 years old, kind of the same age group that I was at the time of the incident with the street light, but came out of class with this one boy about 12 years old, get outside the door of the facility and it leads to the top of some stairs. So that lead out to a small parking lot. So we stepped outside and he looks at me and he says, hey, watch this. And he takes his finger and he points at the street light and he looks at it for about four seconds and it flickers off. It was the craziest thing. He just looks at me with a big grin on his face, shrugged your shoulders and he just didn't really say anything and just took off running down the steps to his parents car. And it was, I just stood there with my mouth open, just dumbfounded on how he did that. So he obviously knew that he was able to control it somehow. I have no idea, still to this day, I have no idea. And just like me, I didn't have any conscious control of lights and it may not have been, it may have just been a coincidence. I had no idea. But this boy, he apparently knew that he had some sort of ability to turn that flicker that light off. And he wasn't standing right below it. He was, you know, probably 40 yards away, I guess. No, I don't know. I don't know if you know this, but this is a thing. There's been a book written about this. I'm just going to read from Wikipedia. Now, keep in mind that Wikipedia almost always comes from the skeptical perspective. But I'm just going to read the paragraph that kind of talks about it. Streetlight interference sometimes called high voltage syndrome is the claimed ability of individuals to turn street lights on or off when passing near them. Believers in street life interference alleged that they experienced on a regular basis with specific lamps and street lights and more frequently than chance would explain. Of course, here comes their debunker statement. However, SLI has never been demonstrated to occur in a scientific experiment. And those who claim the ability have been found to be unable to reproduce the effect on demand. The term streetlight interference was coined by proponent of paranormal phenomena author Hillary Evans. So she actually had a book out in 19, I don't know if that's a here or a sheet because Hillary could be a male. But Evans has a book that was out in 1993 called the SLI effect. So I didn't know if you knew that, but I thought I would share that this is a known thing. And I would take whatever Wikipedia says about any paranormal phenomena with a grain of salt because they 100% come from the debunker. Not that everything has to be believed all the time, but you could have a White House, UFO land on a White House loan and they would say, well, it allegedly landed. So I mean, right, you know, they're super skeptics over there. But the point is, is that it's a known thing. And I think we did have maybe one person on campfire years ago that had something, but I believe it because also what's interesting to me to what you said about your experience in this young man, you know, poltergeist is well known to almost correlate with teenagers, adolescents, those kind of things. So to me, this is just like kind of an extension of that. Right. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. You know, I like I said, never at the time that it happened with me when I was younger, I never gave it too much thought just kind of thought, oh gosh, that's kind of unusual, but I can never do it on purpose. It was always kind of, you know, sometimes it happens, sometimes it didn't. And so it's yeah. But now it seems like something that you've quote outgrown, it doesn't happen anymore. It has. Yeah, I haven't been able to do it since I became an adult. It kind of gradually, over time, it happened less and less often. And now it doesn't happen at all. You know, I could walk around or drive and I call or nothing happens at all. So I don't know if it's case of more lights or LED lights, you know, I don't, I don't know. Right. It could be different circuitry that's impacted. I believe that people have energy. Obviously that 12 year old kid, that's impressive that he could just say, watch this, I mean, that may have had a more controlled version of what you had, but it sounds like you had it too. And it is because as soon as I read this, I'm like, oh, this is a thing. This is not just Eric. This, this is like observed and been written about and studied. And I think at one point it may be on, I'm just going to look real quick. It may be an article on it. Years ago, we had some folks writing for our website. And and I thought that we did an article about that. I'm just taking a quick look. Don't mean to take everybody's time looking this up. Let me just look up one more thing. But I think that we may have actually had and still do probably a street light. Let's just see if that pops up. Yeah. We had a story or no, it was a link. It was a link to another story. So that's probably not there anymore. But yeah, it definitely is. It is something that is a known phenomena. You've experienced it. This 12 year old kid experience. If you've got a story out there like this, please do sign up, JimHerald.com slash campfire JimHerald.com slash campfire. Absolutely fascinating. Well, Eric, if you ever get it figured out, let us know. If you regain that ability, let us know. And thank you for being a part of the campfire and stay spooky. All right. Thank you, Jim. Stay spooky. Thanks so much for joining us on yet another edition of the campfire. Thank you to all of our storytellers. As I tell our storytellers when I record with them, if it weren't for them, there would be no show. So our great gratitude goes to them. Also gratitude to our Plus Club members. We thank you so much. Without you, we literally could not keep the lights on here at the spooky studio. And if you want to be part of that and get access to the whole back catalog, please check out how you can do that and some money saving offers at JimHerald.com slash plus. Also, if you're watching on YouTube, please do subscribe to the channel. We would appreciate very much. And we'd love for you to become a free member of our free social community, virtual campfire at virtualcampfiregroup.com. Thank you so much. We will talk to you next time. Have a great week, everybody. Stay safe. And of course, as always, we've been saying it for years. Stay spooky. Bye-bye.