A young guard encounters a prisoner who may have been possessed, two kids play with a tape recorder that talks back but not in the way they expected. This and many more freaky tales on Campfire!

TRANSCRIPT

Please note we do not guarantee 100% transcript accuracy. The below reflects a best effort. Thank you for your understanding.

Jim Harold 0:00
The story of a prisoner possessed: up next on The Campfire.

Campfire Announcer 0:19
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 0:31
Welcome to The Campfire. I am Jim Harold. So glad to be with you once again. And we have a great show in store for you. Here we listen to real stories of ghosts, cryptid creatures, UFOs, head scratchers, whatever they are. These stories are fascinating, many times chilling, sometimes heartwarming, and always true experiences from our listeners. And we appreciate them. And we appreciate you, and welcome to the show. Whether you’ve been listening for years, or you’re brand new. And we have one favor to ask, very important. Please make sure that you follow us on the podcast app of your choice: Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Make sure you’re locked in to get each and every episode, so you never miss a great story. And also, please rate and review us on those apps. It’s so important, because people are looking for spooky shows. And there’s a lot of them, admittedly, but we stand out, because we have thousands and thousands of reviews. But if those aren’t updated, if they look old, people say, “Oh, well, that’s probably an old show. He might not even update.” But if they see those new fresh, five star reviews, it does help a lot. So I really appreciate it. Please do that today for us if you can. I appreciate it very much. And we’ve got a great story to start off the show. Chilling indeed. All I can say is, “Yikes.”

Now on The Campfire, we have a special storyteller, Reverend Gerald Hunter. He’s been on the show before, and he’s also an author. He’s going to tell us about that. But he has a story going back from his college days. And he’s calling us today from Michigan. And we’re so glad to have him. Reverend Hunter, welcome back to the program, and I know you always have such great stories. So I can’t wait to hear this one.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 2:29
Well, thank you for having me. And this story does go back to my days when I was at Albion College, I was preparing for seminary, but first I had to finish my bachelor’s degree. And I have a family to support as well. So I took employment on a midnight shift at the Calhoun County Juvenile Detention Facility.

Jim Harold 2:51
Hmm.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 2:52
And locked up in there, where an average of about fifty teenagers, about 95% of them male– There were four wings for the residents there. Every child, every teenager, had their own individual room to sleep in at night. And I worked with just two others on the midnight shift; my immediate supervisor was about my age. His name was Ronnie, was a big guy, was in the- still in the Military Reserve. And a woman named Laura who– she took care of the female wing, and Ron and I took care of the three male wings.

Jim Harold 3:38
Mhm.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 3:38
We would arrive for work, all of the teens would be locked down into individual rooms already for the night. So what we would do is– Ron and I would do the janitorial work, which only took about an hour and a half. And then the female staff member took care of the things that she needed to take care of. And then we would sit in the office area, and monitor the individual rooms by means of an audio piece of equipment that would scan every two seconds from one room to the next.

Jim Harold 4:16
Oh, okay.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 4:17
Just so that we make sure– all we could hear in there that the kids are sleeping, alright. No one’s rustling around, or coughing, or getting sick, or having a bad night, whatever the case might be. On this one particular night, everything was calm and quiet as usual. We’d finished our chores, we were sitting in the office area, listening to the monitor, and just talking, and just chilling out. Waiting for our shift to end. And it must have been about 1:30 in the morning or so. The monitor was going every 10 seconds to a different room, and then suddenly it went to one room, and we could hear the male resident– he was about 15 years old– and we could hear him talking.

Jim Harold 4:58
Yeah?

Reverend Gerald Hunter 4:58
And he was talking as though, he were speaking to someone else in there with him, which was totally impossible. The police completely locked down. We do room checks every 30 minutes with flashlights to make sure all is well. But we knew he wasn’t talking in his sleep, because you could almost tell when somebody is doing that, and the difference in the tone of voice they have. And so we flipped the switch, so it can stay tuned in to just his room. And sure enough, he was talking. And at one point, he asked a question. And he got an answer. The answer he got was in the form of the voice of a very old man.

Jim Harold 5:45
Huh.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 5:46
And this place was locked up tighter than a drum. Tighter than a wine bottle at a Protestant funeral service.

Jim Harold 5:57
(Laughs).

Reverend Gerald Hunter 5:57
It was just– there’s no way anybody could get in and out. We had that kind of security. So we’re sat there listening, and he would say something, and this old man would answer him and- and ask him questions. And they’d go back and forth. Well, after about 30-40 seconds of that. Ron looked at me and said, “We better check that out.” And I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Okay, let me know what you see.” And I said, “You want me to go by myself?” And he said, “Well, yeah?” Now, Ron was not afraid of anything, but he was afraid to go down there. And so finally I said, “Let’s both go.” So he said, “Okay,” we grabbed our flashlights, we walked down there, and each door had a small window in it. And we stood next to the window where nobody in that room could see us and listened. And sure enough, the conversation was going on. It was the young man telling about things that he had done. And the old man’s voice reassuring him that, “It was alright. He was justified to do it. Don’t worry about it. You’ll get out of here. And then you can be back to your–” these kinds of things.

Jim Harold 7:08
Yeah.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 7:09
So eventually, that- that was enough, we got the courage, and shined our light in there. And the young man was all alone. And he was sitting on the edge of his bed oblivious to our lights, and just staring toward the wall across from him. And he would speak again. And then he would answer himself. You could see his mouth moving. Everything was coming from him in the old, old man’s crackling voice. And so right away, I’m thinking, “Okay, we got some psychological thing going on–“

Jim Harold 7:42
Yeah it would seem like to be a Multiple Personality Disorder. I’ve heard of that sort of thing.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 7:47
Something was going on there. It gets a little better, because we watched him. And he would say something in his voice, and then it would come out as the answer in the old man’s voice. And then both voices at the same time started coming out.

Jim Harold 8:05
Oh, boy.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 8:06
And we were just absolutely dumbfounded. We were just staring through the window, and looking at this, and thinking, “What in the world is going on?” We looked at each other, and I whispered to Ron, “Are we going in there? Is this kid alright?” And- and Ron says, “I don’t know. Should we unlock the door or just watch him for a while?” And the conversation continued between the young voice and the old voice. But again, there were times when both voices– it’s like, if I were speaking to you right now, and you started speaking to me, only I didn’t shut up, and I kept talking over you. It’s like both voices at once would would come in.

Jim Harold 8:49
Oh my gosh.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 8:51
And it was the strangest feeling you’ve got, and it just made you- it just made you feel you’re filled with dread. Standing there in this pitch dark hallway. You don’t want to disturb the other kids in their rooms nearby. And– but you’re witnessing something that you think nobody’s going to believe you. We finally unlocked the door. The kid stopped talking. He came to a complete stop. Ron gently shook him, and he just simply looked up and he said “What did-?” something like, “What are you guys doing in here?” And then we told him he was talking in his sleep. Did he remember any of it? And he said no. And he lay back down in bed. We locked the door. Watched him for a while and fell back to sleep. Well, the problem that created was, we are– every time we enter one of the young people’s rooms, we have to document why we did it–

Jim Harold 9:45
Sure.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 9:45
–in a logbook that the supervisors would would look at every morning and test. We didn’t know what to write. How do you write something like that, and still expect to keep your job?

Jim Harold 9:58
Yeah.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 9:59
People would think we were crazy or whatever. So we were really back and forth about, “Do we write this? Or don’t we?” And we- we knew we had to write something about it. Because if one of the other kids did hear anything, he would- he would talk about it. And we’d have to answer for that. So if– Ron finally looked at me and said, “Well, you’re the college kid, you figure out something to write.” So all I did was, I wrote in there some– in the logbook, something like, “So and so,” and I gave the kid’s name, “had a- had a sleepless night last night, and perhaps one of the morning counselors should ask him how he’s feeling.” That was the best I was going to do. I wasn’t about to tell the supervisor. I needed the job. And I wasn’t about to tell the supervisor that, “Yeah, we had a paranormal experience. And this kid is talking in two different voices at the same time, and carrying on, and–” nobody would believe you. You don’t– Ron and I really didn’t want anybody else to know, because we just didn’t want to be made fun of. We thought that would- that would probably happen.

Jim Harold 11:13
Now there was a coda- there’s a coda to this, though, isn’t there?

Reverend Gerald Hunter 11:17
Well, yeah. There is a coda. There’s probably a couple of codas. What was the one I told you?

Jim Harold 11:26
About the young lady who came in? And- and she was brought in–

(Laughs).

Reverend Gerald Hunter 11:31
Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. The young- the young woman that was in charge of the- of the women’s hallway. She had been down there during all of this, because that’s where the washing and drying machines were. It was up to her to take care of all the laundry for all of the kids on her shift. And when we were done with our little experience, and back in the office, looking at each other and talking about this, we saw her coming towards the office area. And about that time of night, she always took a break anyway, so we decided we’re not going to say anything to her. Okay? And she came in and she sat down next to us and made a little small talk. And she said, “I just had the strangest thing happened.” And I’m thinking to myself, “Lady, you don’t know what strange is.”

Okay, but I said- but we said, “Okay, what- what happened? What’s strange?” And she said, “I was folding clothes, the washer and dryer weren’t running, because I dried a batch. I was folding them and putting them away. And I could hear one of the girls down the hallway, locked up in her own room. And she was talking to somebody. And I stood there and listened. And I could hear her say something. And then I could hear an older woman say something.” And she said, “That went back and forth.” And she said, “I just figured this is not, you know, possible. Who got in here? Did one of the employees stay over and they’re- and they’re counseling a kid in there, and they didn’t tell us? What’s happening?” So she went down to the room to look, and she said that that child, that girl, was sitting on the edge of the bed doing the same thing, essentially. Carrying on a conversation with somebody that wasn’t there. She said the voices, two voices, were coming from that girl, but she never saw the girl speaking two voices at the same time. She said that– and she said, “That’s why I decided to come here and sit down with you guys. Ask you if your experience– ever experienced anything like this? And if you would go back down into the ladies wing with me, to help me check out all of the rooms, and make sure the girls are okay.”

Jim Harold 13:40
Wow.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 13:40
And we told her, “Number one, yeah, we experienced it. Here’s what just happened to us. Number two, we’d love to go down here to help you out, but we’re not permitted on that wing unless there’s a fight. And so you’re on your own. You– next time you do a room check, if you have a problem, give a yell, and we can come. But just to come down do a bed check, we’re not allowed to do that.”

Jim Harold 14:02
Right, right, understandable.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 14:04
Sure so, the three of us agreed that- that she would basically write in her logbook, pretty much the same thing I wrote in ours. And that we would keep this to ourselves, unless it happened again in the future. And then we would share it with the administration. That was enough to make every one half hour walk through with my flashlight down those three hallways, a really scary event for the rest of the time I ever worked there. Because I just– hoping nothing like that would ever happen again.

Jim Harold 14:42
Now I would be interested in your perspective, as a reverend, now that you have decades of hindsight, and all of your studies and so forth. Now I, first of all, I want to make the point, and I- I’m sure you would agree, that you know, there are mental illnesses that can cause people to talk to themselves and others voices: Multiple Personality Disorder, and so forth. And we don’t want to discount those. But in the case where someone is talking in both voices at the same time, you know, I don’t even know if that’s physically possible under normal circumstances. So my question to you, as a man of the cloth, do you think this was some kind of, maybe, evil entity or something that was visiting the different cells trying to find maybe kids who are more susceptible to their- their discussions and maybe manifesting itself?

Reverend Gerald Hunter 14:51
I think that there was something that was trying to lead this young man into believing that his behavior, before he locked- locked up, was justified, and he could keep on doing it when he got out. Now, there have only been two times in my over 40 years of investigating paranormal events, where I have to admit to myself that the possibility of some kind of possession is there. And this was one of those times. Why it would have shown up on the boys wing and the girls wing pretty much at the same time. Once an old man’s voice. Once an old woman’s voice. Makes me think even more that there was some spiritual kind of thing going on in there that wasn’t positive in the spiritual sense. I’m being very careful not to say demonic or anything.

Jim Harold 16:41
Right.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 16:42
Even though I know that- that I don’t have a basis to deny that.

Jim Harold 16:49
Very, very interesting indeed. Now, Reverend Hunter has a lot of spooky stories and a lot of haunted information on Michigan, for example. And I know you have multiple books. So Reverend Hunter, can you briefly tell people where they can find your books?

Reverend Gerald Hunter 17:06
Yes, they can find my books. Haunted Michigan is the first one. The second one is More Haunted Michigan. The third one is Haunted Michigan: The Haunting Continues. And I’m working on the fourth one right now. I’m finished with everything with the editing. So book number four will be coming out soon, including a lot of interesting places in Ohio that really shook my psychic tree, in the past couple of months. And you can get those on Amazon, you can get those at any bookstore, they can order them for you, or you can contact Thunder Bay Press in Michigan. Thunder Bay Press. And if you’d like to contact me, you can email them, and they can forward an email back to me. And I’ll be glad to chit chat with you. Or if you have suggestions of haunted places, that’d be great too. And I could follow up on those.

Jim Harold 17:55
Well, Reverend, it’s always a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you for sharing this amazing story on The Campfire.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 18:01
And I’ll be back for more if you let me.

Jim Harold 18:03
Absolutely. Open invitation.

Reverend Gerald Hunter 18:06
Thank you, Jim.

Jim Harold 18:07
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Campfire Announcer 19:51
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Jim Harold 20:42
Oh, and before we get to the next story, a special note about that email newsletter. If you are subscribed to that email newsletter, you are eligible to be entered into our spring giveaway. Now I’ve got to say that this is US only, because of the realities of shipping. But every week, we’re going to be awarding two members of our email list our free email list, for our free newsletter, we will be awarding them a book. And we have a lot of books here at the Spooky Studio. And we can’t possibly keep them all, because I’ll have nowhere to sit. So basically what we’re doing is we are sending off a list to those winners, and saying, “Here’s the books we have available. And pick one and we’ll send it out,” and we had our first winner this week, Samantha. Still waiting to hear on our second winner, we sent an email out to them, haven’t heard yet. So but- but the point being is, every week during the spring of 2022, we’re going to be giving out free books to two people on the email list every week. And you can be entered if you are in the US and on the email list, and of course, 18 years or older. You can find all the details at JimHarold.com/giveaway. And if you’re not signed up for the email list, you can do it there. Plus, we think the email newsletter’s pretty cool. Every week, I put out all the updates on all the shows, anything special going on. And the people who get it seem to love it. We’ve got most of the people open the email, which is unusual. And we- we’ve only gotten good marks on it. So please check it out. JimHarold.com/giveaway all the rules are there, and a place to sign up to the email newsletter if you’re not yet signed up. And now, on to our next Campfire story.

Brent is on the line from Missouri. He thinks he’s been listening about four years. Apple Podcasts suggested us, so thank you Apple Podcasts. And here he is. And this is a cool story that reminds me of my childhood days, playing with tape recorders. So Brent, tell us your head scratcher.

Brent 22:50
Okay, nice to talk to you, Jim.

Jim Harold 22:52
Nice to talk to you.

Brent 22:54
This- this story happened about, around the early 80s. This was back before everybody had camcorders, and- or nobody even thought about folds that you could use as video recorders. So yeah, my buddy Carl and I used to play around with a tape recorder. And this happened on a summer evening, early 80s. My parents were down the block at a cookout, and my sister was out with her friends. So it was just Carl and me up in my room that night. And we were just doing something silly, who knows what we were recording, but we finished whatever it was we were doing. And I said, “Well, okay, let’s listen to what we did.” You know, what we’ve done. So I rewound the tape, press play. And for a few seconds, there was nothing. And it was a little strange. And then all of a sudden, this very high pitched, kind of sing songy, voice came on. And I can’t replicate it now that my voice changed years ago. But it said, “They are by themselves.” And then nothing. And I hit stop. I looked over at Carl and I said, “Did you hear that?” And he said, “What was that?” I have no idea. So I rewind the tape. Hit play again. There’s a silence.

Jim Harold 24:34
Yeah?

Brent 24:35
And then that voice comes on again, real high, (singing) “They are by themselves.”

Jim Harold 24:41
Ooh.

Brent 24:42
And this kind of freaked us out, because we were by ourselves. And so I said, “Alright, one more time.” So I hit stop, rewound, played it again. (speak-singing) “They are by themselves.” One last time. Nothing. The voice has gone. Just silence for like five minutes. I don’t know where whatever we recorded went, I don’t know where this voice went, or what it was.

Jim Harold 25:10
Oh, that is creepy.

Brent 25:12
But it was pretty frightening. And after that I tried playing– I played the whole tape through several times, you know, over the next few days. Never heard it again. Had no idea what it was. But the interesting this is, I told my parents and they didn’t believe me, of course. About 30 years later, Carl and I have been out of touch for years, but we reconnected on Facebook, and he lives in Australia now. And I just, I was wondering if he remembered this. So I sent him a very vague email just saying, “Do you remember something weird that happened with a tape recorder years ago?” And he responded almost immediately. And he- he described exactly–

what Zack

Jim Harold 26:03
Wow.

Brent 26:03
–exactly.

Jim Harold 26:03
(singing). “They are by themselves.” (Laughs).

Brent 26:06
Yes. And it just never. It just never, never left his mind. And I’ll never leave mine. That’s for sure. What it was, I don’t know. But it happened.

Jim Harold 26:16
Now, um, that is- that is just terrifying. And the fact that you were by yourselves. That makes it, like, “We’re going to get ’em now!” (singing). “They are by themselves.”

Brent 26:28
Yes.

Jim Harold 26:29
Ooh. You know, when I was a teenager, and again, this- this might have been a technical glitch, but, and it sounds like we’re a similar age. Maybe you’re a little younger than me, but probably similar. Not too far off. But in the 80s. We had a bunch of old 8-tracks. And I– anybody out there who’s old enough to remember 8-tracks know they were totally unreliable. Like, you could put it in, and it would break. You know, they- they were not- not a great system. So I was going to transfer some that we had over to a cassette recorder. That probably sounded– cassettes, that probably sound absolutely horrible. But you know what, it was back in the day, you didn’t have these pristine digital copies like you have today. But anyway, so I was transferring and it was literally like two different machines connected with cables. And I played back a song, and in the instrumental break, somebody said, and I don’t know who this was, “Listen to that little birdie sing!” I’m like, “ooh.” That’s– now I think in that case, it may have been, like it was not the best quality wire or anything, maybe there was like- like a CB, because I grew up in kind of like, an area with a lot of industry. So maybe it, like, beamed into somebody’s CB radio or something? Or maybe I have my own, “They are by themselves” moment too. But yeah, that is weird. (singing) “They are by themselves.” That’s a good one.

Brent 28:01
Yeah.

Jim Harold 28:01
I know you– we have a few more minutes. You said you had another story. I know that one’s gonna be hard to top. Do you have another story for us?

Brent 28:08
Yeah. Sure. This- this happened back in the late 90s in New Orleans. My sister moved down there about 30 years ago, so I’ve visited many times. And at that time, she and my brother-in-law lived in the French Quarter on a street called Ursulines. And it is, the street, is kind of perpendicular to this old Ursuline convent that– it’s very historic and you used to be able to tour it. It’s supposed to be haunted, but across the street from that, there is a mansion called the Beauregard-Keye’s House. And we were touring it one spring afternoon, and we were not taking a ghost tour, although the place is known for being haunted, this was just a regular historic tour. The place is named after PGT Beauregard who was a Confederate General. He never actually owned the house, but he lived there for a while. And then it’s also named after Frances Parkinson Keyes. It looks like “keys,” but they tell you on the tour, do not pronounce it that way, it is Keyes (said like “kaiz”). So, we were taking this tour, and the house, it kind of goes straight back, and then there’s like a wing that goes off to the left. So it’s kind of L shaped. And we were- we were- we went by this little office area, you know, there was like a filing cabinet, and a desk, and it was right before the place turned to the left. And we went around the corner, still listening to the tour, also started hearing what sounded like papers being, you know, moved around, and drawers opening and closing, and it was loud enough that I just had to go back and see what was going on, because there was nobody in that room when we went by. So I went back to look around the corner, and I noticed that, my sister and my parents both, they had heard it, because they were looking around too. We looked in there, nobody was there. Nothing had been disturbed. But the interesting thing was, as I started to go back around that corner, like, half of our tour group, which was about 20 people, half of our tour group, were also going to look, so apparently we all heard that, and I don’t know what that was. But that was a little, a little bit on the creepy side.

Jim Harold 30:38
Yeah, I gotta tell you those- those old homes, those old historic homes, you kind of get the feeling there’s something, something living on in them.

Brent 30:49
Yeah.

Jim Harold 30:49
And that sounds like that was your experience. Well, Brent, thank you so much. And (singing), “They are by themselves,” what a story! (Laughs). Thank you so much for being a part of The Campfire. And I guess, playing with tape recorders isn’t going to be in the cards anymore, since we’ve moved beyond that, but a great story.

Brent 31:12
Probably not.

Jim Harold 31:13
Thanks so much, Brent.

Brent 31:14
Thank you, Jim.

Jim Harold 31:16
Next up on The Campfire is Brandon, and he listens with his wife, his wife, Kim, and his daughter, Fiona. And they like to listen on road trips. And we’re so thankful. We love to hear when the families are listening. That is so cool. And speaking of cool, Brandon is from Georgia, and has a very, very neat story, neat story about Georgia and some strangeness that ensued. Brandon, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and tell us what happened.

Brandon 31:46
Thanks for having me, Jim. Well, this story took place about 10, a little over 10 years ago. I’m a musician, and so I was doing a lot of traveling to Savannah, and the surrounding regions. And I would go down there for a few days. And I’m a night driver, so when I’m done, I like to come home. It’s easier. There’s not a lot of cars on the road. And I can wake up in my own bed.

Jim Harold 32:15
Sure.

Brandon 32:16
So this one particular night, I was driving home from Savannah. And anyone who lives in Georgia knows the Highway 16 that runs between Savannah and Macon. It’s not a lot of people enjoy that highway. It’s– there’s nothing on it. It’s very boring to some people. Of course, it’s great if you want to listen to podcasts. But- so, I was driving home, it’s about two in the morning. And I was getting close to make, and this is right around Exit-26 for anyone who knows the highway. And it’s– no one else’s on the road, at least at the time, and it’s totally dark. And as I’m driving, all of a sudden, sort of to my left over the trees, I see a white light. And I thought, “Okay.” Well when you’re driving on the road at night, you think that’s just a tower, you know?

Jim Harold 33:14
Sure.

Brandon 33:14
And it slowly turns into three lights, as I’m kind of driving. And you know, the road kind of curves a little bit. So there’s these three lights, white lights, in a row over the horizon. So I’m thinking, “Okay, it’s maybe that forced perspective, it’s a few towers.” Well, as you kind of come around the curve and the highway straightens out, it’s over the highway. Sorta to the left of the highway, right above the treeline. And it’s still a distance away. So at this point, I’m thinking, is that a helicopter? Why is that over the highway?

Jim Harold 33:52
Mm hmm.

Brandon 33:53
And as I start to come closer and closer, as I’m driving, you know, when something’s dark, and you can start to make out the outline of something?

Jim Harold 34:02
Yeah.

Brandon 34:02
I see that it’s- it’s a ship, basically.

Jim Harold 34:08
Huh.

Brandon 34:08
So the three lights are the back of this ship. Now. It’s big. And when I describe it to my wife, which she always constantly is showing me pictures of UFOs, it’s just what you saw. It looked like a triangle. It was in the shape of a triangle. It was big. And it was sort of blocky, when I started make out the outline of it. Kind of like, Star Wars ships is the only way I can describe it, you know, they’re kind of, almost Lego, like, in a way.

Jim Harold 34:40
Right.

Brandon 34:41
So it looked like that. And as I’m coming closer and closer, not only are there three lights, which were on the back of this ship, but it has a blue corona light, large, right underneath it. And so I’m driving, and it’s to my left, right above the highway on the edge of the highway, above the trees, and it’s big. And so I have a moonroof, and I open the moonroof. And I’m looking up at this ship, and there is no noise. It is silent. Just hovering there. And I know. And all I’m thinking is, “Just take this all in. Remember, remember everything you see,” because I couldn’t believe at the time this is happening. And at that point, another car was on the side of the road next to me in the other lane. And I look over at this guy, and he’s looking up in wonderment exactly as I am. Like, what the heck is this ship just floating there? So as I am driving, I get past it. And I realize, I need to stop, which maybe wasn’t the smartest thing, but I need to stop and see what this thing is.

Jim Harold 35:53
Sure.

Brandon 35:53
I stop. Get off the side of the highway. Get out of my car, look, and it’s gone.

Jim Harold 35:59
Hmm that’s weird.

Brandon 36:02
That’s pretty much it. I called my wife immediately. Even though it was 2AM. Told her. It was nuts. It was crazy. I couldn’t believe what I saw– about that. I don’t know what it was.

Jim Harold 36:14
Yeah, that’s what I was gonna ask. I mean, do you think it was terrestrial? Do you think it was some kind of military thing? Or do you think it was of another world?

Brandon 36:23
Well, I’ll tell you that, you know, Robin’s Air Force Base is not that far away. And I don’t know if you– the- the only time I finally heard an example of someone describing a UFO, or at least a spaceship, like that, that was similar to what I saw, was Bob Lazar. He spoke about, you know, the- the military doing- having alien technology, and they would do tests, and he described a blue corona. And when I heard him say that I said, “That’s- that’s what I saw.” So, you know, it could be alien. It could be military, having alien technology, testing stuff out. But I’ve gone through a lot of examples thinking, “What could this possibly be?” but the fact that there was no noise? It was…

Jim Harold 37:10
Yeah, that’s weird. Now, no missing time? No… any ill effects or anything from seeing this?

Brandon 37:19
Nothing. Nothing at all.

Jim Harold 37:21
Hmm, interesting. Well, food for thought. I love when we get UFO calls. I wish we get more. So if you’ve had a UFO experience, please go to JimHarold.com/campfire. To sign up. I always think they’re so fascinating. And especially when they come from, you know, you seem like a very credible guy, and just saying, “Hey, I don’t know what it was, but I know it was not normal. It was just something very, very weird.” Brandon, thank you so much for calling in. Thank you so much for sharing this story on the show. And again, another shout out to Kim and Fiona.

Brandon 37:58
Thank you, Jim.

Jim Harold 38:00
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Jim Harold 41:09
Suzanne from Memphis. Now when I think of Memphis, I think of the king. Thank you. Thank you very much. But this is Suzanne from Memphis, Tennessee. And that’s another great song, “Memphis, Tennessee,” Chuck Berry, John Rivers. But anyway, be that as it may, we’re not here to talk music trivia, we’re here to talk about Suzanne’s story; what she’s going to share now. Suzanne, I know you’ve been a listener for a few years now. Thank you so much. And please tell us your story.

Suzanne 41:37
Thank you, Jim. It’s been a long time coming in the telling of this story. I’ve been fearful to tell it. But now, about eight years later, I think it’s time to tell it, and so to preface the story, it took place in a little rural town outside Little Rock, Arkansas, where my grandparents built a home on land where they had the original land grant from the US government. So it was the only house ever on the property.

Jim Harold 42:03
Wow.

Suzanne 42:04
And over time, though, a couple of things happened. It was discovered that across the street was a long held Confederate encampment. And then just between the encampment and my grandparents home, the town Funeral Home got built and was there. It’s literally they are still today. Well, my grandparents raised my mother and my aunt in this home over the decades and my grandfather died in the 60s. But my grandmother lives on into the early 90s. And upon her death, my aunt decided that she wanted to keep the house. My aunt was a childhood polio victim and my grandmother was her caregiver. Literally until her death, she was a paraplegic, but quite bright. She was a psychologist, she worked hard. But this little house was already pretty darn accessible for her. So she wanted to keep it and she made a few more changes, moved in and she lived there for years. And as you probably know, as people with polio, as they age, their medical issues get more complicated. They go through typically what’s called Post-polio syndrome. And long story short, they need a lot more care as they age. And it happens more quickly than for a normal person who has not experienced polio. So as she aged, my visits, I was the closest kid to her from Memphis, my visits increased in frequency and duration. And every time I would visit, I would, of course, walk through the front door. And right to the right of the front door was a beautiful old Secretary Cabinet. I don’t know if you know what that is, with the tops that roll.

Jim Harold 43:56
Oh, yeah.

Suzanne 43:57
A true antique. And it had two glass front doors on it, and they had little latches that clicked closed. Well, every time I walked through the door, one of these glass doors would unlatch and open.

Jim Harold 44:11
Huh.

Suzanne 44:11
And at the time, I took it as a positive. Frankly, I thought it was probably my grandmother just saying hello, and I’m glad you’re here to help. I associated nothing negative with it. But it didn’t happen for others, like my mother, who was also a part time caregiver. When my mother came, that didn’t happen for her. In fact, she stayed two weeks at one time, and I came for the weekend in the middle, and only when I walked through the front door, did the door unlatch and open. So again, nothing negative. I felt like it was just a friendly hello from my grandmother. Fast forward in time and my aunt had a really bad illness. I got a call from my mom. She couldn’t get my aunt on the phone. And she said, “I really need you to get in the car, and make his two hour drive as fast as you can to your aunt,” and I got there, and she was unconscious, it was bad. So we got medical care right away, scary situation. But upon recuperating, she survived it. And upon recuperating, she slept and slept and slept, she probably slept 22 hours a day for a week as her body recovered. But I couldn’t sleep, I was scared to death about her. I had found her home in just a wreck, she had a paid helper, who she loved dearly, who had really let her down on this house, and I was concerned about her finances. There was paper everywhere, bills stacked up, and no organization to it at all. So I used her sleeping time as my time to get the house clean, and reorganize, and get a better understanding of her bills. So in trying to get a better understanding of her bills, I was up late one night, like three in the morning, on all fours, in her living room, laying stacks of bills by provider across the floor. And then I was going to gather those stacks up and organize in date order. And then I could, intellectually, understand kind of where we were with the finances. So I am deep in thought, out, you know, on the floor, and the room goes ice cold. And I froze in place for a second or two. And I immediately realized, this is what people were talking about when they tell their stories about a room going cold. I can, I truly didn’t appreciate or understand what that really meant. But it went ice cold. And so I then stood up very slowly, you know, with a handful of papers, not even looking around just just standing very slowly. And hair on my head, on my back of my neck, on my arms, stood straight up. I had never experienced that again. And then in my right ear, there was a wind. And all of a sudden- sudden, something was speaking to me in a language I couldn’t understand and the best–

Jim Harold 47:15
Oh man.

Suzanne 47:16
Yes. I still have goosebumps- goosebumps right now even telling this story, eight years later, but it was a language that I could best describe as maybe a combination of slithering from the Harry Potter movies, and some kind of ancient language. Sort of “S” language or like (whispers parseltongue).

Jim Harold 47:35
Ooo.

Suzanne 47:37
Yes. And I stood frozen in fear. And I truly couldn’t make my legs move for a minute. I finally did. I finally darted out of the room, and went straight for my aunt’s bedroom, woke her up, told her what it was, asked if, you know, I’m sure I scared her to death too, but, “Have you ever had anything like this happening in this house?” And she says, “Never. Nothing. Not even a, you know, a hint of anything.” And then she said–this is kind of funny. She says out loud, “It’s okay to be here. It’s not okay to scare us. And I said out loud–

Jim Harold 48:16
(Laughs).

Suzanne 48:16
“Don’t you listen to her! It is not okay to be here!” There was no sleeping that night. I stayed in the chair next to her hospital bed in her room, trying to get sort of intellectual and emotional control over what had just happened. And you–you feel like it surely wasn’t real, was it?

Jim Harold 48:36
So she must have known there was something there.

Suzanne 48:39
I think she knew because one of her helpers had had an experience with a gentleman walking through the house towards my aunt’s room. And then when she went into the room, there was no gentleman there. But my aunt didn’t experience it. The helper did, so I don’t know. So fast forward maybe three months later, I’ve got these two great big grown boys six foot three, and my husband with me over there for the weekend. And the boys wanted to sleep in this living room where this happened. And of course, being the mom I said, “I just don’t think this is a good idea, guys, you know, make your pallets in here in the bedroom with dad and me. And because it’s just–I’m just not sure it’s okay in here after a certain hour.” Well, you can imagine what these, you know, 20-somethings had to say to Mom about that. Anyway, they make a pallet in the living room, pair of pallets, in sort of an L shape. Their heads are together. And about three in the morning, two or three in the morning, they come bursting into our bedroom, terrified and talking over each other about something has hit them and has hit the floor between their heads twice. The first time it happened, one of the brothers thought it was the other brother messing with him and told him to cut it out.

Jim Harold 49:52
(Laughs)

Suzanne 49:52
And then–yeah, as you can imagine. And then it happened again and the other–other boy got touched, and that was it. Scared these great big guys to death, the pallets get moved into our bedroom. And that’s the end of that one. So, maybe a month after that my husband was with me for the weekend. And we were in the guest bedroom, and there was a terrible old bed in there with a mattress, you know, it’s got the hole where people have slept forever, and you roll in. And so he got uncomfortable in the middle of the night. And I didn’t wake up. I didn’t know he had done this. But he went to that living room. And he got on the couch in the living room with a blanket and a pillow. And about three in the morning, he comes bolting into the bedroom, and he says, “Were you just in here?” Of course, I’m dead asleep in the bed. But here’s what had happened to him. Something tapped him on the shoulder, and he popped his eyes open. And it was a woman, and she was dressed in red. And she threw her head back and cackled a crazy laugh, and then ran or darted towards the bedroom where I was sleeping.

Jim Harold 51:04
Oh my.

Suzanne 51:05
I know. I know. So my aunt passed away, then very unexpectedly, maybe another six or so months after that. And my husband and I were there, trying to get her house ready for the estate sale. It was going to happen early the next morning. Worked late into the night. We had both cars because we knew we’re going to have to bring things back to my mom and whatnot from–from the belongings that would not be sold in the estate sale. So about one in the morning, we turn off the lights, we get the dog in the car, we get in our respective cars, and we head for the hotel because I’m not willing to spend the night in this house anymore. About halfway there, I realize I’ve left my makeup bag with my shampoo and soap and whatnot in the house. And, you know, we’re just dirty, dirty, dirty, from moving stuff and cleaning all day and getting ready.

Jim Harold 51:58
Sure.

Suzanne 51:58
I just wanted to get in the shower and get clean and go to sleep. We’d be back up at dark 30 back at the house the next morning for this thing. So I texted my husband and say, you know, “Forgot makeup bag, turning around.” And Jim, I knew better. I knew better. And I ignored my own radar about this house. But I thought okay, you know, I’m a reasonably bright gal. I’m going to turn on the lights as I go. And it was in the–in the bathroom. And I’m just going to grab it. And I’m going to turn off lights as I leave. And so I pull up, I take a deep breath at that front door, I leave the front door open and I execute my plan. I’m turning on lights, headed towards this bathroom, I get to the bathroom, I pick up the makeup kit, I turn around, pop off the light, head down the hall when I am shoved from behind.

Jim Harold 52:49
Oh my.

Suzanne 52:49
And I hit the floor. And of course, I dropped this makeup kit which wasn’t all the way closed, and things went everywhere. I am now on the ground with all this stuff all over and terrified. And I just scooped up what I could and ran. I closed the door. I didn’t lock the door. I didn’t turn off any other lights. It just stayed that way. And we had this darn estate sale. And that was it for me in this house. I swore I wouldn’t ever go back in. But you know what happens when you make those declarations. So fast forward another six months and a lovely family bought my aunt’s home. And he was a builder, specialty builder, and he planned sort of almost a TV style redo this home. And so I got the opportunity to go in and I said, “I’ll go in, in the daytime,” you know, I didn’t say why, I just, you know, I was just unavailable in the evening hours or whatever, just daytime only for me. So I go, it is–they’ve done a beautiful job on this home. And it really was TV worthy. I was so pleased and happy for them. And as we’re leaving, I said something about the neighbors next door, you know, that family has had their little home just as long as my grandparents have been there. And their–their next generations are there now. And the–the wife in this couple says, you know, Suzanne, we were talking with the neighbors next door, and they have a ghost. I wish we had a ghost. It’s the only thing we don’t have in this house. And Jim, I didn’t have the courage to tell her.

Jim Harold 54:31
(Laughs).

Suzanne 54:32
I couldn’t tell her what had happened in that house. And so as far as I know, they don’t know. But maybe they’ve moved enough stuff around that they’ve sent whatever was there onto greener pastures. I don’t know. But that’s my story.

Jim Harold 54:47
What do you think it was? I mean, do you think it was from the–the–there was a funeral home, right? And the–

Suzanne 54:53
Right.

Jim Harold 54:54
And the confederate–the confederate place? So any ideas?

Suzanne 55:03
Well, my radar tells me I had more than a single thing going on. When I think about the gentleness of that latch door opening, that really still, all these years later, feels like my grandmother. Or, you know, a relative just, you know, it was kind of a thank you for being here. But what was in the living room in the middle of night? I don’t want to use this, I don’t want people using this word casually, but I think it was evil. I think it was something really, really negative that didn’t belong there. And I can’t explain it. I just don’t know. I don’t know if someone was stuck there and unhappy, as I was disturbing an area of the house that wouldn’t normally be disturbed with my aunt sleeping back in the back bedroom? I just don’t know.

Jim Harold 55:50
Well, that’s the thing about The Campfire. We don’t promise any solutions, but we certainly love the fact that folks can come on and share very compelling stories like this one. Thank you so much, Suzanne, thank you for being a part of The Campfire.

Suzanne 56:05
Thank you, Jim.

Jim Harold 56:07
Samuel is on the line from Idaho. He is a return caller. He’s been on the show actually a couple of times. And we’re so glad he decided to join us again. And he’s going to talk to us about a very special and very strange wedding anniversary, Samuel, welcome to the program. And please tell us what happened.

Samuel 56:26
Thanks for having me back. Um, yeah, so this took place a couple months ago. My wife and I were celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. So we decided to rent a cabin.

Jim Harold 56:35
Congratulations.

Samuel 56:37
Thank you. Um, so we tried to find a cabin, kind of as far away from people as we could. So we found a place out in the middle of nowhere. And it’s like 10,15 miles from a small town, and you have to go down a bunch of back roads and dirt roads to get there. So we drove all day and got out there. And we were meeting with the owner of the property, and she was kind of showing us around, told us a little bit about the property. And it’s–it’s really old. There’s been people, like traders and fur trappers kind of living in the area, and trading with them–with a general store that used to be on the property for over 100 years. So, you know, we’re kind of interested about that, and didn’t really think much of it. And we kind of turned in for the night. And I woke up at about, I don’t know, maybe midnight, one or two in the morning, something like that. And rolled over and looked at the bathroom door, this little cabin and it was open.

Jim Harold 57:40
Oh my.

Samuel 57:40
And so I saw a figure standing in the doorway. And I just kind of sat up, I thought it was my wife. And when I sat up, I kind of looked over it and then looked over and I saw my wife was still in–in bed right next to me, and looked back and notice that the face of this thing I was seeing it kind of looked like a scribble. It was like–like if a kid was crossing something out with a pencil. So you couldn’t really see the face. And for whatever reason after I saw this, you know, I didn’t feel scared or anything like that. I just kind of like rolled over and went back to bed and didn’t think anything of it. The next morning I got up and it’s like, oh, that was weird. But I have sleep paralysis all the time.

Jim Harold 58:32
Okay.

Samuel 58:33
So I kind of wrote it off as that and then a couple weeks later, I was kind of thinking back, oh, that was such a good trip. And then I was thinking about that night, and go wait a second. It could not have been sleep paralysis because I sat up and turned around a couple times to double check my surroundings. So it was just this really weird–I don’t know how to explain it.

Jim Harold 58:55
Hmm. Interesting. Interesting. So you think that it absolutely was not sleep paralysis?

Samuel 59:03
Absolutely not. Because like–like I said, I woke up–I woke up, rolled over, sat up, looked over my wife, looked back. So there’s–I mean, when I have sleep paralysis, I can’t move at all. And then when–when I finally do kind of regain consciousness from sleep paralysis, then you can start moving, but you absolutely can’t move during sleep paralysis.

Jim Harold 59:28
Now this apparition you saw, what struck you about its appearance?

Samuel 59:33
It’s–I mean, it was just kind of a–it was like a regular size person. There wasn’t anything too crazy about it, but the face was like scribbled out and it was just the weirdest–

Jim Harold 59:46
That’s weird.

Samuel 59:47
Yeah, I never–I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of anyone seeing any apparitions but yeah, it looked like a regular person but with like a, you know, a child had marked over the face.

Jim Harold 1:00:02
What–what did you know about the place where you were staying? So

Reverend Gerald Hunter 1:00:10
this couple moved out there, maybe five years back. And there had been a family that had lived maybe three or four generations on that property. All off grid kind of cabins they were living in. And it used to be a trading hub between two towns that are about maybe 30 miles apart. And so it was just a–there’s been human activity in the area for a long time. It’s really secluded, and there has definitely been, you know, people moving around, and during, you know, back in–back in the hunter trapper days, it was–it was rough living, so I wouldn’t be surprised if people had died in the area, but I don’t really know.

Jim Harold 1:01:05
Very interesting indeed. Well, thank you so much for joining us again and telling us this. I know so many people have these night situations, we’ve actually had a lot of them lately. And you always do wonder if there’s a medical reason, because sometimes there are medical reasons, but you know, there could certainly be non-medical reasons too, and it sounds like that’s certainly what happened in your case, having that epiphany of “I couldn’t have been in sleep paralysis.” That’s–that–that’s an interesting twist. Well, Samuel, thank you again for being a part of The Campfire.

Samuel 1:01:39
Thanks, Jim.

Jim Harold 1:01:40
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Follow Jim on Twitter and Instagram @thejimharold and join our virtual Campfire Facebook group at virtualcampfiregroup.com. Now back to The Campfire.

Jim Harold 1:03:47
Jesus is on the line from Dallas, Texas. And we’re so glad to have him. And he’s going to share with us a couple of stories. First one goes back to his childhood. Jesus, welcome to the show. And please tell us what happened.

Jesus 1:04:01
Thank you, Jim, for having me on your show. It’s a pleasure.

Jim Harold 1:04:04
Thank you.

Jesus 1:04:04
So this happened when I was a kid. I can’t remember the timeframe to be exact, but I want to say it was between 1998 and 1999 just due to the fact that my sister was a still newborn. So I’ve been trying my best to remember as much as I can, as many details so I’m gonna try my best.

Jim Harold 1:04:26
Sure.

Jesus 1:04:27
So I remember that it was happening obviously at night. And I had gone into a small little argument with my mom. I can’t remember what it was about. Pretty sure it was something childish, but I went to sleep mad. I was upset with her. So we lived in a one bedroom apartment. So we all slept in the same room. But that night, I decided to sleep alone in the living room. I was so upset with my mom I didn’t want anything to do with her. So I fell asleep. I can’t recall the time that I woke up, but I remember waking up because I heard my sister in the other room, in my parents’ bedroom. And as I looked up, this was–the way that the layout for the apartment is–the apartment–the–the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen are all literally just one big open space. And the kitchen is a–like a small little hallway, about, I would say four feet in, you know, wide. And I looked up, and I saw something poke out of the kitchen. And the kitchen is pitch black. But what I saw looked white.

Jim Harold 1:05:41
Hmm.

Jesus 1:05:42
And so it poked its head out. I–I got up a little bit more just to see what I, you know, just to pay attention to what I was looking at. And it poked its head out again. So I assumed it was my dad, because my dad used to play jokes on us when we were kids.

Jim Harold 1:06:01
Mm hmm.

Jesus 1:06:02
And when I–when I saw it the second time, I talked to–I told him, or I told it, I was like, “hey, stop playing. It’s not funny.” When I said that, it completely stood up. For I could see its shoulder or the outline of the shoulder. And like, I guess like three quarters of the body glowing. I couldn’t see the face, I could see what it resembled to be, I would say a bit of chin hair.

Jim Harold 1:06:34
Huh.

Jesus 1:06:35
And without saying, without moving its lips or anything. It simply told me, “it’s okay. Go back to sleep.” And I literally got up I was so scared. I got up and I ran to–to my parents’ bedroom. And that’s–that’s all I can remember from that night. But that–that–that incident, those two minutes have always stuck with me. And to this day, I can still picture the–the whatever that was in my head, as if it would have happened yesterday.

Jim Harold 1:07:08
What do you think it was?

Jesus 1:07:10
Oh, I honestly–I don’t know. I have heard a few of your callers mention the exact same thing. And it honestly gives me chills just talking about it. That’s how–how much it scared me. Um, I’ve told my parents, or my mom because my dad’s a bit of a skeptic. And she says that it could be a guardian angel. I’m not–I’m not sure exactly what it could be. But I feel like if you wanted to harm me, it would have done so. But for it to just–when it spoke to me like it–it felt like it was speaking in my ear. It was right next to me. Which was the weird part.

Jim Harold 1:07:52
My goodness, my goodness. Now I know you had a second story, and this one is about your aunt.

Jesus 1:07:57
Oh, yes, sir. Yes. So my aunt, um, she has Down syndrome, and she has special needs. But she’s really smart. She–she–she is brilliant. And, um, so my grandma passed away in 2005. She–she knew about that. But my aunt had recently passed away a few years ago. But we didn’t tell her, nobody told her, my mom didn’t tell her. My aunts didn’t tell her. My mom told me that she woke up one morning, it was still dark out. But she woke up crying. And that my mom asked her, “what–what’s wrong, you know, what’s going on?” And she said that my grandma and my aunt had came to say goodbye to her. And my mom was like, “how did they come say goodbye?” She said that they came in through the window. My aunt came in through the window, then my grandma came in through the window, and that my aunt was giving her kisses on the–on the forehead and told her that, you know, everything was going to be okay, that, you know, she’s going to be watching over. And that as they came in through the window, they left through the window. They both crawled out of the window and–and that’s when my aunt started crying.

Jim Harold 1:09:10
Interesting, interesting.

Jesus 1:09:12
And the funny part about that is that I called my mom two days ago to get a little more details about that story that she told me. And she said that literally the day before I called her which was today, Tuesday, so on Sunday. So Sunday morning, she told me that–or Monday, Monday, she told me that on Sunday morning, my aunt woke up crying again. And my mom asked her, “what’s–what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” And she said, “Well, Mom,” my grandma. She said, “Mom came to me last night and she was really mad at me. And she was telling me that she was going to take me away in a box.”

Jim Harold 1:09:51
Oh.

Jesus 1:09:54
And yeah, that kind of–kind of creeped me out. Because you know, for her to be saying stuff like this. It’s just–it’s not normal. I mean, she doesn’t, you know, know about ghosts or whatever stuff like that.

Jim Harold 1:10:07
Oh, I’m sorry. That’s–that’s–that’s sad and disturbing. I’m sorry to hear that.

Jesus 1:10:14
Yeah, it is.

Jim Harold 1:10:17
Very interesting, though. It seems like there’s a strong kind of tradition of the–I know your dad–you said your dad is–is more of a skeptic. But it sounds like there’s a strong tradition in the family of spirituality and being close to kind of the other side a little bit.

Jesus 1:10:32
Oh, yeah, there is. There’s, um, I have one more story if you don’t mind if you have enough time.

Jim Harold 1:10:36
Sure. Sure. Go ahead.

Jesus 1:10:37
So like I mentioned, my dad’s a skeptic. And I guess I want to say this one falls into your head scratcher/aliens or UFO category.

Jim Harold 1:10:47
Okay.

Jesus 1:10:48
Um, so my dad used to wake up to go to work at two in the morning. He’d leave the house at 3, 3:45. And he told me that he was he was at an intersection. And there was nobody around him except for the car that was to his right. And he said that he looked at the guy next to him, and that the guy was looking up at the sky. And so my dad looked up at the sky from inside his car. And he said that was–he–he said that he couldn’t see anything. That all he could see was–was black. That he could see the stars in the distance, but right there above him, just black. And that about maybe 5, 10 seconds later, he just heard a woosh sound.

Jim Harold 1:11:32
Huh.

Jesus 1:11:33
And whatever it was that was above him was gone. And he could see the stars again.

Jim Harold 1:11:37
Yeah, we’ve had a lot of UFO, more UFO reports later than we’ve ever had. And, you know, I think part of it’s because it’s more in awareness. And people feel more open to sharing it. I think these experiences have been out there all the time. But sometimes people, it’s not top of mind, or the–I think sometimes people feel like it’s okay to say I saw a ghost. But if I see–say I said–I saw a UFO, people are gonna think less of me somehow, which not here at The Campfire. We love to hear UFO stories, and we love to hear different stories. And we’ve done that from Jesus tonight. Jesus, thank you for joining us on The Campfire. I appreciate it very much.

Jesus 1:12:18
Thank you, Jim. Have a good night.

Katie is on the line from Ontario, Canada and says she’s a big fan of The Campfire and the Paranormal Podcast. So we appreciate that. And I was telling her it seems like we’re getting more calls from Canada. And she said, “I tell everybody I know.” And I said, “Oh, you’re the one. You’re the one who was responsible for this growth again,” along of course with our associate producer Maddy, of course. Katie has a story about when she lived in her old house, and a series of strange events. She’s gonna tell us all about them. Katie, welcome to the show. Please tell us what happened.

Katie 1:12:53
Yes, thank you for having me. Yeah, so this happened back in 2019. And there’s actually a series of kind of oddities that happened around the house. But in particular–in particular, this one feeling, I always felt like somebody was kind of right behind me and kind of in my space, and particularly whenever I was in my daughter’s room, and I’d have her on the change table. And her change table faced the wall. And the door was always behind me. So I just chalked it up to being–you know, I’m tired. I have two kids, you know, a long day at work. It’s nothing. And one night, we switched my daughter over to crib. And so she’s waking up, I got her up, change the diaper. And I had her standing on the change table and I was moving her sleep sack up to get it better on her and she kind of just started to cry and kind of scream, and she slowly put her hand over her mouth and kind of pointed behind me. And I remember being like, “what the heck?” and I turn and look behind me and, you know, there’s nothing in the doorway. But what happened was, the door slowly started to close.

Jim Harold 1:14:03
Oh boy.

Katie 1:14:04
And I–Oh, I remember being like, my mouth just opened and instead of fear, I got angry. And I was like, “you,” in my mind, speaking to the abyss being, “if you leave my daughter alone, if you have any ill will, you know, you deal with me.” And it’s such an odd thing to think that but I did. And I put her back to bed–back to bed, put her to sleep, I went to sleep, nothing really happened after that until about a week later. And I’m in bed, and I just slowly feel the blankets being pulled off my bed. And I remember thinking, it’s either maybe my dog is about to fall off the bed or maybe it’s my partner rolling over and taking the blankets off of me, and I just chalked it up to that, nothing paranormal per se. Until the second night when it happened again. And I remember pulling the blankets hard as if I’m in a tug of war.

Jim Harold 1:15:02
Wow.

Katie 1:15:02
And just–yeah. Oh yeah, I was pulling hard on the blanket. And I remember being like, it’s nothing, it’s nothing, I, you know, just roll over. And I remember to the point where I pulled the blanket so much and just laid on top of them. And, you know, it’s to the point where I’m just like, it’s nothing and I go to sleep, oddly enough. And activity kept happening like this at home for quite a bit. And I think the final thing that kind of, I kind of confront whatever this is in a dream, and I’m laying in bed, and something about this is I have one good ear and one bad ear where I can’t hear anything out of it. So it’s good because my partner snores. So I lay on my good ear, so they don’t hear anything. So I roll over, lay down, go to bed, and I had this dream where I roll over and I put my arm over my eyes. And I feel these long fingernails kind of tickling my arm. And something is like kind of singing like a lullaby to me.

Jim Harold 1:16:11
Oh, my.

Katie 1:16:12
Oh, and I remember being again, just angry. And I ended up moving my arm and grabbing whatever was in front of me, and there were these thin, thin arms, and I grabbed these arms. And all of a sudden, my sight was just like, enhanced, like, it was my room. I was standing up on my bed. Everything about my room was my room, like the basket of clothes on the side and my partner sleeping on her side. And I’ve never had dreams like that, like my dreams are usually lavished, like, you know what I mean? Like not so specific, like it’s not such an ordinary–

Jim Harold 1:16:52
Right, like mundane.

Katie 1:16:55
Yeah, and–and this thing, whatever it was, was just its eyes are open, and I am not a religious person at all. But for whatever reason, I yell at this thing. And I say, like, “I am a daughter of God, like you will not touch me,” and I yelled this at this thing. And it looks terrified. And like after I said that my body just kind of went limp, and I fell back onto the bed.

Jim Harold 1:17:18
Wow.

Katie 1:17:19
And yeah, and I immediately woke up. And when I woke up I got this image of this, and it was kind of like reverse, like Polaroid. Like everything was like where the white should be it was black, of this thing in my face, like this image of this–it looked like a woman, really thin and tall with like big eyes and hair and in its face. And my arm was exactly how it was in the beginning of the dream, my arm is over my eyes. And I pulled my arm down and my partner was laying exactly how she was in my dream, which my partner does not lay on her side, she lays on her back, which causes her to snore quite a bit. And she’s always hot, so she never has blankets on her. But she was laying on her side bundled up in these blankets. And it was very odd. And then after this dream, it just stopped. That feeling of someone behind me stopped, that feeling of things bugging my children at night stopped. It was very odd. And it made me like feel like what was this about? It could have just been a regular dream. But I don’t know, it kind of–I don’t know, just was odd.

Jim Harold 1:18:29
Well, I gotta tell you, it’s one of those things, particularly, you know, when you’ve got a child and things, you know, that could be very frightening to have something that–that seems to be maybe not that nice.

Katie 1:18:42
Mm hmm. And a few things happened to my son too. I don’t know if you want to get into that, just minor things.

Jim Harold 1:18:49
Yeah no, go ahead. We’ve got a couple minutes.

Katie 1:18:51
Yeah, so with my son, he would have dreams where he said there was a monkey on the back of his door. And we would close the door, and he would say–when he described it, he would say the monkey would jump off the door and climb over the wall and jump on his bed. And I would just say, “ah, tell it to go away. Yes, silly monkey,” like trying to make comedy out of it. But there’d be nights where he would literally hear the bed moving like the creaking of the bed. And he would say, “leave me alone, get out of here,” and I just chalked it up to him having like, like he was–was one–so he was three so I was just thinking, ahh it’s kids’ imaginations, and that’s what I chalked it up to. But there would be these moments where these things would happen and you as a parent, you’re like, okay, you know, you don’t freak out your child, but you’re like, I don’t know what this is. So yeah, he would have those moments as well. And I did end up seeing a medium about it. And she just said it was an awakening for me is what she said it was so I don’t really know. I don’t know what to make of it, but it was definitely–it definitely was–I think you call them head scratchers. And you’re like, I just don’t know what it was. It happened. It’s over. Thank God. Yeah. And yeah.

Yeah. Well, that’s–that–that’s a good thing. And you–you are out of that house now, right?

I am. And a funny thing about that is that there’s stuff that happens here too. And that I–I don’t know. I just–I just chalk it up to, you know, loud noises at night. I moved into–the house is almost 100 years old. I don’t know what I don’t know why I do this to myself.

Jim Harold 1:20:31
(Laughs)

Katie 1:20:31
(Laughs)

Jim Harold 1:20:33
Well, Katie, thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate it. And thank you for sharing your Campfire story tonight.

Katie 1:20:41
Thank you for having me.

Jim Harold 1:20:43
Gilbert is on the line from Phoenix, Arizona. And we’re so glad that he is, and he says he’s been listening for a couple of years. And he loves the fact that he can listen and hear that other people have had similar experiences to his. And tonight he would like to tell us about two stories. Gilbert, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and tell us what happened.

Gilbert 1:21:03
Thank you, Jim. I was in the grocery store shopping with my girlfriend at the time. And I thought I heard my mom call my name. So one, I was surprised that she was there, and two, the way she spoke, it was her voice but not quite like her. But I heard a call my name. And I happen to have a nickname that I didn’t think anyone else had ever had, and that nickname is Chokey.

Jim Harold 1:21:31
Okay.

Gilbert 1:21:31
But that’s–that’s a story for another time. So when I heard it naturally, I’m looking up and down the grocery store aisles for her, and pretty soon, I heard her say it again. But I can’t find her. And now I got like the store employees looking at me like I’m crazy because I’m running up and down the aisles. Finally, when I go down this particular aisle, this little kid comes around the corner. And we stop and look at each other. And it freaked me out. Because I can tell this kid had similar facial features to mine.

Jim Harold 1:22:11
Hmm.

Gilbert 1:22:13
And what was odd was, we had like this–the best way I can only describe it was like a maybe an empathetic, if that’s the correct word, communication, or maybe even speaking to each other through our minds, was at the same time, we both were like, you can’t be Chokey because I’m Chokey.

Jim Harold 1:22:35
Huh.

Gilbert 1:22:36
So we stared at each other. And we heard my mom called the name Gil. And he looked in the same direction I looked. I looked back at him. And we both had to–I could tell he began to get scared.

Jim Harold 1:22:53
Yeah.

Gilbert 1:22:54
Because I began to get scared. And I kind of started to back away from him. And we heard it again. Except this time, she did the one thing she won’t do until years down the road. She actually cursed. My mom, she–she never–she never cursed until years down the road. And that was she said, “Chokey if you don’t get your a** over here I’m gonna whoop it.”

Jim Harold 1:23:20
Yeah.

Gilbert 1:23:21
So I’m like, okay, I got to find who this is because she just talked like that. So we backed away from each other. He ran down one way, I ran down the other, and I could see him when I looked down the aisle, still running. But when I got the next one, he was completely gone. So I ran down the aisle, looking around. And I could not find him or this woman that sounded like my mother.

Jim Harold 1:23:49
So basically, if I understand, right, you were at this store, you were shopping with your girlfriend at the time. And you were about 20 years old, I think you said.

Gilbert 1:23:58
Yeah.

Jim Harold 1:23:59
And you hear your mother’s voice talking. And then you see basically a young version of yourself. How young would you say approximately?

Gilbert 1:24:09
Nine.

Jim Harold 1:24:10
Yeah, wow.

Gilbert 1:24:11
About eight or nine.

Jim Harold 1:24:12
And so it was kind of like that story–and you mentioned it in your note to me. We had a story about a young man who was a little kid. And he’s walking through his house, minding his business, sees somebody in a hood, making a peanut butter sandwich and he runs away. And then fast forward, I don’t know, maybe 10 years later. And he’s a teenager. He’s in his family’s kitchen, minding his own business, making a peanut butter sandwich and wearing a hoodie. And then he sees this little, little person like scurry about in and out of his field of vision. And he came to the logical conclusion that he had seen himself both times. So it sounds like you experienced something similar.

Gilbert 1:24:54
Right. But this is where it gets scary. And I think this is why I buried it until I heard that story. Um, as I’m searching for my mother, my girlfriend’s coming. She’s kind of like looking around. And I’m like, “What are you looking for?” She goes, “your mom.” And I said, “my mom?” She goes, “Yeah, wasn’t your mom just calling you?” And at that moment, I realized that if she heard it, then I wasn’t crazy.

Jim Harold 1:25:28
Right. It was a real thing. You had that affirmation.

Gilbert 1:25:30
Right. So she asked me if I was okay, because I’m pretty sure I must have turned a few shades of green and white. And all I could think of was, I gotta get out of the store. I gotta get out of here. And so I left. And I won’t lie. I didn’t–I didn’t want to go back to the store for months just because I was afraid of what I might find.

Wow. Now, was this store–was this a store that you and your mom would have–was it in the same area?

No.

Jim Harold 1:26:01
No, it wasn’t like a store that you went to? Because then that would even in some ways, increase the effect?

Gilbert 1:26:09
Yeah, well, here’s the time I was living on the east side of the streets. She was living on the west side of Phoenix and avenues.

Jim Harold 1:26:17
I see. So your you’re a ways apart.

Gilbert 1:26:20
Yes.

Jim Harold 1:26:22
I know you have another story about when you were traveling to pick up your girlfriend, right?

Gilbert 1:26:28
Yeah. And actually, it was the same girlfriend. She had started working day–sorry, she started working nighttimes. And we would take this one shortcut during the daytime through these fields, and I never did like it to begin with. And at nighttime, I definitely wouldn’t go there. But I was goofing off and I was running late. And I had my dog with me. And so we got in the car, we took off and I started going through these fields. Now I gotta tell you, this place is still in existence. It’s still pitch black over there, which is really unusual to me. Because I would say about maybe three miles from the spot there’s a casino built. So as I was going down the road, I–we weren’t even halfway through. My dog suddenly started barking and went into like this attack mode and like literally viciously attacked the window, the back window while I was driving.

Jim Harold 1:27:25
Oh, my.

Gilbert 1:27:26
And so I was coming up to a stop sign. And when I stopped, I was like, “What are you doing?’ And he immediately went from that to whimpering. And then he tried to crawl because he was–he tried to crawl under the passenger seat.

Jim Harold 1:27:42
Wow.

Gilbert 1:27:42
And so at that moment, I was like, okay, something’s not right. And as I started to drive–and this is in the late 80s. And at that time, I didn’t know all the paranormal terminology that they have today. Or maybe it wasn’t even in existence. But I thought I saw red eyes, staring at me further ahead. So naturally, I started to slow down. And then they split. One went left, one went right. And at first, I blew it off, I was like, oh, you know, I wonder if there’s such thing as red fireflies. And as we started to go, all of a sudden I got goosebumps, all the hair on my neck stood up. And I could feel this weird pressure on the car. And as I looked out the window, I noticed to the left, there was like seven of them. Just following me.

Jim Harold 1:28:41
Oh my.

Gilbert 1:28:43
And then I looked to the right, and there was more to the right. And I could just feel like okay, if I stop at this next stop sign, something bad’s gonna happen. So I just floored it started going. And I had to slam on the brakes because I literally thought someone jumped in front of the car. And it was just this quick shadow. And when I slammed on the brakes, those red orbs started darting back and forth in front of the car. And so I just started to floor it again, and I was like okay, I gotta get out of here. You know, this is bad. And as I’m going, the shadows are still moving in front of me. And I’m just thinking to myself, okay, if I don’t hear a thud then I’m okay. And as I’m going and I’m coming across a stop sign to my right, I see this car, just hauling butt. And I know he’s gonna beat me to the stop sign. So I have to stop. And even as I started to slow down this person zoomed right through the stop sign.

Jim Harold 1:29:53
Hmm.

Gilbert 1:29:54
So my first thought was, I wonder if they’re seeing what I’m seeing.

Jim Harold 1:29:57
Yeah, that would–that would cause him to get a lead foot. Yeah.

Gilbert 1:30:01
So I took off and I just kept going, got out of there, picked her up, and we were coming home and she was like, “Well, do you just want to take the shortcut?” And I said, “No, I’m not going there.” She could tell something was wrong, something happened. We get back to the apartment, we got friends there she–her–she’s living with her sister at the time. And they start bothering me because they know something’s wrong. So I tell her what happens. And for about the next month, they just harass me about it, right? So finally, one day–night and to this day, I don’t know why I caved in. They kept asking to go out there. And so I said, “Okay, you know what? You guys want to go? Let’s go.” So of course we get out there, we get about halfway through, nothing has happened. Not a thing, right? So they’re poking fun at me, laughing at me, making fun of me. They actually even pull over, get out the car and start goofing off. You know, oooh ghosts, hey ghosties, you know. And I’m sitting in the back seat, and all the hair, once again, the goosebumps, everything came back. And I look to my left, and here they come. I could see them. And this time when I really get a good look, it looks like there is like a light humanoid out form where these red orbs are. So, you know, I’m not–I didn’t totally get mean. What I did do though is I reached over and I closed all the doors. Because I said, you know, they want to be out there goofing off? You let them go out there and goof off. I’m closing the doors to be safe inside.

Jim Harold 1:31:46
Yeah.

Gilbert 1:31:46
My girlfriend’s sister screams and says, “Do you see that?” They start laughing. They’re like, “Oh, that’s good, you got us good,” she goes, “No, look, do you see that?” And all sudden, I can hear them get quiet. And here they come running back towards the car. And they jumped in the car, and the person who was driving was a friend and he jumps in there, gets behind the driver’s seat. And instead of just turning around and going out, he panics and goes straight. So now, I don’t know by what they did angered them or if they just wanted to say, “Hey, you want to come out and play, let’s play.” But it was 10 times worse than when I went through this time. It was almost like you could see a shadow of a person literally sitting on the hood of the car.

Jim Harold 1:32:18
Wow.

Gilbert 1:32:20
They was a shadow darting back and forth. You know, the car rocked a couple of times for no reason at all. And all the girls in the car screaming and yelling, you know, my other friend is in the passenger seat. He’s freaking out. We finally get out of there and get home. And they’re all shaken and scared and everything. And they literally turned and looked at me and said, “You didn’t tell us it was that bad.”

Jim Harold 1:33:13
(Laughs)

Gilbert 1:33:13
I looked at him and said, “well, how much more do I have to tell you than I saw shadows darting in front of the car.” And now you saw shadows sitting on the car while you’re driving. You know, you saw these red orbs following us all the way out. You know, what did you think may have happened? Especially if you went out there and you talked to them.

Jim Harold 1:33:37
Right. Right.

Gilbert 1:33:39
So surprising enough, fast forward 20 years later, I actually met somebody who knew a little bit of history of that land. And they were telling me that in the early days, some of the Native Americans would get depressed and would literally commit suicide by jumping in front of cars.

Jim Harold 1:33:59
Oh, my. Oh my.

Gilbert 1:34:01
Yeah. So that was a very hair raising experience. And like I said, I’ve never been back over there. But to this day, there’s a highway that goes right by the casinos. And you can literally look when you’re on top of the highway next to that casino and you can see that dark spot over there. It’s just pitch black still.

Jim Harold 1:34:23
Wow. Well, thank you so much, Gilbert. I appreciate you sharing your story tonight and being a part of The Campfire.

Gilbert 1:34:32
Thank you. I appreciate you having me on the show.

Jim Harold 1:34:35
Thank you so much for joining us today on The Campfire. Now, I know a question I get quite a bit, especially from new listeners is, “you know, Jim, I heard that you have all these other episodes, but I can’t access them through my pod catcher. You know, I know you’ve done over 500 episodes of The Campfire, over 700 episodes of the Paranormal Podcast but there’s only about 13 that show up at any one time.” Well, those shows are part of our Paranormal Plus Club. Those older shows and if you want to access those, you have to be a member of the Paranormal Plus Club because, frankly, that, along with our great sponsors are how we’re able to put out all each shows. So we appreciate everyone’s support, who frequents our sponsors and our plus club members. But if you want to get all of those shows, and if you add those together, those are something like 1200 episodes combined of The Campfire and the Paranormal Podcast, just go over to jimharoldplus.com, click on the banner. And there you will see that you could get your first month of the Paranormal Plus Club for only a buck, if you use one of the money saving promo codes we have over there. And we have a special going on now as of March 2022, where you can get your first year for only $49.99, which we think is a really good deal. And that’s of–as of March 2022. So please go over there. And not only will you get over 1200 episodes combined of The Campfire and the Paranormal Podcast that you can’t get on the free feeds. But we put out eight exclusive episodes every month of our plus club shows on things like UFOs, cryptid creatures, ghosts, the metaphysical, and I think that’s something that really gets lost. There is a ton of content over there that we’ve been doing for years. You know, the plus club has been around, gosh, I think since 2011. So every month without fail, we put out eight exclusive episodes on those topics that you haven’t heard if you’re not a plus club member, so please do check it out. It’s at jimharoldplus.com, jimharoldplus.com. And make sure to use those promo codes, I want you to save some money, so be sure to plug those in. We thank you so much. We will talk to you next time and as always, stay safe and stay spooky. Bye. Bye, everybody.

Campfire Announcer 1:37:06
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.