Mysterious blood. A friend stops by to say hi but there’s a catch…he’s dead.

That and much more on this week’s Campfire!

Please share the show with your friends!

—

RAYCON

Raycon wireless earbuds are the best way to bring audio with you, because no matter how much you shake things up—literally, no matter how much you shake—you know they won’t fall out of your ears. Right now, Campfire listeners can get 15% off their Raycon order plus free shipping at https://buyraycon.com/campfire

BETTERHELP

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try. Get 10% off your first month at https://betterhelp.com/JIMHAROLD and get on your way to being your best self.

RITUAL

Synbiotic+ and Ritual are here to celebrate, not hide, your insides. There’s no more shame in your gut game. Synbiotic+ and Ritual are here to celebrate, not hide, your insides. Synbiotic+ and Ritual are here to celebrate, not hide, your insides. Get
20% off your first month for a limited time at https://ritual.com/CAMPFIRE 

—

FREE CAMPFIRE E-BOOK
Get your FREE Campfire E-book here: https://jimharold.com/free-newsletter/ when you signup to my email newsletter list.

YOUTUBE CHANNEL
Be sure to subscribe to Jim’s YouTube channel for paranormal videos and more: https://youtube.com/jimharold

MERCH
Go to https://www.etsy.com/shop/jimharoldsmausoleum/ to get your Jim Harold Merch!

TRANSCRIPT

Jim Harold (00:00:00):

Imagine being at a sleepover and waking up with blood on your hands, or what about a friend visiting you, but the friend is dead. This and much more on today’s Campfire.

Announcer (00:00:27):

Welcome to our gathering tonight. Here we share stories of ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary things. Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Jim Harold (00:00:38):

Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold, and so glad to be with you once again and we’ve got some great stories as you heard at the beginning there, and can’t wait to get to them. Just a couple of pieces of housekeeping. First of all, it’s Valentine’s time and we’ve come up with some new designs in our Etsy store, the mausoleum of merch, and they’re very cool and just rolled them out in the last few days and people are loving them. So check them out over JimHarold.com/merch. Jim Harold dot com slash M E R C H. Just click on the Etsy entry there and you’ll be presented with all of our different things, but at the very top will be those Valentine’s shirts, which seem to be a big hit and hoodies. I think that you’ll like them. If you like the spooky and you like Valentine’s Day, they seem like they go together great.

(00:01:29):

Also, I would ask you as I am on every show this year from the app you’re listening on now when you’re at a safe place to do so, and maybe you could do it right now if you’re just sitting around, hit share on this show and share it directly from the app to someone and love who also loves the spooky. That’s going to be how we grow. And the more people who listen, you know what that means, that means more Campfire storytellers and more great Campfire stories. So please hit that share button today and every time you listen to the Campfire because that is what helps us grow and get more great stories like this one for the show. 

Shannon is on the line from New Jersey. We’re so glad to have her on the program. She’s been listening for a few years and she’s going to tell us about a very special story about a good friend of hers. Shannon, welcome to the show and please tell us what happened.

Shannon (NJ) (00:02:31):

Thanks, Jim. It’s a pleasure to be here. I just want to talk about my friend Joe and what happened. This was in the early nineties. I was working in a local bar in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I’m going to name it. It’s not a thing anymore, and it’s kind of a special place. It was called the Court Tavern. I was working there and I met Joe when I was working, it was a fundraiser for him because he had some pretty serious medical issues. He needed a heart transplant, and I was working there and this guy walks in and he walks over to me and he’s like, Hey, how’s it going? I’m like, good, how’s it going? I didn’t know it was him. And it was just one of those things, I wouldn’t call it love at first sight because it wasn’t like that. It was more of a really deep friendship, but it was like we just immediately clicked. We just hit it off immediately and we were fast friends and we would meet every Sunday. There was a hardcore matinee, and we would meet every Sunday before the show started and we’d go hang out in the parking lot under the tree and talk smack and just catch up with each other, and then we’d go see the show. So one week, it was earlier in the week and I was like, oh, I really want to see Joe. I have made him a mix tape – dating myself.

Jim Harold (00:04:14):

Yeah, I remember that, it was a thing, wasn’t it?

Shannon (NJ) (00:04:16):

It sure was. And I actually didn’t have his phone number because again, pre-cell phones, pre-computer, everything. So I asked my boss, Bobby, I’m like, Hey, can I get Joe’s phone number? And he goes, yeah, totally. And he gives me his number and I called Joe up and I’m just like, I just remember saying, Hey Joe, I hope you don’t mind. Bobby gave me your number. I was just seeing if you were around. Give me a call back, otherwise I’ll see you Sunday. A couple days go by. And then the Saturday before I had been at a concert with some cousins, stayed at my auntie’s house, and I was asleep in the basement and it was old school basement with a little tiny window, east coast basement, and I was asleep and I obviously, I was getting up for the hardcore matinee, so I had to be down in New Brunswick by noon.

(00:05:22):

So I had gotten up kind of early and I was just laying there and I was it where you’re in that weird kind of like, oh, maybe I can, I’ll go back to sleep, but you’re not fully awake, but you’re not really asleep, right? So I’m laying there and all of a sudden the basement door opens and my friend Joe walks in and he’s standing in the doorway and I’m just so confused, and I just look at him and I’m like, Hey, hi, what are you doing here? Is everything okay? And he goes, hi, I’m okay. I just came to say goodbye. And I’m like, what do you mean? What? I just wanted to say goodbye, bye. And he turns around and he just kind of disappeared. It wasn’t like he walked away. It was almost like there was another door and he walked through it and was gone, just gone.

(00:06:31):

I’m just like, what the heck was that? I’m completely confused. I’m like, all right. I was just dreaming. I’m totally dreaming, whatever. Get myself ready, go. And I go down to the Court Tavern and I walk in the door and my friend Sean sitting in a chair right by the door, and he looks so sad, and I go, what’s going on? Are you okay? What’s happening? And he said, Joe died. I go, what? He said, Joe died. They found him this morning, and I mean, obviously I’m sorry, I’ll get a little choked up. Yeah, he passed away. And truly honestly in my heart, believe he came to say goodbye to me. No other explanation in my mind for it.

Jim Harold (00:07:35):

Right. No, I mean, it makes sense because people will say, well, you were dreaming, but even if you were quote dreaming, maybe that was him coming to you in the astral state of somehow, or he physically either way. I think it was definitely a visitation. And I mean, it sounds like he had health issues, but this was out of the blue. Nobody expected him to pass, right?

Shannon (NJ) (00:07:59):

No, no. He was in a really solid place in his health journey. Like I said, he did need a heart transplant, but he wasn’t at the stage where he needed a mechanical, a defibrillator, any kind of that thing. He was stable. So it was completely not expected at that point. And yeah, I think about it, this is going on 30 years, and I think about it all the time because in a way, I mean, I suffered some losses very young, and death was always, it’s scary. It’s a scary thing. But after this happened, it really made me think we don’t know everything. And I really truly think I’m scientifically minded in a way in that energy is neither created nor destroyed, and we are energy. So that energy has to go somewhere. So I really truly think that when our loved ones, when anyone passes over, they’re always there. They’re always going to be there. And we don’t disappear when we die. This body may be, it’s a temporary home, but our spirits live on. That’s how I feel about it.

Jim Harold (00:09:43):

I agree, and I feel that many, many, many years from now, Shannon, one day you guys will be reunited and you’ll be able to pick up the conversation and listen to whatever the equivalent of a mixtape is over on the other side. But that’s many years from now. Shannon, thank you so much. Thanks, Jim. Thanks so much for being on the show, and stay spooky.

Shannon (NJ) (00:10:05):

Thanks, Jim. You too. Stay spooky.

Jim Harold (00:10:07):

Michael is on the line from northern California. We’re so glad to speak with him. He’s been listening for several years. He says he and his wife Marisa would not go on a car ride without taking me along. I am honored Michael, and a big stay spooky to Marisa too, and thank you for both, for listening. We appreciate it. And Michael has one of those stories that I would definitely call a head scratcher. Michael, welcome to the show, and please tell us what happened.

Michael (CA) (00:10:39):

Yeah, absolutely, Jim. I’m middle-aged, and I would say over the course of my life, I’ve experienced a few interesting things here and there, probably more regularly when I was a kid. And so the one sort of incident that occurred that stands out most of my mind, or at least is my favorite, is one that I like because there was some physical evidence of something strange that was left behind, and I’ll tell you about that. So when I was about 10 or 11 years old, I was up in my bedroom with my big brother and with a buddy of mine, and we were home alone in the upstairs bedroom with the door shut. Not big rooms, pretty small, and there were two twin beds separated by a desk, and all three of us were working on those. You remember those car models? Car and airplane models?

Jim Harold:

Oh, sure.

Michael (CA) (00:11:48):

Put together with glue and you paint them and that type of thing. So we’re working on those. And I was at the desk and I had my big brother on my left side sitting on one of the twin beds. He was working away on his model, and my buddy was to my right and he was working away on his model, and I could see each of them very clearly out of my peripheral vision, they were each maybe a foot or two away from me, and I’ve got my head down and I’m doing my thing, and all of a sudden there was a very strong shower of water that came sort of blasting down on my head and on my back. And the incident lasted for about three seconds. But when it did happen, when the water hit me, as soon as it hit me, I felt strange.

(00:12:42):

And I said, it’s raining on me. But the way weird thing was when I said, it’s raining on me, I felt like the words just sort of came out of my mouth. I didn’t really feel like I was sort of intentionally saying those words, but that’s what I said. And then the water stopped almost as quickly as it started, and the entire desk was just absolutely soaked. My hair was soaked, my back was soaked. Imagine a full force shower that you could take a shower in your bathroom like that for several seconds. And it was strange because I sort of had an intuition about what had happened that this water had come really virtually from nowhere. But I turned to my left and I looked at my brother and I asked him, I didn’t ask him anything. I sort of looked at him, what has happened, and he popped his head up and he’s like, what’s going on? Why are you all wet? And then I turned to my right and I looked at my buddy and he was in a state of shock and fear, and I asked him what happened. I sort of knew, but I wanted to hear him say it. And he explained to me that several inches from the ceiling out of thin air, this stream of water came and showered me.

(00:14:17):

And so that’s what happened, and I never really had an explanation for it. It was just one of those really strange things. And I will say this, Jim, years later, I thought to myself, because I would think about that incident from time to time, and years later I thought, oh my gosh, I’ll just google it. I wonder if that’s ever happened to anybody else. And sure enough, if I did actually find a couple of very similar type stories of that sort of a phenomenon. So I don’t know what it is, but it did happen. Well, 

Jim Harold (00:14:50):

I’ve got to tell you what it reminds me of, and I want to be first of all, clear to people. You said it came, so this wasn’t a plumbing thing or something like this. This just spontaneously came. It didn’t come from the ceiling per se, but it came from that direction. But it just kind of popped into existence in midair, if I’m understanding correctly. 

Michael (CA) (00:15:10):

Correct. Yeah. And you’ll remember those old houses that were built in the seventies, they had the acoustic ceilings. It’s like the popcorn ceilings that, and if you get those wet, it’s very noticeable. It’ll hold the water. The ceiling was bone dry, the door to the bedroom was shut and had not opened. And it was a small room. You would know if somebody had entered the room and the carpet was soaked and there was no plumbing in the ceiling. It was like there was absolutely no possible source of water in that proximity in that way. There was no plumbing in the bedroom. It was a bedroom of a town home. So anyway, that’s what happened.

Jim Harold (00:16:03):

The story reminds me of, and this probably goes back to the very origin of Campfire, which my goodness we’re almost in a couple months here, it’ll be 15 years, but probably either in 2009, 2010 when we started the show, somebody called up, and I think this might be in the first book that we did, and she had a tough relationship, I think with her, might’ve been stepmother. And again, this is a 15-year-old memory, so if I’m wrong, everybody out there, forgive me. But the gist was is that there were several things that happened, but one of them was one night mice just started falling from the ceiling, like raining from the ceiling out of nowhere.

Michael (CA) (00:16:47):

I remember that story.

Jim Harold (00:16:48):

Yeah, and that’s the one that I can think of. So other people experience this. What do you think was behind it? Do you have any thoughts?

Michael (CA) (00:17:03):

I’m a fairly pragmatic person, so I can only speculate, but a couple things come to mind. So one is, yeah, I’ve always had that feeling that somebody’s maybe looking out for me, and I don’t know if I believe in guardian angels or not, but I will say that I felt there was nothing hostile about what happened to me. I felt that it was either playful or somebody or something wanting to poke me and let me know that they were there. And I don’t know if this bears any relevance, but both my big brother and the person, the young man who was on my right, died as young men, and I don’t know, but I’ve had a good life. Another thing I sort of think about is that particular place that we lived was on. It was near a Miwok Indian, a settlement, and it was such an important settlement that just a very, very short distance away, just a short walk, was sort of a park and a dedicated space for that settlement of Native Americans. So I don’t know if that maybe had something to do with it, but again, it wasn’t in any way malicious, and it’s a story I’ll probably never forget.

Jim Harold (00:18:48):

It is a cool story. Michael, thank you and Marisa for listening, and thank you for sharing that awesome story today on the Campfire, and we’d love to hear anybody else out there who has had a similar experience. Thanks again, Mike.

Michael (CA) (00:19:01):

Thanks, Jim. Take care.

Jim Harold (00:19:02):

Jim Harold. Campfire is brought to you by Raycon. I’m in love. I’m in love. Don’t tell Dar. Well, actually, I think you can. I’m in love with my Raycon everyday earbuds, and I’m not ashamed to say it. And no matter your relationship status or your thoughts on Valentine’s Day, we can all agree some things are better together. Peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and chocolate, a blockbuster movie, a bucket of popcorn, they go great together. And you know what else is a perfect match? Me, my favorite music, been listening to lot of classic jazz lately on my Raycon Everyday earbuds. I use my Raycon everyday earbuds truly every day, and they are still the ones I love and still the ones that I need. With the optimized gel tips for the perfect in-ear fit, these earbuds are so comfortable they’ll actually stay in your ears whether you’re going for a run or just dancing along to your favorite love songs. Like any serious love story, your Raycon are here for a good time and a long time with eight hours of play time and a 32 hour battery life.

(00:20:19):

Most importantly, you get amazing audio quality at half the price of other premium audio brands, and that is no laughing matter and Raycon’s everyday earbuds are used to feeling the love. They’ve already gotten tens of thousands of five star reviews. Now, there are many things I love about Rayons, but let me give you just a few. I love the idea that you have noise isolation. So when want to be, i vant to be left alone, when you want to be left alone, you can dial in the noise isolation and you’ll be left alone. But equally as important is awareness mode when you’re walking around someplace where you need to pay attention for safety and so forth. They’ve got awareness mode plus they’ve got three customizable sound profiles for different types of music. Just fantastic, just fantastic. I listen to my Raycon and use my Raycon a lot when I’m walking. I do need to get back to more walking with the cold weather, but I’m going to brave, brave the outdoors. But I love my Raycons. I’m sure that you will too. Go to buy raycon.com/Campfire today to get 15% off your Raycon order plus free shipping. That’s buyraycon.com/Campfire to score 15% off and free shipping by raycon.com/Campfire. That’s B-U-Y-R-A-Y-C-O-N.com/ Campfire. And we thank Raycon for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Announcer: (00:22:01):

If you love the Campfire, be sure to check out the Paranormal Podcast where every week Jim interviews experts and authors about strange mysteries. Find it for free wherever you listen to this podcast. Tune in to the Paranormal Podcast today. Now we return to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Jim Harold (00:22:17):

Kimberly is on the line from Illinois. She’s a plus club member. She was on our Christmas YouTube show, and she’s got a great story for us tonight about playing peekaboo with a UFO. Kimberly, welcome to the show. Thank you for all your support and tell us about playing Peekaboo with a UFO.

Kimberly (IL) (00:22:36):

Hi. Thank you. That’s my cat going by. Yes, I played peekaboo with the UFO, and even just saying that is bringing back these memories and my heart, it’s pumping.

Jim Harold (00:22:50):

Tell us what happened.

Kimberly (IL) (00:22:51):

Okay, I will. It was the early to mid nineties. I was on a family trip with a friend whose family was extremely religious, and the reason I tell you that is because you need to know that there was no alcohol or any other substances that might cause me to see the things that I was seeing that night. So it was a wonderful day. We had just come from the Vanderbilt mansion. We did a tour of that in South Carolina. We had a little tagalong trailer and tents. We were going to go up to the Blue Mountains and spend the night or two. So we had a great day, campfire, cooking by the fire, telling stories. It was just a great night, and then the folks went to bed. So of course, we stay up and we’re watching the beautiful sky and stars and enjoying the fire and just really loving it. Then all of a sudden, I notice we’re above the tree line, so there are trees off in the distance, but we can see the valley below and off the distance I see a light, and of course you think it’s a star, but it’s a little bit lower than a star would be. So it caught my eye, and the light was just kind of like this moving around like this 

Jim Harold (00:24:15):

In tight little circles, tight little circles,

Kimberly (IL) (00:24:17):

Tight, little bouncy circles, bouncy circles, and then all of a sudden it would zoom right here and bounce, and then it would zoom back, bounce.

Jim Harold (00:24:27):

I’m going to describe it on audio for the show. So it’s like in one place, and then it scoots a little bit across the sky and then starts going in these little circles again, right?

Kimberly (IL) (00:24:37):

Yes.

(00:24:38):

And then as it’s traveling from place to place, there’s sort of rainbow tracers that are happening as well. So I’m seeing these rainbows, these rainbow lights, and my friend who’s with me, we’re both getting so excited about this, and it’s finally settling in that we might be seeing a UFO, and then we decide to. So we stand up and we decide to see how it really is, how closely it’s watching us. Let me back up. Let me say that at this point, we realize we’re talking about it, the energy’s building. You could kind of tell that it was putting on a show for us. It noticed that we were watching it.

Jim Harold (00:25:25):

So it was interactive almost.

Kimberly (IL) (00:25:27):

It was, you could tell at this point that it was putting on a show and we’re getting excited, and it’s like the more we got excited about it, the closer the connection was. So it started to come closer, but yet it looked far away. It was very strange, the spatial dynamic or reality of it, it seemed far away, but yet it was motioning so close to us, so we decide to test it out. So we stood up and there was a tree line here, and we crouched down. Sure enough, here comes the ship above the treeline.

Jim Harold (00:26:06):

Oh man.

Kimberly (IL) (00:26:07):

Then we’d stand back up and it would take its place back where it was a little further up and back. Then we did it again, crouched down sure enough popped up over the tree line. So we’re looking at it now. This went on, I would say probably for about 10 minutes, which is a really long time when you’re watching a UFO. I’m just shaking thinking about it. So this went on, and then we start to realize that, okay, it’s fun in games when you’re pointing at the sky and it’s putting on a little show for you, but then the idea of being visited or perhaps kidnapped by a spaceship becomes a real fear.

Jim Harold (00:26:58):

They know you’re there. They’re there. There’s no hiding. 

Kimberly (IL) (00:27:02):

Yeah! And they’re communicating and they’re coming closer. So we start to panic at this point because this is not what we wanted. It was fun and games, but then, no. So we didn’t know what to do, and we thought, well, maybe we’re still imagining this. Let’s go to the bathroom area where they have sort of outhouses and whatnot, showers and things. So we walk probably two city blocks, I want to say, to that area. And sure enough, there it is following us. And it popped up over that area where we were the tree line from next to the rest area, and then we’re full panic mode at this point, and we head back to the campsite and decide to wake up the parents because at this point, we don’t know what’s going to happen. Sure. So we go to wake up the folks, and by the time we came back, it was gone.

Jim Harold (00:28:03):

Wow. Wow. Yeah. So I mean, I’m assuming, especially all the stuff in the news the last few years and stuff, you are a real believer in the UFO phenomena.

Kimberly (IL) (00:28:14):

I am. Of course. When you see one that really solidifies it for you, I mean, I grew up believing in them because my nana had had an experience in the swamp lines of Florida where I think it must’ve been probably the early to mid fifties. She was down driving through the swamplands there and bright lights showed up above the car. There was no one around, of course, the Florida swamplands. And they ended up losing time and further down the road, they were not in the same spot that they were before. So my nana had told the story and not frequently and not often, and not happily either. She did not like to talk about it. So yeah, I grew up with that story, and therefore I was always fully interested and was hoping for my own little experience, which I did get.

Jim Harold (00:29:18):

Well, to be honest with you, I think it’s so valuable when people like you share these stories. So there’s people out there I’m sure, who are listening who have had their own UFO stories and they think, oh, I’m afraid to say anything because people will think whatever. And I just think it’s really, really valuable when people like you share their stories and very believable and And we appreciate it very much.

Kimberly (IL) (00:29:45):

Thank you so much. Yeah, I didn’t even tell my husband until recently about it.

Jim Harold (00:29:51):

Wow. Well, thank you for telling us.

Kimberly (IL) (00:29:54):

Yeah. Because he’s not that. Yeah. I’m so glad that I found you. I found you through the Homespun Haint Gals.

Jim Harold (00:30:01):

Excellent.

Kimberly (IL) (00:30:02):

And of course, now I am a plus member and I’ve listened to all your shows and I listen to you while I’m cooking, and it’s just lovely. I love what you do. Thank you so much.

Jim Harold (00:30:14):

Thank you. And stay spooky.

Kimberly (IL) (00:30:17):

I will. Thank you.

Jim Harold (00:30:18):

Next up on the Campfire is Amy from Vermont, and she is back on the show. She’s been on before. We’re so glad to have her again, and she’s going to tell us a story that revolves around a very, very old home. Amy, welcome back to the show. Tell us what happened.

Amy (VT) (00:30:35):

Thank you so much for having me, Jim. It’s really exciting to be back. So this story takes place. A few years ago, a bunch of friends and I were visiting one of our friends who had just bought a home that was built in the 1700s, and there were a lot of us there. So when it came time to go to sleep, everyone was just crashing wherever they could find a spot. So all the couches were full and people were sleeping on the floor and sleeping bags and air mattresses and just all over the place. So a friend and I were bunked up in a smaller living room on a pullout couch. And as I was trying to go to sleep, the couch started violently shaking.

Jim Harold (00:31:20):

Oh my.

Amy (VT) (00:31:21):

Yeah, I thought it was an earthquake, but then I realized that the whole room wasn’t shaking. It was just the couch. So I thought, oh my God, my friend must be having a seizure. So I get up to go check on him and the shaking stops and he is dead asleep. So I was like, all right, that’s really weird. I’m super exhausted though, so I’m just going to go to bed and try to get some sleep. So I wake up a little while later and my face is completely wet. It’s sticky and wet, and I looked down at my hands and through the light coming in, the moonlight coming in the window because it was night and still dark out, but I could see enough to see that my hands were covered in blood.

Jim Harold (00:32:15):

Oh my Lord.

Amy (VT) (00:32:17):

Yeah. Covered. And I looked down at the pillow that I was sleeping on, and that was covered in blood too. So my first thought was, oh my gosh, I have ruined my friend’s pillow. And I felt so horrible about that. But then I thought, okay, I probably have a really bad bloody nose and I need to go deal with this. So I get up and I go towards the bathroom, which is outside the door in the hallway, and I could hear water running or it sounded like someone was washing their hands and maybe the toilet was flushing, but it was clear that someone was in there. So I wait for a couple of moments and they’re not making moves, so I’m just so exhausted at this point. So I was like, you know what? I’m just going to go lie down on the couch and wait for them to finish, and I must have dozed off. I woke up again a little while later and got up and went toward the bathroom, and again, it sounded like someone was in there. I heard someone rustling around in there, and I figured I must just have really bad timing. It makes sense that the two times I’ve gotten up there would be someone in the bathroom. There were so many people staying at this house.

(00:33:36):

I wait for a little bit, same thing. I’m exhausted, so I just go back to the couch and lie down, doze off again. This happens at least two more times throughout the night. Every time I try to get in this bathroom, there’s someone in there. So finally I wake up, it’s daylight, it’s morning. I look at my hands and they’re completely clean. There’s nothing there. 

Jim Harold:

Whoa. 

Amy (VT):

Yeah, I looked down at the pillow that I was sleeping on, and that’s also completely clean, nothing. And I am so confused at this point because I know what I saw and I know what I felt. So I get up, I go to the bathroom. This time I’m actually able to get in there and I look in the mirror and my face is completely clear except for a tiny little spot of blood underneath my nose. Yeah, really strange.

(00:34:33):

So everyone’s starting to wake up now, and I asked who had been in the bathroom all night and everyone was like, not me. I tried to get in the bathroom in the middle of the night. It sounded like there was someone in there, and we all had this same story about not being able to get into the bathroom, and we concluded that none of us had actually been in there, so that was really weird. Fast forward to the following week. I’m at work and I’m chatting with some of my coworkers about paranormal stuff. I usually do because obviously I’m into this sort of thing, and one of my coworkers is telling me about this ghost town near where I live, which is really just a bunch of old foundations in the woods and some old chimneys and things like that. And I’m super intrigued because I’ve never heard of this. So naturally I start doing some research and I find a newspaper article about a couple who bought a house on the edge of this ghost town. And not surprisingly, the house ends up being haunted, and they say that the most frequent occurrences are that the beds would violently shake, and in the middle of the night it always sounded like there was someone in the bathroom.

Jim Harold (00:35:55):

Oh, that’s weird. No mention of blood though. No mention of blood.

Amy (VT) (00:35:59):

No, no mention of blood. I don’t know what that was.

Jim Harold (00:36:02):

That’s got to be terrifying, when you wake up in the middle of the night and you find blood all over your mind goes in a million different places, I would assume, right?

Amy (VT) (00:36:10):

Yeah. For some reason I wasn’t freaked out. I was just really confused. And I’m not a person who gets bloody noses often, so I don’t know what happened there.

Jim Harold (00:36:20):

That is strange. That is strange. Now, someone would say, I’m just saying not me, but somebody else might say, well, it’s obvious you were dreaming, but you were absolutely confident you were not dreaming, correct?

Amy (VT) (00:36:32):

Definitely. Because I felt this and the amount of times that I got up to go to the bathroom to try to deal with the situation, there’s just no way.

Jim Harold (00:36:44):

Wow. Wow. Now, did you end up ever going back to that house again?

Amy (VT) (00:36:51):

I have been back, but not to spend a night.

Jim Harold (00:36:54):

I don’t blame you, Amy. I know you have another story. This next one’s going to be with EVP. I know you’re going to call back for that one. Can’t wait to hear that. Thank you for being a part of the Campfire and stay spooky.

Amy (VT) (00:37:05):

Thanks, Jim. Stay spooky.

Jim Harold (00:37:07):

This show is sponsored by Better Help. I’m very proud of my relationship with Dar. I mean this year will mark 30 years we’ve been together as a couple. It blows my mind. We were both very young. Let me make that very clear, very young when we got together. And also there’s this misconception, I think that a relationship works all the time without working on it. And I don’t think that that’s true. I think every relationship ebbs and flows and you got to work on it. Common misconception, I think, about relationships is that they have to be easy to be right. But I happen to think the best ones happen when both people put in the work to make them great. And therapy can be a place to work through the challenges you face in all of your relationships, whether with friends, work, your significant other or anyone else.

(00:38:03):

If you’re having some issues with the relationships of your life or you just want to make them better, you should consider therapy because therapy can do so much. It’s helpful for learning positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, for example, within relationships, because I think even great relationships, you need boundaries, right? Therapy empowers you to be the best version of yourself, so you’re a better partner in any relationship, and it isn’t just for those who have experienced major trauma. So if you’re thinking of starting therapy, why don’t you give better help a try. It’s entirely online, which I think is so helpful and so convenient, because it’s designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge because if you think about it, you have a relationship with the therapist, the patient therapist relationship, and you want to get that one right too, so you have flexibility there. I think that’s a great, great feature. Become your own soulmate, whether you’re looking for one or not. Visit betterhelp.com/jimharold today to get 10% off your first month. That’s betterhelp.com/jim Harold. And we thank Better Help for their sponsorship of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Announcer (00:39:30):

You are listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Jim Harold (00:39:33):

Liz is on the line from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee, and we’ve done numerous interviews and shows over the years on near death experiences and life after death. We’ve interviewed Dr. Raymond Moody numerous times, including in December on the Paranormal Podcast, and he invented the term near-death experience, and Liz listened to that and I think she had some takeaways from it, and it reminded her a lot of her near-death experience as a child, and she’s going to share it with us now. Liz, thank you for joining us today. I know you’ve been listening since you had an iPod, so it’s been a minute.

Liz (TN) (00:40:14):

Thank you. It has. It has. Thanks, Jim. It’s great to be here with you. Good

Jim Harold (00:40:18):

To have

Liz (TN) (00:40:18):

Interview with Dr. Moody was so interesting, and it put together a bunch of different things in my life that helped make sense of things that hadn’t made sense before.

Jim Harold (00:40:29):

Sure. Tell us about your NDE, if you would.

Liz (TN) (00:40:33):

Sure. When I was nine years old, I fell off of my bike. This was before anybody had a bike helmet, and I was in the hospital. They knew I had a bad head injury, but they weren’t sure what it was or what to do about it. And I had been put in a hospital room, it was nighttime. I remember waking up and seeing my dad asleep in the recliners, those old hospital recliners. He was right there at the foot of my bed. And then I saw the resident, the neurology resident come, and he stuck his head in the door and looked at me, and then he left. And as soon as he left, I had this overwhelmingly peaceful and joyful feeling, and I knew I was going to die, but it was just the most peaceful, wonderful feeling. And I saw my dad and I said, thank you and goodbye and I love you. I started just transitioning to whatever is next. And then the doctor came back and he looked at my eyes and he immediately took me to have an MRI. And that night I had brain surgery that saved my life, but I’ve never forgotten that, just overwhelmingly peaceful feeling.

Jim Harold (00:42:02):

And it really stuck with you as I understand it. And then you had situations, Dr. Moody talked about people who have had NDEs have these things called shared death experiences where they have an experience when someone else dies. That tied in for you as well. Can you tell us about that incident?

Liz (TN) (00:42:24):

It did. So several years after my head injury, I was maybe 12, 13 years old. I had had a community basketball game one evening, and I remember we lost pretty badly, and I am not a competitive person and I’m not even really all that interested in basketball. But on the way home, I started sobbing and my parents were really at a loss like, what is wrong with her? And I just couldn’t explain it and couldn’t control it. We got home, my mom took me and put me in the bathtub trying to help me calm down, and I just couldn’t figure out why I was so upset. And it was kind of a scary experience. And as my mom and I were sitting there in the bathroom, the phone rang and my dad answered, and it was his mother calling to say that my grandfather had died. And then of course, we were all crying. And it was one of those times that I felt the emotion. And when Dr. Moody talked about shared death experience, I kind of wondered if I was sharing the emotions that my grandmother was having at that time as she lost her husband

(00:43:40):

And his explanation that people with NDE sometimes are more sensitive to those things really made sense.

Jim Harold (00:43:46):

Yeah, it is really fascinating to me the whole kind of area of study of that, the work that Dr. Moody has done and people like Dr. Sam Parnia. And we had a gentleman on, and I always forget his last name, who wrote a book fAter, and that was specifically about near-death experiences, and I’ll find it here in a minute. But the point is, and he was a physician, the point is that I think that the evidence to me says that we do live on, and for me, it’s not even, I hate to say this, it’s not even a matter of faith as much as it is common sense when people can back, okay, when the near death experience goes further than maybe yours did, where they can actually see themselves in the bed and they see medical personnel working on them and they see them doing things that they couldn’t possibly know.

(00:44:45):

There’s one I always tell on the show, and you probably heard it, and it was Dr. Bruce Greyson, by the way, Dr. Bruce Greyson, he did a book called After: a Doctor, Explores what Near Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond. That’s a Paranormal Podcast 678 from March of 2021. But he told a story where this one person had reported having a near death experience and said, well, the doctor, the surgeon while I was out was flapping his arms like a chicken in the operating room. And Dr. Greyson said, well, you thought to himself, this is ridiculous. This makes no sense. Well, it turns out to come to find out that physician had a habit when they needed a particular instrument to stay sterile, they would point their elbows, scalpel, please. And it gave the appearance of flapping his arms like a chicken.

Liz (TN) (00:45:41):

I remember that story.

Jim Harold (00:45:42):

Yeah. So I guess my point is to me it’s common sense. If people are seeing this, how do you explain it other than they are having some kind of near-death experience? I think maybe Dr. Moody has mentioned this before. I know people I’ve interviewed, people will report going to the other side or the edge of the other side, seeing other people there that are not known to them to have passed, and they passed at the same time, and those people went the full boat. They ended up actually not coming back. And they would wake up consciously and say, I saw so-and-so, but that person’s alive. And they say, oh, they just passed. So I mean, there’s so much evidence, and I know they say, oh, just people reporting, it’s not evidence, but how would you know these things? I just think it’s incredible. I think it’s so, so interesting. And I guess I’m guessing all of this has kind of informed your philosophy of life, no?

Liz (TN) (00:46:37):

Well, I’m certainly not afraid of death, which may make me maybe a bad driver, but it has changed how I see the world and definitely how I see our connections to each other. My grandmother is someone who I always was very, very close to, and that experience kind of, and thinking about it in these terms really has solidified that bond I have with her. Can I tell you one more thing about her?

Jim Harold (00:47:06):

Oh, please do.

Liz (TN) (00:47:08):

So as she was in a nursing home the last couple months of her life and she was having kidney failure, which sometimes causes people to be really confused or have some hallucinations. And so there were times she would say things that didn’t make a lot of sense. But one day my brand new husband and I went to visit her and she said to me, well, where is that baby boy? And I said, well, what baby boy thinking about who in the family has had a baby? I had just gotten married. And she kept insisting, no, you said you would bring me that beautiful baby boy. And she died that week and a month later I was pregnant with a baby boy. 

Jim Harold: Oh, how cool is that? 

Liz (TN): Who’s now 21 years old, and he shares, yeah, he really shares a lot of her generous, kind heartedness, and I can see her reflected in him, which is a beautiful thing.

Jim Harold (00:48:09):

That is neat. Liz, thank you so much for sharing these stories on the program today.

Liz (TN) (00:48:15):

Thanks, Jim.

Jim Harold (00:48:16):

Oh, we have a return caller. We enjoyed speaking with him the first time, and he’s back with another transportation story. I guess Nigel from the UK is back. He had that great story about working in that RAF facility when he was at university and seeing a ghost and strange happenings, and now he has another story for us. He is back. Nigel, welcome back to the show and tell us what happened.

Nigel (UK) (00:48:41):

Hello, Jim. And it’s great to be back again, Jim. Very briefly, what happened was home many, many years ago, I was driving my lovely MGV on a beautiful summer’s evening. Again, roof down, with a friend of mine, and we were coming back after visiting another friend of ours and I hast to add there’s no alcohol involved. And we were driving over the very, very famous part of the southeast, and we could notice there was a very large hill to our left, and we know that area intimately, and it’s steeped with history. And there’s a beautiful 12th century church on top of the hill. And we noticed that sort of halfway down that hill, there was a building that was illuminated, and we thought, what’s that? Well, we stopped because we could see the church, which was a very small church, but that had a floodlight so you could see it above it. And we knew that part of the hill had no building, absolutely no building it.

(00:49:52):

It was luminous if you wish. It was there. And so anyway, we looked at it, we got out the car and we stood there quizzed. We’re trying to work out what it possibly could be. We had no answer to it. Actually. We went there the next day and we walked up the hill, couldn’t see anything at all. We went up to the church, we made ourself known to the vicar, and we explained what we had seen, and he strangely dismissed it out of hand. So we thanked him and we made our way, and we were stopped by a lady who was putting in flowers into a pot in the church. And she said, could you just repeat what you said to the vicar? And we explained it and she said, look, I don’t have an answer for you, but you are about the fifth or sixth person who’s actually said that.

(00:50:45):

So that was really strange. So what we then did is we went to the local records office and we asked them if they could have a look and see if there’s any kind of record of any building at all. And she asked us exactly where it was. And unfortunately, the plans for that part of the country was burnt in great fire, almost apparently in the 16th century, no, sorry, it wouldn’t have been, would’ve been the 18th century in that period. So all the records had gone, but she did say that you are again about the fifth or sixth people who’ve made that same inquiry. Now, we never ever got to the bottom of it, but that particular part of the southeast of England is steeped in history, and it goes back many, many generations. And it was just weird and something that to this day that we can’t put a logical conclusion or answer to. And it was the most amazing thing to watch, see and witness.

Jim Harold (00:51:52):

We have had other reports of ghost buildings. Did you feel as though it, what’s the word I’m looking for, that it was a time slip or you were seeing a glimpse into the past? Is that what you think you might’ve been seeing?

Nigel (UK) (00:52:06):

Well, that’s a very good point. Do you know what Jim? We don’t think, I don’t think we actually came to any conclusion whether it was time slip or otherwise. I think that what we saw with something that we couldn’t explain, but it was there. You couldn’t argue the fact that it was an optical illusion or it was my imagination because a friend of mine, we both looked at it and we sat there for ages looking at it, but it was just there. Jim and I, honestly, I can’t provide an answer or a conclusion to it. But most peculiar,

Jim Harold (00:52:41):

What an interesting story. And so many of these stories, there is no specific conclusion. But boy, it’s an interesting journey and an interesting thing to think about. Nigel, thanks for coming back on the program and for all of your support.

Nigel (UK) (00:52:56):

A pleasure, Jim. Many thanks again,

Jim Harold (00:52:58):

Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Ritual. Now, a lot of times I trust my gut and I make the right decision, but sometimes I make the wrong decision. For example, deciding to eat that whole pizza, not a good idea. Well, probiotics can’t help you with most of your gut decisions, but if your gut needs a little support, Ritual has your back. They’ve made a three-in-one supplement with clinically studied prebiotics, probiotics and a post biotic to support a balanced gut microbiome. Now, I love Ritual because they do things the right way with their supply chain and the people involved with it. I take Ritual products every day. I trust them. I absolutely trust them. And I think that you should too, because they have this daily three and one prebiotic probiotic and post biotic. It has two of the world’s most clinically studied probiotic strains to support the relief of mild and occasional bloating, gas and diarrhea.

(00:54:01):

Now you ask, well, why do you need a postbiotic? I’ve heard of prebiotics, but why postbiotics? Well, postbiotics provide fuel to the cells that make up the gut lining to support a healthy gut barrier, and they’re delayed release capsule. Well, it’s designed to help survive the harsh conditions of the upper GI tract, and it’s all in one minty capsule, no refrigeration needed. It’s rigorously tested and validated by a third party for allergens, microbes, and heavy metals and Ritual invested in a study modeling the human colon, which showed symbiotic plus significantly increased microbial diversity and the growth of beneficial bacteria. Ritual multivitamins, which I take, are vegan non GMO product verified gluten and major allergen-free certified B Corp, and made traceable. I told you they do things the right way and they also have industry leading sustainability standards. So that’s great too. There’s no more shame in your gut game. Symbiotic Plus and Ritual are here to celebrate, not hide your insides. Get 20% off your first month for a limited time at ritual.com/Campfire. Start ritual or add symbiotic plus to your subscription today. That’s ritual.com/ Campfire for 20% off. That’s R-I-T-U-A-L.com/ Campfire for 20% off. And we thank Ritual for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Announcer (00:55:32):

Want the entire Campfire archive going back to 2009 plus much more? Get in on Jim’s plus club at JimHaroldplus.com. Now back to another great story.

Jim Harold (00:55:42):

Mike is back from Southern California. He was with us last year and this year he’s going to tell us about, well, a Ghost that might’ve been a wee bit jealous. Mike, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for your support. We had a nice conversation off some very kind words. Thank you for contributing your story and tell us what happened.

Mike (CA) (00:56:04):

My pleasure, Jim, and thank you for having me. My story that I’m going to talk about today takes place in 2001, 2002, so it was a while ago. And just a little in the back setting. Keep it brief as I can. It was about a year after I had ended a very young marriage. It started at a young age, and my first wife and I, we went our separate ways and we’re great. We both started reinventing ourselves in our early thirties. I started a new job at a local, within Wisconsin also. It was a local county operated nursing facility. And many of those, they’re older buildings. And this one happened to have been built in the late 1800s. So the kind gothic stone block building, three stories, very behemoth looking, and inside it was very outdated, long hallways and nurse’s desk at the front and you go down a long hallway down the patient rooms or resident rooms, and it felt like an old outdated place.

(00:57:01):

But what I have to say about it was it’s very clean and the residents are very well cared for, and the staff was happy, which is so unusual in healthcare at any time. And I was really proud to work there. So anyway, with old facilities, people come, live, die there. There’s things that happen and there’s just known stories that people talk about and there’s sounds and sights, and there’s a lot of weird things that living people do and say and you hear. And then there’s also some strange things that really can’t be connected with any living beings. And a couple of them were stand out to me and one of those at night, I was working a night shift and I was sitting at the nursing desk doing my thing, and the nurse’s desk was about chest high. And I heard this kind of squeaky wheelchair coming down the hall, and there was probably three or four squeaky wheelchairs on the unit.

(00:57:47):

So it wasn’t really shocking, but in my mind I’m just like, well, I hope there’s really a person in this wheelchair. So it wheels up and it stops underneath the nurse’s station. I can’t see over the desk, so I stand up. Of course, there’s nobody there. And that was my first sign of, this is what you can expect. And the staff there said, you’re going to see and hear things that you can’t understand. Don’t worry about it. Nobody’s gotten hurt. It’s always been safe. That was really my experience. And we have residents that would say they see people walking around or they see kids playing in the front yard, and they weren’t really there. Moving forward a little bit, because that building was so old, the county decided to build a new facility, much more state-of-the-art residential model versus a nursing home model. So instead of having these long hallways, they’ve made these household pods with groups of 13 residents of similar needs, whether it’s developmentally disabled or mentally ill or just frail elderly.

(00:58:42):

Each one was split. So each neighborhood had its own living room and its own dining room and its own whole kitchen. And we started noticing things happening in this new facility, and we’d hear cupboards opening and closing and doors opening and closing when everybody was asleep and nobody was moving. And one night it was really kind of interesting, the old building was still standing, and the new building, we just recently moved everybody in the old building’s really empty. It made it much more creepy, but we’re outside getting some fresh air, and there’s a light breeze blowing. It was fall, so there was dried leaves on the ground and things. And all of a sudden, from around the back of the old building, we just saw this kind of bunch of leaves blowing together, kind of like a little mini cyclone kind of thing happens. And it goes towards the side door to the new facility.

(00:59:32):

The door opens up and the leaves blow into the hallway and just kind of drop on the floor. And there’s about five or six of us. And we just kind of looked at it and we thought, well, it’s strange because the wind really isn’t blowing in that direction that that would happen. And a couple other people looked at each other and they said, well, just the last of the people from the old facility moving into the new one to join their friends. And we just all had a laugh about it. And that sent a little bit of a chill. You think, oh, I wonder what’s going to happen now. And again, a few weeks later, you just keep hearing noises and things like that. And one night in particular, I was doing some things outside of the unit, right outside the doorway to one of these kitchenettes, and one of the aides calls me and said, are you moving around in the kitchen?

(01:00:15):

I said, no, I’m nowhere near there. And he said, okay, something’s in there. And I know it’s not people, there’s nobody in there. I’ve just done a headcount for everybody else. And then all of a sudden he hears a class or a cup rake on the floor. He’s like, are you messing with me? I said, no, absolutely not. I’m way over here doing something else. Sure enough, we go in and there’s a broken cup laying on the floor. A cupboard was open, and no human was there to have done that. So despite being a new facility, we think a lot of the spirits that maybe we were living in the old facility came along for the ride. So that was the work experience that I had. This kind of coupled with some personal experience and the relationship where we get to the jealousy kind of thing.

(01:00:56):

So while I was working at this old facility, I mean this old and new facility, I had also bought a house to renovate and get myself moving forward in life. And it was a small house, but it was about a hundred years old. And the price I paid for it was less than what you paid for a medium-sized car these days. So it was really bad; of note, when I looked at it, the front door was jam shut, would not open, or anything, wouldn’t open. The inside of the house, just needed to be gutted. And I knew that I was prepared for that. So after I closed down the house and decided to do this was before all the home fix up shows. So I was just kind of on my own doing this. And I had brought my dad’s video camera, and I was walking around the property doing a little commentary with things I want to do, and everything was working fine.

(01:01:40):

It was camcorders that operated on eight AA batteries. So I put new batteries in and everything was going good. I get inside the house, and this is like ghost stories. It’s kind of predictable, but within two minutes of going inside the house, battery’s drained out, stop camera, stopped working. Okay, great. So I go out, put eight new batteries in, go back in the house within three minutes that again. So I kind of just stay to the house like, alright, I’m here. You’re here. Let’s just live a peaceful existence and I’m not going to mess with you, you don’t mess with me. Nothing really serious happened until I had got to the house to the point where I could live in it and I was just minor furniture in there. And I’d be just dating, of course, and I might be on the computer trying to meet ladies and communicate and email with them and things like that.

(01:02:34):

And one night I was sitting at my table with a computer, and again, it was a construction zone, so I had tools laying all over the place, and I had a cordless drill sitting right next to me on my table drill weighed about three to five pounds, and I was probably emailing somebody. And all of a sudden the drill slides about 12 inches off the table, hits the floor big thud. And this was like 11 o’clock at night. So it was a little chilling, and I felt tension in the room if someone’s really angry at you and just staring at you. And I could sense that. And I’m like, oh boy. So pick up the drill, put it on the table, and I say, if you’re trying to get attention, get my attention, do it again. And then nothing, it just was kind of quiet.

(01:03:19):

So moving ahead here, I had met, it might’ve met the lady I was emailing that night that we hit it off and things were going just great. She was also a divorcee. She had two young kids and we spent a lot of time together, very excited about being together. But when I would be getting ready to go see her, strange things would happen in my house, one that is getting ready and I heard what sounded like an ironing board, just drop on the floor. And I didn’t have an ironing board in the house and what could make that noise? And I come out, there’s nothing there, nothing happening, but my dogs are hiding underneath the table. And you could feel that tension again in the house. And a few other mornings I’d wake up, during winters in Wisconsin. My front door would be wide open.

(01:04:08):

And this was the door that was jammed shut. I had replaced it. I had put a new door in with new locks and everything like that. And I kept waking up and that front door would be open, swung open, and it’s a little chilly hair blown on me. So you really notice that. And that was just, again, another strange thing I couldn’t explain. I was making sure I was locking the door. Nobody else had a key to it. It was just weird. And my dogs that normally would’ve run out the door, they’re hiding underneath the table. So then as I’m dating this lady, we’re spending time at her place. And then the weird stuff started happening at her place. As you’re dating, you have pictures of each other together and things like that. And she was, we were both excited. So we both had those things in our place.

(01:04:50):

But she would say she’d come home from work and the pictures that she had of us together would be flipped upside down or moved around or thrown on the floor. And there was nobody else in the house at the time. Her kids weren’t there, they’re at their dad’s. And she’d even come home and find her telephone unplugged. The landline phone unplugged from the wall or the answering machine unplugged from the phone. And she asked me, are you coming over? I said, I don’t have a key to your house. You’re the only one that has a key. This really can’t be explained anyway. And then there’d be times I’d be alone at her place waiting for her to come home or just helping her with stuff around. And I would feel that same dagger staring through me. And if I’d walk down the stairs to go into her basement of her townhouse, it would feel like I was walking through a wall of just a frozen wall, just this layer of really super cold.

(01:05:39):

And it was just really creepy there. And this was a newer townhouse, so it was kind of strange. It wouldn’t be something you’d expect to be haunted. So coming to the end here, wrapping things up, I was telling one of my coworkers who was just a really insightful person and she could take a lot of information, funnel it into a solution here. And I was telling her the story and she’s like, you know what? I think you have a jealous ghost. And I said, what? Really? She’s like, well, just put it all together. You’re having stuff at home. It gets ramped up when you’re getting ready to go out, when you’re emailing people. And then when you’re at their house, it’s like following you and it’s causing problems over there. It’s trying to keep you from calling her and leaving messages. I think you have a jealous ghost. So I said, well, that could be true. You can’t say it isn’t. And there’s just so many things that happened there, and whether it came home from that facility and joined up with me and enjoyed my company, I don’t know. I have no idea. But it’s one of those things that kind of goes unanswered.

Jim Harold (01:06:38):

Very interesting. And you guys eventually, you guys married, right?

Mike (CA) (01:06:46):

Yep. We’ve been together 20 years now. My boys, well, I called ’em my boys. They were hers for a previous marriage, but we all grew together and had a great family and a few other experiences along the way that I could share at a future podcast if you want to hear ’em. They’re all pretty interesting. Again, nothing super terrifying, but just a lot of the same type of flavor that you have on the show quite often.

Jim Harold (01:07:08):

Excellent, excellent. Well, I’m glad and the ghost did not stop you from finding your true love, and that’s the important thing. Mike, thank you so much for being a part of the show and all of your support.

Mike (CA) (01:07:20):

Thank you, Jim.

Jim Harold (01:07:21):

Alex is on the line from Fort Worth, Texas, and he’s been listening going way back to 2010, so we really appreciate that. Now, his story that he’s going to tell tonight though is very recent Christmas Eve 2023, as a matter of fact, fresh off the presses. We’re so glad to speak with him. Alex, thanks for your long time listenership, and tell us what happened this past Christmas Eve.

Alex (TX) (01:07:46):

Hi, Jim, thanks so much for having me on. So last Christmas Eve, I took my mom for her 73rd birthday. She wanted to go on a tour of Nashville, seeing a bunch of different musical artists. And there was one in particular she wanted to see at a hotel on the northeast side of Nashville, about 50 miles out in a place called Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee, a hotel called the Donahoe Hotel. There’s a musician by the name of Ronnie McDowell who has,

Jim Harold (01:08:14):

Oh yeah, I remember him.

Alex (TX) (01:08:16):

He’s got a residency there.

Jim Harold (01:08:17):

Yeah, he does a lot of Elvis impersonation, if I remember correctly, or does a lot of Elvis songs. And he did some work in the eighties with Conway Twitty and yeah, I remember him well. Yeah.

Alex (TX) (01:08:28):

Yeah, that’s him. And he was doing a two night show over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And so we decided, took my mom out there for a birthday and we got multiple rooms. I took my kids with me two and my wife. And we get out there, this hotel, it’, you know,  Red Boiling Springs is not a very big town. It’s a kind of small Appalachian town right on the border of Kentucky. And I brought my Tesla, which was kind of a stupid idea. My wife kept getting on me about that, but I had a Tesla model I brought with me. I charged it in Nashville, got it to a hundred percent. I knew it was going to have to drive back and forth, and there was no charger out there. So anyway, I charged it a hundred percent. And what it showed me on the map is I’m going to have 65% when I get out there, this hotel.

(01:09:20):

Anyway, I get out to the hotel about 65, 66%. I go in, I get the keys to the hotel room, and I’m in there just talking to the owner. We’re just kind of BSing because I’m a musician myself too. And he was a musician. We were just kind of talking and I come out and my son, my 15-year-old son is just like wide-eyed, like, dad, there’s something wrong with the car. I’m like, huh, okay. And so I walk out to the Tesla, all the lights are on the back trunk, came open on there and was going up and down, and I had to turn the whole thing off and on multiple times. And anyway, when I turned it back on for I believe the third time, it was showing 22%.

Jim Harold (01:10:10):

And you just got a full charge in Nashville, right?

Alex (TX) (01:10:12):

And I just got a full charge out of it. And so I was weirded out by this, but I wasn’t thinking too much. I was trying to be logical about it. So I said, I just told everybody, just stay in the car a second, let go get the bags. I’ll go to the room and make sure everything’s fine. Well, anyway, I go to the first room, the one that my mom is going to be staying in, and I got her bags. And this is an old hotel, doesn’t have cards or anything. It’s got a key, like a skeleton key, almost put in the door, open the door, and mind you, this is a two room hotel room where you’ve got the main room where the bedroom is, and then there’s a bathroom on the other side of it. You could see it clear into the bathroom.

(01:10:53):

So I open the door probably three quarter of the way and looking right in front of me, I see this woman who is approximately 40 to 45 years of age. She’s got black hair, probably medium length black hair, not dressed like an employee of the hotel, just dressed like an average person. And the first thing that goes through my mind is I’m in the middle of nowhere and I’m thinking, somebody may have broke in, because these rooms were, you know, the keys. It looked like they could have been opened. It was one of these things. It’s just security did not seem to be the most important thing at this part of where we were. And so I immediately look over to the right to scan the room. I don’t know why this primordial fear came over me that I’m about to get hit in the head. Somebody’s about to hit me.

(01:11:45):

And I backed up. I looked over to the side of the room, scanned the room, there’s nobody there. By the time my eyes made it back over to where this bathroom was, all I saw was a black shadow receding into where the bathroom was. So immediately, I am freaked out at this point, but I go in, I can clearly see there’s nobody in the main room. Well, I go in and I’m thinking, okay, somebody’s playing a joke. Somebody went out through a window in the bathroom, something like that. Maybe there’s a door between rooms, some hotels, I’ve seen older hotels have doors between rooms. And I go that there’s nothing like that. There’s no window in the bathroom that could be opened, nothing like that. And I proceeded to go out and get my wife, and I told her what happened, and she’s like, don’t tell the kids, don’t do anything like that. It’s going to scare ’em. Well, anyway, my oldest son was getting some of the other bags going back to this room, and I’m still at the car, kind of shooken up talking to my wife and my son starts bolting back saying, had I just saw a shadow, there’s somebody in that room, there’s somebody in that room.

(01:13:00):

And mind you, I had told him absolutely nothing about this, absolutely nothing. And I finally told him, I said, Hey, why don’t we just stay here in the car for a little while? And long story short, we stayed there the weekend. Almost every one of us had an experience. My mother heard a cat coming from in that room. My wife, who prides herself as somebody who is about as skeptical as skeptical can get, she doesn’t see anything. She also heard this cat coming from this room and there’s no cats around. I looked around the whole place. We were there all weekend. It was just very interesting that we all had an experience, though some of ’em were auditory. I visually saw something my son did too. And everybody else kind of heard things, felt things. And I even ended up talking to one of the bands that was playing that weekend too, and I just kind of off the cuff asking him, I said, Hey, is this hotel haunted? And the guy, this bass player laughed at me and he said, oh man, this place is extremely haunted.

Jim Harold (01:14:09):

That was my question. And he thought of who that woman could have been. Now, do you think now it’s been well stated that if there is a paranormal activity going on, it can affect electronics and essentially what is a Tesla, but like a big computer on wheels?

Alex (TX) (01:14:27):

It’s a big battery

Jim Harold (01:14:28):

And a big battery too. That’s right. Yeah. So do you think that the paranormal activity in the room and in the hotel was connected with the Tesla going haywire?

Alex (TX) (01:14:41):

In my personal experience, I think it is. I’m primarily a Civil War historian, so I go out to battlefields all the time. Sure. I do a lot of work out there on battlefields or the writing, I’m a professor too, and that’s where I find most of my time. And I take my Tesla with me. I’ve had this happen before. I was actually in Spotsylvania Courthouse in Virginia a couple of months ago. The exact same thing happened.

Jim Harold (01:15:09):

So it seems to be very, your Tesla is psychic,

Alex (TX) (01:15:13):

I guess it is. I guess it is. But the crazy thing was we were able to make it back to the town to where we were able to charge it. And I was petrified I was going to have to have the car towed because it was so low. But we made it back. Everything worked out. But I’ve looked in the history of this hotel. It was built right around the early part of the 20th century. I know there’s probably been some death associated with it, but I’m puzzled at who I saw because I couldn’t really get a good read on anybody that’s had that experience. And that’s another reason I’m wanting to kind of tell the story. So if anybody else has had one of those experiences there, it’d be really nice to know, kind of see what this mystery is all about.

Jim Harold (01:15:54):

Yeah, please do let us know if you’ve had any experiences in that area. We love to have follow-ups and so forth. It is great. And another thing is great is when you get to connect with someone who has been a long time loyal listener for gosh, 14 years. Thank you so much, Alex. Thank you for sharing your story. And stay spooky.

Alex (TX) (01:16:15):

Stay spooky. Jim.

Jim Harold (01:16:16):

Joe is calling in today from someplace actually colder than where I’m at. I’m in Cleveland, Ohio, but he’s in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and it’s got to be chilly up there. Today we’re hovering around zero here in Ohio, and I know it’s got to be colder than that up there, but he’s going to heat things up with a great Campfire story. He’s a relatively new listener. He found us on Spotify, and I’m so glad he did. Joe, welcome to the show, and I know you had some stories to share with us. Share one of your favorites today.

Joe (MN) (01:16:48):

Hi, Jim. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I’ve lived in Minneapolis my whole life. This story, it was back in 2018. I was a junior in college. I would go down to the University of Minnesota East Bank River Trail a lot with my friends. And I brought my girlfriend at the time, now fiance down there, I think it was probably November or something like that. I thought it’d be a romantic walk at night. There was this little overlook with a bench that I wanted to bring her to, and we’re walking along this paved trail, and I keep hearing noises in the woods around me, and I’m freaking out. And I’m saying, do you hear that? Did you hear that? And she said, no, I don’t hear anything. And actually her hearing is worse than mine. So that might’ve been a factor. And then we get to this bench and we’re sitting on the bench and I’m still hearing things creeping around in the dark.

(01:17:44):

So I pull my flashlight out and I shine it behind me, and there’s a bunch of coyotes that had been following us. Yikes. I wasn’t crazy. And she said, okay, okay. And then we’re walking back to the car later, and I had to go to the bathroom. I had to relieve myself. So I sent her walking toward the car down the path, and I stepped off the trail into the woods a little bit to relieve myself. And I was kind of bored just doing my business. And I looked back the paved trail, the direction we came from, and there’s this kind of street lamp above me. And I thought to myself, what if a man stepped into view? What if there was a man at the edge of that street lamp? And then a moment later, there was a man walking toward me down that trail, and I was like, oh God, that’s quite a coincidence.

(01:18:40):

So I sped things up. I wrapped up my business, and I ran down the trail to catch up with my girlfriend, and I said, you won’t believe this. There’s a man walking down the trail. I thought it was very unusual that there’d be someone out there at night, even though we were out there as well. And she didn’t believe me. She said, you’re lying. She thought I was making it up, kind of building off the coyote deal. And I stood her in place. I grabbed both of her shoulders and said, watch this. And then he comes into view again and she goes, oh God. And we run back to the car. We were freaked out before. We felt we were a safe distance away, but it was kind of thrilling once we were in the clear.

Jim Harold (01:19:27):

Now, let me ask you this. In your email, you said he materialized. Did he just show up like a normal human or I think of the old original Star Trek. Did he like, he’s coming from the Teleporter. Did he like you now? 

Joe (MN) (01:19:43):

No, I’m convinced he was a normal human. But the creepy part to me was the fact that I thought, what if there was a man? And then he just steps into the light.

Jim Harold (01:19:52):

Well, I will give you another possibility. Have you heard of the idea? I know when we talked offline, you mentioned you like a lot of paranormal podcasts. Have you heard of the idea of Tulpas?

Joe (MN) (01:20:05):

I think I’ve heard you mention that. I don’t remember what it is.

Jim Harold (01:20:08):

It’s basically a thought form. So it’s not that you’re imagining this thing, but you think of something and you actually create it with your mind. Probably the most famous example of that is up in the seventies, up in Toronto, I think it was somewhere up in Canada. There was this group, this Paranormal group, and they decided they were going to create a ghost. It was called the Philip Experiment. And sure enough, they started meeting, they started having seances calling on Philip, and Philip showed up. 

Joe (MN)

Oh, cool.

Jim Harold: So I mean, I’m not saying it could have just been a guy walking down a path, probably most likely, maybe just a weird coincidence. But is it possible that somehow you generated that person? And I want to be clear, because when I say that people’s, they get, oh, you’re saying that’s all in my head. No, I’m saying that some people believe the humans have the power to actually generate physical entities. So would you add that to your list of possible explanations, or do you think that’s a little out there?

Joe (MN) (01:21:15):

I understand the concept. I think that’s interesting. I don’t know what to make of it, but I will say I don’t remember anything about the guy. I don’t remember what he was wearing or how tall he was, or even how fast he was walking. I guess those details didn’t occur to me.

Jim Harold (01:21:31):

Well, it’s interesting to think about and we love to have those thought experiments and share these great stories on the Campfire. I know you will be back. We’ve already set it up. You will be back to tell another story. Looking forward to it. Joe, thanks so much for being a part of the Campfire today.

Joe (MN) (01:21:48):

Thank you, Jim. Appreciate it.

Jim Harold (01:21:50):

Kayla is on the line from New Jersey. She’s been listening since 2017. We’re so thankful she is. And she has over the years experienced astral projection and a glitch in the Matrix, and she has one story she’s going to share tonight. Kayla, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened.

Kayla (NJ) (01:22:11):

Thank you so much, Jim. Okay, so this story dates back to about 2020, and it’s about me and a few friends and how we enjoyed music. So let’s call one of my friends John. A popular song came on and was really, really popular on the radio, and I didn’t really enjoy it much. It was so, it was just so overplayed for me. And basically this song, I was listening to my friend play it and complain to him. You’re always playing that song. Everybody plays it. I don’t know why everybody likes it. It’s annoying at this point. And we always go back and forth about our opinions on music. He disagreed. Of course. I gave him a hard time about how his taste was horrible. Fast forward a few weeks, I forgot how much of a hard time I gave him, and I played the song without knowing the hard time I gave him.

(01:23:13):

And he looked at me with a smirk and said, ah, I thought you didn’t like that song and instant embarrassment. I’m like, ah, yeah, I did give him a hard time. Well, it grew on me so well, and that was that instance. Now, this is a whole ‘nother friend that I’m about to bring up that has no connection with the friend that I spoke about, John. So this other friend will call him Terrance. We were hanging out and in the neighborhood he had to go visit a friend that just came back from down south. I’m like, yeah, yeah, no problem. He’s like, yeah, you could walk with me. It’s right around the block. We could just hang out there for a few and then we’ll come right back. I’m like, okay, yeah, that’s fine. We go there. Mind you, this takes place maybe a week or two later.

(01:24:03):

And after the whole encounter of me being embarrassed of playing a song I already gave someone a hard time for, so we get to his friend’s house, they talk for a few, and he introduces us. He’s like, Hey, this is my friend Kayla. And so we hang out in this backyard for a little. They talk about whatever they needed to talk about. And as we’re getting ready for our journey back, I immediately pull out my phone to enjoy some music on the little walk. And me and this friend Terrance, we did enjoy the song that I previously gave someone else a hard time about that was super catchy. And once I turned it on, his friend that I’ve never met before looks at me and says, oh, I thought you didn’t like that song. And I was a bit confused because I’ve never met this person, but he had a smirk on his face as if he knew what he was talking about.

(01:25:02):

And my friend looks at me and he’s like, what are you talking about? And he looks at his friend a little offended, like, did she even tell you that she didn’t like the song? I’m not sure why he took so much offense, but maybe he felt his friend had just said something out of line. And I kind of was looking at my friend like, Hey, we got to go. I’m a bit scared. And he’s asking his friend more confrontational, and his friend has no recollection of even saying that to me. Absolutely no recollection. He’s like, what is going on? Did I say something? And I’m looking at my friend, like, Hey, yeah, let’s go. So then on the way home, I’m trying to tell my friend something just laughed in my face and he’s not understanding. And I’m like, no. That was said to me in the same manner, about the same song in another vessel, and it wasn’t the same person. I don’t even know who that person is. I feel like I was just mocked by a supernatural presence that, I’m not sure if it was a glitch in the Matrix or what it was, but I know that two people that have never met someone that’s from down south, not even on the east coast where I’m from, looked at me and said the same exact thing. One of my closest friends said to me, with no correlation.

Jim Harold (01:26:20):

So you feel that, and especially the person said, they didn’t recall even saying that, right?

Kayla (NJ) (01:26:26):

They had no idea. They even said it. I just felt like the smile, the demeanor of what was said to me, I felt as if it was like hey, old friend. And it was a very odd feeling to feel like I was just visited by something that is beyond more than our body.

Jim Harold (01:26:44):

So you felt that those words were kind of put in that person’s mouth by something supernatural, more or less? Yes.

Kayla (NJ) (01:26:51):

As if a visitor just popped in and wanted to remind me that he’s around.

Jim Harold (01:26:55):

Interesting. Interesting. Well, again, as I often say, Kayla, we live in a weird world. A lot of stuff happens. This to me, falls under the head scratcher category, just things you can’t explain. But they happened and they’re really weird. Thank you so much for sharing your story tonight and stay spooky.

Kayla (NJ) (01:27:15):

Thank you so much, Jim.

Jim Harold (01:27:16):

Well, thank you for tuning into the Campfire. I appreciate it. Thank you to all of our great storytellers, what fantastic stories we have this week, and thank you to our sponsors. Please support them because they make the free shows possible. Now an I’m sorry, apology to Shannon. Shannon had written me on January 8th saying, I’ve heard on one of your shows that you will give a birthday message to a listener. Can you please send a birthday greeting to my friend Donna? She’s been on your show and she’s turning 60 on the 14th of January. Well, obviously this is late. So Shannon, I’m very sorry, but Donna, happy belated birthday and a big stay spooky to you. And thank you so much for listening. And if you would like your own birthday greeting, holiday greeting, anniversary, congratulations, whatever it might be, I do personalized videos at Cameo. They’re very inexpensive.

(01:28:20):

We try to make them very accessible for as many people as possible. And you can get those over at cameo.com/the JimHarold. That’s cameo.com/theJiimHarold, C A M E O.com/theJimHarold. And as of now, I have a five star rating, and we’ve been doing this for a couple of years, so hopefully you’ll go over to do that. That also supports the shows. Another thing that supports the shows, check out our merch at JimHarold.com/merch. As I mentioned at the beginning, we have those cool Valentine shirts and hoodies plus everything else we have over there and always adding new stuff. We’d appreciate that very much, and most of all, we would appreciate it if you hit share on this show from your favorite app and share it with a friend today. That’s probably the most helpful thing you can do, is spread the word about the show. We always want to grow the audience, the pool of possible storytellers, and that benefits everybody. So it’s a win-win-win situation. We thank you so much. We’ll talk to you next time. Have a great week, everybody. Stay safe. Share the show, and stay spooky. Bye-Bye.

Announcer (01:29:35):

You’ve been listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire. Tune in again next time. For more stories of ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary things.

Jim Harold (01:29:53):

Oh man, the Campfire’s over already. Well, I’ve got good news for you. If you want to get over 600 episodes no longer available on the free feeds, you can do so. Join my Plus Club. Go over to Jimharoldplus.com and click on the banner and get all the details. There’s so much more Campfire waiting for you. Don’t delay. Join today. It helps us out greatly. Jim Harold’s Paranormal Plus Club.

—
For more information on our podcast data policy CLICK HERE