Haunted Hero – Jim Harold’s Campfire 641

A ghost who may have saved a life, a very strange palm reading that was incredibly accurate, and a bizarre tie-in with the Campfire show for a filmmaker. This and much more on this edition of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jim Harold (00:00:00):

Sure we have lots of scary stories, but we also have a story about a ghost that may have saved a life. Up next on the Campfire.

Announcer (00:00:23):

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 (00:00:34):

Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold, and so glad to be with you once again and we have an all new show of spooky stories for you. And so glad you joined us today. Last week we did a best time slip show and people really seem to love that one. Glad you did. But today is time for new stuff and new stories, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy them. And thank you for joining us. And before we get started, I wanted to tell you about two things. First of all, we have some new Valentine’s Day merch in the mausoleum of merch. You can just find that over at Jimharold.com/merch. Click on the button for our Etsy shop and you’ll see it upfront and center there. You will see this great new merch we have. It is fantastic. That’s at Jimharold.com/merch and click on the Etsy button and you’ll get access to, we have hoodies, t-shirts, and more Valentine’s Day merch.

It is very cool. Dar designed it. I think it looks fantastic, and I think that you’ll like it very, very much. Second up, make sure that you share the show from your favorite podcast app. That’s how we get so many callers on the show. They say, my aunt, my uncle, my wife, my brother, my sister, my best friend shared the show, and that’s how I found out about it. So please share that love. That’s how we grow. Simple to do. Whatever app you’re listening on, whether it’s Apple Podcast, whether it’s Spotify, YouTube, or whatever, there’s a share button there. Just share an episode with someone you know who loves spooky stuff. Please do that today. I would appreciate it very much. And now let’s get on to the Campfire. 

Next up on the Campfire is David from New Jersey. Now, you may remember a story from a few years ago, and we just actually replayed it recently on our time slip retrospective, when he talked about his wife seeing dinosaurs in the Arizona desert. And I thought, well, David can’t top that, but I don’t know. This is a really great story that he sent across. Can’t wait to hear it. David, welcome back to the show and please tell us what happened.

David (NJ) (00:02:56):

Okay, this one actually happened to me. It was in 2012. I was a practicing surgeon, very busy, and I had an acquaintance, I think she was a nurse, who was married to a very intelligent tech entrepreneur, very smart guy, very successful. But he had a hobby of palm reading. So I had run into him and just out of curiosity, he said, yeah, go ahead and read my palm. So he very gently took my hand. He looked at it literally for a minute and said, in five years, you’re going to have to stop doing surgery because of a medical problem. It’s not going to be life-threatening or anything, but it’s going to be enough to make you have to stop doing surgery, but you’ll be okay. You’ll have another career and everything will be fine. So at the time, I didn’t really, I mean I was into paranormal stuff, but this was a bridge too far, the palm reading stuff. So it did unnerve me a little bit because I really loved my career.

I put it out of my mind. I forgot about it. And then I happened to be listening to, I think it was a tarot reading card guest on your show a few weeks ago. And that made me think, wow, that did happen to me. So what happened was, that was in 2012. In 2017, I had to stop doing surgery because of cervical stenosis, and then I went and did a fellowship in preventative medicine. So I practiced preventative medicine now, and I’m doing very well. Everything’s great. So whatever he said came absolutely true. Five years after he read my palm, I stopped doing surgery because of a medical problem. I went into another career and I’m doing fine. So it all came true.

Jim Harold (00:04:48):

And I love to hear that from a person of science such as yourself, because you still leave room for the unexplained. And in your instance, there’ve been a couple instances in your life and then in your wife’s life where things might not make sense by conventional means, but yet they’re real. And there they are. So they must exist, right?

David (NJ) (00:05:11):

Oh, it happened. I can’t explain it, but there’s definitely, like you say, there’s a whole world beyond our five senses that we just don’t understand.

Jim Harold (00:05:19):

That’s exactly right. That is exactly right, David. It’s a short but sweet story. Some of our best stories are just real quick hitters like this one, but I love it. And palm reading, we’ve only done a few shows on it over the years. I’ve always been fascinated by it. I’ve never had my poem read. I’m going to have to do that someday for sure. Have somebody read my palm and see what my future is. But something like that is scary because it’s like, Ooh, what if they find something I don’t like?

David (NJ) (00:05:48):

Yeah, exactly. That’s always the risk. Well, at the time, I didn’t really like this.

Jim Harold (00:05:53):

Well, no, because you were happy in your career. Well, I’m glad that everything worked out, and I thank you so much for joining us today again on the Campfire.

David (NJ):

Thank you, Jim.

 Katie is back. You’ll remember a while back, she had that really kind of frightening story about a full-bodied apparition of a ghost, but this one’s a little bit different. This is a heart warmer, and she’s from Ohio, and so glad to talk with her again. And I love heart warmers. Katie, tell us this. Heart warmer.

Katie (OH) (00:06:22):

Okay, thank you, Jim. So the last time I told the story, I was talking about our house in Chagrin Falls, and this is the same house. It was built in the 1980s, so not particularly old, but I know it was built on very old farmland. We didn’t have too many paranormal experiences there. But something really interesting happened when my niece was over. So my niece, Claudia, was about a year old, and she used to come to our house all the time. She was very comfortable there, and she was little enough to be crawling. She couldn’t speak yet. She could gesture, she could say hi, but she wasn’t really talking yet. My husband and I were in our family room with Claudia and her sister, Tabitha was there, but was off doing something else. And Claudia crawled to our back deck, the sliding glass windows. We had a big glass deck looking out on land, and she all of a sudden started waving and trying to communicate with something outside.

And I thought, is it a squirrel? Is it a bird? Did our dog get out? So I went over there and I’m just looking and looking and there’s nothing there. And she’s continuing. She’s smiling and laughing, and she was in a conversation with someone. And so I sat down next to her and looking, is there a reflection in the glass? Is like, who is she talking to? And so I decided I would ask her because there was absolutely nothing there. And I said, Claudia, what are you doing? Who are you talking to? And she just kind of looked at me and looked back and waved. And then she crawled across the room and went over to our fireplace. And on the mantle is a big picture of my grandmother, and she pointed up to the picture. Now, as the backstory of this, my grandma passed away while my sister was pregnant with Claudia.

So they had never actually met before, at least on this plane. And she pointed up clear as can be, who are you talking to? Pointed to my grandmother. And I mean was overwhelmed. My grandmother was larger than life. She was the matriarch of the family. And what’s a side note to this is she, about two weeks before she passed away, she told me that my sister was pregnant. And I said, no, I don’t think so. She already had Tabitha? No, I don’t think so. And she just looked at me and she said, okay, okay. And I found out at my grandmother’s funeral that my sister was indeed pregnant, and that was with Claudia. And my sister did not know she was pregnant yet at the time my grandmother told me she was pregnant. So I picture them kind of passing, you know, as they, one left the world and one came into the world, they kind of crossed paths. But that was such a sweet moment for all of us when Claudia told me that my grandma had come to see her.

Jim Harold (00:10:20):

Wow, my goodness, my goodness. And they do, they know things and they get in touch with us. And that certainly sounds like what happened to you. Katie, thank you so much for sharing this story. I think it’s nice to have some of the heartwarming ones too. Thank you for being a part of the Campfire once again.

Katie (OH) (00:10:38):

Absolutely. Thank you, Jim.

Jim Harold (00:10:39):

Next up on the show is a special guest, actually, I’ve been on his podcast. I’m talking about Eric Norcross, and he had shared a story he was really excited about, is a cool story. But before we start to talk to him, I will retell a story to set this up. I have told on the shows over a number of years, a story about the late country music singer Johnny Horton. Now, I grew up a classic country music fan, old time country music. And Johnny Horton was a very popular country music singer in the late fifties and very early sixties, and probably best known for the song, the Battle of New Orleans. So anyway, Horton and his friend Merle Kilgore, who wrote Ring of Fire for Johnny Cash and was Hank Williams Jr’s road manager and so forth, or manager, they were great friends and they both had an interest in the supernatural.

So they had made a deal that when one died before the other, they would try to communicate back. And much like Houdini, they set up special code and the code that they would get back to the other one to prove that there’s life after death was the drummer is a rummer and can’t keep the beat, or couldn’t keep the beat, one or the other. So sadly, as a very young man, Horton dies in a car accident in 1960. Years go on. Merle Kilgore hears nothing from his late friend. But then apparently one night there was, I think this is in New York, there was going to be a baseball game, and someone who was a baseball fan who happened to also be in a psychic group turned on the radio to listen to the ball game, but the ball game was rained out, so they were playing country music and the disc jockey says, oh, here’s this song by Johnny Cash, written by my friend Merle Kilgore.

Well, this rings a bell with the psychic because a spirit has come through trying to reach Merle Kilgore. Long story short, he gets a hold of Merle Kilgore, the psychic, and he says, Mr. Kilgore, I’m not really familiar with country music. I heard your name on the radio, connected the dots, and we think somebody’s trying to reach you. And he said, yeah?  And he said, somebody named Johnny and Kilgore said, yeah, what was his message? And the psychic said, it makes absolutely no sense. The drummer was a rummer and couldn’t keep the beat. And that’s pretty strong proof to me. So I think that’s one of the great all-time psychic communication stories. Now, of course, Merle Kilgore has since passed, and Johnny Horton’s gone, but they leave us with their music and with this great story. And with that, I’ll pick up Eric’s story because it relates directly to the Johnny Horton story that I just recounted. Eric, I’m sorry to be long-winded, but thought I needed to retell that to set this up. Tell us what happened.

Eric Norcross (00:14:00):

It’s okay, Jim, it’s such a great story. I don’t mind hearing it again. So this past autumn, I was engaged in the act of making an independent film, and this movie was kind of a big production for me. I spent about a month filming on the mainland around the southern Maine area. And then at one point in October, we migrated the production to a remote island in the Gulf of Maine where we proceeded to film for three more weeks in a non -winterized cottage. And it was a very remote location. There was no heat, there was some electricity off and on, and it was rough. I keep saying that the island kicked my butt, and it was so rough in fact that on the weekends I started sending the actors back to the mainland to recoup. On the second weekend I was out there, I was listening to your podcast and you had recounted the Johnny Thornton story, and I’m like, no freaking way.

I had no idea. And I was so frazzled by it. I started making a video immediately just recounting how I was feeling in that moment. I was so freaked out. Mind you, this was like at night, 10:00 PM It’s really dark out there. It’s really windy. So you hear ghosts no matter what, and also it’s on the water. So you get the fog horns and you’re in the spookiest possible location you can be. And the reason I was so spooked by the story was because there’s an aspect of the film that involves music in the cottage where our main character is sort of playing out all of his scenes. There’s an old record player and a stack of records. Now, the record player was there, but I had to bring all the records, and I sort of went shopping around the Southern main area for like 99 cent old records just to kind of build up the set piece.

And you weren’t really going to see any of the records. But there was one record that I had previously, which was in a frame. This was an old Johnny Thornton record. And the reason I had it in a frame was because the woman who gave it to me, she gave it to me when I was a tween in the early nineties. She was moving out of her house, and I had stopped by and she’s like, oh, I have this for you. And she gave me this Johnny Horton record, and I’m like, well, I don’t have a record player. And she’s like, yeah, but you should have it. And I’m like, okay, I guess. And I just, it’s one of the few things I’ve managed to hold onto since I was a kid. And at one point in the two thousands, I put it in a frame and then I put it in a closet.

When I was prepping to migrate the production onto the island, I’m like, well, I got that Johnny Horton record, and I feel like that should go out to the island with me, even though I wasn’t going to be able to show it. I didn’t have the rights to the music, and I didn’t have the rights to actually show the cover art, but for some reason, I needed that record out onto the island. And so rather than shipping it with the rest of our production freight, I brought it out with me personally. When I went out to the island with my script and my camera and we set up, we started shooting. It never made its way to set, it wasn’t filmed, it was just in the space I was using as my office that whole time. And then after I get to listen to your podcast, I’m like, no freaking way.

(00:17:35):

And the reason I say no freaking way, Jim, is because my movie is about a guy who goes into seclusion to wait for a sign from his late wife because he had made a similar deal that Johnny and Kilgore made. Whoever dies first has to let the other know. And the fact that that’s what my film is about just kind of blows my mind. And so I was freaking out all night and I had trouble getting back to sleep. And I mean, I still have the record too. I put it back in my closet and I threw out all the other records that I had bought for the film, but I had no idea. And also the freaky part is too, and this didn’t occur to me the night that this happened was, why did she insist on giving me this random country music record that I was never even going to be able to listen to. I didn’t listen to it until I was on the island? I didn’t have a record player.

Jim Harold (00:18:37):

And we’re talking decades. And again, the thing is, is that I believe on the other side that, and I’ve told a story of weird thing that happened with my late uncle, and I’m not going to retell it, but there’s like 57 things that had to happen for that, what I feel was a communication, to come through. I think that they can pull levers on the other side, and it might not be something that happens. I mean, we live in the Instant Society. We stand in front of the microwave and say, come on, 30 seconds, it’s too long. So these things may play out over decades, but who knows if Johnny Horton and then maybe later helped by Merle Kilgore kind of put this whole scenario through? I mean, how did you get the idea for the movie? Did it just come to you, the plot?

Eric Norcross (00:19:27):

Well, the idea came the first week or the first year of the pandemic in 2020. And I was supposed to originally make the movie down in a music camp in Virginia. It was kind of a cabin in the woods story. I only transposed it to an island in Maine because I’m from Maine, and I could do the film here without paying too much money. I can pull a lot of favors, essentially. And so that’s the only reason it ended up being done is I got really lucky in my timing and in who I asked to help me find the location and so forth. And it’s kind of a fluke that it’s about a guy grieving the loss of his wife. I think at the time, I just kind of wanted to explore grief, and I wanted to tackle this idea of waiting for a sign, because I feel like every couple, every friend at some point or another, they make that pact, but how many people actually honor it or speak of it?

Jim Harold (00:20:36):

Or maybe a little bit of that seed was planted by Johnny Horton. Who knows? Who knows? I mean, the fact it all seemed to line up perfectly. Then you heard my show, and again, people will say, well, just a big coincidence. But I always say sometimes things are too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.

Eric Norcross (00:20:55):

Yes, I would agree with that.

Jim Harold (00:20:57):

Johnny and Merle, wherever you are, keep sending those signs and God bless you. And Eric, thank you so much. And as I mentioned, when that movie comes out, we’ll have to do a full interview on it on one of the other shows. But congratulations on that, and thanks for sharing this very, very cool Campfire story.

Eric Norcross (00:21:18):

Thanks, Jim

Jim Harold (00:21:19):

Jim, Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Rocket Money, and if I asked you how many subscriptions you have, would you be able to list them all and how much you’re paying for them? I know if you would’ve asked me before I started telling you about Rocket Money, I wouldn’t have known, and it really puts a fine point on it for me that you’ve really got to get a handle on all of those subscriptions that you have. And Rocket Money is the way to do it. It’s a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills. You can see all of your subscriptions in one place, and if you see something you don’t want, you can cancel it with a tap. You never have to get on the phone with customer service, and they’ll even try to get you a refund for the last couple of months of wasted money and negotiate to lower bills for you by up to 20%. All you have to do is take a picture of your bill and Rocket Money takes care of the rest. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has helped save its members an average of $720 a year with over 500 million in canceled subscriptions. Stop wasting money on things you don’t use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to Rocketmoney.com/Campfire. That’s rocketmoney.com/Campfire. Rocketmoney.com/Campfire. Get a handle on all of those subscriptions and start saving money with Rocket Money today. And we thank Rocket Money for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Announcer (00:22:54):

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 into the Paranormal Podcast today. Now we return to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Jim Harold (00:23:10):

Joanna is on the line from Virginia, and she has a story about comfort coming from an unexpected source. Joanna, thank you so much for joining us today. And please tell us your story.

Joanna (VA) (00:23:25):

Oh, thank you for having me. Let’s see. This happened back in 2010. I had just received my second kidney transplant, and I was living with my boyfriend at the time. So I was home from the hospital, and I was of course in bed taking it easy, sleeping late, and I couldn’t have been home more than a day. And I was in bed. I was lying in the fetal position and I was hugging a pillow. I was very sore from the surgery, and I was half asleep, half awake. The sun was coming into the bedroom, and I feel this in the crook of my legs as I’m laying in the fetal position, this warm weight and pressure in the crook of my legs, behind my thighs. And I was still half asleep, barely awake, and I was dozing off here and there, and I remember thinking, oh yeah, this pressure I’m feeling is just my dog Ruby. And I was still dozing. And then a few seconds later, my eyes bolted open when I realized we don’t have a dog anymore,

(00:24:57):

And I sit up in bed and I look around and I’m alone in the bedroom. And I truly believe that she had come back to give me a little comfort and kind of check up on me. She was always a very protective dog. She was a great guard dog. And she, at night when we had her, I got her with my ex-husband. And when we had her at night, we’d go to bed and turn off the lights and she would wait maybe two seconds, jump up on the bed and tiptoe till she was in between us, and then just plop down. So it was kind of a normal thing for her to get up in the bed when we were sleeping.

Jim Harold (00:25:44):

So you feel it was just her coming back to say, it’s okay, and I’m here with you to comfort you.

Joanna (VA) (00:25:52):

Yes.

Jim Harold (00:25:53):

That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Yeah,

Joanna (VA) (00:25:57):

Go ahead. Yeah, and I just felt like it was her and I had always wondered what happened to her. Of course, I got divorced and my ex-husband took the dog, Ruby, and I never really knew what happened to her. This was several years later

Jim Harold (00:26:13):

So she could have either passed on by that time, or she could have been alive, I guess, but just kind of astrally traveling to possibly, yeah. Wow. What a new story.

Joanna (VA) (00:26:29):

She would’ve been at least 12 years old if she was still alive, and that’s the average age for a Rhodesian Ridgeback. She was a big dog.

Jim Harold (00:26:41):

And I’m guessing that made you feel really good, I would think.

Joanna (VA) (00:26:45):

Yeah, it did. And it kind of convinced me that, alright, she’s really not with us anymore. She had crossed over and maybe came back to see me and make sure I was okay and give a little comfort.

Jim Harold (00:27:00):

Well, Joanna, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it, and thank you for being a part of the Campfire and what a great story.

Joanna (VA) (00:27:10):

Thank you, Jim. Thanks.

Jim Harold (00:27:12):

Mike is on the line from Virginia and he has a story of, well, this may have been a positive ghost encounter for sure. Now actually, Martha, his girlfriend, had signed up to tell his story because Mike was originally not comfortable to share it, but I think he reconsidered. So Martha’s listening there next to Mike. Thank you Martha. And Mike is there and he’s going to share this story. Mike, welcome to the show and tell us what happened.

Mike (VA) (00:27:43):

Well, thank you. When I was a kid, about five, six years old, my parents moved from the city of Hampton to a small town in Virginia, and we moved into a house. It had been abandoned for about eight to 10 years. And on that property there was a gas station and a pool hall. We still had the big petroleum sign out front, but like I said, nobody lived there. And my parents moved in there, we rebuilt the house during that time my sister had been living there. She really didn’t feel comfortable staying there by herself. Said it was creepy. But we’re just like, it’s just the woods. Well, things had happened over the years and I was just a kid, but one day when I was 12, this is what really happened and set it off to me. I was playing video games as my Nintendo in the corner in the living room. We had a wood stove, it was a cold day, fire going real good. And I was playing my RBI baseball. It was my thing. 

Jim Harold (00:28:47):

Yeah, I remember that.

Mike (VA) (00:28:50):

I played a lot in the woods. I was the last of five kids growing up. I was pretty much different age and everybody else, I was way younger, so nobody else was in the house, but me and my parents. And I took a break to grab my soda and I turned around, something caught my eye, and it was a ghost, it was a little girl, came running by, you could hear the feet running by, and I stopped and looked. And as I was assessing that, I saw the curtain on fire , by the wood stove. We had the chimney and they had the stove piped and the chimney, and there was a blank on the side by the curtain. It looked like a metal paper plate. It had fallen off and flames were shooting out onto the curtains. So at that point, I kind of forget about what I just saw. I go over and grab the curtains and I put ’em in the tub and ran water on it. My parents were all like, I was screaming for them, what just happened? I said, I saw the curtains on fire. And then, oh, you just saved the house from getting burnt and everything. I was like, no, it was a little girl. Of course, my dad was like, oh, you’re just seeing yourself boy.

And so just don’t bring it up to your mom or whatever because she was freaked out about that stuff. I swear I could see the details. Little black shoes, the dress, there was no little girls living here. So about six, eight months later, we were gone out of town for a service for a family member, and our house caught on fire and burned about half down. And I always wondered, as I brought it up later as an adult, that little girl saved the house for getting my attention and we weren’t there. Would she have done that? As a kid, I tell myself I just thought I saw something. But as I got older, you grow up, you move away, you come back a little bit. We finally discussed some things we saw. My mother passed. By then, me and my dad and my younger nephew were living there, and we were talking one night, have you ever seen anything? We’d see rocking chairs go off by, so cans will fall out of the pantry. And then my nephew asked me, he said, have you ever seen that little girl by the window? 

It was w0 years later, and we got to digging into, it was a pool hall probably in the sixties and a small town, some nefarious things had gone on there. And talking to my neighbor who was in his mid nineties at the time, he said, yeah, there’s some people who went missing that were never accounted for after hanging out there. But like I said, I still to this day, I can still see that little girl. And I tried to talk to her and stuff as I got older, but I’m not a ghost talker or anything like that. I was just a normal little kid at the time. I really feel like she saved our house for being burnt that day if I hadn’t noticed that, because there’s no way I would turn around behind me.

Jim Harold (00:32:21):

Yeah, you were probably like most of us when we were kids, when we were playing Nintendo, we were locked in. You’re like, you’re really watching what you’re doing. And she literally saved you. Now, let me ask you this. Well, we said it was a poll hall and so forth. So you think this girl is maybe someone who was somehow connected to that location in the past and who had passed and came there to save you?

Mike (VA) (00:32:51):

Yes. I believe that she has a connection there either with the family who lived there before who owned it because they straight up moved out and moved like a half mile down the road, and they never ever talked to us about anything about that. So there was definitely something. We also saw three guys and other people bring this up too, but I had a nice leather sofa one night and we’re in there and one guy was like, my nephew’s friend, did you see those? Did you just see that? I’m like, no. And then I look back and I’m like, yeah. And the whole time, up until the house got sold and pretty much abandoned again about five years ago, nobody in my family would go in that room by those windows because there was always something you would see.

Jim Harold (00:33:44):

Yeah. Wow. Well, I can tell you that’s the thing is that people think that ghosts or entities or the paranormal is always evil, but sometimes it can do good, whether it’s a sign from a loved one who’s passed, or a little girl ghost who saved a little boy’s life. Mike, thank you so much for sharing your story. Martha, thank you for encouraging Mike to do so, and I appreciate it very much.

Mike (VA) (00:34:12):

Thank you very much. Thanks for having us. 

Martha (VA) (00:34:14):

You betcha, thanks.

Jim Harold (00:34:15):

Oh, it’s always great to talk to another Buckeye! Fish is from Ohio, and he’s going to tell us about a story when he moved in with his girlfriend and her family of years back, and just a very kind of strange scenario that happened. Fish, thanks for listening. And I know you’re new. So jumping right in with both feet and telling a story. I really appreciate that. Welcome. And tell us what happened.

Fish (OH) (00:34:42):

Hey. Yeah, thanks. So I had moved in with my girlfriend and her family probably two and a half years ago. And so when I moved in, we stayed in the basement, which, you know, spooky on its own, so I expect scary, scary stuff there. But I didn’t expect one morning I woke up, my girlfriend wasn’t in bed with me down in the basement. She usually wakes up before I do. So nothing was setting off any alarm bells. So when I got up, I went upstairs to go to the bathroom and the stairs out of the basement, you go up eight steps or so, there’s a little landing, and then you got to turn around and go up another eight stairs. And then at the top of that stairway, there’s a door that goes to the basement. Usually the door is just cracked open a little bit. That way the cats can come up and down the stairs. When I got to the landing and turned around that morning, I looked up and through the crack in the doorway, I saw what looked like my girlfriend just standing there on the other side of the crack in the door. And she was just looking down at me. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move. She was just standing there staring. And at first I was really confused. I was like, what is she doing? Just like, why isn’t she saying anything?

So I continued up the stairs and about two or three steps from the top of the stairs, she turns to her left and she walks away from the crack of the door down the hallway. This struck me as odd because the way she walks, the only thing down that side of the hallway is her parents’ room, and it’s really early in the morning. They’re still asleep. So it didn’t make sense why she’d be going.

Jim Harold (00:36:41):

Yeah, that somewhere that she would usually be walking that time of the day. 

Fish (OH) (00:36:45):

No, absolutely not. The other thing I noticed when she did so is that the floor, which normally creaks a lot, it creaks so bad that even the cats can set it off sometimes. It made no noise whatsoever, not a single sound. So I came to the top of the stairs, I opened up the door, I turned to my right to see where she’d walked down the hallway and there was nothing there. She wasn’t there. The door to her parents’ room was closed, and I was just completely baffled, but I still didn’t want to write it off. I’m like, guys, it’s my girlfriend. Who knows? She’s quiet. But then when I turned around to go to the bathroom, I saw in the living room, my girlfriend fast asleep on the couch. To this day, I cannot explain it.

Jim Harold (00:37:41):

Was there any other kind of supernatural or paranormal stuff going on in that house?

Fish (OH) (00:37:47):

Well, there’s always creaks and bumps in the night and just weird unexplained things happening. I did have something happen very recently, very short if you wanted me to tell you about that.

Jim Harold (00:38:01):

Sure. I have a question first about the doppelganger thing though. Now, as far as you could tell this figure, it was a direct match to your girlfriend? I mean, was there anything different or off, or was it a direct match?

Fish (OH) (00:38:16):

It looked exactly like my girlfriend, exactly like her to the T. It was the same height, the same hairstyle, wearing the same clothes and everything. It just didn’t make any sense to me. That’s why it confused me so much at first because I looked just like her. So I’m like, why is my girlfriend acting so weird?

Jim Harold (00:38:38):

Yeah, that’s very strange. So give us that other story. You said there’s something else strange that’s happened recently?

Fish (OH) (00:38:46):

Yeah, so about a week or so ago, I was home alone. I was making some food in the kitchen, and as I was making the food, I heard what sounded like a whistle coming from somewhere in the house. I couldn’t pin place it. I couldn’t figure out if it was from down the hallway or from down the stairs in the basement. But I heard for sure a whistle whistling, a small melody. And since I’m home alone, I was like, no, I’m out of here. I turned off the stove, I walked out the front door and I took a little walk.

Jim Harold (00:39:27):

So I mean, so what do you think it is exactly? Do you think it’s a situation where there’s something paranormal going on in the house, there’s some kind of entity or something like that?

Fish (OH) (00:39:42):

I’m not entirely sure. There’s a lot going on here between the doppelganger incident between people hearing things, seeing things, shadow figures, hearing that whistle really gave me the chills. I would like to think there’s some kind of entity here, but I don’t think it necessarily means it’s any harm. I think he’s in here in good spirits.

Jim Harold (00:40:05):

Well, I must say it’s one of those things where the doppelganger thing always gets me, and I’m just amazed. And the more stories that we have about it, the more stories we get, it seems to be very common. And I think it’s one of those things, if somebody sees a ghost, like a traditional ghost, they’re kind of like, oh, that’s something extraordinary. But I think for some reason if they see a doppelganger, they think, oh, they don’t put it into the supernatural/paranormal realm. They just think it’s one of those weird things and they don’t really talk about it as much. So I wonder how many under-reported cases are there of doppelgangers because it seems to be, at least based here, based on the calls we’re getting specifically lately, a very, very common thing there, Fish.

Fish (OH) (00:40:52):

Yeah, it really is a shame. I love myself a good doppelganger story, and I do appreciate the ghosts, but – 

Jim Harold (00:41:02):

If anyone out there has a doppelganger story, JimHarold.com/Campfire, JimHarold.com/Campfire at that time, Fish, thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. And thanks for being part of the Campfire.

Fish (OH) (00:41:24):

Yep. Well, again, thank you for having me, Jim, and stay spooky. 

Jim Harold (00:41:29):

Stay Spooky! 

Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Calm. Do you get into bed and start checking all your social media apps and all of a sudden 45 minutes have passed? Well, if you’re a nighttime doom scroller, and I have to admit to that sometimes, do what I do and let Calm help you form new and healthy bedtime habits this year because Calm is your number one app for sleep and meditation, giving you the power to calm your mind and change your life. Calm recognizes that everyone faces unique challenges in their daily lives, and that needs differ from person to person, and that time for meditation may vary. And since self practices are so deeply personal, calm strives to provide content that caters to your preferences and needs. Their meditations well, they range from focuses on anxiety and stress, relaxation and focus to building habits and taking care of your physical wellbeing.

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Announcer (00:43:48):

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 (00:43:58):

Andrea is on the line from the great state of Ohio, O H I O, and we’re so glad to have her on the show. And she’s been listening for 10 years and we’re so appreciative of that. Wow. And she’s going to take us on a trip to the Ohio State Reformatory, which of course is known to be highly haunted. Andrea, thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening. Tell us what happened.

Andrea (OH) (00:44:26):

Hi, Jim. So I would first like to put a little background information because I think this story just justifies me and my mom’s sensibility. So we actually both started listening to your podcast at the same time. I would say she’s more sensitive than I have ever been, but one day we were like, let’s go to the Ohio State reformatory because of its historic value, but also because it’s known to be haunted. So we drove down there and we headed in with an open mind to basically receive any kind of energy or anything that was out there. And so we go out there and it’s a self-guided tour, so we’re able to just tour the whole building on our own and we start off going through the offices and everything. And nothing really seems to pop out in the administrative side of the prison. And it’s not until we get to the cells that we feel a little bit of something, I can’t really say what it was, but it just feels darker.

Darker energy is there. And so we’re just taking pictures, seeing if maybe we might catch something in our pictures. And it’s not even like, I don’t know, 30 minutes into this tour that we’re taking. And my mom’s phone completely dies and my phone is still kicking, but it’s now at a 20% charge. So our phone’s battery just almost disappeared as soon as we got in there. And I know it’s been known for places that have this high energy of supernatural stuff to drain your battery. So this was the first thing that popped into my head, but we kind of just went and did the rest of the tour. We got to solitary confinement, and I think that’s where we felt like the creepiest energy. And after that, we both just decided to go back home. And so we go back to the parking lot and we’re like, okay, well both of our phones are dead now let’s charge and see if we find anything in the background of the pictures we’ve taken. And as she’s looking through hers, she doesn’t find anything. I’m looking through my pictures, I don’t find anything. And so we flip phones, switch phones to see if maybe I’ll see something on hers and vice versa. And as I’m looking through her phone, I don’t see anything in actual pictures, but in how each picture has a timestamp and a date stamp and a location stamp?

We have the same information except for all the pictures that she had had a different date. And the date on her phone dated back to the 1800s. Rather than the year. I forget whenwe went, it was 2015, 2016. And yeah, we both looked at each other. We couldn’t even explain it because I mean, obviously iPhones weren’t invented back then.

Jim Harold (00:48:02):

No.

Andrea (OH) (00:48:05):

But we don’t even know what could have triggered that other than the fact that, like I said, my mom has always been sensitive to these type of things, whereas I am open-minded about it, but it never has happened to me. So this just reaffirm reaffirmed that,

Jim Harold (00:48:23):

Well, the history of the Ohio State reformatory actually goes back to the 1800s. So I think that’s really curious. And maybe that was the –  and again, we are very comfortable, I think many of us with the idea that maybe spirits and things can move things like poltergeist or move objects or cause a cold wind to happen. But then when it comes to electronics, I think people tend to be more skeptical. But I’m like, why if they can open and close a cabinet door or cause a cold wind, or I’ve had people say in these prison situations have felt that they had, one woman I talked to had a ponytail or something and the ponytail was pulled. I mean, I guess what I’m saying is if they can do that kind of stuff, why couldn’t they manipulate your mom’s camera roll and change the date on those pictures?

Andrea (OH) (00:49:18):

Yeah, I mean, we still talk about it till this day because it’s so unbelievable.

Jim Harold (00:49:25):

Well, I know my family has taken tens of thousands of pictures with our iPhones, because we all have iPhones. We love them. And I’ve never seen anything misdated that I can remember by even a day, let alone a couple hundred years.

Andrea (OH) (00:49:41):

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I mean, it’s funny because I think I wouldn’t have believed it if let’s say I saw it in a picture, but the fact that it was stamped?

Jim Harold (00:49:58):

That is pretty strange indeed. If you don’t mind, what’s your mom’s first name, if you don’t mind? If you don’t want to –

Andrea (OH) (00:50:04):

No, her name is Toni and she would love it. Well, she’s excited for me, for her to hear this story.

Jim Harold (00:50:10):

Toni, stay spooky. Thank you for listening. We appreciate it. And Andrea, thank you for listening and staying spooky and thanks for being a part of the Campfire tonight.

Andrea (OH) (00:50:20):

Thank you. Jim.

Jim Harold (00:50:21):

Dianna is on the line from Oregon, and we’re so glad to speak with her today. And her story starts out with her doing one of my favorite things even today to this point, although I think the place she’s going to mention doesn’t exist quite that way anymore. But I love to watch those old sitcoms from the sixties and the seventies and so forth. And Diana’s going to tell us about a simple night of watching some sitcoms and then strangeness ensued. Dianna, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened.

Dianna (OR) (00:50:52):

Hi Jim. Thanks for having me. So the story takes place when I was going to college, I won’t say because that will date me, but probably just saying that I used to watch Nick at Night on days that I didn’t have classes. On the next day, I’d really late watching Mr. Ed and Green Acres, and I must have fallen asleep because I woke up and I couldn’t open my eyes and I couldn’t move. And it was sleep paralysis. At the time I didn’t know what it was. You couldn’t Google all of that stuff. But it had happened to me a few times before. So I knew if I just laid there, I would eventually be able to open my eyes and move. And so I could feel how I was laying in my bed. I was laying on my back. My legs were straight out.

I had my left arm down by my side and my right arm was over the top of me. And I was propped up on pillows and I could hear Eva Gabor talking on Green Acres and the laugh truck going. So I knew I was awake, but I just couldn’t move. So all this took place in a couple of seconds. And while I’m laying there, I hear the bedroom door open and I think it must be one of the cats or the dogs knocked it open to come into the room. And so I hear the door open, and then I hear walking on the carpet because we had a big tomcat. He was about 18 pounds and we had a little dog, so I didn’t know which one it was. But then I heard a pause and a thump, land on my bed, so I knew it was the cat point.

(00:52:22):

So he starts walking up the side of my body and I can feel the covers being pulled down. So he’s getting closer and closer and he is walking up and he gets about up to my right arm that I have folded over my stomach. And I realized what’s bugging me is that I don’t feel like his black legs, it just feels like whatever’s walking up towards me and only them is two legs because I don’t feel the blanket down by the side of me. So I start worrying and I feel it  walk up, whatever it is, I don’t know, walk up, and it gets right to my side of my head. And as best as I can explain it, something covers my head like this. It’s almost like he, like if you were to take their finger in your hands and make them talk, I can feel pressure on one side of my head, above my ear and on my neck. And I just hear this voice go “get out”

Jim Harold (00:53:26):

What did it say again?

Dianna (OR) (00:53:29):

Get out.

Jim Harold (00:53:31):

Get out. Ooh.

Dianna (OR) (00:53:34):

So my eyes flew open. Of course at that point I look around and there’s nothing there. I look over, Green Acres is on the tv, playing in bed, exactly how it felt when I woke up, but couldn’t move. And I get up out of bed and I search all over and there’s nothing there. And I have no idea what it was.

Jim Harold (00:53:55):

Do you know if that place was haunted or other weird stuff happened there, or…?

Dianna (OR) (00:54:00):

No, it was a house that my parents moved into after I had graduated from high school. So we left the house that I grew up in and they moved to another house up here in Oregon. I never really felt comfortable there, but I never had any other experiences. And I don’t know if it was, the voice wasn’t sinister or malicious or anything (indecipherable), very forcefully telling me to get out. And I dunno if it meant my room because I didn’t know to take it that way. It was almost like wherever I was at because I mean, I felt I was awake, but I wasn’t. It’s something. Walked up the side of my bed and spoke it to my ear. I don’t know. 

Jim Harold (00:54:45):

It was not a fan of Eva, Gabor, Eddie Albert or Arnold the Pig, apparently.

Dianna (OR) (00:54:52):

I dunno.

Jim Harold (00:54:55):

Well, the sitcom hating ghost. Well, no other activity though. There no activity after that. Just that one weird time.

Dianna (OR) (00:55:04):

Yes.

Jim Harold (00:55:05):

Those are some of my favorite stories. Dianna, thank you so much for joining us today to tell this story and stay spooky.

Dianna (OR) (00:55:13):

Thank you, Jim. You too.

Jim Harold (00:55:15):

Max is on the line from Arizona. He listens with his wife Jennifer. So hello Jennifer and stay spooky. Thank you for listening. And we thank Max as well. And Max is here to take us back to when he was eight years old. And the thing I love about this story, this is something very different than other stories we’ve heard on the Campfire. Can’t wait to get the full details. Max, thank you for joining us. Tell us what happened.

Max (AZ) (00:55:39):

Thank you, Jim. Okay, well this has happened about 1973 or ‘74. I was actually about 10 or 11 years old.

Jim Harold (00:55:46):

Okay,

Max (AZ) (00:55:49):

I remember because I, I’ll explain in a minute. So I was out in front yard with my sister. She was two years younger than me, so she was about eight or nine. And the neighbor kids with us, they were about the same ages and it was late afternoon. We knew we were going to be called in from playing. So we’re outside having a lot of fun. And we ended up finishing the evening with playing freeze tag. You remember freeze tag? 

So I was frozen right away because I’m slow. I’ve always been slow. Anyway, I was frozen. I was facing north and I’m just looking around, just waiting to be unfrozen to continue playing. So I’m looking around, I look in the sky and I look through the east and I see the evening star, which is Venus. I’m proud of myself. I just learned that. So I’m looking at Venus and I’m looking around. I get on frozen. So I’m playing around some more. I frozen again and I’m standing there again, just looking around. And I happen to look at the Venus again, but it wasn’t Venus anymore. The star was gone. I couldn’t see it, but it was just the white moon. When you see the moon in the daytime, kind of small, white.

So I’m seeing this with no star. I couldn’t figure out what’s going on. 10 years old, I had no idea what’s going on. And I was confused. So I got unfrozen, play around some, I get frozen again, of course. And I specifically look at the moon again and it’s about the size of a normal white full moon that you would see at night. It was about a span of half an hour or so. So I look at the moon and it’s now the sides of the full moon, the white full moon. And I can’t see the star anymore. And I’m just totally confused. No idea what’s going on. So I got unfrozen again. We playing around playing and I get frozen again. And I look, well, why? I wasn’t looking at the moon the whole time. I have no idea. But just whenever I was frozen, I looked at it.

So this time I was frozen again. I look at the moon and it’s the yellow harvest moon, but it’s twice the size of what it was just few minutes before. And it’s yellow and it’s the moon. I can see the moon. Why it’s there, I have no idea. I have no idea what happened. I had no idea what was going on. This day I’m still, so I’m looking at the moon and I get unfrozen and a few minutes later the sun goes down and mom sticks her head out, says, time to come in. So the boys pick up their toys and they go back home. My sister and I both pick up our toys, my sister’a done first, and she goes inside first. And I bend down to pick up my last toy. And I stand up looking at the moon and the direction of the moon.

But what I see is about the top third, maybe about giant glowing orange disc, just the top third. And then my little eyes goes from horizon to  horizon, north to south. And it takes up so much space. I mean it’s huge. It’s huge. And I can see the surface of this thing. And it’s glowing yellow gold. It’s kind of swirling. You know how when you see a puddle of water on the road and there’s oil on the surface and the colors, it looked just like that. But they were gold and yellow, maybe white, and it’s kind of sparkly. I don’t dunno how else to explain it. It was kind sparkly. And the whole surface is just kind of moving. It’s almost like a liquid.

And it was not warm. There was no sound. There was nothing. I could see it. I could see the surface. So I dropped my toys and run inside, call my mom, mom, mom, come on, come on, come out. And she said, I’m washing dishes. I know, mom, come on, come on. Look at this. Very agitated. I run back outside and she comes behind me. I stand in the front yard and look towards where the moon was. Now I can see just part of it, the moon, as it’s sort of floating down past the roofs of the houses to the south.

I said, mom, did you see it? Did you see it? She said, I see nothing. What’s here? Nothing. So I go with her inside trying to explain to her what I’m telling you right now. And she’s looking at me like I’m crazy. She said, well see it in the news. And the next week I’ve been watching the news and there was nothing mentioned about this giant disc. My friends, family, they hadn’t seen it. Nobody had seen it. And there was no one to verify. I couldn’t find anyone who’d seen it in my entire life. I’m 59 years old now. There was about 10 or 11 back then. So my whole life, I’ve never heard anything until about 2016. I heard another radio show and they had open lines and they’re talking about paranormal things and weird stuff. And one man mentioned, described to you, described to the host what I’m describing to you now, what I saw. It was a little bit different, but it was the same thing. And so I know that I saw what I saw. He saw it and I know that he saw what he saw, but he’s the only other person I’ve ever met in my life that ever saw this thing, this guy. And I don’t see how that’s possible, but I don’t know, whatever. That’s my story.

Jim Harold (01:01:44):

I fully believe you did see that. Do you believe it was some kind of weather phenomenon? Do you believe it was some kind of military experiment? Do you believe it was aliens? What’s your theory of what you saw? Or do you have one?

Max (AZ) (01:02:01):

I’ve thought about it my entire life now. It started out as a star. So it was way out there and it turned into this giant thing. And I’ve tried to imagine it being something physical, I dunno, military something or a balloon maybe? It wasn’t a balloon. I really have no idea. I’ve never ever been able to explain it to myself what it was. I know it was a star and I know it was this. It was this giant disc. And I know it came from a long ways away, but I’ve never been able to satisfy myself with an explanation. I can’t even make something up. I dunno. I have no idea.

Jim Harold (01:02:51):

There’s weird things that go on in the world and I love that at least. I mean, you may not have an explanation, and I don’t mind if we say that was you and I don’t think you do either. It was Coast to Coast AM which has a great tradition of world storytelling, but I love the fact that you had the opportunity to at least if nothing else hear that somebody else experienced that. Because I think that I probably made you, I assume that made you feel better, no?

Max (AZ) (01:03:17):

That made me feel really great because I thought it wasn’t crazy. I know what I was talking about and I saw what I saw and I explained, I’ve told different people through the years about what happened and they have no idea. I wasn’t  drunk or high, I was 11 years old. They have no explanation. They don’t even try for an explanation, they’re just, next subject.

Jim Harold (01:03:41):

Well, a fascinating story and we thank you so much Max, and thank you for being a part of the show. And thanks to Jennifer too for listening and stay spooky.

Max (AZ) (01:03:52):

Thank you very much. Jim. Stay spooky.

Jim Harold (01:03:54):

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Announcer (01:05:52):

You are listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Jim Harold (01:05:55):

Doug is on the line from Idaho and we’re so glad to have him with us. He’s been listening for several years and we appreciate that and he listens with his wife Jax. So Jax, thank you for listening and a big stay spooky to you. And Doug is going to share a very personal story about his mom and we appreciate it. Doug, welcome to the show and tell us what happened.

Doug (ID) (01:06:19):

Thank you for having me here. So the story is I had a very spiritual connection with my mother who passed away from cancer in 2016 and this connection that I had occurred at my wedding in September of this year. So there was a bit of space in between several years and I don’t think there’s anything previous to this that I could grasp as any other sort of spiritual connection. I don’t think there really was anything before that that I would know of. But fast forward to the wedding and one of our ideas at the front door where the guests book and all that fun stuff is to include photos and kind of mementos of our loved ones that are no longer with us, but are still with us figuratively. And I included a photo of her that’s kind of a family favorite. It was a photo that got published in the local newspaper of the small town that she lived in when she got her master’s degree and that kind of thing.

The night goes on and we do the ceremony. We do all of our fun little things and fast forward to the party time when everybody’s dancing and having fun. I kind of walk back inside to go use the restroom and get a drink and I’m standing at the head table there just kind of staring at this picture, just taking in the moment and just kind of having that moment with her. And the next thing I know, I get some of the wedding party, they’re in there and they’re trying to get my attention and something’s wrong and pointing at my shirt and I look down and on my corner of my pocket next to my boutonniere, there’s a dragonfly sitting there.

And normally it’s not a huge deal, but I just thought of, I do know that there are a lot of cultures that perceive dragonflies as the soul of the dead, or that a dragonfly visitation could signify the loved one taking form and that assuring that they’re free and that it’s some sort of connection to the afterlife. And it wasn’t a quick moment kind of thinking back to it now and reliving that this dragonfly landed on me and it was sitting there and we were able to go hunt down the photographer and she got a picture of it on my shirt, and then I kind of reach near it with my hand and scoop it off with my finger and then it sits on my finger. And I’m just looking at this dragonfly for what felt like minutes. It’s like it was there being with me, sending me a message and then not wanting to leave. And eventually it did fly away, but I think it did though,  it felt really slow. So it could have been, it flew away pretty quickly, but at that moment in time, it’s like this dragonfly came to be with me when I was having kind of a spiritual moment with that photo of my mom.

Jim Harold (01:09:21):

That is so cool. That is so cool. And I believe we’ve had quite a few of these calls lately, and I believe that people who would cross over leave messages to us that, and I’ve had this experience myself that might not be meaningful to anybody else, but they’re meaningful to you. I mean, the fact that you knew that legend about a dragonfly. To somebody else, it  might be totally lost, but you have that information. We’ve had other things recently where there’ve been pieces of music that were very specific and very meaningful to people, whereas again, on somebody else, it might be totally lost. But they seem to have a way from the other side to kind of select things that are meaningful to the person they’re trying to reach. And it might not be meaningful to anybody else or a minority of people, but they know how to reach that person and make an imprint. Did you feel that way, that that message was selected for you?

Doug (ID) (01:10:21):

I do. I think that the location that we had, the wedding, the town and the venue, it’s not a place that I’ve talked to people that would know where my parents traveled and we’re pretty sure it’s a place that, especially the venue they’ve never visited before. So I felt that having that photograph with us at the venue kind of acted as some sort of portal or a beacon that kind of opened up and allowed her to be there with us on that evening.

Jim Harold (01:10:53):

So neat. So neat. Doug, thank you so much for sharing this very personal story. I really doubly appreciate when somebody shares a story about someone’s passed over. I know it can be difficult even though it’s a reassuring story, but I think it helps a lot of other people too. So thank you for sharing it. Thank you for listening along with Jax, and thanks for being a part of a Campfire.

Doug (ID) (01:11:16):

Thank you for having me.

Jim Harold (01:11:18):

Brandon is on the line from California and he said, Jim, this is the best best best show. And first of all, he said, of course, thank you so much for those kind words. And secondly, I said, Brandon, I like the way you think. And I like the fact that he came on to tell his Campfire, show a story. He’s been listening, oh, since 2013 or 2014 when he heard us on Coast to Coast AM Brandon, welcome to the show, and you’re going to take us back to a similar time for your story. Tell us what happened.

Brandon (CA) (01:11:50):

So this takes place in around 2013. My father, basically, he was coming over here to visit us because he took a new job at a church. So he came over here to collect funds to help build up his church. And he said, you know what? I’m going to be in California, so I’m going to stop by and visit you. My sister lives here, so does my brother. So we would share my dad pretty much. He’s telling me for about two days. So the first night he was with me, I seen him kind of weird in the morning, he didn’t really feel like talking, which was really, really weird, especially for him.

So I asked him, I was like, what’s going on? Are you okay? And he goes, is your wife okay? And I’m like, I hope so. I mean, why wouldn’t she? And he goes, well, my dad basically, he gets up at night a lot to use the restroom, and in our bedroom, we leave our bedroom door open because during that time we had a newborn and we had a dog and the dog, oddly enough he would sleep by the baby’s crib all the time. So we just left the door open. That’s how we sleep. So he told me basically what he was getting up to use the restroom, the bathroom’s right next to our room. He would walk up to there and then he said that he saw what he claimed to be my wife. Basically. I asked him, him, what did you see? And he goes, well, it looked like your wife had her head tilted down.

And she was just basically just combining her hair down, combing her hair down. And I’m like, okay, that’s weird. And he goes, well, he goes, the weirdest thing is at three or four more times. I went, she was still doing it. And I said, that’s kind of weird. I was like, I’ll ask her about it. And I asked my wife about it. She’s like, no, that wasn’t me. I don’t know what your dad’s talking about. So then, yeah, then he tells me, he goes that the dog, when he was staying with us, the dog was sleeping in the living room with him. I guess the dog didn’t like to, I assume that the dog would sleep by the baby’s crib to protect the baby. But then again, after he told me that I think the dog didn’t want to sleep in the living room because he was by himself. So since my dad was in there, he was keeping my dad company. So when my dad told me at one point, he told me later on, he goes, I didn’t tell you this, but when he was walking to the bathroom again, the dog was following him and the dog started growling.

Jim Harold (01:14:40):

Oh my.

Brandon (CA) (01:14:40):

And I said, well, I mean, because I asked him, did the dog see what you were seeing or was he acknowledging? He goes, I don’t know, I was in the bathroom and the dog was growling aggressively and I would’ve thought you guys would’ve woke up, but you guys didn’t wake up. So then I was like, okay, well thanks for freaking me out, dad. I appreciate it. So my wife’s like your dad. My dad’s always claimed to see certain things when, he’s been a preacher in a church for a long time. And he says that he’s seen some things from people that come into the church and some odd things. So since he left, the vibe in the house became very, you can say, malevolent.

Yeah. So basically the trailer we rented was allegedly brand new, but I don’t think it was because certain parts of the house inside the cabinet doors were falling off. And then it looked like a piece of a drywall was like they had put a drywall, something new there. So I think it was not brand new. I think that they had just refurbished it and then said that it was so that was what’s going on. Little things around the house kept escalating and escalating and escalating. And so our lease was up, so it was up. And we had no intentions of renewing. So we left and we rented a farmhouse. That’s where we’re actually at now. And things over here has just gotten worse pretty much. And it’s just like little things. It’s not like something major. But my wife told me that she was asleep and she clearly heard my son tell her that he’s hungry, mom, I’m hungry. And my wife says, the only issue with that is my son was at school.

Jim Harold (01:16:55):

Your son was at school. So it’s seems like you almost have doppelganger kind of things going on in the trailer, right?

Brandon (CA) (01:17:02):

Well, that’s the thing. Yeah, that’s what I kind of figured. But see, when I rented the house where I’m at now, I kept pushing the landlord on why the house is so cheap and why nobody wants to live there. And he just kept avoiding my questions pretty much until I found out that the coworker I used to work with lived down the road. It’s only three houses. So she basically lived down the dirt road in the other house. And she basically told me that she was living at the house for two or three years. And she told me that the house that I’m at now has been vacant since the time she’s been living there.

Jim Harold (01:17:42):

Interesting, interesting. So what do you think these spirits were?

Brandon (CA) (01:17:47):

Honestly, I don’t know. My dad, he came over where I am actually at now. He’s coming over there before. And he’s also told me that he’d never spent the night at my house. He tells me that he does not feel like I should be here and neither should him. So he says, just take me home, son. And I’m like, alright, dad, that’s what you want. It would be a little help if you could tell me why. And he just says he doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s already close to his age. He has a high blood pressure and diabetes and stuff like that. And I don’t want to keep pressing them on a subject,

Jim Harold (01:18:30):

Someone who has a lot of medical issues. You don’t want to stress ’em out, which could make something worse. Yeah, yeah,

Brandon (CA) (01:18:37):

Of course. But I mean, overall, my daughter, she tells me that, she told me that she had woken up constantly at four in the morning for no absolute reason. And she tells me that sometimes she hears somebody downstairs and she thinks that it was my wife or me. And I told her, what do you think we’re going to be doing downstairs at four in the morning? And that’s just the odd thing about it. But one thing I did find out though real quick, so one of the lady that used to live down the road, she did tell me that towards the end of the time she was living there, a truck driver did move into the house where I was living at and something happened. I don’t know exactly what she says, that he thinks that she thinks he went crazy because there used to be like a stone fountain on the side of the yard, like a really beautiful stone fountain. I’ve never seen it myself. It’s in ruins pretty much now. But apparently one day he just came out of that house and started bashing it with a metal pipe and destroyed it off completely. And she told me that’s when the landlord kicked him out, and then that’s when she moved away too.

Jim Harold (01:19:54):

Well, it’s one of those things, I mean, just when these places have that strangeness, to me getting out of it would be the optimal situation. Some people run towards it. I would run away from it. I have to be honest.

Brandon (CA) (01:20:09):

Yeah, no, no. And that’s the thing, is that I told my wife, I was like, I don’t feel threatened in the house, for sure there’s things. I hear things and stuff like that. But I mean, I don’t know. I mean it sounds weird, but I find that sometimes comforting. But it’s just that the thing about it is what bugs me the most, I’ll tell you what really bugs me the most is when other people tell me, the encounters that they have experienced at my house and I’m over here sitting here, have not experienced anything. That’s what really bugs me the most.

Jim Harold (01:20:45):

Interesting. Well, thank you so much for listening for all these years, Brandon, and thank you for sharing your story on the Campfire and stay spooky.

Brandon (CA) (01:20:55):

Thank you. Jim,

Jim Harold (01:20:57):

Thank you so much for joining us once again on the Campfire. I appreciate it. And I hope that you will hit share in your favorite app to share the show with a friend. Could be Apple Podcasts, could be Spotify, could be YouTube, could be something else, but they all have those share buttons. Just hit share and share with a friend so we can share the love of the Campfire. And speaking of love, love is in the air with Valentine’s Day and you can get your own stay spooky Jim Harold Valentine’s Day T-shirt, JimHarold.com/merch. Click on Etsy and you’ll see our Etsy shop and our new Valentine’s Day designs. Check them out. We thank you so much. We’ll talk to you next time. Have a great week, everybody. Stay safe and stay spooky. Bye-Bye.

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