Ghostly visions on the Queen Mary, a grandma gets her message across from beyond the grave and much more on this edition of Campfire!
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TRANSCRIPT
A Queen Mary haunting, a message from a grandmother from beyond the grave, and much more on this edition of the Campfire.
Welcome to our gathering tonight. Here we share stories of ordinary people who have experienced extraordinary things. Sit back, relax, and warm yourself by Jim Harold’s Campfire.
JIM HAROLD: Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold and so glad to be with you once again. What we share here are true stories of the supernatural – ghosts, UFOs, cryptid creatures. Whatever they may be, they are fascinating and they are true. We’re going to get right to the stories after these two spooky shoutouts.
First of all, Andresy wanted me to say happy birthday to his sister, Sabina. Her birthday is upcoming on September 14th, so we want to give her a big happy birthday and stay spooky. Andresy, Sabina, and their family listen to the shows and talk about them and enjoy them. We’re so glad for them. Again, Sabina, happy birthday and stay spooky.
Also, Stacy, belated happy birthday and stay spooky, September 5th. I misread my calendar, so I apologize. Michael wanted me to say a big stay spooky and happy birthday to you. And I understand you dance to our theme music, do a spooky dance. I love it.
Thank you all, and happy birthday to all, and now, on to the Campfire stories.
Bill is on the line from Kentucky, a return caller. We’re so glad to have him, and he has one of my favorite kinds of stories. They really make you think. Bill, welcome. I know this pertains to your grandmother and your son.
BILL: It does. Just a real quick preset, if you will: my grandmother was my rock. I spent every weekend with her growing up, every summer with her growing up, all the way through high school. She was my foundation, she was my rock, she was my angel on Earth. At the time of the story here, I was working two jobs and would occasionally stop by and visit, say hi, see if she needed anything, see if she needed any yardwork done, whatever. It wasn’t an every-weekend thing because you grow up, life happens.
For this particular story, I was working two jobs. I was between jobs, and instead of going home and getting settled in and then having to get back up and get ready to go back out and go to the other job and blah, blah, blah, I stopped by her house and visited for a little while. She made me breakfast, we had breakfast, I went on to my next job.
Maybe an hour or two later, I got a call at work saying that my grandmother had had a heart attack and she’s in the hospital. It turns out that she was experiencing symptoms of a heart attack while I was there and pushing through it, making me breakfast, visiting just like everything was fine. After I left, she drove herself to her doctor.
JIM HAROLD: Wow.
BILL: Her doctor said, “You’re in the middle of a heart attack. You need to go now into” – wherever, the cardio wing. Of course, I left work, went to the hospital. Some of the family was there. Before she went in for her surgery, because they scheduled her for heart surgery, I made her promise that she’d come out of this okay, she’d be back and we’d be fine. And she promised. Because she’d done it two or three times before. She’s old hat at it, whatever. She goes, “Yeah, I promise. It’s fine.” Okay, fine.
Went in for the surgery. Turns out she couldn’t have the surgery because of her previous surgeries. She had scar tissue on her heart and they couldn’t crack her ribs because her ribs were then stuck to her heart. So she went in for the surgery and never regained consciousness – except for when I went back to visit. I am the only one that got her to open her eyes and acknowledge that anyone was there with her.
I told her, “I know it hurts. I know you’re tired. Go be with Papaw,” my grandfather. “I know you promised. I’m not going to hold you to that. Just go.” And that was the last blip of any kind of “life” in her.
This was right at the beginning of cellphone technology, so cellphones weren’t prominent, and I did not have – well, my family had one that we used as a family, if we had emergencies and whatnot. I didn’t have it with me. It was at home. I get home, and I tell my wife at the time – it was 2:00 or 3:00. It was early morning, middle of the night kind of thing. I told my wife, “Mamaw’s gone. She died today.” She says, “What are we going to do about (my son)?” I said, “We’ve got to tell him.”
I went into his bedroom. He’s sound asleep, out cold, sound asleep, and I tell him, “Come on out here, buddy.” I wake him up and he comes out to the living room and sits on my lap. I said, “Mamaw died tonight.” He looks me square in the eyes and he says, “I know, Daddy.” I said, “What do you mean, you know?” He says, “She told me.”
JIM HAROLD: Wow.
BILL: I look at my wife at the time and I say, “Did you tell him I went to the hospital? Did you tell him that she was sick?” She says, “No, I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t going to say anything until you got home. I didn’t know what to tell him.” So I ask him, “Who told you?” He says, “She did. And she said that you said it was okay.”
JIM HAROLD: Wow, so communicated back part of your conversation, basically.
BILL: Yeah. That completely unnerved me. And just a little bit of history – my son’s mother and myself are both very sensitive. We’re sensitive to different things. I’m sensitive to the feelings of a room; she’s sensitive to smell. We’re both sensitive to different things. So this kid, our son, didn’t have a chance to have a normal life. [laughs]
JIM HAROLD: That’s amazing.
BILL: He dodges graveyards as much as he can. He won’t do the ghost hunts. He won’t go to museums because he sees people. So the fact that he saw my grandmother, and still continues to communicate with her today – he’s seen her since.
JIM HAROLD: That is awesome.
BILL: Yeah. She just thought he hung the moon, he was the greatest thing since sliced bread, so it makes sense that she would visit him at that time.
JIM HAROLD: That’s an incredible story.
BILL: Yeah, he’s got himself a little guardian angel, for sure. But that was a little unnerving for him to go, “No, I know. She told me. It’s okay.”
JIM HAROLD: That’s amazing. I believe that kids in general – it sounds like your son is particularly talented – have this kind of connection. The fact that he was able to communicate back and say, “She said you said it was okay” – wow. Just wow.
BILL: That’s what got me a little bit. I was like, oh, okay. [laughs]
JIM HAROLD: That’s amazing. Bill, thank you so much for sharing this story. I will call this right now – this is a Campfire classic.
BILL: I appreciate it, Jim. Thank you.
JIM HAROLD: Next up on the Campfire is Nick from Oregon, and he has a great story for us – but first, he found out about us from Somewhere in the Skies by that great UFO podcaster himself, and my friend, Ryan Sprague. If you are into UFOs, do yourself a favor and follow and listen to Somewhere in the Skies. Nick has – actually, it’s his mother’s story, and it’s a very interesting one. Nick, welcome to the show and tell us your story.
NICK: Thanks for having me. I wanted to tell my mom’s story. She actually passed away a couple years ago, in 2020.
JIM HAROLD: I’m sorry.
NICK: That’s okay. We were very close, and she’s a very practical, pragmatic type woman, pretty no-nonsense. Definitely a spiritual side, but this story is the only claim she’d ever made of any kind of paranormal type of event she’d experienced. It was very clear that she was sober and clear-headed and all those things people love to make sure is clear when they tell a story like this. So it really has always been this firm little account that’s kept my mind open to the mystery of life and everything.
I’ll jump into it. My mom was working on the Queen Mary – of course, known to be haunted. She claimed she didn’t really know much of the lore about it at the time. This was in the early ’80s, I believe. She would’ve been in her twenties and had just moved out to California, was working at a restaurant on the Queen Mary. Sir Winston’s, I believe it’s called.
She had an early shift this day in question, so she was there at like 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, I believe it was. She was pushing the linen cart of all the napkins – they use nice napkins at this restaurant, so they would bring it from the restaurant on an upper floor down into the laundry area somewhere else on the ship.
On her pathway to the laundry, one of the routes that they would take that was a shortcut, I guess, is they would cut through this old swimming pool that had been out of commission for a number of years, like decades, I believe. The Queen Mary, obviously a very old ship. Was around in World War II and has a lot of stories of people having unfortunate deaths there. Used to be a cruise ship, now it’s a hotel. So yeah, this old pool was out of commission for a long time, was empty.
Anyway, here she is with her linen cart, walking through the pool, and she told me that the first thing she noticed that was unusual was she saw some wet footprints on the ground. This pool is empty of water, so that kind of struck her, like, “Huh, what’s that all about?” I believe the way she described it is she was pushing a cart to the left of this pool, so she sees the footprints and thinks, “Huh, that’s weird,” keeps going.
Then I remember the next thing she told me is that she heard some giggle/laughter type sound of a woman coming from the pool to her right. She told me that her first thought at the time was “Oh, maybe it’s one of the waitresses and a security guard, and they snuck off and they’re making out in the empty pool or something. Maybe that’s what I’m hearing.” So she was still thinking these mundane explanations for these things so far.
She continued on – this is all happening pretty quickly, but she goes another few paces and then something catches her eye on the diving board of this pool. What she told me she saw – and she says it very confidently – is a figure of a woman in an old-style bathing suit from early 1940s or maybe 1950s, semi-translucent, kind of the classic how you picture a ghost.
She and the lady slowly made eye contact, and when she made eye contact with her, it was like it triggered this series of sensations. She suddenly could hear rushing water. She could hear the sound of water moving around in the pool area, and she said she could smell chlorine. It was like looking at this ghostly figure was some kind of portal into the past or something, where she was experiencing the smells and sounds of this pool from back when it was active.
That was the big moment, and then after a moment of registering all this sensation, she said she turned, pushed her cart, just booked it out of there as fast as she could, ran all the way to where she was going, back to the laundry room. And then the little ending to the story is that her coworker was there, and she commented, “Hey, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” [laughs] My mom was like, “You’re not gonna believe it, but that’s exactly what happened.”
JIM HAROLD: Wow. That’s such a great story. I just did a YouTube short on this – this idea that we always think ghosts are people who have passed, but what if sometimes – I’m not saying all the time, but what if sometimes it’s like a time slip, actually, and we’re just seeing into the past? We’re not seeing a ghost per se. In this case – and this has come up numerous times – you see a “ghost” and the ghost sees you. You both are having a reaction to it. It’s like you’re staring at each other because you look like a ghost to them. It makes you think about the nature of reality, Nick. It really does.
NICK: Absolutely.
JIM HAROLD: Bless the memory of your mom, and thank you for sharing this story. It’s a great one about the haunted Queen Mary and what was going on there. Nick, thanks again.
NICK: Yeah, thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun.
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You’re listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire. Now, back to another great story.
JIM HAROLD: Jillian is on the line from Newfoundland up in Canada, and we’re so glad to speak with her. She has a story about her family, and it’s a little bit spooky to say the least. Jillian, welcome to the show and tell us what happened.
JILLIAN: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. It was a little strange – I guess a little bit of background really quickly is that I’ve had a mild obsession with the paranormal ever since I can remember, as a really young child. My mom in particular was very open to talking about ghosts, and my family likes to tell ghost stories. Even back throughout my family, we have – I guess you’d call them traditional healers. My great-great uncle was a well-known psychic in one area of the province. So it’s kind of always been there.
But once I had my kids, my oldest son in particular, I guess he has that sort of spooky sixth sense. I’m not really sure what to call it. The story that I think might be the most important one to tell here on the podcast is my two sons and my mom and I went on a trip to the capital city, St. John’s. The city itself is pretty spooky. Lots of great ghost stories come from there. We stayed at a hotel that we always stay at.
Typical night. We went to the pool, we relaxed, we had fun, we went to bed. I had woken up at one point to what I thought was my son staring at me next to the bed, like they do. I woke up thinking he had to go to the washroom or something. I felt him and he was still behind me in the bed, and I thought, okay. So I look up and – it took me by surprise, I guess. It was essentially a shadow figure. It was very tall. I would estimate probably a seven-foot-tall figure that was standing, looking at me, between my bed and the wall.
It was very odd. I think I would’ve thought I would’ve had the reaction of scream, jump out of bed, and I didn’t. It just struck me like, “Is this real? Am I dreaming?” This figure was shadowed, but I could still see depth. For example, where the eyes and the cheekbones would be were a little darker shadowed. He had a hat, which up until listening to your podcast, I didn’t realize that was a common thing. This was my first experience with seeing a shadow person myself. He appeared to have a suit, almost as though he were from the 1930s, 1940s. Ad he clearly had his head down and he was just looking at me.
In my mind, in my mind’s eye, I thought, “This thing is trying to tell me something.” I felt like it needed me for some reason, but I didn’t really have that ability to talk, and it didn’t speak. I didn’t hear anything directly. I did shake my head and think “I’m losing it.” [laughs] I just waited, and it went to the headboard for a second, and then it literally slowly walked down the wall and out through the small foyer that was at the beginning of our hotel room.
Again, I thought, “Holy smokes, what was that? What did I see?” I went back to sleep and thought, “I’m losing it.” The next day we were packing the bags and getting ready and I hear my oldest son talk to my mom and say that he was really scared that night because he woke up to what he felt was his younger brother tugging on his foot, and when he woke up, nobody was there – which bothers me. It was physical contact.
Then he got up to look out the window, and we had a direct view of the swimming pool, and he said he saw – he calls them “the man in black,” and he has for many years because he has seen shadow figures ever since he was little. At that point I thought, “This is odd. I saw a shadow figure and now my son” – and of course, I had not mentioned this. I didn’t want to scare the kids. And he’s telling my mom what he saw.
To be honest, I didn’t pay attention. I didn’t talk to him about it afterwards. We just left it. We packed up and we left. On the way home, we thought the kids were asleep in the backseat, and I said to my mom, “It was your first time in the hotel. What’d you think about it?” She said, “Well, it was nice.” And I knew by her reaction there was something off. She said, “I have to tell you, I had a really frightening experience. I think I’m losing my mind. I’m sure it was a dream.”
And she proceeds to say that she woke up, thinking one of the kids needed her because she felt something next to her, and when she looked towards my side of the bed across the room, she said, “Jill, there’s a shadow man.” At that point, everything just – sunk, is the only way I can describe it. I let her finish and she said, “It was standing over your bed, looking at you like it wanted you. I went back to sleep, or tried to, thinking it was a dream, and every time I opened my eyes it was just there. I was too scared to move, but this thing was looking at you.” And again, eventually it walked its way down the wall and disappeared.
JIM HAROLD: That’s weird.
JILLIAN: It was the only time I’ve experienced something that three people essentially felt the same thing. So then I told her my story. Again, I love a good ghost story, and it doesn’t particularly scare me. But this really bothered me. I contacted a medium afterwards, trying to get to the bottom of what this was, because I didn’t get a sense of what it could be or what it wanted. So yeah, it was very odd to say the least.
Now my two kids and I like the whole idea of paranormal investigating, so he wants to go back to that same hotel room and see what we can find. [laughs]
JIM HAROLD: That is absolutely amazing. I know you have more stories; I look forward to hearing them, Jillian. You sure brought it with this one. That’s chilling. That’s absolutely chilling. And all the affirmation going on in that story, cross-confirmation of experience, just a very frightening, frightening story. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Jillian, with this great story.
JILLIAN: Thank you for having me. Have a great day.
JIM HAROLD: Krista is on the line from Arizona. We’re so glad to speak with her today. She said she has told everybody that she knows about the Campfire, and I told Krista I really appreciate it. I appreciate it from her and all the rest of you out there that do that. That’s the way we get great stories; we spread the word, we increase the listenership, we get more great stories. So please, please, please, tell somebody today about the Campfire. Maybe while listening to the show, hit “Share” and text somebody a link to it. That’s how we grow the show. Thank you so much.
And thanks to Krista, and she’s going to tell us a very poignant story about her grandfather. Krista, welcome to the show and thank you for joining us.
KRISTA: I am so happy to be here. My story starts with my mom. She was really young when she got pregnant with me, and it was a difficult decision for her to decide to keep me, but her parents and her sisters all banded together and decided they were going to raise me, tribal style. Which worked out.
My grandparents, for the first decade of my life, did the heavy lifting. My mom would work two to three jobs, so my grandparents were my parents, and my grandfather was my father figure. The story is about him, of course. He was a retired military drill sergeant in the Army. He had been a paratrooper. So he was a very stern man. When my mom was growing up, they didn’t really see him very much, and when he was home, he was just a very serious person. So they didn’t really have a close relationship with him. They didn’t know him very well.
But when I came around, he was retired, he was older, and he had become a little more mellow. We were really close. For the first two decades of my life, he was my dad, and then in my early twenties he got really sick. There was a moment when he was in the hospital and I was at home and I just felt like he was going to be gone soon. It hit me really hard, and I just wasn’t ready.
I sort of broke down. I was really emotional, and I started praying. I was just asking God to – I don’t know, somehow make his transition easy and make sure he’s not scared. I asked that somehow – I just wanted to know he was proud of me. It was the most important thing for me to know before he left, was that he thought I was doing good.
A couple days went by, and I sort of forgot about that moment. I got a random phone call one morning, and it was the nurse at the hospital. She said, “Hi, I’m your grandfather’s nurse. He wants to talk to you. He can’t hear, so what I’m going to do is put the phone up to his ear for him, and I want you to just listen to what he has to say, okay? But if you say anything, he can’t hear, so just listen.”
So she put the phone up to his ear, and it sounded like he was really far away, in a lot of ways. It just felt like he was far from me. I remember he said, “Krista,” and he kept saying my name. The nurse in the background was like, “She can hear you.” He said, “I just want you to know that I’m proud of you, okay?” He goes, “Can you hear me?” The nurse says, “She heard you.” He goes, “All right. I love you.” And then he hung up.
That moment – I don’t know how he knew. I don’t know how the message got to him, but it was so profound. It was like not only did I have that moment with him, but I knew that there was something else.
About five years later, I was working, and I worked at a telecommunications store in the store and I was doing tech support. This woman came up to me, and she was a little kooky, but I like interesting people, so I sort of humored her. She said, “I’m a medium.” I’m like, “Oh great, here we go.” [laughs] But I was trying to be polite. And maybe she was, I don’t know.
But she said, “I really want to tell you something. Someone’s coming through. There’s a man, and he’s standing next to you and he’s tall, and he’s real handsome. He’s got strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes and he’s in a military uniform.” I was like, “Maybe she googled this. How does she know?” I didn’t say anything, and she goes, “His name is Al…bert? Alfred. But he goes by Al.” That’s my grandfather’s name, Alfred, and he goes by Al.
She said, “He just wanted me to tell you that he’s always with you and he’s very proud of you, and he also wanted me to tell you to watch out for your son because he’s a sneaky one, and he also wanted me to tell you to buy the dress.” I was like, “Dress? What dress?” She’s like, “It’ll hit you later. Just give it time. This is how it happens.”
She mentioned a friend of mine that had passed in a motorcycle accident, an ex-boyfriend of mine named Joe. She brought him through too. But the thing that really hit me was the next day, I took my daughter to this little boutique, and they had this section for little girls, and they had those little Halloween costumes where you dress up like a princess. And there was a dress, and she tried it on and she begged me for it. And it hit me: that’s what he was talking about. He wanted me to buy her that dress.
JIM HAROLD: That is so cool. Bless your family for what they did and your grandparents for what they did. Wow, that is just so neat. It’s obvious to me, he was getting messages to you.
KRISTA: Yeah. It’s good to know. It’s scary. We don’t know what’s on the other side. But to have that kind of confirmation is comforting.
JIM HAROLD: Indeed it is. Krista, thank you so much for sharing this very sweet story today on the Campfire.
KRISTA: I’m so happy I could, Jim. Thank you.
JIM HAROLD: Ashley is on the line from Alaska. We’ve been talking a lot about doppelgangers lately, and Ashley is going to tell us her story of a possible doppelganger. Ashley, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and tell us this story. These are some of my favorites.
ASHLEY: Hi, Jim. Thanks again for having me.
JIM HAROLD: Thank you.
ASHLEY: This took place, like you said, in Alaska, here in our childhood home. On this day, it was a nice day, so my brother and my sister-in-law decided to go fishing at the lake. For reference, our house is a one-story house, so they went outside to get everything ready and my brother pulled the car up to the side of the house to load the Scanoe. My daughter and I were inside, and we were walking out of the bathroom and she took off down the hallway and into the back bedroom.
The window was open, so I could see the car parked outside, I could see the Scanoe on top, and I saw my sister-in-law and I saw my brother. They were tying down the Scanoe and everything. I noticed on the other side of my brother was my dad. I specifically remember seeing him wearing dark jeans, like carpenter jeans, and his gray-and-blue raincoat. I looked at them for a second and I didn’t think much of it.
I grabbed my daughter’s hand and we walked down the hallway into the living room, and then when we turn, I see my dad standing inside the living room looking out the window. And not only is he standing there, inside, but he’s also wearing a completely different outfit. He’s wearing a bright red t-shirt, shorts, no shoes. He could tell I was just so puzzled, and he’s like, “What’s wrong?” I said, “Weren’t you just outside helping JJ and Carrie load the Scanoe and the fishing stuff?” He was like, “No, I just walked out here before you and baby got here.”
So we’re going back and forth, and I’m telling him, “I know I saw you out there,” and he was adamant that he was inside the whole time. After everything settled down and I told everyone what happened, he was saying that he was standing looking out the window, and I asked him, “Did you see yourself in the yard?” He said no. Then I was like “You saw JJ and Carrie, right?” He said, “No, I didn’t see them. I just saw the car and the Scanoe on top. I didn’t see anybody standing out there.”
JIM HAROLD: Whoa, that is just weird. So he couldn’t see it.
ASHLEY: Yeah, he didn’t see himself or my brother or my sister-in-law out there. It’s like we were in two different spots seeing two different scenarios, almost, but looking out into the same yard, if that makes sense.
JIM HAROLD: So he had never worn clothes like you saw him in that day?
ASHLEY: No, it was maybe early morning, and my parents had plans to go out but he hadn’t changed. And oddly enough, I was talking to him about this this morning, and I was describing the pants that he wore, and he said that he hasn’t worn pants like that in years.
JIM HAROLD: Huh. I wonder if there’s any – did he look younger or did he look the same age?
ASHLEY: He looked the same age and the same build. It’s hard to tell, too, because the blinds were drawn maybe a foot or so, so I couldn’t see everyone’s heads clearly. But I saw most of their bodies, and it was my dad and my brother and my sister-in-law.
JIM HAROLD: I was wondering if you maybe had seen him from the past, but that probably doesn’t make sense. In other words, you’d see him, but you’d seen him from years before.
ASHLEY: Yeah. That’s one of the theories that we landed on that made the most sense because growing up, we did exactly that. We went fishing, my dad would take us to the lake and we would load all the fishing stuff and tie it down. We’re like, maybe I went into the room and entered some kind of time slip, maybe. I’m not sure.
JIM HAROLD: Ashley, this doppelganger situation, we hear about it more and more, and I certainly hope anybody out there who has had a doppelganger experience will sign up at jimharold.com/campfire. We thank you for sharing this story today. And one last thing – I want to make sure I don’t miss it – your brother Jay years ago told you about the show and got you listening to the Campfire, so he’s responsible. So Jay, stay spooky. Ashley, stay spooky, and thank you for coming on the show.
ASHLEY: Thank you so much for having me.
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JIM HAROLD: Marta is on the line from Philadelphia. She’s been listening for a while, and we’re so glad to have her on the show. She has a really interesting story about her sister, who happens to have a very cool job, I might say. But she’s going to tell us all about it. Marta, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened.
MARTA: Thank you so much, Jim. I’m so excited to be here. This is about my older sister, Leah. I’ll just give a little background about her and then jump into the story, which I think is a bit of a headscratcher. It’s not scary; it’s more wholesome.
My sister has always been into comedy, and she’s probably the funniest person I know. She started making her own comedy content and realized that she wanted to get her master’s in media studies so that she could learn how to edit her own videos. After she got her master’s in New York City, which is where she lives now, she was doing freelance projects, but they were nothing that – she hadn’t really had her “big break.”
Then she was connected, through someone she did improv with in college, to SNL, and she had this super casual interview with a director there. She didn’t really know what was going to come of it, and then she had a follow-up interview, and again, she couldn’t really get a sense of where it was going or if anything was going to come from that.
After that second interview, she was really anxious, and she was hoping that maybe she’d get hired or referred to something else. She just happened to be looking at her voice messages on her phone, and she knows – our mom passed away when I was 16 and she was 22.
JIM HAROLD: I’m sorry.
MARTA: Thank you. She knew she had one voice message from her. Same as me; I know the exact amount of voice messages I have from my mom because that’s something that’s so nice to have, and you cherish it. She knew there was just one. She’s looking at her voice messages and she sees one from our old landline that isn’t ours anymore. She’s like, “Oh, that’s really weird.”
She played it, and it was from our mom. Our mom was very invested in us. If she saw anything in the newspaper or heard something on the radio that she knew we were interested in, she would call us and tell us about it. She was very excited about stuff like that. She played the message, and my mom was talking about one thing she saw, and then at the end of the message she said, “Oh, I almost forgot. Jason Sudeikis and Seth Meyers are leaving SNL right now, and they just started as writers before they were put on the show. So you never know, Leah, what could happen.”
Then after that, she got hired to be an assistant editor at SNL. [laughs] That was last spring, and then she got invited back this fall as well. It was just a very eerie, weird situation. I don’t know where that voice message came from and why she couldn’t see it before. It’s just so amazing that it happened to be about SNL. I feel like it was a message from my mom. It’s just very special.
JIM HAROLD: So she had never heard that message before, or never seen it?
MARTA: Never before. Never even seen it.
JIM HAROLD: I wonder what the timing was when Sudeikis and Seth Meyers left. Had they already left at that time?
MARTA: That’s a great question. I have to ask my sister when the message exactly is from and look into that.
JIM HAROLD: But that is so wild. And then she ends up getting this dream job.
MARTA: I know. It’s amazing. I think a lot of good things are going to come from it.
JIM HAROLD: Yeah, I would think only good things could come from it. That sounds absolutely awesome. So your mom was cluing her in.
MARTA: She was. She knew more than we knew at the time.
JIM HAROLD: I’m actually interested in this topic because I think there’s this feeling that from the other side, people will be perfectly willing to believe that maybe there could be a rainbow in the sky or there could be a song on the radio or there could be some other kind of activity – even an apparition or somebody comes to you in a dream – but I think people are a little more skeptical when it comes to technology. But my point is, why not? If our loved ones who have passed over can help put a rainbow in the sky or appear to us or come to a dream, why can’t they put a voicemail on your sister’s phone?
MARTA: I was going to say, if they can manipulate nature, I think they could easily manipulate technology. It’s a little easier, I would think.
JIM HAROLD: Yes. Such an awesome story. Marta, thank you for joining us, and all the best to your sister. I hope that it is just a great, great thing for her.
MARTA: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
JIM HAROLD: Shelby is on the line from Colorado, and we’re so glad to have her on the program. She’s got a story for us. She actually heard about us from the Ghost Story Guys, so we thank them, and please check out their show as well. It’s a fine program that I’ve been honored to be on. Shelby is going o tell us about a rental home that was quite the spooky place. Shelby, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and tell us what happened.
SHELBY: Okay, my story. My ex-husband and I at the time were living in a small rental house in Kentucky. We had two dogs; they slept with us at night. We usually had our TV on to sleep, but for this night, for some reason, whether it just got shut off from no use or what, it wasn’t on.
One of my dogs started growling at the foot of our bed, which was strange. She’s a really, really sweet dog. I had woken up from her growling, and I’m trying to shush her, and I start hearing two men fiercely arguing. But it was in really hushed tones. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I could tell that they were arguing amongst themselves.
In my mind, I’m trying to rationalize, I guess, as you do with these things. I thought someone must be trying to steal our tools from our shed, which was right outside the bedroom wall that we were in. So I got up and I’m taking the dogs with me, walking to the other side of the house where the door is. As I’m walking through the hallway and into the kitchen, my dogs started snarling and snapping in a way that was completely unfamiliar to their personalities. They were not those kinds of dogs.
That startled me, and as I turned around, they ran as fast as they could back down the hallway into the room across from the bedroom we were in, and were snarling and snapping at nothing, at the air basically.
JIM HAROLD: Yikes.
SHELBY: Yes. I ran into the bedroom, grabbed my ex-husband – I’m sobbing at this point because I was terrified – and told him what was going on. He went and checked outside the house and through the house, and there was nothing. I really couldn’t explain what happened. That house had a lot of activity, though. Even our houseguests that would come would hear people talking and whatnot. But that was the most extreme thing that happened to me there, and it was petrifying.
JIM HAROLD: I’ll tell you what’s creepy to me, is the fact that they had something invisible cornered. The dog had something invisible cornered. We’ve had particularly our one dog, Rambo – he will look sometimes in midair like there’s something there, and there’s not. Which is kind of creepy. That happened I think more at our old house than it has at our house we moved into last year. And it would make sense; that’s an older house. But the thing is, he’s never been barking and snarling and growling at something like it’s invisible, but in the corner. That’s kind of creepy.
SHELBY: For sure. And these dogs are the sweetest dogs in the world. Even if there had been an intruder, they probably would’ve licked them to death. [laughs] So the fact that they had something cornered like that made it even more scary.
JIM HAROLD: Yeah, that’s kind of creepy. Well, Shelby, I know you have more stories. You’re going to be calling back in. Can’t wait to hear them. Thank you for being a part of the Campfire today.
SHELBY: Thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me.
JIM HAROLD: Next up on the Campfire is a pretty new listener, but he loves the Campfire and we love to hear that. James from Pennsylvania is calling in, and he’s going to take us back to his college years and some spookiness that ensued. James, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. We had such a nice chat off-air, and I thank you for being a part of the show. Please tell us your story.
JAMES: Thank you, Jim. This story takes place about four or five years ago. I was either a sophomore or a junior in college. My girlfriend at the time had a great-aunt that had a mansion on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, right along the water. They would put the crab traps down in the morning, go at night and they’d have about $500 worth of fresh crabs. It was really something.
Anyway, this house was extremely old, and the third story was converted into an apartment at some point in time. I heard through my girlfriend at the time and her sister that about three people had died up there – just over the years, natural causes, that sort of deal. We were staying up there and I was like, “All right, this is a little spooky.”
The apartment was set up where the kitchen and living room were both connected through doors to the bathroom and the bedroom, so you could walk in a circle if you wanted to through the open doors.
This story takes place at night. We’re going to sleep. Her sister is sleeping on the couch in the living room, and me and my ex are sleeping in the bedroom. You know that moment when you’re just falling asleep and you’re not even sure if you’re awake, quite? I hear these three little knocks. Bap-bap-bap. I’m like, “Did I hear that? Am I awake?” I said, “Abby, did you hear that?” She was dead asleep. I was like, “All right, I need to go to bed.”
Closed my eyes, lying there. Three times again, bap-bap-bap. Louder. I’m like, “I heard that. Did you hear that?” She starts to wake up. She’s like, “Yeah, what was that?” And Jim, I swear to God – boom, boom, boom! I mean, someone was pounding on the door in quick succession, three knocks like that. Compared to some of your other stories, it seems a little redundant, but when you’re waking out of a dead sleep to something like that, it really gave us quite a jolt.
We both spring up in bed, jaws on the ground, looking right at each other. Of course, I’m the guy; I have to go check it out, right? I’m terrified. [laughs] The first thing I do is go to that living room door and I open it, and her sister is wide awake. Same deal, jaw on the floor. The thing that creeps me the most out is she says, “Was that you?” I’m like, “No….” [laughs] I’m like, great.
Of course, I have to now muster up the courage to go to the bathroom door. I take a deep breath and I swing it open, and of course nothing is there. Jim, I spent about a half hour in that bathroom, knocking on every surface, every object. I could not recreate that sound. It was not the door. And that actually gave me more of a fright than the actual event. We know in this world, cause and effect, right? Well, I had an effect that I could not find a cause to.
It really spooked us for a while. I’ve always wanted to believe in ghosts, but when you experience something like that – I don’t know if I would’ve wanted to experience that, to be honest with you. [laughs]
JIM HAROLD: Yeah, that’s kind of creepy. What did your girlfriend think about it?
JAMES: She said her cousin had passed away up there, and she’s like, “I think it’s her.” I was like, “All right, appreciate the visit, but…” [laughs] I don’t think we talked about it for a while because I really think it spooked us.
But anyway, we actually went back, about a year later I’d say, and I can’t remember if we stayed up there again, but I remember we had to go up there for something. In the living room was this old grandfather clock, one of the real old-school creepy ones. We’re all standing up there in the kitchen, and I was like, “Do you remember last time what happened?” Her sister was like, “Don’t talk about it.”
And at that exact moment, the grandfather clock chimed. And it was not on the hour. It was like 7:36. It was not anything like “Oh yeah.” So we were like, “All right, let’s get out of here.” We ran down the stairs and that was that. But yeah, that was my experience. I haven’t forgotten it to this day.
JIM HAROLD: I love those old places that have that history. There’s definitely something in these places. You can feel it when you walk into them.
JAMES: Yeah, and like you’ve said over and over, I just think there’s too many of these happenings to discount them. You walk into a place, like you said, and it just feels different. Especially after that happened. You can’t look at the place the same way. And some of your callers – this was very simple, but seeing something, someone? I don’t know if I can deal with that. [laughs]
JIM HAROLD: It’s one of those things. I’ve never experienced anything quite like that, but again, I guess my thought is this: once you’ve experienced it, it’s a real thing. James, I’m sure you did experience it.
JAMES: Exactly. I have a friend who’s a massive skeptic. I told him this story, and he was like, “Eh…” I’m like, “Dude, this happened to me. You can’t discount someone’s experience.” And I believe the majority of your callers as well. Some of these stories are incredible.
JIM HAROLD: They certainly are.
JAMES: So I will continue listening.
JIM HAROLD: Thank you, sir, and thank you for sharing your story tonight on the Campfire.
JAMES: Thanks, Jim. Take it easy.
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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: Joe is on the line from one of my favorite places: Northeastern Ohio, O-H-I-O! We’re so glad to have him on the line. Some of my favorite stories, I was telling Joe, are these road stories – things that happen while you’re traveling. Some of the most eerie stories. And Joe has one for us right now. Joe, welcome to the show. Thank you for listening. I know Astonishing Legends led you over here, so thanks to Scott and Forrest, and make sure, everyone, to check out their podcast if you don’t already do so. Joe, please tell us your story.
JOE: Yes, sir. Thank you so much for having me. My story started in May of 2015. My wife is from the Seattle area, and I lived there with her for almost 10 years. We sort of did a forced march back to the East Coast because we wanted to start a family and my mom and dad were moving down to Florida to be closer to my brother and his kids, and my grandparents wandered down there. I lived there for years. She lived there with me. She loved it.
We really weren’t ready to go at that point. I really was not ready to go mentally, physically, emotionally, and especially financially. It was lack of money that forced me back across the country. I was selling cars and I was making good money, and I was floundering around in Florida and spending too much of my savings, so my wife said, “Listen, why don’t you go ahead and go back? Work for a few months. When we get back, we’ll both go back over there.” We were going to try it again back in Washington state.
So I took off by myself on I believe a Tuesday night. I left at about 8:30 in the evening because I wanted to go up I-75 and cross through Atlanta at night or in the early, early morning. If you’ve ever been in Atlanta, the traffic is just terrible, and it’s the same road in The Walking Dead, that iconic picture of Rick on the horse going up through Atlanta. I went through no problem at all, and I drove and drove and drove. I did almost 3,200 miles in three days.
My first stop was in Kentucky. Slept for about two hours. Nothing happened. I’m meandering my way back west and I’m taking a course that I never went through before, and I crossed Iowa on I-80. Iowa is bumpy hills and stuff. It’s not as flat as going on 70 through Kansas, but it was still pretty boring, not a lot to see. No mountains, no lakes, really nothing like that.
Then I hit I-29 at night. I-29 runs up into Canada, and in the stretch that I was on, it was on the western border of Iowa, the eastern border of Nebraska, and then South Dakota stacked on top of it. Along the way, it follows – you sometimes see it and sometimes you lose it – the Missouri River, which is a very historic, iconic river.
Before I left – I’d quit smoking for years before that, but nicotine, my body’s better, gets more wired with nicotine than it does with caffeine. So I bummed a few smokes from my buddy. This is about two o’clock in the morning, and I’m slapping myself on the face to try to stay awake.
I don’t know what was planted there, because it was too early for corn to be that high – and I’m not from Iowa; I’m from Ohio. So I don’t know what they were growing there, but there were plants about three feet high. I’m in the middle of nowhere. If you look at a map, there’s no big towns. They’re stretched out. This stretch of highway was just desolate. So I light a cigarette to keep myself awake, and I’m driving, and about maybe 200 yards ahead of me on the right-hand side of the road – I’m in the slow lane – I see someone walking.
I’m like, “What are they doing out here?” I get into the fast lane so I can give them a wide berth, and as I’m pulling up, I see this person – they were wearing coveralls. Not overalls, coveralls. They turned around, and this person had glasses on. At first I see the glare of my headlights in the glasses, and then the glasses lost all light. It was really weird. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I took my foot off the accelerator and I started slowing down.
I’m just transfixed by this person on the side of the road, and they’re just looking at me as I pass. I’m slowing down and I’m starting to veer over back into the slow lane, almost on the shoulder of the road, and I’m looking in my rearview mirror and this person starts trembling towards me and then starts herkily-jerkily running towards me.
I was freaking out. By this time I was almost stopped, and this thing, the person, whoever it was – I just remember looking back, and Jim, I don’t know how to truly explain this, but what made me want to talk about this, first of all, is I had never until a few years ago heard about black-eyed kids, and I’ve never heard about black-eyed adults, but this – the glasses were black. It looked like he had Roy Orbison sunglasses on and they were just black.
Do you remember the movie Men in Black, the one who got turned into a bug, Vincent D’Onofrio?
JIM HAROLD: I do, yeah. That was a particularly disturbing part of that movie.
JOE: Yeah. He was like that. He was almost broken, like coming at me. A chill went up my spine like you would not believe. The cigarette was literally dangling out of my mouth, almost falling onto the ground. I snapped out and I came to, and I just peeled out and burned rubber. I could see him in the rearview mirror, still coming for me. I was like, oh my God. At this point I was wired.
I drove a couple more hours and I drove up into South Dakota. If you’ve ever been in South Dakota, their rest stops have these big concrete teepee poles set up. Some listeners would know what I’m talking about. They’re big, 20 or 30 feet tall. They’re just like statues, almost, to celebrate the native heritage of South Dakota.
So I pull up into the place and I go to the bathroom and I come back out. I was driving in an SUV at the time, and I had enough room in the back. I was going bare bones. I just had my clothes and stuff. I got in my sleeping bag because it was a little chilly, and I put all four of my windows down about an inch.
At dawn, I hear this little tinkling on my window, like someone with a long fingernail is tapping on my window. I’m in my sleeping bag, and I wake up and I see a figure. I’m not saying it’s the same figure that I saw, but I saw a figure of a person. Because I lived in Florida, I had tinted windows. I couldn’t really see who it was. I start yelling, and I had a knife with me, a pocket knife. I pull it out and I’m shouting gibberish because I just woke up. I open the door, and I was still half in my sleeping bag, and I fell out of the back of my SUV. [laughs]
I saw this person run into the woods. About three car stalls over, there was an older man and his wife, probably in their sixties. They were road tripping or whatever, and they’re just looking at me like, “What the heck just happened?” They were like, “Are you okay?” I said, “Yeah.” They were like, “That guy, we thought he was your friend. He ran into the woods!” I’m going, “I’m not going in those woods, man.” It’s like six o’clock in the morning and I’m shaking.
I went back into the bathroom and I’m like, “Oh my God, I’ve got to get straightened out.” I had a nice breakfast and I get back on the road, and it’s 80 miles an hour on Route 90 through South Dakota. It’s big sky country. This is midday. I’m more than halfway through the state and I’m driving, doing about 85. I go to pass a truck that the trailer had holes in it, like it was a livestock trailer. I think there were pigs and cows in it. I remember seeing some snouts.
Something happened. It felt like the hand of God pushed me into the median strip in the middle of the road, and two things I was fortunate for: one, that they had been cutting grass all that day, all up and down that median. Their medians are flat. You know here in Ohio, we sometimes have bowled out medians and sometimes they’re like humps. This one’s flat and wide, and it had just rained. I immediately clicked back, my lizard reptilian brain clicked back to driver’s ed training, and they said pump your brakes and turn into your skid.
I have pictures of this. I should’ve brought them up and sent them to you before. I did more than a 100-yard skid, and I was almost sideways when I was skidding. The fact is that I did not flip. I do not know how I did not flip. People turned off the road, and this guy was like, “Oh my God, I’ve never seen anything like that. I thought you were going to flip and die.” I couldn’t believe it. I was literally shaking again.
There’s this cool town in western South Dakota called Wall. If people out there know of it, they have the old Barbasol stuff that says, “Have you done Wall Drug? Come see Wall Drug. Free ice water at Wall Drug.” I went into that town and I went into three different churches. I wanted to kneel and thank God for saving my life. And finally the only church that was open was the Catholic church, and I wandered in looking all scraggly and stuff from being on the road and I was white as a sheet, and I told these ladies my story and they were like, “Oh my God.” They gave me some coffee and allowed me into the church, and I knelt down and I prayed and I thanked God for saving my life. I thanked God, the universe, everything for saving me.
I got back on the road and I finally made it up through into Montana, and in Montana you lose pretty much all cell service. I was on the Montana-Idaho border that last night getting there, and I stopped again super late at night, almost morning, like 3:30 to 4:00 in the morning. It’s cold. My bag was a 25-degree bag and I was cold, so I’m stuffing clothes on, I’m wearing clothes. Again, I roll my windows down so it doesn’t get too foggy in there.
I had to get up to got the bathroom, and I look up and I’m looking around, and there was a guy who was in the back of his truck – he had a topper – and I go to open the door and I open it just a little bit and he goes, “No, don’t do that.” I’m like, “What?” He points over, and about, I don’t know, 30-40 feet away, two grizzly bears were walking right by where I was going to walk. If that guy hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve walked right into those grizzly bears.
And I lived out west for seven summers. I worked in Yellowstone. I have camped in grizzly country, I’ve seen them in the wild, but I’ve never been that close to them before. I was like, oh my God. It was like a trial. I felt like Odysseus.
JIM HAROLD: It was one thing after the other, right?
JOE: Yeah. And then the next day I got into Spokane, Washington, and boop-boop-boop-boop, all my messages and stuff start coming back up, and then it was smooth sailing back into Washington and the Tacoma area. I saw my buddies and I got my job back and I told them the story, and they were like, “Man, that’s just crazy.”
I don’t know if any of it was supernatural per se. The weirdest thing was the person on the side of the road. But it just felt like there were things trying to keep me from doing that. And really, it ended up being one of the best things ever because my wife and I – I mean, we had a good life up until then, but our life went off in a totally new direction, and we have a family now and we’re doing very well. It seemed like it was the universe’s way of trying to get me to be miserable and not fulfilling my true potential. Looking back on it, it was a journey, and it was one of those things that I felt was certainly the scariest and the most exhilarating road trip I’ve ever taken.
JIM HAROLD: Yeah, certainly. I’ve got to ask you before we go, quickly, about that first guy. What do you think he was? Do you think he was some kind of demon? Do you think he was some kind of cryptid, shapeshifting – what do you think?
JOE: I never heard this word until I started listening to supernatural podcasts, because at first I started listening to all the different shows and they allow you to use your imagination more. I think that’s the starting point of that. I think it may have been a tulpa. I think I created it. I honestly think I created it because I was in a heightened sense. There’s more to the story of me going out there, and I was just in a very anxiety-ridden state. I was angry with myself and I wanted to quit, and I’ve never really quit before.
I think this was my – not to sound pompous or anything, but this was like my hero’s journey, almost. I went out and got my boon and brought it back to those that I could help and started a family because of it, really. I don’t know. That’s the only way I can think of it. I think I created it, and I think that it was very much real. Had it caught up to me, I don’t know.
I honestly don’t know, but it was one of the scariest things that I’ve ever experienced in my life. And still right now talking to you, I’ve got that chill going up my spine. Nothing like that night, but I don’t know. It’s hard to say. That’s what’s so fascinating about this whole paranormal realm that we have, that we experience.
JIM HAROLD: It is indeed fascinating. Joe, thank you for being on the show tonight.
JOE: Yes, sir. My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Jim.
JIM HAROLD: Next up is Codie. She is a return caller from Texas. You might remember she had that weird situation where her phone took a picture of her, but she was feet away and the phone was locked in her car. Very odd indeed. She’s going to tell us this story about a dream. Codie, welcome back. It feels like a few moments ago we spoke, but we’re back here now several weeks later, and you’re going to tell us this story. Tell us about this dream.
CODIE: Thanks again for having me. So glad to be here. This first story, it was very odd. I know that your other guests and yourself probably have had this experience where you’re on the brink of sleep and you have a dream that’s like a second long, maybe two seconds long. It’s real quick. It’s like a snapshot of a moment.
So I had this one experience, and it’ll stay with me forever. I would say it is repeating. Not too often, but it definitely has repeated itself, and I always wondered what this means because I know that there’s got to be some deep meaning to dreams. Some people even say they’re connected to the other side or it’s part of the astral realm or whatever.
So this one particular dream, I remember it felt like it was from the future. That’s really all I can say. It almost felt like it was reverse déjà vu or something, like it’s already part of my life but just hasn’t happened yet. But this is all after analyzation, of course.
I wake up and I’m in my house, which I know is my house, and I’m in my room. You know how when you wake up in a dream and you know where you are even though you’ve never been there. So I wake up in this room. It’s so quiet. It’s just quiet. There’s glass in front of me. The wall of the house – the room’s not even that big. My bed’s across the corner of my room and I’m looking straight towards the wall, and it’s glass. It’s snowing. It has this real quiet, calm feeling. Very calm.
All of a sudden, I see this pair of eyes watching me from behind a tree. It’s a fair distance away, but I can see he’s intently watching me. It kind of startles me because it’s so quick and so calm and then I see these eyes, and I can see that it’s a wolf. It’s a white wolf, and he’s intently hiding and watching me.
All of a sudden, there’s this little flick of amber that sparks up and starts floating in the air right in between my bed and the wall. It’s up in the sky and it starts floating down real slow, and then it gets sucked into the vent right across from my bed. I’m like (gasp). Immediately I gasp and I jump out of bed, and then I wake up. That’s it. It’s over. I was like, “Oh my gosh, that felt significant. That felt weird. What was up with that?”
Then moments later, I fall back to sleep, and this never really happens, but it continues. I fall asleep and I go into the same dream and I’m running down the hallway. I run into the kitchen area, and the kitchen area is much bigger, of course, but there’s glass. It’s real, real calm feeling. I walk into the island area and then I can see directly across from me, through the glass, through the snow, there’s a polar bear watching me too, just standing there from behind a tree, watching me. Almost like a feeling of a spy, like I was being watched.
I was like, oh my gosh. My body was overwhelmed with like, “What?” I was just so surprised and startled. And then I woke up, and that was it. That’s the end. But I just felt like there’s got to be some kind of significance there because it was so odd, and it’s stayed with me for so many years. That was weird.
JIM HAROLD: What’s weird to me about dreams, Codie, is this. Sometimes it can be just mental junk. Like if I go grocery shopping and I’m at the produce department, and then later that night I have a dream I’m flying on a banana. [laughs] You can understand how that happens. But I do believe there’s something about dreams that changes your mental state where sometimes you can tap into deeper meanings, maybe past loved ones or premonitions. I do think it has both sides to it. But it makes it hard to parse out because I think dreams can be representative of so many things, or nothing.
CODIE: Exactly, or just mental rerun from the day. I’ve done a lot of research into this area since then, just for personal experience and gain and interest and everything. But yeah, that one was weird.
JIM HAROLD: Indeed. Codie, thank you so much for joining us on the show. I appreciate it, and for being a loyal listener to the Campfire.
CODIE: Of course. Thanks for having me.
JIM HAROLD: Linda is on the line from Indiana. She’s a trooper; we recorded this call a couple weeks ago, but we had a tech issue, which was totally the fault of my equipment, and Linda came back to rerecord. So we appreciate that. Linda has a very sweet story for us. Scary but also sweet. We’re so glad to have her on the line. Linda, welcome back from Indiana, and tell us this story.
LINDA: Thanks, Jim. This story is heartwarming, kind of sad, kind of happy. We had a dog, Guido, and he was very attached to me. He never slept on our bed. He was a bigger dog, like 68 pounds or something. He was quite comfortable lying on the floor next to us.
Well, evidently I must’ve been having a nightmare, and I was screaming and crying in my nightmare. I don’t know how long it went on, but I did wake up and my face was wet from tears. I think when I was screaming, I must’ve been just making moaning sounds or something. That’s what Guido must’ve been hearing. I thought, “Okay, I’m going to go back to sleep. It was a horrible nightmare.”
As I’m going back to sleep, I’m going right back into that dream again, which happens a lot to me. I’m like, “Okay, okay, I have to get out of bed and I have to get busy for a couple of minutes so the dream will go away.” Sure enough, Guido at this time is lying on the floor at the foot of the bed as usual; I walk out, I walk around the house a little bit, trying to get this horrible nightmare out of my head.
Finally, after about five minutes, I close my eyes and I’m thinking as I’m standing there, “It’s gone. I’m safe to go back to bed, thank God.” But I don’t know what the dream was, but whatever it was, it was horrible. So I walk into my bedroom and it’s pitch black. I notice this mass on my side of the bed, and I’m like, “Is that my husband? Why is he on my side of the bed?”
I’m looking at it and I’m walking closer, trying to get my eyes to adjust, and I touch it, and it’s Guido. I’m like, “Guido” – normally if he ever would get up on the bed, for some reason he thought he shouldn’t be there, and if he saw me come in or something he would just get down, like “Sorry, I know I shouldn’t be here.” But he didn’t. He picked his head up so gingerly and he looked at me – I could tell already because my eyes had adjusted to the dark.
I sat down next to him and I was just petting him, and he kept his head in the up position, just watching me. It was at that point that I realized what he was doing. He was offering me comfort, and therapy. I’ve never really needed mental therapy like that, but that to me is what a therapy dog is like, even though he wasn’t a therapy dog. Now I can really understand what people who are in need of a therapy dog experience.
So I’m petting him and petting him and I said, “Thanks, Guido. Thank you, buddy.” And at that, he stepped down off the bed, went back to the foot of the bed on the floor, and lay down and everything was just perfect.
JIM HAROLD: So he sensed that you were distressed, that you were in need, and he came to your aid to try to comfort you. I always think that’s amazing. People would say, “What’s paranormal about that, or what’s supernatural about that?” But I think there is a certain amount – just like you have with maybe a sibling or somebody very close to you, where there almost seems to be a telepathy, I believe with pets, there’s a kind of telepathy.
LINDA: Absolutely. That sixth sense or whatever kicks in. It’s really funny, Jim, because he was curled up like a little snake – but he wasn’t little – right exactly where my body would have been on that bed, like he was keeping it safe for me. I thought, I’ll be darned.
And then before we leave, I had one more quick story.
JIM HAROLD: Sure, please tell us.
LINDA: Unfortunately, my pal Guido, we had to put him down last October.
JIM HAROLD: I’m sorry.
LINDA: Thank you. He was just shy of 13. Healthiest dog ever, but tumor. The day I was at the vet with him, basically I knew he wasn’t going to be coming home. He had a bleeding tumor. I called my husband and I said, “You have to come here. I don’t think Guido’s coming home.” He was shocked. He’s like, “What do you mean, he’s not coming home?”
Anyway, it happened. We had to say goodbye to him. We sat there on the floor, stroking him and petting him and giving him so much love and saying our goodbyes. After it was over, we walked outside, and it was like four o’clock in the afternoon and the sun was shining so bright, and it was so warm, but at the same time there was the lightest sprinkling of rain coming down. My husband’s like, “That is really strange.” I said, “Yeah, it wasn’t doing that when we came here.” I was there early.
So we walked to our cars because I came early, he came later, so we had two separate cars. He left, and as he was driving to the highway, he screamed something out the window at me. I couldn’t tell what he said. I was trying to get myself composed enough to drive. I said, “Whatever, I’ll find out when I get home.” I got my eyes all wiped down and I felt I was good enough to drive, and I wish I had known what he said, because I would’ve seen it.
But when I got home, he asked me, “Did you see it?” I said, “See what? What did you yell at me?” “The rainbow.” When he got in his car and turned left towards our house, he said, “Linda, there was a double rainbow which looked like it stretched from our house all the way to the south,” right across the road that we were driving on to come home.
JIM HAROLD: That is so cool.
LINDA: Oh my God, you talked about signs – they do send signs. They stay with you. Especially when you’re so attached to them. Those are my short stories, and I hope people enjoy them. They’re heartwarming. Don’t ever underestimate your dog.
JIM HAROLD: That’s true. And I’m telling you, there’s that connection.
LINDA: Yes, there is.
JIM HAROLD: It’s just as strong as any connection with a human, I believe.
LINDA: Oh, absolutely. Even more so.
JIM HAROLD: Linda, thank you so much for sharing your story today on the Campfire.
LINDA: Thank you, Jim. Bye-bye.
JIM HAROLD: Thanks so much for joining us for another edition of the Campfire. I appreciate it. And if you love what we do, please make sure that you follow on the podcast app of your choice.
Rate and review should you have the option, and also, when you’re listening to our shows or after you’re done listening to our shows, hit that “Share” button in your favorite app and share a link with a friend of yours who loves the spooky. It’s the perfect time of year to do it, so please share the Campfire love, and we’ll get more Campfire stories like we had today.
We thank you so much. We’ll talk to you next time. Stay safe, happy Halloween – I think it’s plenty of time to say that; we’re getting there – and stay spooky. Bye-bye, everybody.
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.