Signs from passed loved ones plus some frightening encounters on this edition of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

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TRANSCRIPT

Spotify Announcer (00:00:02):

If you are fascinated by the darker sides of humanity, join us every week on our podcast Serial Killers, where we go deep into notorious true crime cases. With significant research and careful analysis, we examine the psyche of a killer, their motives and targets and law enforcement’s pursuit to stop their spree. Follow Serial Killers wherever you get your podcasts and get new episodes every Monday.

Jim Harold (00:00:34):

Unmistakable signs from loved ones on this edition of the Campfire.

Announcer (00:00:54):

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 (00:01:05):

Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold. So glad to be with you again, and you are in the correct place if you’re interested in real spooky stories told by everyday folks who have just encountered something amazing. It could be a ghost, it could be a cryptid creature, it could be a UFO, but whatever they are, these are amazing, true stories of encounters with this supernatural, and we’re so glad to have you with us today. And should I say, if you’ve listened to the show for a while and you say, Jim, I’d love to get access to your back catalog. Check out my Plus Club at JimHaroldplus.com, click on the banner for all the details with it. You get access to the, what is it now, almost 15 year backlog of Campfire stories. That’s literally thousands of stories. The Paranormal Podcast, going back to 2005, all of the archived shows for the Plus Club there.

(00:02:06):

And then you get exclusive content like Ghost Insight, UFO Encounters, the Cryptid Report, and much more. And our newest plus club addition: every couple of weeks we come out with a Campfire Hidden Gem, which is story we have unearthed that may be a little less played than our other stories story. We have not played on a best of show and those kinds of things that we think deserve some attention. That’s called Campfire Hidden Gems, and we just released one of those earlier this week. So check it out at JimHaroldplus.com. And if you listen on Apple Podcasts, you can join right from the Apple Podcast app. Just look up Jim Harold, and you can join my Spooky Studio channel right there. So check it out, Jim Harold plus.com, click on the banner, and again, Apple Podcast users. You can get it right from the Apple Podcasts app. And we thank our current members who make our shows possible. And now on to some spooky stories. Sarah’s on the line from Alabama. We’re so glad to have her with, she’s been listening since 2012, and she was just so kind, and we appreciate her being a longtime listener and supporter and spreading the words, and she has a great story for us today. Can’t wait to hear it from her. Sarah, please tell us what happened, and thanks for being a part of the Campfire for all these years.

Sarah (AL) (00:03:36):

Oh, thank you, Jim. It is such an honor to be on the show, and this is one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me. When I was a child, I was really close to my grandfather, whom I called my pawpaw, and my family moved across country and through a set of unfortunate circumstances, we lost touch with my grandparents. But fast forward many years later, and I’m an adult and I’m married and I have a baby, and this is where we pick up. So one morning my husband and I got up at 4:00 AM and had breakfast together like we do before he left for work. And at around six o’clock that morning, there was a knock at my front door. Now I opened the door, Jim there, stood my pawpaw. I was ecstatic to see him. He looked great. He was wearing his signature blue mechanic’s jumpsuit that I always remember him wearing.

(00:04:31):

And looking back, he looked like he was about 50 years old. He immediately gave me the biggest hug. He hugged me so tightly and I could even feel his stubble against my cheek. And he smelled of Old Spice, which of course was his signature fragrance. I was so thrilled to see him. I was beside myself. He put his hand on my shoulder, I remember, and he said, I have been looking everywhere for you. I couldn’t find you. And I said, Pawpaw, I have a baby. I want you to meet him. Let me go get him. And I remember he said, I know I’ve seen him. I’ve seen him. Don’t wake him up. I can’t stay long. I have to go. And it just didn’t register with me. He gave me another big hug and he said, I can’t stay long. I have to go. I’m so glad I found you and you are okay.

(00:05:32):

I love you. And then he opened the door and he stepped out onto the porch. And I stood there for a minute because I thought, well, I’m going to go get the baby and show him anywhere. I was so excited. But then it just hit me. I thought, wait a minute, something’s not right. And I took a few steps and opened the front door, and Jim, he was gone. I mean, seconds had passed. So he would’ve been on the steps or right in front of my house. He had simply vanished. When I went back inside, the whole house smelled like Old Spice. That’s when I started thinking, what just happened? How did he get to my house? There was no car in the driveway or on the street. And why did he look so young? Because it occurred to me he would’ve been in his late eighties at that point, I think 88. So what had happened, and later that day, I told my husband when he got home, I told him about my experience and he said, you know what? I think we should look for an obituary online. And I thought, oh man, that’s a good idea. So we started searching and I finally found my grandfather’s obituary. He had passed the day before he came to visit me.

Jim Harold (00:06:54):

Oh my Lord.

Sarah (AL) (00:06:56):

Isn’t that crazy? So that visitation was such a beautiful and loving experience, though. Every time I still think about it, it just gives me warm fuzzies. So it was definitely a wonderful experience.

Jim Harold (00:07:14):

That is amazing. That is an amazing, amazing experience. And yet there’s no other explanation. He visited you from beyond. There’s no other explanation You can —

Sarah (AL) (00:07:26):

There’s no other explanation. How did he find me? I don’t know. I was across the country.

Jim Harold (00:07:32):

The interesting

Sarah (AL) (00:07:33):

I’ve been looking for you. It was crazy.

Jim Harold (00:07:36):

Also, the interesting thing he said is that he had seen your baby. How did he see your baby?

Sarah (AL) (00:07:42):

Yeah! I thought about that later too. He said, I know. I know. I’ve seen him. And he said it with pride. I’ve seen him. He was very sweet about it. But yeah.

Jim Harold (00:07:56):

Well, I mean, that must really mean something, to have had that small but meaningful reunion with him.

Sarah (AL) (00:08:03):

It touched my heart so deeply. And I mean, like I said, it’s one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me, and it’s definitely a positive one.

Jim Harold (00:08:15):

Well, Sarah, I really appreciate it. Love the story. And thank you so much for being a part of the Campfire and sticking with us all these years, and I’m so glad you decided to share that story with us today.

Sarah (AL) (00:08:27):

Thank you so much, Jim. It has been an honor. And you stay spooky,

Jim Harold (00:08:31):

Stay spooky. Next up on the Campfire is Elizabeth from Minneapolis and she’s a great supporter, Plus Club member and so forth, and we appreciate that she’s going to take us back to when she was about nine years old. Elizabeth, welcome to the show and tell us this story if you would.

Elizabeth (MN) (00:08:51):

Oh, thanks so much, Jim, for having me.

(00:08:55):

So basically, I just want to just preemptively say that this home that this occurred in was my second home. The first home that we lived in was a block away from this house and my family at that point, or my parents’ family, us, we were four kids. And then when my mom got pregnant with number five, they decided to expand and they went to buy a bigger home. Well, oddly enough, the home they picked was one that all the kids referred to as the haunted house of the neighborhood, huge mansion with 25 rooms. It was at the end of a pie shaped block. So it had three lots, it was big, and it had this really kind of creepy hedge that went all the way around it. So we’d bike around the block and every time we had to bike around the house, we’d be like, oh, I’m going super fast, because it was always scary.

(00:09:46):

We’d bike by there and pass this horrible hedge that was partially growing and partially dying and all of that. So it looked pretty creepy. And then lo and behold, mom and dad are like, Hey, guess what? We’re moving into a new home. You want to come see it? And I was just like, no, not the big scary house. But nevertheless, we moved in and it was probably within about a year or so of being in there that I had my first experience. I was sitting, it was in the morning, it was around 7:15, 7:30, getting ready for school. And I was having breakfast by myself and it was dark. And I just remember thinking to myself like, oh, it’s really weird. I’m sitting here and it’s dark, but I’m not scared. Wonder why that is. Oh, it’s probably because it’s morning and nothing scary happens in the morning.

(00:10:35):

And I swear to God right behind me, I hear hi there. And it was all clear and there that I didn’t even, I just assumed it was one of my brothers. I mean, that is how clear it was. So I turned around thinking, what are you doing, Kyle? Or something like that. And nobody was there. And so I just crawled running up the stairs to find my dad up there getting dressed. My mom was getting ready for what she was going to do that day, and my brothers were no one. I was down there all by myself. So that freaked me out. And maybe a couple weeks later, and I’m adding a couple more things to the story from what I emailed you, I was sitting in the family room and we have French doors that open up to the living room and the living room, the lights were down, but you could still sort of see what was happening in that room, even from other ambient light.

(00:11:36):

And out of the corner of my eye, I was all home alone that night, and out of the corner of my eye, I see this shadow figure just walk through the living room. And I just sat there. I was like, I’m not doing anything about that. I didn’t know what that was about. I knew it wasn’t any of my family members, but so we didn’t know what was happening in the house during this period. And then my mom had this really frightening experience, and she went to bed one night. My dad was camping out in the backyard with my brother. And so she, for all she knew she was going to be sleeping alone in the bed that night. And after falling asleep, she started to hear someone walking through the master bedroom bathroom and then walked around the bed and she just assumed it was my dad. Maybe he just decided to come back in. Who knows why, maybe he missed her or something. And so he kind of crawled into the bed or this, she could feel this presence crawling into the bed. And then all of a sudden the mood changed and she heard this voice in her head and it said, I have power over you now. You can’t move.

Jim Harold (00:12:59):

Oh geez. Oh my gosh.

Elizabeth (MN) (00:13:02):

Yes. And she tried to move and she clearly was feeling sleep paralysis. And he said, if you, just to show you how much power I have over you, let me show you what I can do. And suddenly she experienced herself, whether it was an out body experience or her physical body, but she experienced herself floating up in the bed and floating out to the hallway.

Jim Harold (00:13:26):

Oh my God.

Elizabeth (MN) (00:13:28):

Yeah. And she said, as she described it, she said, I have to, she said that the feeling was of absolute pure evil, and she realized when this was happening that evil was real, and the power of it was strong, and she knew that. So basically this presence was offering her bodily bliss, in essence, if she were to accept him into her.

Jim Harold (00:14:01):

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Elizabeth (MN) (00:14:02):

Yeah. So I mean, we’re not a super religious family, but she just started praying to God and saying, I accept God. I accept Jesus. I choose Jesus. I choose God, I believe in God. And she just kept repeating, repeating that she really felt that her soul was up for debate amongst the powers of the universe. And slowly she started to feel herself go back into the bedroom. And then it’s like she kept praying towards God, and all of a sudden she said that she felt like she just got dropped back into bed. It was like flop. And then it had released her and she was able to light on. And so I had woken up that next day, and I found my mom crying to my dad about this dream, and I didn’t know what it was that was upsetting her so bad, but that’s how they described it. It was like, oh, your mom had a really bad dream. It wasn’t until I was older that she told me the whole story, but later there might be some explanation for this activity in the house. She was up on the third floor, and in one of these sort of walk-in closets that were up there, she found a pentagram that was drawn on the floor,

(00:15:22):

Called up all the brothers and said, who did this? And it was Kyle, my brother, and he had been kind of goofing around with one of his friends. They had gotten some magazines about the occult, and they were experimenting with some things. We wonder if they didn’t bring something into the house.

Jim Harold (00:15:44):

So this was in addition to any other haunting that may have existed previously or even if one did exist previously?

Elizabeth (MN) (00:15:54):

Yeah, I mean, I don’t really think there was anything going on. The only thing that happened later in the house was about 10 years later, and my boyfriend at the time was house sitting because we were all on this family vacation, and I was like 19. And I got pulled into it. I didn’t want to go, but I was like, okay. So he was house sitting and taking care of the pets and stuff, and he said that in the middle of the night he heard the piano playing and we have a very musical family, so it wouldn’t be unlike my grandpa to maybe come over and start playing the piano. So he went down, but it was in the morning, like two in the morning. So he goes downstairs and there’s no one there. As soon as he starts going down the stairs, the piano stops and he doesn’t find my grandpa, he doesn’t find anyone in the house. So he goes back upstairs, goes back to bed, and all of a sudden out of nowhere, he hears the piano go BAH BAH. And it was just like, okay, I’m not going down this time.

Jim Harold (00:16:56):

Interesting, interesting. Well, the thing I will say about your story is your mom talked about this. The idea was this entity was pure evil, and people discount that. And I think that there’s a middle ground. Not everything is a demon, but that doesn’t mean that evil isn’t real. You know what I’m saying?

Elizabeth (MN) (00:17:18):

Oh, sure. Absolutely. You look at the world events and there’s nothing great about some of those things.

Jim Harold (00:17:24):

For my show The Other Side, which you’re probably familiar with since I do that for my Plus Club, we talk to a lot of, I’ll say kind of new age metaphysical thinkers, which they’ve got a lot of great things to say, but some of them will say, well, Jim, evil is not real. It’s just a lower vibration. And I mean, that’s fine. That’s their opinion, that’s, they’re entitled to that. I don’t buy it. I think that evil is 100% real, and people can have frightening, terrifying experiences like your mom did.

Elizabeth (MN) (00:17:56):

And my mom did not feel she was kind of that thinking until this happened. And when this happened, she said, nope, evil exists. And that’s what I experienced.

Jim Harold (00:18:07):

Well, Elizabeth, thank you so much for sharing your story today on the Campfire.

Elizabeth (MN) (00:18:12):

Oh, thank you. Stay spooky.

Jim Harold (00:18:14):

Stay spooky. Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Liquid IV and I have one of Liquid IV’s biggest fans on with us today. Dar Harold. Hey, Dar Harold.

Dar Harold (00:18:26):

Hey, Jim. I am. I have to tell you, I am a huge fan of Liquid IV.

Jim Harold (00:18:31):

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Dar Harold (00:18:41):

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Jim Harold (00:18:42):

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Dar Harold (00:19:10):

Oh, there’s so many. Now they have those sugar-free ones that you just mentioned. So there’s three new flavors for sugar-free. You’ve got the lemon lime, you’ve got the white grape and you have the peach. I think the peach was kind of my favorite. You liked the lemon lime, right?

Jim Harold (00:19:26):

Yeah, yeah. I found it very refreshing. It’s just like, ah, delicious. Delicious.

Dar Harold (00:19:31):

Yeah. So those are really nice because they’re sugar free. So if you have to watch how much sugar you’re getting in during the day, that’s a great option. I’m a little more partial, even though I shouldn’t be, to the sugar ones. There’s so many flavors online.

Jim Harold (00:19:52):

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Dar Harold (00:20:12):

Well, I feel better. I mean, I don’t know if other people feel better, but I feel better because I definitely have a problem drinking enough water during the day and then that leaves me kind of sluggish and with a whole host of other symptoms. But if I make sure I take a Liquid IV, I feel so much more hydrated and I feel lots better, so.

Jim Harold (00:20:35):

Well, it’s a great thing whether you’re feeling run down after a long night out, on a long flight, maybe you worked out or you’re about ready to work out, one stick of Liquid IV plus 16 ounces of water hydrates better than water alone, and it has three times those electrolytes of a leading sports drink. That’s why we love Liquid IV, right Dar?

Dar Harold (00:20:56):

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Dar Harold (00:21:42):

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Jim Harold (00:21:58):

An excellent point, check it out. Liquid IV. And we thank Liquid IV for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Announcer (00:22:07):

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 (00:22:22):

Next up on the Campfire is Ellen all the way from Ireland. And one thing I love about doing this show is meeting people from all different walks of life. It’s like amazing. Some of the people we’ve gotten to talk to. And Ellen, this is a cool combination: she is both a bassist. I’m actually seeing her on video now, and she has these cool guitars behind her. She’s a bassist and she’s a comedian and an actor on the West End told her about the show, which blows my mind. And we’re so glad to have her on the show. She has a story about her grandmother. Ellen, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us today.

Ellen (IRE) (00:23:00):

Thanks for having me. I’m a huge fan. Been listening for years.

Jim Harold (00:23:02):

Well, thank you. Thank you. So tell us this story about your granny. I know that you have multiple stories, but I think this one’s your favorite.

Ellen (IRE) (00:23:11):

Yeah, so years ago when I was about eight years old, seven or eight years old, my granny, she was well into her eighties, and she was living alone in Dublin, and she was my father’s mother, and he didn’t want her living on her own. So he moved her down to Drogheda, where I’m from, which is on the east coast. And she had her, we kind of fixed up the house. So she had her own little granny flat. And the granny flat was just across from the kitchen. So if you’re in the kitchen, the door was open, you could see her own little living quarters there.

(00:23:45):

And when she moved in, my mom kind of took care of her. And every single night, my granny would call out to my mom to come up and give her medicine. And you’d wake up in the middle of the night here, Kathleen, my granny calling me mom. And then my mom would get up straight away, go down and start granny going back to bed. And sometimes during the week, well, a lot of times during the week, my granny would go off for the day, she’d go off on a senior citizens day out, probably just in the pub, to be honest with you.

Jim Harold (00:24:17):

Hey, go for it.

Ellen (IRE) (00:24:19):

Gone for the day. Yeah, different kind of medicine. So they were off, and I’d get up for school and I’d usually see that granny would probably be gone. Normally she’d be gone off on her day out before I’d go to school and her bed would just be a mess because she would’ve just got up and gone. And as time went on, she started spending more and more time in hospital, like a few stints, few days, and it became a few weeks, and then she’s home. And it was the same routine of seeing the bed in the mess in the morning and then seeing Granny when to go home from school, that kind of thing. But obviously when she was away, I wouldn’t hear granny at night. But then as time went on and she spent more and more time in the hospital, I wouldn’t see her for a while. And I remember one night in particular, I didn’t see her at all day, and that night I heard granny calling mom from downstairs and my mom didn’t get up, so I just laid there, started to get more and more annoyed. It woke me up and Granny just kept calling and calling for a good few minutes and nothing from mom. And I was like, well, I’m not getting up. I’m seven.

Jim Harold (00:25:22):

This isn’t my job. Not yet.

Ellen (IRE) (00:25:25):

Exactly. So after a while, granny just stopped and that was that. No more calling out. And I just went back to sleep. And then in the morning my mom was getting me ready for school, and I looked in to the room and her bed was made, hadn’t been slept in. And I was like, right, that’s a bit weird. And I said to mom, I was like, mom, how come you didn’t get up and give Granny her medicine last night? And she just kind of went really pale and didn’t say anything, just kind of looked at me and didn’t say anything. Just got me ready and hoofed me out to school. And that was that. And then when I got home, there was a priest leaving the house. He had just blessed a room because my granny actually died that night in hospital.

Jim Harold (00:26:08):

Oh man. Wow. Wow. That’s amazing. I mean, there is no other explanation. I mean, your grandma was communicating. Now, I don’t know the time of passing, whether it was at the end or it was shortly after. I don’t know that, but it’s obvious that her spirit somehow was communicating and that kind of thing is, I think they call that. I just interviewed a few months ago, Dr. Raymond Moody. He invented the term near death experience and in latest book, and I can’t recall the name of it, but you can look it up, it’s around. He talks about the shared death experience and kind of what you had almost was maybe the shared death at the time of death, maybe possibly. That’s something else. And I’m sure that as you went on in years, did it make you more interested in the paranormal and ghosts and all that stuff, trying to figure out answers?

Ellen (IRE) (00:27:09):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I always liked ghost stories. My dad and mom both told me loads of stories, and Mom actually had two near death experiences in her life and in Ireland, it’s just part

Jim Harold (00:27:21):

Of

Ellen (IRE) (00:27:22):

The nature folk floor and Ghost stories.

Jim Harold (00:27:25):

Well, I know you have more, I want to hear them, have you back on the show to tell the other stories, but I appreciate you taking time to be on the show and stay spooky and keep playing that bass.

Ellen (IRE) (00:27:38):

Thanks very much. Stay spooky.

Jim Harold (00:27:40):

Next up on the Campfire is Andrew, you’ll remember he was on a few weeks ago and told that remarkable story about seeing his grandfather materialize and then shortly finding out that his grandfather had passed about the same time. Amazing story. And he’s back again with a family story, this one from his dad. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us, and please tell us your story.

Andrew (CO) (00:28:06):

Thanks for having me again, Jim. No problem. So this one is actually my father’s story, and it’s a little bit dramatic. So the time was 1970, it was quite a while back, and my uncle had been on his third deployment in Vietnam at the time, and I was actually in my mother’s stomach, so my parents were quite young and just married. And my dad would have to get up very early in the morning to go to work. He’d usually be up shaving and getting ready around five 30 in the morning for the job that he had back then. So it was still dark out and my mom would still be in bed. And on this morning, my dad told me that he was shaving in the bathroom and all the lights were off and my mom was asleep, and obviously I was not born yet, but he said that he started to hear somebody breathing, kind of in pain or agony, and he thought maybe somebody had gotten into the house somehow or in the garage.

(00:29:10):

So he tried to follow the sound, and he said that as he walked around the house, he could tell it was coming from the garage. So he crept through and he opened the door and he said that it was definitely in the garage, and as he opened the door, he could hear it louder, and it was somebody breathing, like labored breathing, seeming they were injured. And he said he walked over to the car and he could hear it was behind where his car was parked, and he said as he rounded the corner of the car, it just stopped out of nowhere. The sound went away. There was no one there. And he said he did get the hair on the back of his neck, stood up. He didn’t know exactly what had happened. So he went to work that day and he came home and he found out, not that day, but I think it was the very next day that his brother had died on the field the day before. He had died in action, he was shot and killed.

Jim Harold (00:30:12):

Yeah, it’s one of those things where it’s very sad, but it seems like your family, with your experience and your dad’s experience, you guys are really tuned into each other when these kind of horrible things happen. You have a closeness that spans, in this case, thousands of miles. It seems like you both have that connection. Is that right?

Andrew (CO) (00:30:39):

Yeah, it’s definitely a familial bond. I even had another experience when I was younger with an uncle. It wasn’t as dramatic, but at the time of his passing, I actually saw his shadow a few times trying to get in the house. Wow. That was only five years old. Wow. That was another experience that I had. So I think it’s definitely pretty strong for sure.

Jim Harold (00:30:57):

I think it’s absolutely strong. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate it. Thank you for sharing these very personal stories. Again, we have that golden thread, we have that connection, and I believe it’s real. Some people are more tuned into others. Sounds like you and your dad are definitely in that category. Thanks again for sharing your story.

Andrew (CO) (00:31:18):

Alright, thanks Jim. I really love the show. Have a good one.

Jim Harold (00:31:21):

Savannah is on the line from Utah. She says she’s a relatively new listener, but we’re so glad to have her, and especially with a story like this one, she’s going to take us back to high school and something very strange that happened. I call this one a head scratcher. Savannah, welcome to the show and tell us what happened.

Savannah (UT) (00:31:39):

Alright, like you said, this happened when I was in high school. I just started my sign language class and I really liked the class. I wasn’t too good at it, but I enjoyed it. So one night I had this dream where I was in the mall and I was having a conversation with this man in sign language, and I was really good at it, and I was so shocked at my dream. I was like, wow, I’m really good at this. And I could understand everything he was signing to me. It was a great dream. So I woke up, just thought, wow, that was a very pleasant dream. And yeah, just kicked, just started. My day was a great day. I went to school and then I sat down for my first period class waiting for class to start. And my friend who sat in front of me turned around and she was like, Hey, Savannah, you were in my dream last night. And I like, I was, well, what was your dream? And she said, well, I was standing in the mall and I could see you from pretty far away and you were signing to this man and you were really good. You understood what he was signing to you. You were having a great conversation. And I was just dumbfounded because that is exactly what I dreamt.

Jim Harold (00:33:08):

Yeah, that’s amazing. I don’t know how to explain it. You must have had quite a connection with your friend I think, I’m guessing.

Savannah (UT) (00:33:16):

I think at the time, yeah.

Jim Harold (00:33:18):

Because I really believe, and I’ve talked about this on the shows before, I believe, and it’s Carl Jung and the collective unconscious and all of that stuff, but I kind of believe that whatever you call it, there’s this universal base of knowledge that we can all tap into. I think you see it with songwriters when they say, I wrote my hit song that I’m known for. I had a 40 year career. This is a song I know I wrote it in five minutes on the back of a sandwich bag. I don’t know where it came from. And I think in those cases, sometimes people are tapping into this. I think that Paul McCartney dreamed yesterday, which is probably of all the songs he had, it might be his top song of all time. And he just dreamed of it and dreamed of the melody and then later worked out the lyrics.

(00:34:11):

I think they started off with scrambled egg rather than yesterday. But anyhow, point being, I think there’s this knowledge that we can all tap into, and I also believe that there can be this knowledge that people tap into simultaneously and maybe that’s that’s exactly what was going on there. You know what I’m saying? Y Fascinating stuff. Absolutely. No more experiences like that though. Just that one, which is yeah. That’s amazing. Well, Savannah, thank you for sharing it. Did it kind of change your way of looking at things or coming from and how did you feel?

Savannah (UT) (00:34:59):

Oh my gosh. Well, I think it just blew my mind when she told me what she dreamt. And it has really changed my perspective on dreams, I think.

Jim Harold (00:35:15):

Well, it’s a great story short but sweet and a really great one. Savannah, thank you for being a part of the show and stay spooky.

Savannah (UT) (00:35:22):

Yeah, thank you. Stay spooky.

Jim Harold (00:35:25):

Shannon is on the line from Louisiana. She’s a relatively new listener, been listening for a few months, and we’re always glad to bring new people on board and that also means new stories. And Shannon has one for us today. This is kind of like the definition of a head scratcher. I’ve not heard one like this. Shannon, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened.

Shannon (LA) (00:35:51):

Thanks, Jim. So I was probably 12 or under when this happened. I checked with my sister. It was a shared experience with her and she believes that yes, we were in the, she was probably eight or nine or 10, and I was two years older than her. We were staying at my grandmother’s, which was a townhouse, not an old house, definitely not a haunted type place attached townhouse. And we were spending the night in, what was her office, in a sofa bed. We’d spent the night there before. On this particular night, we can’t remember because we’ve talked about it recently, if one of us woke up and woke up the other. But we both remember waking up and being afraid and not really sure what we were afraid of or why, just feeling like we’ve got to get out of this room. And it was a shared feeling.

(00:37:05):

So we both kind of get out opposite sides of this sofa bed and dart towards the door, and the door to the hallway would’ve been on the left side of the room if you’re in the bed. And directly across from the door was a window on the right side of the room. And we both get out of the bed to run to the door, to the hallway to get out of this room. And literally before you know what’s happening, as we would’ve been crossing the threshold, my sister was ahead of me; as she would’ve been crossing the threshold of the door into the hallway. She is suddenly hanging out the window, which was on the directly opposite wall, not closed, or it was closed when we went to bed, green window, everything. Somehow she is out the window and it is open with no screen.

Jim Harold (00:38:08):

Gosh. So what is she hanging on?

Shannon (LA) (00:38:10):

She’s hanging onto the sill. I’m grabbing onto her wrists and holding her. It happened in a split second, and so really bizarre about it. And we were little kids, so not like I have a ton of strength as a little kid, but she is hanging out. I somehow get her back in the window, took us a little bit of time. The fact that nobody heard anything too was really weird now that when we talk about it as adults, because nobody else woke up and pulled her in the window and as her feet hit the floor, we both sprinted full strength, full speed towards the door on the opposite side of the room. And this time we’re able to leave the room and enter the hallway where we just kind of out of breath, looked at each other and thought, what just happened?

Jim Harold (00:39:10):

Right. Wow.

Shannon (LA) (00:39:13):

We have since called it the night the room turned around or flipped around. I’ve told this story. I’m 53 now. So I’ve told this story for many, many years and have never gotten an explanation, have never heard anyone with a similar story. I don’t know what happened, but I know that the two of us shared this experience, and today when we tell it, it’s the same story. We both know that it happened to us that we weren’t dreaming, that it wasn’t some kind of shared psychosis as far as we know and believe this is what happened to us.

Jim Harold (00:39:57):

Wow. So no, I mean, because people will ask this question. There’s no thought that she just jumped out of the bed and ran the wrong way. No thought of that.

Shannon (LA) (00:40:07):

No, no, because I saw us both running toward the door. It was this bizarre thing where the door should have been suddenly we were at the window. There was no way that we could have confused door for window. It was a room that we had slept in before, so it wasn’t like it was a foreign space for us. And I know that the window had to have been closed when we went to sleep, and that’s the other part of it.

Jim Harold (00:40:41):

Yeah, I was going to say that.

Shannon (LA) (00:40:42):

That’s bizarre. And the window was not at floor level. It would’ve been at a normal window height, but somehow, and for her to have jumped over the window still and out versus she just ran out and suddenly was outside. It just

Jim Harold (00:41:04):

Very odd, very odd.

Shannon (LA) (00:41:07):

When you say, when headscratcher, this is what I think about with the story. It doesn’t make sense

Jim Harold (00:41:13):

Now. Have you ever thought, and again, I’m just throwing this out there, have you ever thought that maybe there was something evil there in that house, in that room that night? That’s what scared you guys, and then it intentionally kind of put her in that situation and out that window somehow.

Shannon (LA) (00:41:32):

Yeah. Since listening to the show and hearing some of the themes, that’s one of the things I’ve thought is that, was this some malevolent force that meant us harm? Was it a trickster type energy? And it feels like whatever woke both of us or one of us up to be afraid was already there. There was already a fear and a feeling that we had to get out and had to get out of that room. And I don’t know, I just talked to her yesterday to ask her some other questions, and we don’t know if we ever slept in the room again. We don’t know. We know that we didn’t return to it that night, but it wasn’t like a creepy, like I said, not a creepy house that had strange energy. Now there were antiques and things collected, so there could have been some energy attached to something in that space from that. But yeah, it did feel like it did feel negative.

Jim Harold (00:42:41):

Wow. Wow. Well, I am going to join the chorus. As I told you before we started, I don’t think that I’ve ever heard a story quite like this, and I have no explanation.

Shannon (LA) (00:42:56):

I was hoping you would, but with all your experience. But yeah, I don’t either. And it just remains weird mystery for the two of us.

Jim Harold (00:43:05):

The only thing I will say is I believe reality is far stranger than we know. And then it results in very bizarre things happening. Very strange head scratchers. Shannon, thank you for joining us today and thank you for being a part of the Campfire.

Shannon (LA) (00:43:23):

Thanks, Jim.

Jim Harold (00:43:24):

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Announcer (00:46:10):

Want the entire Campfire archive going back to 2009 plus much more? Get in on Jim’s plus club at jimharoldplus.com. Now back to another great story.

Jim Harold (00:46:20):

Diane is on the line from New Hampshire and she’s been listening about a year and we appreciate it very much. One note before we get started with Diane’s story, we do talk about the topic of miscarriage in this story, and I know that could be very sensitive for some people out there, so I wanted to let you know and just to be aware that that’s coming up. Diane, thanks again for joining us. I appreciate it. And please tell us your story.

Diane (NH) (00:46:48):

Thank you, Jim. I’m really excited to speak to you today. This story is one that is about love, loss and hope. It happened about 12 years ago, and it has to do with my husband’s grandmother. Her name was nana, and she was a really tough kind of no bones about her woman, oldest of seven children. She was widowed at a young age. She was in our mid thirties and left with two young boys, eight and 10 years old. She never remarried. She was a very gifted seamstress and made wedding gowns. She had her own home, her two sons through one is an attorney, one’s a pharmacist, did it all on her own. And she’s definitely just one of those people that doesn’t give compliments freely, says it like it is. And when my first child was about one, my husband and I moved a couple blocks away from her.

(00:47:51):

So I visited her a lot. I visited her three days a week and we talked about her life. We talked about raising my children. We became very, very close. We had a really meaningful relationship. And so I ended up having another child. So at this point, I had a 3-year-old, a 1-year-old, we’d be sitting talking and she’d look at me and she’d say, you’re a good mom. We don’t let anybody tell you any different. And when you’re a new mom, you question yourself. And as I said, she was someone who never, if she gave you a compliment, you took it for all it was worth because she wouldn’t say it. So it always meant a lot to me. And I know that she loved my children and I know that she loved me. So by this time, I had a 1-year-old. Now she was in her, I think she was 93 years old, and I found out that I was newly pregnant.

(00:48:55):

So I was super excited. It was something that my husband and I had planned, but very early on into the pregnancy, something was wrong, started to get very sharp pains, and I went to the hospital and I had to have emergency surgery. So I had an ectopic pregnancy, which is when the egg is in the fallopian tube. So I had to have surgery and obviously I lost the baby. And it was definitely the most difficult time of my life, just the loss, the grief that I was really beside myself. And she knew it. We had talked about it, but at the same time, she was starting to go down in regards to her own health. She had congestive heart failure. And it’s about, I would say a couple months after I had the miscarriage, the doctor said, Hey, you wait a couple months, but you can try again. And I was scared. I was scared to try again. I was ready. I was afraid of what could have happened. And I just found out that on that first try, I was able to conceive again. I had bloodwork and they said it was where it needs to be, you’re in good shape.

(00:50:27):

And within maybe a week or two, my husband and I received a call that Nana was in the hospital and it was time to say goodbye. So we went to the hospital and she was on events radar, no longer talking, eyes were closed. And I sat, I always get emotional during this part, I’m going to try not to. But I held her hands and I said, I need you to know that, that I’m pregnant again. And when I said that, her whole body arched, she took a deep breath. She went, you could see the heartbeat started to raise. So I knew, and it gave me a lot of comfort that I was able to tell her that before she passed. So obviously she passed away and a few days, maybe a week went by and I had a dream about her. And I have never in my life had a more vivid dream.

(00:51:33):

It was, I can’t explain it other than every detail is as clear as it happened to me yesterday. And the dream was that I was in my childhood home and I was running around, I was hysterical. And my mother was there and I was saying, where is he? You need to find him. You have to find him. You lost him. Where is he? And my mother was just like, I don’t know. I don’t know. And I was running around the house, and then I ran outside to where an area that my brother and I used to play when we were little. And as I walked around the corner, she was there and she was sitting on a rock, and she was surrounded by just this glowing light. Her whole body was surrounded.

Jim Harold (00:52:29):

And this was your husband’s grandmother, right?

Diane (NH) (00:52:32):

My husband’s grandmother. And she was sitting in her arms. She had a baby, and the baby was also growing, and it was a little boy, and he had curly blonde hair. And I ran to her and I said, I actually didn’t say anything at all. I just ran to her. She stood up and she handed him to me and she said, you didn’t think I’d let anything happen to him, did you?

Jim Harold (00:53:02):

Wow.

Diane (NH) (00:53:03):

And I’m sorry, that’s another part that gets me very emotional because I held him in my arms for a moment. And then I woke up, and when I woke up, I had this, I was overwhelmed with a peace and a sense of that. I actually thought that she was saying to me because I was so fearful that I was going to lose the baby again, that I was really private with. I thought that she was saying to me that, listen, it’s going to be okay. This baby’s healthy, the baby’s going to survive. But in the end, I had a girl. So I do believe that she was telling me that she was with the one that I lost and that he was okay.

Jim Harold (00:53:50):

And that comment, you didn’t think I would let anything happen to him. I mean, that’s really something else. That really is something else.

Diane (NH) (00:53:59):

And that was exactly how she was, was just so matter of fact and so to the point, and it was just so, it was exactly what she would’ve said to me. It wouldn’t have been emotional. It was like, Hey, he’s okay. I took care of him. I’m taking care of him.

Jim Harold (00:54:19):

And as difficult as that has to be, I have to believe that’s a great comfort knowing that one day you’ll be reunited him and your husband’s grandmother and yourself. I mean, that’s got to be a great comfort.

Diane (NH) (00:54:38):

It definitely gives me, I just feel like she was able to, from the other side, give me peace and I don’t think there could be a more special gift.

Jim Harold (00:54:52):

Wow. Diane, thank you for sharing this very, very personal story. So I mean, I’m assuming this is kind of, I don’t know what your outlook was before, but I’m sure that whatever your outlook is now, this has impacted it and informed it, right?

Diane (NH) (00:55:12):

It absolutely has. I mean, I’ll tell you, I’m not a religious person. I definitely feel, I’m definitely someone who believes that there’s a spirit. There’s more. There’s something else there. But it gives me, I dunno it comfort to know that I feel like there’s something on the other side

Jim Harold (00:55:34):

That’s fantastic

Diane (NH) (00:55:35):

And it’s a good thing. And I was thinking about it, and I actually was just looking at a card of hers on my fridge, and I realized that my first child’s birthday was the 13th. My second was the 23rd. My third child was born on the 23rd. The one that I lost was I lost on the 23rd. And her birthday is on the 23rd, not on the same month. But isn’t that interesting? It’s interesting. I just noticed that. And I said, I just felt like we were meant to know each other.

Jim Harold (00:56:13):

It sure sounds like it. Diane, thank you so much and for being a part of the Campfire tonight.

Diane (NH) (00:56:20):

Thank you so much for having me.

Jim Harold (00:56:22):

Next up on the Campfire, we have a return caller. Allison is on the line from Los Angeles and she’s going to tell us about a disembodied voice. Allison, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. Tell us what happened.

Allison (CA) (00:56:37):

Thank you. Well, it’s not just a disembodied voice, and it’s just the strangest night that I’ve had in this one house. So this happened probably about in 2015 at the house was myself, my husband at the time, my oldest son who was 11, and our 4-year-old twins, boy – girl twins. So this one particular night. Now I just want to note a little bit about my youngest son, Marston. Now, when he would go to bed, he always just wore a T-shirt, no pants. So just to set a little bit of a premise there. So this one night, it was probably about 10 o’clock at night. My kids were always asleep in their rooms. The twins bedroom was directly across from our bedroom, and we always slept with the doors open except for my oldest son. So I went into bed and I’m trying to go to sleep, and my dog, Callie, she likes to curl up on the foot of the bed with me, and I’m on the verge of falling asleep, and all a sudden I hear this angry woman’s voice, say, Malou So my dog just bolts it out of the room. I sit up and I’m like, what was that? I’m like, Malou, what’s that? But I did take note of what that is, and I’ll tell you the meaning of it after.

(00:58:25):

So I’m like, okay, interesting. So I laid back down, trying to go back to sleep, and it was just a really restless night. And about an hour or so later, my husband comes in to go to bed and I’m on the verge of falling asleep, but then I don’t know what it is about men that can just fall asleep within 30 seconds and he just starts snoring. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m never getting to sleep. So I’m just lying there. So my twins, they sleep in bunk beds and my son slept on the top bunk, and it was an old wooden bunk bed, and so it would creek at the slightest movements, especially with the ladder. So I’m just lying there and all of a sudden I hear Marston, my son coming down the ladder. So I hear the creakiness of the bunk bed ladder.

(00:59:28):

Their room is a complete mess. I can hear him trampling over toys to exit the room. And so I’m staring at the doorway and here comes Marston, and he is standing in front of our bedroom door, and right on the other side of the bedroom door is the entrance into the living area. So we had a light in the living room that we kept on all the time. So it illuminated pretty much everything. So I can see him standing in my doorway or in front of my doorway, but kind of peeking over kids do to how they stick their leg out and to offset their balances are peeking around corners and stuff like that. So he’s doing that and I’m like, Marston? I’m like Marston and trying to get his attention, and he’s completely ignoring me, just completely ignoring me. I’m like, Marston. And then this realization hit me that I’m like, why is he wearing sweatpants and no shirt? It’s like he went to bed wearing a shirt and no pants, but right now he’s wearing pants and no shirt. And I’m like, something just didn’t feel right.

Jim Harold (01:00:44):

Is it really Marston is the question.

Allison (CA) (01:00:47):

So I stopped calling out for him and he got a little bit weirder because he completely ignored me, and then he goes back into his room. So I’m listening and I’m like, I don’t hear any trampling over toys, and I’m waiting to hear the ladder for him to crawl up back in bed, and it never happens. So normally some people would get up and try to investigate. I’m like, nope.

Jim Harold (01:01:18):

I don’t want to know.

Allison (CA) (01:01:20):

I don’t want to know. Exactly. Exactly. So I, okay, so first there was malou. Now I see my son who I don’t think was my son, and I just lie there and I’m like, yeah, this is going to be a very interesting night. So I kind of was dozing in and out for the next couple hours, but my husband at the time snoring and I’m like, I’m never going to get to sleep. So I’m like, I’m just going to go sleep on the couch. I start work at 5:00 AM every morning in the living room where my office was. So I’m like, okay, it’s 3:00 AM I’m just going to go sleep the next couple hours on the sofa. So I grab my pillow, grab a blanket, I walk into the living room and I’m setting up my bed, and then all of a sudden I look over and there’s my daughter standing there, and she scared the living day lives out of me, but it was really her.

(01:02:19):

She always listens for me to get up to start working, and then she’ll sleep on the couch until I get all the kids up around seven o’clock or so. But it’s 3:00 AM So she heard me get up, so I’m like, oh my God. Okay, so I set up her little bed on the loveseat. So she went to bed right away. And then this is getting really weird. So I lay down on the couch and the moment my head hits the pillow, just this weight, this heavy, heavy, heavy weight came over me and it felt like I was just sinking into the couch, and as soon as I kind of want to label it sleep paralysis, but it really wasn’t because I could get myself out of it. But I’m like, okay, this is really interesting. So I sink into the couch and then the house just comes alive.

(01:03:22):

I mean, I can hear the vacuum running right next to me. I can hear people coming in and out of the house, the kids running around the dog’s, feet on the hardwood floor, people cooking in the kitchen. It’s as if the house were playing back, all the noises that it’s somehow recorded and it’s like, it was just some weird hypnotic trance type thing where it just came alive. And so I’m like, okay, this is weird. So I forced my eyes open and I’m just laying on the couch normally, and all the noises stopped. And then I closed my eyes again, and as soon as I closed my eyes, I sunk back into the couch and the house just comes alive again. And that went on for a good two hours. Two hours. So I’m like, alright. So probably about f4:30 or close to the time I start work, I am like, forget it. I’m not getting any sleep tonight. So I got up and I just logged into work early, and then my son Marston comes out a couple hours later wearing a T-shirt, no pants. And I’m like, Hey Marston, did you get up at all last night? And he goes, no.

Jim Harold (01:04:44):

Oh, man.

Allison (CA) (01:04:45):

I just left it at that. Yeah, there’s just a lot of, oh, so Malou. So I took note of what that was, and I looked it up. And Malou is actually short for Mary Lou, a name Mary Lou. And when I looked at the meaning of Mary Lou, it says Angry bitter woman.

Jim Harold (01:05:11):

Oh, I never knew that.

Allison (CA) (01:05:13):

Yeah.

Jim Harold (01:05:13):

Wow. Now, let me ask you this. What do you think was going on in that place?

Allison (CA) (01:05:19):

It’s always been haunted. I mean, I lived in that house for about seven years, and from the moment we moved in, there was always something, I’ve got so many stories from, I even learned a song from a ghost in that house.

Jim Harold (01:05:38):

Wow. You’ll have to call back and tell us that one.

Savannah (UT) (01:05:41):

Yes, for sure.

Jim Harold (01:05:41):

 Well, Allison, thank you so much. That is very odd. And we have heard of these weird doppelgangers that turn out to pose as family members and that kind of thing, and it turns out that it wasn’t them, it was something else. So thanks for sharing your story.

Allison (CA) (01:05:58):

Of course. Thank you for having me back.

Jim Harold (01:06:00):

Stay spooky. Jim Harold’s Campfire is sponsored by BetterHelp. Time. It’s the one thing, no matter how much money you have, you can’t buy. You only have so much time. I think it’s important to figure out in our lives what is important. I mean, what’s the first thing you’d do if you had an extra hour in your day? Would you go for a run, take a nap, read a book, show up for a friend? A lot of us spend our lives wishing we had more time. And the question is time for what? If time was unlimited, how would you use it? Well, the best way to squeeze that special thing into your schedule is to know what’s important to you and make that a priority. And therapy can help you find what matters to you, so you can do more of it. Therapy is something that has a lot of benefits.

(01:06:56):

Whether you’ve done therapy or not, you may not be aware. For example, it can help you learn positive coping skills. It can help you figure out those priorities, can help you set boundaries. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself. And it isn’t just for those who have experienced major trauma. And if you’re thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It’s entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. And I think that is such a great feature because different people mesh and it’s important to find the right therapist and better help makes that very easy. Learn to make time for what makes you happy. With BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/jimharold today to get 10% off your first month. That’s betterhelp H E L P dot com slash jimharold. And we thank BetterHelp for their sponsorship of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Announcer (01:08:05):

You are listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Jim Harold (01:08:07):

Amie is on the line from Connecticut, a long time listener, and we certainly appreciate it. And she’s going to tell us about some scary workplaces. I love workplace stories. Amie welcome to the show and please tell us what happened.

Amie (CT) (01:08:20):

Thank you, Jim. I’m so excited to be here. So the very first story happened, oh gosh, I think it was mid two thousands, so it’s been quite a while. It’s been almost like 20 years. And it happened. I was working in a group home. It’s a home where individuals that have developmental delays, actually they reside and I would take care of them. And I was working the overnight shift of course. And in the group home we had a staff bathroom and a client bathroom. The staff bathroom was past all the client’s rooms, but I could still kind of hear something happened. And so I am in the bathroom and I don’t know, I’d been there for maybe a minute or two, and I heard this whisper, it was like a group of people talking, but at a whisper. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I definitely heard them.

(01:09:21):

I knew that there was voices. And at first it didn’t really bother me because one of the clients whose room was actually closest to the bathroom always slept with their radio on. So I was like, oh, okay, it’s fine. It’s just like an advertisement or something like that. And so for some reason, I wanted, I kind of was trying to change the frequency so I could understand what these people were saying. It’s almost like I clicked out of a frequency, and when I clicked out of that frequency, I could actually tune into what the radio was playing. And it was in the middle of a song was, I think it’s Deep Purple. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s Steppenwolf? Who does Smoke on the Water? It’s right in the middle of that song?

Jim Harold (01:10:08):

. Yeah, I think that’s Deep Purple.

Amie (CT) (01:10:10):

Deep Purple. Okay. Wasn’t 100% sure. And after that I was like, wait a minute. There’s no way the thing that’s happening, the talking that I’m hearing, it’s still happening, how could that come from a radio? So at that point, I kind of clicked back into the frequency, and that’s the only way I can explain it. It was the most bizarre thing. And when I clicked back, the voices were still talking and, or whispering. And I definitely finished up as soon as I possibly could and ran out of the bathroom. I stayed away from that side of the house for the remainder of my shift, even the duration that I worked at that particular group home, I actually did not go to the bathroom after dark at all. Ever.

Jim Harold (01:11:06):

Can’t blame you.

Amie (CT) (01:11:08):

Yeah.

Jim Harold (01:11:08):

Can’t blame you. It’s one of those things that, something about the nighttime. I’ve had discussions with Loyd Auerbach, the great parapsychologists about this, and he says, we have this feeling that ghosts only happened at nighttime, but it’s not true at all. But if something about the night, there’s something about the solitude of the night, particularly, I would assume in a place like this, everybody’s asleep. It’s probably much quieter than usual. Just that solitude makes you ripe for being freaked out.

Amie (CT) (01:11:44):

Right. Well, and also this place, I think it was actually October, which I feel like the veil always gets a little bit thinner during that time of year. And where the group home was, it was in Hagerstown, Maryland, which I don’t know if you know geographically it’s closer to civil war sites. So it’s close to Antietum. It’s close to Sharpsburg. So I don’t know if that has anything to play into what happened to me in this particular group home. But I also know that I was not the only one that had experienced something else.

Jim Harold (01:12:17):

What do you think those voices were?

Amie (CT) (01:12:19):

I honestly don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know if it was just for them to tell me that they’re here. I mean, after that, I definitely started because we had an attic too. And so I also became more in tune to going up there and when it felt right or not felt right, because I definitely knew something was there. I just didn’t know what.

Jim Harold (01:12:47):

And I would think that any place like a hospital, any kind of healthcare facility, something like a group home, whatever it might be, there’s a lot of energy there. And I would think that, and again, this is just my impressions from doing these shows for almost 20 years. I don’t claim to be any expert on these things. It’s just speculation. But there seems to be a highly charged energy in those kind of places, which lends itself to hauntings or kind of auditory things or visual situations. So it seem like it would be a good environment for that sort of thing.

Amie (CT) (01:13:21):

And also, this particular house was older. I finally got to go into the basement two months after that, this incident had happened, and it was a dirt floor basement, which I had never seen. And it actually had a stream that was running through it. Because there was a little ravine where you could collect water. And one of my friends, I was like, oh my gosh, I saw this bizarre thing. And she’s like, yeah, actually, when people wanted to grow watermelons, that’s how they did it. I was like, what?

Jim Harold (01:13:47):

Huh?

Amie (CT) (01:13:49):

Yeah, it was very odd.

Jim Harold (01:13:50):

I grew up in a very old house that had a dirt floor basement. And the funny thing was is when I went to my friend’s house that had real basements, I’m like, man, you’ve got a real floor. Luckily, now I have a basement with a real floor. But anyway, you have a second story for us about taking some pictures, right?

Amie (CT) (01:14:15):

Oh, yeah. So this is actually one of the most scariest experiences that I’ve had so far. This actually did happen during the day. And I think I want to preface this a little bit by saying, I actually became sober over 11 years ago. And I feel like having that mentality and kind of opening up myself up, I realized I was empathic. I kind of have this energy I feel like that I give off. And so things like to seek me out sometimes. And I think that maybe this was the case. So it was like a Saturday morning, I worked at a place we each had to work one Saturday every month. It was a new office. Everybody was like, oh, it’s gorgeous. You love this office. I was a phlebotomist at the time. I don’t know if you know what that is. We draw blood for doctors.

(01:15:08):

And so I was just hanging around. I was talking to my friends on the phone. It was just so dead. And one of ’em was like, well, I’m never going to see this new office. Everybody says it’s awesome. Go around and start taking pictures for me. And I was like, oh, awesome. Yeah, I’ll do that. And I was taking pictures all over, and there was one room in particular. It was in the back of the house towards the left hand side. It was considered the break area. It had the mini fridge and a microwave and all that kind of stuff. And didn’t matter how many pictures that I took, Jim, I even tried with flash and without, it would always come out this dark, just a dark picture. And I was like, well, that’s very odd. And so I sent off the picture and whatever, and I would say maybe it was like 20 minutes later, I started smelling garbage, like really hot almost garbage.

(01:16:06):

How you could, it’s just that pungent smell. And it was little whiffs here and there. So when you’re outside and there’s a full, I don’t know, garbage can, and it’s been warm, and you could definitely smell. It’s very pungent with that. It was just little wisps here and there of that smell, which was very odd to me. And so I was like, wow. And I actually was crawling on my hands and knees going to every vent and everything. And I talked to one of my other friends who herself also kind of had a spiritual awakening, and she’s like, you need to start taking pictures right now. I was like, what? She’s like, yeah, you need to start taking pictures right now. So I did. One of the pictures that I took, I took two in a row, and one was a regular picture, and the other one had kind of this darkness on it. I did, it looked similar to the pictures I had taken previously of that back part of the office. So I mean, it was interesting. But anyway, I went through, I’m kind of freaking out a little bit. I’m like, okay, that’s fine. Whatever. Finished out my shift without anything severely happening. But one of my friends, the other, because I had two friends, one of the other friends I had taken pictures for was like, Ooh, it’s a ghostie. And she was saying this stuff out loud, and I was like, shut up, Jackie.

(01:17:39):

You’re going to get me in trouble. And that proceeded after I left. It was horrible. I started feeling like my body wasn’t mine. I started feeling like my thoughts weren’t exactly mine. I felt there was an internal struggle between me and something else. I was having a lot of negative thoughts, thoughts of hurting people, thoughts of it was, and this went on for hours. And finally I asked my best friend who had the spiritual awakening, I was like, what am I supposed to do? I don’t know what to do. There’s something wrong with me. And she’s like, get sage. So I ended up finding sage. I staged myself all over. I staged my car all over, and finally I was able to get home. And as I’m exiting my car about to enter my home, I get that whiff of garbage, just one little whiff. And then I go in my house and I’m back to normal when I do watch some paranormal shows and everything. And what I had experienced, people call it being jumped. I don’t know it was as severe, but I definitely think something was with me for quite some time.

Jim Harold (01:19:00):

So you think something kind of spiritually latched onto you?

Amie (CT) (01:19:03):

Yeah. Yep, definitely.

Jim Harold (01:19:05):

But okay since then, everything’s okay since then?

Amie (CT) (01:19:08):

Yeah. I mean, I actually went home and I actually took a nap right after that. I was just spent, and my dreams were normal. I didn’t have anything, and I really didn’t have anything else happen to me after that. But I did say I would never enter that office ever again.

Jim Harold (01:19:26):

Well, Amie, I’m glad everything is okay now, and I thank you for sharing these workplace stories on the Campfire.

Amie (CT) (01:19:33):

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Jim

Jim Harold (01:19:35):

Cyn is on the line from California, and we very much appreciate her coming on the show. She found us on YouTube and check out our YouTube channel and maybe soon to be channels. Right now, it’s youtube.com/ Jim Harold, and stay tuned for maybe other opportunities and updates on YouTube like Cyn did. And she’s going to tell us about the enchanted forest. Syn, welcome to the program. Thank you. And tell us what happened.

Cyn (CA) (01:20:08):

Hi, Jim. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, so I’m going to tell you about the Enchanted Forest. It’s in Pasadena, California. It’s also known as the Cobb Estate. So this happened about 14 to 15 years ago. So it’s been a long time, but I don’t know . What happened is just singed in my memory. So I’m just going to go ahead and tell it. Me and my husband and our friends, we went to this place called the Enchanted Forest, and we had gone multiple times at night before, and we’ve explored it. We just hung out there. It’s just this place you go and you just hang out. It’s outdoors. And so just to give you a feel of what it looks like or what it looked like at the time, it starts at a foothill and there’s this big locked rickety gate, but there’s an opening on the side, and you can just walk right in.

(01:21:17):

And this place is only illuminated by the moonlight. And once you’re in there, there’s a paved road that you walk up and it’s full of cracks and potholes. And to the left, there’s a small meadow with tall grass. And once you go in, you walk about 500 feet. And then you get to this fork in the road, and you can either continue on the paved road or you can take the dirt trail, and eventually this meets back up. So for us, we went in, once we hit the fork in the road, we decided to continue on that broken paved path. And it was me, my husband, and our two friends. So we were just talking about, I don’t even remember what we were talking about, but we were talking, we were laughing, we were having a good time, and we were walking up the paved path.

(01:22:24):

And all of a sudden, me and my husband, we just stop walking and we go quiet. There’s just complete silence. Our friends behind us stopped. My heart started beating so fast where I could feel it thumping in my chest. I could feel my blood pumping through my body. And Jim, it just seemed like everything just flowed down. And I was so frightened because what I saw in front of me was this huge blacker than night. It was a blacker than the night wolf creature, and it had glowing red eyes, and it was in a pounce position. Now, this creature, it was just there in front of us, snarling at us. But the weird thing was that there was no sound coming from it. So you just saw the ripples and the snout, or I don’t know if it’s called the, and the muzzle, the ripples and the muzzle and the teeth and the glowing right eyes. And it looked like it was ready to attack us.

Jim Harold (01:23:38):

Huh? That’s going to be terrifying.

Cyn (CA) (01:23:41):

It was so terrifying. So I was frozen in fear, and I don’t even know how, it was probably seconds. But the next thing that I know, my husband at this point, we haven’t exchanged any words. It was just complete silence. We stopped. We see this creature, or I see this creature, and we’re both just stopped frozen. And then what snaps me out is my husband, he said, babe, run. Nothing else. Just babe run. And Jim, we ran down so fast it felt like we were flying. That is how fast we were running. I was running for my life because I thought I didn’t know what this thing was going to do to us. And then we ran down so fast, we got in the car and we took off. Later we were talking about it, and my husband said the same thing, that he saw this wolf like creature. And he said that it almost looked mythical. It was so huge. This thing was massive. And with the glowing red eyes. And then as we’re leaving past the gates in our car, my husband saw two men. He said that he saw two men in trench coats with their arms crossed just standing at the gate as we drove off. And I used to go there a lot before, but after that happened, I never went back. And I will never go back.

Jim Harold (01:25:12):

I don’t blame you. So do you think it was simply just a normal wolf, or do you think it was something else?

Cyn (CA) (01:25:19):

Well, wolves are not native to where we saw that. I mean, I’ve never, ever heard of anyone see a wolf. We’ve seen coyotes, but there are no wolves in Pasadena. There’s no wolves in the surrounding areas. We don’t live in a place where you would see any wolves.

Jim Harold (01:25:42):

Right?

Savannah (UT) (01:25:43):

So I don’t think it was a wolf. I don’t know. And the weird thing was that it wasn’t even making any sounds. If it was a, I would think that I would hear it growling at us, maybe chasing us. I don’t know. But I believe that that was not a real animal,

Jim Harold (01:26:09):

Right, right. Man, that’s frightening. And you think you’re going to go into this area and it’s peaceful or whatever, and then boom, you’re confronted with this creature. And we’ve had stories like that before. I’m just working on my book six, and I don’t want to give too much away, but there’s one story in there where a young man is going camping, and him and a friend run into something. And I was just working on that story the other day, and it just reminded me a lot of that story. It’s like, you never know what you’re going to find in the woods. And I believe people say, ah, Bigfoot or whatever, it’s a joke. I don’t think so. I think that these strange cryptid creatures do exist. And I think they show themselves from time to time. Did you think, but in this case, you don’t think it was flesh and blood necessarily? It had some supernatural component to it.

Cyn (CA) (01:27:08):

You know what, Jim? I felt like it was something, I felt like it was something evil. And then the weird thing was months later, I was watching TV because I like to watch paranormal stuff. And then they were talking about the Devil’s Hounds, and it’s a black dog, but this one was a wolf, but it was this black dog creature. And they say that when you see it, that you’re close to death. So that’s what I saw. And then that’s what they were talking about on the TV program. And so then that just boom, brought me right back to that time and place. It brought back that memory. And then what’s funny, Jim, is that my mom, she had this coloring, these markers that were made. They were animal markers that she bought for my little sister. And so I happened to turn and one of the markers with a black dog with red eyes. So I just grabbed it and I threw it away. And I was like, oh my gosh. I don’t know if this is telling me something. I don’t know what’s going on, but it even scares me. I feel scared right now talking about it. I still feel,

Jim Harold (01:28:20):

Yeah, makes sense.

Cyn (CA) (01:28:23):

It is so creepy. And I’ve never seen anything else like that before. And I’ve seen wolves in person in real life, and that thing was just too huge. It was just too huge. There’s no way.

Jim Harold (01:28:38):

Well, I’ll tell you, it is a frightening story. Indeed. Cyn. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for your kind words and support, and I’m so glad you found the program.

Cyn (CA) (01:28:50):

Thank you.

Jim Harold (01:28:51):

Stay spooky. You might remember a while back, candy was on talking about a ghost train, and she has yet another kind of ghost, something kind of unusual, and looking forward to hearing about that Candi. Welcome back to the show. Thank you for joining us. And please tell us what happened.

Candi (TX) (01:29:09):

Hello. Hello. Hello. So this one, you should probably know something about us other than living in the rv, full-time. My mom and I are both big time road warriors. We love taking road trips. And this particular one was on our way back. We had gone to Florida. We were actually scoping out to move there, and we did end up moving there. And we were on our way back from Florida deciding yes, we were going to move to Florida. We were happy. We went to go back to get the rest of the family. So we had just gone to a truck stop and picked up some coffee and some snacks, and we were both wide awake, but it was the middle of the night.

(01:29:46):

It was the witching hour, right around midnight, and we had stopped and gotten some rest. And we’re back on the road. And I’m on the on-ramp, and this is a really short one, but as soon as I’m pulling back on the on-ramp, I see my rear view mirror. There is an 18 wheeler coming, but that’s about it. There’s no other cars on the road. So he finally makes it and passes us. And then I’m getting ready to shift into that lane when I just had this feeling like, you need to look out your window. And I look to the left, and there’s no way that this car could have been where he was because he would’ve had to have been riding inside of the 18 wheeler to be where he was in order to have been there in that timeframe. So I get the feeling, I look to my left, and there’s this car.

(01:30:31):

I can’t describe what the car looked like or what it was, but there was a little old man sitting in the car, not looking at the road. He was looking directly at me. He was just waiting for me to turn my head, and I turned my head, and I didn’t have a bad feeling or anything. He was very, very, I actually had a really good feeling like, oh, how sweet. And I look, and he raises his hand. He was wearing a fedora, and he smiles really big and waves at me, and I think, this is not real. And I turn around to look back at the road because I mean, I’m driving and I look back over there and he’s gone. There’s no car behind me. There’s, he’s gone. And I kind of looked over at my mom and she was looking right at me, and I said, did you see that? She said, yeah, I saw it. I said, did you see where he went? She said, Nope.

Jim Harold (01:31:26):

Just disappeared.

Candi (TX) (01:31:27):

That runs. Yeah, it runs in our family. We have all, I mean, generationally have all experienced paranormal things. We have very strong psychic type dreams about each other on a regular basis. So it’s very family oriented with us. But yeah, we weren’t even shocked at that point. I just wanted to make sure someone else had seen what I had seen.

Jim Harold (01:31:49):

Well, it’s one of those things where we’ve had a lot of ghost driver stories and a few of them recently, and that’s one of the most frightening things, particularly if it’s like a two lane road or it’s nighttime. And we had one recently where I probably heard it, the couple was being chased by a ghost trucker, and he was right on their tail.

Candi (TX) (01:32:11):

That was creepy.

Jim Harold (01:32:12):

And then just disappears. Yeah, I think we have a classic one from the UK where this very odd person drove up next to this woman and her father, and the car was kind glowing green. Do you remember this story?

Candi (TX) (01:32:31):

Was there a redheaded person driving?

Jim Harold (01:32:33):

Yes. The redheaded woman was in it, and she was kind of looking at her kind of weirdly, and then went on about its way, and they talked about a little bit and said, do you know that person? No, I don’t know that person. And then they went on to have had to stop. They stopped because of the person, because they thought maybe something, they had a trailer. I think they were on their expressway, their motorway, as they call it. We call a freeway.

(01:33:00):

The Dad got out, The dad went out to check it because of this woman, and then he ended up getting killed by a truck.

Candi (TX) (01:33:07):

I remember. Yes, yes.

(01:33:10):

(overlapping speech)

(01:33:13):

That reminds me, like I said, this is a family thing with us. My mom, when I was a very little girl, she had a business trip to go on. She was driving. We were in California. The area she was supposed to go to got hit with a blizzard. And while she was headed that way, my stepdad was with her. She says, these two white cars drove on either side of her and they flew. She was in the middle lane, and these two cars flew past her, and she heard my grandfather’s voice, who had recently passed away, said to her, they are driving to their death, and so are you. Get off the road. And yeah, she got off that road. Yeah. Yes. And sure enough, my grandmother by that evening was hysterical because there was a whiteout blizzard that hit that year, and there was a pile up and yeah, this is before cell phones and everything. So my grandmother was completely beside herself until my mom called and said, no, we weren’t anywhere near it. We got off the road before that.

Jim Harold (01:34:13):

That statement there, driving to the death, their death, and so are you. That gave me chills.

Candi (TX) (01:34:19):

Yeah, it still gives me chills.

Jim Harold (01:34:20):

So gives, that wasn’t even your story. That was like a bonus story. You snuck in there, candy and just kind kind of blindsided me in a good way. I mean, obviously we don’t want to see anybody killed, but that’s just a chilling, chilling story. That’s just a

(01:34:33):

Chilling, chilling story. Thank goodness your mom was okay. Well, Candi, thank you so much and it sounds like you’re the kind of person who I might have a story or more to tell, and I hope that you’ll sign up to tell them in the future.

Candi (TX) (01:34:46):

I will. Thank you very much.

Jim Harold (01:34:48):

Thanks so much for tuning into the Campfire. I certainly appreciate it, and I hope that you will share the show with a friend. That’s the number one thing that we could ask you to do right from the app you’re listening at now, when it’s safe to do so, if you’re not driving or jogging or something, hit the share button and share the show directly with a friend. That’s easiest way to do it, so they can just tune right in. We appreciate it very much. Also, if you want our gear and we have some great new designs of T-shirts and hoodies and so forth, go over to Jim Harold dot com slash merch. That’s Jim Harold dot com slash merch and click on the Etsy button. That’s where all our designs are, and check it out. There’s some awesome ones that we’ve gotten some really neat pictures from listeners who are sporting their shirts, and we had John who took a picture with his Kiss Me I’m Spooky shirt. I think him and his significant other, and they were with the Easter Bunny, which I thought was really cool. So thank you, John for doing that, and we appreciate it very much. We’ll talk to you next time. Have a great week, everybody. Stay safe and stay spooky. Bye-Bye.

Announcer (01:36:05):

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.

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