Living In A Haunted Penthouse - Jim Harold's Campfire 750

Our caller lived in a haunted penthouse. We'll find out more about it on this edition of Jim Harold's Campfire. Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold's Campfire. Next up on the campfire is Jacob from Minnesota. He's been listening since something like 2017. He said he used to get in a little trouble at work about it. but I'm so glad that he stuck with us. And his story is about something I don't think we've ever had on the show, a haunted penthouse. And as I was telling Jacob before I hit record, I would have been more likely to be in the outhouse, not the penthouse. But I'm so glad to have him on the show. Thank you, Jacob, for your longtime listenership. And tell us about this haunted penthouse. Yes, thanks for having me on, Jim. I love Herald Media. Thank you. Um, yes. So basically I lived on the edge of downtown Minneapolis for 10 years. And for six of those years, nothing ever happened. I was in this apartment and then due to COVID the penthouse, I'm using air quotes, opened up. So I had the opportunity to move and I needed, you know, a change of scenery. So I thought I'll give it a shot. It was still as rundown as my other place. It just happened to be on the top floor. But I was excited to go up there. So because I was just moving floors, I kind of moved stuff up in stages. And one of my friends was helping me move. We were getting the bathroom all set up. And she came out of there laughing. And she's like, where did you get that? And I'm like, get what? She's like, the painting with the eyes that are moving. I'm like, what are you talking about? And if such a thing existed, I probably would own it. But I'm like, you need to show me what you're talking about. And this particular friend is someone who doesn't joke around. She actually worked at the Mayo Clinic, very scientific, would never prank me or anything like that. So we went into the bathroom and what it was, someone had gone to Europe and had given me a little Mona Lisa in a gold frame. And because I'm classy, I hung it behind the toilet. I mean, where else? So she said, yeah, when she went in there, the eyes were spinning like pinwheels. Oh, gosh, that sounds like something else. Scooby-Doo. It's like done. I know. Done. And she put away towels. She said they followed her around the room as if it was like maybe, you know, motion activated or something like that. And I she was so serious about it. I took it out of the frame and pulled it out. It was just, you know, a piece of thin paper. There was no electronics, nothing to it. And her reaction scared me because, you know, she saw what she saw and there was no denying it to her. So I'm like, that's the weirdest thing. Like nothing like that is I've never seen anything like that. Right. So every time I went in there, I looked at it, but, you know, kind of hoping, but never saw anything. And needless to say, she never came back to visit. And then a few months goes by. I had friends over and we were getting some food ready in the kitchen. And this apartment building was built in 1911. It had a built in breakfast nook and there was a window above the breakfast nook. And as my friend and I were standing next to one another, we saw very clearly, very solidly legs walk by that window. And now if you were in a basement apartment and you saw legs walk by, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But we were on the top floor. There was nothing above, nothing below. So before I could even say anything, I saw it. But I was thinking, I just saw somebody walk by the window. my friend was like did you he ran to the window he's like did you just see legs go by this window and i'm like that's crazy yes i did he's like that is the craziest thing i have ever seen in my life and again there's no way that someone could even um you know mine that or hang over the side or anything like that it was just totally impossible and um he never came back to visit again. So if you don't want to trend here, Jacob. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, that kind of stuck with me. And I'm like, you know, two weird things have happened. But I am kind of a skeptic still. I know that's frustrating for a lot of people. But it just I didn't have anything to put with it. It was weird. It was very weird. But the stuff that really scared me happened, probably, I would say it was another few months. I was just going to bed. I hadn't started even like winding down. I wasn't really tired yet. Right. And I heard a voice clear, a very clear voice right next to the bed. And I couldn't make out what it said, which was very unnerving. But it was, you know, as if someone came into your room and said something to you when you weren't paying attention, you know, you heard it, but you didn't know what it was. My reaction was to look under the bed, look in the closet, look behind the couch for somebody, a human person that maybe somehow got in. And there was no one that really shook me just because it was so clear. And then I still was a little on the fence about the whole thing until noises started happening that it was like as if something was mimicking common everyday sounds, like the sound of the dog jumping off the bed in the middle of the night. I would hear that very clearly and he would be asleep. And then the thing that, um, it sounds so sad, but I would fall asleep with the TV on a timer like every night. And inevitably the control would fall and hit the floor. I would pick it up in my sleep. I mean, I did this a million times for years and years. Well, I would hear the remote fall on the floor. I'd reach down to pick it up and it wouldn't be there. And it would be, you know, on the nightstand the whole time. So it was weird. It's like, and that, when that happened, one of the times I didn't feel like I was alone. And so I will admit to the listeners, I started sleeping with a little light on in the other room because I would hear dog toys fall off the bed that didn't fall off the bed, you know, and it, if that happened, I would say for a couple of months. And I mentioned it to a neighbor who I knew was into she was a self-proclaimed something I don't want to misidentify what she was but she was very into the paranormal she um before I even said anything about the mimicking sounds she had brought that up and she said it sounds like something was kind of creating you know everyday noises and then she said the voice you heard could have been whatever this was trying to perfect your own voice. And that really freaked me out. Because then I thought, you know, it could have been my, you know, when you hear your voice on a recording, you're like, who's that? Yeah, because of the bone conduction and everything. Yeah, absolutely. So I thought, you know what, it could have been that. And it was, like I said, it didn't make sense to me. But she gave me what she said was a blessed stone, it looks like a raw moonstone or something. And I honestly, I lived there for probably another year, year and a half and nothing ever happened after that. Now, do you think it was the stone or maybe somehow your belief that the stone made a difference or both? You know, that's a good question. She had said she thought maybe it was a relative who had passed. And I just said, you know, I really don't think that that is because I had been in that other apartment in the same building for so long and nothing ever happened. You think it was connected to that apartment? I do. And, you know, the lead mirrors that were built into the apartment were original to the 1911 building. The doorknobs, the glass doorknobs were all original. The sinks were original. So it's like maybe something held on to something. I never really could put it together. A lot of history there. That's a great story. The Scooby-Doo spinning eyes of Mona Lisa, the mimicking of the sounds, also the walking of the – just a great story, Jacob. Well, it's a mystery, and as I often say, the best campfire stories sometimes end with a question mark, not a period. Jacob, thank you for joining us and sharing your story tonight on the campfire. Thank you. Stay spooky. We've had some changes in our ads and the way we do them, which resulted in a reduce of the income for the company. And we need your help to keep things going. So please consider joining our Plus Club at jimharreld.com slash plus, jimharreld.com slash plus. Now, it's not a deal where it's just for us. It's for you, too, because you get a lot of great stuff. For example, on March 4th, we are going to be doing an Ask Me Anything with myself and Dar. just for Plus Club members. If you listen to Behind the Scenes this week, which is a Plus Club-only show, we'll give you that URL so you can dial in on the evening of March 4th. You also get access to the entire back catalog of this show, The Campfire, going back to 2009. The entire back catalog of The Paranormal Podcast, going back to 2005. Not only that, we're going in, we're taking out the ads from the older episodes, re-releasing them. For both Campfire and the Paranormal Podcast, that's called Campfire Remastered. And new episodes do not have ads. New episodes do not have ads for Plus Club members if you're using Apple Podcasts or Spotify. So we think it is a cool deal. Plus, it makes our jobs possible. JimHerald.com slash plus. JimHerald.com slash plus. I hope you join today. And I hope that you enjoy the rest of these Campfire stories. Next up, she's been listening for several years to the shows almost for eight or nine years. And she started off with the Paranormal Podcast. If you haven't checked that out, check out that show, the Paranormal Podcast, wherever you get the campfire. And Jen is here from Maine to tell us a childhood story. I won't spoil it, but Jen, as I told you, this is one of my favorite kind of stories because it really makes you think. Jen, welcome to the show. Thanks for listening all these years and tell us what happened. Thanks, Jim. This is really awesome. I'm really happy to be here. So this story takes place back when I was very young in 1980, so ish, 1980 timeframe, where I grew up in Vermont. And in this small rural community and house, our house was actually relatively new. It had been built in 1973. It was one of those typical raised ranch kind of things at that time. So I was asleep one summer night and I slowly awoke and what looked like my dad was standing over me. And I was like, Dad? Dad? and whatever it was looking like my dad walked started to walk around my bed and um and so then i was like daddy daddy and i was and it wasn't responding to my words And so I sat up in bed and waved my pillow at it. And my pillow went through whatever it was. Oh, man. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And I screamed. I shrieked. And I would shriek like I did that like that, but your microphones would really hate it. So I screamed really loud. daddy my dad came into my bedroom there were two of my dad and then the one and then my pillow hit my dad and the other one disappeared so they were there at this you were seeing two of them you were seeing double oh my very briefly for a very brief um okay just tell us what happened from there on out so then, so, um, so then my dad was like saying that, believing that I just had a nightmare and he was like trying to console me and I was like crying and I was like shaking and stuff. And he's like, it was just a nightmare. It was just a nightmare. And, um, and so I don't know. I think our parents back then didn't believe us so much. Like if my kids had said that to me, I would have handled it very differently. But, yeah, I had to, you know, I think he like cuddled with me for a little while. But then it was just like, okay, time to go back to sleep. Time to go back to bed. So, I mean, you've had a long time to think about it. And it sounds like you've thought about it a lot over the years. What do you think it was? The only thing I can think of is, you know, like you say, like a doppelganger. Like it was really just it was my dad, but it wasn't my dad. And it was kind of weird and creepy. But it was like looked so much like my dad that it was like dressed like my dad. Like it's like my my dad always slept in a T-shirt and boxers, you know, and it looked like that. It looked like that, but it didn't respond to any of my verbal speakings at all. It was so creepy. And I know there will be people out there, and I don't believe this, but there will be people out there say, ah, Jen, you were having a dream, but you were utterly convinced you were awake, correct? The swinging of the pillow is what really nailed it for me. Because then when I swung it and it went through a couple of times and then it hit my dad, That was just, wow. That was nuts. It was so crazy. Now, have you thought about either a trickster type entity or have you thought about maybe some kind of time slip where you were seeing a projection of him from another time or kind of like a multiverse layered on? Have you thought about any of those? And again, I have no idea where it is. Have you thought about any of those possibilities? Yeah. And I kind of it could potentially be something time related, but I don't really think so. There was some trauma in in our in our existence back then. So I it was just really odd. It was really odd. And I don't I don't know. I have considered and kind of thought about things based on, you know, other people's stories and listening to you for, you know, all these years and stuff. But but I'm really not sure. Yeah, I will tell you something. The doppelganger stories are some of my favorites and some of the weirdest because it's like, I don't know what it is. I mean, I have that one. I even when I do my live talks, I talk about it. the one where the medical worker saw herself in the morning across the hall in the elevator. And later in the day, she saw herself in reverse again. And to me, that's like one of the prototypical doppelganger stories. And this one is, too, because the pillow, the pillow went through this other whatever it was, faux dad. Yeah. Well, Jen, like I often say, some of the best campfire stories don't end with a period or an exclamation point. They end with a question mark. And that's what this one does. Thank you so much for being a part of the show tonight. Thank you so much, Jim. I appreciate it. Stay spooky. A return caller and a good one with a very fascinating story. We're so glad to have her back with us. We're talking about Daniela from the United Kingdom. You can tell she knows what she's doing. She's got that fancy mic there. She's all set up. So, Daniela, you have a remarkable story about your mom. Please tell us what happened. I do, yes. So this actually started in November of last year. So I'm going to preface it with it started on the Thursday night in the sense that I went to bed feeling unwell. my husband brought me up like some medicine and like water and like hot water bottle and then I just went off to sleep and during my sleep I had the most strangest dream on the Friday morning and it was just it was really strange there was other odd bits and pieces but the bit that sticks out in my mind is that in the dream I was sitting in a park overlooking the English countryside on a bench and my mum was sat next to me and she just turned to me and she just said it's amazing what modern medicine can do these days and it was just like just kind of hit me a bit and I remember I woke up and it was about five o'clock in the morning and I just sort of thought to myself oh maybe that's a sign that maybe I need to take some medicine or something something like that anyway went back to sleep my alarm then went off at about seven o'clock in the morning got up got ready to go to work went up into my office and started my work and then about half hour later I got a text from my dad asking me to give him a call so I gave him a call and I was like is everything all right and he turned around and he said well no your mum's had a stroke so obviously having that sort of news you're sort of a bit like oh my god what would you need me to do do you want me to come down there everything else because i don't live in london anymore um so my dad's like no no it's absolutely fine um i'll give you a call when we know some more information so anyway i spoke with my twin sister and my older sister and me and my twin sister decided that we was going to make our way down to london to my mom and dad's house so that we were there should anything happen my older sister was making her way to the hospital and my niece who is a paramedic was also making her way into london to be um near as well anyway after a few hours my niece and went and got my mum and my older sister and brought them back to my dad's house and we was all having like a chat like you do been in england a cup of tea solves a lot of problems so we're all sitting around the table having a cup of tea and we've kind of figured out that my mum um my dad had called the ambulance and basically that my mum had got the medication that she needed within three hours of the stroke hitting which anyone who knows someone who's had a stroke the earlier you get it right exactly the better the recovery is and so obviously that was kind of a bit like okay that's that was something we're like okay that's that's hope right there um we later on went to see my mum uh when I saw her on the Friday afternoon she was very um you could tell she'd had a stroke her face was dropping her speech her cognitive and everything was very very slow and that and obviously we we left and we let her rest 24 hours later we've gone back to see her she could smile she could speak um she still had a slight slur but you could understand her um her cognitive was like back at 95 percent oh wow um and that yeah it was it was a good recovery for 24 hours she could lift her arm up the only thing she couldn't do was move her right hand um so the only effect that was left was that of her right hand now a couple of months have gone by um obviously my mum is still recovering she's actually recovering to the point that she can now move all of the fingers and thumbs on her right hand and she can slightly grip things as well so she's made a remarkable recovery but I then spoke to her and I asked her um what does she remember from that day and because she said to me that she remembers waking up and knowing that something was wrong but not knowing what was wrong struggling to try and like get my dad um dad's attention because she was sleeping downstairs because she'd had like a a flu infection and she didn't want to disturb him because he was also recovering from the flu uh she managed to call him obviously my dad's then called an ambulance for her and i just mentioned to her that like i'd had like something strange happen and she's like oh what was that so i told her about my dream and i told her about the words that she'd said to me in my dream which is it's amazing what modern medicine can do these days and i also happened to tell her that i had that dream about five quarter past five in the morning to which her face dropped and she said that was about the time she noticed that something was wrong wow with her so yeah so it was a bit kind of a bit of like a shock because we sort of looked at each other and We like whoa Yeah And it almost like I mean it doesn really It kind of defies categorization right Because she wasn aware of having a communication with you but she obviously somehow had a communication with you in the dream state And it was almost a communication to you at the time of the stroke, but it was a communication from future mom who had had the benefits of modern medicine, communicating back to you what the benefits were of modern medicine. so it wasn't it was like her unconscious somehow her future unconscious after the time of the stroke communicating back to you in the dream state yeah because my mom was quite shocked when i told her she's like oh my god right it's just like she's like i'd never thought like that that would happen not that we're not close or anything but you don't usually think of it well the thing is i don't think I've ever heard a story like that. Now, I'm sure that they exist, but it kind of it it goes through several different categories. It doesn't fit to one category. And it gets to I was just doing a library talk not too long ago. And I really hit that point home. You know, we have all these different kinds of stories. I always like to share ones from different categories, not just your basic ghost story. And I said, well, what does this all mean? If you tie together, it just means that the world the universe is a lot stranger than we can understand yeah basically and i think we have a lot of connections that we don't need technology for if you actually open up to it right you can communicate and do you miles away i know you've been on the show before do you feel that you're maybe a little more open to these kind of things i i do um because i've had quite a number of experiences in the past I've had a lot of deja vu experiences where I've dreamt of things and then it's happened even to the point like I was reading a book in a dream and then I was reading that book in school the next day without knowing that we was going to be reading that book and I think my family as a whole have had a lot of paranormal experiences and and have had a few with people passing away as well at the time of people's death they've had experiences and things like that so it kind of wasn't much of a surprise in some ways but I think my mum sort of wasn't expecting it just as I wasn't expecting it when we kind of put everything together because after I had woken up my initial thought was oh it's I should take some medicine for feeling unwell but it wasn't that at all. It was actually what was happening with my mum. And I guess I'll ask you this. Is she also someone who is very sensitive and maybe more tuned into these things? I don't know if my mum's necessarily sensitive. I know my mum has a belief in in these things and has had experiences as well. I know she's before she was even with my dad before me and my sister was born. My mom had like paranormal experiences in one of the houses that she lived at. There was episodes around when my granddad passed and everything with the dog and things like that. So there's always been like a lot of paranormal around my family, both my mom's side and my dad's as well. Well, Daniela, always great to speak with you. You always have such interesting stories. Hope you'll come back. And mom's doing well now, you were telling me, right? She's doing very well. She's doing very, very well. Excellent. And then, I mean, I think that shows that there's certainly hope out there for folks because strokes, you know, people don't think about them, but they're serious business and they happen to a lot of people. So we wish everybody well who's dealing with that. Daniela, as always, thank you. And of course, stay spooky. Thank you. Stay spooky, Jim. Next up on the campfire is Sarah and she's been listening since 2018. My goodness, That's quite a run, so we appreciate it. And Sarah is going to talk to us about living in a highly haunted house and what that was like. Sarah, welcome to the show and tell us what happened. Thanks for having me. Okay, so this is going back to 2005 in Lincoln Park in Chicago. And it was my first apartment ever. I was in college still. It was an old house that was converted into a two-flat. And when I moved in, there was definitely a vibe. There was a vibe immediately. It was a really old house. I think it was from the 1800s. And at the beginning, when I first moved in, I just heard footsteps and just like this constant murmuring sound. But, you know, coming from dorms, I was like, maybe it's my neighbors. I just made excuses for it at first, even though I was on the top floor. So I wasn't going to get any of their their sounds in there. But then around a couple of days after I moved in, I started hearing this sound at 3 a.m. every single night. It was this hollow sound of like a bouncing ball against my wall in my bedroom. I'm on the second floor. There was no ball. Right. There'd be no kids up at 3 a.m. It was every single night. The wall it was on was always the same. And I tried to debunk it a million times. It was the wall. It was an exterior wall. And on the other side was like a utility closet that was connected to my rooftop deck. So that's all that was there was like a utility closet. And I went through it. I was like, maybe some animals getting in here. What could this be? But it lasted forever. 3 a.m., ball bouncing against my wall. It would keep me up all night. and then one night my boyfriend my then boyfriend now husband slept over and after that he'll deny this if he listens to this but after that he refused to sleep there but he also refused to let me sleep there so like every night at like 9 p.m i take the l over to his apartment two neighborhoods over and sleep at his house instead of in that apartment. Yeah, it was bad. It was so scary. I never wanted to be in that apartment. So I only lasted three months. This happened every night. I was not sleeping. I had like bags under my eyes and I was traveling by train to his house every night. So three months later, I was like, forget this. This is crazy. I'm not going to I'm not going to stay in this house anymore. So I decided to move out. I had to pay out still like nine months of my lease. And I was like, oh, man. Yeah. See, that's like that's when you know it was really bad. I'm cheap. It was really bad. So this is when the real craziness happens. I decide to move out. It's January right after Christmas and I'm getting my last things into the car. I look up at the house trying to think like, is there anything else that I need to do? And I see that the kitchen light is on. So I'm like, well, I'm going to be paying nine months of rent that I'm not going to stay in. I'm not paying those utilities. So I go upstairs and I go to turn off the light, but it's off. Like it's a long day. I'm tired. I go back down and it's back on. Oh, brother. Yes. I walk to the side of the house and I look up at that kitchen. Maybe it's reflecting. No, it's the light in my kitchen. So I go back up. It's off. I come back down. It's back on. This happens three times. And by the third time, I'm like, you know what? Goodbye, ghost. I see that you are acknowledging me now. I'm out. So I move out. I don't go back there again for another year. One of my friends lives in the neighborhood. So I go back to visit her. I'm like, let's see how that old haunted house is doing. So I go down that street, Dayton Street, still haunts me. And it's demolished. There's no house there it's flat land and if you know anything about lincoln park those houses are worth millions even crappy ones it was gone it was crazy so do you think it was torn down as a result of the the haunted is that your haunted piece that's your speculation that there was something wrong with that house. I'm not even getting into the negative feelings that we would feel in the house. Me and my best friend moved in together. We stopped talking to each other the day we moved in. There was so much weird negativity in that house. I wouldn't be surprised. Someone bought it right around the time that I left. So I had to just send my rent checks to someone else. And yeah, then it was just gone out of nowhere. That was not on their plans because I talked to them. So let's say that the house were there still. And somebody said, Sarah, you know, we'll give you $1,000 to stay overnight there. But you have to be by yourself and you have to stay right where all that spookiness happened. Would you do it? Would you do it? Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment. I would go back and see if that ghost is still there. And it honestly felt like a little wink, a little nod when they kept flipping the lights on and off. That is funny. I'm kind of curious. I'd go back. If you would have taken the bulb out, then the light came back on. That really would have been something. But still, very cool, very cool. Now, we don't do a lot of this anymore because it got to be a little too much. But since you have such a fantastic mic there, I know that you're a podcaster. Give people about 30 seconds on your podcast and where they can find it. Thank you. Yeah, it's called Tiny Marketing. It's everywhere. And I talk about building marketing strategies and systems when you're a one-person business, mainly working with solo consultants. I need to take a listen. Sarah, thank you for joining us and stay spooky. Thank you. Oh, a little addendum to Sarah's call. She emailed us right after we finished and said, hey, can you say stay spooky to my son, Dean? He loves the campfire and wanted me to call in. So say no more, Sarah. Dean, thanks for listening and stay spooky. Larry from Oklahoma is on the line and I was telling him as we were starting this, hats off to him because among other things, he's an animator and an animation director. And I shared with him, I can't draw a stick man. And so anybody that can do that, any kind of artist, hats off to you, all the recognition in the world. But Larry is going to tell us a story about a very terrifying encounter, and I can't wait to hear it. Larry, thank you for joining us and tell us what happened. Well, thanks for having me. So I've worked in film since 1990. I started out at Warner Brothers, worked for Disney, a lot of other companies. And on this particular production, it was an independent production working on a on a famous toy line, which I won't mention. I was working in between Los Angeles and India. And the production was between 2008 and 2009. I'd been out to India once already. And my second trip there, I was animation director on the project. My assistant director came out with me, and they had a facility for us to stay in, a nice business park with hotel rooms. But I'd been to the beach that day and got back a little bit late, and I thought, you know what, I'm going to stay at the nicest hotel. And I was in Trivandrum, India, which is on the coast, and it was called the Mascot Hotel. and I fell asleep with the television on, the lights were on, and about 2 o'clock-ish in the morning India time, I kind of got a chult in my bed, and I thought, you know, oh, I just jumped in my sleep, but it felt like a shove. And I sat up, and I turned the television off, and I reached over to turn the light off. And when I did, I noticed that the light dimmed, And I've been in India before, as I said, and I've worked in Asia and I've experienced brownouts there. They're not too uncommon. So I thought, oh, we're having a brownout. And I looked behind me at the other lamp behind me on the other side of the bed. It was a king size bed. And I thought, well, that's weird. That one's not dimming. But as I was looking at it, this darkness kind of overshadowed me. And it was like it was sucking the light out of the room. And that's the best way that I can describe it. Never experienced anything like this. Now, I'm a Christian, but I'm no holy roller. I'm not charismatic or anything like that. And never experienced anything like this before. Right. My feet are on the floor and I'm fully awake. And I'm standing up at this point. And I look up and to my left, I see this black mass manifesting. And the best way that I can describe it is if you've ever been in a swimming pool wearing a diving mask, everything's really clear. Right. And you look up and someone is pouring a big five gallon bucket of black India ink down on top of you. And you're looking at it coming down at you. That was the closest thing to what I saw that I can describe that you could visualize. Wow. So it as it comes down, it's blacker than the blackest black. Now, when I was working at Disney in Australia on a production, I went spelunking. And I'd gone caving before. That's, you know, wild caving. And in the middle of the trek in the cave, we turned all the lights out to experience what total darkness was like. Absolutely no light. Now, this is the only way I can explain it. This thing was blacker than that. I don't know how that's possible because how can something be blacker than the absence of light? Right. But it was. But it also had more form than I can see all of this form. And it was more real than the room was real. Hmm. Of course, I've never experienced anything that was more real than reality. So, again, this is the only way I can describe it. So I'm looking at this thing, and these two tendrils come down and touch my tongue, and I can't move all of a sudden. This reminds me, my dad was the major of the fire department of Oklahoma City. And so he was always about safety. And when I was a kid, I was probably, I don't know, four years old. Don't ever stick anything into the electrical outlet. So, of course, I got a house key one day and decided to find out what would happen. And I stuck the house key into the electrical outlet. And, you know, you can't let go immediately. And when those tendrils touched my tongue, it was like that, but not as intense. It was kind of like electrical, kind of. And I couldn't move. and without me thinking about it, without me pondering, it was not robotic at all. The words, it was really hard to get out, came out of my mouth. The Lord is holy. It was like, oh. And finally, when I got that out, this thing that was more real than the room was real, had all this crazy volume, blacker than the black is black, suddenly flattened. It looked fake. But above me, imagine taking a droplet of ink and putting it on a microscope slide. And then you put that other piece of glass on it to completely flatten it out. Right. It was like that kind of. And suddenly it just shifted out of my sight. It didn't go through the wall. It was kind of like if someone a magician that's pulling a tablecloth off of a off of a table. And everything's, you know, left there. It was like pulling that tablecloth. It just pulled away that fast. And I got the sense that it was terrified. And you'd think at that moment, you'd think I'd be terrified. I wasn't. I was angry because somehow I knew that it didn't have permission to be there. And it certainly didn't have permission to touch me. Now, when I got back, there was a movie that had just been promoted called A Haunting in Connecticut. And there was a movie post drive with a kid in a chair and this black mask coming out of his mouth. And I'd never seen that before. I'd been in India and those promotions weren't in India. And when I was driving by the billboard that I saw the image on, I was shocked because I was like, whoa, that is the closest thing, a photo of what I would say that evoked that same memory immediately in me when I saw that. What do you think it was? What do you think it was? I think it was a demon. Absolutely. It was demonic. Now, what a demon is, there's a lot of debate on that. Some say they're fallen angels. Some say they're, you know, humans that that that are so evil, their presence remains. Some people believe they're the dead spirit of Nephilim giants. But that wasn't the end of it the next day. So I called some friends immediately like that happened. And I'm immediately on the phone calling friends in in Los Angeles and telling them what's happened. And I'm like, I did not hallucinate this. I was totally awake. this is I'm not they know I'm not crazy and I gave them all this explanation um and a couple of the people I called were like yeah that's you're not hallucinating and there's some stories that go along with that at a later time but the the next day I go out to the beach again and my assistant director is there and we're having lunch and I need to hit the can and it's a little outhouse uh it's an open area on the beach and there's a little outhouse I'm going to go wash my hands when eating shrimp. And when I get over there, I suddenly hear this growling noise behind me, and I look over, and there's a little palm tree. It's maybe a foot and a half, maybe, a foot and a half tall. And there are no palm fronds on it. They're all flat laying on the ground. There is nothing there but that. It's a little palm tree. It's about that big around, right? There's nothing there. And the best way I can describe it is, if you've ever heard a recording of a Tasmanian devil, not the one I've animated, but a real one. But playing backwards and it sounded like there was more than one. And at that moment, I was scared because I'm in the middle of the day. There's all these other people around. Nobody right there. But I mean, I can look over and there's my friend, you know, maybe 35 feet away from me. And I propped the door open and I said, in the name of Jesus Christ, get out of here. And it ceased. I washed my hands. went back to the table and said nothing. So that's what happened. Why do you think it was visiting you? Well, I can tell you one of the guys I called in California, he said, have you been talking about Jesus? And I said, well, no. I said, people have asked me about myself. And they asked me if I go to church. That kind of thing was, well, yeah, you probably have, but you didn't realize it. And he said, well, you have upset the local gods. And I'm thinking when he sings, what are you talking about? And I put it all together later. He was talking about demons specifically, but I knew innately that it didn't have permission to be there. I knew innately what it was. Of course, I'd never seen anything like this before since. And when I got back to California, my son had an entity that came in his room. We've never had this happen before. I didn't know about it until weeks later because he was too terrified to tell me. I don't think it was the same thing, but I think they talked to each other. And he had something raise up out of his floor, a dark figure, and just stand over him, over his bed. And he was so scared he couldn't call out for me, and he just covered his head. He didn't tell me for weeks. But, of course, I put that together. It was right after I got back. So I suspect that it was in some way, shape or form connected. And that's I mean, I've never seen anything, like I said, before or since like that. Wow. That would be a terrifying thing. And I know that you've actually written a book where you've incorporated some of this in that. Right Yeah Yeah Exactly I wrote a brief Yeah I released it It the giant chronicles tip of the spear i released it uh in november so it gotten good reviews so far if you like to pick it up on amazon or barnes and noble it's out there i've written screenplays in the past but that's the first novel that i've written so well uh thank you for sharing check it out well thank you for sharing your story and uh folks can certainly check that out so glad to uh give the opportunity to share that. And thank you so much for being a part of the campfire. Remarkable and also remarkable. I saw on your Zoom profile some of your artwork. Fantastic. So kudos to you for that. Thank you for joining us today, for listening, and stay spooky. 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 that 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. It's not X. It's not Twitter. It's not Blue Sky. It is just for us. And people are loving it. We've got thousands of people over there sharing their campfire stories, maybe sharing their opinions on a paranormal podcast interview. that we did sharing their own stories, sharing their own images, sharing so much. And you're missing out if you're not a part of it. And the best part of all, it's free. It doesn't cost you a penny. It cost me, cost me to pay for the platform for the community. But we kind of got tired of the social media sites. We're probably not as active as we used to be. You might notice that. 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That's an extra benefit. Plus, we release eight extra pieces of content exclusively for Plus Club members each and every month. And we've been doing that since the Plus Club began. 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. Alan is on the line from Missouri. We've been getting a lot of calls from Missouri. Absolutely love it. And he's a big part of our virtual campfire group over at virtualcampfiregroup.com. In fact, we were playing fantasy football a week or two ago. So that was a lot of fun. So Alan's a big contributor over there, and I really, really appreciate it. And he has a story about something that happened to him at a graveyard, and he brought along some EVP possibly too. So Alan, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened. Thank you for letting me be on here. We was going to the cemetery. It's the middle of the day and it wasn't for any like spooky reasons. I was just getting pictures of symbols on headstones. I was doing a little video thing on it and what they mean. And well, the first thing we didn't realize is tie this into later. But when we pulled into the cemetery and started to get out, the truck kept being in like the keys are still in it. but you know they weren't we had a we had to reset it and we it was at the time we didn't be like well that was weird but we didn't think much of it and then we're you know doing our thing my wife's kind of in a different part than i was in and we're both taking pictures of some symbols we found and she said hey babe look at this and i'm framing up my shot so to be honest i was kind of a little bit annoyed like well let me take my picture first and i'll do what you want and so i snap it up and I walked down to her and she was like, yeah, why doesn't you want me to see? I'm like, well, no, you said, hey, babe, look at this. And she's like, no, I distinctly heard you tell me, hey, babe, look at this. So we both heard the same thing in the other person's voice. Ooh. Yeah, so I'm like, well, hold on. So I look at my phone, open up the recorder, and do like a little EVP session, you know. And I'm like, okay, who is it and what do you want me to see? And so we do the recording there. Right. Now, do you want me to, is now a good time? We can go ahead and we can play that clip and then you can tell us what we heard. Okay? Okay. Sounds great. All right. Let's take a listen to what Alan captured. So what do you want me to look at? I'll give you a few seconds to answer. yeah that right there wow yeah it doesn't sound like words or anything so and it was windy out and it sounded different than the wind sounds i've never picked that up before so you know it sounded like almost like a metallic like all right yeah yeah yeah let's take one more listen to it real quick. So where do you, what do you want me to look at? I'll give you a few seconds to answer. The way I interpreted it was almost like a round wrap, kind of like that sound. Like a growl or a moan or something. And there was no like flagpoles or no external things to make that noise and like i said it didn't sound like words but it was it was definitely odd and like i said my recorders never made that noise before so i you know what do you what do you think it was directing you to well yeah so then i said hey buddy i you know couldn't couldn't make you out there so let's try this another way you know they they say that when you get near a spirit or whatever you you have like a cold spot so i said i'll tell you what i'll just walk a grid around this area here and if and you know kind of let me know when i'm close oh that's smart and so you know i start walking to be honest i mean that was a weird sound and everything but i i was kind of phoning it in i didn't really expect anything to happen and I'm walking and sure enough I hit a cold spot and not only that the hair stood up and it was a weird feeling not like not like electricity but I don't know it was kind of a tingling that went through me so I stopped and I immediately looked down and there was this a gravestone it was broken it was laying on the ground a Willie Brooks I'm like okay Willie I guess this is what you wanted me to see oh wow so I mean what did you I mean was he uh Was Willie old, or could you tell from the gravestone, did it have the dates that you remember or anything like that? Yeah, when I looked at it then, I thought it said 1862 to 1868, so I thought he was six years old, but it was all degraded. Yeah. Yeah. So I took the video, and I kind of spread it out. But then we went back later with the brush so I could kind of clean it off and see it a little better. and even more he was only 14 years or 14 months old oh it turned out so that was when i was that's just tragic you know but mortality rate was pretty yeah pretty high i remember in west virginia what my parents had gotten a place back there and uh when they got it we didn't know uh there were like across the it was kind of like in a valley and you looked up and there was a road and there was a hill that had a road up it but i didn't know there was like some gas wells and stuff up there and uh and then like a year or two after they got they cut the trees down there's a graveyard right across from but the thing was is you went up there and was very sad because it was all like the spanish flu oh yeah in t18 or whatever that was and you saw like all these babies like all these babies the infant mortality rate like you said was just so great. That's part of the reason life expectancy is so much more now because people didn't make it to 40. They didn't make it to 10. It's just like, oh, so sad. It's terrible. But then I got thinking, I have no idea how it works in the spirit, but a 14-month-old contact me and I think, well, maybe it's his parents that just wanted him to be remembered. I mean, you never know. It could have been something more nefarious. too but yeah trying to trick me i mean i i heard it i heard something and it didn't sound like uh something that was just naturally occurring it was just kind of this weird metallic sound very very strange now you said you went back to clean it to clean up do you have you gone back and done any more evp sessions at that graveyard or you just thought you know let it let it rest uh yeah we went back and cleaned it up but um i didn't i didn't feel charged at all i didn't feel anything whatsoever so i didn't i didn't bother with evps so yeah yeah just because i mean like there you could you could definitely feel something was was there so yeah yeah interesting interesting well alan a couple things first of all thank you for being a great part of our virtual campfire group virtualcampfiregroup.com it's free everybody go over there that's replacing an old facebook group and it's great we've got thousands of people over there and alan can attest it's a good place with good folks and like oh yeah and we really have a good time and uh secondly you have a podcast give us uh maybe about a minute about if you want to uh about what it's about and how they can find it give us about a minute okay it's uh just about anything weird and not necessarily paranormal but generally so it's a called brilliant podcast all one word and i actually spell brilliant with a y because it amused me to misspell brilliant. So it's B-R-I-L-L-Y-A-N-T. I got a channel on YouTube and I'm on Spotify, Amazon Music, wherever you listen. Excellent. I'm out there. Yes, I love when people are out there podcasting. It's my favorite medium, obviously. Well, Alan, thank you so much. I'll see you in the virtual campfire. And you even said something about having me on the show. I'd love to do it. And thank you so much for being a part of the campfire and stay spooky. It's my pleasure. Stay spooky. Something I love about the campfire is you never know what kind of story you're going to hear. And this story from Dominic in Pennsylvania involves a very, very famous, iconic rock and roll band. Dominic, welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened. Thanks, Jim. Appreciate you having me on the show. Yes. So this occurred back in 2010. I had moved into an apartment building in Jacksonville, Florida, which is where Leonard Skinner got their starts. And it was an older apartment building. And any time I move into a place, I always like to look up the history. and I saw that the previous owner of this apartment building was Leonard Skinner, who was the gym teacher at the high school that myself and Leonard Skinner went to, or most of the band members. Granted, I went years after they did. I'm a little younger. So a few months after I moved into the apartment building, no issues, no paranormal anything, I remember hearing on the news it was September of Leonard Skinner passing away the gym coach he passed away and I'm familiar with him and everything so that night I went to sleep and about 2 or 3 in the morning I was awakened by regular like banging like a hammer on metal or pipes and it was loud enough to wake me up and it sounded like it was coming from below me and um so and i'm familiar with like water and air and pipes so so i immediately ruled that out and um i thought the downstairs neighbor was doing something um and it was pretty consistent and then all of a sudden i get a knock on my front door and it's two or three in the morning so i don't know what's happening so i answered the door and it's a police officer telling me to keep the noise down. The downstairs neighbor said they called the police on me because I was making noise. The downstairs neighbor thought the noise was coming from above and I thought it was coming from below. And so the police officer leaves. The banging is still happening. And at that moment, it clicked in my head that this building used to belong to Leonard Skinner. And he had just passed away that day for lack of anything else i said mr skinner i'm very sorry that you passed away but you're disturbing us in this building could you please you know keep the noise down immediately the noise stopped and the rest of the time that i lived there there was no banging or anything in the middle of the night never had any other issues whatsoever that's a very cool story i'm actually pulled up his wikipedia page i was looking at it january 11th to 1933 to september 20th 2010 he is known in popular culture uh as the eponym of the rock band leonard skinner skinner was the band member's teacher uh yeah it's um fantastic fantastic story what a cool time And the fact he answered, and no more sounds from Mr. Skinner. He kind of knew. Dominic's trying to sleep, so nothing further. Absolutely. Yep. Love it. Love it. Well, Dominic, thank you so much for joining us tonight on the campfire. I appreciate it. I love these kind of stories. And it's cool when you get a little bit of a celebrity tie in there. And you gave us more than three steps. I'll say that. All right. Well, Dominic, thank you. Thank you for being a part of the campfire. Stay safe and stay spooky. Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it. Stay spooky. Next up on the campfire is Lauren, and she's going to tell us about a very special sign. Lauren, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. I know you've been listening for a few years, and you listen every Friday with your fiancé, Justin. So, Justin, stay spooky. And, you know, be like Lauren. Be like Justin. Listen as a couple. Tell more people. It's all a virtuous cycle. And Lauren, please tell us your story about this very special sign. So thank you so much for having me on the show tonight, Jim. I'm going to be telling a story about my French bulldog that I recently lost. Excuse me if I cry. So a little bit of a back story on Floss. I got her back in Georgia, which is where I'm from. And I rescued her at the age of four and I was 19. So I had her up until I was 30. So you have to imagine like that's a huge chunk of my life. Yeah. And, you know, we all think that our fur babies are invincible and that they'll be with us forever. But, you know, unfortunately, that's not the case. So during Christmas of 2025, Floss, that was her name. she got really sick. And I just knew that, you know, the time was coming soon. And a few days before Christmas, I had to make the tough decision to put floss down. And it truly was the hardest thing that I've ever had to do. But it was also a very traumatic experience for me. And I had a hard time really coming to terms with it after she was gone. Christmas was horrible for me. And I told her multiple times before the vet came to our house, you know, Floss, I want you to come back and see me. I want you to send me a sign. Let me know that you're okay. And I actually learned from this through a lady that was on your show. I can't remember the episode that it was, but it was about her fur baby that came back to see her. And she said, don't be afraid to let them know to come back and send you signs. And so that's what I did. And so fast forward a month. It really, I can't believe that it's been a month without her, but fast forward a month and my fiance and I were grocery shopping and I come across this aisle and I see this cotton candy and one is pink and one is rainbow and the name on it is floss and i was like wow like what are the odds that that is floss you know sending me a sign yeah here's a cotton candy this this this is a picture of it right yep i took a picture of it because i was like this is crazy and i you know saw the rainbow um unicorn magic cotton candy and i was like you know rainbow bridge I just said thank you for the sign floss and we continued on with our grocery shopping trip. So fast forward a week after our grocery shopping trip was over and I'm sitting in my living room watching TV and you know that saying that something hits you like a ton of bricks? Yes. so that's the only way that I could describe what I felt and I just felt this feeling hit me like bricks and I was like wait a minute I think that I have photos of floss in a unicorn outfit whenever she was alive because I loved taking photos of her she was a very sassy dog her favorite color was pink um but I was like I'm gonna have a hard time finding this photo. I doubt I can even find it. So after scouring through my photo album, I came across two photos of us. One was floss under a rainbow in her unicorn outfit. And then another one was her just in her unicorn outfit. And I tell you, when I saw those photos, and I put two and two together like the unicorn magic rainbow cotton candy and then you know her in her unicorn pink outfit under a rainbow I mean it was undeniable and so I was like I cannot believe that I forgot about that and I was so sad like I cried all day that day because of the sun just how clear it was that floss is okay and that floss did make it to a better place and part of me wanting to come on here and tell my story is because I know that there are so many pet owners that are going through the same thing that I'm going through and if my story could offer any amount of hope for those people like I want I want my story to help them and don't be afraid to tell your for babies to come back and see you and to send you signs because they will. I think that's a great message. I think that's a great message, Lauren. And I think when people come on the show and they share their stories, whether it's about, you know, a situation like this or other stories, it can help other people because they know they're not alone. They know other people are experiencing these things. They know these other people are seeing these signs. So I salute you for coming on the show and wish you the best. And I believe they are still with us. Lauren, all the best to you and Justin. Congratulations. We're recording some Valentine's stories tonight, so I have my pink background behind me. Oh, sweet. I don't know when this will air, but certainly congratulations to you and Justin. It seems kind of appropriate. Okay. And thank you for sharing your story and trying to help people. And take care and stay spooky. Thank you, Jim. Stay spooky. A return caller. Always great to have people come back and share stories. Matthew visited with us a couple of years back. And he's back to talk to us about an apartment building in San Francisco. Matthew, welcome to the show. And thanks for coming back and tell us what happened. Yeah, thanks for having me. So I have a story that's a very San Francisco story. It really starts in February of 2020 when I moved back here for a job for a legal nonprofit I gone to law school here and then after law school I moved away for a few years And February 2020 I got a job opportunity and it for a nonprofit So I had to find an apartment and I ended up in a very small studio in a neighborhood called Lower Knob Hill. It's a neighborhood that has a lot of older buildings that are just post-1906. it's very dense it's a lot of like seven-story buildings with a few apartments on each floor and because of the time period I moved in so I moved in February 2020 it's very expensive COVID hits and literally the month after COVID hits and lockdown started half the building moved out and that's going to become relevant because I was used to the building being very quiet. I knew exactly the neighbors on my floor. And I knew that, you know, a lot of the building was empty. And, you know, during that time period, the city itself was very quiet. There wasn't a lot going on. We're all kind of in our apartments for extended periods of time. And so fast forward to, it would have been October of 2021. It's a year and a half later after COVID. And finally, I have, so I think I have somebody above me for the first time. I started hearing the sounds of somebody moving in. It sounded like there was a lot of furniture moving around. and I started hearing somebody above me playing music. Huh. And I remember thinking the music was a little bit odd because it was older music. It was a mixture of like jazz and sort of older Spanish language ballads. Oh, cool. I was going to ask you what kind of music. Yeah. There's about a week or so of me hearing somebody above me. And it was honestly a little bit loud, especially with the moving in and stuff. But I figured it was just somebody new. And the music wasn't so loud that I was like upset about it or anything. And it was always during the day. It was never at night. So one day I'm coming back to my building and I'm outside going towards the building. And I see that there's a hazmat crew outside that are kind of milling around the entrance and taking stuff out. And I remember it was funny because I didn't think about this at the time, but I saw one of my neighbors. And my neighbor goes, kind of scolds me, just like, why aren't you wearing a mask? Don't you know we just had a COVID case? I was like, well, I'm vaccinated and I'm outside. I thought it was weird that he said that. And honestly, when I saw the Hazbat crew, because of problems we've had with drugs in San Francisco, I thought that it was actually drug related and that maybe somebody in the building had had a drug lab or something. So I see this crew. And I remember the timing very specifically because it was after I saw this crew that all the noise above me stopped. and in my head I really had this narrative of like oh I have these neighbors that moved in and then they saw this hazmat crew and like there must have been drug paraphernalia or something and they just decided to move back out at the time there was a lot of vacancies and there was other buildings so I was just like maybe they decided to leave because that was exactly when I remember the unit above me went quiet again so that's that you know i don't hear any other noise for a couple more months and fast forward to december of 2021 and my building is having a holiday party and it was actually a really awesome party because a lot of us hadn't had the chance to really get to know each other or socialize and our building resident manager through this like holiday party with um like tamales and mexican pastries and some alcohol. It was a good time. And I am sitting there talking to the building manager and another neighbor of mine that I've kind of seen around. And I think my building manager had a few because he was talking with my neighbor and I about residents he's had in the past who kind of problematic or like funny things that happen with neighbors. And remember you told a story about one guy that would like get drunk and pass out in the hallway and then he'd have to get back to his apartment so we're kind of joking and telling stories about things like that and then all of a sudden he goes um yeah it's too bad what would happen with Wilma and I oh and then my neighbor pedro goes yeah i used to always help her with her groceries and help her get in the elevator because we had one of those old elevator doors that you have to pull open it's like a sliding thing it's not automatic and so pedro was saying like yeah i used to always help with their groceries and i was confused because i was like i don't i don't know what happened with who was wilma and they're like you know she was the older woman that had a walker with tennis balls on the bottom and she would always have a little grocery bag from the corner store and she would come in and out and was like oh yeah I remember her like I've seen her in the elevator and what happened because I really didn't know what they're talking about and my property manager goes well I had to I found her body oh that was like oh she died and it's like yeah and nobody it happened in her apartment and nobody knew about it and it took a while before we found her and my neighbor Pedro apparently lived on the floor where she had lived above me and he was like did you notice anything about when it happened because it happened in October and we noticed a smell on our floor and he goes you know c lode right above you and i was like i i didn't know anybody was above me because i never heard her and then i realized the timing of what they were talking about that would have been the exact period when i heard the noise above me before the the people in hazmat suits came and that was when they found her body well so in other words you you heard the music after she died yeah wow wow and it would fit with the age the fact that she was older so more likely to play older music than a younger person hmm interesting interesting and uh i do think about that you know particularly people live in apartment buildings and we see it with people who live in houses unfortunately for whatever reason and it's not I'm not picking on your apartment. I think it's really an issue with the whole this country. I can speak to this country. I can't speak to other countries. Is that we don't know our neighbors anymore. I mean, you can literally live next door, two or three houses down from people for years and you don't know them. There's something that's not good about that. And I don't know how we fix that. I don't know how we fix that. But it sounds like the people who knew her did, you know, think well of her and were sorry to see that happen to her. So do you think that was her ghost playing the music? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's interesting. Even though there was a fair amount of noise of things kind of moving around in the apartment during that period, it sounded like, I mean, the music was happy music, like celebratory. um so i like to think that even that sort of the energy wasn't necessarily negative like it wasn't like oh i'm so mad that nobody's noticed me yet it was more just like i'm happy to be able to move around and and maybe dance again party again kind of yeah yeah yeah because when i she was so quiet when she was up there that i literally had no idea she even lived there until I found out later that she'd been in the unit above me. And yeah. So she was probably physically free and felt better than she had in a long time. So she was having a little party. That's a nice thought. Matthew, thank you for joining us today on the Campfire. I appreciate. Thank you for sharing this story and stay spooky. Well, there are people out there who have had multiple paranormal occurrences. And our guest tonight, Thorne, is one of those people. And he has some stories to share. Thorne, welcome to the program. Please tell us some of these paranormal occurrences. So the earliest ones I can remember are because I used to live in Ohio. So the earliest one I can remember is when I was nine, sleeping on the couch. And I saw out of the court of my eye, like some kind of entity made of light. and I would also at one point of that same age had a like like a dream prediction in one of those dreams that came true later sure which was like this is the earliest this is like that's like a common thing with me these days but it was the first time I experienced it I thought it was weird um the biggest ones were when so a few years ago like five years ago um I forget which her because I live in Florida now I forget which hurricane hit, but it was one of the really bad ones where I was living. And so we had to evacuate. And on the way out, we left Georgia, so through the mountains. And it was late at night. I was the only one awake with my aunt. My aunt was the one driving. And we, out of nowhere, there was just a wolf just standing there on the road, just not moving. And we definitely hit it. there was like evidence on the front of the van because like the cover over the headlight busted oh my the weird part was we couldn't find any fragments from the glass but there was also you know clearly the animal got hurt you know we stopped because we want to make sure it wasn't like we didn't need to like put it out of its misery or something um and but there was like no trace of it there was like no you know drops of blood like you would expect right um there was just nothing like that. So it was like, we were pretty convinced it was like a ghost wolf or something. Right. But yeah, that house lived. We've had stories before of people thinking that they hit a person, actually. And they would go now it's a little different, because in their cases, there would be no damage to the car. There would be nobody in any proximity. In fact, and this was relatively recently, the one woman, And she actually called the police and said, I don't want you to think, you know, I'm, you know, there's an issue going on with me, but I want to be very honest with you. I was in thus and so place and I thought I hit someone because she didn't want to get, you know, charged with leaving the scene of a crime, even though she had done everything in her power to try to see if it was an actual person. And there was no indication, including no damage to the car, that there was a person. There was a story in England we had like that as well. someone who thought they hit someone so i didn't mean to interrupt you but i just want to say that is kind of a common thing now the only difference here you said there was some damage to the car but like there was yeah there was evidence we hit something but there was no evidence of it like bleeding or anything that was right right right well go ahead with the other stories but um the house we lived at that time um for sure haunted um at one point i was in the bathroom in the middle of the night and uh when i like looked up in the mirror because i was brushing my teeth before bed and i caught a glimpse in the mirror of what looked to be like a decaying body oh my staring at me that's terrible you know i was in high school at the time so that really freaked me out um there was at one point there was like knocking coming from inside like so it sounded like someone was knocking on the walls like how you knock on a door but it was coming from inside the wall and initially i was like well maybe my brother's in the bathroom messing around right because the bathroom was on the other side of that wall and i looked there was no one in there but um at that point in my life i had like read enough like horror manga and like heard scary stories before i was like the best thing to do is not respond to it don't knock back don't say anything to it so i just you know did my best to ignore that and that lasted for a couple days but then it went away no one else heard it though in the house like because my brother was awake at the time otherwise i wouldn't have thought that he was in there knocking on the walls messing with me um and after a month he came to me one night he goes do you hear knocking in the walls something keeps knocking i'm like i i know but i knew what he was talking about because i figured it was i was like does it sound like someone's coming for like knocking from like inside the wall and he goes yeah and i go don't talk to it don't knock back don't respond to it just pretend it's not not there i don't know what it is it's just best not to interact with it and that's terrifying because he listened um and then you know he did the same thing it went away And then another month later, we both of us heard it again. Right. It was much louder this time. But when we addressed it with our parents, they had no idea what they were talking about. They never heard it. So we were like, OK, so this part of the house specifically is very it's pretty much haunted. To me, that seems in some ways more terrifying. The idea that the knocks come from inside the walls. That makes it seem a little bit scary. Freaked me pretty out pretty good at the time. And then the other major thing that happened there was this was after I graduated college. I had a friend staying the night and my door had been cracked because the dogs had been coming in and out and I it was like it was late and I had looked over I happened to look over near my door because I forgot my door was open and when I looked over it looked like there was like you know like the stereotypical white masks with the like the black hollowed out eyes it looked like that was And it definitely wasn't one of our dogs. Because we had a white dog. It definitely wasn't our dog because it was shaped like a human face. And I just, my friend didn't see it. But I had like reached over and I was like, I'm just gonna. And I like very slowly shut the door. She's like, what's going on? I go, don't worry about it. What happened? Don't worry about it. Just don't worry about it. That's something else. That's something else. But like all of these are like, they freaked me out. But I never really felt like anything like extremely malicious. It was just creepy. The only time I've ever felt anything inherently like, like you could tell it was aggressive, was just last year. I had gone up for my sister's wedding. Like just last year in October, I went up for my sister's wedding, stayed with my grandpa for a month. And then I drove back down with him. Well, on the way, he likes, you know, he likes to stop and visit family members along the way so he can, you know, rest and, you know, not have to sleep in the truck or hotel. And so we stayed at my aunt. And it's very important that I say this mom, this aunt. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which is like a sub range of Appalachia, of the Appalachian Mountains. and i just the one night i just i i couldn't because i i have insomnia so i genuinely struggle sleeping and i was getting tired i was gonna sleep but all of a sudden i felt like this something watching me like from inside this was the worst part was you know if it was from the window would be one thing but this was coming from like the doorway of the bedroom i was in And it just felt very hot, very angry, like my life was in danger, like I was being hunted. And it did not subside until I put my necklace back on. My necklace, it's a pentacle. So it's the star surrounded by the circle. It's a symbol of spiritual protection. I did not feel it fade at all until after I put that back on to protect myself. and it was still there. It's just that heavy, oppressive, angry sensation from that is the only thing that faded. It just kind of, like, subsided a little bit, but I could still tell it was there, and so I didn't sleep that night. I stayed up all night because I was like, I'm not sleeping with this thing in the house watching me. I don't know what it is, but I'm not going to sleep without watching me. Interesting. Thankfully, that was the only night I felt that. yeah uh that would not be uh that would not be something that i would welcome do you think thorn that you have uh it sounds like you do you have a sensitivity to this type of phenomena that you're able maybe to tune it in a little more than other people yes most most definitely um so i tend to have um what because i i grew up in the church my mom's side of the family my dad's side of him They're all pretty usually most of them are pretty religious. They call it prophetic dreams. I've learned it runs in the family. My grandmother and my dad's side specifically, she actually. So she unfortunately passed in. 20, it had to be 2020 because it was when COVID hit and it was really bad. And she the week before she had dreamed her own death. Oh, my Lord. She described it. She didn't think it was of her death, though. She described it as she dreamt she was roller skating through a town. And she and all these other people were heading to a party, to a big party. But she and a few others stopped at a crematorium before moving on to where they were supposed to go. And she thought that it was a dream, telling her to slow down in life, You know that if you keep rushing everywhere, you'll never enjoy the destination and such like you'll never enjoy the journey. And so she was in a rush to go back because they might they like to come down here and spend the winter with us because it's warmer. And so she was rushing to get back up to Ohio because she wanted to be able to see her sisters and be there for their lunch, their sister lunch for Easter. And because she was in a rush, she ended up getting exposed to covid because one of her sisters works at a hospital and her sister didn't know she had it at the time. and the crematorium was significant in her dream because she had always said if she died when she died she wanted to be cremated she didn't want to be buried and so that that was one of the big things but um when i've talked to my grandfather and such before you know about you know sometimes i have these dreams that are really vivid and then they come true the next like later And he told me, oh, yeah, your momo had that a lot. Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard all of this very much can run in the family. If someone has the gift, then subsequent generations will have the gift. Yeah, and I've recently learned that a lot of people on that side of the family, for sure, were people who practiced witchcraft and things with seeing ghosts and honoring spirits and such. and so that I've learned also runs in my genes. Very interesting. Thorne, thank you for joining us. I appreciate it very, very much. No problem. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much for joining us on another edition of Jim Harreld's Campfire. I sincerely appreciate it. Thank you to all of our storytellers. We appreciate that as well. If you enjoy the show, please share the show with a friend. Text them a link. It could be a YouTube link. It could be a Spotify link. It could be an Apple podcast link, depending on what they like. Do they like to listen to audio podcasts? Do they like to watch video podcasts? We've got all the bases covered. Now it's up to you. So please tell a friend today. Also, as we said earlier in the show, please consider joining our Plus Club. 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