A LOT of haunted houses in this all-new edition of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jim (00:00:00):

Multiple haunted houses, a tarot reader predicts a major world event and much more on this edition of the Campfire.

Announcer (00:00:23):

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 (00:00:35):

Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold, and so glad to be with you once again and happy New Year everybody. If you hear just a little frog in my voice, I’m just recovering from an illness that struck us over the holiday season, but everybody is doing well and on the mend, and I hope that you are having a great new 2024. Quick note, many of you have been asking, Jim, when will I be able to submit my Campfire story? Well, good news submissions are now open at jimharold.com/Campfire. That’s jimharold.com/Campfire. So I hope you’ll go over there and submit your story. And we also have added some evening hours back in. I know it was difficult for people to necessarily always record during the day, so we have both morning hours and we have some select evening hours as well. Hope that makes it more convenient for you.

Check that out at jimharold.com/Campfire, and I’d love to hear your story. Now, before we get to the stories, my quick New Year’s resolution for 2024, every show, I’m going to ask you to hit that share button and share the show with a friend, and you can easily do that from your podcast app if that’s the way you listen, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, whatever it might be, YouTube, just hit share and share that show directly with a friend that would help us so much. And now let’s get to those great Campfire stories. 

Oh we have a return. Caller Manuel is back on the line from Los Angeles. You can remember a while back, he had that incredible story about that driving demon that he encountered on a two-lane rural road late at night. And today he’s going to talk about something that happened to him a little bit closer to home. Manuel, thank you so much. That was such a great story last time. You’ve got your work cut out for you to match that one, but tell us about what happened in your apartment.

Manuel (CA) (00:02:36):

Hi, Jim. Thank you for having me back. Yes. So what happened one day at the time, I had a girlfriend at the time, it actually, it was the girlfriend that was the wife from the other story.

Jim (00:02:49):

Okay,

Manuel (CA) (00:02:49):

Yeah. So this time we were just dating and we had this little apartment, and one night her, myself and her son and my daughter, we were at the table. We were playing the board game and we’re all playing the board game. And then all of a sudden she feels a tug on her sweater when she’s sitting down and she quickly turns around and was like, something just tugged me. So we didn’t think anything of it. We didn’t think anything. We went back and we were playing. Well, fast forward about two weeks after that little incident and we’re asleep in bed, and I remember this, it was about two in the morning, because we had the alarm clock right on the nightstand, and it was the red alarm clock with the red number. So I looked at it when we were woken up. Well, I was asleep, and she sprung out of bed, sat up in bed, and that woke me up. She didn’t know that I was awake, but I was watching everything. She sprung out of bed and went to the bedroom door and at the bedroom door, mind you, I’m trying to paint a picture. So there was a hallway that ran across the bedroom door. If you’re standing in front of the bedroom door, the bathroom is to the right, and the living bathroom was to the left. Sorry about that. The living room was to the right.

Her son slept in, he wanted to sleep out in the living room that day, and we had a little night light that was on for him. So there was the night light. You could see the light shining through the hallway and into the bedroom a little bit. It was just right around the corner. And so I’m sitting up, I’m holding myself up by my elbows watching all this, and as my girlfriend at the time steps into the threshold of the hallway, the minute she puts her foot in the hallway, the lights turn off, boom. And I see the light, and I see her freeze. And then all of a sudden I just see her dart into the living room. And then I see her turn on. I can see that she turned on the nightlight because now the light is shining down the hallway again. And I guess she went and checked on her son, and I’m still up watching all this.

And then I see her walk past the bedroom door and go into the bathroom and she turns on the light to the bathroom, and now the light from the bathroom is shining into the bedroom and down the hallway. And I figured, okay, well that was odd. Why did the light just turn off like that? Well, as the light is shining down the hallway from the bathroom, our doors open. I’m still holding myself up, and then all of a sudden I see this little boy kind of jumping and running after her past the bedroom door, and I remember it so well, Jim, that I remember the kid had this boy, this little shadow of a boy had long hair and his hair was bouncing when he was running. And her son had short hair, very, very short hair.

And then I didn’t think anything, but she came back to bed. And then fast forward about a week later, I said, Hey, I wanted to ask you something. Do you remember the other night? And before I even finished my sentence she’s like, oh my God, did you see that? What happened? And I said, yes, I did. And she said, I don’t know what happened, but the minute I stepped into the hallway, the lights turned off, but I had to go check on my son. So I just went over there and checked on him and everything else. I was like, well, did he get up and go to the bathroom with you or follow you to the bathroom? And she’s like, no, why? And I was like, because there was this little boy that I saw pass the door and follow you into the bathroom. And our mouths were just wide open. It was just unexplainable. And to see this little boy that was, and I believe it was a little boy that also tugged at her while we were playing the board game.

Jim (00:06:58):

And I always ask this, I know it’s particularly difficult when you rent somewhere because the connection sometimes can be very tenuous, and the landlords are really only worried about getting their rent. They’re not really worried about a big metaphysical conversation. Did you know anything about the history of the place that would’ve led you to believe that there was a ghost boy living there?

Manuel (CA) (00:07:19):

So later on, years later, I went back to the office, to the rental office. I knew the lady there. They knew us. And I tried asking some questions, have you guys ever heard anything about the apartment we were in and everything? And they said, no, we’ve never heard anything like that. But the thing that really, that I tangle with is that this little boy was very interactive. He was tugging at my girlfriend’s sweater or shirt and then pursuing her. And he was very aware of himself and aware of who she was. So that really threw me off. And yeah, when you see entities that actually interact with you or that communicate, and this apartment was very, you never wanted to be the last one out to turn the light off, and you never wanted to be the first one in to turn the light on. When we would get home, when we’d come home to the apartment, we never liked to be in there when it was dark or it had this very dark, heavy feeling about it.

Jim (00:08:31):

Interesting. Interesting. Great stories. Manuel, you always deliver the goods. I know you said that you’ve had many things happen over the years, so I hope you call back again. Thank you for being a part of the Campfire and stay spooky.

Manuel (CA) (00:08:44):

Thank you, Jim. Stay spooky.

Jim (00:08:46):

Joanna is on the line from Virginia. Might remember a few weeks back, she was on telling that very heartwarming story about how her dog came to her at a time of illness and helped comfort her. And now she has a story about a very interesting tarot reading. Joanna, welcome back to the show. Please tell us what happened.

Joanna (VA) (00:09:07):

Thanks, Jim. This is back in January of 2020. Before Covid, right before Covid and I went to a holistic conference. Basically they had crystals and people doing reiki sessions and tarot readings and such. So long story short, I went and got a tarot reading because I wanted to get another dog, but I didn’t know if I should because I was working full time and I was worried about the dog being home by himself all day. So I got the tarot card reading and the reader basically said, it’s fine for you to get a dog. There’s not going to be any problem. And I said, well, I worry because they’re going to be home all day and I’ll be at work all day. So they said, I don’t know what is going to happen. I don’t know if you’re going to get a new job or something’s going to happen where you’re going to be able to work from home.

Jim (00:10:15):

Interesting.

Joanna (VA) (00:10:17):

And I said, well, in my mind, I was like, okay, that’s never going to happen, but whatever. And they said, but yeah, it’s going to be fine. Something’s going to happen where you’re going to be able to work from home. And I was like, okay. And so I said, thanks, I’ll get a dog, whatever. And then of course, by March of 2020, they sent everybody home because of Covid. And I had gotten my dog Chloe in February. So she did stay home by herself for a couple of weeks, but by March I was teleworking. I was working from home, and I was with her 24/7, and I didn’t have to worry about a thing.

Jim (00:11:06):

Wow. That is, that’s really wild. So in essence, the tarot reader predicted the pandemic without predicting it in a sense that it’s not funny, but I mean it is wild. So they didn’t see what was going to cause this. And I assume from your kind of attitude to that answer, it was a situation where wherever you work for at that time, they would not necessarily be open to you working from home under normal conditions. It was like, oh, they’re never going to do that. They would never allow me to do that. And of course – 

Joanna (VA) (00:11:43):

Yeah, I worked for the government.

Jim (00:11:46):

Sure, yeah. I could totally get where they don’t do that. Wow.

Joanna (VA) (00:11:53):

But she assured me that something’s going to happen. You’re going to get a new job or something. Or she goes, I don’t know what it is, but you’re going to be able to work from home.

Jim (00:12:04):

Oh, what a wild story. So she totally tapped into it. She totally tapped into it, but we don’t know how. We don’t know how. Very interesting indeed, Joanna. Very interesting indeed. And that’s the thing, I do believe that there are people who have psychic abilities or reading abilities that can tap into these things. And many times I’m not convinced that they even understand how it works.

Joanna (VA) (00:12:30):

Yeah, yeah,

Jim (00:12:31):

Yeah. Interesting.

Joanna (VA) (00:12:33):

Yeah, it was crazy. I was like, oh my God, she was right. Really on point.

Jim (00:12:39):

Indeed. Joanna, thank you very much for being a part of the Campfire and stay spooky.

Joanna (VA) (00:12:45):

Thanks. You too. Stay spooky.

Jim (00:12:46):

Katie is on the line from Ohio. She came out to see me when we did that fun event with Greg and Dana Newkirk at the Kent stage in Kent, Ohio, and was so glad to meet her and her sister. And if I remember correctly, Katie, was it your birthday? Is that…?

Katie (OH) (00:13:03):

It was my sister’s.

Jim (00:13:04):

Oh, your sister’s birthday. Yes. Yes. Well, that was a lot of fun. And give me your sister, if it’s okay, your sister’s name will give her a spooky shout out.

Katie (OH) (00:13:13):

It’s Eileen.

Jim (00:13:14):

Eileen. Stay spooky. Eileen. So you’re going to take us back to 2008 with a very harrowing story. Tell us what happened.

Katie (OH) (00:13:24):

Okay, thank you. So I got married in 2007 and we bought a house in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. 

Jim (00:13:34):

Beautiful community, yeah.

Katie (OH) (00:13:35):

Very historic area. But our house was only built in the 1980s. And when I looked up the kind of history of the home, it was built on real old farmland. And so we had one of the older developments, but it was on farmland. And one night in winter, and I’m thinking it was probably getting closer to morning because it was a little bit light in the room, I woke up probably because there was light coming in. And Jim, I looked to the left of me and standing five feet from my bed was a man. I mean, it looked like there was a guy standing there. And the weirdest part of this story is I was not afraid at all. And normally one would think you would be freaking out if there’s some random stranger standing in your room.

Jim (00:14:42):

Absolutely.

Katie (OH) (00:14:43):

But I just watched him and he was like a young man, like a teenager at first I didn’t know if he was a boy or a girl. He had long reddish hair and freckles. I could make out details of him, but I decided, no, that’s a boy. And I had one of those air purifiers in the room that was turned on. And all I remember is he had on overalls and he had his foot up on the air purifier one foot up. And I thought that was so odd. So he was staring kind of out into nowhere. I had a mirror, a big mirror above my dresser, and he was kind of staring that way. And I decided that’s probably why I didn’t freak out. If he would’ve looked at me, oh, it would’ve been over at that point, I couldn’t take it. So I thought, what’s happening? Am I asleep? What is happening? So I went under my covers. We all know we’re safe under our covers. And I pulled the blanket back and I looked, and he was still standing there. And Jim, I did that three times and he was still there. So this was an extended amount of time, and I decided I should probably wake up my husband. And I woke him up, and of course, you know how this works the minute I say, look over there, and I turn back and he’s not there.

But that’s kind of how I knew I was awake, because I mean, in real life, I woke up my husband, it worked, but so my husband was a big skeptic and I thought he was going to make fun of me, but he did it. He said, do you remember what happened to me last week? And I hadn’t put it together, but he was walking into our bedroom and I was in bed already, and I saw the door moving a little bit back and forth, and he kind of had a smile on his face when he walked in. And then he saw me in bed and it was a very concerned look on his face. I said, what’s happening? He said, I was just pulling the door open. I thought you were messing with me and trying to be cute and pulling it back so I couldn’t get in the room. This was like three feet from where this event happened. He thought I was pulling the door, but he knew I couldn’t get back to the other side of the room to the bed that quickly. So something. And of course, he’s a skeptic, so he’s looking at the door frame, he’s looking, is the carpet there? No, this door opens very easily. So something was pulling back on that door only a few days before that. And I felt a little like it gave my experience a little credibility.

Jim (00:17:53):

Yeah, for sure.

Katie (OH) (00:17:54):

Yeah.

Jim (00:17:54):

For sure. Yeah, I got to tell you, that’s really frightening. It’s one of those things where you are obviously a very rational person, and you had shared a little bit about your background with me and to see something like that, how do you reconcile those things?

Katie (OH) (00:18:17):

Well, I think like you always say, life is so much weirder than we understand it. I am a researcher and I can explain away a lot of things. I couldn’t explain away this. I just think there’s so much going on that we just don’t have the antenna for. We just don’t see it, but we know it’s happening. And in our regular lives, I think there’s so much happening around us. I mean, the Campfire stories tell us this all the time. I believe the callers, I believe they’re experiencing something and we just don’t have the science at least yet to understand it.

Jim (00:18:55):

I agree. 110%. Katie, I know you have more stories. I hope you’ll come back to tell them again, and thank you for being a part of the Campfire.

Katie (OH) (00:19:03):

Thank you so much, Jim. Hey, stay spooky,

Jim (00:19:06):

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Announcer (00:21:08):

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 (00:21:26):

Neil is on the line from Liverpool, England in the UK, and we’re always glad to talk with our UK listeners. And Neil has one of my favorite kind of stories, a story I’ve heard more of these than I ever expected, and it really is a thing, and it fascinates me. I don’t understand it, but it fascinates me. Neil, welcome to the show and tell us what happened to you.

Neil (UK) (00:21:49):

Yeah, thank you very much. Glad to be here. It basically goes back to 2005. I went to a gig in Manchester. It was at the, well, it used to be called the Manchester Evening News Arena. I think it’s just the Manchester Arena now. And I don’t know whether it was doppelganger or a bit of a time slip, but I was basically in the McDonald’s, which is in the venue beforehand. And as I was walking in, I could see someone who was my build, my height, same hair, and I thought he was dressed very similar. And it was only when I got a little bit closer, I realized he was wearing exactly the same clothes, and I’m pretty convinced it was actually me. It was the exact same. 

He had a wristband on, which was the same band. And he also had a bracelet, which was, but it was custom made, well, I say custom made. One of my friends made it for me, and it was the only one, just one of them ones with little colorful beads on, so I didn’t really think any and of it at the time. And then he sort of walked up and he had a bag of food in his hand and a drink, so I sort of shrugged it off and then put me order in, walked past, got me order. And then as I was walking out of the McDonald’s, they realized I was walking the same direction he was walking, holding the food and the drink exactly the same. And it was a bit weird at the time, but the more I thought about it, the years gone passed and I just thought it was a bit strange. There was no one else who said to me partner at the time, if she saw it. And she was like, no, I didn’t see anything. So I just thought I might’ve been just going a little bit, had a little bit of a moment, but it definitely happened.

Jim (00:24:10):

I absolutely believe in these experiences. I’ve had too many people tell me that they’ve had them, and that was the end of the story. You were walking off in the same direction, you didn’t see ’em anymore. That was basically it.

Neil (UK) (00:24:23):

Yeah, that was it. And I just thought to myself, I’ve just seen myself and I saw to stop a little bit and had to do sort of,  that I could double take with what had actually happened. But it was a weird one because obviously nobody else saw it.

Jim (00:24:40):

Yeah. Well, let me ask you this. Now, obviously some time has passed since this happened, and I’m sure that if you’re like most people, and if you’re like me, you’re probably Googling it right away and trying to figure it out over the years. You mentioned a time slip. Have you developed any specific theories?

Neil (UK) (00:25:01):

None at all, to be honest. I’ve just obviously been listening to your show and just heard different stories people have told about things like this. I thought it could either be a doppelganger, doesn’t really, doesn’t really sort make sense because he was doing what I was doing, but also like five minutes before I was doing it.

Jim (00:25:25):

Well, to me, one possible, you hit it on the head. One possible explanation is a time slip of some type where you were seeing a few minutes into the past. But if you did, what does that mean for the nature of reality? Right? 

Neil (UK) (00:25:40):

I’ve got no idea.

Jim (00:25:42):

I mean, some people would say there may have been a glitch in the matrix as it were, and you were seeing in the past. Other people would say, well, we’re in a multiverse, and maybe you were seeing yourself in that alternate universe. It really makes you think. And that’s the one thing that I’ve gotten from doing the shows going on 19 years here, is that reality is a lot stranger, a lot stranger than we give it credit for. And your story is just more evidence of that. Neil, thank you so much. If you ever come up with a solution, please do let us know.

Neil (UK) (00:26:22):

Oh, I’ll try to.

Jim (00:26:23):

Alberto is back from Florida. You’ll remember he was on a while back talking about his great-grandmother and his grandfather and some things that happened after they passed, and now he’s going to tell us about a place he lived in Salt Lake City. Alberto, thank you for joining us, and we are glad to have you back. Tell us what happened this time around.

Alberto (FL) (00:26:46):

Oh, Jim, I’m so glad to be back here, Jim. Thank you.

Jim (00:26:50):

Thank you!

Alberto (FL) (00:26:50):

Yeah. So yeah, I lived in this house in Salt Lake City. It was a big house, a five bedroom house, really old house. It was me and four other roommates. And this house was for sure haunted. I remember well, the scariest thing that happened to me one time, and by the way, we had a lot of parties there because we were all single and it seemed to be ramp up the activity after, right after we had a party. So I remember one day we just had a party and the next day in the morning was my bedroom was on the second floor, and we hit the stairs going down to the first floor, and I’m about to take the first step down the stairs, and I remember that I forgot, I think it was my wallet or something, my bedroom. And as I’m about to turn around, I felt like a push on me, and I rolled down the stairs like a snowball. I was all by myself in the house at that time. So when I hit the ground, I remember I glanced up, I took a look upstairs, and I saw a shadow movement upstairs.

Jim (00:28:23):

Do you feel like you were pushed? Did you feel like you were pushed?

Alberto (FL) (00:28:28):

Yeah. Well, I was for sure. I knew for sure I was pushed because that very same thing happened to my roommate about a month after, the same exact thing he told me that his bedroom was on the second floor. He said the same thing happened to him. He was about to take a step down, and he felt like he had a push in his case. I didn’t break anything luckily, but he broke his wrist.

Jim (00:28:55):

Oh my gosh.

Alberto (FL) (00:28:56):

He fell.

Jim (00:28:59):

Yeah, that’s the thing. I mean, to me, that crosses a line. If people talk about poltergeist, where things are moved in your home and maybe there’s some drawers that open and close or a door bangs or a TV turns itself up. I mean, that stuff’s scary in and of itself, but when things start physically trying to hurt you, I mean, pushing somebody down the stairs, that’s serious. I mean, that could kill someone.

Alberto (FL) (00:29:26):

Yeah, I know. Yeah, it’s very scary. And there was another incident that I remember there was we had a Halloween party, and in the middle of the party, I went to the basement. The basement was full of old furniture from the owner of the house, so the owner was this old lady. She said, don’t mess with my stuff. It’s all in there. Don’t mess with the basement. Anyway, I went to the basement. I took one of my girlfriends, one of my girlfriends at the time, we went to the basement and I’m there, we’re talking, kissing, and out of nowhere, this big piece of old furniture came crashing down the floor close to us. And that was something that scared my girlfriend really bad. She’s like, this place is haunted. And I said, yeah, I think it’s haunted. Like, I’m out of here. And she left a party, whoever was the ghost there, I lost my girlfriend for the night. Yeah, that was crazy.

Jim (00:30:41):

So what was the resolution? Did it just keep going until you guys left?

Alberto (FL) (00:30:46):

Left? Yeah, well, we stayed there for a year, and I used to hear steps on the second floor. If I was watching tv, I used to hear doors slamming, steps. And so the very last day that we left the house, the lease contract ended, we talked to the owner of the house, and all I asked was if somebody ever died in the house. And she did confirm that a few people from her family passed in the house, and that’s all I got from her. And that was it.

Jim (00:31:31):

Well, I got to tell you again, when they start pushing you, when they start pushing you, that’s when it gets scary. When they start to get physical. I’m a chicken, I would be out of there. I’m like, okay. You know, but I say that, but sometimes life circumstances, you can’t just leave a place. If you have a lease or a mortgage or financial situation, it’s easy to say, oh, I’d be out of there. But it’s like, ehhhh.Would you be?

Alberto (FL) (00:31:59):

I was so glad I left the house after one year, it was too long.

Jim (00:32:07):

Yep. Well, thank you again, I appreciate it.

Alberto (FL) (00:32:10):

Thank you so much, Jim.

Jim (00:32:12):

Next up on the Campfire is Cozette, and we’re so glad to have them with us today. And Cozette is going to tell two stories of beloved family members. Cozette, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and tell us what happened.

Cozette (MA) (00:32:26):

Hi, Jim. Thanks for having me.

Jim (00:32:28):

Thank you.

Cozette (MA) (00:32:30):

I have two stories. The first one takes place my sophomore year of high school around Thanksgiving, staying at my grandma’s house. And it actually just so happened my other grandma, Omi, it’s a German name for grandmother, had a cold, but we had no idea that she was dying basically. She was already very, yeah. So we didn’t know that she was dying. But that night I was staying up late to finish a paper and the only light in the room was my computer. So it was like a very antiquated house. There was no TV box, no landline, nothing like that. There was no, so I see on kind of my left peripheral vision, this light, and I look at it dead on, and I see it’s like a golf ball sized blue orb, and it starts to move very slowly all throughout the room from the left to the right, and then it just disappears. The next day she passed away.

Jim (00:33:27):

Oh, that’s interesting. We just talked to Dr. Raymond Moody, who invented the term near-death experience. He talked about a shared death experience where at the time of death something like this would happen. Now I don’t know if that is broadened into a period of time, but it reminds me a lot of that where loved ones will experience something at or near at the time of death. It’s called a shared death experience. 

Cozette (MA):

Wow,  I’ve never heard that. That’s very interesting. 

Jim: Yeah, he just wrote a book that’s out and it does cover that subject, Dr. Raymond Moody. And again, a legend in that area. He invented the term near-death experience and has done much research over the decades. I mean, I don’t… Did that frighten you? Did it comfort you? What were your thoughts when you find out that your grandmother had passed?

Cozette (MA) (00:34:19):

I think it was comforting in a way. I had looked it up after and a blue orb was supposed to be kind of like a spirit guide. So I think in a way it was her kind of saying goodbye and telling her that she loved me, telling me that she loved me. And it was very comforting. I mean, it was confusing when it first happened. Obviously I didn’t know that she was going to pass away, but then after the fact I was like, oh, that was definitely on me.

Jim (00:34:43):

And then you had another story about your other grandmother, is that right?

Cozette (MA) (00:34:46):

I did. Yeah. So about six months later, my other grandmother, my grandma, she was in hospice, so she was in the hospital at this point, and we had a very close relationship. And I would call her all the time when she was doing better, and she would always leave voicemails saying, Cozettina, call me back. I love you. Always leave voicemails like that. And unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to visit her when she was passing because I was in school and I was just really busy, and I just, life got in the way, and I hadn’t called her yet when she was in the hospital. So one night I went to bed, and then I suddenly wake up and my bed is shaking, like really badly, and it was so bad that I live in Boston. We don’t get earthquakes, but – 

Jim (00:35:30):

Right. If we do, we’re in trouble. Or if you do.

Cozette (MA) (00:35:34):

Exactly. Exactly. So I ended up looking it up the next day. Was there an earthquake in Boston, Massachusetts? And obviously there wasn’t, but it was a very frightening experience at the time. And again, I didn’t really know what that was, but the next day I called her and at this point, she’s barely moving, barely speaking. And my mom was there with her, and she had the phone on the other side of the bed, so to the back of her head. And when my grandma heard my voice, she totally flipped her whole body over, opens her eyes all big and says Cozettina!

And she was totally awake and present for the first time in days after hearing my voice. So I think that it was her way of being because she couldn’t call me. She was semi-conscious. It was her way of being like, call me up. I’m passing away here. We know. I want to get a chance to speak with you again. And I think that was her way of doing that. And she was a very spirited woman. She was very lively. And I think that it was very oppositional to the other experience. I really think that she wasn’t ready to go, and this was kind of her very way of letting me know that she’s not ready to go and she also wants to speak with me.

Jim (00:36:56):

Well, you must have had quite the connection with both of your grandmothers.

Cozette (MA) (00:37:01):

I did. I very much did.

Jim (00:37:03):

And I think it’s important to know that that bond is there, whether they’re physically with us or they’re not. And I think stories like this to me are comforting to the people who’ve experienced loss, it sounds like it’s on the whole been very comforting to you.

Cozette (MA) (00:37:19):

Yeah, very, very comforting.

Jim (00:37:21):

Cozette, thank you for being a part of the Campfire and sharing these very personal stories. Thanks

Cozette (MA) (00:37:26):

So much for having me.

Jim (00:37:27):

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Announcer (00:39:59):

You are listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire. Now, back to another great story.

Jim (00:40:05):

Elysabeth is on the line from Idaho, and she’s been listening for a few years now, and we’re so grateful for that. And she’s going to tell us about the haunted apartment where her and her family used to live. Elysabeth, welcome to the show and tell us about this haunted apartment.

Elysabeth (ID) (00:40:22):

Yes, hi, Jim. So I just wanted to call in and talk about this apartment that my family used to live at, and this was, I dunno, 15 years ago. It was when I was around fifth or sixth grade, so I can’t remember exactly how long ago. But in this place, it was haunted. We all kind of could feel it. Something just felt off in there. You would see shadows out of the corner of your eyes, lights, you would hear knocking on the interior doors when you were home, completely alone, had the front door dead bolted, just stuff was always going on. One time I saw a full body apparition standing in the hallway of a man.

And it seemed like, because it was my mom, my little brother, my mom’s boyfriend at the time, and me that lived there, and we all had experiences. But one of the weirdest things, and this is something that I never thought was paranormal until I was talking to my brother a couple of months ago, I was at his house and we were just kind of reminiscing about the haunted apartment we used to live in. And I told him, I’m like, I’m just now thinking of this, but something really weird used to happen with my hands when I would sleep in the living room there.

And he was like, oh, you mean it felt like you had a ball spinning in your hands? And my mouth kind of just dropped because I was like, yeah, that’s exactly what I mean. And I’ve never told anybody about this, so I don’t know how he would know. And he’s like, well, the same thing used to happen to me when we lived there. And I was like, what? And he’s like, yeah. So he told me he would wake up in our living room in the middle of the night, and he wouldn’t remember how he got there. He assumed he was sleepwalking and he’d be standing facing our armchair, just kind of facing it, facing the wall. And he said he felt like he was kind of in a trance and his palms would be turned up out in front of him. And he’s like, it felt like there was a ball in each palm spinning.

And I was like, that’s really weird. And I’m like, because whenever I would sleep out in the living room on the couch when I was sick or didn’t have school, the next day I’d sleep out there to stay up late and watch tv. I would always get the weirdest feeling in the palm of my hands. It was like they were facing each other though, and there was a ball spinning in between ’em gradually getting bigger and smaller, almost pulsating. And I’m like, I always just assumed it’s the feeling I got when I was sick or I didn’t know. But I never thought it was connected to any of the other activity at the house. But yeah, so talking to my brother, we just thought it was kind of weird that we both had essentially the same experience and never talked to anybody about it or told each other. And then all these years later found out that we had the same experience there.

Jim (00:43:35):

That’s really interesting. That’s always fascinating to me because when you have somebody affirm something 10, 15 years later, that’s amazing. Similar thing happened on the show one time, this guy, and this is way, way back, even before my time, when he was a little kid, he said that he would see what he thought interpreted as a kid as a leprechaun dancing when he was in bed. He would see him dancing around and then he didn’t tell anybody for like 20, 30 years. And then he told his brother, and his brother said, oh, you saw him too? Yes. So that to me says, Hey, something was really happening. Something was really happening there. For sure. Wow.

Elysabeth (ID) (00:44:18):

Yeah, and I definitely believe something was happening in that house, and I’ve had multiple paranormal experiences throughout my life. My grandma likes to say that we’re sensitive to it because there’s several people in my family that have had several experiences, but I’ve never had one that physically affected me. So I just thought that was so strange. And I don’t know what it was about. I dunno what it was, but…

Jim (00:44:47):

It is very strange indeed. Elysabeth, thank you so much for taking time to be on the Campfire with us today. Stay spooky.

Elysabeth (ID) (00:44:55):

Yeah, no problem. Stay spooky. Jim,

Jim (00:44:57):

Nicole is on the line from Baltimore, and she’s been listening since 2019 and we’re so glad to have her on the show. And she says her family is haunted and she’s going to share some stories of some things that have happened. Nicole, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and please tell us what happened.

Nicole (MD) (00:45:16):

Thank you. My family is haunted. We tend to have increased activity in the time right before and right after someone in the family passes away. We’ll have things like dreams, visitations, we’ll smell perfume, we will see people, we’ll hear their voices, stuff like that. It kind of depends on who the person is. Most recently, my aunt, my mother’s older sister passed away this year after a bit of an illness. She got sick in about 2021 and just kind of went downhill from there. And in February of this year, she really started to rapidly decline when morning in February, she went to hospital. And I heard this voice in my head that was not mine. It wasn’t my internal monologue. It was a different voice that said she’s not going to go home. And so that was kind of my first inkling. And there were several weeks that went by where I’m sure there are other listeners who are familiar with this.

When you have a sick loved one who goes in the hospital one day she would be trending up and we’d think, okay, maybe she’s doing better. And she’ll get to go home and then she’ll trend back down and you spend a couple of weeks like this. And it just really kind of sucks because you get your hopes up, but then you have to kind of go through the process of preparing yourself again. And so I had heard this voice in my head, and so I kind of knew that this was probably it, but every time she trended up, I just got a little bit of hope. But at the same time, my mother started having dreams, and she tends to do this when someone’s about to pass away. She first had a dream of her mother and father who are both long gone at a party, and they were waiting.

She said they were just sitting there waiting. There was this big party going on. There were other people there, but it was the two of them. And they were waiting for someone to show up. And she said this really struck her because she never dreams of her mother, ever. She has never before dreamt of her mother and my aunt, her older sister, would be the first one of their children to pass away. So that kind of struck her as something to note. And another dream she had was, again, her parents waiting, but also for some reason my childhood dog was there as well, who was long gone, again. And they were all again just waiting for someone. And she thought it was just so strange. She kept telling me about this. And so I told her, yeah, I kind of got this voice in my head that Aunt Kay wasn’t going to go home.

And so we just decided to wait and see. And so St. Patrick’s Day rolls around, which was a Friday. I have some notes here, so hopefully my paper shuffling is not too loud. St Patrick’s Day rolls around, and my aunt was at this point comatose, and she was transferred to hospice center, and she was not expected to make it until the end of the day. And so sometime in the afternoon, my mother calls me and she says, has your aunt visited you? And I said, what? She said, has she visited you? I said, no, nothing’s happened. Why? And she said that my aunt had visited my brother. My brother’s a little more squeamish about paranormal stuff, he believes but he’s just not comfortable with it, so for him to say anything or experience anything was kind of a big deal. And so I said, no, she hasn’t come to see me, but I’ll let you know.

And not like 15 minutes after that phone call, all of a sudden the whole left side of my body was ice cold, just the left side, freezing cold. Now for the skeptics, I was in my office, which is the room that I spent five to six days a week in, at least 40 hours a week. I’ve owned this house for a couple of years. This room was not drafty. The vent is nowhere near me. We didn’t have a seat on, I didn’t have a fan on. There was no reason for this to happen. It’s never happened before. It’s never happened since. The only other time I have experienced this was when in 2018 when my dog died and I got a really, really cold spot on my left side, and here it was again. So I’m thinking, okay, this is weird, but she’s not gone yet.

We haven’t gotten notice that my aunt passed. And so I told my mother, I sent her a text message. I said, I have this really, really dense, intense, frigid spot on my left side. And she writes back, that’s exactly what happened to your brother. And he got so uncomfortable. He said, Aunt Kay, you have to back off. You have to go to another part of the room. You can be here, but I don’t want to experience this. And it went away. And within the hour of that, all that happening, my aunt did pass. So she wasn’t technically gone yet in terms of her body was still kind of functioning. But we have had this happen before where someone in the family was close to death and they started appearing to us. So I think that was kind of my first visitation from her and also for my brother. She was his godmother. So we think that that may be why she went to visit him first. They also didn’t get to see each other much. So maybe she was just kind of starting to make the rounds with the people she sees the least.

Jim (00:50:27):

It’s interesting. We just did a show, and it hasn’t aired as of this recording. Maybe it’ll be out by the time this actually airs on the show with Dr. Raymond Moody, the gentleman who invented the term near-death experience. He talked about a shared death experience. This is where it can be in person or it can be separated by distance. If I remember correctly, this is almost exactly the kind of thing that would be part of that.

Nicole (MD) (00:50:55):

Yeah,

Both:

[overlapping speech]

Jim (00:50:56):

Go ahead. I’m sorry.

Nicole (MD) (00:50:57):

No problem. The next day, my mom and I loaded up the car and we headed down. My aunt lived in North Carolina, so it’s a few hours drive, but when someone in the family passes away, you have to go down. There’s a lot of that admin stuff, cleaning out sessions and all of that. So we headed down right away. And when we got to my aunt and uncle’s house, this is the house that I had been in before, so I kind of knew what it felt like. This was also a new build house that they built. So theoretically nobody had been there before. When we got to the house and walked in the door, her presence, my aunt’s presence, was so strong. I kept feeling like she was about to walk in the room. When you know someone really well, everyone has our presence, our vibe, right? 

Jim (00:51:48):

Sure, absolutely.

Nicole (MD) (00:51:49):

You know what someone’s familiar to you feels like. And it felt like she was right there. It was in every room of the house. Every time I walked into a room, I expected that she was either going to be in there or that she was going to come in after me. It was very intense. And sure, some of that could be just, I’m used to seeing her there, so I’m expecting it, but never like this. When she was living and she was there, it wasn’t this intense, and it really hit me. I was sent into the kitchen to look for some dishes that were supposed to go to somebody. Their kitchen had a wall around most of it that was like a five foot tall wall. I’m five foot two. My aunt was very short, so I had to look down to talk to her so you wouldn’t be able to see her over this wall, per se.

But I kept thinking, she’s in the kitchen. She’s in the kitchen. And I knew empirically she was not. But as I walked into the kitchen, it’s like I stepped inside her body. It was an overwhelming presence that overtook me, and it hit me so hard that I burst into tears. And I was just standing there having this mind boggling, visceral experience that her presence just had encased me. Like I was in a shell of her presence, and I couldn’t articulate what I was feeling. I couldn’t make sense of it. I’d never felt anything like this before. So everyone comes over to be like, oh my God, it’s okay. We’re all going to be sad. And I just said, yes, thank you. How else do you explain that to other people?

So that was really the big overwhelming moment for me that she was there. And this continued over the course of the week to the point where a little bit later we were going through some of her things. She was a member of a few heritage organizations like the DAR, Daughters of the American Revolution. And they give you pins for being in that for different accomplishments and different, I don’t really know what they signify, but you get pins over time for your membership. And she had a lot of them. They’re very special. And I was given them in this little pin roll, this little felt pin roll. And I was told by my other aunt who’s living to put them someplace safe where they wouldn’t get lost. So I take this pin roll, and I’m wandering around the living room, and I keep trying to put it down, and I keep hearing my past aunt’s voice. Aunt Kay in my head say, not there. Not there. No, not there. And I try to put it up on top of the TV stand because I think, okay, that’s safe. And I hear her loud and clear, say, not there. I can’t reach it there. I’m short.

Jim (00:54:20):

Whoa.

Nicole (MD) (00:54:22):

So I finally ended up putting it on the mantelpiece, and I heard her kind of be like, well, okay, that’ll do. And then she shut up. I didn’t hear her voice again for the rest of the time I was there, but she was very clearly, very sternly, kind of telling me, no, no, that’s not right. I can’t reach that. And so I left them on the mantelpiece. I said, okay, you should be able to reach them here. You can see ’em. You can reach them. They won’t get lost. Now please leave me alone.

And so one of the last things that happened on that trip was that sometimes grief brings out odd behavior in us. We handle it, how we handle it. People fight and bicker over things. I was really getting stressed out and anxious about how it was going to go. I was nervous about my family. There’s also a lot of trauma in our family history, and people were maybe not their best selves every moment. And so I just kept, anytime I tried to mentally stress out about it, I would hear this voice again that was not mine, but it would pop into my head and it would say, it’ll all come out in the wash. It’ll all come out in the wash. And that’s not a phrase, that’s a phrase that I know the meaning of, but I don’t use it. Nobody in my family uses it. Nobody in my circle uses it. And so after we had left, I told my mom that I kept thinking this. I said, who would say that? And she says, well, your grandfather, my father would say it all the time. So your aunt, your aunt Kay would say it all the time. It would just mean, don’t stress, don’t worry about it.

And so that was interesting to me. And after we left and everything was kind of taken care of, I stopped stressing about it and I stopped hearing it. I haven’t heard it since. Has it come into my head? I still don’t use it, but I thought that was really interesting. There was a couple other things. I’m not sure how much time I have left. Am I okay?

Jim (00:56:06):

Well, we go ahead. Quickly go through those.

Nicole (MD) (00:56:09):

Sure. So probably the last big thing that happened while I was away is that here at home, my husband stayed here with our toddler because bringing a toddler down on a six, seven hour drive for a funeral and all that sucks. And he is, again, not into the paranormal. He’s willing to believe, but it’s not his thing. He messages me one of the days that had gone. He says, I don’t know what happened, but I was in the nursery changing our son’s diaper, and I heard clear as day out of the blue, your voice, shout my name, which is, I think that’s Bargogo… Barduga?

Jim (00:56:51):

I think that might be right. I’ve heard it before, but I don’t know the exact phrasing.

Nicole (MD) (00:56:55):

Like the sound of a person when they’re not there, or the shadow of them arriving. And he said, I don’t like it now. He’s like, I’m not going back in the nursery. I’m very uncomfortable. 

Jim (00:57:05):

Well, maybe because you had a lot of emotional stuff going on, and I know poltergeist, for example, many people believe it is sometimes can be produced by strong emotions. So I mean, I would think something like this could as well. Well, I mean, these things happened. I believe our loved ones stick around and sometimes they come back. And everything that you’ve mentioned is very consistent with the things we’ve heard over the years on the Campfire. And thank you so much for being a part of it. And stay spooky.

Nicole (MD) (00:57:41):

Thank you.

Jim (00:57:42):

Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Rocket Money. And if I ask you how many subscriptions you have, would you be able to list them all out and how much you’re paying? Well, if you’re anything like me, you would not be able to do that, at least without any help. And that’s where Rocket Money comes in because Rocket Money can help you get your arms around what subscriptions you have and make it very easy to cancel them. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills. Now you can see all of your subscriptions in one place with Rocket Money, and if you see something you don’t want, you can cancel it with a tap. You never have to get on the phone with customer service. And Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has helped save its members an average of $720 a year. Yes, $720 a year with over $500 million in canceled subscriptions. Really, as you’re trying to get your arms around your finances and get right for the new year, getting control of those subscriptions is a great way to do it. And Rocket Money is the best way to do it. Stop wasting money on things you don’t use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to Rocketmoney.com/Campfire. That’s rocket money.com/Campfire money.com/Campfire and we thank Rocket Money for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.

Announcer (00:59:22):

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 (00:59:39):

Well, next up on the Campfire is Leslie from Colorado. What a beautiful state that is. And we’re so glad to have her on the line, and she’s been listening since about Pandemic Time. Amazing. How many people picked up on the show at that time? Hate the Pandemic, but love the fact that people were able to maybe get a little bit of entertainment and thought provoking material through the show. If it helped just a little bit, that’s great. And Leslie is going to help us with a great story about a road trip her and her husband Tate took and strangeness in soon. Leslie, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. Tell us what happened,

Leslie (CO) (01:00:19):

Jim. So growing up, I’m from northeast Oklahoma and growing up we would take car rides and go look at – my parents were big into driving to go see local sites and stuff like that. We never had a lot of money, but we would always drive to this one hotel, this one city called Eureka Springs, Arkansas. And one of the things that I loved is Victorian architecture. So my dad always makes sure to drive by this hotel that they had at the top of the city. And growing up, I just always thought it was a beautiful hotel. I didn’t know anything about it. I just knew that it was gorgeous. And like I said, once a month or once every few months, we’d go by there and I’d be like, oh, that’s so beautiful. I don’t want to go. So fast forward to 2003. My husband had been deployed to Iraq and he had been there.

It had been a hard deployment, and we knew that when he was coming back that they would have a lot of time off. So I thought, oh, well, we should go take a vacation and just get some time together just after being separated for a year. So we were stationed at the time at Fort Riley, and I thought, well, what’s close by? The Ozarks are close by. And I knew them because as a child growing up there, we’d go visit. So I thought, oh, we should go to the Crescent, stay at this hotel called the Crescent Hotel, which I had always wanted to stay at as a child. So I talked to my husband as they’re making their way, they’re redeploying. It’s kind of a long involved effort. So we made the reservations and I said, there’s this hotel I’ve always wanted to stay at, and it’s beautiful.

It’s fall in the Ozarks and the leaves are changing, and it would just, I think be really nice. So I make the plans to stay there, and I make the reservation, and I’m talking to my husband and I say, I tell him how much it costs. And he’s like, oh, that’s kind of pricey. Can you find someplace else to stay at? And I’m like, I don’t know why, but I let him talk me out of it. And it’s kind of like it’s something on your bucket list, and you’re like, okay. So we changed our mind and we stayed someplace else. He comes home and we go to Arkansas, we spend the week there after he gets redeployed back, and it’s October and it’s beautiful. And we find out that there is a ghost tour of Eureka Springs, and we’ve traveled before together and taken ghost tours.

And we always like it because, you know, in ghost tours, a lot of times it’s the history you find out about the history of the place, not just the scary things, but also how the city was founded. And we thought, oh, what a great way to see the city. So we scheduled it for early in the trip and we’re thinking, oh, they’re going to take us on a bus and we’re going to go and they’re going to show and they’re going to point out to all the buildings and not really knowing, like I said, I knew the area. I just didn’t know a lot about the town. So I thought, oh, this would be a great thing to learn about this town that I’d always loved as a child. So we go, it’s like the second day that we’re in Eureka Springs and we’re running late, we had gone antiquing and kind of gone driving  through the hills and my husband’s like, oh, we’re not going to be able to, we’re going to be late for this trip.

We’re going to miss it. We are thinking, okay, we’re going to take a bus. And I said, well, if you go through this neighborhood and it’s a beautiful neighborhood during the day, it’s like all of these old Victorian homes with gingerbread. I’m like, if we go through this neighborhood, you can go into the hotel the back way. And he goes, okay. So I try to direct him where to go. And as you get through the neighborhood, the road kind of curves around and it lets into the back of the hotel and you go around the hotel to the front. So we’re driving, and as we make this turn there, we see all of a sudden out of nowhere there’s this man and he’s just standing in the middle of the road and my husband goes to swerve around him, and it’s like as he swerves around him, he’s right next to me. I can see him. He’s right just like inches away from me. And he’s old and he’s really gaunt, and he just looks disheveled and he’s had better days. He just looked, his eyes were big and he was wearing an old suit, and it was kind of ratty. And he had one of those Henley shirts and it was stained. And I even remember seeing his feet, and I thought at the time, maybe he was wearing flip flops and he had a bag.

But my husband, because we’re about to make it, we’re making a left turn, he swerves to miss him, and then by the time he gets straight, we’re around the corner. So he stops and he’s like, are you okay? And I’m like, yeah, I’m okay. And he goes, I’m going to go check on that guy. We thought we, something had happened to him. Then my husband puts the car in park, runs, goes checks on him, looks around the corner. He’s like, he’s not there. And I’m, what do you mean? He just, he’s like, he must have run off. He’s like, he’s gone.

Jim (01:05:57):

And he didn’t look like probably someone who was, I don’t know, ready to run in a track meet.

Leslie (CO) (01:06:03):

No, like I said, he looked like, when my husband came back, we decided it must’ve been a homeless person or somebody who comes. And sometimes you see people who come in and take the train in, or they just kind of wander around the house because a visitor town, and they all might busk or ask for money. But this kind of person was just, like I said, he looked homeless and we’re like, that’s kind of odd to have a homeless person in Eureka Springs. But that’s what we had decided. So we go ahead, we kind of catch our breath and we go and we go into the hotel parking lot. We don’t see a bus, and we’re like, okay, there’s no bus. So did we miss it? So we walk up and they’re like, oh, no, no, this tour doesn’t start for another 20 minutes. And I’m like, are we going to go tour the town? And they’re like, no, it’s just the hotel. And I’m just the hotel. And they’re like, yeah, it’s just the hotel. And we’re like, okay, this is going to be, we’re like, okay. It’s not as extensive as we thought.

So the tour starts and we start in the basement, and I think the hotel is five stories, but this tour of the hotel as it starts, we suddenly realized that, oh no, this tour of this hotel is so extensive. We were there for three hours where they just go through the history of this hotel. And I didn’t know it, even growing up there, I didn’t know this because this was before the internet. This is when the internet just kept becoming big. So I never knew the history of the hotel. And the Crescent Hotel is during, it was built in Victorian times, but in the twenties, this old carney who wanted to be in the medical profession, he made millions of dollars with an invention that he had, and he bought this hotel as a cancer treatment center. And then he proceeded to use it as experimenting on people for years. He basically just tortured cancer patients. And I won’t go into the, oh my Lord.

Jim (01:08:19):

Yeah, there’s a lot of things I think I’ve, I mean, I’ve heard of it certainly before, yeah.

Leslie (CO) (01:08:23):

It is. You think it’s just one story note of the ghost that they list. Only two of them happened before the hospital, but it’s just story after story of horrific acts that they did on these people. And this person, he called himself Doc Baker, and he just, if you had brain cancer, this is one story they said they would drill a hole in and pour stuff it in and see, like, they’d make concoctions.

Jim (01:08:53):

And it was just, yeah, I know. I’ve heard of this. Now it’s coming back to me. Yeah.

Leslie (CO) (01:08:56):

It’s just this horrible, like I said, just three hours of ghost story after ghost story after ghost story. And we couldn’t even realize that we had been there for that long. So we go through the tour and nothing really happens. We’re just like, okay, wow. Oh my God. And I never knew the story of this hotel. We finished the tour and we’re just kind of flabbergasted about all the things that they told us about what happened at the hotel. So we leave, and it’s a really blustery October night. It’s a little bit rainy, it’s a little bit cloudy by this time. So we go and we walk to our car and we sit in our car and we just kind of look at each other, and he just turns to me and goes, that wasn’t a homeless man, that was a ghost. And I’m like, because it all made sense looking back at what he looked like. His shirt was stained. He looked like he had been through something,

Jim (01:10:01):

Right

Leslie (CO) (01:10:01):

I thought he had been wearing flip flops, but I think he was barefoot. And like I said, the suit, you couldn’t tell that it was dated, but it wasn’t modern and it was just kind of like, oh, that was what we saw. Because they talk about how there’s mass graves on the property and they don’t even know how many people died at the hospital because the records were [inaudible]

Jim (01:10:23):

That’s so sad. That’s so sad. Well, but all that time growing up, you wanted to see that place and maybe somehow, who knows, maybe you were drawn to it because of that supernatural piece. Do you ever think about that? Maybe somehow it spiritually drew you and you didn’t know why?

Leslie (CO) (01:10:40):

Well, the thing is, like I said, it was on my bucket list, and I actually don’t, I’m not one of those people. I like ghost stories, but I like to keep a distance from them. So for me, my husband and I laughs at me like, if you don’t like spooky things, then why do you listen to stories? But to me, it’s like a cautionary thing, not going to do that. It went from one of the places that I wanted to visit all my life and stay at too. I never want to stay at that hotel. In fact, I was with some girlfriends this, and one of ’em asked me, because I was telling him I was going to be on the show, and they’re like, would you want to stay at the Stanley Hotel, which is up in Eureka spring… oh not… in Estes Park, or would you want to stay at the Crescent Hotel? I’m like, oh, I’ll take Stanley hands down every time. Because like I said, the stories that they just tell, and like I said, of the people that suffered there and the things that they went through, it was just sad. Like I said, you said,

Jim (01:11:38):

Yeah, it’s a very sad story. It’s a very sad story, Leslie, [[overlapping speech] go ahead

Leslie (CO) (01:11:42):

But it’s a beautiful hotel. Sorry. Sorry. It’s beautiful hotel.

Jim (01:11:46):

Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it described that way now the more you talked about, the more it came back to me. Well, Leslie, thank you so much for joining us and being a part of the Campfire. Stay spooky.

Leslie (CO) (01:11:55):

Thank you, Jim.

Jim (01:11:56):

Next up on the show, you’ll remember she’s been on before. Seiko is back from Los Angeles, and she has a story about her brother. Seiko, welcome back to the show and tell us what happened.

Seiko (CA) (01:12:09):

Hi, Jim. 

Jim (01:12:11):

Hi! How are you doing?

Seiko (CA) (01:12:12):

Good. First of all, I can’t believe that I forgot to tell this story. In fact, I just reremembered it because my son brought it up. And I called my mom to confirm that these were the details and she confirmed. So I’m really excited to share this. So I’m just going to jump right in. Just some backstory, my brother died in 2015. 

Jim: 

I’m sorry. 

Seiko (CA):

Thank you. He was 36. He was my best friend. We’re very close in age. I’m only 15 months older than him. And if you can think of a closer pair of siblings, I would be surprised. He was my best friend. We called each other twins. We were almost Irish twins. And losing him was really, really tough. So another quick note to that is our mom at the time was almost 80, but she’s just not very technologically savvy. She’s just bad at it.

And my brother, who is her youngest, he was also the only one who had had a job in tech support. He was always the go-to, so she would always call him. But anyway, when he died, we all flew to Dallas, which is where he’s from. He was recently divorced from his ex-wife, but they were really good friends. So she hosted, we were basically, none of us are Jewish, but we practiced sitting Shiva. We were just all sitting to grieve together. That night. I remember I flew in. My son was only a year and a half, and we were exhausted and I fell asleep, and I’m always the skeptic, but I have this very vivid dream, and I don’t dream of my brother very often, but this first one was so vivid. I was sleeping on an air mattress in the guest bedroom, and I felt a weight shift, and my son was sleeping next to me, and he’s so little, it couldn’t have been him.

And I woke up and my brother was sitting right next to me on the air mattress, and I was looking at him and he had his smile, his closed lip smile, and he was just shaking his head pretty just ruefully. And I just remember we didn’t speak, but I was looking at him going like, dude, what happened? But we didn’t speak. He was just shaking his head, smiling, his smile, and nothing else. So the following night, my mom has six kids, and then my dad has two more. So there were eight of us running around, and most of us are married with kids. So there were a lot of us running around. And my mom had lost her phone. Oh, quick side note, in my family, if you lose your phone, one of your siblings, mostly my brother and me, because we’re obnoxious, we would go, do you want me to call your phone?

And everybody would be like, no, say no, say no. And if you said yes, I would go like mom’s phone, mom’s phone. And she’d be like, that’s not helpful. So my mom lost her phone and I said, Hey, do you want me to call it? She’s like, no, no, don’t call the phone. And then a phone started ringing and she was like, oh, that’s my phone, that’s my ring. And she’s frantically looking for it. And she goes, she’s picked it up. She reached underneath the couch, is where it was. So she reached underneath the couch and she picked it up and she was like, oh, Seik, you’re calling me. And she showed me her phone screen and my picture, and my name was showing up. I was calling her. And I was like, that’s weird. My phone is not even with me. I was about to go into the guest bedroom where I had spent the night to go grab it. I ran into the bedroom, went to the air mattress where I’d left my phone, picked it up. There’s no phone call, there’s no outgoing phone call. And I brought it out. I was like, mom, that wasn’t me. And she was like, it was, you saw it. And after that, I looked at her call log and I looked at my call log, and there’s no log of an incoming or outgoing call between the two of us.

So maybe it was just a technological glitch, or my brother was trying to help my mom find her phone?

Jim (01:16:43):

And also kind of say he was there. We’ve had several calls of this nature where something technological has happened that seemed to be a sign from a loved one. And my thought is, well, if past loved ones can manipulate everything, physical items, those kinds of things, why can’t they also manipulate electrons and make technological things happen? [overlapping speech] Yeah, exactly. And we’ve certainly had that with lights and things like that. And I’m sure that gives you some comfort to think that that might very well have been your brother.

Seiko (CA) (01:17:19):

Yeah, in his uniquely humorous way.

Jim (01:17:23):

Excellent, excellent. Well, Seiko, thank you for being a part of the show again, and I know your son Carter is a big listener, so we need to tell him to stay spooky. And Seiko, thanks again for being a part of the Campfire and stay spooky. Carlos is on the line from Texas, and he is a member of the United States Army for 14 years. So we thank Carlos for his service to our country. I think that we need to do that more for our military members. And Carlos is going to tell us his main story today is about a soldier he saw, but there’s a twist. Carlos, welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened.

Carlos (TX) (01:18:11):

Oh, well, thank you for having me on, Jim, and thank you for your support. So a little background on myself. I’ve been in the army for 14 years, and my job, my main job in the army is a wrecker operator. So I drive the big eight wheel drive tow trucks, the track tow trucks. So our day can be anything from picking someone up with a flat tire to the darker side where it’s going out to a multiple casualty call, that sort of thing. So I have I guess one short story to kind of preface this other one. And so I guess I’m a little bit different than your usual callers because I’m not really drawn to the paranormal. My whole family is kind of known to be sensitive, not as much with spirits and stuff, but more of ESP. I know if I get up randomly to walk across the house and pick up my phone, my mom will be calling me, that kind of stuff.

So the first time I really had an encounter, I was in Afghanistan in 2011, and it was kind of just a brief one, but it kind of set the stage for the other one. As I said, I’m a wrecker operator, so we were moving trucks around that had been blown up or had been in accidents, that sort of thing. We’re just kind of cleaning up the yard. And where we were was a very small fob in northern Afghanistan, so there wasn’t really anything around us. So if other groups were coming through the area had a damaged vehicle, it kind of got dropped off with us as a holding area.

So I was backing up to a truck and it had a big tarp all over it, and we pulled the tarp off and we could see that it had sustained some pretty heavy damage. And when you’re a wrecker operator, you work in teams. So my other Co-part had hopped out, backed me up to the truck, hooked it up, and we were trying to figure out how to get it to move because most of the stuff was damaged inside of it. And I looked up and I saw that he was inside the truck. And so I was motioning towards him and trying to get him to come out because the brakes obviously weren’t going to release and just getting super frustrated that he wasn’t listening to me. And so I went over to the door and opened the door, and it was almost like I had opened a vacuum, just my ears popped, and there was just an eerie silence, and there was nobody inside the truck.

It was completely burnt out inside of it. All the windows were burnt, everything. There was no way I should have been able to see into it, but I clearly saw a soldier sitting in the front seat, and I was getting annoyed because I’m trying to get him to unlock the brakes and stuff and no response. So I guess I didn’t realize what the issue was, that it was paranormal at the time, but my co-part came up behind me and he’s like, how’d you get the door open? I was like, I just opened it. He’s like, oh, I came out. I couldn’t get the door open. So I went to go find a pipe to try to break it open, but it just opened like nothing for me. And so that kind of started realizing that maybe I’m seeing a little bit more things than I’m thinking I’m seeing, and it is just that they’ve never been confirmed.

Does that make sense? 

Jim: 

Sure. 

Carlos (TX):

Okay. So fast forward, and this actually just happened less than a year ago. I got sent to Fort Bliss in Texas, and I had just gotten to the unit and I had a wrecker team underneath me. So we had three or four wreckers and a wrecker, what they call a pacing item in the military. So if it breaks and the park comes in, it doesn’t matter if it’s end of the day, you’re staying until that item is up and running. So that’s kind of the case. It was probably, I want to say it was late November, December maybe, and so it’s getting late early, but we had a part come in at five o’clock and soldiers had to put it together. It’s just kind of one of the crappy parts of the job. So it was just us. Everybody else had gone home.

And I was walking around the bay just kind of checking on everything, and I just kind of got bored. I didn’t really have anything to do. I’d finished all my paperwork. I was just kind of waiting for my soldiers to complete the task. And so I was like, I’ll just go to the bathroom, just kind of a boredom bathroom trip. So I walked to the bathroom and it was closed. There was some maintenance issue, so the only other bathroom in the motor pool was down probably about a hundred foot hallway, and it was a small bathroom that’s just kind of more of a mock closet than a bathroom. There was a stall, a urinal, and then a very single stall closet at the end. So I’m walking down this a hundred foot hallway, just it’s dark outside, nobody’s there. I’m just kind of having my hands in my pocket, reading stuff on the wall, just kind of kicking my feet.

And right before I get to the bathroom, I look up and I see a soldier going into the bathroom. And I was like, oh my God, because it’s kind of annoying when you’re just going into use the bathroom, but it’s such a small space, and then you kind have to jostle around each other while you’re washing your hands. And so I was just like, oh, all right. And I walked all the way down there. So he was probably about 10 feet in front of me to the point where when I walked, then the door shut as I reached the doorknob, does that make sense? He went in and the door shut. I grabbed the doorknob and I opened it, and it was pitch black inside of there. And I kind of stopped for a second, and I was like, why is it dark in here? And then I stood there just maybe a second or two, and if anybody’s been in the military or been around military people, they know that we are horrible at playing pranks on each other and just messing with each other. That’s what we do. 

And so I was like, is it one of my soldiers that just split second kind of thinking? And I was like, all right. So I walked in and there was an automatic motion sensor, and the lights came on, and I was like, how did he get in here with me without tripping the motion sensor? And so the whole time I walk over to the urinal and I’m doing my business, and the whole time I’m just waiting for him to come out of the back or something. And then I finished and washed my hands, and I still hadn’t heard anything or seen anything. This was a very small bathroom, probably like eight by 10. So I just walked around and looked, and I didn’t see anybody in there. It was completely empty. So I walked back down the hall and I’m just puzzled.

I know for a fact that somebody went in the door closed, right as… you know, unmistakably. So I come back in, sit at my desk, and I’m sitting there and one of my soldiers comes in and he’s like, Hey, we’re about done. I was like, cool. He’s like, Hey, what happened to you? I was like, what? He’s like, I don’t know. You just have a weird look on your face. And I was like, I swear to God, I just saw a ghost. And he kind laughed and walked out. And then, so we’re all finishing up and our platoon sergeant comes in and he’s like, are you guys all done? I’m just checking on you. And one of the soldiers goes, yeah, we better leave before Sergeant sees another ghost. And they all started laughing, and he’s like, what? And I told him the story. I was like, I swear I was walking down the hallway or into the bathroom, and he goes, which bathroom were you in? And I was like, the one down at the hall, because the main one’s broken. He just kind of looked at me. He is like, all right, well, everybody pack up. So didn’t think too much more of it, come in the next day and I’m getting everybody ready, passing out tasks for the day. My platoon sergeant says, Hey, First Sergeant wants to talk to you.

Can you go up to his office? I was like, I’m almost done. He’s like, no, it’s pretty important. Can you go up there? I was like, oh, crap. What did I do? Now I go into the first Sergeant’s office. He’s like, Hey, shut the door. I want to talk to you for a second. I was like, yeah. He’s like, I know you’ve only been here about four or five months, and you probably didn’t know this, but we had a soldier that unalived himself about a year ago. And I was like, oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.

Kind confused. Why are you telling me this? And he goes, yeah, he did it in that bathroom down there that you were in last night. And I was just kind of shocked, and I didn’t know what to say. First of all, how did he know about this? And second of all, what does this have to do with me? And he is like, yeah, the platoon sergeant came in here and talked with me this morning, and this is just a real sensitive subject. It might be better if we didn’t talk about this anymore. And I got the message, you didn’t see anything. And I was like, Roger. I didn’t see anything. I was just tired from a long day. He’s like, he was like, good, I’ll talk to you later. And sent me back about my day. And yeah, probably about two or three months later, I was sitting at my desk and another sergeant, who, he’s pretty high up there, he came in and he’s like, Hey, you got a minute? He’s like, yeah. And he’s like pretty much relayed the same story, the thing that happened to me. And he’s like, I mentioned it, and they said to go talk to you. And I was like, yeah, I have no explanation for it. But yeah, so that’s my story.

Jim (01:30:03):

Well, wow. Wow. In terms of seeing that soldier who had committed suicide, and I just want to say something real quick. Anytime that topic comes up, there’s help out there. 9 8 8, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. I’m just reading from their side here, but they’re good thoughts. We can all help prevent suicide. The 9 8 8 Lifeline provides 24/7 free and confidential support for people in distress prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones and best practices for professionals in the United States. So please use that number if you’re in distress or if you know someone who is, we want you around. Carlos, that is a remarkable story and just amazing. And we’ve heard similar ones. We had one where a young man was working in a retail place and he saw this woman working in the back, and he came out and told his manager, and he described this woman because he didn’t recognize her, but she was in a shirt from the company. It’s like, there’s somebody still back there working. And the manager went sheet white, basically dismissed everybody, and ended up telling this employee, yeah, there’s a woman that died back there in the store room with a heart attack, and she’s exactly what you’re describing. So we’ve heard this before. I think it happens. I don’t know if it’s an energetic repeat or imprint because of a traumatic situation. I don’t know what it is, but I certainly believe it exists.

Carlos (TX) (01:31:43):

Yeah, for sure. And I think there’s a stigma attached to getting help, especially in the military, and that’s something we just need to get past.

Jim (01:31:53):

Exactly.

Carlos (TX) (01:31:54):

If you’re struggling, we have a hard job. It’s not always the greatest place to work.

Jim (01:32:00):

No. And again, I agree. If you’re in the military or anywhere and you need help, please call that nine, eight, eight number anywhere in the US. Again, Carlos, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. And thank you for your service to the country.

Carlos (TX) (01:32:20):

Yeah, well thank you, Jim. And I love your show, and I have a few other stories I’ll share. I don’t want to take everybody’s time, but we’ll get there.

Jim (01:32:28):

We look forward to it. We look forward to it. Thanks again, Carlos.

Carlos (TX) (01:32:33):

Alright, have a good day.

Jim (01:32:33):

Well, thank you for joining us for the first Campfire of 2024, and it’ll be the first of many. And as I said at the beginning, please hit share on your podcast app, share the show with a friend. It could be Apple Podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, whatever you use. YouTube, please share the show with a friend. It really means so much. Hit share today and share the love. And we want to share some love here with a special shout out. I got a note from Aaron in late December and it was too late to get it in and at the end of the year, but we wanted to get in. Now it’s a belated birthday. Shout out. Aaron says, my 13-year-old son, Elliot, and I absolutely love your podcast. We listen to a lot of spooky podcasts, but yours is the absolute best one out there. I couldn’t agree more.

Now, Elliot’s birthday was on Christmas Eve, and Aaron asked me if I could wish him a happy birthday on the Campfire podcast. So Elliot, I apologize I wasn’t able to do this sooner. We had put all the shows to bed by the time I got the note, but Aaron, glad to do it. Elliot, happy birthday to you and a big stay spooky. And by the way, if you watch your own personal video greeting from me for a birthday, special occasion, whatever it might be, I would encourage you to go over to cameo.com/the Jim Harold, that’s cameo.com/theJimHarold. And I will gladly do a video shout out for you. And we had some over the holidays and people really seem to love it, five star reviews, and we try to keep it very, very affordable. I know some of those cameos can be so expensive, and as they used to say on In Living Color, that old TV show, homey don’t play that. I want to make it very affordable for everybody and make it possible for everybody to participate. So it’s cameo.com/theJimHarold. And we thank you so much for tuning in this time. We appreciate it very much. Stay safe, share the show, and stay spooky. Bye-Bye.

Announcer (01:34:50):

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