A demon driver, a haunted inn and apartment, a life saving voice and much more on this edition of Jim Harold’s Campfire!

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TRANSCRIPT

Jim Harold

An encounter with a demon driver? Up next on Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Announcer 1

[Music] 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

Welcome to Jim Harold’s Campfire. This is where you can hear real stories from real folks about things like ghost encounters, shadow person encounters, maybe the hat man, UFO encounters, encounters with creepy cryptid creatures, but whatever they are, they are true stories told by real people and welcome to our show. Now, we’re going to tell you a little bit later about some neat things we’re doing for the holidays, including some giveaways, but first, let’s get right to these Campfire stories. Manuel is on the line from Los Angeles and he’s got my curiosity piqued because, well, this story has something to do with a demonic entity. Manuel, welcome to the show and tell us what happened.

Manuel

Hi, thank you, Jim. Thank you for having me. Let’s see, where do I begin? Wow. So, this took place probably, I would say, over 20 years ago and it’s just seared itself into my memory. It’s just there, like, there’s no way I can forget about it. So, go back about 20 years ago and I was married at the time and I had my daughter from a previous marriage. It was on the weekend that I was taking her back to her mother’s house and her mother lived pretty far away from me. So, I had to take her through some rural areas. She lived in a very rural area and I remember at the time I had this really big truck, really big lifted pickup truck and the windows were tinted dark and everything. And when I was driving down this two-lane highway and I wasn’t by myself. I had my wife at the time in the passenger seat and her son was in the back, sitting in the back with my daughter. It was a big, one of those big trucks. And it was late in the evening, so it was already like late dusk where the sun is already behind the mountains, but there’s still light and all you see are silhouettes of trees and mountains. So, you know, headlights of the cars are already starting to come on. I’m trying to paint a picture here.

Jim Harold

Right.

Manuel

And so, we’re driving down the street and I see a red light come on. So, you know, the traffic light is red. So, we pull up to the light, we stop and the kids are going on in the back and everything. And then all of a sudden, this little car just pulls up to the side of us. And it’s like a little, it looked like a Pinto. I’m just trying to remember which one, but it was just this little jalopy of a car. Pulls up next to us and the courtesy light, I remember this very well, the courtesy light inside the vehicle was turned on. So, it illuminated everything inside the car. And, you know, didn’t think nothing much of it. And so, I look over to my right, I’m driving, it pulls over to the right of us and it stops at the light. And I look over and I see this, what appears to be a man in there looking through his car frantically. I mean, frantically, just looking all over, through the glove box, under the seat, at the back, just under the sun visors, under his chair. And mind you, we’re up high, right? So, we’re looking down at what he’s doing.

Jim Harold

Right.

Manuel

And it’s already late, our windows are black tint, you know, so feel kind of comfortable looking at this guy and, you know, what is he doing? You know, and I remember, I remember very well looking at him and thinking like, what the heck is he doing?

Jim Harold

Sure.

Manuel

And, and, and then all of a sudden, out of all this frantic moving, he just stops and he grabs the steering wheel and he freezes. He just freezes and he has one hand at 10 and one hand at 2. And looking down at his laps, he’s looking down at his lap while he’s holding the steering wheel.

Jim Harold

Oh my gosh.

Manuel

And then again, I think to myself, what in the world is this guy doing? And so, and we’re all looking at him, me, my ex, my ex-wife and our kids, we’re all looking at him at the same time. We’re like, what is he doing? And then all of a sudden he turns his head and looks directly up at our tinted black window, makes eye contact with us through the window as he sees us. And as he’s looking up, he gets this big, ugly grin that just goes across his face and down his chin. His face literally stretches open and his chin just comes down. And I was like, oh my, what in the hell is that? I stepped on the gas and I floored it and we took off. And let me tell you, Jim, this, this was not, and his eyes were black voids too.

Jim Harold

Oh man.

Manuel

This was not, like, I know there’s people that can twerk their face, but there’s just no way that the human muscle structure, you know, the muscles in the face can do this.

Jim Harold

It almost shape shifted.

Manuel

Right, exactly. And it just, it was just the most, in every sense of the word, ugly and horrifying. And it just, we just sped off out of there and we were just quiet. And I remember as I was driving away, I was looking in the rear view, my right rear view mirror, because he was in that lane and I could see his headlights just get further and further in the distance. And I just wanted to get the heck out of there.

Jim Harold

Wow. And it’s interesting because nothing to me is, you know, potentially scarier than going down like a rural two lane road and having something weird like that. Now, you may not have heard it because I think we’re going to be releasing it as we record this. This will be released in a couple of days. By this time, people hear this, they would have heard it. But there was this one woman who just recently came on the show and her and her husband were in a similar kind of situation, deserted two lane road. And like this car, this like semi kept on them and got closer and closer and was trying to run them down like that old movie, that old TV movie was Steven Spielberg’s first movie called “Duel”. And and then all of a sudden the lights totally overtake the cabin of their car. They figure out we’re going to be hit and just disappears.

Manuel

Yes.

Jim Harold

There’s and then you had referenced in your email the state trooper that we had on and the weird thing that happened to him. Weird stuff happens on the road.

Manuel

Yes.

Jim Harold

Weird stuff.

Manuel

You know, I listened to your show. I work lates at the hospital and one I’m whenever I’m driving home, I always listen to your podcast. And I remember listening to the strange, the state trooper story. And as I was coming home, I was so engulfed in it because I knew what he was experiencing. I knew what like I just I knew what it was. And as I came into my house and I was still listening to it on my phone when he said that this thing had his hand on 10 and two o’clock and it turned its head at him. I was like, it’s going to be the smile. It’s going to be the smile. And he said, and Jim, he had this this cheshire smile on his face. Jim chills just engulfed my entire body. I just I knew what it was and I knew what he had seen and that in and I try to connect the dots and being why me and why that state trooper? Why did we see this thing? You know?

Jim Harold

I don’t know, but be careful on those roads out there, everybody. And if you’re listening to this in a in a dark two lane rural road, remember, things turn out okay. Most of the time. No, seriously, be safe out there. And then, well, I know you’ve got another story. We’ll catch you in a future week. Looking forward to that. And thank you for sharing this instant Campfire classic.

Manuel

Thank you. Stay Spooky, Jim.

Jim Harold

Dustin is on the line from West Texas, and we’re so glad to talk with her today. And I won’t say anything but to say I love this story. Dustin, please tell us what happened.

Dustin

Hi y’all. So this story happens around eight to 10 years old. I grew up as a latchkey kid. My father was a firefighter, so he was kind of in to sleep and eat and go back to work. I had a bunch of older, rowdy brothers, so I kind of stuck to myself, became a big reader. So much of an introvert, like just saying hi to my teachers at school was hard. The town I’m in in West Texas has an Air Force base that yearly will put on air shows where we can go in. We can walk around the C-130s. We can look at the B-1 bombers. There are a lot of demonstrations and stuff. It’s pretty big. The whole town comes out. It was at one of these air shows where I experienced a sort of divine intervention that I look at. My grandparents came in that week, so there were about 10 of us in total. My brothers took friends. It was a big event. We all showed up that morning. We split vehicles and drove to the Air Force base. I know this is going to shock some of your readers. This is before cell phones. My parents let us out, and they said, “When it gets dark, we all need to meet back at the vehicles.” There was no way for them to send us a text or check our location. They just expected us to all be back. I, of course, being the introvert that I am, was like, “Hallelujah, I can get back in the car and go home and get a Harry Potter book.” I leaned up against my father’s car, facing my mom’s van waiting. There was no one around, and I hear, “Roll or you’ll lose your legs.”

Jim Harold

Whoa.

Dustin

“Roll.” No one was around me. I know I wasn’t making it up. I kind of just thought, “Okay, I’m going crazy. It’s okay. It’s okay.” I hear it again and again and again. It gets louder every single time. In my head, I’m hearing someone say, “Roll or you’ll lose your legs.” My mom was perpetually mad. A mother of teenagers. What can you expect? She gets in the van that I’m facing, loads up all of her boys. When she pulls out, she pins me in between the vehicles. I hear again, “Roll or you’ll lose your legs.” Nobody was around to tell her to stop, so she kept driving until I fell out from in between the vehicles. The same voice, though, that was just yelling at me was now sweet and calm. “Keep rolling. Keep rolling. Keep rolling.” It was almost a maternal, lovely, sweet voice now. At the same time, I feel like time stopped for a minute. It was slow. I was allowed to think of my movements.

Jim Harold

I’ve heard that. When there’s a crisis, it’s like in a video game. There used to be a game they used to play. They would call it “bullet time.” When time slowed down, the character, you’d have more time to react to different things. I’ve heard that. When people are in a life-and-death situation, things slow down and they feel sometimes they’re able to react. In this expanded time frame, I’ve heard exactly the same thing.

Dustin

I can experience that now as an EMT. I know to control my emotions, to help a patient. But in the moment, even thinking back on it, that’s frightening. I remember that moment being 15 or 20 minutes when in reality, she was mad she pulled out of a parking spot. It couldn’t have been that long.

Jim Harold

Right.

Dustin

So she pulls out. I drop to the ground. My father comes running. He takes me to the ER immediately because the back of my mom’s van was quite dented. I had to have been hurt. We go to the ER. They run every single test they can on me. Two hours later, I’m fine. I get a clean bill of health and I’m walking out.

Jim Harold

Amazing. Amazing. Go ahead.

Dustin

I’m so sorry to interrupt. There have been a few other instances where I can still feel this same spirit. It’s not a voice I’ve heard before, but there are times when the same spirit will direct me in that same voice. It gives me chills every time because it brings me right back to that moment.

Jim Harold

Yeah, it’s amazing. I think we get these messages. Now, my question is, who do you think that voice was?

Dustin

This kind of spooky one day, my husband and I were sitting with my grandmother and I got a smell of perfume. She’s 85. She takes care of herself, but she doesn’t have the need to put on makeup and perfume anymore. It was over the top, the smell. She said, “Oh, that’s one of your great-grandmothers you never met. She wore that smell all the time.” So, I believe it’s her.

Jim Harold

Interesting. I believe that our loved ones were guardian angels. I do think that sometimes they step in to save us. It certainly sounds like that’s the case. Now, you had mentioned that your husband, John, thank you, John, told you about the show. Stay Spooky, John, and thank you for the referral. You binged something like 25 hours on a road trip immediately. I’m guessing that this experience kind of primed you for an interest in these kind of topics, no?

Dustin

Absolutely. I have always been into paranormal. I’ve always loved watching paranormal shows. My husband wants, however, for me to go on a ghost hunt with him. I think I’m a little too scared for that.

Jim Harold

Well, one step at a time, Dustin, one step at a time. Thank you, and thank John, and thank whoever that voice was for saving you all those years ago. We appreciate you sharing your story on the Campfire and Stay Spooky.

Dustin

Stay Spooky, Jim. Thank you.

Jim Harold

Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Storyworth. In this holiday season, I want to give a gift to my loved ones that makes them feel special and unique, just like the relationship we share, and that’s why I’m giving folks Storyworth. Storyworth is an online service that helps you and your loved ones preserve precious memories and stories for years to come. It’s a thoughtful and meaningful gift that connects you to those who matter most. Every week, Storyworth emails your relative or friend a thought-provoking question of your choice from their vast pool of possible options. Each unique prompt asks questions you’ve never thought to ask, like, “What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done in your life?” or, “If you could see into the future, what would you want to find out?” After one year, Storyworth will compile all of your loved ones’ stories, including photos, into a beautiful keepsake book that you’ll be able to share and revisit for generations to come. And we’re doing that with my dad. It’s going to be a great heirloom to pass along to the kids, and I’m sure it’s going to be cherished for generations. Now, reading those weekly stories helps connect you with loved ones, no matter how near or far apart you are. I mean, my dad has had some great stories. One was when he painted his hair green. Another one is about his exploits in high school on the football field. He was a star running back for his high school team, and just hearing those stories and things that even I didn’t realize, it’s fantastic. With Storyworth, I am giving those I love most a thoughtful, personal gift from the heart and preserving their memories and stories for years to come. Go to storyworth.com/campfire and save $10 on your first purchase. That’s storyworth.com/campfire to save $10 on your first purchase. And we thank Storyworth for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire, and happy holidays. Before we get back to another great story, I wanted to tell you about some special things we’re doing for the holidays. First of all, this Friday, December 15th, we’re doing a live holiday video party with me, Dar, Cassandra, Natalie, Maddy. And there we do trivia, we do giveaways. We just have a lot of holiday fun that will be this Friday, if you’re listening to on Thursday. If you’re listening on Thursday, it will be tomorrow, December 15th, between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern on my YouTube channel at youtube.com/jimharold. And there will be a replay. I hope you join us there. Number two, do you have an artistic side and you’d like to win some holiday swag? Well, you’re in luck because we have our Holiday Card Contest, and the deadline is coming up fast. It’s about a week, December 22nd. And if you send in your holiday card and it wins, you could win things like Amazon gift card or an Etsy gift card for my Mausoleum of Merch. We, in the past, have done a holiday ornament contest. This year, we thought we’d try something different with a Holiday Card Contest. It can be from a Christmas perspective. It can be from another faith tradition or no faith at all. Just a holiday card as you interpret it. It needs to be homemade, and to get all the details on how to send yours in, go to jimharold.com/holiday2023. That’s jimharold.com/holiday2023. And hurry up, because the deadline to receive it is December 22nd. We look forward to seeing all of your great artwork. We’ve gotten some submissions. We’d like more. jimharold.com/holiday2023. And now let’s get back to some more great Campfire Stories.

Announcer 2

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

Raquel is on the line from Motor City, Detroit, Michigan. We’re so glad to have her on the program. And she’s going to take us back to 2015. And tell a story that kind of revolves around her granddad. Raquel, thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. And tell us what happened.

Raquel

Awesome. Thank you, Jim. I would like to start by saying that my whole life, even as a kid, I’ve been interested in the paranormal, open to the paranormal, but I really can’t say that I’ve had any experiences. Maybe very few, even though I was totally open to it. So in 2015, I was in my mid-20s and I lost my grandfather. I called him Grandpap. And his loss was devastating to me. Very difficult. My parents had me when I was very young, or when they were very young. So we lived with him for a while. And he, even from the very beginning, was my best friend, biggest cheerleader, very important person in my life. So his loss was really difficult. So being a person that was interested in the paranormal, I would do the typical, “Hey, Grandpap, if you’re in the room, can you flicker the lights?” Or, “Hey, Grandpap, if you can hear me, if you’re with me, blow this sheet of paper off the table.” Never happened.  As many times as I tried, or I would ask him for some kind of specific sign, or just any kind of communication so that I would know he was with me and he was okay, It never happened. It was never answered. So eventually I thought, “Okay, I’m just disappointing myself. I can still believe that he’s here, but I should stop trying, stop asking for these little things. That’s okay.” So fast forward to 2021. My fiancé and I adopted a puppy together after many, many months of careful thought and consideration and planning. His name was Ladu. He was named after an Indian dessert. And he was just the sweetest, most precious, perfect boy. He was the light of our lives right away. So we had him for about three months. And unfortunately, he got very suddenly sick with aspiration pneumonia, and he was only six months old at that time. So horrible. We thought we took him to the emergency vet right away, thought that he would pull through, but unfortunately he passed away. And my fiancé and I were obviously devastated by this, shocked, and kept asking ourselves, “What should we have done differently? Why did this happen?” I’m sure all of the normal things that you ask yourself when something like this happens, but it was very, very difficult for us to deal with. So the next day after he passed, we’re standing in the kitchen together, talking about how much we missed him, crying, wishing he was there. And my fiancé says out loud, “I wish if Grandpap could just give us a sign that Ladu is safe and is with him, if Grandpap could turn on the TV, I would know that they’re both safe and Ladu’s there, everything is okay.” And when he said this, I thought, I just kind of felt my heart sink. I thought, “Oh my gosh, you know, I’ve tried this a million times, and nothing has ever happened. I know it’s not going to work. When the TV doesn’t turn on, I can’t possibly bear to see my fiancé more upset than he already is. This is terrible.” So I wish he didn’t say that. And as soon as this thought is out of my head, I see about 10 feet away from us, behind us, the TV turns on. And I said, “Oh my gosh, turn around, look!” We both burst into tears. We weren’t anywhere near the TV. The remote was on the couch in the other room. So there was no way that we could have accidentally done that, or I did it under the counter to make him happier, anything like that. So that was the first and only time that that’s ever happened. I would always joke that everyone in my family likes my fiancé better than they like me, and apparently that’s true. So that was a really special moment, and I can’t even tell you how much reassurance and how wonderful I felt at that time.

Jim Harold

Well, a few things I’ll say. One thing is, you dropped out just a little bit there, but you said that no one was near the TV, so no one could have knocked it on by accident or anything like that, right?

Raquel

No, it was at least 10 feet away from us. We were both in a totally different room, so no way.

Jim Harold

So the other point I was going to make is that you say, “Well, I only have one story.” Well, that’s all it takes. I mean, I actually love to hear stories from people, say, “Oh, this stuff doesn’t happen to me.” But there was this one time. Those are some of my absolute favorites, because it’s kind of like a built-in proof, if you will. You’re already kind of showing maybe you’re a little skeptical about all these things, and I think hearing that, for me, is even more affirming than if I hear necessarily– not saying that if somebody believes in all this or has multiple experiences, lying, no, that’s not what I’m saying, but it means something different if someone says, “Oh, this stuff doesn’t happen to me, but there was this one time.” I think that there is something special about that, and I think that’s really neat.

Raquel

Yeah, I totally agree. And if I was going to pick an occasion where it really mattered, then Grandpap did a great job and saved it for something that meant the world to me, so I’ll take it.

Jim Harold

And the last thing I’ll say is that it’s kind of a twofer, because it’s proving that Grandpap is still around and your beloved pet.

Raquel

Yes, exactly.

Jim Harold

So it’s two for the price of one. Raquel, thank you for joining us, and Stay Spooky.

Raquel

Thank you, Jim. Stay Spooky.

Jim Harold

Next up on the Campfire is Bill from the great state of Connecticut, and we’re so glad to speak with him. And he’s been listening for something like 10 years. We love to hear from our longtime listeners. And Bill is going to take us back to the 1980s to something very strange that happened. Bill, welcome to the program. Tell us what happened.

Bill

Thanks for having me, Jim. As you said, this was the mid-’80s. I was in my early teens, and like a lot of kids, I grew up kind of afraid of my closet. But as I got a little bit older, things got a little weirder with it. One night, I got up. I thought I heard my mother in the bath. I heard that sound of, like, water splashing, you know, someone in the bath. And I got up and stood at my door to ask her a question, and I realized that the sound was coming from my closet. It was weird. Just a normal closet with, like, clothes and toys and stuff. So I opened it up, and it stopped. And I thought that was strange. And then the next few nights later, same thing happened. But it sounded like, to me, a dining room, like that sound of a little murmur of people talking and, like, cutlery scratching against the plate. That clink. I heard it, and it was a very distinctive sound. It was coming from my closet again. I opened it up. It stopped. The second I got that. And then this thing happened, and it was Halloween. I was the wolf man. I had the mask, gloves, you know, the scary gloves. But I wanted to try it on. I put the mask on, put on my glove, tripped over the dog, fell on the stairs, and broke my arm.

Jim Harold

Oh.

Bill

And so that was, you know, I still didn’t tell my parents I trick-or-treated. And then I didn’t tell them until the next day, because I didn’t want to miss out on candy. But after that, I started to have a recurring nightmare. And in this nightmare, I would take those gloves and put them in my closet. I had a pile of, you know, old toys and junk in there. I put the gloves, so it looked like there was something climbing out from the pile of stuff. And I would call my sister. And I never did this in real life. This was just in my dream. I would call her, and say, “I heard a weird noise in my closet. Would you look?” And she would look, get scared when she saw the hands, and run away. And then I would kind of laugh, and then turn around. And the hands were moving, and there were red eyes looking out from the darkness. I couldn’t see a face, but I could see these eyes. And I would wake up. And this happened time and time again. I kept having this recurring nightmare. Months were going by. And it started to, when I would wake up, I would start to think I heard the doorknob jiggling to my closet. And I was never sure. There’s that hazy time when you first wake up, right? You’re not sure what’s going on. But I eventually, it spooked me. I took the doorknob off the inside of the closet. Because I didn’t want people to know I was afraid of my closet. But I was worried about this. And then I kept having the dream. And now I would wake up. I always woke up when I had this dream. And I would wake up, and I thought I heard the door clicking shut. And that was scarier than the doorknob. So I ultimately popped the hinges off the door. Just propped the door up in the opening. And I don’t know if you ever collected comics when you were a kid. I had these big, long, three-foot comic boxes. The one, we called them long boxes. And I had three of those, and I stacked them up in front of the door. To, A, hold the door up. So if something tried to come out of my closet, in my mind, I would hear it. It would be an alarm. I’d hear this. So I felt a little bit better. And I kept having the dream. But one night, I had the dream. And the dream was different for the first time. And this time, I called my sister in. She got scared, and she ran away. And then I ran after her. Ran down the hallway, ran down the stairs, and ran. We had a living room, little hallway that connected the living room to the kitchen and to the basement. I ran in there looking for her. Door slammed shut to the kitchen. Door slammed shut to the living room. And I was plunged into darkness. I was still dreaming. But then I woke up, and I was instantly, I was awake. I was standing up in the same position. And I was sure I was there. I was sure I was in that little hallway. And it didn’t make sense, because in real life, there were no doors in that hallway. There had been at one point, but there weren’t any more in our house. And I didn’t know what was going on. I was standing up, awake. And I was so scared. I was screaming. I was pounding. I was trying to open those doors. I was sure I was there. Punching around me. And then I was hitting against something, and I saw a little sliver of light. Not a lot, but I just kept hitting in that direction. And finally, the light got a little bit brighter. I was punching. I just, with both my arms, punching. Then there was a big crash. And it was my closet door. I was inside my closet. I had been in there. The door was shut. The comic books were holding it. They all went crashing. All my comics were in those plastic bags, and they were sliding. They went sliding everywhere.

Jim Harold

Oh, man.

Bill

And I had no idea what had happened, how that was possible. I ran to my parents’ bedroom, and I dove between them in the bed. And I just was never so scared in my life. That when I woke up and I was in that dark space and I was standing up, I just was so scared. So I– and this wasn’t the end of it, but naturally, that spooked me a lot. Luckily, at this point, it was a summer, so I could stay up. I stayed up till every day till the sun came up, and then I went to bed. So about a week went by. I got into this– my routine evolved to where I got up, and then I would ride my bike around just at dusk. And then when the sun was fully up, I would go home and go to sleep. So I was in– I went out in my backyard. I was waiting for it to get light enough to ride my bike. And the sun was just coming up, and I was kind of just playing in the corner of the yard near my room and near that corner of the house, and I had this feeling like I walked into a spider web. And you know that feeling. I don’t know if you’ve ever gone to a basement or–

Jim Harold

Oh, yeah.

Bill

Yeah, and so I was kind of trying to get a spider web off of me, but then I realized it felt like there was a spider web on my whole body. I was wearing jeans, like a– you know, so it didn’t make sense. I could feel it everywhere, this feeling of a spider web, but I was still struggling because it was a creepy feeling in it. I didn’t– I thought there was a spider web on me. And then I noticed as I was kind of struggling with this that there was movement around me, and I– this corner of my yard was just like rocks and leaves. It was just kind of a dead corner of the yard, and all these rocks were just kind of moving.

Jim Harold

Yeah.

Bill

And slowly, not– it wasn’t the wind, and it wasn’t something doing it. It was just they were– and then I realized that, like, for 10 feet in a circle around me, the rocks and the leaves were just kind of moving like a really slow whirlpool.

Jim Harold

Huh.

Bill

And I was looking– like, you look over a bridge and you see that little whirlpool form.

Jim Harold

Yeah.

Bill

But it was little stones and rocks and sticks, and they were just all smaller swirls, like slow. It was slow, and I didn’t know what– I thought for a second maybe I just walked into the biggest spider web you’ve ever seen, right, and it was connected to everything somehow. So I stopped moving, just to– I thought everything would stop when I stopped moving, but no, the stuff was kind of swirling around. And this one half of an oak seed, you know, those little oak seeds and they helicopter down. We used to call them helicopters.

Jim Harold

Yeah.

Bill

One of those, out of all this debris that was around, just came up off the ground and stopped right in front of my face, maybe a foot in front of my face, two feet, like I was in anti-gravity. It was just floating in front of my face, turning slowly, and I was– this is so confusing, Jim. I didn’t know what was happening. This stuff is still moving, but I was looking at this because this was the craziest thing I’d ever seen. It was just floating there. And then it went straight at my face, and I kind of turned my face, like you would, just instinctually, and it kind of hit me to the side of my nose, but I could feel like someone was there pushing with their hand, holding this thing. Kind of pushed me back a little bit. I didn’t fall, but I got pushed back. I was surprised. And then all of a sudden, I was– this was– just got real scary. And I ran again, ran to the house, jumped into my parents’ bed between the two of them. I don’t know. That was the last thing that ever happened. I never slept in– after that, I never slept in that room again. When I left for college, I slept on the couch. And nothing weird ever happened anywhere else in the house except that corner of the house, my room, that yard. Every so often, my mother would say, “You’re a big kid. You need to sleep in your room.” She’d force me to, and then I would sleepwalk. The only time I’d sleepwalk, I’d wake up behind, like, the chair in the dining room or some other part of the house. Yeah, but that was it.

Jim Harold

Do you think that room was some kind of vortex or something like that?

Bill

I don’t know. It’s– I– and I got– you know, it made me really interested in the paranormal. That wasn’t something I was interested in before because I just wanted to see something again or to have some validation there. But, no, never– it never– nothing else ever happened.

Jim Harold

Very interesting indeed. Very interesting indeed. And, you know, again, getting you interested in the paranormal just because it’s such a fascinating subject, particularly when you have something like that happen to you.

Bill

Yeah. You know, maybe someone out there has something similar happen to them, and it helps them to hear their story.

Jim Harold

Well, thank you so much for being a part of the Campfire. I appreciate it very much, and Stay Spooky.

Bill

Stay Spooky, Jim. Thank you.

Jim Harold

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Announcer 2

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

NIck is on the line from Hampshire in the United Kingdom. I think that is so cool. I always get a real kick when we have our listeners internationally dial in. And he says he has a short spooky story with a historical background and backstory to it. And I love that because I love history and I love the spooky stuff. And where else can you find more historical places, sites, archaeology than someplace like the UK? It’s just amazing. Nick, thank you so much for joining us. Tell us what happened.

Nick

Hi, Jim. Yeah, thanks for inviting me on. Yeah, so this story goes back, I would say, 20 years. So in the last week or so, I’ve been trying to recall it all. But yeah, it happened. One of my best friends, he moved into a little cottage, like a picture postcard English cottage in the Royal Indian countryside in an ancient village. And I did a bit of reading up on the first house that was actually built. There was 1453.

Jim Harold

Wow.

Nick

You know, a long time ago. His house, which he actually moved into, was a little two bed thatch cottage. We had a river going through the house. So you’d have an old water wheel in there to power whatever they needed to do. Anyway, myself and my wife, wife now, girlfriend at the time, we drove over there for a weekend to go and stay with them. We had to go down all these little country roads and we drove up to the house. And it was a bright, sunny day. We’ve got this cottage and there’s an orchard. You know, it’s just like you think this is just a wonderful, you know, stereotypical English house. You think this is great. But as we drove up, I had this kind of feeling of foreboding. I know it sounds ridiculous, but why would I? You know, his family’s there, my best friend,

Jim Harold

Right.

Nick

His child. You know, it’d be great. Anyway, we pulled up and we had a tour of the house. We went around. It was two beds, like I say, upstairs. And the living room and the kitchen and the outside area. But they showed us this little sneaky little bit because it’s such an old house. It actually had a priest hole. Do you know what the priest holes are?

Jim Harold

I’ve heard of it, but I can’t place what it is. I have heard the term before.

Nick

So when Henry VIII was destroying the monasteries and they had a lot of them, the Catholics basically had to hide in England at the time. These priest holes were little holes where the local priests would be hidden away from soldiers. So they weren’t taken away and killed basically. So it’s really historical, small little speaker hole. We’re like, oh God, you know, this is a bit strange. Anyway, we went back outside. It was a sunny day. We were playing by the river. We were playing with the dog, eating barbecue. And then we got kind of got to the end of the evening. And then there’s only place we could sleep was in the living room, which is fine. It was in two settees. And my girlfriend was one on settee and I was on the other settee or couch. And then we had one of these old floor standing lamps, you know, from the seventies and the eighties. And you just have to put the bulb into this kind of switch. You have to click it quite hard to switch on and off. You know, those?

Jim Harold

Yeah.

Nick

The old fashioned ones. Anyway, we’ve gone to bed. We’ve just got the covers over a (indistinguishable) was by me. So I had to actually get out of the, the, the couch, stand up to switch off. So click and switch off, go into bed. And we laid there just like in a dazing off. Then suddenly there was this click and the light came on. We’re like, what’s going on? Well, yeah, she’s going to the loo. That’s what I thought my wife was going to the loo. I was like, “Yeah, what are you doing?” She’s “No, what are you doing?” “Well, it wasn’t me.” Okay. Well, I got out and I had to physically click it again. And I got back into bed and we’re just like kind of dozing half dozing enough. Click. Light came on again. We’re like, whoa, this is getting ridiculous. So we got out again. I did it a third time. I said, “Right, if this comes on again. Then we’re going to be in a little bit of trouble.” But I click, it went on again. My wife was like, we’ve got to go. Couldn’t because we’d been drinking, you know, can’t drink  and drive.

Jim Harold

Right.

Nick

I ended up switching off and tracing the cable all the way back to the power socket on the wall and pulling out the wall. I said, right. If it really does go on now, we’re on. We’ll pledge to say it didn’t happen. But yeah, so that was the spooky bit. How did it switch on? It made no sense. The next day we were there clicking switch. He couldn’t balance in it halfway through. It was either on or off. So out my head.

Jim Harold

Now, was it one of those up down switches or was it the old ones that had the circular buttons that you push?

Nick

It was if we slide it from left to right, you know, there’s every really heavy one.

Jim Harold

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick

You know, you couldn’t balance it. It was something had to push it to click it. So assume, I mean, is that poltergeist? Because it had to be physically sweet.

Jim Harold

Well, yeah, I would say that’s that’s poltergeist, you know? Yeah.

Nick

So that’s it. Short and sweet. But well, yeah, it still stays with me now. I mean, I was a skeptic at the time and I still just don’t. I have no idea how it happened.

Jim Harold

Now, did anybody else report spooky stuff in that place?

Nick

Well, so like I said, the foreboding of the house. So I never mentioned this to my wife. And then it felt, you know, we had it was a sunny day. It was really nice. But all the way through it, we felt sad. Does that make any sense? It was just, yeah, it wasn’t happy time. You know, this is all my best friends, you know, we used to have wonderful time and we were driving back and say, did you feel like really sad after this? Yeah, I did. It just didn’t feel right as soon as we got there and then my friends left there and left a long time ago. And I remember asking them exactly the same. They just felt really sad and just felt, you know, I want to say depressed, but just really upset.  

Jim Harold

Yeah. It was like a darker energy 

Nick

Like a, yeah. So if you saw the setting of where it was, you just think it’s wonderful. But yeah, it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all.

Jim Harold

Wow.

Nick

And that so we didn’t I didn’t hear of any anyone, any kind of poltergeist activity happening. Just yeah. Yeah. Crushing darkness.

Jim Harold

Well, Nick, thank you so much for calling all the way from the UK. We appreciate it and Stay Spooky.

Nick

OK, thank you. Cheers, Jim.

Jim Harold

One thing I love about doing the Campfire is we’ll have one call and we’ll talk to somebody who’s been listening literally 14 years. And then we’ll have a new listener who just stumbled on us. Bonnie is on the line from Montana. She’s been listening for about a month and already she has stepped to the plate and say, I am going to share my story. This one about a potentially haunted house she lived in and she’s going to tell us all about it. Bonnie, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened.

Bonnie

Hey, Jim. Great to be here. Well, what happened was I was actually on a road trip back from Michigan and I got a strange text from a girl I knew in high school. And she goes, “Hey, I am actually living in this room that you used to live in. My question is, did anything weird happen?” And immediately my mind went to I can think of a hundred weird things that happened there. But I reply with, “Well, what kind of weird are you talking? Because it’s kind of an open ended question.” And then she proceeds to tell me about her wardrobe being knocked over, hearing weird sounds, seeing a shadowy figure. And I am like, OK, I thought I was absolutely crazy. And that’s the reason I got out of that place. It caused a lot of disruption with me and my roommate at the time. So just to backtrack a touch, it was around 2017. I was around 22. I moved into this really old house that had been turned into apartments. It was down by the river in Missoula, Montana. The house isn’t there anymore because it was so old that it got condemned immediately. I moved out of it, I think for more reasons than the state of it. It was just a very strange place. But I had had a friend who said I could room with her. So I jumped to the chance and she was kind of strange at the beginning with me being a little bit behind on the first month that I was going to be there. And she was just like, just don’t even worry about it. I’m just really glad to have you here and all this other stuff.

Jim Harold

And that’s unusual. Usually, knock at the door, where’s my money?

Bonnie

Exactly. So that was just kind of odd for me. But looking back on it, there were other indicators to me that she was just kind of uncomfortable being alone there. And then the more time that I spent there, especially the times when I was alone in the apartment, I worked a really early morning barista job. And then I would come back home and sleep for like three hours and then go back and bake at night. So that kind of middle of the day, there was oftentimes that I was actually the only person in the whole house, even though it was like four different units.

Jim Harold

Yeah.

Bonnie

We were upstairs and I remember my brain flashes back to this text that I got from this girl about things being weird. And one of the first things, like the first week I was there, is I like heard weird footsteps on the roof that to me, I just explained away, it was like squirrels, what have you. It’s an old house. There’s also a very cold spot in my room back towards the corner, but they were also, it was also near the windows. So I kind of chalked that up to being the windows and it being an old house again. The things that really tipped me off were I was taking a nap one day and I heard something in the kitchen fall. And I was like, that’s a little bit weird, but you know, there’s other people in the house, they’re thin walls. Somebody could have like dropped something in the next apartment and it could have made whatever fall off. So I get up and go investigate and it was a Salvador Dali recipe book and a bunch of bananas that were on this little thin shelf.

Jim Harold

And everybody knows Salvador Dali, kind of a strange dude.

Bonnie

Definitely a strange dude, especially this recipe book. Oh my gosh, full of his art and his favorite French recipes. But so this book, it was a big book, like a massive one, not just thickness, but like tall too. So it was heavy. And then there’s this bunch of bananas. And they were on a small shelf, but that shelf was set into the wall on a place that behind that wall was my bathroom. So somebody would have had to have like knocked on the bathtub wall in order for those to like fall off. And they also didn’t fall straight down. They like fell crisscross. And I was just like, that’s really, really strange. And then the one that like really sets chills down my spine is again, I’m there alone. I’m going to take a nap. I knew that my roommate had left for the day, but sometimes she forgot things and like would come back. Didn’t really know her schedule. I’m down for a nap and I hear distinct footprints walk, like footsteps walk across my living room towards my room.

Jim Harold

Oh man.

Bonnie

So they’d be away from her room, but towards my room. And then they turned and went into the kitchen. And I was definitely weirded out because I thought I was alone. So I get up and investigate. Nobody’s in the kitchen.

Jim Harold

So I mean, you thought at that point you weren’t thinking necessarily ghost. You thought maybe a human person.

Bonnie

A human person. It was footsteps like two, like bipedal, not like a scurry. It was definite footsteps. So I go investigate. No one in the living room, no one in the kitchen, no one in the bathroom. The final room is my roommate’s bedroom. So I peek the door open and then my heart just drops because she is not home and the front door is locked. And I was like, I don’t know what that was. So I go back to bed and then I have this weird like nap time dream of me like being in this weird physical, like very physical, violent fight. And my research later, that’s actually kind of an indication that there’s a spirit present. And I’ve had that like since then when I’ve had other kind of weird haunting things go on. So that later was a sign to me as well. I also had a moment where I was in my room meditating and I heard with my eyes closed, it was dark out. I heard clear as day. “Hello, Bonnie.” And I was freaked out and I got chills and I opened my eyes and up in the corner where that cold spot in my room usually was, there’s just this dark, like hazy something chilling out there. Yeah. So fast forward again, I reply back to this girl two months after I moved out. Yeah.All kinds of weird things happened. Let me give you a list. And then I got her input and she was like, I think it comes and goes. It’s not here all the time, but it’s like a dark mass in the corner of my room. And I was like, yeah, dude, that place is haunted for sure.

Jim Harold

Seems like it, yeah.

Bonnie

Immediately after I moved out, like the day I moved into my new place, I had another dream that I was in that old apartment and there was something in there with me. And I had a friend come to my apartment and he told me, I have to get you out of here. You can’t be around whatever is stuck in here now. And that really freaked me out. And it was like a whole struggle in this dream. And he got me away from the apartment and the apartment after we left just like collapsed, which is hilarious because I was one of the last tenants to live there. The building got condemned. They tore it down after that.

Jim Harold

Wow.

Bonnie

Yeah. So there’s all kinds of just oddities that happened. So it went from a potential haunting and me thinking I was crazy to then having a second person validate everything that I felt. Like my heart’s still racing just thinking about it.

Jim Harold

But nothing followed you? When you left. It was over.

Bonnie

Well, that’s debatable because sometimes I even wonder if it might have been something that I took to that place because I had an experience before that in a separate apartment in this old town. Something was in my apartment and I got freaked out and I ran into the kitchen and I just got the sense that like the line of the kitchen tile that meets the carpet was the safe zone. As long as I stayed in the kitchen, I was laying on the floor and I was terrified to go out into my living room because I knew something was there. I’d caught my cat staring at the corner. So I’m like, either that place was haunted and the new place was haunted and or like I had something and brought it with me. But like since then, even moving out of those places, I’ve had very strange experiences. So I wonder if I’m just like a sensitive and they’re like separate cases. But a couple of things and not all of them have been alone. That’s one of like two stories that I’ve experienced, like seeing something with somebody else.

Jim Harold

Well, I thank you for sharing this story, Bonnie. Please come back on the show if you have any more spooky stories.

Bonnie

Will do.

Jim Harold

Glad you found it. And thanks for signing up so quickly. I mean, a month, a month signing up. I really appreciate it. And that’s the thing. My frustration with the show sometimes is I know people are looking for this kind of show. You said you were looking for you called it kind of an old school call in show, which is fine. I’ll take that. I love that idea that we kind of harken back to a previous age and have that place where people can just call. In fact, next year, we may actually do a Campfire Live or two. We’re actually doing it live. That should be fun.

Bonnie

That would be so much fun.

Jim Harold

So but regardless, the point being that we love that. I wish more people knew about the show. So that means those of you listening, tell your friends. I know we could have many, many stories, many more listeners if people just knew about the show. So please tell them and they’ll find it just like Bonnie did. Bonnie, thank you so much and Stay Spooky.

Bonnie

Hey, thank you, Jim.

Jim Harold

Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Grammarly. And when it comes to writing, Grammarly is there to support you from start to finish. For over 10 years, Grammarly has been powered by AI technology you can trust to help you across all the places where you write the most. And now, well, Grammarly, they help you do even more. With one click, you can easily brainstorm, rewrite, and reply with suggestions based on your context and goals. So you can improve productivity for you and your team. Now, the thing is, is I think I am a pretty good writer, right? But then, you know, you send something out as an email, as a letter, and you read it back. It’s like, “Oh, I could have done that better. I could have done that better. But I was in a hurry.” Well, the thing is, is that what Grammarly can do is serve as that double check before the fact. And that’s just one of the things it can do. But it can be that editor. You know, again, I think I’m a pretty good writer. But when I do my column every week for my email newsletter, never fails. I put it into Grammarly, and it provides great suggestions, improvements, grammar corrections, whatever it might be. I love it. I use it. I’ve been using it for years before they were ever a sponsor. So, let’s say you need to get through your emails quicker. Grammarly can help you summarize your emails and provide suggestions on how to reply in seconds. If you need to polish your writing like me, you can type in a prompt, say, “Improve it, shorten it,” and Grammarly does it. And the way I look at Grammarly, it’s not doing the work for you. It is working with you to make your writing better. If you need to draft an important email and don’t know where to start, Grammarly has suggestions to jumpstart your writing. And the best part of it? It’s free to use. Start being more productive at work. Go to grammarly.com/podcast to download for free today. That’s G-R-A-M-M-A-R-L-Y.com/podcast. And we thank Grammarly for their support of The Campfire.

Announcer 2

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Spooky Studio. Now back to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Jim Harold

Rob is on the line from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, home of the Steelers. And Rob is with us today. He’s a big supporter as well as his wife, Lynn, who Rob says is a super fan. So, Lynn, thank you and Stay Spooky. And Rob has a story that really proves that the paranormal doesn’t always have to be a scary thing. Rob, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened.

Rob

Thanks, Jim. Well, it was an interesting moment in my life because I always was into ghost investigations and that type of thing. But I was more of like an armchair investigator, you know, watching the TV shows and that type of thing. Just the other day, my wife and I were discussing evidence and what is truly evidence to people who may not be believers. And really, the only way that you become a believer is experiencing it yourself. And this was the moment that I decided that I was no longer really going to have those skeptical thoughts because it was what I experienced was truly undeniable. And it was a positive experience, and that was sort of the point that I wanted to make is it doesn’t always have to be doom and gloom and dark and scary. It could be a beautiful experience, and that’s what I had. I was in the living room of my house, and my stepdaughter was laying on the couch, and she was having some real health issues. And I was sitting right beneath her. She was on the couch laying, and I had just gotten her to finally close her eyes and sort of drift off. And I had my hand on top of her hand, and her hand was in her lap. And like I said, she was just starting to sort of drift off into a little bit more of a calm moment for us both. And as I was sitting there, I was really concerned. I was concerned for her. I was concerned that, you know, was I doing the right things from what I know? And I know her mom, my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, Lynn, was also very concerned. And at that moment with my back to her, I felt a hand on top of my hand. And that may sound scary if it’s just you and a sleeping child in the room, but it wasn’t at all. I turned around, and there was nothing there. She hadn’t moved. Her other hand didn’t end up on top of mine. Her hair didn’t touch, all the things that a cynic would go through in his mind. That’s what I was going through. What was that, that type of moment? And in that moment, as I’m looking and I’m starting to go through all these things, what could it possibly have been, I once again felt a hand on my left shoulder behind me. And obviously, I turned around, and again, there was nothing there. But I think in that moment, whatever had touched my hand and then my shoulder also got into my mind. It was talking with me. And he told me that he was Mr. Bill is what I call him, but it was actually Lynn’s father, V. Veronica’s grandfather, who had passed away several years earlier. And he sort of entered my mind at the time and said, “Thank you for taking care of my granddaughter. I’m here for you. You’re doing okay. You’re doing it right.” And ever since then, he’s truly been my guardian spirit, and I talk to him every day. And it was that defining moment for me that made me realize that not only are spirits real, but they’re watching over us, and that can be a very beautiful, beautiful thing. And my wife and I talk to Mr. Bill every day, and sometimes he helps, but sometimes he can be a little ornery too and mess with us at times. But generally speaking, it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing to have your guardian angel. I know we don’t always use the word angels, but he is definitely my guardian spirit, and I appreciate and love him for it.

Jim Harold

That’s awesome. And I think, as I think I’ve said many times before, to me, the paranormal is an extension of the normal in the sense of in our everyday lives, you turn on the TV and you see man’s inhumanity to man. You see people robbing. You see people killing. You see people stealing. And then you see, as Mr. Rogers used to tell it, the helpers. Look for the helpers. And I believe it’s the same way on the other side. I think there’s people, you know, spirits that are just kind of down the middle, like the average person. You know, sometimes you’re good, sometimes you don’t quite meet the mark. Then you’ve got those nasty, nasty spirits, kind of like the spiritual carjackers, if you will. And then you’ve got these sweet spirits, like the Mr. Rogers and the Mother Teresas and those people. And I think the whole continuum exists on the other side. I really do. And I think it’s nice to be reminded, Rob, that there is a softer side to the paranormal. People of a certain age will remember that “the Softer Side of Sears”, the softer side of the spooky. And we thank you so much for sharing it and for Lynn, too, being such a great supporter of the shows.

Rob

Well, thanks, Jim. Thanks for everything you do. And keep going.

Jim Harold

JB has been listening since 2014, and she has a story for us. It’s about an inn, and I have a hint for you. It may just be haunted. JB, welcome to the show. Thank you for listening all these years and sharing your story. Tell us what happened.

JB

Absolutely. So it’s a great honor to be on here, Jim. I appreciate it. So as my side gig or my side hustle, I do work at an inn in Vermont on various occasions. So just to set a little bit of a backdrop, it was built in the 18th century, and it did serve as a stagecoach location. So lots of comings and goings. It’s been inhabited for many, many, many years, obviously. So the particular day in question was a really busy day. It was in the summer. Lots of guests, lots of turnovers and comings and goings. And I do have to say that I am that person that I don’t experience the supernatural as much as I–excuse me, I would love to. But so I’m always on the lookout. So we’re running around, completing all the tasks and trying to have it done before the guests check in for the day. So various parts of the inn are where the guests can’t go to because there are steep stairs. It’s just off limits to them. So I was hurrying up the back stairs, which are pretty steep because they are from the 18th century. So we were rushing around. The town had cut off the water unexpectedly because they were doing some work. And so we were rushing to try to complete the laundry load so that we could make the beds for the guests. So I’m running up these back steep stairs with the load of laundry. And because it is steeper, I had to kind of take every two steps and put down the laundry basket. So I get to the very top of the stairs and I open up the door and I’m walking down the hallway. So just to kind of give you a visual, you make a turn and there’s a guest room on the left-hand side. And on the right-hand side is a small little pantry where we would keep our supplies and the sheets, which I was putting away. So the two doors, to kind of give a visual, the two doors, they would hit each other if they’re both opening at the same time. So as I’m walking past this room, I look in and I can see through the crack on how when the door is open, there’s kind of that space in between the door frame and the door itself where the hinges are keeping it open. So I can see somebody’s legs there. And that’s all I can see. And in my mind, it’s this perfectly cleaned room that’s ready for a guest. And so in my head, I’m thinking, “Oh my goodness, we have a guest that’s wandering around and they’re just going in various rooms and sitting down.” Because I knew that the guest for that particular room had not shown up yet. They had not been checked in. And so in my mind, I’m using foul language and going, “Oh, blank. That room’s going to have to be retouched up because now somebody’s in there and they probably messed with things.” So lots of swear words are coming in my head. So I opened up the closet door for the pantry, for the maid’s pantry. And I put the basket of laundry in there. And then I shut the door behind me because I was going to back up and just really count as casually as possible, see who this guest was that was wandering around in different rooms they weren’t supposed to be in. So as I back up and I look through the little space in between the door frame and where the door would be, the legs are gone.

Jim Harold

Oh, dum-dum-dum.

JB

I know, right? And I had very clearly saw them. In my head, I remember it as being black shoes and blue pants. And so I was like, it was so busy that day that I really didn’t even have to process this. I’m like, “Oh my goodness.” So I backed up just a little bit further just to make sure that they weren’t wandering around the room and I didn’t see them, but they were nowhere to be found. There was nobody in that room. It was perfectly exactly as we had left it. For that person to leave the room, they would have had to swing the door all the way out and into the door where I was and they would have pushed me into the closet. So it’s a short but sweet moment when I got to see the ghost of the inn in Vermont where I work.

Jim Harold

That’s pretty cool. And how far back again? I think you mentioned, but how far back does it go?

JB

Sure. It was built back in around 17…. So it would have been right after the Revolutionary War, I believe. So about 1780, I think, is when it was turned into a stagecoach inn.

Jim Harold

A lot of history. A lot of history. Thank you so much. Speaking of history, thank you for listening all these years and thank you, JB, for being a part of the show today.

JB

Absolutely. I appreciate it.

Jim Harold

Stay Spooky.

JB

Will do.

Jim Harold

Paul is on the line and we’re so glad that he is. And he’s going to tell us about growing up in a house. Well, it was spooky, to say the least. Paul, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened.

Paul

Thank you, Jim. It was early ’75 to ’76 when I lived in this house. 1976, obviously. But my parents lived in the, or they got married, my stepdad and everybody. And then they moved into this house and we didn’t know anything about this house. And you can look up the Poulsen House on the internet and find it. But that everybody that’s been in that house, I mean, it’s been a real estate office. It’s been, you name it. It’s had people that had their businesses in that house. And it was 22 rooms and three bathrooms. And the upstairs was where most of the haunted stuff was because my room was upstairs. And I had a cat that would come into my room every night, climb under the covers and attack my feet. Like I was just catnip all over my feet or something. But it attacked me and I was like, I don’t want this cat. I don’t. Why is this cat coming into my room and terrorizing my feet all the time?

Jim Harold

Huh.

Paul

Well, come to find out somebody would, uh, or something would bring in a chef’s knife. One of the big ones with the 12 inch blade and put it under my bed.

Jim Harold

Oh my gosh.

Paul

Yeah. Now that I think about it, I was like, Holy moly, what the heck’s going on? And, uh, so I, uh, I was just, uh, I didn’t really think anything about it. And, uh, every morning I’d pick up that chef’s knife and I carried downstairs and carried in the kitchen, put it on the counter next to my mom who was making breakfast for the five kids. And, uh, then, uh, yeah, it was, uh, it was crazy. So I just put it on the counter and my mom would just look at me and goes, “Where’d you find that?”

Jim Harold

Mm-hmm.

Paul

I was like “It was in my room under my bed.” And she’s like, “What?” And I was like, “I don’t know.” I’m this eight year old kid. I didn’t know nothing.

Jim Harold

Right. Right.

Paul

So my mom, there was a, uh, a baby grand piano in the living room that the owner wanted to keep in the house for some reason.

Jim Harold

Yeah.

Paul

So whatever, we had a baby grand piano. That piano moved around the living room on a daily basis.

Jim Harold

Wow. And then if you know a baby grand piano, not light, not something that’ll just move by itself.

Paul

It’s, it’s, it had, it had the old metal wheels, but yeah, it was like 800 pounds. And luckily we didn’t move it. We just left alone, but it moved all by itself and nobody in the house moved it. And it was crazy.

Jim Harold

And that’s not the only thing I’m looking here at your email. Uh, there was a story about your mom’s China hutch, right?

Paul

Yeah, she, uh, she had a full set of China and it was, uh, she was very adamant that nobody mess with that China. So she put Mason jar lids under the front of the China hutch just to keep it against the wall because the piano was moving. She didn’t know what was going on.

Jim Harold

Sure.

Paul

So, so she, uh, put the, the Mason jar lids under the front of the hutch. So it would lean against the wall basically.

Jim Harold

Mm-hmm.

Paul

Well, my mom was pregnant with my baby sister and she, uh, she just, uh, was terrified walking in front of that hutch all the time. And then one time it fell right behind her, came off the wall and just fell.

Jim Harold

Oh my gosh.

Paul

On the floor and broke everything. There wasn’t one teacup or anything that had survived. So we, uh, we’re like, Oh great, mom. I didn’t do it. It wasn’t me.

Jim Harold

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul

She’s like, I get it. I get it. You guys weren’t even in the room. It was just me. And yeah, she was freaked out.

Jim Harold

So you’ve had the China hutch that got broken, a baby grand piano moving across the room. You had a kitchen knife appearing in your bed. You had, your cat was terrified and kept attacking your feet.

Paul

Yes.

Jim Harold

But that, I don’t even know if those are the worst of it because here you tell me about an exercise bar, a story about an exercise bar, right?

Paul

Oh, the chin up. Yeah. The chin up bar in, uh, it was in the dining room. It got set up and we were, I was, I was eight years old and I could jump up and grab it, do a couple of chin ups and just hang on it. And I was, uh, I was on this chin up bar and all of a sudden it, it let go of the, um, the doorframe and I landed flat on my back and I got the wind knocked out of me. I couldn’t breathe. I blacked out and I was, I was a mess. And, uh, so yeah, it was, it was pretty creepy.

Jim Harold

Well, um, yeah, it, um, it’s one of those things where just, you know, people talk about poltergeist and it’s like little things here happening, little things there happening, but there’s a lot of big things happening, big things being moved. Is, did that, did that lead to you guys leaving the house? Did that kind of perpetuate you leaving?

Paul

Yeah, there was also a natural gas leak in the house that no one could find. The gas company came in, plumbers came in, everybody that my parents knew that had anything to do with, um, plumbing, they’d show up and they’re like, there’s no leak in this house. And we’re like, yeah, there is. You can smell gas every day. And they’d show up early and there was no leak or they’d show up after work and there was no leak. And the gas company guys were just like, you guys are nuts.

Jim Harold

Wow.

Paul

So yeah, it was, my mom was pregnant and she was, she was really ticked off that they couldn’t find the leak. And so what do you do? I mean, it was, it was just nuts. And she’s like, we got to get out of this house. I don’t care. We got to get out. And so we moved finally.

Jim Harold

Yeah.

Paul

And, uh, it was, we were, oh yeah, it was, we were having party after party after party. When we moved out of there, all, all five of us kids were just happy that we were not in that house anymore. And my feet didn’t get attacked by that cat ever again.

Jim Harold

Oh my gosh.

Paul

Yeah. Can you, if you could imagine a cat just grabbing your foot and like he was playing with it, but he was angry and he was just, I’m going to tear your foot up.

Jim Harold

Man.

Paul

And he did.

Jim Harold

That sounded like, that sounds like an absolutely horrible place to have lived.

Paul

Oh yeah, it was nuts. And so, uh, yeah, the guy that built the house, his wife wouldn’t even set foot in the house when he built the house for her. And he dug a tunnel from the third basement all the way to the shore of the river, the Willamette River is right, I mean, you could see the river from the house, obviously, but they built a tunnel and right now it’s, uh, it’s under McLoughlin Boulevard and they just, they just bricked it up and they just covered it up. And there’s a door in one of the basements that goes to the tunnel, but you can’t get there anymore.

Jim Harold

Wow. Wow. What a place. What a place. Yeah.

Paul

Oh yeah.

Jim Harold

Paul, thank you so much for being a part of the Campfire and sharing your story.

Paul

Yeah.

Jim Harold

We have a return caller. Kirsten is back from upstate New York. We’re so glad to speak with her again. And she’s going to tell us a story about some bad energy. Kirsten, welcome to the program. Please tell us what happened.

Kirsten

Hi, Jim. Thank you. Thanks for taking my story and I appreciate the opportunity to tell it. I kind of consider myself sort of like you where I love hearing about this stuff, but I do not consider myself sensitive at all. And I, so for something to sort of happen to me, I thought was kind of cool and wanted to share it.

Jim Harold

Sure.

Kirsten

Yeah, it starts off with a girlfriend of mine that I’ve known for like a couple decades. So we’ve been friends for a long time and she’s lived in her house that whole time too. And she had at that time recently broken up with someone that came into her life. It was sort of brief, but it was a really bad, bad situation. He came in, like I said, to her life, and it turned very ugly very quickly. Like really bad stuff, like manipulation, lying to the point where, you know, a restraining order had to be put against him. And she even applied for a pistol permit because she felt she really needed to protect herself from this person. So it was bad. It was a real bad time in her life. And then she got over that, you know, broke off that relationship and was moving forward and moving on. And I went over to her house, like I said, I’d known her for many, many years and I’ve been to her house many, many, many times. And we had something we were going to be doing and I walk into her house and she has an older house, like it’s well over a hundred years old. We live in a village and so her house is like, you know, big windows and it’s a very big room when you walk into it. High ceilings, just very old turn of the century house. And as I walked into her house, I just noticed there was something different in her house. And I didn’t know what it was. It was like one of those sort of subliminal things that you notice. Like if somebody paints a wall and it’s a little bit of a shade of a different color and you just notice that something’s different, but you don’t really quite know what it is. So that feeling and I’m like, it felt very crisp. I think that’s the best adjective I can think of. It just felt really, really crisp. And very clean, but she’s always clean, keeps her house tidy and clean.

Jim Harold

So it seemed kind of amplified. Is that a good word? Amplified?

Kirsten

I think so. Yeah. Yeah, it really did. And it was a very tangible feel. I don’t know if that makes any sense or not because like I said, I normally don’t.

Jim Harold

Palpable.

Kirsten

Perfect word, palpable. Yes, it was. And just bright and crisp. So we, I don’t even remember what we were going to do that day, but we got together, did whatever we were going to be doing and went on with the day. And then later on, I said to her, “You know, did you notice something different with your house? Like when I walked in, it just, something’s different. I noticed something’s different about it.” And she says,”Yeah, I had someone come over and sage it this morning.” And I was like, that is so weird because number one, I never knew that she was into that kind of stuff or would even think of doing it. I never knew that she had done it before if she ever did it before. And it just sort of reaffirmed like what I felt. Like it was just really cool that she said that because I felt it. So that’s, that’s my story.

Jim Harold

Well, the thing is, is that, you know, I believe that even at times people like us, Kirsten, who may not consider us ourselves the most sensitive, I guess, for lack of a better word. Sometimes we pick up on things too. I mean, it’s kind of like the energy. Sometimes I’ve always heard it described as you walk into a room after two people have had an argument and you can feel that. And I think almost everybody listening has felt that one before. And so, I mean, yeah, I think there’s certainly people and we’ve talked to them all the time who have these special sensitivities. And then there’s just folks who, you know, pick up on things now and then. And I think we’re in that category. Kirsten, thank you. And your friend turned out okay. Everything turned out okay.

Kirsten

Everything’s back on track and life is good again. So thankfully it was a very short lived experience.

Jim Harold

Well, Kirsten, thank you for joining us and for being part of the Campfire.

Kirsten

Great. Thanks so much, Jim. Appreciate it.

Jim Harold

Well, thanks so much for joining us on this edition of the Campfire. I appreciate it. And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you. And we have some very special greetings. Carrie wrote and said, “I know this is very short notice, but I wanted to ask you for a birthday shout out to my daughter, Elizabeth. She will be turning 30 on December 14th. We each listen to the Campfire every week and love to get together and talk about the stories.” And Carrie said,” I finally joined the Plus Club so I can hear all of the great work you do.” I appreciate it. Elizabeth, Happy Holidays. Happy Birthday. And of course, Stay Spooky. And if you want a greeting, but of the video variety from me, you can get that. Just go over to Cameo.com/TheJimHarold. That’s Cameo.com/TheJimHarold. And that is T-H-E-J-I-M-H-A-R-O-L-D. And you can sign up and I will do a video Cameo for you. We’ve had quite a few for the holiday season, so we appreciate that very much. And when you sign up for a Cameo, it gets a great greeting for your loved one, your friend, your relative, and it helps support our shows. And we appreciate it. And I hope you can join us tomorrow, December 15th, for our holiday party on video. And that’ll be at YouTube.com/JimHarold. YouTube.com/JimHarold. And I hope you’ll send in your holiday card, JimHarold.com/Holiday2023. Again, that’s JimHarold.com/Holiday2023. And that is to enter to win our holiday card contest. We thank you so much for tuning in. Have a blessed holiday season. Please share the show with a friend. We’ll talk to you next time. Stay safe and Stay Spooky. Bye-bye.

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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.

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