Our listener saw a werewolf, a workplace haunting that is very unique and many more spooky stories on this all-new edition of Jim Harold’s Campfire!
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TRANSCRIPT
Jim Harold
Did our listeners see a werewolf? We’ll find out on this edition of 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 the Campfire. I am Jim Harold and so glad to be with you once again. And if you’re looking for spooky stories, ghost stories, cryptid stories, possibly UFO stories, you are in the right place because that’s what we do here. Real people call in and tell their true stories, and it, may I say, is awesome and welcome to it. And Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you out there. I hope you have the best holiday season ever. And our gift to you, and we won’t delay getting to it, are these Campfire stories. Jackie is on the line from Minnesota. She’s been listening for around a year and we’re so glad that she found us. And she saw something very strange. I’m not going to spoil it and tell you what she saw. I’ll let her do that. Jackie, welcome to the show and tell us about this amazing encounter.
Jackie
Yes. Hi. Thank you. Well, thank you for inviting me on the show. I’ve been listening for about a year.
Jim Harold
Thank you.
Jackie
I currently live, yeah, I currently live in northern Minnesota, but this story actually happened in southwestern Iowa. I was living down there with my family at the time. It was specifically in the lowest hills, if anyone’s a listener from Iowa. Lots of acreage of woods. And I lived right in the middle of it. So kind of down in a valley at the end of this curvy dead end road, our house sat like carved out into the woods. So right into the hill, we were the last house, very desolate, miles away from town.
Jim Harold
I’ve always thought houses that were like in the side of the hill or like that kind of thing. I just thought that was always really cool.
Jackie
Yeah, it was cool, but like probably shouldn’t have been there. Right. No place to be in the middle of the woods. But it was really neat and secluded. So, I mean, we didn’t get a lot of traffic. This happened about 15 years ago. It was springtime and it was in the morning. So it was light out. You could see I was on my way to work when this happened. Like I said, it was in the woods, very desolate area. We were used to seeing a lot of different animals. You know, we lived in the woods. So I encountered all different kinds of deer and turkey.
Jim Harold
Sure.
Jackie
But this particular morning, I was on my way to work. Like I said, I could see everything. I started driving down the road. It was curvy. So I came around the first bend in the road. And that’s when I saw it. It was black, like jet black. But it was very large. That’s the first thing I noticed was, okay, you know, in your brain’s like trying to comprehend, like what am I looking at? It looks like a dog, but it’s so big. I’m like, I’ve never seen a dog this big. And it was so fuzzy and black. That’s another thing that I noticed. Its tail was extremely bushy. And I’m like, okay, I know that we have panthers or mountain lions in the area, but this doesn’t look anything like that. And the size of it was way bigger. And the minute I saw it, it turned its head back and it looked at me, which I thought was, it was odd. Like the way it looked, I’ve never seen an animal do this. Like it was, I don’t know. It was thinking differently. And I don’t, it was hard to explain. And the minute it turned and looked at me, it started running just like a dog or I guess a wolf. And so I sped up so I could look at it some more because I thought, what the heck am I looking at? And the minute I, yeah, I went around the bend and then I could see it keep going right in front of me. But the speed at which it was going and maneuvering the curves, like I had my own large dog. And I’m like, there’s no way a dog could have gone that fast. Or even, it didn’t look like a mountain lion. It was way too big. So I caught up with it again. And as soon as I could see it, it turned like on a dime, like 90 degrees and it scaled a cliff about, I don’t know, 30 feet, 40 feet high.
Jim Harold
Whoa!
Jackie
The cliff, it was 90 degrees, the cliff in the woods. Like there’s no way an animal could have got up that. And it was, it had just disappeared right into the trees. And I thought, what? You know, you’re like, what did I just see?
Jim Harold
Yeah.
Jackie
I know it was broad daylight. I was just on my way to work. And I had watched my own dog scale those hills and it had taken them several minutes and very difficult to get up the hills. But this thing was gone, I mean, in a matter of seconds.
Jim Harold
Wow.
Jackie
Whatever it was.
Jim Harold
What do you think it was?
Jackie
I don’t, my instinct, which I am, I don’t know. I like to call myself a skeptic, but I’m also a believer. So I like to rationale, like my brain is a very scientific brain. I try to rationale everything. I work in healthcare, I have for 20 plus years. So I’m like, I try to tell myself it can’t be, but then I’m like, this thing looked like a werewolf.
Jim Harold
Wow!
Jackie
It looked like what you would see on the movie “Twilight,” but the “Twilight” hadn’t even existed at this point. But the sheer size of this thing, I’m like, that’s what threw me off, is that how it scaled that hill so quickly. I don’t know, I didn’t see it get on just two legs, but I don’t know how it jumped up that high and disappeared.
Jim Harold
Yeah, that’s crazy. I mean, crazy in the sense that it’s just wild. I mean, I fully believe you. I think people see weird creatures. Do you think maybe, well, I guess if it were a werewolf, what did you think that, you mentioned a regular animal couldn’t do that. So you think it had some supernatural paranormal component to it?
Jackie
I mean, just to get away that fast. I’m like, it was no creature I had ever seen in the woods. And I’d spent a lot of time out there, and I’d never seen anything like this prior or after.
Jim Harold
That is wild.
Jackie
And that’s where I’m like, I just can’t wrap my head around what it was that I saw. Just that I’d listened to a lot of stories, and I haven’t heard anything really.
Jim Harold
No, we’ve had weird people have reported seeing a mothman-like creature, a gargoyle-like creature, some different things, but never a werewolf, which is just very, very cool.
Jackie
Yeah, where I live in northern Minnesota now, and I have actually encountered packs of wolves. These things are puppies compared to what I saw and heard that day. So I’m like, I know it’s not
a wolf. And I even, for the longest time, I Googled it, thinking, does anyone else have a similar story? Because it’s just so out there.
Jim Harold
Do you, and if you mentioned this, I misstood, I apologize. Do you think it was aware of your presence?
Jackie
Yes, when it turned and looked at me. It was just a feeling, I guess, that came over me. Like it knew more than an animal would know. Just the way it looked at me. And like, it didn’t anticipate seeing somebody there, but there I was. And it didn’t want to be in my presence, that’s for sure.
Jim Harold
Now, you don’t live there anymore. Was this part of the decision to move?
Jackie
No, I mean, the house in itself had some strange occurrings. We weren’t locals to the area, but there were local tales of people not wanting to step foot on the property. So just hearing everything else that went along with it, I mean, I definitely was happy to move, just because there was some odd stuff, but that was the oddest thing, just outside the home. And that, yeah, people wouldn’t step foot on my property. That was from the area. So it was kind of odd. I don’t know, it was a very odd thing. And just was wondering if anyone else had ever encountered anything similar.
Jim Harold
Wow. Wow. That is amazing. If anybody out there has encountered anything like a werewolf type creature, any strange cryptid for that matter, please sign up. Not sure when you’re going to be hearing this story, but in January, our signups will be back open at jimharold.com/campfire. So please sign up, regardless of your story, but especially if you’ve seen something like Jackie has. Jackie, thank you so much for sharing this. This gives us something to think about. It’s something very different, and we really loved hearing it on the Campfire. And hopefully you won’t run into that guy anymore.
Jackie
No, I’d like to never see that again.
Jim Harold
Thanks again, Jackie. Stay Spooky.
Jackie
Thank you. You as well.
Jim Harold
Another return caller. Always glad to have return callers. Rick is on the line from Utah. Now, we’ve talked about a lot of haunted things in the history of this show, but I know we’ve never talked about a haunted law firm, but we will today, thanks to Rick. Rick, welcome back and tell us what happened.
Rick
Yeah, thanks, Jim. Good to be back. In 2008, after I graduated from law school, I started working at a law firm. And I remember the partners pulling me aside and saying, “Hey, one thing to keep in mind is that this place is haunted.” And I think they even warned me about staying late, because when you stay late, that’s when weird things started happening. It was–the building was a historic building built in the early 1900s, a little older in terms of office buildings. But what had happened was in the ’80s, there was a really high-profile murder. It was on the floor where our law firm was.
Jim Harold
Whoa.
Rick
Yeah. What had happened was there’s the main hallway. You get out of the elevators, and the hallway runs from left to right if you come right out of the elevators. And someone had left a package with a bomb in the doorway of an office down the hall to the right. And our office–our law firm was to the left. But back in the ’80s, it was down that hallway, and a man that was working in the office went and picked up the package and was killed on that floor.
Jim Harold
Oh, my gosh. Wow.
Rick
Yeah, so pretty crazy. So this, of course, was years and years later, but the partners warned me about weird things that would happen at night. And one of the partners was working late. So it’s always when you’re alone, working late. And he’s working late at night, all alone, and there’s a knock on the office doors. There are these glass doors. And he went to check it out, and it was the police. And they said, “We received a–” So he opened it, and they said, “We received a 911 call from the office next door to yours, down the hall.” And they said, “Do you know if anyone’s there or if anything’s going on?” And, of course, the partner didn’t know. But a weird thing. So fast forward a couple years. I’m working there late, alone.
Jim Harold
There you go. Perfect.
Rick
And one thing to consider is that our office was down at the end of the hall on the left, but the actual office, the law firm itself doubled back. And so it went down the hall toward where these events happened, just on the other side of the wall. So my office was, of course, down on that end. So I’m working late. It’s probably 11:30 p.m. I’m all alone, and the whole office is dark except for my office there. So I stood to leave. Finally, I’d had enough and wanted to go home. I stood to leave, and right as I stood to leave, the phone system had an intercom button that the secretary or the administrative assistant would push that and a call or something.
Jim Harold
Right.
Rick
And it would make a really loud beeping sound. And so the phone itself also had that intercom button that you could push yourself, and it would make that loud sound. So I stood to leave, and that button–something pushed that button or it was somehow activated and made this really loud beeping sound and just scared me to death. I just jumped. It was right as I stood to leave. So fast forward, I was busy at that time. A week later, exactly a week later, same thing. I’m working late, all alone. About the–you know, a similar time, 11:30, midnight, I stood to leave, and once again, right as I stood, that intercom button was pushed and just scared me again. So I don’t know if something was messing with me or what. But one other event I wanted to share in that there was another associate, a colleague of mine, working late, all alone, and the whole floor is dark. So he finishes up, and he’s out by the elevator, so out in that main hallway where that incident happened. He’s waiting for the elevator, and there was a door that wasn’t– it wasn’t associated, from what we could tell, with any of the offices there, but it was just a door in the hallway. And the handle on the door starts jiggling, starts shaking, as if someone on the other side is trying to turn the handle, and it’s locked, or an invisible hand on the side where my colleague was. So he’s watching that door handle just shaking, you know, the hallway’s dark. And so I imagine he’s pushing the elevator button.
Jim Harold
Yeah, “Come on, come on! Where are the stairs?”
Rick
Exactly. So that happened, and it was a month or two later, they did some office remodeling right there, and I remember stepping out of the elevator, and I had heard that story from my friend. And they had taken that door off as part of this remodel, and it was a dummy door. On the other side, there was sheetrock wall, so there was nothing there.
Jim Harold
Oh, that’s weird.
Rick
So there was nothing on the other side. There was no door handle, right, that someone could have turned on the other side. It was just a phony door.
Jim Harold
Oh, man!
Rick
So that’s the haunted law firm story.
Jim Harold
My belief is there’s only one explanation. It’s haunted. That’s the only logical explanation. And I mean, when somebody’s killed under tragic circumstances like that, and I don’t know who it was, but it sounds like maybe somebody who wasn’t even the reason for the bomb, not that there’s ever a good reason to bomb someone, but I mean, this guy might have been an innocent bystander. “Oh, what’s this package?” Now I know that I’ve worked at places where I’ve been in that situation. I’ve picked up a package before, and I’ve worked at some higher-profile things that could have been targets. And it’s like just thinking your life ends by just innocently picking up a package. I mean, if something were to inspire a haunting, boy, I would think that would be, you know, top of the list.
Rick
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I agree. And maybe something as horrific as that, I don’t know if it weakened the boundaries between our world and the next, and so it just kind of attracts that kind of thing. You know, it’s time to scare some lawyers.
Jim Harold
Very, very scary indeed. Well, Rick, thank you so much for joining us today to share this story about, first, in Campfire history, a haunted law firm.
Rick
Yeah, thank you, Jim.
Jim Harold
Jim Harold’s Campfire is sponsored by BetterHelp. And, you know, gift-giving, it’s a huge thing this time of year. I love to give gifts, and frankly, I love to receive them too. But everybody has a different feeling about it. And whether or not you and your family give gifts, you get to define how you give to yourself. And the holidays are a great time to do that and give yourself a gift. So whether it’s by starting therapy, going easier on yourself during the tough moments, or treating yourself to a day of complete rest, remember to give yourself some love this holiday season. And one way that you can do that, if you’ve been thinking about it, is therapy. Because therapy can be helpful to learn positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, and it empowers you to be the best version of yourself. It isn’t just for those who have experienced major trauma. So if you’re thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It’s entirely online. It’s designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. And I think that’s fantastic because many people would like to go to therapy, but it just isn’t convenient, and the times aren’t convenient. But BetterHelp solves that problem. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. In the season of giving, give yourself what you need with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/JimHarold today to get 10% off your first month. That’s BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com/JimHarold. And we thank BetterHelp for their sponsorship of Jim Harold’s Campfire.
Announcer 2
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Spooky Studio. Now back to Jim Harold’s Campfire.
Jim Harold
Next up on the Campfire is Kaitlin. She’s been listening for a few years, and she’s calling in today from New Jersey. Now she says she’s had quite a few Campfire stories over the years, but this is the most recent and just a very interesting situation. Kaitlin, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and tell us what happened.
Kaitlin
Hey, Jim. Thanks for having me. So this story requires just a little bit of background. Started in 2015. My husband and I bought our house, and we moved back into the neighborhood that I grew up in. So we actually live across the street from my parents, and I know many of the neighbors since I was a very young kid.
Jim Harold
Cool.
Kaitlin
So the older gentleman that sold us the house, his sister lived down the street. They were getting up there in age, and they decided to move to a retirement community nearby in our town. And we took on the house. It’s an old 1930s cottage. We’ve been renovating it ever since. So they moved out. They moved into their new home. Fast forward a few years, and unfortunately, the sister did pass away. Nothing unusual happened after that. Life went on. Fast forward a few more years, and the older gentleman did pass away as well. So nothing unusual happened quite at first until a few days later. So my neighbor was put in charge of his estate. She was taking care of him since he had no next of kin, and she let me know, “Oh, you know, unfortunately, he did pass, and I’m going to need some help selling his current home. I know you’re in real estate.” So I said, “No problem.” We kind of got things together to start the process, and that’s when things started to get a little bit spooky.
Jim Harold
Mmm.
Kaitlin
So I went to bed that night. Day was going normal, and it’s about 2.45 in the morning, and I start to realize something is waking me up. Unusual noise in the house. I’m a fairly light sleeper, and it definitely caught my attention. So I start to come out of sleep, and I realize that the doorknob across the hallway is jiggling, like someone is jiggling the handle of the door.
Jim Harold
Huh.
Kaitlin
Very strange. So my husband actually sleeps in the bedroom across the hallway during the week because we have very different work schedules, so I assume it’s him.
Jim Harold
Right.
Kaitlin
I assume he’s trying to get up. We have old house doorknobs. Sometimes they like to move around and get loose, and sometimes they fall off. So I get up to help him, and I open the door from the outside expecting to see him standing there, thankful for my help. And he’s fast asleep.
Jim Harold
Oh, boy. So who’s jiggling the handle?
Kaitlin
Exactly, and it’s a very distinct noise that I know well. So I try to get him out of his slumber, and I ask him, “Were you just trying to get up?” He says no, and you can clearly tell he’s very out cold. He was fast asleep. So I put it aside. I go back to bed. I kind of talk myself through it and try to say, “Ah, it’s just your imagination,” and I get back to sleep. About 10 minutes later, same thing happens, but much more profoundly, almost violently shaking the doorknob this time, and I can tell clear as day, it’s coming from right across the hallway from where I’m sleeping. So I yell to my husband this time. I wasn’t going back in the hallway to investigate any further. He comes running into my room, and I explain what happened. We start to realize the timing of things with the older gentleman passing away. Maybe he’s paying us a visit.
Jim Harold
Mm-hmm.
Kaitlin
So we kind of realize that’s probably what’s going on, and it didn’t seem malicious, so we weren’t really worried about it. It was interesting that the bedroom that it happened in was actually his parents’ room when he lived in the house.
Jim Harold
Ah.
Kaitlin
So we sort of thought maybe he’s kind of working his way through the process of having passed and finding his way to wherever you wind up.
Jim Harold
So you don’t think it was any–because a lot of times people associate ghosts with, “Oh, it’s spooky-ooky. It’s scary. It’s malevolent.” You don’t feel that way at all. He was just stopping by and kind of saying, “I’m here, and hello.”
Kaitlin
I think so. It felt like it was just a little nod to let us know that he was still here kind of watching over stuff, and that was his way to be able to get our attention.
Jim Harold
And then it just sort of calmed down as you went through the process?
Kaitlin
We actually had a few more things happen after that.
Jim Harold
Oh, okay.
Kaitlin
Yeah, through the process of things. I’ll go through a few other little pieces that happened, those little synchronicities. And then there was one big one on closing day of his new home.
Jim Harold
Ooh, okay, go ahead. Tell us.
Kaitlin
So my neighbor, Sue, who was in charge of his estate, we had a few incidents that happened at the other house where we’d have earrings appear where they weren’t previously. Her earring had reappeared in the driveway when she got out of the car one day. Just little synchronicities that happened at both houses, both my own and the new retirement community house, that were those little nods of, “Hi, I’m still here watching over things.” Then it came to closing day. That was in July of this past year. And I’m waiting in the kitchen with Sue, and we’re talking over just reminiscing about the past, different stories. She’s explaining how she had to sort of care for his items, go through things, and fortunately clean some things out. So we’re in the kitchen talking. We’re expecting the buyer to come. We’re expecting to close in a few minutes. And as we’re talking about a profound piece of clothing that she had to get rid of, we hear whistling. And I sort of looked at her. She acknowledged it as well, so I knew it wasn’t just something I was hearing alone. And I look over my shoulder to where the kitchen window is, assuming the buyer’s outside. He’s walking around, making sure everything looks okay before he comes in, does his final walkthrough, and we do paperwork. So I go out to the front door to let him know we’re inside waiting, and there’s nobody there. I walk around the house, check around. I don’t see any neighbors. I see nobody outside. So I come back in, and I let her know, “There’s nobody out there.” “You did hear that as well.” And she again affirms that she also heard this whistling. So it seems that what we were talking about previously was actually a jacket that her father gave to the older gentleman. And she just had to get rid of it as she was going through things. I looked at her, I said, “You know who was known for whistling all of the time?” “It was one of his character traits, was your father.” And we were just talking about him.
Jim Harold
Oh wow!
Kaitlin
So I’m not sure if it was him peeking in to say hello, or maybe both of them, but they were definitely watching over the process and making sure we were doing things right.
Jim Harold
That’s pretty cool. You know, the thing is that I believe, and it does make sense to me that people who are attached to a place and live in a place for many years, and your home, you get very, very attached to it. And as a real estate person, you realize this. I mean, I can tell you, we moved out of a house two and a half years ago, and we’ve been in the house for over 20 years. And even now when I pass, even though I prefer where I’m at now, I like the house better, I like the area better, I still get a little pang. It’s like an attachment. So someone who’s passed, and especially if they really love the house, I could totally see it. And I bet you’ve had other weird things over the years as a real estate agent.
Kaitlin
Oh, yes. There’s been a few strange things here and there. I always say it’s fun when it’s in other locations. It’s definitely different when it’s in your own home.
Jim Harold
Yes, yes.
Kaitlin
So I’m thankful that it’s been very positive things. But actually, when I was talking to my family and friends and letting them know I was going to be recording the podcast with you, it picked back up again a little bit in my house with just a few things, something falling off the wall, an area that it shouldn’t, and just a few strange, strange little happenings.
Jim Harold
Well, if you have any friends there, Jim says, “Be nice to Kaitlin. She’s a nice person. So don’t do anything too frightening.”
Kaitlin
Thank you, Jim.
Jim Harold
Kaitlin, thanks for being a part of the Campfire and Stay Spooky.
Kaitlin
Stay Spooky, Jim.
Jim Harold
Next up on the Campfire is Shirlette. You may remember she was on a while back, a joint appearance that she did on Campfire and our other podcast, “You Won’t Believe What Happened to Me,” which I co-host with my wife, Dar. Shirlette told us about something that happened with her son, a health crisis and an angelic intervention. And now she’s going to talk to us about something that happened with her mom. Shirlette, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. Please tell us what happened.
Shirlette
Thanks. Okay, so my mom had cancer and I was taking care of her at my house and doing the hospice kind of stuff. And my sister was there and it was probably like three o’clock in the morning or something like that. And her husband was there and he was sleeping over there on the couch. And mom was at the very, very end and we were talking to her and telling her that it was okay to go and that sort of thing. And when she, we leaned over to her and we told her together that it was okay. And then we heard her take her last breath. And I need to back up for a second because mom was one of those people who would, she was a door slammer. And when she got mad, she slammed the door and she wanted you to know that she was mad at you. And so we were talking to her and then you could hear her take that last breath. And then me and my sister looked at each other and then my back door slammed. You could hear it just slam. It’s loud, like a trailer, you know. So when the trailer has that aluminum kind of sound or whatever to it, it just was just kind of reverberated in the house. And so I looked at her and she looked at me and then I told her husband, “Go check. Somebody just came in the back door.” And he went over and checked it out and there was nobody there at all. And my mom had told us, “Once I go, I’m gone. I’m not going to come back and haunt you all and say, you know, ‘Oh, I’m here. Let me turn the light on and off for you.'” She said, “I won’t be doing none of that. I’ll be out.” And so when she went out, she went out. She slammed the door and went out.
Jim Harold
She kind of said, “This is it? This is your one sign? Be good with that.”
Shirlette
Yep.
Jim Harold
Yeah. Well, that’s pretty cool. But she made it. She took time to do that. I think that’s pretty cool on her way out.
Shirlette
That is.
Jim Harold
You know, it is tough. I think it’s tough when you have a loved one who’s passed and you don’t feel a sign. It can be very, very difficult. I know people who have dealt with that. And I guess it varies for me. Not so much with my mom, but there have been a few little things over the years. My brother certainly gave us a great sign. So I think it means a lot when somebody passes and they find a way. They find a way to give us a sign. To comfort us. Even if it’s slamming a door.
Shirlette
Yep. Well, she knew I wanted to have a sign and that kind of stuff. And I like that kind of stuff. But she said she wasn’t going to come back and do it. So she gave me one before she left.
Jim Harold
That is excellent.
Shirlette
Yeah.
Jim Harold
That is excellent. Well, Shirlette, thank you for joining us again on the Campfire. I appreciate it.
Shirlette
Thank you. Take care.
Jim Harold
Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Ritual. And did you know there are two types of people in this world? Those who openly pass gas in front of a partner and those who turn on the TV really loudly to try to cover it up. And I’m not going to tell you which one I am. But luckily, there’s a third option for that awkward gut stuff that most of us deal with. It’s called Symbiotic Plus. Ritual has created a clinically studied three-in-one prebiotic, probiotic and postbiotic to help support a balanced gut microbiome. And I trust Ritual. I take their products every single day. I trust the way they do things, their supply chain. And again, with supplements, I was never one for supplements. But with Ritual, I am fully on board and again take Ritual every day. Now, back to Symbiotic Plus. It’s a daily three-in-one prebiotic, probiotic and postbiotic, as I said, with two of the world’s most clinically studied probiotic strains to support the relief of mild and occasional bloating, gas and diarrhea. Now, you might ask, “Why include a postbiotic? I know what a prebiotic is.” Well, a postbiotic provides fuel to the cells that make up the gut lining and supports a healthy gut barrier. And that’s a win-win. Their delayed-release capsule is designed to help survive the harsh conditions of the upper GI tract for delivery to the colon, an ideal place for probiotics to grow and thrive. And it’s all in one single-nested minty capsule. No refrigeration needed, which I always thought, you know, prebiotics needed that, but not with this. No, no, no. So be assured it’s easy to take with you when you travel. Symbiotic Plus and Ritual are here to celebrate, not hide your insides. There’s no more shame in your gut game. That’s why Ritual is offering my listeners 30% off during your first month. Visit ritual.com/campfire to start Ritual or add Symbiotic Plus to your subscription today. And we thank Ritual and Symbiotic Plus for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire. One more thing before we get back to some great Campfire stories. You know, there have been years where I’ve really got behind on my gift-giving and did not do it in a timely manner. I remember one Christmas Eve shopping very late many years ago. I will never do that again. But the point being that sometimes it happens. But let’s say you know someone, and I want to be very specific. This is for someone in your life who loves Apple podcasts and listens via the Apple Podcasts app. And they also love the paranormal. Did you know that you can gift them a subscription to my Spooky Studio Plus channel, which you can find on the Apple Podcasts app. And there you can get all of the Campfires going back to 2009, all the Paranormal Podcasts going back to 2005, and a ton of other exclusive Plus-only content. And here’s how you do it. So all you have to do to do that is get them an Apple gift card. Apple gift cards are available almost anywhere you buy gift cards. And these will work for a subscription to Spooky Studio Plus in the Apple Podcasts app too. Now again, this is only if they listen to their podcasts from the app Apple Podcasts, which you have to have an Apple device for. Two things, they have to be using an Apple device, and they have to listen to their podcasts through Apple Podcasts. But in that case, we do have this gifting option. You just get those Apple gift cards, again, available almost anywhere you can buy gift cards. And that supports the show and gives some great content for your loved one. And it’s a great last-minute gift. I hope you’ll take advantage of it. And now we are really getting back to some great Campfire stories. Monica is on the line from New York State, and she’s going to tell us about her mother-in-law and some signs she gave after her passing. Monica, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. And please tell us what happened.
Monica
Awesome. Thank you, Jim. So back in 2019, my husband and I and our whole family, we lost my mother-in-law to pancreatic cancer, which is awful if anyone’s had to go through that. And she was such a huge part of our family. She was everything. My husband has three brothers, and so she just kept everyone together. So we think of her often and fondly. One of my daughters is actually, her middle name is Patricia, after my mother.
Jim Harold
Oh, nice.
Monica
Yeah. And so my mother-in-law loved The Wizard of Oz. So anything Wizard of Oz related, when she passed, her best friend painted this beautiful poem and had The Wizard of Oz, all the characters and stuff. It was gorgeous. Yeah, really, really sweet. And even on top of her urn at the memorial was a little pair of ruby slippers. Really, really sweet stuff. So whenever I see rainbows, I always think of her, somewhere over the rainbow. And so one day, I’m thinking about my mother-in-law. It was early in the morning, over in the summer. And every morning, my girls and I of 18-month-old twin daughters, we listen to some music, this like kids’ playlist. And I’m thinking about my mother-in-law, just looking out the window, watching the birds. And then I see a little cardinal, and whenever I see a red cardinal, I think of her. I know that’s very common for folks to look for signs and birds. So I was thinking about her, and then this song, it’s called “Look Up, There’s a Rainbow.” It came on, and I was like, “Aww.” Really miss–you know, I’m really missing my mother-in-law, because she would love to see the kids. She never got to meet my girls, so I always just think of her fondly. So then, later in the day, I still have her on my mind, and I’m driving out to an appointment, and I’m in the middle of nowhere. I’m in Pine Bush, New York, which is like middle of nowhere. And I see at the end of someone’s long driveway, there’s a handwritten sign that says, “There’s no place like home.”
Jim Harold
Wow.
Monica
Right?
Jim Harold
Yeah, wow.
Monica
I was like, “What in the–that’s so random.” So I’m, of course, thinking of her again. And, you know, those two things, the rainbow song and then “no place like home,” I was like, “That’s so sweet.” I told my husband. We were having dinner later that night, and I’m like, “Man, I’ve been thinking about your mom a lot today,” and I told him the two occurrences. Then I hear a ringing, like you can tell if someone’s making a phone call. And I’m like–I said to my husband, “Babe, I think your phone’s– I think you’re butt-dialing someone.” And he pulls his phone out of his pocket, and I kid you not, he was calling his mom.
Jim Harold
Wow.
Monica
So the phone was calling his mom. He had done nothing necessarily to trip it. Yeah.
Jim Harold
He was calling his mom.
Monica
He still has number saved under his favorites. And she was kind of a trickster. She would hide–when I first started dating my husband, he was still living at home, and she would hide this little spider around the house. She was just silly. So I just was like, “Wow, there’s your mom really making herself known.”
Jim Harold
The thing is about that, the one that gets me–that gets me. That definitely–and there’s no place like home, because I kind of like kitschy signs. I mean, some people think that they’re kind of passe or corny or whatever they want to say, you know, whatever. But I love when people have signs out that say, you know, “The Smiths Established 1998,” or, you know, like different things that almost like it takes a house and it makes it a home. Their little touches, or, you know, if somebody has a man cave, and, you know, “Bill’s Bar”. I love that kind of stuff. And so I kind of observe when I see different signs like that, and people are like, “Oh, that’s cool. They’ve taken–you know, they’re showing kind of their love for their family and their home.” I just love that kind of stuff. I’ve never seen that expression on a driveway.
Monica
I know. It was like a handwritten–like one of those sandwich boards, you know? Someone had just written, like, “There’s no place like home.” I’m like, “Oh, my gosh.” Never heard of it. It was so cool.
Jim Harold
I think you said it best in your email. Too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.
Monica
Yes, yes. I got that from you.
Jim Harold
Yeah. Smart man. No.
Monica
Yes.
Jim Harold
Not usually, but that was a good one. I don’t know if that’s original or if I heard it somewhere, but I do believe that sometimes there are too many coincidences, too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence. And I think that these–I mean, pancreatic cancer is a horrible disease, and it’s a horrible thing that happened to your mother-in-law. But I got to believe all this brings some comfort, right?
Monica
It does. And, like I said, she’s a trickster, and she’s just such a funny lady, and I wish she could be around to see my girls and stuff. But knowing that I think she is still around with us is really–it’s special. Special.
Jim Harold
It is.
Monica
Makes me feel good.
Jim Harold
And, Monica, thank you for sharing this special story today.
Monica
Of course. Thank you so much, Jim. I really appreciate it.
Jim Harold
Alex is on the line. He’s a relatively new listener. Been listening for about six months. Found us on Spotify, and we’re really glad he did because not only does he listen, he’s come with a story that ties in his mom’s experience with his own experience and their spooky experiences. Alex, welcome to the show, and tell us what happened.
Alex
All right, Jim. So I have always been–my earliest memories are of me having just strange dreams, mainly nightmares. And ever since then, I’ve been fascinated with the paranormal because it always felt like these dreams weren’t just dreams. And I used to tell my parents a lot of my dreams until it just became so normal that I just quit telling them. And so the story takes place when I was living in my parents’ house before we had done any remodeling. So this was the original home they bought from their previous owners, and it was a small house with two bedrooms next to each other off the main living room. So in the middle of the night one night–I’m like five to seven years old– and I wake up, and the first thing I see is a man standing over my bed. And I just cover up my head. I don’t know what else to do. I’m very freaked out, and I must have eventually just fallen asleep. And although I was used to having nightmares, some stood out because they felt a little more real. Because in this case, I woke up. I was in my room. Everything looked as it normally was. There was just this man standing here. So cut to probably a decade later. We’re sitting around the dinner table. We had since done a remodel of the house, so it no longer was as it was. Where these original bedrooms were was now a new hallway, new rooms, completely different. And we’re sitting around the dinner table just discussing the paranormal. And my mom had a few stories from high school. I had some stories that my friends had told me. And at this point, this experience that I had had when I was younger, I wasn’t even thinking about it. And so she proceeds to tell me this story about– and so this would have happened around the same time when I was having this experience. She says she just started to wake up multiple times a week to a man standing over her bed.
Jim Harold
Oh, man.
Alex
Just watching her sleep. At first, it really freaked her out, too. And she would wake my dad up. He would wake up. And as soon as he would wake up, this man would disappear. What she told me was that she didn’t feel threatened. It was just this guy watching her sleep. And after a number of weeks, it just kind of quit happening. It was just this short period of time. And so as soon as she told me that story, it immediately brought me back to my 5-year-old self waking up to this man standing over my bed. I got the chills. I told her my story, and we’re just both, like, jaws on the floor. Like, what was this? And so they had actually–my parents came up with the theory. And so the house that they had–the owners of the house, they had stayed in contact. And they put these dates together after the fact, but they found out that around the time that we saw this person was when the husband had passed away, but the wife still was living. And when the wife did finally pass was when this man stopped showing up. So we believe that this guy was the husband in their original house watching over who he thought was his wife sleeping in bed, perhaps, just waiting for her to join him in the afterlife. And so when she passed on, and they could go off together and just be together. And that’s the best we could come up with, just because the timelines match up. That’s the one story that I have that I can say I experienced something.
Jim Harold
Yeah, that’s something. There’s no question about that. Now let me ask you this question. Did the physical description of the man–and I’m assuming you did– but the physical description of the man, did it match both of your stories? Was it the same man as far as you could tell?
Alex
So my mom thinks so. From what I remember, it happened so fast. All I saw was a man I do not know, and I just covered up my head. But my mom believes so, yes.
Jim Harold
And the thing is that when people hear these stories, they think the supernatural. I know–I have to be honest–the first reaction I would have if I saw a strange man over my bed looking at me would not be, “Oh my God, it’s a ghost.” I would be like, “Okay, who’s broken into my house?”
Alex
Oh, yeah, exactly. And I think that’s what my mom thought too. That’s why she slapped my dad to wake him up, and as soon as she did that, the guy disappeared.
Jim Harold
Yeah, and it sounds like this kind of set you on a lifelong kind of interest in all of this stuff.
Alex
Oh, yeah, certainly. I’ve been begging to see something, experience something ever since, and this is the one thing besides my dreams. And so maybe I’ll return with a story about some dream stuff too, but yeah, that’s all I’ve got.
Jim Harold
Yeah, well, the one thing I was going to mention–we just recently had another call like this too– where family members will validate something years later. Somebody–and a lot of times it’s around the dinner table. We’ve had people come out and say, “Well, thus and so happened to me.” And then the other member of the family could be a sibling, could it be a parent or whatever. “Oh, that happened to you too? Let me tell you what happened to you.” And I always think those are some of the coolest because that says, “Hey, you were not imagining this. This happened. It was real.” What it was, who knows, but it was real. I’m sure you have that kind of reaction as well.
Alex
Oh, yes, exactly. Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. Like I said, I didn’t even remember this had happened until she said that and then boom. It’s like, “Okay, we saw the same thing.” And yeah.
Jim Harold
Very cool indeed, very cool indeed. Alex, thank you for joining us today on the Campfire and Stay Spooky.
Alex
Stay Spooky, Jim.
Jim Harold
Krista is on the line from Arizona. She’s been on a couple of times over the last three or four years and we appreciate her coming back. And she has another story for us now. Krista, welcome back to the show from the great state of Arizona and tell us what happened.
Krista
Okay, well, first I just want to say that you are my absolute favorite. I’m so glad to be back.
Jim Harold
Aww, thank you.
Krista
You’re welcome. So my story is not super linear. It hadn’t been until just recently. And I’ll try to explain a little bit later on in the call. But, you know, when I was five, I remember I had come home late with my mom. And at the time, I mean, not to be too graphic, but I was being potty trained. And I remember we were in the restroom and I remember she was standing with her back to the door of the restroom. So the hallway was behind her. And I remember sitting, and back then we had these little horses that you would put on the seat, you know. And I remember pushing little buttons and I was mesmerized. And then all of a sudden, she says, I looked up abruptly. And I was staring intently at something in the hallway. And she kind of paused and turned and she said, right in front of the doorway was a dark figure that looked like it was wearing a coat and of course a hat.
Jim Harold
Oh my gosh.
Krista
And like everybody else. Yeah. So, you know, it was exactly like everybody described. He was blacker than black. It looked like a silhouette just cut out of reality. Right. So I remember this part vaguely, but she says, right after that, I just jump up. I run after it. And she kind of was just stunned. She stood there for a second because her brain couldn’t figure out like what just happened. And so she realizes that I’m gone. So she goes after me and she’s checking the house. She’s calling for me. She’s checking the windows. She’s checking the doors. Everything’s locked. And she’s thinking, well, maybe someone got in and she’s scared because she thinks I’m in danger. But then she realizes that there’s no way someone could have gotten in. And she’s like, what the heck just happened? She finds me standing in front of the front door, just staring at it. And she checks the door and that’s, yeah. So she couldn’t explain it. And she’s like, it wasn’t my husband. He was still at work. But for years, she would tell everybody in the family about this. And it started happening to my aunts, you know, different times in their lives. They would see him maybe in the backseat while they were driving or they’d wake up, you know, sleep paralysis and things of that nature. And back then, of course, we didn’t have the Internet. We didn’t have, you know, we didn’t have podcasts and things like that. So we couldn’t really connect with other people. So we didn’t know what it was. So we didn’t know what to call it. And then, you know, fast forward, I’m in my 20s and I’m pregnant and I’m in a hotel in Ogden. And at this point, I started sleeping with my closet door. And, you know, every time I would sleep, my bedroom door, my closet door was always closed because I had learned that that was somehow connected. And so I remember in my dream, I felt someone standing above me and I’m looking up and there’s this man and he’s screaming in my face. But I can’t hear what he’s saying, but I can feel the rage. Right? And he’s screaming at me and I wake up because I’m so scared and I’m like, you know, terrified. And I roll over and I’m looking at the window and there’s about a one foot gap between the curtain and the floor. Right. And my eyes are still kind of blurry and I’m trying to wake up, trying to adjust my vision. And I realize that where that gap should be, there’s two legs. And I jump out of bed because I realize there’s there’s someone standing there, you know, and I’m freaking out and I jump out of bed. And then I go back a minute later to see if maybe I imagined it right. And there’s no one there because usually there never is. But my closet door had been opened, which I had closed it before I went to sleep. So over the years, these things. Yeah, this this is just something that just has happened my whole life. Right. And then in addition to that, I’ve always been a deep sleeper. And when I when I dream, I’ve always sort of visited people and I’ve always been able to sort of see people that I haven’t, you know, talked to in a long time. And they call me the next day and they’d be like, “Hey, I had a dream that I talked to you last night.” Right. So last time I talked to you, we had talked about my grandfather and how he was passing and how he was in a care facility and I was at home and I had been praying that, you know, he was proud of me and before he he passed on and he didn’t know that he was proud. And I don’t know if you remember, but a couple of days later, he called me just to tell me that he was proud of me out of nowhere. Right.
Jim Harold
Yeah.
Krista
And I always thought that was really strange. So. Recently, I was talking to my aunt. And she goes, you know, your grandfather was part of the program. He was one of the instructors for the remote viewing program.
Jim Harold
Ah, interesting. Interesting.
Krista
I don’t know how, I don’t know how deep he was in the program, but she said he took part in it and he, he, he knew a lot about the inner workings of it and he couldn’t talk to her about it a lot. But I kind of wonder, Jim, what if, what if the shadow people are sort of remote viewers? What if they’re from another place and they’ve somehow learned how to do it better than we do? Maybe that’s, maybe that’s what they’re doing. Maybe that’s why they can’t physically interact with us. They can just watch.
Jim Harold
Wow. Wow. So that, that, that’s an interesting theory. I’ve never heard that before.
Krista
Yeah. I mean, I’ve never been afraid of them. They’ve never spoken. They were just sort of passively watching. I know lots of people say that they’ve heard them speak and it was terrifying, but for me, it didn’t feel imposing. I was just sort of like, if I didn’t want to see them, I would just keep the closet door and the bedroom door closed and I was fine.
Jim Harold
Wow. Wow. That’s something else. It’s, it’s interesting. I really, I think that’s a really interesting theory. I’ve never heard that one before. And it’s a very interesting thought. So do you continue to see them to this day?
Krista
No, wherever I live and whenever I move into a new environment, I always sort of go through the home and I sort of pray and I put my intention out there and I try to fill the space with my energy, you know, making it sort of my own. No, I don’t have problems like that anymore. I think that fear is, is often a big component in those situations. So I think that that’s sort of what attracts, you know, that’s that type of interaction, but no, I don’t.
Jim Harold
Well, good for you. Good for you. And thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing this story. If one happens to pop up, please let us know. But I, I hope that that doesn’t happen. And it sounds like you’ve got a really, really good handle on this, Krista.
Krista
Can I say one thing before we go?
Jim Harold
Absolutely.
Krista
Okay. Well, this Friday the 15th, I’m getting married.
Jim Harold
Oh, congratulations.
Krista
Thank you. I just wanted to give a shout out to my, my future husband, Jamie. By the time he hears this, we’ll be married. And I just wanted to let him know that I love him so much. And I’m so grateful that I found him.
Jim Harold
Oh, how sweet. Well, we’re recording this on the 12th, so it won’t be out before your marriage, but it should be out shortly after. So congratulations to you both. And I hope it was from the bottom of my heart. I hope you both Stay Spooky. You both have a great marriage and congratulations. Congratulations. That’s great to hear. And, and I hope you have a fantastic marriage, fantastic honeymoon, a great time and a lot to look forward to in 2024.
Krista
Exactly. Thank you so much for letting me be part of the show again.
Jim Harold
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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
Nicole is on the line from New Mexico, although I think she lived somewhere else when this story took place. And she’s going to tell us about some terrifying experiences in a townhouse she lived in. She found out about us from the great Astonishing Legends. So thanks again to Scott and Forrest. Make sure to listen to their show. And Nicole, tell us what happened in this townhome.
Nicole
Sure. Great. This was 2017 and it’s a tall three story townhouse. I think the location and positioning is relevant. It’s on a hill in the middle of Atlanta. Brand new neighborhood. Beautiful views from the upstairs windows. And I’m living there alone. It’s post-divorce, post-pet dying. And the house was a new construction. My ex and I were the first residents. And on the third floor, there’s my master bedroom and down the hall is a guest room. That’s all the third floor is. And I wake up in the middle of the night hearing footsteps on the hardwood hallway right outside my bedroom, which the bedroom door is shut. And someone stops at the door and shifts weight and all this wakes me up in a panic. And I’m thinking, wow, somebody’s broken into my house. Yeah, that’s, I mean, at that point, I’m not thinking anything supernatural. I’m thinking there’s a very human, probably very dangerous person on the other side of that door. Yes. And I keep listening and I think, you know what? There’s no more sound. And I never heard a door or a window break or open. I’m a light sleeper. I can hear everything. I must have blended my dreams with the house creaking. I go back to sleep and it happens again. Same location, same about five footsteps up to my door and stopping and shifting weight. I go through the same panic, talk myself out of it and go back to sleep. And the third time, it’s footsteps on the carpet right next to my bed. And I’m sleeping face down facing this direction of the bed. And now I’m full on. Yes, somebody broke into the house. This is about to be a violent episode or just a thievery. And maybe if I pretend to be asleep, just stay still and stay quiet. They’ll take what they want and leave. And so that’s my plan. And oh my gosh, the pain of the fear, the blood stops flowing to the legs. You feel everything hurting. I’m trying to breathe. And then somebody steps on the edge of the mattress between me and the edge. And then as if stepping over me sits down on the other side of me. I can tell by the weight and the pressure on the mattress that it’s someone heavier and bigger than me. So I’m thinking, okay, this is a man who’s come in here and I guess he’s not just going to rob me. I guess this could be where I die or get injured or something. I’m feeling I’m going to die in the next few minutes from some violent episode.
Jim Harold
Oh my gosh.
Nicole
After the person sits down, there’s no more activity or sound and I realize I never heard breathing, clothing, movement, anything but the footsteps and the mattress. And I’m thinking I can’t hold my legs still much longer, I can’t control my breathing much longer, I have got to see if this is a ghost or a dream because it’s not all adding up. And I think how do I tell what it is? I’ll turn on the lamp real fast and I’ll know that I was awake and this was something weird and ghosty. So I turn on the lamp and no one is there. So I probably stayed up the rest of the night but to mentally calm myself down, I think of an excuse of what it might be so I can continue living there. And I’m thinking because I’ve had an angel experience and a ghost experience in the past. Maybe this is an angel message. I don’t know why it’s so scary to turn on my house alarm at night. So this is my mental gymnastics to feel better about living there. Okay, I’ll just turn on my house alarm every night and message proceed. And I felt fine again for a year. And then I got a housemate who lived on the first floor of the three floors and all the shared living spaces in the middle. And he, while I’m out of town, text me one day and says, “Hi, are you home?” And I said, “No, I’m not.” And he didn’t follow up. So I just left it till I came back and said, “Hey, did you need anything?” And he said, “Well, I heard somebody walking around the kitchen above me while I was in the shower and I knew you were out of town. So that’s why I texted you. And then I went up and fixed food and sat in front of the TV and heard someone walking up and down the stairs right behind me.” And I had told him for some reason about my ghost experience. So he figured that’s what it was and was terrified. I said, “Did you turn and look?” He said, “No way, I didn’t look.” So that’s two of us who heard someone walking around and we would not look. And I thought, “Man, this guy is spending a lot of money on rent for me and I hate to have him scared to live here.” So I called in the paranormal investigators and it took them two months to get there. And they’re free, by the way. Anybody who calls one should know they should be free. So in two months, they came and asked me to leave the house for four hours. They brought all of their equipment, everything you can think of with their three investigators. And one of them’s a medium and he told me before he arrived that he could see some of what’s going on. There’s a guy named Willie who died of an overdose. And he described him, skinny black guy, big hair, like maybe an Afro and big wild eyes. I was like, “Okay, so now we know about Willie.” And then they arrive and do their investigation while I’m out of the house. But they asked me to come back at the end and sit with them in case they can collect any more evidence. And so they said they got great evidence. They got EVP conversation going with Willie in the upstairs guest room, not my room. They couldn’t contact him in there. But it’s all on video. I can share that to the Facebook page. And they talked to Willie and they did a lot of talking about, “We can help you cross over. You got to leave this house. You can’t be here.” And that happened before I got home. And when I got home, they had me stand in my room. They had everything in the room. They had two flashlights on my bed, one for yes and one for no. We could ask questions and one flashlight or the other would turn on. So one of them asked, “Is anybody here?” The yes one came on and went off. “Do you have a message for Nicole?” And the yes one came on and came off. And no response after that. But someone with the EMF reader, electromagnetic field reader, said, “Does 777 mean anything to you? The whole four hours, that’s what it’s been reading. And a house should never be over 100. So 777 must be something else.” And I didn’t know, so we Googled it and it turned out to be a great angel meaning number for you’re ready to move on to the next phase. Something very comforting and very encouraging. And I felt like, “Okay, I think that there’s a team of my ancestors or protectors in my room now.” And Willie is hanging out in the other room. So that helped a lot because for the two months I was waiting for them, I was not sleeping at night. It was TV all night and waking up, going to bed at dawn and trying to get a few hours before work.
Jim Harold
That’s understandable.
Nicole
But anyway, after that, after all the saging and telling Willie he had to leave, he didn’t. I still heard him creeping around and I had to get into a habit of yelling at him in the middle of the night, telling him, “Do not ever come in my room.” And “Do not ever scare me like that.” And it started working and I would come home from work and say, “Okay, Willie, I’m home. I don’t want to hear a thing out of you. I don’t want to even know you’re here. Feel free to hang out, but do not scare me. Do not make a noise.” And the activity went away. But six months later, I decided to sell the house just for financial purposes. And there was an open house and I told a neighborhood friend about Willie and he is a medium where he can see people. So he said, “I’d love to go in the house and look around.” And I said, “You go ahead. It’s open house right now.” And so he did and he had a very intense encounter with Willie, he said, and he left kind of shaking. And when I talked to him, he couldn’t tell me much, but I just asked him last week if he could describe again what he experienced and I’ll just read his email. “The moment I walked in the door, I had to use the restroom. The realtors were gathered in the kitchen talking. I go to the restroom and at that moment I could feel him. He feels and sees a little bit. So when I come out of the bathroom, I told the realtors I’m going upstairs. Didn’t even tell them who I am, but I could feel him and I wanted to go and follow. He looked up the staircase and he walked up the staircase, looked into my bedroom on the left, but I didn’t feel him in there. So I walked to the bedroom on the right. This is my guest room. And he realized Willie was in the closet hiding.”
Jim Harold
Oh.
Nicole
So he said, “Willie became aware that I was aware of him and he ran and hid in the closet. So I opened the closet door and sat on the bed and encouraged him to come out and look at me. He could see a form, a heavy weight in the air type of shape, and it kind of frightened my friend, but he saw it. I was able to see and hear him. Willie thought the fact that my friend could see and hear him meant that my friend was dangerous. So Willie was scared of my friend because he was able to see Willie. And my friend said, “No, let me show you who I really am.” So he pulled out his cross from around his neck and he had brought a piece of paper with the Lord’s Prayer and he read the Lord’s Prayer to Willie. Willie came out and looked down at the paper, which scared my friend too much. So my friend left the paper on the nightstand and left.
Jim Harold
So your friend saw him like he was flesh and blood almost.
Nicole
A little bit more like wavy air.
Jim Harold
Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha.
Nicole
I don’t have a full description that I had, but he could sense his thoughts and see his general presence. So I sell the house and then the good ending to the whole thing happens. I’m feeling more comfortable in my new house, but I’m still PTSD, kind of scared of the dark, and I’m not turning on the light in the dark unless my eyes are closed. So I’m reaching around for my lamp to turn on my light anytime I wake up and I’m feeling ridiculous about it and I’m thinking, “This has got to change. I have to fix this little bit of fear that’s left over.” And one night I have a dream that a woman who gives tours at haunted places is taking me on a private tour somewhere to help me get over my fear. She takes me to a restaurant that’s occupied downstairs, but we’re in the attic. It’s dark and there’s one table for four and Willie’s sitting at the table when we walk in facing us and the person next to him at the table is Matthew Broderick.
Jim Harold
Yeah, the actor.
Nicole
The actor. And I feel like I’m excited to see Willie. I sit down at the table and I’m saying, “Hey, so great to meet you finally. Now we can talk face to face and learn about each other.” Especially since we’ve been housemates. And it was a good reunion, but Matthew is freaking out. He’s scared to death and not leaving, but sitting there scared to death and I just ignore him. When I wake up, I realize that was a really pointed, meaningful dream with no fat to scram except wise Matthew Broderick.
Jim Harold
Matthew Broderick, yeah. It could have been anybody. It could have been Matthew McConaughey. I mean, all right, all right, all right. But go ahead.
Nicole
So, it felt very vivid and long and detailed and I thought this was a message and I Google Matthew Broderick and Ghost and he had done a play in Ireland where his wife who died in a car accident was haunting their house and he was so afraid of her that he was going to therapy. And I thought, “Okay, this is on the right track.” So, I buy the play and read it and there’s a message that I take as the whole point of the dream that the therapist is telling Matthew’s character, “Everybody reacts differently to ghosts and some people are afraid and some are not and you can choose how to react. There’s no instant reason that you should just choose fear.” So, that’s how I got over my fear of the dark and started getting interested in what’s on the other side and how to be cool with them.
Jim Harold
Cool story and interesting ending and you’re very much a detective and trying to figure out what these messages are because some people would just think, “Oh, Matthew Broderick. That’s just some kind of unrelated thing thrown in.” You know, my favorite thing, you go to a grocery store and all of a sudden at night you’re sleeping and you’re riding a head of cabbage. But you said, “No, let me look into this.” And you found that connection. Very cool. And I trust things are okay now, right?
Nicole
Yes, yes. I’m in a whole other state and I’m putting up all the pictures of my grandparents to continue talking with them and thanking them for their protection.
Jim Harold
Nicole, thank you for sharing your story today on the Campfire.
Nicole
Thank you.
Jim Harold
Harrison is back on the line from New Zealand. You’ll remember a while back he called in and talked about this scone-baking ghost. Well, he has another story for us today. And Harrison, welcome back all the way from New Zealand and tell us what happened.
Harrison
Thank you very much, Jim, for having me back. And this next story, it happened a lot more recently. So I’m 20 years old now and it was at my last house I was living in. So I moved there last year, probably September-ish. And it’s quite an old house, not as old as the scone-baking house one, but it’s probably from the 1960s to 70s, maybe a bit older. And when I moved into this house, I thought, “It’s old. It’s probably got a lot of rats and mice living in it.” Hadn’t been lived in for a bit. And so I started hearing some weird sort of footsteps up in the attic and I brushed it off. I just thought, “Oh, you know, it’s just a big rat or a big mouse.” But I put a possum trap up in it and I put possum bait and I put rat bait as well. And the footsteps never went away. And I’d hear them not every night, but maybe every couple of nights. And they’d be really loud and they’d sound like a small child running through the attic upstairs. And I didn’t feel threatened by it, but it wasn’t a warm feeling with this, how should I put it, supernatural occurrence. I would see shadow figures walking between rooms out of the corner of my eye when I was doing something. And I’d feel like someone was watching me when there was no one else in the house. My ex-partner, she recalls hearing two voices talking when I was at work at the time. And she even messaged me saying, “Are you at home now? Have you come home from work?” And I sort of said, “Oh, no, no, I haven’t. I’m still at work. Why’s that?” And she said, “I just heard two voices talking.” So I didn’t say anything to her about what I’d experienced as not to frighten her because we still had to live in the place until the new house was built. And it was sort of only after we moved out that I talked to her and sort of said, “This is what I’ve experienced. What have you experienced?” And she said about the loud footsteps again at early hours in the morning. And I’d left the bathroom door closed one night. And when I woke up in the morning, I hadn’t used it since I closed it. And when I woke up in the morning, it was fully open and back against the doorstop. So I thought that was very weird.
Jim Harold
That is a little strange.
Harrison
Yeah. And I didn’t feel like it was harmful. But I also didn’t feel like it was a warm, welcoming presence as well. The house was always cold. It had a fireplace and a heat pump. And it was still always cold in certain rooms, no matter how long the fire had been going for or how long the heat pump had been going for. And yeah, just sometimes when I just be sitting there, I just get chills up my spine. And I’d sort of think, “Oh, someone’s watching me.” I’d look around and sure enough, no one’s there.
Jim Harold
And this continued the whole time you were in the house?
Harrison
Yeah, yeah, it did. Yeah.
Jim Harold
And were there any other events that happened before you moved out?
Harrison
Not really. A couple of things that went sort of missing for a few weeks where I sort of knew where I put them. And I was kind of like, “Oh, well, it’s not in its usual spot. I might have just put it down somewhere else.” But I looked for them and I couldn’t really find them.
Jim Harold
So do you think something was having fun with you, just trying to mess with you a little bit?
Harrison
Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I didn’t feel like it was at the point where it was annoying, but it just sort of creeped me out a little bit.
Jim Harold
I don’t blame you. No more activity though once you moved out and moved into the new house?
Harrison
No, no, no. New house is nice and activity-less, which is good.
Jim Harold
Excellent.
Harrison
I’m a fan of the paranormal, but yeah, it still kind of freaked me out a little bit when I heard the…
Jim Harold
It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there in terms of the paranormal.
Harrison
Yeah, yeah.
Jim Harold
Well, Harrison, thank you so much for calling in all the way from New Zealand to tell these spooky stories.
Harrison
Thank you very much, Jim.
Jim Harold
Keith is on the line from Washington State, and Cindy told Keith about the show. So, Cindy, thank you and Stay Spooky and everybody be like Cindy. Tell a friend so you can hear more great stories like the one Keith is about to tell us about. Well, it sounds like a haunted apartment. Keith, welcome to the show and tell us what happened.
Keith
Thanks, Jim. So, yeah, it is a haunted apartment in Tacoma, Washington. And this story starts when I moved in during the summer of 2020. And just to give you some background on this building, it’s 100 years old. So a lot of people have come and gone over the years. So the first week that I moved in, in the middle of the night, I could hear footsteps in my hall. And, you know, I thought, oh, that’s interesting. That’s inside my apartment. And, you know, the noises continued. I would hear noises in my kitchen. And as I would watch TV, my cat would stare at walls, stare at the ceiling, stare at nothing. And so, you know, I’ve had some experiences with hauntings in the past. And so I thought, well, I’ll ask a neighbor, see if they have experienced anything. And so that was the beginning for, you know, what I was told was that there was a landscaper that had died on the property some years back. And then, you know, my neighbor also followed it up by saying, well, it’s an old house, you know, it makes noise. So I thought, okay. So, you know, the guy that died on the property, that sort of stuck in my head. And so, you know, fast forward, you know, a few months and I’m continuing to get, you know, these noises that, you know, I’m thinking, okay, is that the cat? Is it the house creaking? Is it the guy that died in the backyard? I don’t know. And so one night I’m in my bedroom, I’m getting ready to go to sleep and I can hear something standing outside of the door. And I could hear the hardwood floors creak. And at this time I thought, okay, I’ve got to do something about this. And so, you know, randomly a friend of mine who also bought a house in the area told me about, oh shoot, I call them the Ghostbusters, but they’re a couple, that one of them is a psychic and the other one is a shaman. And they helped him rid his house of the disruptive energy. So I reached out to them and I told them about the lore, about the groundskeeper that died in the backyard. And so, you know, they were really interested. And so they, you know, they visited, they visited the backyard and, you know, they just to keep this short. They said, yeah, yeah, it happened. And here’s what you can do. This entity, you can set boundaries with it. You can tell it that, you know, it’s not welcome in your apartment. And, you know, they give me some symbolic things to put in the windows to, you know, protect the apartment. And so I thought, oh, okay. Well, you know, them visiting seemed to help because the activity pretty much slowed down. But, you know, probably six months after, you know, I just kept thinking about, you know, the age of the building and the lore of the, you know, the guy that died in the backyard. And so I went to my local library and I made an appointment, you know, we’re still in COVID times then. And, you know, I said, you know, give me the, you know, what you have in the history of this building. And so, so I show up at the library and the librarian gives me a stack of papers and, you know, it tells me where it’s, it’s like when it was built and who built it. And, and, and she asked me, well, just out of curiosity, why do you want to know this? And I said, well, I’ve, I’ve actually got a ghost. And, and she got really excited and I told her the, the lore about the guy that, that died. And she said, hold on. And she came back with even more information. She brought me a death certificate of this guy that, that passed away voluntarily in the yard in 1959. So this, this guy has, has, has been around the property for some time. And that’s, that’s pretty interesting. And so the, the ghost has a name now, his name is Thomas. So, gosh, you know, since I found out, you know, I, I brought, I brought this stack of paper home and, and I keep it on, on, on, on top of one of the stereo speakers. And, you know, while the activity has slowed down quite a bit over the past year, I did have a really interesting experience where I came home and this stack of paper that was sitting on a three and a half foot speaker was scattered all over the floor. And, and I thought, okay, was it the cat that did this? And so, well, okay, if there was the cat, she would have had to have jumped up on the desk and walked across the turntable and, and then, you know, that’s what I’m thinking, you know, being, being somewhat skeptical. Well, there’s no paw prints on, on the, the turntable. So I thought that was kind of interesting.
Jim Harold
Yes.
Keith
Anyway.
Jim Harold
Go ahead, go ahead.
Keith
Oh, that, that, that’s pretty much the story. You know, it’s, it’s given me a lot of thought about, you know, who has actually lived, you know, in my apartment. It’s been a hundred years and a lot of people have, have come and gone and, and, you know, I, I thought, well, maybe, maybe it’s, it’s someone else that lived there.
Jim Harold
You know, it is interesting because, you know, if you stop and think I live in a relatively new house now, it is only 20 years old, but I’ve lived previous to that, always in older houses. And just, if you think back, I remember the house that I grew up in, it was built, I know it was there in 1900. So it was, you know, as I was growing up, it was quite old and so forth. And, and it was in a very industrial kind of gritty area. And you could think about the hard lives some of these people had who lived in it. One day I did a deep dive into the newspaper archives and looked it up and you see all the lives of these people. And to realize that they inhabited the space that you, you inhabit. And to me, it just makes sense that there’s some kind of carryover, you know. It just makes sense because think about it. Humans, where they let their guard down, where do they, you know, just kind of go, ah, they do that in their homes. And there’s the range of emotions, happiness, sadness, family, loneliness, good, bad, sickness, health, good times, bad times. And it all happens in those houses. And, and to me, at the very least, there’s got to be some kind of energetic charge. So to me, it makes 100% sense that you would get the reflection of someone, particularly someone who maybe died under tragic circumstances.
Keith
Mm, yeah.
Jim Harold
Yeah, certainly. Keith, thank you so much for sharing your story today. Thanks again to Cindy for telling you about the show. And I can’t say enough, Cindy, that’s the biggest favor anybody can do for us. We ask folks to support us in a lot of different ways, and we appreciate all those. But number one is just tell your friends, because I believe there’s so many people like Keith and like Cindy and like you listening who would love this show if they only knew about it. But the only way we can get the word out is if you tell them. So thank you, Cindy, and thank you, Keith, for being a part of the Campfire.
Keith
Hey, thanks again, Jim. Stay Spooky.
Jim Harold
StaySpooky. Thanks so much for joining us on the Campfire. I really appreciate it. And please, this holiday season, as people find new devices in their stocking, add to their gift. Give them a little extra. Give them the free gift of our free Campfire episodes. Share the shows with them wherever you listen, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever. Send them a link, and somebody gets a bright, shiny new iPhone or a new Android or whatever it might be, and they’re like, “Oh, what am I going to put on this?” Put on some podcasts of Jim Harold’s Campfire. Be sure to text them that link right to the episode, and hopefully they’ll get some enjoyment from that gift for many years to come. We thank you so much. I sincerely thank each and every one of you for listening. I really hope this is a blessed holiday season for you, whatever holidays you celebrate. God bless you. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year. We’ll talk to you next time. And Stay Spooky. Bye-bye.
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