A nice ghost, a walk in the woods that turned weird, shadow people and more on this edition of Jim Harold’s Campfire!

-STAMPS.COM-

Stamps.com takes the pain out of shipping by giving you access to deeply discounted shipping options and integrating with the most popular online shopping platforms to make labeling a breeze. There’s NO risk. And with my promo code, campfire, you get a special offer that includes a 4-week trial
PLUS free postage and a digital shipping scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the TOP of the homepage, and type in campfire.

-RITUAL-

You deserve to know what’s in your multivitamin. That’s why Ritual is offering my listeners 10% off during your first 3 months. Visit ritual.com/campfire to start your Ritual today.

-BEST FIENDS-

Best Fiends is a mobile puzzle game that anyone can download and play. Whether you have a few minutes or a few hours, Best Fiends is the perfect puzzle game to lose yourself in because you’re having so much fun!

Download Best Fiends FREE today on the App Store or Google Play. That’s friends, without the r—Best Fiends.

-TRANSCRIPT-

Imagine taking a walk in the woods, minding your own business, but stepping into an alternate reality. It happened to one of our Campfire callers, and we’ll talk to her next on 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 today. And boy, do we have some great stories for you. If you are new here, all you need to know is you are in the right place if you want to hear true stories of ghosts, UFOs, cryptid creatures, strange stuff. That’s what we do here. And if you appreciate what we do, please rate, review, and subscribe or follow on the app of your choice. That means so much. That really helps us. So please do do that.

We’re so glad to be with you today, and I have good news for those of you who have been chomping at the bit to tell your stories: we just today reopened Campfire submissions at jimharold.com/campfire. We’d absolutely love to share your story and hear from you and get to talk to you, so please go over to jimharold.com/campfire today. And with that, let’s get to some other great Campfire stories.

 

Christina is on the line from Oregon. She says she listens to all of the paranormal podcasts, so she’s not exactly sure where she may have found us, but she’s been listening for years, and we’re so glad to have her on the show tonight. She’s going to tell us a story about “the nice lady” – but maybe a nice lady with a little bit of a difference. Christina, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and please tell us what happened.

 

CHRISTINA: Thanks, Jim. It’s actually kind of a headscratcher. It’s got a little twist at the end that I have never heard anybody tell any story like this, so it’s kind of interesting.

 

JIM HAROLD: Oh, goody. [laughs]

 

CHRISTINA: My husband, we have been together for about 12 years now, and one of my openers to anybody I meet is about the paranormal, like what kind of experiences you’ve had, are you interested, all that kind of stuff.

 

Well, when I met his mom, that’s my opener to break the ice. Sometimes I get bad reviews on that, but sometimes people are pretty open.

 

JIM HAROLD: I like it.

 

CHRISTINA: So I asked her if she’d had any paranormal experiences, and she said my now husband – he was then my boyfriend – used to play with what he called “the nice lady” all the time in the house that he grew up in. She was talking about who he’d be playing in the playroom, and she’d hear him talking to somebody but wouldn’t know who he was talking with.

 

JIM HAROLD: So his mom would hear him when he was a little boy talking to someone, but she wouldn’t know who, right?

 

CHRISTINA: Yeah. She’d walk in there and be like, “Who are you talking to?” He’s like, “I’m playing with the nice lady.” She’d be like, “Who’s the nice lady? There’s no one in here.” “Well, she’s sitting right there.” He’d be like doing a puzzle, building blocks, doing things that boys do. And most of the time it would actually happen while he was in the bathroom taking a bath. She’d hear him talking to somebody again, she’d go in there to check on him and be like, “Who are you talking to?” and he said, “The nice lady is sitting on the toilet. She’s watching me and helping me take a bath.” So now she’s starting to freak out a little bit. 

 

JIM HAROLD: Well, yeah, obviously.

 

CHRISTINA: They were just in this home. They hadn’t been in this home that long. And this went on for two or three years while they lived in this house, and then she started seeing things, like doors would open and close or things would be misplaced.

 

Eventually they ended up moving out of the house. This is where I come into the story. Me and my husband are together; he meets a friend, we go over to the friend’s house one day, and he’s walking through the house, haven’t been there before, checking things out. He sees a picture on the wall, and he’s like, “Man, that lady looks familiar.”

 

He’s not quite sure who it is, so he asks his friend, “Hey, who is this lady? I know I’ve seen her before. Where does she work?” He’s like, “She doesn’t work anywhere. That’s my mom, and she actually passed away a long, long time ago. I was about four or five.” He’s like, “Really? What’s her name?” He tells him her name and he’s like, “That doesn’t sound familiar.” She was actually murdered in a house on the street that he grew up in, which was the house that he was talking to the nice lady at.

 

JIM HAROLD: Oh my goodness, so the nice lady had been murdered in that house years before.

 

CHRISTINA: Yep, and it happened to be somebody that he ended up befriending. It was her son, and they were about the same age growing up together. So I can only imagine that she probably thought that was her son.

 

JIM HAROLD: Wow. Have you ever thought about this: the fact that they became friends later – do you think it was necessarily a coincidence? Or do you think maybe the nice lady specifically guided him to befriend her son?

 

CHRISTINA: That very well could be. Unfortunately, actually he ended up passing away about six or seven years ago, so obviously we’re no longer in touch.

 

JIM HAROLD: Did your husband communicate to him this whole happenstance?

 

CHRISTINA: Oh yeah. That’s what they came down to, too, just thinking that she wasn’t quite sure where she was or what happened, because it was sudden, and that she thought maybe he was her son. Because they did look pretty similar.

 

JIM HAROLD: I’ve got to say, that’s a chiller of a story, and your heart goes out to anybody – it’s sad when anybody passes, but someone who passes under those kind of circumstances – violence, murder – my goodness. Just very, very sad. Your heart has to go out for them, for sure.

 

CHRISTINA: Absolutely.

 

JIM HAROLD: Well, it is certainly unique. You said it was different and it certainly was. Christina, thank you for joining us today on the Campfire.

 

CHRISTINA: No problem. Thank you so much, Jim.

 

JIM HAROLD: Jen is on the line from Oregon. She’s been listening since about 2014-2015, and we appreciate that. She has brought the goods today. This is a remarkable Campfire story. Can’t wait to hear it. Jen, welcome to the show and tell us what happened.

 

JEN: Hi, Jim. Thank you for having me. When I lived in Portland – you’re probably familiar with the television show Grimm. They filmed some in Forest Park in Portland. It’s like going to really secluded-feeling nature, but inside the city in a way. It’s a very unique park.

 

I decided I was going to work on feeling safe outside by myself. It was twilight time, so I had started going on hikes and being in places where I could reliably think I was safe and teach myself that everything would be fine.

 

So I went for a walk by myself. I didn’t bring my dog. She was getting on into her twilight years at this time. I went out into the park and walked quite a ways and then sat for a while and just sat with everything and was grateful for everything. I decided, “Okay, it’s getting a little dark and I’ve still got some ways to walk; I’m goign to head back up to the car.” Nothing happens this whole time.

 

I get up to the top of the trailhead; I’m probably 50-100 feet from where I can pop out by the road and where I’ve parked. I stopped to turn around and thank nature one more time for the experience and give thanks to the trees. I’m an INFP and a Pisces, and I’m real dreamy and spacey. I get into crazy shenanigans when I lose myself in thought and nature or I’m looking at the full moon.

 

Anyway, I was just like, “Oh, I love you, trees.” Then I looked down under the trees and under these evergreens – they had quite the – it’s almost like you’re underneath a tent when they come down real large.

 

JIM HAROLD: Sure, that canopy.

 

JEN: Right, the canopy. I looked underneath, and all of a sudden it sort of materialized, like I was being able to see – what I felt is like I was seeing another dimension or something. But I don’t know that I was supposed to. I don’t know how it happened exactly. I just looked down there and all of a sudden there was a kind of town, like real tiny olden days, like “ye olde tavern” kind of days, a scene with people. But they weren’t people. They were more like hobbits, but not. It wasn’t exactly that. They were really short and they had lots of facial hair, the men, and long dresses for the women. They didn’t have quite human faces.

 

I was just taking this in, in shock, like, “Am I seeing this? This isn’t something that usually happens.” And then all of a sudden – have you seen the movie Inception?

 

JIM HAROLD: Yes.

 

JEN: When Leonardo DiCaprio – maybe it’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character. Anyway, one of them takes somebody else into their subconscious, and then the subconscious realizes that they’re in there, so all the attention turns to them at once. Even watching the movie, it creeps you out.

 

JIM HAROLD: Yeah, that’s a great movie.

 

JEN: This happened with all of those creatures under the tree. All of a sudden it was like they were aware I was there, and they all turned to face me at the same time. If there was a record playing, it would’ve scratched and it would’ve gone totally quiet. They were just looking at me look at them.

 

I just sent up a little “hopefully my guardian angel is paying attention,” kind of, “Okay, what do I do now?” I felt a hand on my shoulder and turn my body up towards the trailhead, and then in the flat of my back, push me up the trail. I just took off running.

 

JIM HAROLD: What an amazing, amazing story. So this being or whatever it was put a hand on you and told you to run.

 

JEN: Right. I didn’t ask twice.

 

JIM HAROLD: Do you think if you had stayed, some ill would’ve come of you, something bad would’ve happened?

 

JEN: I have no way of knowing. I feel like I’m protected everywhere I go. That’s just the feel that I like to carry around and walk in. I think other things would’ve happened to keep me safe if I was under any kind of threat. But I did not feel welcome by these other beings, whatever they were. They weren’t like, “Hey, come over and have a pint.” They were like, “What are you doing here? Why are you here?”

 

JIM HAROLD: So what do you think? Do you think you stumbled on another reality?

 

JEN: Forest Park feels really mystical and magical anyway, and I feel like in nature, maybe there’s just a thinner overlap between dimensions. You know what I mean? I think there’s an awful lot going on at the same time as our “reality” is happening, and we just can’t see like 90% of it. It’s not available to our senses, and it’s all overlapping on top of one another.

 

And in really rare instances, maybe becoming less rare for people – I’ve heard a lot more stories lately – there’s an overlap, like a thinning of the veil, as they say, and you can see into these other worlds that are going on without looking in on ours either.

 

JIM HAROLD: Wow, that is remarkable. I’ve not had quite that story, but I have had stories where people have walked into other realities. We had one caller, Sandy, one of our biggest supporters to this day, very early on talked about walking into basically an Old West scene as a child. Walking and looking down, and all of a sudden the cement wasn’t cement anymore, it was a dirt path, and she saw all these things like you were in the 1890s or 1880s or something. And then it transitioned back to her reality. We have probably the most well-known Campfire story ever, the Roadhouse Saloon, that story.

 

So we’ve had stories of people walking into what seems like other realities. I’m always fascinated about it because I always do believe, like you, that there’s so much in the world that we can’t see.

 

JEN: Yeah. And how much can we really know about it? It’s sort of like getting to know another person. You can only really know what they’re willing to reveal.

 

JIM HAROLD: That’s an excellent point. I love that. Jen, thank you so much for joining us from Oregon to tell this fascinating Campfire story.

 

JEN: Thanks so much, Jim. Stay spooky and have a great day.

 

JIM HAROLD: You stay spooky too.

 

Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Stamps.com, and I love and I use Stamps.com. It is a fantastic service, and I highly recommend it. When you’re running a small business, every second counts, and you can’t afford to waste a single moment. I know that as a small business owner.

 

You might say to me – let’s say you don’t have a small business that you work in full-time. But let me ask you this: do you have some kind of side hustle? Do you sell things on eBay? Do you sell things on Etsy? Are you an artist who ships things out? Chances are, in this economy, in this day and age, you’re probably a businessperson and you may not even realize it. Or maybe you’re like me and you are a full-time small business owner.

 

In either case, why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using Stamps.com instead? Stamps.com makes mailing and shipping quick, easy, and cost-effective. Stamps.com saves you time, money, and stress. I know for me, I can quickly get things labeled, quickly get them shipped out with no pain, all gain, very easily. I love it. I use it.

 

And Stamps.com has been doing this for a long time. For more than 20 years, Stamps.com has been indispensable for over one million businesses. Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and UPS shipping services you need right from your computer, and you get discounts you can’t find anywhere else – like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off UPS.

 

Streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com’s easy-to-use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment. You’re up and running in minutes, printing official postage for any letter, any package, anywhere you want to send it. Plus, Stamps.com seamlessly works with Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, eBay, and more. So whether you’re an office sending invoices, an Etsy shop sending your products, or a warehouse shipping out orders, Stamps.com is your mailing and shipping solution.

 

Stop wasting time and start saving money when you use Stamps.com to mail and ship. Sign up with promo code CAMPFIRE for a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the page, and enter code CAMPFIRE. Again, we’re big believers in Stamps.com. They are big supporters of our shows, so please support them and help yourself out and take a little stress out of your life. Thanks, Stamps.com!

 

You’re listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

 

JIM HAROLD: Brittany is on the line from Alabama. Found out about us from – where else? – Astonishing Legends. Returning the favor, they are great. Scott and Forrest are one of my favorites, for sure. They’re just great at what they do. And Brittany is here to share a spooky story about her and a friend on a road trip. I think they got more than they bargained for. Brittany, welcome to the show, thank you for joining us, and please tell us what happened. 

 

BRITTANY: Thanks, Jim. It was the end of summer 2017. My friend and I were about to go into our senior year of college, and classes were starting a week later, so we decided to take a three-night trip to Pensacola, Florida. We were about three hours away. We decided to stay at the Grand Hotel there, which used to be a train station. We stayed in the newer part. We were on the fourth floor, I think, in a corner room.

 

When we first got there, the whole vibe of the hotel was a little off, but I figured it was because of being old. We got to our room and we opened the door, and immediately it was strange. You start in a long hallway when you opened the door to the room, and you go down, and to the right at the end of the hallway is a big mirror, and then in an ‘L’ shape, following from that hallway down and to the left are just windows covering the rest of the side of the building. My bed was closest to the windows, and there was a TV in the corner near my bed.

 

Well, we get there, we put our stuff down, we go have dinner and ice cream and come back. Nothing unusual. We get in bed, and we start watching Golden Girls. That was the highlight of the trip.

 

JIM HAROLD: As one does. [laughs]

 

BRITTANY: Yes. True Millennials; we love The Golden Girls. [laughs] So we get ready for bed and turn off the TV and the light, and I settle in. Rachel, my friend, is already passed out. She’s one of those people who can hit the pillow and she’s gone. I don’t have that luxury. I lie down and immediately I start hearing this tapping, this violent tapping on the window near my bed.

 

I started thinking of all the possibilities it could be. I’m an overthinker, so I was running through all the scenarios. I get up, pull back the curtain. I’m looking at everything. We’re too far away from anything to be hitting the window. The air was running, but it wasn’t making the window curtains move or anything.

 

What was weird about it is I could see where it was coming from. I could hear the point on the window it was coming from. I couldn’t see anything. I was like, “I’m too tired for this” and I went and lay back down, and I put the pillow over my head.

 

I fall asleep, and then about 2 a.m., I wake up to hearing The Golden Girls again. Apparently it was a marathon. I remove the pillow and I look up, and the light’s on and the TV’s on loud, and my friend is sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring blankly at the TV. I’m a little annoyed at this point because I want to sleep. I say, “What are you doing?” I didn’t get a response. She didn’t even look at me.

 

I was like, “Rachel! What are you doing?” And without looking at me, in this monotone voice, she says, “I do this all the time. Go back to sleep.”

 

JIM HAROLD: That’s weird.

 

BRITTANY: Yeah. I was like, number one, I know she doesn’t do this all the time because we have traveled many places together before and after this trip; she’s never once done this. Not at all. And I’ve spent the night at her house. Never done this. So I was annoyed, and I was like “whatever.” I put the pillow back over my head and I go back to sleep.

 

I wake up a little bit later and the light is still on, the TV’s still on. It’s infomercials at this point. She’s passed out, almost like she just fell back in that cross-legged position. I was like, okay, good, I can turn the light off and I can turn the TV off. So I did. I noticed at that point that the tapping had stopped. I was like, okay, this all works out.

 

As soon as I notice that, Jim, the tapping starts again, and my friend pops up in that same position, turns on the light and turns on the TV, and starts staring blankly at it again. I was a little freaked out at this point.

 

JIM HAROLD: Like she’s hypnotized.

 

BRITTANY: Right. And normally I jump to conclusions, but I was so tired I didn’t even do that. I was just angry because I wanted to go to sleep. She just kept watching, and I covered my head and grunted, hoping she’d get the idea. I guess she didn’t. So I finally went back to sleep, and we woke up – well, I woke up. She was passed out. It took me forever to get her to wake up the next morning.

 

We get up, we get ready. She was at the mirror at the end of the hallway, getting ready with her makeup, and I’m at the mirror by the bathroom. About five minutes go by when I realize that she’d just staring at herself in the mirror, holding lipstick to her mouth. She was like that for minutes. I said, “Rachel!” She went, “Huh? Oh,” and continued putting on her makeup. I was like, that’s weird.

 

Then we go out to eat, we pick at our food, we’re not talking. We’re so drained and tired. I cannot even tell you how it felt. It was just one of those sick tireds. I almost thought I was getting sick. It’s like your back is weak and everything’s weak. I just didn’t want to be there anymore. We go to the beach for about an hour, and I look at her and I’m like, “Can we go back? I just can’t do it.” She’s like, “Yes.”

 

So we go back, we get some tacos on the way, and we’re sitting in bed. It’s about 4 p.m., eating the tacos. Get done with that. She immediately passes out at 5 p.m. I’m like, okay, yeah, she sat up all night, so of course she’s tired. I watch Golden Girls until about 8:30 and decide to go ahead and try to go to sleep. I turn off the light, turn off the TV, settle in.

 

As soon as I did that, Rachel pops up, turns on the light, turns on the TV, sitting cross-legged, staring blankly. I’m like, I cannot deal with this right now. This is too much. So I say something to her – and I don’t even remember what I said, but she didn’t respond to me. I just got angry and put the pillow over my head. As soon as I did that, that tapping started again, and I’m just so frustrated at this point.

 

I finally go to sleep, and the next day we get up. We were supposed to stay three nights, and at this point we’ve only stayed two. I looked at her and I said, “Can we go home? I just can’t do this anymore.” Neither one of us had said anything about what was happening to each other. She was like, “Yes, please, let’s go home.”

 

We get our stuff packed. We tell the lady at the desk, “We can’t do another night. We’ll pay for it. We just can’t do it.” She’s like, “Okay.” So we leave. I don’t even remember the drive home. It’s just one of those exhaustions where you don’t remember what you’re doing. And no, it’s not safe, but I did not remember driving home.

 

For that whole week before classes started, we didn’t talk at all, which is very unusual. We gab when we get together. Classes start, and one of the nights of our first classes, we went out to eat. We’re just staring, waiting for our food, and she goes, “So Pensacola…” I went, “Uh yeah, what was going on with that?”

 

She’s like, “Well, I didn’t want to say anything to you because honestly I was really scared.” I’m like, “What are you talking about?” She’s like, “The first night we were there, I woke up and that tapping was going on that you had mentioned, and I heard it at the end of the hallway by the mirror,” which was the opposite side of where I was hearing it.

 

She’s like, “It started moving down the window, all the way down, and when it got to where the light was coming in through the window, where the curtains stopped, something black, pure black, moved out from the darkness, tapping. You could see this tendril on the window, tapping.”

 

JIM HAROLD: Ooh, like a shadow person but with antenna.

 

BRITTANY: Right, yes. She said it stopped and turned and walked to the end of the bed.

 

JIM HAROLD: Yikes.

 

BRITTANY: She said, “I immediately popped up and turned on the light and it was gone, but I was scared that it was going to do something to you, so I stayed up as long as I could. But I don’t remember staying up all night.” I was like, “Well, you did, and you were really annoying me, but I guess you were trying to protect me. That was nice.” [laughs]

 

But what I didn’t tell her that week is that the whole time since we left Pensacola, I was having nightmares, and it was a recurring nightmare where a shadow figure was by my bed, tapping on the window in that room, and it looked the same as she described. We just sat there with our mouths agape because number one, we couldn’t believe we didn’t tell each other this, because we tell each other everything, and we were just talking about how tired we were and how we’ve never felt anything like it and how we just wanted to leave, and all of our energy was gone.

 

I don’t know what it was, and I don’t know if it was attached to the hotel. It didn’t seem like it was because I’ve done some research since then and I haven’t seen anything about the Grand Hotel having any sort of incidents like that. I just really don’t know what it was. It was really frightening. We still don’t like to talk about it today. She refuses to even go to Pensacola now. [laughs] So I don’t know, Jim.

 

JIM HAROLD: So you think that maybe you tapped into something or you encountered something that was evil?

 

BRITTANY: That’s what it felt like. If anything, if it wasn’t evil, it seems like it was something that was taking advantage of our energy, maybe. Wanted our energy. I don’t know. I’ve thought about it so many times throughout the years, and I’ve never heard a story quite like it. It seeming to want energy would be what I’m leaning towards. Just a shadow figure. I don’t know.

 

JIM HAROLD: Interesting analysis. Thank you so much for joining us today. What a story, Brittany, about a haunted road trip, paranormal road trip.

 

BRITTANY: Thanks, Jim.

 

JIM HAROLD: Cory is on the line from New York City, and he has one of my favorite kinds of stories – some of the creepiest stories are Ouija stories, and he’s got one for us and it’s a great one. Cory, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us.

 

CORY: Thanks for having me, Jim.

 

JIM HAROLD: Thank you, and tell us about this wild Ouija story.

 

CORY: I was 13 years old. It was probably 1999. It was early morning. A friend of mine had slept over the night before, and I was running myself a bath. I hate telling this story because I hate having to tell that part of the story, but when I was 13 I preferred baths to showers. So I was running myself a bath, and David, my friend who slept over, was in my bedroom searching through my closet, looking at all the board games I had. I had a lot of board games.

 

He found a Ouija board and he was like, “Dude, we have to try this. I’ve never done this before. I’ve always wanted to.” We were big horror movie fans. We used to go to horror movie conventions. This was right up both of our alleys. And I had played with the Ouija board before but never had anything memorable happen. But I knew that you have to do this in a dark room, you have to do this with candles lit, and you have to do it with intention.

 

I grew up in a town called Fort Lee, New Jersey. It’s right across the George Washington Bridge from Upper Manhattan. I lived in a tall high-rise on the 29th floor with floor-to-ceiling windows. There was not a dark place to do it in the apartment except for the bathroom because the bathroom was in the center of the building. It had no windows. So we went into the bathroom. I turned off the running water of the bath, but I left it full because I still wanted to take that bath.

 

We put the Ouija board on the toilet seat. We lit a bunch of candles and put Kurt Cobain stuff around the room, and John Lennon stuff, Bob Marley, trying to contact our dead idols. We just started asking questions. We’re sitting on the floor. The toilet is in front of me with the Ouija board on it. To my left is the bathtub, to my right is David, and we just start asking questions.

 

We’re like, “What’s your name?” I remember very specifically it gave us the initials “E. S.” Then we started asking more questions. “Did you live in my apartment building?”, which it said no to. When I think about Fort Lee’s history – not to digress, sorry – but it was an actual fort during the Revolutionary War. It was George Washington’s fort on the New Jersey side. It’s named after General Charles Lee. So it does have a lot of history, and a lot of interesting things did happen there over the years. It would make sense for them to be some energy left over.

 

So we kept asking basic questions. “What’s your name? How old were you when you died?” I don’t really remember the answers to those questions because of what happened next. I asked, “If you’re really there, give us a sign,” which I’ve heard since you’re not supposed to say.

 

About 45 seconds to a minute passed. Every other time I’d asked a question, the oracle had moved immediately to give us an answer, but this time it just stayed still. So I asked again after 45 seconds to a minute, “If you’re really there, give us a sign.” Again, nothing happens for about 45 seconds to a minute, and I look over at David on my right and I’m like, “Should we ask another question?”

 

And as soon as I said that, all the water in the bathtub started to bubble like it was boiling, and we ran out of the bathroom screaming. And that’s the story.

 

JIM HAROLD: Wow. So the bathtub was bubbling. That was the big payoff of this story. It’s so wild that the Ouija board somehow caused that bath to start bubbling. That’s not exactly Mr. Bubble, is it?

 

CORY: You know what it reminded me of? When you’re a kid and you have a straw and you blow bubbles into a cup. That’s what it reminded me of.

 

JIM HAROLD: That is so cool.

 

CORY: I actually do have one other Ouija board story. I know that was a quick story.

 

JIM HAROLD: Sure, go ahead.

 

CORY: Probably 10 years after hat, I was in Long Beach, Long Island. My mom had a summer house out there and I would stay there in the winter. I had some friends over, just hanging out, and there was a blackout just on our street, on Shore Road. It lasted a while. It lasted a little over two hours. I’m in my house with three or four friends and we’re bored and we don’t know what to do. Our cellphones are dying. This is before cellphones had great batteries.

 

I start making a Ouija board out of paper and pen. I’m drawing the “Yes” on the top left and the “No” on the top right and the alphabet and “Goodbye” on the bottom. I’m getting really into this. I think it’s a funny idea. And I had the idea because it was so dark.

 

I start looking for something to use as the oracle or the planchette, whatever it’s called, and I finally turn up with one of my empty contact lens cases. I turn it upside down and it has that bubble, and I figure this’ll work. So I put the contact lens case on top of the paper I’ve just created. I had one finger on it. I call out to my friends, “This isn’t going to work unless someone else puts a finger on it. Someone come help me.”

 

My friend Rich comes over, and as soon as he touches his finger to the oracle, all the lights turn back on on the entire street.

 

JIM HAROLD: Wow. All the lights.

 

CORY: The entire street, after two and a half hours. You almost felt that electricity. You know that feeling when you can feel the buzz in the air? It was like the second we touched that together.

 

JIM HAROLD: Let me ask you this. After all of this, having the Ouija board cause these physical effects, or at least correlate – I mean, maybe it was a coincidence with the lights; it doesn’t seem like it possibly could be a coincidence with the bathtub because what’s the mechanism for that to happen?

 

CORY: Exactly. I will say there was a jacuzzi in that bathtub, but it was a dial that was on the wall. One of us would’ve had to get up and turn it. Also, there was a really loud motor when it ran. There was no motor when the bubbles were going. And I lived in that apartment from – my parents bought it in ’84, I was born in ’86, and they sold it in 2018. I never saw the water bubble without anything controlling it, without that motor running.

 

JIM HAROLD: Let me ask you this. Have you ever felt tempted to pick up the Ouija board again and try your luck, so to speak?

 

CORY: Oh, absolutely. The apartment I live in now, I’ve been having some – more my girlfriend has been having some things happen to her, and I’ve been tempted to get the Ouija board. But they’re almost comically produced right now, so I want to get a vintage one from the ’80s, one that looks a little more sinister.

 

JIM HAROLD: [laughs] Well, my wife has one probably dating from about that time, but I think she’s going to hang on to it – although we don’t use it. We don’t use it, but it is sitting in the basement, ready to strike, I guess.

 

CORY: I don’t know that I’d ask for a sign again.

 

JIM HAROLD: Cory, thanks so much for joining us tonight and sharing your Ouija story on the Campfire.

 

CORY: Thank you, Jim. It was great talking to you. Stay spooky.

 

JIM HAROLD: You stay spooky too.

 

Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Ritual. I love Ritual. I take their multivitamins and I take their Synbiotic+. I think Ritual is bringing a great contribution to supplements because we deserve to know what we’re putting in our bodies and why, especially when it comes to supplements.

 

Ritual is creating a new standard with a first-of-its-kind visible supply chain. What does that really mean? It basically means you know what’s in the supplement you’re taking and where it comes from, and I think that that’s awesome.

 

I take their multivitamin for men and I also take their Synbiotic+ product. That’s their probiotic for gut health, and I feel very confident – they can tell you, for example, your vitamin D is coming from the UK, or your omega-3 DHA is coming from microalgae in Canada. They’ve got it that finely pinned down, and I think that’s really important.

 

Probably my favorite product they have is their multivitamins, and their multivitamins are designed to help fill common nutrient gaps in the diet, all in just two minty capsules a day. They use delayed release capsules designed to dissolve later in the small intestine – an ideal place to absorb nutrients. This design, and this is really important to me, also conveniently helps to avoid an upset stomach. That used to be a real issue for me with multivitamins, and I think that’s part of the reason I could never get on a “ritual,” so to speak, because they always made me feel “eh.” But not Ritual. I’ve not had that problem taking them daily for probably a couple years now. I feel very comfortable with it, and it’s been great, so I highly recommend it because these are supplements you can trust taking.

 

Ritual is offering my listeners 10% off your first three months when you visit ritual.com/campfire to start your Ritual today. That is ritual.com/campfire. I love their supplements; I think they’re great, and I hope that you try them. Ritual.com/campfire to start your Ritual today. And we thank Ritual for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

 

Follow Jim on Twitter and Instagram @thejimharold and join our Virtual Campfire Facebook group at virtualcampfiregroup.com. Now, back to the Campfire.

 

JIM HAROLD: One of the things I didn’t realize was such a thing when I first started this show was the idea of shadow people. But quickly our Campfire storytellers have educated me that it is a very prominent thing, and a prominent thing for our next caller.

 

Char from British Columbia up in Canada is calling – a repeat caller. We always love to hear from our repeat callers. She has two shadow people stories for us. Char, thank you for joining us and welcome to the Campfire.

 

CHAR: Thank you, Jim. I have two completely different types of shadow people that I’ve heard about, and I’m interested to hear if any other people have had these experiences.

 

The first one I saw was when I was living in Montreal in 2009. I had moved from Vancouver to Montreal to be with my then-boyfriend, and we were living in one of those picturesque older buildings you see. The stairways climb up a little bit in a curve. It was about a 100-year-old building. He’d been there about a month before I got there. There’d been a few little weird things happening, but he had stuff happening around him a lot, so I didn’t really think about it.

 

But one night we were sitting and watching TV, and we had an L-shaped couch. The back of the ‘L’ was backed up to the kitchen, and then there was space behind the kitchen and then a balcony with patio lights and a clear glass window. We were always up late and we were watching TV, and he was sitting on the part of the couch that faced towards the wall, not the kitchen. I was on his left and sitting against the wall, so I had to turn left to watch the TV, right to talk to him.

 

At one point I turned to say something to him, and right behind him, all of a sudden there was this big black figure. It was sharply outlined against the light of the patio behind it. I guess I must’ve stopped talking, because he was looking back and forth and back and forth and he’s like, “What are you seeing?” I took my eyes off of it to look at him, to tell him, and when I looked back it was gone.

 

It looked like – it’s a funny description, but I always think of it as being like the Michelin Man. Kind of bulky and quilted, but very, very black. It was almost like I could see the quilting in it. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew it was looking at me. And I say it’s a him; I don’t know if it was a him. But I’ve never seen anything like that in my life, and I didn’t even know what a shadow person was at that point.

 

JIM HAROLD: Wow, that is some story. Honestly, that’s just amazing. That’s not what you expect to see.

 

CHAR: No. [laughs] But this building, we had a few weird things happen in it. He teased, “I’m so glad you saw something. I thought you were going to think I was nuts if I told you the things I’ve seen.” So that was the first one.

 

It stayed with me all this time. Even though it was a very brief amount of time, you never forget that. I can still see it in my mind’s eye. The thing is, people always say they get negative feelings from shadow people, but in retrospect, I didn’t have that feeling. I was just kind of dumbfounded that I’d seen something like that. It was a pretty amazing moment, when I think about it.

 

JIM HAROLD: Yeah, that is an amazing moment. But that isn’t the only time that this happened. There was another one.

 

CHAR: Yeah, and this is at the other end of the country. I’m back in Vancouver. This is where I grew up. I was working in an older warehouse building in East Vancouver. That building had had some strange things happen, too. When I first started, there were a lot of people around, and then it dwindled and dwindled and dwindled so there were only a handful of us in the building.

 

This particular day, I was walking from my desk towards the center part of the building to go to the washroom. Exciting stuff. As I’m walking, I saw a woman walk by. She was down the hall and heading towards the washroom as well. I didn’t really think much about it because she looked like one of our coworkers, but completely black. At first I thought it was like long black hair, long black blouse, long black pencil skirt, long black leggings and black shoes. I heard the door in the washroom close, and I had to turn around a corner to head that way.

 

When I got to the washroom, I was surprised because I looked down and there was no light under the door. You had to put the light on because it was away from all the windows. I thought, “Oh, that’s weird.” I walked in and the light was off. There was nobody in that washroom.

 

JIM HAROLD: Oh man.

 

CHAR: And there was no place for her to go, or what I thought was a her, to go. I had work on my mind and I wasn’t completely thinking of everything yet, so I did my thing, came back out, and now I’m realizing, I saw something that didn’t go where I thought it was going. When I got back to my desk, I told one of my coworkers. We’ve all had weird things happen in that building before, but this was a little bit different.

 

I actually walked around to the office of the woman that I thought it was – we would say hi in the morning, but we wouldn’t often see each other because I was in the desk unit, and they had a wall. People would come and say hi, but sometimes you wouldn’t even look at each other all day. When I went to say hi to her, she was wearing completely different clothing than I thought she was. She usually had her hair down; she was Asian; long, beautiful, black hair. Well, she had it up. I was like, so what did I see?

 

When I thought more about it, I thought, did I actually ever see flesh hands and flesh face? I saw a black woman, like a figurine, completely shadow, going to the washroom. But didn’t get to the washroom. So that’s another one that was very bizarre.

 

JIM HAROLD: You said in that building other things had happened, so that building seems to be maybe haunted?

 

CHAR: Yeah, we’d all had weird experiences there. I was sitting at my desk one day, it was in the morning, and a big black mass flew across the wall, along the top of the building in the upper corner. That was a little freaky. I was the only one that saw that. But another time – it looked like it was a bird that was flying across, but one of my coworkers said, “Did you see that?” I was like, “Yeah.” She’s like, “That was no bird.” It was like a black dot. We would occasionally actually get birds up there because they’d come in somehow, but those were usually pigeons.

 

It was just one of those buildings where weird things happened. A lot of the women wouldn’t even go into the washroom by themselves.

 

JIM HAROLD: I don’t blame them.

 

CHAR: When I first started, they had the taps that are motion-activated, so you have to run your hand under them for them to turn on. You could be in the washroom and all of a sudden they would go on. And nobody’s walked in, there’s been no motion of air moved, there’s no A/C in there to trigger that. That happened a few times.

 

I remember from watching Ghost Hunters, those guys were actually plumbers, right? They’d even said on one of their shows when they were having that happen – that was one of the claims of what was happening, and they even said, “No, that’s not normal. That shouldn’t happen.” Fortunately, they changed the taps after a while. [laughs]

 

JIM HAROLD: Well, Char, two interesting shadow people stories, and we thank you for sharing it today on the Campfire.

 

CHAR: Thank you so much. I really appreciate you allowing me to do this. I enjoy your show a lot.

 

JIM HAROLD: Next up on the Campfire is Alexia from Washington state. She’s going to talk to us about an experience she had – and this is a subject that has always fascinated me and I’ve always wanted to know more about it: astral projection. Alexia, welcome to the show and tell us what happened.

 

ALEXIA: Thank you. This happened about a decade ago, I’d say. I was in college. I was living at home, and I was sleeping – I guess I should say I’m a really deep sleeper, just to preface. I don’t wake up to anything. Even now, with a baby, I’m a deep sleeper.

 

But I was just sleeping, regular night, and I felt compelled to wake up at like two or three in the morning. At the time, it never happened. I never woke up that early. It was almost like in the movies when someone has a nightmare or a revelation and they just sit straight up in bed, like all of a sudden they’re awake. That’s what happened to me. Which, as a deep sleeper, was very strange.

 

So I sit up and I see my aunt standing at the edge of my bed, and she’s just staring at me. It’s almost like she was inspecting me. Her face was kind of neutral, and she’s just looking at me. She was solid, but she almost had a shimmer or something to her. It was a little bit off, so I knew it wasn’t her physical body. Also, why would she be in my room in the middle of the night? It logically didn’t make sense. So there was something kind of off about her.

 

I mean, obviously it’s terrifying if anyone is staring at you while you’re sleeping, so I jump out of bed, I turn on the light. She disappears. I go next door to my parents’ bedroom and I jump into bed because I’m terrified. I’m like, “I’m just going to go back to sleep and pretend that this didn’t happen.”

 

I wake up the next morning and I realize I’m in my parents’ bed. I’m like 20; this isn’t normal. It all floods back to me, the memory of what happened. I think if I hadn’t jumped out of bed, I would’ve just thought it was a nightmare, but the fact I actually got out of bed, I knew it really happened. My mom said, “You came in here yelling about seeing Aunt Bea. You ran in here and jumped into bed.” So I knew it really happened.

 

I thought she had died. I thought I saw her ghost. So I thought I should call and check on her. Luckily, she was alive. She still is alive. I told her what happened, and she said, “Oh, I always thought I traveled in my sleep. I just never knew where I went.”

 

JIM HAROLD: Ah, so it wasn’t you having the astral projection. It was your aunt coming to say hi.

 

ALEXIA: Yeah. I said, “It was kind of terrifying.” She’s like, “I was just checking up on you.” I was like, “Well, it was still kind of intrusive that you just came into my bedroom.” [laughs] She does Reiki, so I don’t know, maybe she works with energy somehow. I couldn’t sleep for a week because I didn’t know if she was going to come back or if anyone else was going to come visit me while I was sleeping. It was very terrifying.

 

JIM HAROLD: Yeah, that’s understandable. Well, thanks again for being on the show. What an interesting story. That’s something that’s interested me, and I’ve heard about that since I was a kid – the idea that people can travel, and some people can do it unintentionally and it just happens to them when they’re dreaming or something, and other people know how to do it. I think that would be a cool gift to have, that ability. That’s just a very cool idea to me.

 

ALEXIA: I don’t know if there’s other stories that people have of astral projection, but I’d love to learn more. 

 

JIM HAROLD: Yeah, if anybody out there has projected themselves, or if they’ve had a visitor like Alexia did, please do sign up at jimharold.com/campfire. Alexia, thank you so much for being a part of the program today.

 

ALEXIA: Thank you.

 

JIM HAROLD: Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Best Fiends. That is my mobile game of choice. It is so awesome. I think of it kind of like giving yourself permission to eat dessert first. A lot of times, we put off fun until we “deserve it.” You’ve got a busy life; take a little time out with Best Fiends, an exciting puzzle adventure game, my mobile game of choice, and you can have fiendish fun anywhere, anytime.

 

The thing is, a lot of times that gets pushed down on the priority list, but really, you need to take care of yourself. Part of that tis simply having fun, and Best Fiends does that. Now, I’m on Level 383, and I can pick it up anytime and just play a few levels. It’s so convenient and easy and kind of takes you out of that workaday world and all those things worrying through your mind. I love it. It’s a great thing to add some joy to your daily routine. You can do that with Best Fiends. It is a fantastic puzzle adventure game you won’t be able to put down.

 

I know that I absolutely love it. Sometimes here in the Spooky Studio, I’ll sneak a couple games in here and there between interviews or editing or doing paperwork for the business, whatever it might be. It’s great because sometimes you just need that space, and that’s a great way to get it. It feels great when I pick up the game, and maybe there’s a level that’s been a little bit challenging and I beat it. It’s like, “Ah, I got you, you slugs!” Those are the bad guys, the slugs. Again, I absolutely love it.

 

Best Fiends is a free to download mobile puzzle game with thousands of exciting levels for new adventures and challenges every time you play. The thing that I love about them is they really treat it like a service. They’re always introducing brand new events and challenges. They pop up all year long, so you’ve always got a chance to learn exclusive in-game items, characters, and rewards. There’s always something new. And also very cool, you can play it without an internet connection, so you can pick up a game of Best Fiends wherever you are.

 

You’ve earned your fun time. Go to the App Store or Google Play to download Best Fiends for free. Plus, earn even more with $5 worth of in-game rewards when you reach Level 5. That’s “friends” without the ‘R,’ Best Fiends. And we thank Best Fiends for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

 

You’re listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

 

JIM HAROLD: Priscilla is on the line from California. She was last on the show back in 2019. I mentioned to her a few things have happened since then, but we’re making our way through it. Priscilla is here, and she is going to tell us about three short stories regarding loved ones. Priscilla, welcome back to the show. Good to hear from you. Thank you for sticking with us all these years, and please tell us your stories.

 

PRISCILLA: Hey, Jim. Thank you for having me back. Always a pleasure. Today I have three little sweet short stories regarding some loved ones. I’ll go in chronological order. In I believe 2007, I had a cousin who unorutnately passed in a fatal car accident.

 

JIM HAROLD: Oh, I’m sorry.

 

PRISCILLA: Thank you. He was 19, very young. Very tragic. That was actually the first big death in our family, unfortunately. But the morning that he passed was a Sunday morning. My mom was making lunch at home. We were watching TV with my brother. We were kids; at that time I was pretty young. We were watching a show, a cartoon for kids, and I remember seeing one of the characters that was a cartoon with live action. So they had humans in it with a cartoon.

 

It was a little girl, and it’s her segment and she’s talking about whatever the show was at the time, and she looked directly at the camera as she’s speaking and she smiled, and I remember thinking, “Oh my goodness, whoa, she smiled exactly like my cousin Scotty,” who is the person who had passed away. I literally said it out loud. I said to my dad, “Oh my God, look, she looks like Scotty. She smiles really, really big and she has really perfect teeth.” He had really perfect, straight teeth. My dad was like, “Yeah, I definitely see the resemblance.” And that was that.

 

About an hour after that happened, my dad got the call that his sister’s son, which was my cousin, had passed away – that same cousin that I said the girl from the TV looked like.

 

JIM HAROLD: Oh my.

 

PRISCILLA: Yeah. It wasn’t until later when I grew up and realized what had happened that I realized, I’m pretty sure he stopped by and said bye or just made himself known. Like you said, it was too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.

 

JIM HAROLD: Right.

 

PRISCILLA: So that was the first experience I ever had with a loved one stopping by and making themselves known. The second story is about my auntie. Forgive me if my voice gets a little bit jittery.

 

JIM HAROLD: It’s okay, it’s okay.

 

PRISCILLA: It’s a little bit rough. She passed in 2013 very quickly from cancer, unfortunately. She didn’t suffer too much, but you know how those things go. But long story short, I unfortunately wasn’t around during her sickness and her death. My mom was the only one that was there with her, and my grandma.

 

I was very in denial. I wasn’t there for anything, so it was very difficult for me to process the fact that she was gone. For some time after that, I would go to sleep thinking, “Please send me a sign. Please come see me. I need to know that you forgive me for not being there during the last moments of your life.” At the time, I was 17. I was very young, dealing with high school stuff, but this definitely was something that plagued me. I needed closure so desperately.

 

I think either three or four months after she’d passed, I had a dream – what I in that moment thought was a dream, but I know for a fact it was more like a visitation. I remember being in this huge auditorium, like a high school auditorium, and I’m walking down the steps and there’s nobody in there except for one person sitting right in the middle of the auditorium.

 

I walk over, and lo and behold, it was her. She didn’t speak to me, but she patted the seat next to her. I sat down and she just embraced me, hugged me, and I remember just sobbing. I was just uncontrollably sobbing, and I woke up because I was sobbing so hard in my sleep. When I woke up, I was like, oh my God, if that was a dream, that was the most vivid dream I’ve ever had in my life.

 

After processing it the next day, I was like, she finally heard my prayers and my begging and made sure I knew that she was okay and she was still around. I think that, out of all three of the stories, is the most impactful to me. After that day I really felt like I was able to process the fact that she was gone and move forward and always have her in my heart, but I knew she was always there because she had shown me that she was taking care of me. So that was something very impactful for me. Sorry.

 

JIM HAROLD: No, it’s totally natural and understandable. My goodness. I just shared on one of the Plus Club shows, I think – I’d had a dream of my mom, who I never really have many dreams of, and she was wearing a shirt that she wore when I was a little kid. Hadn’t thought of this shirt for years. The main thing – two things. I remember the shirt, I remember saying, “Oh my God, you’re here. You’re really here,” and then hugging her. That’s the only thing I remember from it. But those are very impactful and can have quite an impact, of course.

 

PRISCILLA: Yeah, definitely. We’re going on eight years now – nope, nine years now, and I think about that pretty often. I’ve shared that story with friends, and it’s something that I hold very near and dear to my heart for sure.

 

The last story actually happened recently. It was last summer – it was early September last year. My boyfriend and my friends and I were doing a trip up north here in California. It was our last day at the Airbnb where we were staying at, and that day happened to be the funeral services for a really, really close friend of one of my friends. He was very upset that he couldn’t be there. Unfortunately, the trip we were on was partially business, partially pleasure, so he had no choice but to go on the trip. Even though he wanted to stay and be able to go to those services for his friend, he really couldn’t for business purposes.

 

That day, we were packing up all our stuff, ready to check out from the Airbnb, and everything was closed. We had turned off A/C, everything ready to leave the house. His friend was a musician, so while we were waiting for everybody else to be ready to leave, he was playing recordings and music videos of his friend on the TV, just a little homage for him and wanting to think about him even though he couldn’t be there.

 

I was sitting there, just hanging out with him and our other friend and my boyfriend, and I suddenly felt this very overwhelming feeling of – I don’t know how else to describe it other than emotion. I had never felt that before in my life, actually. I was very overcome with emotion. I’d only met this young man maybe twice or three times at that time, and he was also very young, unfortunately. Passed in a very tragic accident as well.

 

I was very overcome with emotion, and I glanced up to the ceiling. Right in the center of the living room where we were sitting, there was one of those fans, the ones that have the light bulbs, but it also serves as a fan.

 

JIM HAROLD: Yeah, a ceiling fan.

 

PRISCILLA: Yeah, a ceiling fan, thank you. It was very slowly rotating. Very slowly. You could see it, but it wasn’t on, because again we’d turned everything off already in preparation to check out of the Airbnb. We wanted to make sure everything was set to go. We were just waiting for our other friends to finish packing. It was rotating very slowly.

 

The first thing I thought was, “Oh my God, Vlad is here.” His name was Vlad. I looked at my boyfriend and I was like, “Do you see that?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “It’s Vlad. He’s here. He wants Raffa,” our friend who was his close friend, “to know that it’s okay. He understands that he couldn’t make it to the service.” Jim, it was something I had never felt, ever. I just knew these things, and I was so certain of what I felt in that moment.

 

I was very emotional. I told my friend, “Raffa, I don’t know if you believe in these things or not, but Vlad is here. I can feel his presence. I know he’s here. He wants you to know that it’s okay, that he understands that you weren’t able to be there today, but he loves you and wants you to know that it’s okay.” My friend started crying. His girlfriend started crying. It was a very emotional situation.

 

A couple minutes later, the fan started diminishing, slowing down, and eventually it completely stopped. We packed the car up and we left, but I knew exactly what was happening. It’s very strange to explain because it was something that had never happened before, but also I’m very certain of what I felt in the moment and that I needed to share that with my friend because I knew that he was grieving and he was upset not being able to be at those funeral services.

 

But I think that did definitely bring him a little bit of peace. He cried it out and then he said, “Thank you for sharing that with me. I do feel better knowing that he knows that I would’ve loved to be there, but unfortunately I couldn’t.” So we went on our way after that, but it was just something that I’ll always think about because it never happened to me.

 

Definitely a couple loved ones have crossed my path after they’ve left, and I feel very fortunate that I can share those experiences. Not scary or anything.

 

JIM HAROLD: Yeah, that’s the thing. I’m sure you’ve heard me say this many times – I believe the paranormal is a continuum. We have that scary stuff, and that’s part of the picture, but we also have these heartwarming stories. Priscilla, thank you for sharing yours tonight on the Campfire.

 

PRISCILLA: Thank you, Jim. Stay spooky.

 

JIM HAROLD: Cortney is on the line from Maryland. So good to speak with her again. She’s been on the show before. She’s going to talk about an angel that she saw – but it’s not just any angel. You may have heard of him before. Cortney, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and tell us your angel story.

 

Cortney: Thank you, Jim. I was raised Catholic, but I didn’t get too much into learning anything about angels, so this was a surprise for me. You know the candles that you buy at the grocery store? There’s like an aisle with candles. They had religious candles. This was just a few months ago. I don’t know, something told me to go down that aisle. I found a candle that I liked, and it was Michael the Archangel.

 

I have it in my bedroom. It’s sitting on the dresser right in front of our bed. One night I was looking at it, and I all of a sudden felt the need to say “thank you.” I said, “Thank you for protecting my family, my son.” I was just drawn to bring it to the attention of “thank you” for some reason. And I blew out the candle, because it was lit.

 

Later that night, my husband and I were sleeping, and I had just started to fall asleep, maybe 20-30 minutes after you lie down. I was lying there with my eyes closed, and all of a sudden – the room was pitch black, and I saw it in my mind first. I don’t know how to completely describe it. I was kind of awake but kind of asleep, but I felt a presence of something in my mind’s eye, I guess you would call it. My eyes were closed, but I could see it in my room, I guess in my mind.

 

I saw this massive shadow starting to come up over the bed. That woke me up, and when I woke up, right above me, it was Michael. The picture on the candle is exactly what this looked like. It was crazy. It started as a shadow, a big shadow that came across our bed. It woke me up or made me open my eyes, and it elevated above the bed, and it formed into him.

 

His wingspan was bigger than our bed, and we have a king size bed, so it’s pretty big. I saw every feather of the wing pop out. He had blonde hair, striking blue eyes. He had a white, flowing – I don’t know what you’d call it, whatever he was wearing. And he was staring at me, and his wings opened up massively, bigger than our bed. I was fully awake for this.

 

And all of a sudden, he pulled his wings back and flapped them like this big huge flap of angel wing. And these were huge. I knew I shouldn’t be scared, but – my poor husband was sleeping, and when he did that, I screamed. [laughs] I jumped on top of my husband. I was just shocked. You’re seeing this in a dark room. And he was glowing. He had a glow to him. He was beautiful. But I saw the wings completely extend out, like every feather pop out, just massive. And then the wing flap, and I screamed and it disappeared.

 

So then what do you do? I lay back down and I tried to go to sleep. My heart was absolutely pounding out of my chest. My husband was like, “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.” I didn’t tell him what happened. But I was lying there, trying to go back to sleep, and in my ear I heard, “It’s okay.” And someone brushed my hair. My hair moved. It was like calming me down, like, “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.” And I did. I fell right to sleep. It was crazy, Jim.

 

JIM HAROLD: So the $64,000 question is, was it a dream? Or do you feel it was a real visitation?

 

Cortney: At the point where I saw – the shadow woke me up, and I was sitting up, watching this. And when he flapped the wings, I was on top of my husband, screaming. [laughs] So I was fully awake. And I wasn’t really sound asleep or anything. I was kind of dozing off when this shadow appeared over the bed. But I don’t know. We had a moment there.

 

JIM HAROLD: Very interesting indeed. Maybe that candle and your receptiveness to the Archangel Michael opened a doorway, and he walked right through and flapped his wings.

 

Cortney: I think so, yeah. Definitely, I felt this pull towards – I mean, I don’t have any candles like that in my house, and then all of a sudden I just bought one. So I don’t know. I think he’s protecting all of us.

 

JIM HAROLD: Very cool. Cortney, thank you for being a part of the Campfire.

 

Cortney: Thank you, Jim. Have a good day.

 

JIM HAROLD: Well, it’s a big day here at Campfire. We have our first caller from Turkey. I’m talking about Akin, and he says he’s been listening for about three years, and he’s finally getting a chance to speak with me directly. I’m so glad to speak with him. He has a story about a journey to Europe and something that happened. Akin, welcome to the show and thank you for joining us all the way from Turkey.

 

AKIN: Thanks for having me, Jim. Most of the stories take place in Europe. They have a spontaneous nature. My encounter is a prearranged experience to give a message to a specific person through using my knowledge in the paranormal. I have no psychic ability, but I describe myself as a non-professional researcher in the paranormal.

 

My encounter took place in October 2015. It was one of our regular journeys to Europe, but this time my wife and I preferred a late period of the year such as October to avoid tourist crowds. I made an early reservation to a hotel in a small seaside town in the South of Italy. We started the day early in the morning at the restaurant section of the hotel. The breakfast was an amazing combination of food and real Italian coffee, prepared at the barista section just before the entrance of the restaurant room. The only downside of the breakfast was the hot spring egg boiling machine, which you had to wait a couple of minutes and serve your own stuff.

 

The hotel was so unattended, the only person we met at the breakfast was a single old man in his early seventies. During the second day of our stay, we were able to chat for a little bit with this old man and learned that he was from England, and the purpose of his stay was similar with ours. it was an interesting coincidence to have this British man accompany us during the breakfast time every morning, three days in a row.

 

It was the morning of our fourth day at the hotel, and we again started our day with the delicious Italian breakfast. But this time, we were the only ones at the restaurant section. To our luck, this time we did not have to wait for our eggs to be boiled at the machine since two boiled eggs were already waiting for us at the top of the boiling tank. After we collected food from the buffet, I went outside the restaurant room to the bistro section to get our coffees.

 

While waiting for the coffee to be prepared, at the far opposite side of the corridor, I saw the old British man approaching me along the hallway. To my surprise, this time he was not alone. A lady was walking next to him. First I thought she was someone staying at the hotel and would walk outside through the main entrance door, or come to join us for the breakfast. But she did not take the entrance door and kept walking with the old man, side by side.

 

To satisfy my curiosity, I again turned my head towards them and checked whether the lady had chosen the exit door. The answer is no. They kept walking together. I looked from the corner of my eye to the lady to understand more about her attributes. She was tall, although not as much as the British man, and looked like at a similar age as him. I was not able to restrain my interest to see whether they would enter the restaurant together. Yes, they did enter side by side again.

 

Now that I was 100% sure of their companion, I waited a little bit of time for the coffee to be ready, then returned to my table. We finished our breakfast. I noticed that my wife and I were the last customers leaving the room. I returned to my normal self during the whole day, until my wife mentioned her embarrassment concerning an event related to breakfast time.

 

She started to explain. “You recall the two boiled eggs we found this morning? Turns out they belonged to the British man. He came to look for them in the boiling machine later. He had put them in the boiling tank and left the room before we entered the restaurant for breakfast. Anyway, he just left and made fun of this occasion.” I kept my indifference and just made a comment, “Two eggs? Yes, if they are a couple, then they needed two eggs.” 

 

Just as I finished my comment, my wife responded, “What are you talking about? What couple? I saw only the British man.” At that moment I responded with a more detailed explanation. “You know, we thought he was a lonely customer staying at the hotel, but as you saw this morning at breakfast time, he was with a companion and they entered the room together.” My wife’s voice changed and responded to me, “No, you must be joking. I saw the moment the British man entered the room. He was alone and had his breakfast unaccompanied at his table.”

 

I did not make a comment or an objection anymore. The situation had become clear from that moment on. The incident turned into a very outstanding paranormal experience for me. What is left from my perspective was to confront the British man and ask him for verification.

 

It was the fifth and last day of our stay, and by coincidence, we stared out breakfast together with the British man again. This time, we chatted more about his purpose of travel and learned that his wife passed away a couple of years ago, and he decided to settle in a small town called Isernia in Southern Italy to spend the rest of his retirement period.

 

But somehow, partly due to my shyness and the potential reaction of the man to such a weird assumption, I couldn’t muster the courage to ask him about the occurrence I witnessed the day before. After breakfast, we went back to our room, packed our luggage, completed the checkout procedure, then went to our car. And again, by coincidence, we ran into the old British man at the parking lot. This time, I wouldn’t let it go. I approached him and asked him his thoughts regarding the incident I witnessed the day before.

 

He listened to my detailed explanation of the occurrence without interruption to the end, and showed no signs of surprise or disbelief. After I’d finished my story and asked him whether he had seen anyone walking beside him in the hallway to the breakfast room, he replied, “Definitely not. There was no one walking beside me along the hallway.”

 

He continued the conversation by asking me a question. “The lady you saw beside me – was she tall or short?” To which I responded, “She was quite tall.” Then he answered, “My wife was short in height. If she was tall, she must have been my mother. She had a habit of following me wherever I went when she was alive.”

 

I was relieved by his clarification, but the old man kept the conversation going and explained an incident that had happened a couple of years ago. The incident was as follows: “I was devastated as a result of so many things that had gone wrong and found myself at the Tower Bridge in London. I walked to the bridge and at some point I stopped and came closer to the side of the fence and started looking down at the river. I was mentally collapsed, but did not have any intention of committing suicide such as jumping into the river.

 

“While I was gazing absentmindedly at the flowing of the river, suddenly I felt the hand of someone on my shoulder, shaking me softly as if the intention was to subside my unrest and comfort me. As I abruptly turned my head to see who was the person that touched my shoulder, surprisingly I saw nobody behind me. Moreover, there were no passersby around me. At this moment I understood that I was not alone through my life’s adventure, especially at difficult times, and was being watched over by unseen beings.”

 

After a couple of minutes of chatting, we said goodbye to each other and departed the hotel. It was clear that the target of the whole coincidence of events was the old British man, and the reason behind the whole story was to convey a clear message that he was not alone in his adventure of starting a new life in Italy. It would not have been possible to convey this message to the British man without my presence. I believe my interest in the paranormal made it possible, and the whole story was arranged in advance by divine organization.

 

After we had finished the second leg of our journey on the Amalfi Coast and headed to the Paris airport for our return flight home, we passed through the town Isernia – the place where the British man will settle for the rest of his life. We did not plan to go to Isernia on purpose beforehand. This town was just a natural milestone on our route to reach Paris. But it looked like the legacy of the British man was still haunting us. Yes, this is my story, Jim.

 

JIM HAROLD: I like it, Akin. I love the idea that someone has put all these pieces in place and put you there to communicate to this man that he had someone alongside him. It seemed to be very comforting to him and fit with his story about being at the bridge there. I think it’s a great story.

 

AKIN: Right. I would like to add a comment. American author Emma Bull wrote, “Coincidence is the word we use when we can’t see the levers and pulleys.”

 

JIM HAROLD: That’s a very great point. Akin, thank you so much for listening all the way from Turkey and calling in today. I certainly appreciate it.

 

AKIN: It was my pleasure. Thank you, Jim.

 

JIM HAROLD: Thank you for listening to another great Campfire. We thank you for tuning in, and we’re very thankful for all of our storytellers. And we’re thankful for you, the listeners, of course. Thanks to our sponsors. Please support them because they help to make this free programming available. And the other folks who make it possible are our great Plus Club members. They’re the ones that really gave us our start and realized this was a full-time enterprise.

 

Folks will say, “Jim, I listen to the Campfire” – maybe they’re new and they say, “Hey, I can get these most recent 13 episodes at your website or on Spotify or iHeart Radio or Apple Podcasts, Stitchr,” whatever it might be. “I love the free episodes, but I know you’ve been doing Campfire since 2009. You have over 500 episodes. Where can I get them?”

 

Well, I have good news for you. There’s a very easy way. It’s over at jimharoldplus.com. You get the archive of Jim Harold’s Campfire going back all the way to 2009. That’s over 500 Campfire episodes not on the free feeds. That’s at jimharoldplus.com. You go over there, you click on the banner, and you find out all about our Plus Club. Not only do you get Campfire, you get the back catalog of the Paranormal Podcast and eight exclusive episodes of various shows on the topics that we discuss each and every month. That’s eight extra episodes of interviews about ghosts, cryptid creatures, UFOs, mysteries.

 

And have we got a great deal for you. You can get your first month for 99 cents – or if you say, “Hey Jim, I’m all-in. I want to be in the Plus Club for a long time,” you can get your first year for $49.99 with our money saving promo codes. You’ve got to make sure to use those. We think it’s a great deal, and we get a lot of great feedback on our Plus Club. Even people who maybe, for whatever reason, have to take a break, they say how much they love the Plus Club.

 

So a big thank you to our Plus Club members, our storytellers, our sponsors, and you for listening. We’ll talk to you next week. Have a great one, and as always, stay safe and stay spooky. Bye-bye.

 

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