If you are fascinated by shadow people sightings, we have a great Campfire episode for you! This week we culled the archives and are featuring the best shadow people stories we’ve had over the years. Enjoy!

TRANSCRIPT

Some of the most chilling shadow people calls in the history of Campfire – up next.

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. And boy, do we have a special show for you this week. We’ve culled the archives of the Campfire going back to 2009, and we are serving up today some of the best calls that examine the strange phenomenon of shadow people. Just imagine being in your bedroom at night, looking up, and seeing a shadow person who looks like he or she was cut out of the universe. Just a frightening phenomenon, and something we’ve heard a lot about over the years on Campfire.

So I’ll not belabor it anymore. Let’s get right to it with these classic shadow people stories.

Melissa from Michigan is on the line. She has a couple of stories. She’s been listening for a couple of years. They’re stories from her hometown, and I think those are some of the best ones. Melissa, welcome to the program, thank you for joining us, and tell us what happened.

MELISSA: Thank you, Jim. These stories are not mine. One happened to my dad and the other happened to my best friend, but they have both given me permission to share. They both take place in my hometown in Michigan. I am going to start with the story that happened to my dad.

Just to give everyone a little bit of backstory, my parents pretty much live in the middle of nowhere. They live on a lake in what I would call the boonies, because the surrounding area is all wooded state land. You have to access their lake by dirt roads. There are two different ways that you can access their lake, but you actually have to pass cemeteries from both routes. There’s one cemetery that’s very large, it’s well-kept, and it’s still in use, but there’s another cemetery that is really, really teeny, very overgrown, it’s completely neglected, and if you did not have any prior knowledge of its existence, you would just drive by and never know it was there.

Because they are surrounded by all of these woods, I need to say that when it gets dark out there, it gets really, really dark because there is no artificial lighting of any kind. It’s all dirt roads and woods. And also, if you’re smart, you have to drive really slowly on these roads, especially at night, not only because of the darkness but because the roads are really curvy and windy. If you’re not careful, you could end up in a ravine.

I know this is going to sound horribly cliché, but it was a dark and stormy night when my dad’s story took place. [laughs] This takes place in late March of 2017, just over a year ago. My dad was driving home at about 10:30 in the evening, and he loves to sing along with his radio stations, so that’s what he was doing. He was singing along with his music and just driving. He was minding his own business. He was quite close to home, and he happened to be on the dirt road where you have to pass the teeny, overgrown cemetery.

He was not yet to the cemetery; the cemetery was still quite some distance away, but as he was driving, his headlights picked up on a red light in the distance on his passenger side, coming from the area of the cemetery and the surrounding woods. At the time, my dad didn’t really think much of it because he just assumed that he was seeing a little road reflector sign. That’s what he thought the red lights were, or this one light in particular. So he’s not thinking much of it.

But as he’s getting closer to the cemetery, he’s realizing, “Wait a second, there aren’t any signs. I’m in the boonies.” He can see that this light seems to be moving, so he’s very curious. He has to keep driving, and he is now pretty much at the cemetery. He can now see that something is walking parallel to his vehicle on the passenger side.

JIM HAROLD: Oh man.

MELISSA: Oh yeah. And he can see that it’s very dark black in form. It has to be darker than night. It’s late, and he’s in the woods. So this thing is really, really dark black in form, kind of shadowy in appearance, and he said it was wearing a long hooded robe or cloak or sorts. And it had the hood up. This just sounds awful. So the hood was up, the cloak appeared to be tied at the waist, but my dad did notice that it was moving alongside his vehicle but he couldn’t see its legs.

Then, to make things even creepier, what he then realized was that this red light that he had been seeing in the distance when he was driving was emanating from this thing, and it looked as though it was one of its eyes. So my dad wasted no time in getting the heck home. He probably drove much faster than he should have on those dirt roads.

He flew home; he could barely talk when he got home. My mom said he was so flustered that he could barely speak. She got him calmed down, and then he just wanted to call me right away. He’s like, “I’ve got to call Melissa, I’ve got to call Melissa.” What I remember most about the story is that he just kept screaming, “It was a monk! It was a monk!” into my phone. [laughs] That’s what I remember the most about his story.

We have never seen this thing since. When I go to visit, I have to take that way to get in. I have driven past the cemetery several times; everyone in my family has. We have no idea what it was. We’re definitely thinking it’s a shadow person. That’s our best description of it. But that is the story of my dad’s shadow monk with the glowing red eye.

JIM HAROLD: Were there any reports that had preceded – was it local legend, anything like this? Or is this just an isolated incident with no good explanation?

MELISSA: We really think it’s isolated, especially because there aren’t any houses in the area. As I mentioned before, it’s all wooded state land, and it’s probably a mile from their home, at least. We know nothing, no backstory, no prior history. We have no idea why this thing appeared the way it did and my dad happened to see it.

JIM HAROLD: That is freaky. I know you have another story. It’s going to have to go a “fur piece,” as they used to say, to beat that one out. Tell us about this next story about your best friend.

MELISSA: This story happened to my best friend. It’s interesting because this also happened in the same town as the shadow monk. Also involves a vehicle, but that’s where the similarities end. My best friend’s story took place – again, sounding horribly cliché, Jim – this happened the week leading up to Halloween. It was October 25^th, and I believe it was 2011.

My best friend has to leave her house really early in the morning to get to work, and on this particular morning, she decided to stop at her bank and get some cash from the ATM. I’m not going to give the name of this bank because it is a part of a national chain of banks, and it’s located on a very busy main road in this town. There are businesses of all kinds lining both sides of the road, and there’s always traffic. So this is unusual because my friend was by no means alone in the wilderness, the way my dad was. She was literally on Main Street.

The ATM at this particular bank is a walk-up location, so my friend had to park her car, and because it was so early in the morning, it was still dark outside. She noticed that she was the only car in the parking lot because the bank wasn’t open for business yet. So she parks the car, she walks to the ATM, she gets her cash, she gets back into her car. This is business as usual, just a regular morning. And then she proceeds to start the car and get ready to back it out of the parking space.

It’s at this moment that things get very, very strange. It was at the moment when she was backing out of the parking spot, and she went from looking over her right shoulder to make sure no one was behind her, and then she looked over her left shoulder and she was about to turn the wheel, but as she looked over her left shoulder, she realized that a man was standing right up alongside her driver’s side door, staring at her.

JIM HAROLD: Yikes. That’s scary just under normal circumstances.

MELISSA: I know, it’s weird if it’s a regular guy. And he came out of nowhere. She was the only car in the parking lot. She didn’t see anyone, no pedestrian traffic. It was just her. She remembers that he was standing so close to her driver’s side door that she said if she had had the window rolled down, she could’ve touched him.

It scared her half to death, but she got a very, very detailed description of him. She said that he had a sort of grizzled look to him. He had grayish facial hair but not a full beard. He was medium build. He was older but not elderly. She even had his outfit. She said he was wearing a green baseball cap, he was wearing jeans, he had a light blue, faded denim button-down shirt, and he was also wearing a khaki work jacket with a dark collar. She said she’s not sure how long he was there, but he was solidly standing there. It’s not at all like he flickered.

So he’s standing alongside her driver’s door; she thinks he was definitely wanting her to know about his presence. But where this gets weirder is that she also noticed that as he’s standing along her door, she could tell that his skin didn’t really look like typical human skin. She said that as he was standing, she could see that he had a very definite shimmer or glow to him.

She flinched, and she closed her eyes and she hit the brakes, and when she opened her eyes, in just that matter of seconds, he was gone. He had completely vanished. She has no idea who he is, who he was, but she is absolutely convinced that she saw a ghost. She was a skeptic prior to that experience, and she is now a believer. I remember receiving a text message from her and she said, “I saw a ghost, and you need to call me now.” [laughs]

JIM HAROLD: You must be known as the expert because everybody’s like, “Hey, call Melissa because she’ll know what this is.”

MELISSA: Which is really funny because I love the paranormal, I love a good ghost story – nothing ever happens to me. It seems like everything happens to my friends and my family. Never me. But I love a good story.

So she’s very worked up, and because my parents live in the same town, I call them right away. My mom actually did a little bit of detective work on behalf of my friend. My mom first started by calling the bank because my friend was too scared to do it. My mom called the bank and she asked if anyone at the bank had had any paranormal experiences, which they hadn’t, but they were very intrigued by my friend’s story.

But what’s really interesting – and Jim, this could absolutely be a coincidence, but my mom happened to call the business located next door to the bank, which is a hardware store and it also sells auto parts, and my mom got a hold of someone who worked at the store and she asked if any of them had anything paranormal or unusual happen at the store because it’s so close to the bank. The man that she spoke with said, “Well, I can’t say that we’ve had anything paranormal, but several months ago we had a man come to the cash register to pay for his things, and he dropped dead of a heart attack right at the register.”

JIM HAROLD: Oh my.

MELISSA: We are wondering – like I said, it could have been a coincidence, but because this man was dressed as though he was a laborer or a worker of sorts, down to his khaki work jacket, his jeans, the baseball cap, we are wondering if my friend somehow saw this man after he passed away, with how close the bank is to this store. Like I said, it could’ve just been a coincidence, but that was a shocking little tidbit to get from the worker at that auto parts store.

JIM HAROLD: That certainly is. Go ahead.

MELISSA: I was going to say we lovingly refer to this man as “the ghost of the bank.” My friend had to summon up a lot of courage to get herself back to that bank to continue doing banking. We still don’t know who that was or why he appeared to her when he did, but those are my stories.

JIM HAROLD: And a couple of great ones they are. My goodness. I don’t know what’s scarier, a monk with red eyes or a ghost that seems to appear and disappear into thin air right in front of you. Wow.

MELISSA: Yeah, literally on Main Street. I know.

JIM HAROLD: I thought they used to give people toasters when they bank somewhere, and your friend got a little more than that. She got a ghost.

MELISSA: No kidding, Jim. She got her cash and she got a visit from a ghost.

JIM HAROLD: Well, thank you so much, Melissa. Great stories. I know that you say you have more. If they’re anything like that, we hope you sign up right away. And thank you for being a part of the Campfire.

MELISSA: Thank you so much, Jim. I will for sure be back.

JIM HAROLD: Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Raycon. They are my earbuds of choice. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of sports podcasts and talk radio. I’m a big pro football fan, and the season’s coming up, so you’ve got to catch up on all the players and where they’ve gone and what’s going on. I’ve been really focusing on my walking lately, and it’s been great – pro football, walking, and Raycons, because I use my Raycon wireless earbuds to do it every day, and I absolutely love them.

Raycon’s everyday earbuds look, feel, and sound better than ever. And with optimized gel tips for the perfect in-ear fit, these earbuds are so comfortable, and they will not budge. Trust me. I’d show you, but this is an audio podcast, so that’s kind of impossible. But trust me.

Raycons give you eight hours of playtime and a 32-hour battery life, which I think is awesome. Noting worse than going out on a walk, a hike, whatever, maybe you’re on public transport and you’re listening to something, and your earbuds die. But you don’t have to worry about that with Raycons because they’ve got super-duper battery life.

And they’re priced just right. You get quality audio at half the price of other premium audio brands. It’s no wonder Raycon’s everyday earbuds have over 50,000 5-star reviews.

I like the fact that depending on what I’m listening to, I can change the sound profile. You have awareness mode; that’s awesome. I think that’s great if you’re in an area where there’s a lot of people milling about, you want to be very cognizant of traffic and things. You can put awareness mode on. You can still listen to your stuff, but be aware of what’s going on for safety purposes. I think it’s fantastic. I use their mid range profile when I listen, and I absolutely love it. Absolutely great. I highly recommend you check them out.

Go to buyraycon.com/campfire today to get 15% off your Raycon order. That’s buyraycon.com/campfire to score 15% off. Buyraycon.com/campfire. I will spell that out for you because I want to make sure that you get it: b-u-y-r-a-y-c-o-n dot com slash campfire to get 15% off your Raycon order today. Thanks, Raycon! Be sure to check them out.

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

JIM HAROLD: Joseph is on the line from Tennessee, a fairly new listener – just a few months. We’re so glad to have him. He has a story about “the Hat Man.” This sounds like a creepy one, a spooky one, Joseph. Tell us what happened.

JOSEPH: Yeah. About 21 years ago, I was 16-17. I was still living at my parents’ house. It’s the first time I saw the Hat Man. Of course, I had no idea what the Hat Man was. Never heard of anything like that before in my life. All that came later. But this particular night, I remember being really tired. I usually have no trouble sleeping at all. I can go to bed and fall to sleep pretty fast.

This particular night, however, I could not go to sleep. I just lay there and lay there and lay there. I tried every trick in the book – counting sheep and trying to get my mind off stuff. It was getting pretty late. I usually go to bed around 10:00 or 10:30. It was coming up on 4 a.m., and it was the kind of insomnia where it was painful. I don’t think I’d ever had insomnia before this night. I was just praying to go to sleep so I could get a couple hours before I had to go to work in the morning.

At the foot of my bed, at the wall at the far end of my bed, there was a window and we had some metal blinds that kept most of the light out. There was a streetlight about 100 yards away outside, so there was a little bit of light that could come in. You could see the silhouette of the window and some points of light coming through the blinds. Besides that light and my digital clock, the room was fairly dark.

So I was staring at the window, just trying to get my eyes tired, and then all of a sudden, almost out of nowhere, this man appeared at the foot of my bed. Very tall. He was holding dominion and had this presence. First of all, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. How did this person get in my room? The door was closed. My parents were literally across the hallway in the next room, so they could’ve heard someone get in the room. All the windows were closed. So I was first of all like, “How did this person get in my room? Second of all, what is he going to do to me?”

I was in shock. I was lying on my back, staring at this man. The only detail I could see of him was first of all he was very tall. I would say probably well over 6 feet tall. But then he had this very iconic wide-brimmed, flat hat on. I refer to it as a pilgrim hat, but it wasn’t very tall. The crown was short, but it had this very wide, flat brim, not like a cowboy hat. It looked like he had almost like a cloak on because I couldn’t see any arms or any details on his body.

He was just very, very dark. I was looking at him, looking at his face, trying to see any sort of feature that I could recognize. In my mind, I’m still like, “There’s an intruder in my house. I need to be able to tell the police or my parents who this person looks like.” So I’m staring at his face, and then I notice I can see one of his eyes – not both eyes, but one of his eyes. At first it’s kind of blurry. I’m lying there and trying to focus very sharply on his eye.

At the same moment where his eye comes into more focus, I notice myself actually lifting out of the bed, almost like if you imagine someone hoisting up a telephone pole into the ground. My feet are planted on the foot of the bed; my entire body is lifting up towards this man.

JIM HAROLD: Oh my gosh.

JOSEPH: That’s what I feel like. And of course, I can see his eye clear, and his eye – it’s the weirdest thing. It looked like it was rolling back and forth in his head, really, really fast. I call it like fluttering or something. Like twitching, almost. It was the weirdest thing. I was like, “Okay, this is not a human thing that I’m dealing with. I don’t know what this is.”

As soon as I get to the point where I’m close and I feel like I cannot take this anymore, I start to feel myself going back down to the bed, slowly lowering back down to the bed. As soon as I get back down on the bed, I roll over into a fetal position and get as tight as I can and pull all the covers up over my head because I just want to disappear. My mind is like, “If I just act like I’m not here, then it’ll go away.”

I could still feel him there, and I fell asleep that way. I woke up the next morning – my parents owned a family business, and I worked with them at the time. I probably slept in late; I drove in to work, and I went up to my dad and told my dad, because he was into the paranormal and stuff. He just looked at me like I was crazy or had some weird dream. I was like, “No, Dad, this was real. There was nothing dreamlike about this.” I’d had plenty of vivid dreams before, and there was nothing like this before.

JIM HAROLD: Here is something – in your email, you said your dad thought you were crazy and he had never seen the Hat Man. But fast forward, and this is interesting – this is going to be aired on the show in December, around the holiday season – you have an interesting conclusion to the story that ties into Christmastime, don’t you?

JOSEPH: I do, yeah. A couple years ago, maybe five or six years ago, I was living out of state at the time, but I was traveling back home for the holidays. After a good homecooked meal, my mom and my wife and I were all sitting around the kitchen table, just telling stories. I don’t know how this came up, but I was telling her the story that I just told you.

I know she had heard this story before, but this particular time when I was explaining everything to her, I got to the point where I started describing what this man looked like, down to the hat and cloak and all that stuff, and he was tall – she stopped me and she’s like, “That’s the man that used to live in my attic when I was a kid.”

Now, I had known – Mom had told me before that she grew up in this haunted house, and if you saw where she grew up – she grew up way out in the middle of nowhere, Tennessee. She’s like six of seven kids. There were a lot of kids around, so they all shared rooms. She shared a room with her sister, my aunt. They both saw this man. She said it lived in her closet. It would come out at night, and she was like, “I never liked it.”

My mom has never really been into paranormal. Pretty straightlaced kind of woman. For her to admit that to me – as soon as she said, “That’s the man that used to live in my closet,” every hair on my body was standing up. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know if it was the Hat Man or just some weird coincidence, but it all just kind of came crashing down.

JIM HAROLD: Wow. That’s really something. I’ve heard of the Hat Man before, and we’ve had people talk about shadow people – and I think we have had people talk about a shadow figure with a hat. I know we have. I don’t know if they termed it as the Hat Man, but I’ve heard of this. It’s a fascinating thing. The thing that’s really weird is it’s so consistent. So many people report it. So many people say, “I saw a shadow figure, and it was wearing this almost porkpie type hat,” or you said a pilgrim hat. It’s just very, very strange that person after person after person is experiencing this.

JOSEPH: That’s exactly right. Of course, at the time when I saw it, I didn’t know anything about the Hat Man, like I said before. It wasn’t until later – I first heard about it from a family friend. I was telling her this story, and she was really into ghosts because she used to listen to Coast to Coast a lot. She was like, “Oh, you saw the Hat Man.” I was like, “What’s that?”

And then years later, when the internet was more around and people would google random stuff, one day I was like, “I’ll just google ‘Hat Man’ and see what comes up.” And the images – that was the first time where it really hit me as like “this is the phenomenon.” The sketches people would draw of what they saw were exactly what I saw. 

JIM HAROLD: Yeah, that’s frightening indeed. I hope I never wake up and see the Hat Man. Stay away, Hat Man! 

JOSEPH: Yeah. That’s the last time I’ve seen it and hopefully never will again.

JIM HAROLD: I want the Hat Man to stay away, but Joseph, I’m glad that you paid us a visit at the Spooky Studio. Thank you for joining us on Campfire, and happy holidays.

JOSEPH: Thanks for having me, Jim.

JIM HAROLD: Elizabeth is on the line from Illinois. She said that her dad got her into the show. We’re so grateful that he did. She’s going to tell us a story going back to when she was about 13 or 14 years old. Elizabeth, welcome to the show and tell us what happened.

ELIZABETH: Thank you for having me. It was around somewhere between 12 and 14-ish, and to give you a little setting, the way that we had our room set up at the time when we were sleeping – there was a long hallway, and at either end of the hallway were the bedrooms. I was at one end. A couple sisters were on the other end. From my place in my bed, I could see all the way down the hallway into my sisters’ room. There’s windows at either end, so if anyone was walking down the hallway, I could see them.

One of the sisters that lived at the other end of the room was a little bit on the trickster side, so she would try to play tricks on us and try to scare us. So I was used to paying attention to what was going on in that particular hallway.

One night, I’m lying in bed and I hear something in the hallway. That hallway was kind of a minefield; that’s where we tended to play as kids, so there were toys everywhere. It was really easy to knock something over. I looked, and I have fairly decent night vision, so I was sitting there and looking, and I thought I saw somebody creeping on all fours down the hallway towards me and they bumped a toy. I thought, “Oh, great. It’s my sister. I think she’s going to scare me.”

I watched this figure crawl through the hallway, crawl into my room, crawl along the wall opposite my bed, so I can see them. I shared this room with another one of my sisters – I’m the oldest of six, so had plenty of sisters to share with. The sister I was sharing with had a lamp on her bed. I watched this figure creep all the way to the end of my sister’s bed and crouch there, and it looked like – they never got any more defined. I could see the room, I knew where edges were, I could make out little details in my bedroom, but as far as this figure goes, they stayed solid black. No defining features, couldn’t tell gender. I could tell nothing. It was just a small figure. Looked to be about my size, so pre-teen girl size, and that’s it. I see nothing else. They’re not a large figure. They’re not super-duper tiny. They’re just kind of average and, like I said, stayed solid black.

This figure creeps up to the end of my sister’s bed and crouches there, and it looks like they raise a hand to their mouth. And I swear to you that this thing said, “Shh, don’t tell her I’m here.” So me, being the ornery big sister that I am, say, “Hey, can you turn on your light?” Because I still think it’s my sister trying to scare us.

The other sister turns on her bedroom light – it’s gone. There’s nothing there. It’s just completely gone like it was never there at all.

JIM HAROLD: So the trick was on you.

ELIZABETH: Yes. That’s pretty much all there is to that story. If we’ve got time, I can add a little bit from another story that’s almost the exact opposite of a shadow person.

JIM HAROLD: Sure, please do.

ELIZABETH: Okay, the only two things I ever had happen in that house – really the only supernatural occurrences that ever have happened to me were these two things. The other one was middle of the day, my dad’s outside working in the garage. Me and, again, one of my sisters were at the dining room table and we’re making sandwiches. We were helping our dad in the garage, we’re taking a lunch break, we’re going to bring some food out to everybody.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see something at the edge of the kitchen. We have one of those kitchens that’s kind of weird. It’s almost like a hallway and you can walk through it, and there’s a doorway at the other end of it. It was a weird setup. But at the other end of the kitchen, I see something peeking around the edge of the doorway, to the other doorway of the kitchen.

I look over there. It’s about my dad’s height, so around 5’8”-ish or so, and it’s solid white. No features. It’s almost like a shadow person except for instead of being solid black, they’re solid white. And it was the trippiest thing. I turned to my sister and said, “Did you see that?” She said, “Yeah.” We both ran out of the house. Now, if I ask her today, she’s like, “I don’t really remember that,” but at the time, she said she saw it.

JIM HAROLD: I think most of us who follow this stuff have heard of the solid dark figure that’s solid black. That you kind of expect. But a solid white figure – I’ve never heard that before. That’s kind of trippy. Let me ask you this: do you think it’s something to do with the house? Or maybe these are like residual ghosts from the house? What do you think?

ELIZABETH: I honestly have absolutely no idea. That particular house only had one other set of owners before we lived there, and that was my grandparents. They were both alive when they moved out, so literally that house had no one. It wasn’t even there very long. It was a relatively modern house at the time.

JIM HAROLD: That’s really strange. You’ve given us something to think about, Elizabeth. Thank you so much for joining us, and thank your dad for sharing the show. We appreciate it. And thanks for being a part of Campfire.

ELIZABETH: Thank you, Jim.

JIM HAROLD: Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Everlywell. Take action today for a healthier tomorrow with Everlywell. Their at-home lab tests can help you get the knowledge and support you need so you can become a healthier you. I believe in them. I’ve used Everlywell at-home health tests.

Everlywell is digital healthcare designed for you, all at an affordable and transparent price. With over 30 at-home lab tests, you’ll be able to choose the test that makes the most sense for you to get the answers you need, like the women’s health test or the food sensitivity test.

And here’s how it works. Everlywell ships your at-home lab test straight to you with everything needed for a simple sample collection. You collect your sample and use the included prepaid shipping label to mail your test back to a certified lab. Your physician-reviewed results get sent to your phone or device in just days, and you can – and I would say you should – share the results with your primary care physician to help guide next steps.

It’s so simple, over 1 million people have entrusted Everlywell to support their health and wellness goals, and you should too. And I have as well. I’ve taken their tests, for example, their thyroid test. Thank goodness, everything checked out, but the nice thing is I have that peace of mind that I’ve got a good reading on that test. And of course, shared that with my primary care. I think it’s great, and it is super, super simple. Super easy to collect that sample. You pop it in the prepaid mailer they give you, pop it in the mail, and within a few days, right on your device, the test results are right there. Then you can take those next steps and share them with your primary care physician.

I think it’s absolutely fantastic, and Everlywell has a great deal for listeners of the Campfire. For listeners of this show, Everlywell is offering a special discount of 20% off an at-home lab test at everlywell.com/campfire. That’s everlywell.com/campfire for 20% off your next at-home lab test. Everlywell.com/campfire, and I’ll spell that for you because I want to make sure you get that great deal. E-v-e-r-l-y-w-e-l-l dot com slash campfire. Certainly, do the right thing for you. Check out Everlywell, and we thank them for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

You’re listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

JIM HAROLD: Trina is on the line, and hs’es going to tell us about some strangeness that ensued in her parents’ home that they had in Pennsylvania that happened several years ago. She’s calling us tonight from Maryland, but regardless of where she’s at, we’re glad she’s here around the Campfire to tell her and her family’s story. Trina, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened.

TRINA:  Thank you, Jim. Their house was built in 1918, and I know that’s not really old for a lot of people, but it’s got some age to it. As far as we know, it seems like it’s always been in the same family until a few years back when my parents bought it. The woman who lived there prior was terminally ill, and when she passed away she had left it to her boyfriend. He sold the place as-is, so when my parents got the house, it had everything in it, from photo albums to clothing, furniture. Whatever would be in a home was there.

My mom took a lot of care of the home and made sure that all the stuff went to charities, but the photo album was one of the things that was really hard. She ended up passing it on to a neighbor who had been friends with her. So that’s the precursor to everything.

Shortly after they moved in, I went to go and visit them with my husband and my daughter and our two dogs. We have a Golden and my husband’s Canine Partner. My parents had said that they felt like the house had a lot of good energy, but it just didn’t feel like they were entirely alone there.

On our first night there, my younger sister offered to let us take her room because the other bedrooms weren’t really put together for guests. I go upstairs and I’m getting settled in and I’m nursing my daughter when all of a sudden she just starts to look across the room, and she’s really staring at this one area across the room and she starts to wave. I see this happening and I’m whispering to my husband, “Oh my gosh, you’ve got to look at this.”

He looks across the room and he’s like, “Oh no, this can’t be happening. This isn’t good.” Just then he had been calling our Golden Retriever to come upstairs, and she gets to the top of the steps, stops right outside the threshold of the doorway, and she starts crying. She refuses to come in the room. She ended up running down the steps, and she slept with my sister in the living room that night.

My husband sets up his Canine Partner in our room, puts him in the crate, and he says to me, “Okay, from this point on, we do not leave each other alone up in this room.”

JIM HAROLD: Your husband was military, or law enforcement?

TRINA:  He was prior military. He’s law enforcement. He doesn’t get easily spooked, but he was like, “You can’t fight off what you can’t see.” [laughs] He was kind of freaked out. And of course, later that night, I broke his one and only request of me, which was not to be left alone in the room. But I really had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I was like, “Look, I’ll be really quick. I’ll run downstairs, go to the bathroom, come right back.” He’s like, “Okay.”

I get downstairs and I find out my dad was still awake, so me and him got into a huge conversation. I was down there for like an hour. When I came upstairs, my husband was like, “Where were you?” I was trying to joke around with him; I was like, “Hey look, I was gone for five minutes. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Went downstairs, went to the bathroom, came back.” He’s like, “Shut up. That’s not true.” [laughs] He’s like, “That’s not funny. Where were you?” I was like, “I got to talking with my dad.”

He’s like, “Trina, I heard a voice.” I said, “Maybe you heard me or you heard my dad.” He goes, “No, I heard you, I heard your dad, and then I heard another voice whispering in my ear, and I don’t know what it said, but right when I heard it, my dog started growling and I saw a shadow man standing on, of course, my side of the bed.”

I really didn’t know what to do, but I was just like – and I know people are like, “How do people do this?” But I was like, “Well, it feels like good energy. I didn’t see a shadow man, so I’ll crawl into bed and just go to sleep.” The next morning, we go downstairs and the first thing I say to my mom is, “Hey, he said he saw a shadow man last night.” She just was nonchalant. She’s getting breakfast. She goes, “Well, if he saw a shadow man, that’s his own fault, because he doesn’t like to be seen.”

I’m like, “Okay…” I felt like I was in The Twilight Zone for a second. I’m like, what? I went and told my sister about it and she goes, “Oh my gosh, really? I had a friend over and she spent the night, and she told me that she saw a shadow man walk across the room, but I’ve never seen him myself.”

So that was really interesting. It ended up being the morning that we were getting ready to leave – I was the first one up to get ready; everybody else was sound asleep. I went downstairs to use the shower, and I get in the bathroom, I turn on the shower water, and I’m getting all ready to hop in and all of a sudden I hear this muffled conversation going on between two people. I was so confused about what was happening. I was getting a little creeped out, but I’m trying to be really logical. I’m like, maybe I woke my parents up. So I’m pressing my ear up against the door and I’m like, no, that’s not it.

I’m looking around the room and I see what I thought was a clock radio. I pick it up and I’m holding it up to my ear and trying to listen, and I’m looking at it and there’s nothing coming from it. I’m examining it. It’s just a clock. So it’s not a clock radio.

The only way I could describe it was it sounded like something from a paranormal movie or some kind of reenactment show of paranormal stuff. It’s like tense whispering mixed with the sound of water dripping. I’m standing there and having this debate like, “I could go home without a shower, without my hair fixed, or I can be really vain and just get in the shower and deal with the fact that there’s this whispering going on.” And I totally chose the entity.

But as soon as I got in the shower, it stopped. Completely stopped the conversation. I didn’t say anything to anyone until I was on my way home and we were in the car. I was like, “Yeah, this weird thing happened when I was in the shower.” My husband was like, “What the…?” I was like, “Yeah, I did. I didn’t want you to be creeped out.”

But I had checked in with my parents and asked about that, and they were like, “No, you didn’t wake us up. We didn’t hear anything.” Everybody else was asleep in the house. My parents have said they’ve seen shadow man at different times in the home, and they’ve smelled tobacco or fresh bread baking around the holidays. My mom doesn’t bake, so that was different.

JIM HAROLD: Oh man.

TRINA: My dad had decided to try to do some recordings, and he picked up an EVP that sounded like someone saying, “I’m sorry,” which I think has to do with how the estate was divided up after the death of the previous owner’s parents. Apparently, the estate was divided up in such a way that it caused this huge rift between the previous owner and her sister. They never spoke again. As far as we know, the sister must not have come afterwards – I don’t know if she attended the funeral or not because we were left with all of her stuff in that house.

JIM HAROLD: Did all of this continue? Because if I remember correctly, they moved out of that house, but did this all continue the whole time they were there?

TRINA: Actually, no, they still live in the house.

JIM HAROLD: Oh, they do live in the house, okay. I misremembered.

TRINA: Yes, they still live in the house, and my dad actually picked up that EVP recording this past summer. I actually checked the background of the house and I saw that the father of the previous owner had actually died at the end of December, so I wonder if some of the activity comes up around this anniversary date as well.

JIM HAROLD: Interesting thought indeed. I’m guessing you have occasion to go back there sometimes; are you a little freaked out when you do that?

TRINA: Absolutely not. [laughs] I look forward to it.

JIM HAROLD: There you go. Well, do us a favor. Next time you go back if there’s any update, if there’s any weirdness – heaven forbid you see that shadow person again – please do call in and let us know.

TRINA: I sure will. Thank you for having me on the show today.

JIM HAROLD: Thank you, Trina. We appreciate you being part of the Campfire.

Next up on the Campfire is Rachel from Kansas. She’s been listening for three or four months. She was listening to some other popular podcasts and looked for other podcasts to listen to, and we came up and here she is. And not only does she listen, she already has signed up to tell her story. We’re so glad. This one took place when she had gotten home from work on a Friday, when she was 17. We’ll let her take it from there. Rachel, welcome to the program. Tell us what happened.

RACHEL: Thank you for having me, Jim. I’m really honored to be on the show. I was really excited to hear that I got to be on it. It’s really great that I can share my story with everybody.

JIM HAROLD: We’re glad to have you.

RACHEL: Thank you. Basically what happened – I was 17 years old and I was living at my parents’ house. I have a preface with this. My grandma – and I don’t know if it was her, but my grandma passed away probably about four months beforehand. I was coming home from work. I normally sleep with the TV on; it’s just been a habit, and especially now since this happened it’s been a habit.

I went to bed, and I strangely wake up whenever my TV is off. Like if the power goes out or something’s going on that’s weird, I normally wake up and will realize that my TV is off. It was about three in the morning, and I had woken up. In my room I had one of those good old-fashioned computer monitors that had not worked for a very long time. None of it was on; it was just sitting there.

I woke up and I saw what appeared to be a red orb. I’m kind of freaked out and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what is this?” I get up and I look outside, and there’s nothing. I look in the mirror. There’s nothing reflecting off of this. It’s moving in a very subtle pattern. I kind of freak out and hide under the covers, and I instantly turn on the light next to my bedstand. Once I had turned that back off after a while, it was gone, and something appeared to have – something very small, I don’t know what it was – run across my floor. That freaked me out and I could not stay in that room for a very long time.

What happened prior to this, which goes hand in hand with my grandma – I don’t know if it was her. I did a lot of research, and it either said red orbs can be very scary or they can be a past loved one. I was getting ready for church on a Sunday, and my cat’s got his two front paws up on the edge of the bed and he’s looking at it with his ears back. I’m asking, “Chico, what’s wrong?” I placed him on the bed, and his hair automatically stood up and his ears were back, and he tried to scratch me.

So I don’t know what it was, but ever since then, I have not had an issue in that house. I don’t live there anymore, but that was my awesome little story about what I feel was a ghost.

JIM HAROLD: What you wrote to us, it seemed like the shadow that ran across the floor – you said it was a small, childlike sized shadow. Did it look like the shape of a child?

RACHEL: It was just very small, that’s all I can remember. And none of my animals were in the room at the time. It was almost probably about the size of I would say a smaller child. It was this black blob that seemed to run across my floor into – we converted our attic into a bedroom in that house. It seemed to go towards that way, and then it was gone. And I was out of that room way, way before that thing could show up again.

JIM HAROLD: Well, it seems to me as though it has not stopped you from being interested in the supernatural and the paranormal.

RACHEL: Oh, no. And it’s funny; my mom has described many, many different scenarios where she has seen – what they call her third eye is open, and she has seen things when she grew up as a kid, or she said when they were vacationing in Branson one time they saw a very scary, almost demonic-looking – it was a giant – I’m trying to think of the word here. Not a shadow. It was more of a formation that my mom saw. She’s a very religious person; she said she prayed and then it went out the door. But I wonder if I shared that with her, because that’s something I talked to her about after this happened, and she was really understanding about it. But my dad probably thought it was something silly

JIM HAROLD: There you have it. Thank you so much for sharing your story and being a part of the Campfire tonight.

RACHEL: Thank you, Jim. I really appreciate it.

JIM HAROLD: Next up on the Campfire, we have a return caller, and it is Suzie from New York. And if you knew Suzie like I know Suzie – never mind. [laughs] I’m sure you’ve heard that a time or two.

SUZIE: Yes. [laughs]

JIM HAROLD: But anyway, shadow figure. You have a story this time around about a shadow figure, one of the most terrifying things I can think about. So proceed to tell us your shadow figure story, and thank you for joining us again.

SUZIE: Oh, definitely. This happened back in ’94 or ’95. I had just moved in with my then boyfriend, now husband. I don’t remember what season it was or anything, but we lived in the suburbs of Chicago. We lived in a basement apartment, and it was a building that his parents owned, and they lived upstairs. They knew the original owner. There were only like two owners.

At any rate, the basement downstairs was a studio setup, so everything was open, and there was only one entryway. The way the apartment is set up is important for the story. When you walked in, you were in the kitchen, and if you went straight it was the bathroom, but if you turned to the right, there was a little beat-up old sofa with the TV, and then the bed that was facing towards the door and the kitchen.

So he’s asleep. He has to get up early or something for work. I have insomnia, so I couldn’t go to sleep. I was tossing and turning, tossing and turning. I had a cat at the time, and he was on the bed by my feet. I noticed at first he stood up – and you know how when cats get the rounded back, and all their hair stands up? That’s what happened. He wasn’t like that, so I was like, what is going on?

Then I hear footsteps in the kitchen, and I thought, “I hope nobody broke in,” because we lived in a bad neighborhood. I was like, “Oh no.” I’m trying to wake up my then boyfriend – he wouldn’t wake up. He was dead to the world, snoring away. [laughs] All of a sudden the cat runs up to the top of the covers and throws himself down into the covers. I was like, what?

I look up, and this thing was huge height-wise. It was a huge shadow. I don’t know if it was a he or she. I have no idea. It looked like it had some kind of fedora hat or something, and – it was long; I’m assuming it was like a trench coat or a robe or something. It was flowy. I looked, and it looked at me, and I just froze. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t do anything. I thought, “Oh my God, this is how I’m going to die? No way.”

In the meantime, I’m trying to move my foot, something to get him up so he could see this with me. He’s still sound asleep. Cat is shaking next to me, and all of a sudden this thing starts coming right at me. It was almost like it was going to charge or something.

I hurried up – I don’t know how I got enough strength to lay back down and put the covers over my head. I am not a religious person; I’m very spiritual, but I’m not religious – I was praying like I’ve never prayed before. [laughs]

JIM HAROLD: [laughs] That would do it.

SUZIE: I’m praying the Lord’s Prayer. I’m like, “God, please get me through this.” And I can hear this thing growling. I’ve never heard a growl like this, ever. I still – ugh. And these glowing eyes. I just thought, “Oh no.” So as I’m lying there and praying, I could hear it growling. But it sounded like it was above me.

And then it was just gone, and I was too scared to look, so I was like, “No, I don’t think so. I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing.” The next morning, I told him what happened. I thought he was going to look at me like, “You’re crazy. Get out of my place, don’t talk to me,” but he just looked at me and he turned white. I was like, “What?”

Then he tells me that a few nights prior, he had some buddies over and he said that his one friend fell asleep on the floor, they were watching a movie or something, and the other one was on the couch, and he heard movement. But he didn’t think too much of it. Thought it was one of the guys. He said that he heard him sit up, and then he heard him gasp. He goes, “I heard him hit the couch again, but whatever it was, was growling.”

JIM HAROLD: Oh boy.

SUZIE: I thought, “Oh, I wonder if it was the same thing.” I’ve never seen anything like that afterwards, and I even asked his parents because they lived upstairs. I thought maybe they had something like this happen. And they looked at me like I was a complete loon. [laughs] They’re like, “No…” I haven’t seen anything since, thank God. I hope I never do. It was just absolutely terrifying. It was really scary.

JIM HAROLD: That really is scary. Now, let me ask you this. Are you familiar with the Hat Man? This is like something that happens to a lot of people. They describe the Hat Man. Did you know that?

SUZIE: No, I didn’t.

JIM HAROLD: Yes, this is very common with shadow figures. People specifically describe what they call the Hat Man, and he’s typically wearing a fedora.

SUZIE: Wow.

JIM HAROLD: So when you said that, I’m like, I wonder if you were familiar with it. But then I realized, I don’t think she knows about the Hat Man.

SUZIE: No, I don’t.

JIM HAROLD: That is creepy. Look it up, the Hat Man. It’s something – and nobody can explain it – that many people see these shadow figures, and they’re wearing some kind of a hat. Typically it is a fedora.

SUZIE: Wow. And I could tell it was a fedora because my grandpa used to wear it, and I could tell the outline of it.

JIM HAROLD: Right. So it’s not just you. So that should give you an extra level of validation on top of that of your boyfriend.

SUZIE: Yeah. Like I said, I never saw anything before that and I never saw it after. Hope I don’t ever again.

JIM HAROLD: I’ll tell you the truth, I cannot blame you one little bit. Well, Suzie, I hope you’ll come back on the show if you have any more stories. Hopefully no more with the Hat Man. But that is a great Campfire story, and very spooky indeed.

SUZIE: Thank you.

JIM HAROLD: Thank you for being on the show.

SUZIE: You’re welcome, Jim. Thanks. Bye.

JIM HAROLD: Jasmine is on the line and has a story for us from Chicago. Jasmine saw a mysterious figure, and Jasmine’s going to tell us all about it. Thank you so much for joining us, and tell us what happened.

JASMINE: Thank you for having me on. It’s a pleasure to tell my story. I feel nervous even though I’ve told this story many times.

JIM HAROLD: Don’t be nervous. It’s just me. We’re just having a conversation, so don’t worry about it.

JASMINE: Okay. Basically, I was 17 and I was getting off of the train coming back home from Chicago, and I had to use the bathroom. It was about five minutes till midnight, and I decided I’m going to run up the hill and go to McDonald’s. Go to McDonald’s, they’re closed. I go next door to Wendy’s, they’re open. But this woman who is completely messed out and is missing most of her teeth tells me the dining room is closed. I look at her and I say, “The bathroom isn’t the dining room,” and she says, “The dining room is closed.” I say, “Okay.”

I’m 17; I think I can get into a bar. I start walking down the street thinking I’m just going to use the bathroom. I’m just going to walk into one of these restrooms and use their utilities. I never quite get up the courage to do it, but at some point I hear a whistle. I turn around – nothing. It’s two guys chopping it up, having a cigarette. Doesn’t even seem like they heard anything.

I keep walking, and I eventually decide to go back to my friend and the train station. I’m walking down the hill past this large parking lot, and I hear the whistle again. I turn around and there is a man in a long black trench coat with a wide-brimmed black hat, with the streetlight cascading down the brim in such a way that a shadow cascades his entire face.

He slowly raises his arm towards me and gestures to come here. I’m terrified.

JIM HAROLD: Don’t blame you.

JASMINE: Right? I’m completely terrified. I’m freaking out because I think this is the most bold serial killer/kidnapper of children on the face of the planet. I’m like, most people, when they kidnap children, at least try to be a little bit clandestine about it, but this guy was just out there.

I had at that point had a number of paranormal experiences, but it never even occurred to me that that was potentially not a person until 10 years later. Almost exactly 10 years later. I was having this wild conversation. I was in this house and there were people coming in and out, and everything was really frenetic, and at some point I had a friend come in the house and say, “Yeah, I had this dream where there was this shadow figure with a hat.” It would pop in and out of his and his brothers’ dreams, and it wouldn’t leave them alone until one of his brothers literally beat him up.

As soon as he said that, it dawned on me that that wasn’t a person. Immediately after that, I started having all of these different people come up to me and say, “I had the craziest dream. I don’t know what it was, but it was like this black guy with a hat.” What people said, almost unanimously, was, “I don’t know why, but I just had to tell you.” That happened almost all of a sudden, on kind of a daily basis.

At some point, I was going to a protest. It was a Black Lives Matter protest. I’m Black, and it was cold. So I’m in this thrift store and I’m doing what I normally do when I need clothes and I’m cold. I go to a thrift store and I look for a coat. I decide I’m going to get a black coat because I’m Black, it’s Black Lives Matter. It’s also Black Friday. So I’m thinking, black, black, black. I’m gonna be super black. I’m looking at this black leather coat and I’m thinking, man, this guy is never going to buy that coat and I totally am, I promise you.

He takes the coat off and I say, “Hey, are you going to buy that?” He says, “No, but it’s a nice coat, right?” I’m like, “Yeah, it totally is.” So I put on the coat and I’m like, “Yeah, man, this is my coat. This is my jam.” I look at the price tag and I’m like, “…No. $40. That is not what I’m trying to spend right now.” [laughs]

So I go and look at a trench coat because I’m like, a trench coat, that’s going to keep me warm. It’s going to cover my legs, it’s going to cover my body. So I buy that and I’m like the blackest thing ever. I walk around all night looking damning and kind of weird to people.

And then a couple of days later – at this point I’m like a canvasser, like Greenpeace, but for a different nonprofit. Somebody comes up to me and says something really rude and offensive. On that particular day, I’m in such a place where I’m just not taking that and I’m not reacting to that. Apparently, somebody saw how I had that interaction with that person – and when I had that interaction with that particular person, I was wearing a hat from their company. I don’t know if you’re familiar, but it’s Goorin Brothers. They have nice old-timey hats. 

JIM HAROLD: Okay.

JASMINE: Towards the end of my shift – what exactly did they say? I forget exactly what they said, but they said they wanted to give me something, and if I could come to their store – their store was at the end of the block – at the end of my shift. I said okay. The end of my shift was like 40 minutes from then, so not a long amount of time. I was thinking either they’re going to give me a really great donation – kind of what I was hoping for – or they’re going to give me a hat.

They gave me a hat. I guess something that I can be a little bit critical of myself about or something that is subjective is that I had been looking at getting a new hat from that company, but somebody offered me this hat, and I knew exactly which one I wanted. I picked out this wide-brimmed hat. And as soon as I put it on, the guys in the store were like, “Holy crap. That’s a very damning figure.”

I try on a few other hats and nothing is working. It’s like, okay, here I am. Now I’ve got this trench coat that I bought from the store, and now I have this wide-brimmed hat. Everywhere I went, people would say, “I don’t know what it is. That’s just so you.” And people would keep saying that.

Sometimes I’d tell people about this story and I’d say, “Maybe I shouldn’t wear this,” and people would look at me and say, “Don’t take it off. Do not take the hat off.” There was just this whole energy of that aesthetic being very alluring to people, and also people coming up to me and telling me about this dream with this hat person, this black-figured hat person.

I think that what people feel when they see this figure is something that threatens their soul. Interestingly enough, I ended up meeting the woman who wrote the book on the Hat Man.

JIM HAROLD: Oh really? Interesting.

JASMINE: Yeah. She lives in Chicago. I was in California at the time, but I had to move back to Chicago because shortly after that I lost my job.

JIM HAROLD: It’s almost like it was meant to be for you to meet her.

JASMINE: Exactly. So I met her. We went out and had lunch. We went to a paranormal meeting. To be quite honest, I’ve told this story so many times, and I guess I’m still trying to figure out the format of this conversation. But I feel like I’m just talking to you. So yeah, this is a story that’s not over for me. I feel like I’m still basically wrestling with my personal demons. But this is the story that I wanted to share with you guys.

JIM HAROLD: That is very, very interesting. And the Hat Man – we’ve had many people talk about it.

JASMINE: It’s very common.

JIM HAROLD: It seems to be a figure that comes up time over time. Well, I hope that you figure out why this Hat Man seems to keep appearing, and please keep us updated on what happens.

JASMINE: Yeah, definitely. I think what you guys do is very important. For me, the paranormal world is just something that is so incredibly poignant, and yet it’s so incredibly hard to share with other people. So the fact that you guys exist and that you put this kind of content out there is meaningful for me because it lets me know other people are out there having those same experiences.

JIM HAROLD: Many, many, many people are, and Jasmine, we couldn’t do it without people like you having the courage to share their stories. Thanks for joining us tonight on the Campfire.

Next up is Caymie from West Virginia, my adopted home state. Live in Ohio, have my whole life, but used to go to West Virginia every summer to visit with my relatives, so I have a soft spot in my heart for the Mountaineer State. Caymie is going to join us and tell us about a very, very interesting story, and we’re so glad to have her. Caymie, welcome to the program and tell us what happened.

CAYMIE: Hi, Jim. I’m from Ohio originally, and I literally lived just right across the river. But this happened in West Virginia. Me and my friend got an apartment together because we’d never lived together, so we were like, “Let’s get an apartment.” I lived in a college town, so there’s a lot of old houses that have been remodeled into apartments. So we decided to get this apartment, and we moved in.

I’ll start off by saying I’m a Christian, and I don’t like spooky things. I don’t like watching scary movies or anything that has to do with demonic or possessed or anything like that. It freaks me out and I will not watch anything like that.

Anyways, my friend had another friend over, and she invited him over and they were watching some Rob Zombie scary movie, and I was like, “You guys, I’m just going to go in my room.” One thing is I don’t like closets. I’ve never liked closets in my life, and even in my house now, we don’t have doors on the closets. I want to be able to see in. I just don’t like it.

My room in the apartment had two closets. Her room didn’t have any, so I had the closets in my room. Anyways, I went to my room because I was like “I’m not watching that with you guys. You guys are on your own.” They knew I was a Christian and that just wasn’t my thing. At this point – you know when you backslide when you’re a Christian? I didn’t go to church, but I was still Christian and I have been. But when I was 23, you just backslide a little bit, whatever.

So I went in my room and I thought, “Okay, the movie’s almost over with, so I’ll go back out because I don’t want to be antisocial.” I go back in there, and we had an attic door, and they decided, “Oh, let’s see what’s up there.” I was like, “No, no, let’s not do that. That doesn’t sound right.” The attic door had a lock on it, meaning “don’t go up there.” It was like a padlock. We had to cut it off to get up there. I was like, “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Obviously they want to keep us out.”

He was like, “Let’s do it. Let’s go up there.” I was like, “Gosh, I really don’t want to,” but I was like “Okay, let’s do it.” I went last. I followed – it was my friend’s friend, he was there, and then it was her and then me. We went up one flight of steps, and then there was a landing, and then you turned and went up another flight of steps.

Once we got up there – it was dark, obviously. We had a flashlight. There was a light, so he turned on the light, and it was just bare. There was nothing there except for a couple boxes right by the last step on the floor of the attic. There were coloring books in there and old toys of some sort, and I was like, “Okay, there’s nothing up here.” But then I panned the room and I looked over, and there was a chair in the back corner. I don’t know if I put this in the email, but there was a chair in the back corner, and it was like an old child’s desk, an old school desk, I guess. It was sitting in the corner by itself in the dark, and there was nothing else around it. I was like, “Okay, that’s creepy.”

I was like, “Okay, that’s enough. Let’s go downstairs. Don’t touch anything,” because I’ve always either read or heard or something – you just don’t touch other previous owner’s things. You don’t know what it is, it’s not ours, let’s not even touch it. I said, “Let’s go back downstairs.” So we go back downstairs. He shut the door behind him, and I was like, “Okay, that’s over with.”

I look over and he had a Bible. He brought a Bible from upstairs down. I was like, “I told you not to touch anything.” He was like, “It’s all right. It’s whatever.” I was like, “I’m telling you, I just don’t have a good feeling about this.”

He opened the Bible, or I opened the Bible – one of us did – and it opened up to a page to a scripture that was highlighted. When you open a book, if it’s old, normally it goes right to a certain page because the spine is breaking down. Well, it wasn’t like that. They opened to a page and there was a verse that was highlighted, like scripture. It was a good one. It wasn’t a bad scripture or scary. It wasn’t like Revelations or something like that. It was like a joyful one. They were like, “Caymie, you’re the Christian. Is that good?” I was like, “Yeah, it’s good. There’s nothing wrong with it. That’s enough, let’s take it back upstairs.” He was like, “No.” I said, “No, listen, take it back upstairs. It’s not ours. You guys don’t even read the Bible, so just take it back upstairs. It’s not ours.”

I watched him, and I went with him – we all did – to go up there because he didn’t want to go by himself, but it was his idea. So we go upstairs and I watched him put it on top of the boxes that were there. I don’t know where it was originally because I’d never seen it, but he put it on the boxes of all the toys, and then we walked back downstairs, turned off the light, whatever.

Since the door lock was broken, the door shut, but it wasn’t secure, I guess. So we went back in the living room and we were sitting there talking, and about 10-15 minutes later, all of a sudden we heard a thud coming from that general direction. I was like, “Um, what was that?” I’m freaking out. Like I said, I don’t like anything scary. I like it, but I don’t want to see it. I enjoy listening to stories and reading stuff and watching shows, but I don’t want to experience it.

I told him, “Go over there and see what it was.” He opens the door, and Jim, I swear, that Bible was on the bottom step.

JIM HAROLD: Oh my.

CAYMIE: Yeah. I could not believe it. I was like, “Wait a minute. I thought you put it up there.” He said, “I did. You watched me put it up there.” I said, “Okay, but if it fell down the steps, it would’ve hit all the steps and had to turn a landing and fall down the other steps.” I was like, “That’s it, guys. I’m done.” I called my mom and I left the house. I was like, “I ain’t doing this.” I’m not the kind of person that goes to investigate. I’m like, “Nope, I’m out.”

I think it was either the next day or a couple days – I can’t really remember – I was lying on the couch. I went back to the apartment. My roommate, my friend, she wasn’t there, so I was lying on the couch. I don’t know if I dozed off, but the way the couch was positioned, I was lying and the foot of the couch was facing the long hallway to the kitchen. So I’m looking down a long hallway, and there’s the attic door to my right and then there’s my bedroom and then there’s a bathroom, and then at the very end it opens to the kitchen.

I was lying there and I decided to sit up, and as I sat up, I saw a black figure of a woman. She was floating. She floated past the door, and her hair was blowing like a fan was on her, like in the wind. She just floated past the door, and I said, “Nope!” I got my keys and my phone, and luckily the door was to my left because I did not want to go to my room, I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I just turned and went out, and I was like, “You know what, I can’t do this. This house, something has happened. I’m not living here anymore.”

And all of a sudden my roommate got distant from me. She didn’t talk to me. We haven’t spoken since all that, and I have no idea – I can’t find her on social media or anything, so I don’t know what happened to her. Eventually I guess she moved out too, but I moved out and I never looked back. I left a bag of clothes there, and I was kind of nervous because I was like, “They probably put it in the attic and I’m not going back. I’m done.” [laughs]

That’s my story. I’ve never experienced anything else other than something like – I believe it to be angels. But nothing scary like that has ever happened to me besides that, and I won’t forget it.

JIM HAROLD: Yikes. Don’t open the door if it’s locked. [laughs]

CAYMIE: Exactly. That’s what I tried to say and no one listened.

JIM HAROLD: Caymie, thank you so much for being a part of the Campfire and sharing your story tonight. 

CAYMIE: You’re welcome. Thank you very much.

JIM HAROLD: Next up is Salinas from Georgia. She has been listening – believe this or not – since 2009. She’s going to tell us a story – she’s had numerous experiences over the years. She’s calling in from Georgia. But the one she’s going to tell us about was when she was in the Navy, and we’re going to hear all about that. Salinas, thank you for listening for so long, thank you for your service to the country, and please tell us what happened.

SALINAS: I was in the Navy in Norfolk, Virginia, and I advanced in the ranks enough to where I could move off base, out of the barracks. So I moved into the historical district of the city. I think the apartment I got was a house that was built around 1700s. It was really, really old.

The first night we stayed there – this actually happened to my boyfriend. I left for work at 5:00 something in the morning, and I had closed my bedroom door and I left. He said shortly after that, my bedroom door swung all the way open by itself. He was like, air pressure, air conditioning going off, whatever. And then it closed almost all the way by itself, and that really freaked him out. He turned all the lights on and he was like, “I’m not going back to bed.”

I didn’t experience anything until a few months later. It was about 2:00 in the afternoon, and that house had a lot of windows, so there was a lot of light. Especially in the kitchen, there was a skylight. I was washing dishes, and a very short shadow figure came running out of my bedroom and disappeared halfway into my kitchen. I was like, “Did I really just see that?” I was very confused.

That stuff would happen occasionally. It was very creepy at night also. I would always feel like something was watching me. I tried to do a little research on the house, but I couldn’t really find a whole lot. Just the area it was in.

But I remember one time I was in the living room area, and I felt someone watching me. I turned around and there was a little shadow figure standing in the doorway, looking at me. And it stayed there for a few seconds, and then it just faded.

JIM HAROLD: Did it look like a child?

SALINAS: It did not. It was just a shadow. Not like cookie cutter, like someone punched a hole out of the universe. Just sort of shadowy. I’ve seen shadow people since I was very little, all the time. They don’t really bother me. They don’t try to do anything malicious.

But we think it was a child because later, I was, again, leaving for work at around 5:30 in the morning. I had to go downstairs to my front door. I was on the third floor of that building, and I had the whole third floor as an apartment to myself, and then the entryway was very, very echoey, and you could hear everything that was going on in the entryway. I heard, very clearly, children laughing. I’d heard children laughing before and I thought it was just the downstairs neighbors, but I was like, “Why do they have children up at 5:30 in the morning?”

And two seconds after that I opened my door, kind of slowly because it opened outwards and I didn’t want to hit any children, and there was nobody there.

JIM HAROLD: Oh my.

SALINAS: Yeah. Like, “Well then…” [laughs]

JIM HAROLD: You had said in your email that you’ve had many other experiences. They say sometimes places are haunted, and then some people – I wouldn’t say they’re haunted, but they’re more sensitive and they tend to feel these things, see these things more than others. Do you think you’re one of those people?

SALINAS: Definitely. There’s something in this house. It wasn’t haunted when my boyfriend moved down here by myself, and now that I’m here, we hear all kinds of creepy noises. I was listening to an audiobook upstairs while doing homework, and I had to go downstairs for something, so I paused it. While I was downstairs, we heard a crash in the exact spot that I had been sitting upstairs. So I rushed back upstairs – nothing was out of place. I guess it wanted to keep listening to that audiobook. [laughs]

JIM HAROLD: [laughs] “Turn that back on!” Is this something – some people say, “I like this. I like being able to tune in to things maybe others can’t.” Other people say, “I wish I could tune this out.” You’ve been listening to this show since 2009, you told me, and thank you for that. That makes you one of the longtime supporters, so thank you for that very much. But you’re listening to a podcast about the paranormal, so it sounds like it’s not something you necessarily shy away from?

SALINAS: I definitely don’t want to meet any black-eyed kids, and anything with demons. If I hear a story, I turn it off because weird things tend to happen. There was actually one time when I was listening to your show – and I can’t find that episode because I’m not a Plus Club member, so I’ve been going back and trying to listen between 2013 and 2015.

I was listening and there was an incident that happened to a band. They met – they called him the Grey Man, but he wasn’t an alien. I think he was like a devil figure. But I had been drawing while listening to that, and I had been trying to draw a tiger, and I ended up drawing a very creepy Grey Man. I put it down and I was like, “Huh, that’s kind of creepy.” So I turned it face down and I put it in a drawer, and that drawing will turn up in whatever bag I am currently carrying day to day. Every once in a while, just completely randomly. I never moved it. It just shows up in a bag. I’m like, “Well then…”

JIM HAROLD: Salinas, thank you so much for the stories. It sounds like there’ll probably be more stories in the future. You’ve been listening since 2009, so don’t wait so long to call next time.

SALINAS: I definitely won’t.

JIM HAROLD: Thanks for your support of the Campfire, and for your service to the country as well.

SALINAS: Thank you.

JIM HAROLD: Wow, what a series of amazing stories. This is a phenomenon that has always fascinated me, and I want to thank each and every storyteller for sharing their very personal experience. And thank you for tuning in.

If you say, “Jim, I love these classic stories. I understand that you have over 500 episodes going back to 2009, but I don’t know how to get them. How do I get access to that treasure trove of shadow people stories, ghost stories, UFO stories, creepy cryptid stories, headscratchers? How do I get that?” – the answer is simple. Go to jimharoldplus.com and click on my smiling face, and you’ll get all the details. It’s on the banner there. Jimharoldplus.com, click on the banner with my face, and that’ll get you all the deets. The thing is, you can get your first month for only 99 cents. Please do check it out, jimharoldplus.com.

We thank you so much. We’ll talk to you next time. Have a great week, everybody, and stay safe – and of course, as always, stay spooky. Bye-bye.

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