The ghost who baked scones, a young man encounters an entity in a friend’s house, a deceased relative saves a life and much more on this edition of Jim Harold’s Campfire!
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TRANSCRIPT
Jim (00:00:00):
A scone baking ghost. Sounds like my kind of haunting. Up next on the Campfire,
Announcer 1 (00:00:21):
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 (00:00:32):
Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold, and so glad to be with you once again. And my friends, you probably have that Halloween hangover. Those of us who really love the spooky, we’re in our glory during the month of October, but become very sad on November 1st because it seems like the world has forgotten the spooky already so quick it’s gone away. But I have news for you friends, it’s Halloween 24/7 365 here around the Campfire and our other Spooky Studio shows. So take heart and stay tuned because we’ve got lots of spooky for you, even though it’s November and everybody has moved on to Christmas, it seems already. Now we’re always trying to do new things to keep the spooky going, and we’ve done a new thing in our Mausoleum of Merch, brand new, just announced this past Saturday on our Halloween live stream, four hours.
(00:01:31):
By the way, if you want to see me and Dar dressed up like Lazslo and Nadja from “What We Do in the Shadows”, check out that live stream. It’s archived at YouTube.com/jimharold. Anyway, Mausoleum of Merch. We have rolled out another wing of the Mausoleum of Merch. Now of course, we have the Amazon section where you can get guest books and different podcast equipment and a small selection of my merch, but we love Amazon, but we’re a little bit restricted in that we couldn’t do mugs, we couldn’t do stickers, we couldn’t do a lot of different things the way we were using it. So what we’ve decided is to open a new wing of the Mausoleum of Merch, the Etsy wing, and now we’re offering stickers. We’re offering mugs, we’re offering blankets, we’re offering shirts, of course, hoodies, both pullover and zip up. So check it out at the Mausoleum of Merch.
(00:02:33):
You can find all those links over at jimharold.com/merch, jimharold.com/merch. Your purchases help support the Spooky Studio and what we do, and thank you. So let’s get right to those Campfire stories and Happy Halloween, may it reign forever.
Next up on the Campfire is Jason from Philadelphia. Now he’s been listening for three years because his fiance Brooke makes him, and that’s the way to be. If you have a significant other, make them listen to the Campfire. I highly recommend it. And Brooke, if you’re listening out there, thank you so much. I know you’ve been listening eight years. Way to go and Stay Spooky. And Jason is actually going to tell us about a story that starts with him and his fiance, and we’re so glad to have Jason on the air from the city of Brotherly Love. Jason, welcome. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened.
Jason (00:03:37):
Hi Jim. Thank you so much for having me on. It’s,
Jim (00:03:40):
Thank you.
Jason (00:03:41):
It’s an honor to be talking to you today. So yeah, the story begins in October, 2021. My then girlfriend, now fiance, Brooke and I were living in Seattle at the time and
we were taking a road trip from Seattle through Yakima, Washington. And so we got to Yakima and we were staying with my friend Jen, who had this beautiful house in town. So we had a good time. We went out and then we got back and we fell asleep. And then we were kind of in a finished basement area of the house, kind of like an Airbnb type of a situation, but it was a house, but kind of a different section underneath. So around three or four in the morning, I started having some really crazy dreams, just straight up psychedelic dreams as dreams usually are, but just weird dreams. And then I only about half wake up from those dreams. Half of me is aware that I’m in Yakima, I’m in the room that I’m in, that Brooke is right next to me, but the other half of me still is kind of stuck in a state of sleep. I had never had any kind of sleep paralysis before. That’s probably what I would kind of akin it to, so that half of me that was asleep could very slowly turn my head to the right. And I saw Brooke, and then very slowly I turned my head to the left. And what I saw was a tall, shadowy, skinny man dressed all in black.
Jim (00:05:24):
Oh man.
Jason (00:05:25):
Completely shaved bald head and with a crooked nose hovering over. Yeah, his face was about a foot and a half away from my face.
Jim (00:05:35):
Yikes. Okay, you’re giving me chills now. Wow.
Jason (00:05:38):
Yeah,
Jim (00:05:39):
Oh man. Ewww!
Jason (00:05:41):
Yeah, it was creepy. But the thing is, and I’ve talked to people who have had sleep paralysis before, and it seems like it’s possible to have a sleep paralysis demon that’s taunting you and trying to scare you.
Jim (00:05:57):
Yeah.
Jason (00:05:57):
This guy didn’t seem malicious at all. I didn’t pick up a vibe that he was trying to scare me. More he was trying to tell me something, he was mouthing words and very faintly whispering. And in this state of half sleep, I tried to inch my head closer to his face to hear him better. And he repeated himself, still couldn’t hear him. And then a third time, I try to get my ear as close as I can to his mouth, but still not able to move. But he starts repeating himself for a third time, and then I fully wake up because Brooke is shaking me awake, saying, “You’re talking in your sleep, and making strange noises.”
Jim (00:06:42):
Oh man,
Jason (00:06:43):
Now I’m fully awake. The bald man had vanished. He wasn’t there anymore. Turned the lights on. I was like, whoa that was weird. Okay, let’s go on with our night. We go back to sleep, wake up in the morning, go on with the rest of our road trip. It’s just a thing in the past. I chalk it up to just being a weird, weird dream. That next April I realized I had never told my friend Jen the story. So I sent her a voicemail just detailing exactly what I detailed for you just now.
Jason (00:07:18):
And I asked her if anybody reported a tall, scary bald man in that Airbnb section of the house. She was like, “No,, but I’ll keep an eye out.” It seems like they had some other instances of maybe ghostly activity in the house, but nothing resembling that. So fast forward to late September of 2023, just about a month ago, I get a text from Jen in all caps saying, “CALL ME ASAP. You’re not going to believe this.” So apparently Jen’s daughter, Bella, she was working at the time at a performance hall in Yakima, called “The Seasons” and performing one of those nights was a psychic medium named Melissa Henyan. And Bella was talking to Melissa and Melissa could kind of channel off of Bella that night.
Jason (00:08:20):
And Bella was wondering about that house and asked about some of those other possibly paranormal instances that they had in the house. And Melissa was kind of channeling, she kind of hit the nail on the head with some of the instances that Bella was describing, asked if there was an older woman that used to live there. They looked it up, apparently, yes, there was. Melissa had written the letters MAR and they looked it up. Her name was Marjorie. So she got that pretty well. So in that same conversation, she also says, “Wait, there’s another presence in that house that I’m channeling off of you. There’s a male presence. I’m getting a tall man dressed all in black, completely bald.”
Jim (00:09:13):
Oh man.
Jason (00:09:16):
Bella asked Jen if she had ever heard about anything like this, which is what made Jen harken back to the voicemail I had sent, which is why she texted me in all caps. So according to their conversation, Melissa believes that the spirits in that house were trying to tell everybody something. They didn’t get vibes that they were trying to haunt anybody or trying to terrorize anybody just to try to tell them something, which tracks so well with the experience I had because this man who had hovered over me was definitely mouthing something to me. And according to Melissa, he was trying to get me to decide something, which I’m still not sure exactly what that could have been to this day. It was right before Brooke and I had moved across the country from Seattle to Philadelphia. It was just in the realm of big decisions and big life changes that were coming up. But, uh…
Jim (00:10:16):
Now in your email you said maybe he was trying to get you to propose.
Jason (00:10:20):
Yeah, possibly. That’s one theory I have is that not too long after that is when Brooke and I got engaged. So maybe that had to do with it too, of just big decisions and big life changes were in the air, and that was one of them.
Jim (00:10:34):
I think you were very wise. She’s obviously a woman of great taste, loving the Campfire as she does.
Jason (00:10:42):
Yeah, impeccable podcast tastes.
Jim (00:10:45):
Absolutely. That is an awesome story. And in your email, you said the description that the psychic had even went down to the guy’s nose, right?
Jason (00:10:55):
Yes, I believe so. She mentioned that he had that long hook nose, which was such a defining feature, What I saw that night.
Jim (00:11:02):
Wow.
Jason (00:11:04):
So it’s so eerie how spot the medium’s description of this ghostie was. And it’s just one of those things too, when it got to the point of last month, that day that Jen texted me, I woke up that morning being like 50-50 of whether or not I believed in ghosts and paranormal stuff. Listening to a lot of stories on the Campfire definitely helped push me in that direction. But I went to bed that night, 100% convinced that there’s another dimension of beings in existence that I just have, I’m just not aware of.
Jim (00:11:45):
I would agree. And Jason, thank you so much for sharing this great Campfire story and thanks to Brooke and to both of you, Stay Spooky.
Speaker 3 (00:11:54):
All right, Stay Spooky. Jim. Thank you so much.
Jim (00:11:56):
Lauren is on the line. She’s a relatively new listener, but she jumped in with both feet, started listening October 1st, the spooky month of the year, and then went back and listened to all of 2023 of the Campfire. That’s dedication. Lauren, thank you so much. I know you have some stories about your family members and how they tend to look out for us even after they’ve passed, and I love these kinds of stories. Thank you for taking time. Thank you for being so dedicated and a plus member now and tell us what happened.
Lauren (00:12:30):
Thanks, Jim. I’d be happy to. So we have a lot of strong matriarchs in our family and I like to think that some of them have come back over time to watch over us, and I’ve got some stories that back that up. And the one I want to tell you about first is one that happened to my mom and I got her permission to relay this. And so the story goes when my brother was born in 1999, he came home, but when he was just a few weeks old, he got pretty deathly ill. I believe he had pneumonia. I don’t know if he also had bronchitis, just a bad mix of things to have as a three or four week old infant without a strong immune system. And it got so bad to the point at which my family called emergency services. And unfortunately he did pass away for a moment on the way to the hospital, they revived him, the hospital decided he needed even stronger care than what they were able to provide. So they airlifted him to a nearby or to our regional hospital that could handle his case.
Lauren (00:13:43):
So they keep him there, they work on him. He’s there for quite a while actually. And my mom’s there with him, and it was just a long journey. She would stay up all day that at one point they needed to tap him so often to test blood that they just put a spigot in him so they could get it more easily. It was a long, long journey. And my mother says that at one point a nurse walked in and says, “Next time this goes south, do you want, I think we’ve done a lot. Do you just want to call it?”
Jim (00:14:16):
Wow.
Lauren (00:14:17):
And my mother, well, she also pointed out that he might be oxygen deprived at some point. This might lead him to being someone who has some special needs. My mother is a special education elementary school teacher, so she says, try everything you can.
Jim (00:14:34):
Right.
Lauren (00:14:35):
So the nurse turns around, they work on him. They eventually do call the pastor to baptize him just in case. And through all of this, he manages to pull through. He pulls through and eventually his lungs are strong enough that they send him home to our house. And at that time, my brother had his own room. My sister and I had ours. We were right next to each other and my parents had their room as well, but my mom decided to post up in a rocking chair in his room, my brother’s room, so that way she could pay attention to him because the doctor said that he needs to sleep on his back. It’s the least amount of resistance on his little lungs as they’re healing,
Jim (00:15:20):
Right.
Lauren (00:15:20):
He has to sleep on his back, otherwise he might not be able to breathe. She posts up in this rocking chair and she sleeps there for weeks, getting up every hour on the hour to walk over and check and make sure he’s sleeping on his back.
Lauren (00:15:38):
She says that one night a couple weeks in, she gets that good old ghost story feeling of waking up and feeling pretty chilly and this small little room. And so she says she wakes up just enough to pull a blanket over her and when she pulls the blanket over her, she looks up and she sees her great-grandmother standing next to my brother’s crib. And at first she doesn’t think anything of it. She says, “Hi, Gigi!”, just lays back down and closes her eyes before her brain catches up with her and says, wait a minute, my Gigi is no longer with us. She opens her eyes again. Gigi is gone. She checks the clock. She slept through several alarms. She slept for like four hours solid or something now, and she had been getting up every hour on the hour to check on my brother. She panics, hops up, runs over the crib, looks inside the crib, he’s sleeping on his chest.
Jim (00:16:37):
Ohhh.
Lauren (00:16:37):
She flips him back over and he resumes breathing normally.
Jim (00:16:41):
Oh my, oh my.
Lauren (00:16:42):
I’d just like to think Gigi was looking out for him and for my mom and potentially saved his life.
Jim (00:16:48):
I believe those things happen. We’ve had other stories like that. One thing that we’ve had a couple of times is we had one woman whose father had passed and she was driving and she was at an intersection at a stoplight, and it was busy and the stoplight turns to green and your natural kind of impulse at that time is to stomp on the gas. And she audibly heard the voice of a father in the back saying, “Wait!”, that minute a car blows the light, totally blows the light. And would’ve totally T-boned her, and that might’ve been it for her. And I believe those things happen that our loved ones at times see us in danger and they step in. I totally believe that Lauren. Absolutely, a hundred percent.
Lauren (00:17:41):
I’m with you on that.
Jim (00:17:42):
You had another story you wanted to share as well, right?
Lauren (00:17:46):
I do. I have one more quick one also related to a matriarch in our family. So this story is mine personally. There was a time when I was a young girl that my grandmother, unfortunately, had a very hard year. She lost her mom and her husband and her dog all in the span of about one year. And I went to school about a mile away from her house. So some days after school, after this had happened, I would go over to her house just to spend a little time with her. She’d gone from a house full of these people, they’d all been living with her to being by herself. And so I’d just go to do homework, read a book, chat with her, and there was one day after school I came over per normal, walked in the front door and said, “Hello, Grammy” like I normally did, and I didn’t hear anything, so I thought she’s snoozing in the back, she’s working in her office.
Lauren (00:18:39):
I’m going to walk to the back of the house and check. I get to the back of the house, don’t see her at all. Think, okay, she’s just out of town. I’m going to head back to school and hang out with my friends until my mom comes and picks me up. As I’m walking back out through the house, I walk into an absolute cloud of my great-grandmother’s perfume, her mother who had recently passed. And that just made me feel great, thinking that I wasn’t spooked or anything. I was thinking, “Wow, Gigi is also my, Gigi is also looking out for my grandma here.” And obviously that’s significant because not only had she passed away, but just to debunk a little further, which solidified this for me, was that my grandmother had run out of that perfume in the nineties. They stopped making it in the seventies, so I really feel like it was her. They’ve gotten pictures of orbs in the house. It feels very safe there. So that’s my personal story.
Jim (00:19:37):
Honestly, that’s one of the most interesting things to me are the scents that come through. I was just interviewing Danny Robbins, the UK podcaster, very popular. He does his uncanny show and he was talking about a story where someone smelled the pipe smoke of I think a husband.
Jim (00:19:54):
And I think that’s a thing. And the funny thing is smells are so emotional and so evocative. I was at a store in the parking lot of a store and somebody was cutting grass the other day. This is about a week ago. And suddenly it took me back 30 years to my grandma’s house outside because the cut grass smelled like her yard. And that scent just takes you back whether it’s something very normal or paranormal. And I do believe that’s another way they use different ways to get in touch with us. Lauren, I know in addition to having these great stories and being a big fan of the paranormal, you’re involved in some ghost tours and so forth. Briefly give us a little bit about that and how people can check it out.
Lauren (00:20:39):
Sure thing. Thank you, Jim. I run the Cedar Falls Ghost Tour in my hometown of Cedar Falls, Iowa, and I got into all of this because of the stories I experienced growing up, and then I decided to bring some of this opportunity to tell these stories and tell these histories in my hometown. And this is my third year of doing it, and it’s been a blast to get to work with so many local businesses, meet so many people and share so many spooky stories.
Jim (00:21:06):
Excellent. And how can people connect with that?
Lauren (00:21:09):
You can find the Cedar Falls Ghost Tour on Facebook and Instagram.
Jim (00:21:14):
Excellent, excellent. Well, you can tell that you could tell stories. You obviously have a gift for it. Lauren, thank you so much for listening and telling you stories. Stay Spooky.
Lauren (00:21:25):
Stay Spooky and Happy Halloween,
Jim (00:21:27):
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Announcer 2 (00:24:40):
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 into the Paranormal Podcast today. Now we return to Jim Harold’s Campfire.
Jim (00:24:55):
Next up on the show is Harrison. And Harrison is calling in from New Zealand, and I love the idea of our international callers. Actually, Harrison found out about the show from Emily over at Morbidology and we appreciate that and always like to return the favor. And Harrison, please tell us what happened. I know you’ve got two paranormal stories and thank you for joining us all the way from New Zealand.
Harrison (00:25:23):
Oh, no, thank you very much, Jim. Hey, so the start of the story, first one, it’s going back a few years now. There was a old railway house from the early 1900s, I think, 1920, sorry. And a lovely lady and her husband moved into it and she always had baking ready for anyone who went round. She never let anyone go without a cup of tea and a scone. And so she moved away from the house and her husband and her passed away in a rest home. And I’d say unsavory individual moved into the house after her and was doing drug deals, growing pot
Jim (00:26:23):
Mmm.
Harrison (00:26:24):
And other illegal activities in the house before my parents and our family bought the house. He unalived himself in the driveway in his car. And I’ll explain a little bit more onto that. It’s just a wee bit of background detail sort of.
Harrison (00:26:51):
So fast forward 11 months and we buy the house and we move into it and there’s not a lot we noticed straight away. The house smells like freshly cooked scones every time we go into it. And we renovate the whole entire kitchen. We tear it all down, leave a lot of the original walls and the flooring, but tear down the cupboards, that sort of thing. In the living room near the kitchen, so it’s a combined kitchen and living room, there is a big old open fire hath with a giant heavy metal cast iron grate that covers it, to stop small children such as myself and my siblings from going into it. And we went away for a weekend going to a town, and when we came back we noticed that the giant fire guard was lying down perfectly in front of it. And the cast iron fire poker that was normally up on the half above it
Harrison (00:28:19):
was sitting down on top of the half in the center of it. Now we didn’t really, we thought, oh, that’s really odd. I’m not quite sure why it’s like that. And my dad changed all the locks on the house doors to deadbolts, so just for a bit of extra security and we didn’t really think too much of it. And then it started sort of getting a bit more as we renovated the house and made it look a lot nicer. And we kept smelling the same smell, freshly cooked scones after not being in the house for a couple days. We’d come back, all the windows had been open, but the kitchen would still smell like freshly cooked scones. And I was probably four or five at the time. I didn’t know about this until probably last year, but when my dad, he was a police officer, while he had been away doing night shift, my mum had heard someone walking down the hallway and gone out to investigate and she thought, oh, it’s probably just my dad home from work early. But in the hallway standing there was a warm, glowing old elderly lady
Harrison (00:29:58):
And she just, nothing about her felt harmful. And the house itself, she felt very warm and comforting to be around. And so mum just kind of thought, oh, I might be seeing stuff might not be, but I feel like the house has got some sort of presence in it, a good presence. She didn’t say anything about it to us, as to not scare us kids. And then she saw Fal, Fally, sorry, that’s her name, the old lady. She saw her again about a month after that and she was walking down the hallway again and sort of just went into one of the bedrooms, like she was coming to check in on us, make sure we were alright. And after we moved out of the house, we found out that the couple that had moved in after us had been trying for a baby for about eight and a half years. And they couldn’t really figure out why they couldn’t conceive. And the year they moved into the house, they had their first baby and they’ve now got two beautiful happy children while they’ve been living in that house. And we sort of feel like Fally was looking out for us, and as long as we were treating her house with respect, she would look after us and make sure we were always feeling warm and comfortable. And here’s sort of my second part to that story. We all reckon that the guy who committed suicide in the driveway did so because Fally wasn’t happy with how he was treating her house and how he had let it get into neglect. All the plants were dead outside,
Flower bushes and stuff were all wilted away. And yeah, she felt very warming and comforting though while we were living in the house and just the stuff was being moved that us small kids couldn’t move by ourselves. And mom and dad would leave the house together, lock it up together, and then return together to sort of see what’s been moved so that I guess they could affirm that they weren’t going crazy. Yeah. So that’s the first story about Fally.
Jim (00:32:47):
Now let me ask you about this. You pretty much, now obviously it seems like she was haunting that place. Do you feel that she was a residual ghost? Like you were seeing a replay or since you were actually smelling the smells and everything, do you think she was an active haunting?
Harrison (00:33:06):
I think she was active just because mum wouldn’t see her every night sort of that she was alone at the house with us kids. She’d only see her some nights and both times she saw her, it was a bit different. So I think she was a sort of a residual ghost, just sort of living out her life as she used to and just keeping an eye on things is sort of how I feel about her.
Jim (00:33:43):
Well, it is a neat story. I know you have another story. We’ll have to keep that one for another call. But I appreciate you calling in Harrison all the way from New Zealand and sharing this story of the Scone Baking ghost.
Harrison (00:33:56):
On it. Thank you very much for having me.
Jim (00:33:58):
Deborah is here. She’s calling in from Devil’s Tower, and we’re so glad to have her on the program. And she’s going to tell us a story about when she’s working back at a thrift store. Now, I always loved going to thrift stores. I’ve gotten a little more circumspect about it over the last few years having done these shows and heard all the stories about haunted objects and people like Greg and Dana Newkirk talking about, and John Zaffis is talking about haunted objects, but always a fascinating topic to me. Deborah, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. I know you’ve been listening for a while, heard us from the great Coast to Coast AM. Tell us what happened.
Deborah (00:34:40):
Thank you, Jim. Glad to be here. Grew up just loving thrift stores with my mom and going to yard sales and things like that. So moved to northern Idaho, almost to the Canadian border, and there was a little thrift store in town, and it had an animal shelter right next door, so all the proceeds from the store went to support the animals, get ’em fixed and spayed and things like that. So I worked there with oh, five other people, six other people. I myself am a witch. So there were two other witches working there. And then there was another lady, she was like a shaman, there was an agnostic young girl and two teenage kids that were Christian there. So we just worked at this thrift store, sorting donations, ringing up sales, taking care of the animals, all kinds of things. And it wasn’t very long that I was working there.
Deborah (00:35:31):
Before I would be in the warehouse and things would randomly start flying off the walls and moving around and there’d be clouds of smoke that would actually walk through the store. And if I was in the warehouse doing something, there’d be somebody whistling. And of course there’s nobody there. You’d hear footsteps upstairs seeing things flying around. And I don’t care for things like that. And so working at a thrift store, like you said, there’s a lot of attachments that come in with items, with paintings or whatever. So there were several times the group of us, after hours, we’d go in and we’d sage the whole store and where things would happen and we’d get donations at the front of the store. And one day in particular, it was snowing really heavy and there was a big box of donations, and somebody had donated quite a few dolls and they were in rocking chairs and on rocking horses. And none of us there liked dolls at all. We just didn’t like them. So one of the teenage girls, she brought them all in while we were all grabbing boxes, and she set all the dolls up on the counter and they all started rocking independently of each other and moving independently of each other.
Jim (00:36:42):
Oh, that is creepy.
Deborah (00:36:44):
And Jim, I mean, I know three of us were witches and stuff, but you just don’t want to see that. You’re not expecting to see that. So that girl without any of us saying anything, she says,”Nope, not today” And she grabbed them all and walked them right out to the dumpster without any of us saying anything. So that was kind of funny. But the story that I wanted to tell today was one that is nobody hardly, I don’t even know how to say this or to get anybody to believe it, but we had different ghosts in the store. We had a teenage ghost, we had a little girl ghost, we had several women, a creepy one. And we tried to find the history of these people and get them out of the store as soon as possible. And you could tell when they were attached to an item because if the item was in the warehouse, they would stay in the warehouse.
Deborah (00:37:34):
And if we brought the item into the store to sell, then they would be in the store and wreak havoc. And some of them were nice, some of them were silly, some of them were plain mean. But there was this one spirit in there, and he was a man. You could see him, and he had slicked back gray hair. He wore a white tank top camouflage, kind of like capri pants and flip flops. He smelled really heavy like a chain smoker and everything. And he would follow the store and he was frantic and he would say,”Where is it? Where is it?” And we’re like, what is going on? And we had some customers that would see it, and pretty much everybody in town being that we were so in the middle of nowhere, everybody kind of knew there was paranormal stuff with this store, but it is what it is.
It’s the only thrift store in town, so what do you do? But this spirit he kept, was frantic, “Where is it? Where is it?” And we were just, and it was very nerve wracking to have this entity in there constantly acting for this. Well, one day we were going through the boxes before the store opened, the boxes that are donated out front, and on the top of one of the boxes was the most beautiful painting I’ve ever seen or any of us had ever seen. Pretty simple painting, Jim, black background, beautiful flowers all over. Just stunning. Not very large, but it was just absolutely gorgeous. And we brought it in and all of us, all of us were like, we all fought over it. We wanted this painting really bad. It was just really simple, but it was gorgeous. And that entity, that man walked up and he said, “There it is.” He said, “That’s for Deborah”. Of course, that was me.
Jim (00:39:17):
Oh boy.
Deborah (00:39:19):
He said, “My daughter painted that.” Then he just walked right through the glass door and was gone,
Jim (00:39:25):
Walked through, walked through the glass door
Deborah (00:39:29):
Walked through, yeah, walked right through the front glass door, and then he was gone. We never saw him again or nothing. So all of us were dumbfounded. I’m like, “What in the world?” And I’m like, “I was just gifted a painting from this ghost.” Well, I did some research and stuff and found out a couple states over this man’s daughter was the one that painted this painting. And so I did end up contacting her and kind of going about the painting and stuff and asking about her dad. And she said her dad died in 1996. And I said, well, he gave me a painting of yours. And so then again, Jim, you have to be so careful. And of course, she did not take that kindly because the painting was painted quite a bit after his death.
Jim (00:40:17):
Right, right. So she thought, who’s this messing with me?
Deborah (00:40:21):
So she wanted nothing to do with me and blocked me on all social media because I started following her. Her art is just absolutely stunning. So I was like, well, it kind of sounds creepy. And I think if somebody came up to me and my mom’s been dead for 20 years or so, and if somebody said, “Hey, your mom just gave me a painting”, I’d be like, “You’re a scam artist or something you want.”
Jim (00:40:43):
Yeah, no, it would be understandable.
Deborah (00:40:46):
So I was trying to talk to her, but she wanted nothing to do with me. And I understand it sounded really creepy, but that’s my story, Jim. And the painting’s on the wall. And whenever, when I was still in that state, whenever somebody would come to my house and look at the painting, they’re like, oh, there’s that painting. Everybody knew the provenance of that painting,
Jim (00:41:07):
Right.
Deborah (00:41:07):
And especially the employees that I worked with, they all knew.
Jim (00:41:11):
So I want you, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to go over that once again because maybe somebody didn’t catch it. Explain exactly how he walked in, exactly what you saw and experienced, because that’s amazing. A ghost walks in and gives you a painting. But please recap that in case somebody missed it.
Deborah (00:41:29):
So the ghost had been in the store for about a month. I’m not sure how he got there or why he showed up, but during that month’s time, there were six entities at that time, and we would get rid of, it seemed like we would get rid of one and two more would follow in with another donation. But this gentleman, he was an older gentleman, I want to say in his sixties or so, and he was just frantic in the store all the time, and maybe not every day, but every few days, “Where is it? Where is it?” And he’d rustle through the clothes and he’d knock paintings down in the back room and he’d be in the warehouse and he was looking for an item. We didn’t know what, and it kind of baffled us. And one day, a donation out front, in one of the boxes, because we’d always try to bring all the donations in before the store opened.
Jim (00:42:15):
Sure.
Deborah (00:42:16):
And there was just this beautiful painting. Let’s see, I’m looking at it now. It’s probably by, well by 18 inches solid black background, beautiful flowers all over. It’s just absolutely stunning. And all of us and all of the employees, we saw this and literally were about to fight each other over this. We wanted this painting really bad. And normally we shared everything and stuff, but this painting was just gorgeous. And that ghost, he walked up to us and he said, “This painting is for Deborah.”
Jim (00:42:46):
What did he look like? I mean, was he translucent? Was he just like you and me?
Deborah (00:42:51):
He was translucent. Yeah. But you could see that he had a white tank top on, a men’s tank top, Camouflage capri cutoffs.
Jim (00:43:01):
Yeah. You mentioned…
Deborah (00:43:02):
He was wearing flip flops. It was either greasy hair or the hair had gel in it and he smelled very strongly of cigarette smoke. And I’m not saying he was unbathed or unwashed or anything, but he just had really, but we did have a teenage ghost in the store that wore Axe spray, and it would just make you nauseous and you could smell him through the store. And he was a bit of a pervert. And we did have a problem with him, unfortunately. But this man, he just smelled of cigarette and he was frantic. And as soon as that painting was donated, and we went to the cameras out front to see who donated this painting, we had security all over. And again, I don’t have to tell you anything. When things would happen in the store out of the store and you check security, of course the camera wouldn’t be working at that time. And it was very frustrating because everybody would see, we’d be upstairs in the warehouse and we’d be in the office and we’d look at the camera and we’d see stuff, and then we’d go to play it back and of course, erase tape. And that was very, very frustrating.
Jim (00:44:09):
Now, no activity around the painting itself though, once you got it. Is that correct?
Deborah (00:44:15):
No, no, no. And we got to the point, all of us were saging everything before, but we’d bring it home because we get all kinds of cool stuff. We had first pick at everything. But no, I’ve had it in my house forever and never a strange thing, never anything weird. And there was a lot of stuff in the store, Jim. There was a little girl with pigtails that would run through the store and just knock stuff over and make a mess. And one time we found a painting and there was a mother was kneeling down at her bed praying, and there was a shadow on the wall of a little girl’s pigtails head and silhouette, looking in the mom’s bedroom, watching her mom praying. And we’re like, “Oh, that’s the little girl.” And so when we went to sage that painting, the smoke actually went into the painting instead of just straight up in the air, it went into the painting. And that’s the first time I’ve ever seen that happen. So then the teenage boy that worked there, he just grabbed the painting and just took it outside and tossed it. He’s like, “Nope, I’m not dealing with this.”
Jim (00:45:23):
So…
Deborah (00:45:23):
That might not be the right way to discard something. But we had teenage kids and when they got spooked, they’re like, oh, off to the trash it goes.
Jim (00:45:32):
Well, I got to tell you, Deborah, an incredible, incredible story about being gifted a painting by a ghost.
Deborah (00:45:41):
Yes. And I have it with me all the time. And Jim, I tell people, and now it’s at the point to where my fiance’s like, please don’t tell anybody that story anymore because you look like you’re just (inaudible). And it does. If I was back in the town that I lived in, everybody knows the story, but now where I’m at, I’m like, yeah, no.
Jim (00:46:00):
Well, Deborah, we believe you around the Campfire for sure. Thank you for being a part of the program today.
Deborah (00:46:06):
Thank you, Jim. Stay Spooky.
Jim (00:46:09):
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Announcer 2 (00:48:28):
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 (00:48:38):
Mira is on the line from the great state of Michigan, and we’re so glad to speak with her. And she has one of our favorite kind of stories. She’s going to take us back to 2019 and share a head scratcher. Mira, very grateful for you coming on the show to share your story. Tell us what happened.
Mira (00:48:57):
Yeah, thank you, Jim. So yeah, so this story takes place in 2019, a couple of years ago, and a little bit of background. And where this happened, I was actually, it was on a work trip, and I was working at a nonprofit at that time, and part of the nonprofit provides youth programs for kids and teenagers, and we were on what is called a transformational road trip where we pack up a bunch of kids or teenagers and kind of take them somewhere to explore. So we were headed this time to Mammoth Cave National Park. So we were staying at an Airbnb kind of around that area, and it was about from Michigan, a good amount of drive, so about eight hours, and it was eight other teenage girls and our director and myself. So kind of a long ride down there. We get there around, yeah, we get there around eight, nine o’clock.
Mira (00:49:55):
So pretty late after a long day. And by the time we got there, I was ready for a break, you know in the car with eight teenagers. I was needing a little bit of space, so I started looking around the cabin, and then we were all trying to figure out where everyone’s going to sleep. And there’s two rooms that are downstairs, and then there’s a room that’s upstairs. And it appeared that there were enough beds for everybody, but my bed would’ve been in one of the teenage girls’ room. And I was not looking to do that after this whole trip and needing some space. So I grew up being a big camper and slept outside a bunch of times. And I was like, I got a sleeping bag, and there’s a screened in porch both on in the back and the front and a hammock. And I was like, I’ll just camp out there tonight, because need a little bit of space from everybody after being in our van.
Mira (00:50:49):
And when I got out there, I was like, lights had gone out for the girls, and I was like, it’s around 11:00. So I’m just laying in the hammock and “Aww, this would be so nice.” Just kind of enjoying the space and the outside at that point. And when I was out there, I started to kind of drift off to sleep and probably around, like I said, like 11, 11:30, I was out and asleep. And then this is kind of where the whole story begins. So I’d say maybe two, maybe three hours later I woke up because I’m kind of just hearing what sounded like laughter, like kids playing. But also I’m not only hearing it, but I’m also kind of seeing this image of kids running out in the yard. And as I’m kind of coming to, I’m like, whoa, this is, wait a second, I’m sleeping and I can’t move. I can’t talk, which is something that’s happened to me throughout my life. So it wasn’t too scary. I was just kind of like, oh man, this is happening again. And I’m like, oh, but then why are there kids outside playing at this point? It must be, well after midnight, maybe 1:00. I know I’ve been sleeping for a little bit, and I’m like, this is super weird. Why would kids be up super late? And I’m like, whatever. It’s summer, it’s vacation, whatever. Maybe they’re just playing.
Jim (00:52:17):
Yeah.
Mira (00:52:18):
So I’m kind of just then sitting there in the hammock and all of a sudden I hear this laughter and these kids start to get closer to me, and I’m like, oh man, I do not want to deal with kids. And at this point, I’m not scared. I’m not freaked out. It’s just kind of annoyed honestly, at this point. And the kids get really, really close up to the front porch, and all of a sudden I’m like, wait a second. I can’t tell them to go away because I can’t talk and I can’t move. And I’m like, this is very odd.
Jim (00:52:50):
Yeah, for sure.
Mira (00:52:52):
So then the kids get much, much closer, and all of a sudden I feel like my hammock start to kind of go back and forth as if somebody is pushing me on each side almost like a swing. And at this point I’m like, “Oh man.”
Jim (00:53:08):
Oh man. Oh boy.
Speaker 9 (00:53:10):
Yes. I’m like, oh my goodness.
Jim (00:53:11):
Okay, first of all, you can’t move. You’ve got these weird children and now something’s pushing you. Oh boy.
Mira (00:53:20):
Yeah. And then what I realized is it’s almost like the kids are on either side of pushing me back and forth and giggling and laughing, and I’m still not terrified, but I’m also very uncomfortable. And I start to think like, “Oh, no, you guys need to get away from me. Please leave me alone.” And I hear one of the kids go, “She’s sleeping and just start laughing.”
Jim (00:53:50)
Ewww.
Mira (00:53:51):
Yes. Yes. So at this point now I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t move. I can’t see.” But somehow, even though my eyes are pretty much closed, I can see them around me. I can see that there’s kids, I can see that they’re pushing me, and I’m like, this is really odd, because I’m not actually seeing them because my eyes are closed, so I still can’t really move at this point.
Jim (00:54:11):
Yeah. For all you know they’re not kids.
Mira (00:54:13):
Right, exactly.
Jim (00:54:14):
What could they be?
Mira (00:54:15):
And at this point, I’m just thinking in my head, “Please go away. Please leave me alone. Please leave.” And all of a sudden I hear what sounds like, but again, it’s also like I’m seeing it at the same time, like a mom on a porch next door, kind of calling to these kids, “Okay, time to come home, leave her alone, come on back.” And all of a sudden they stop and they start laughing, and I can hear her slash/see them run across our lawn into the next lawns, and they go up into the house, and I actually hear like what it would sound like if someone’s running up porch steps. And so at this point, I’m like, whoa, that was super weird. I don’t know who would let their kids out super late. That’s just a very odd situation. And I kind of calm down, kind of relax, and I fall back asleep. And then the next thing I know it’s morning and I’m starting to wake up and I’m like, wow, that was quite the experience with the neighbors. At this point, I’m still not thinking that this is a dream. Like, this was real. I know that this was real.
Mira (00:55:26):
I saw these kids, I heard these kids. I saw the mom. I know that I don’t know how I did, but I saw them. And so I’m waking up and I get out of the hammock and I look out, go out of the porch and look down, and I’m like, there is not a house next door to us. In fact, because we arrived at night, I didn’t really see anything. And there is really not a house for probably a good hundred feet or so.
Jim (00:55:56):
Oh geez.
Mira (00:55:58):
Any direction, front, back side way. We’re pretty much on a good amount of land. And I’m like, oh, so that wasn’t real. And I’m like, what was that? So then I’m kind of like, okay, I’m in a cabin with a bunch of teenagers, maybe they got up and they decided to prank me. So I go back inside and I’m kind of waiting for everybody to wake up and the director comes out first and I’m like, “Hey, the kids didn’t come out last night at all, did they? Like they were in bed.” And he’s like, “No, I was up till lights out. They were fast asleep after the ride”. So I’m kind of like, okay, but teenagers could escape, could do whatever. So they wake up and I’m like, “So did you guys get up and walk outside at all?” And they’re like, “No.” And they’re like, “Why though?” And I’m like, “I didn’t know. I heard these kids…”, and I’m kind of telling them the story and their eyes are wide and their jaw is dropping. And they’re like,”That was not us. We were not outside. We did not do anything.” And I was like, “Oh, okay”. And I was just at that point. So just like, what happened? What was that? What did I hear? And yeah, that was, then I slept inside for the next couple nights that we were there and did not go back out there.
Jim (00:57:24):
Now, let me ask you, were these older homes by any chance?
Mira (00:57:28):
Yes. They were older cabin like homes that definitely had been there for a little bit. Very rustic, kind of just, yeah.
Jim (00:57:36):
I’m going to throw something out there, and I’m sure you’ve thought of this. Is it a possibility that at one time there was a cabin there or a house?
Mira (00:57:45):
Yes. I definitely could see that. And that’s kind of what I was thinking. There were big clearings on a lot of sides of these houses.
Jim (00:57:53):
So one of two things. Were you seeing ghosts, ghost children, or perhaps a time slip?
Mira (00:58:01):
That has both crossed my mind and part of it wanted to say ghost children, but I’ve had ghost encounters and I’ve had paranormal stuff, and I’ve never had that much physical contact with anything. So part of me then thought maybe a time slip of, I’m kind of in this hammock and laying there, and these kids are messing around with the neighbors. And that’s definitely something else that I thought about.
Jim (00:58:27):
Well, like so many things that we cover on the Campfire, ‘tis a mystery, but it’s a fascinating one to ponder. And Mira, thank you so much for joining us today on the Campfire and sharing it.
Mira (00:58:39):
Yeah, absolutely. Jim, thank you so much for having me.
Jim (00:58:42):
Well, next up on the Campfire, we have a return caller Shandar is back, and we’re so glad to have her back on the show. She’s calling from North Dakota, and she’s going to tell us about, well, a mysterious radio. Shandar, I love radio. I love ghosty stuff. This sounds like the perfect story for me. Welcome back to the show. Tell us what happened.
Shandar (00:59:04):
Thanks, Jim. So it happened, oh gosh, a little over 20 years ago. My mom had just had my youngest brother, and we had just moved into a new townhouse complex area that they had just built. And I remember shortly after we moved in, I would hear noises every now and then my bedroom door would creak open. I didn’t really think a whole lot of it. And about a month after we were living there, I would start hearing this radio playing, but it wasn’t like an AM/FM radio. It was one of those old turntables with the big megaphone thing on it.
Jim (00:59:58):
Oh yeah. Kind of like where they are (in muffly voice) Singing like this, and they sound like this.
Shandar (01:00:02):
Yes, but it was like parlor music.
Jim (01:00:06):
Oh, okay.
Shandar (01:00:06):
And it was just really weird. And I would get up and I would go out in the hallway and the music would stop. And I never said anything to my mom, never said anything to anybody about it. And a few years ago, my husband and I, we go out ghost hunting for fun with our son, and my mom had decided that she wanted to go with us, and we brought my brothers with, and we just happened to talk about it. And I said, “Mom, did you ever hear music in that townhouse that we lived at in Wyoming when the boys were little?” And she goes, “Yeah”. And I said, “Where did you ever figure out what it was, where it was coming from?” And she said there was one night where she heard it, and all of us were asleep. It was like 2:30 in the morning, she said, and the townhouse had a little attic thing on the top floor. And she said she heard it coming from that attic area. So she grabbed the step stool and she got up there, and as soon as she pushed up on the little closure, the music would stop.
Jim (01:01:17):
Oh, that’s weird.
Shandar (01:01:18):
And she closed it back down and got back off the ladder, and about five minutes later, the music started again. And we could never figure out what it was, where it came from, how the only thing that we were able to find out was that that whole area at one point in time was all Native American land. And they were saying that it was more than likely built on sacred land.
Jim (01:01:52):
And maybe that was somehow doing that.
Shandar (01:01:55):
Yep.
Jim (01:01:55):
Yeah, that’s it’s just a weird thing. Just a very bizarre thing it would play like that old Rudy Valle, kind of the old 78 music. That’s weird.
Shandar (01:02:10):
Yeah, the story of the land definitely did not match the genre of music.
Jim (01:02:16):
Yeah. You would think it would be like something from the twenties or thirties or something.
Shandar (01:02:21):
Yeah, it was weird.
Jim (01:02:22):
(singing muffly) I’m just wild about Harry. Harry’s just wild about me. Anyway
Shandar (01:02:26):
Exactly.
Jim (01:02:30):
Enough of that. Now you have another story. You said this is maybe your favorite one. It took place back in 2014.
Shandar (01:02:38):
So this one actually happened in the same townhouse and my grandfather had passed away and I had, at the time it was a waterbed bunk bed set. It was the coolest thing ever. The bottom bunk was a water bed, and then the top bunk was a normal bunk bed. And I was in my room one night and I was missing my papa and I was laying there in bed, just sad. And I remember the night before the music played, and then this night I saw this greenish glow outside my door. And so I kind of was a little creeped out because I was like, okay, I’ve heard the music before, but I’ve never seen a glow. What is going on? And I heard my door creak open. So of course every 12 year old child hurries up and covers their head because boogeyman can’t get you if you’re under your blankets, right?
Jim (01:03:47):
Right.
Shandar (01:03:48):
And I didn’t really hear the door open all the way, but I remember all of a sudden feeling my bed move. Now, being a waterbed, you can definitely tell when something hits the waterbed. And as soon as I felt the presence sit down, there was no fear anymore. And I could smell my grandpa, and I just felt it was him coming in letting me know that “I’m okay, kiddo, you don’t have to worry. Everything’s fine.”
Shandar (01:04:32):
So it was just weird how the music and him, it all happened in the same place and kind of back to back.
Jim (01:04:40):
Yeah, and it’s one of those things where I think our loved ones have a way of getting through to us, whether it’s in dreams, whether it’s by moving things, whatever it might be, I really think that is a thing. Well, Shandar, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you for sharing the story. And I’ll do you a favor and not sing anymore.
Shandar (01:05:03):
That’s okay.
Jim (01:05:05):
Thanks for being on the Campfire and Stay Spooky.
Shandar (01:05:08):
You too, Jim. Thank you.
Jim (01:05:10):
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Announcer 2 (01:07:57):
Follow Jim on Twitter and Instagram at THEJimHarold, and join our virtual Campfire Facebook group at virtualCampfiregroup.com. Now back to the Campfire.
Jim (01:08:06):
Next up on the Campfire is Jamie. She’s been on the show before, a loyal listener indeed. In fact, she’s out there spreading the word, told Cherise about the show. And now Cherise is a listener. So Cherise, welcome to the show and Stay Spooky. And Jamie, thank you for joining us again and you have some stories for us. So tell us what happened.
Jaime (01:08:28):
Thank you for having me back. So little background, my family and I are Jewish. We’re not terribly religious, but we’re observant, but we have religious friends. So this starts, actually, the first story starts from when I was little. My parents bought our first home and one of our very religious friends, Jewish friends, gave us a Hebrew protection spell from mysticism that’s framed and still sitting on the wall to this day. And it sort of protects the whole whole home from spirits, evil spirits, things like that.
Jim (01:09:06):
Sure.
Jaime (01:09:06):
Well, fast forward a few years later, a different family friend who was a white witch and into all of that, did a ceremony. And I remember this clearly. I was about six in my room that sort of has a protective spirit over my room. And I think over the years, I’m going to say that protection sort of, let’s call it, translated to me, because I’ve had, as you know, I’ve been on, I’ve had many experiences, but none of them felt evil. None of them felt bad. It was always like I saw family members or when I would see random things or experience random things. It wasn’t a reason to be scared, let’s say. Nothing felt evil like, ”Oh, I should be afraid of what’s ever there.” And I’m wondering, it’s like if the protection spells have to do with my experiences and things like that, I’ve always wondered that.
Jim (01:10:08):
Yeah. I don’t know that I have an answer for you, but it sounds reasonable to me. It sounds logical to me, I think, and I’m very much for kind of trying to pray for protection and those kind of things can’t hurt, might very well help. So why not? I think it makes a lot of sense, and I think that people are smart to say prayers and do those kinds of things, particularly if they’re doing things like paranormal investigation or they’re doing Ouija board sessions or those kinds of things. I don’t think that it could, I certainly would put it in the category of can’t hurt and it very well could help because I think even when it comes to medical stuff, I’m always a big believer in western medicine. I say, do what your doctor says, take your treatment like you’re supposed to. But also if you can add something like the power of prayer or something like that, or religious belief, I think it makes a difference. It’s even been shown that many times it seems to actually make a difference. So yeah, I’m all for it.
Jaime (01:11:15):
Right?
Jim (01:11:16):
I’m all for it.
Jaime (01:11:17):
Well, before I get into the next story in what you were saying about prayer and healing in Judaism, we just had our High Holy Days, Yom Kippur. And they have, there’s always a prayer for health and healing that the rabbi does, and people can put in names and things of people who need it, who need health and healing. So I think you’re right, but with the second story, I believe these spirits are like, the reason I think they’re good and they’re protecting me, and I think they’re kind of playful because my second story is I was watching a paranormal show. This is the same house. This is years and years later, I’m an adult and I’m watching a paranormal investigation show. And I don’t know if you or your listeners are familiar with those, but they’ll always say, if there’s anyone here, please give us a sign. And they wait for a sign.
Jaime (01:12:13):
And the tension builds. And the tension builds. Well, I’m watching this. I’m waiting for the sign, I’m watching the show, and I hear a loud crash next to me. I jump out of my skin as most people probably would, and I look, we had hanging from a hook in the ceiling in the living room, heavy wing chimes on a rope, on a strong rope. And at that moment when he said that on the show, that’s when the rope gave way, like rope that’d been there for years. And you always say too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.
Jim (01:12:54):
Yes.
Jaime (01:12:54):
Right?
Jim (01:12:55):
Yes.
Jaime (01:12:55):
So I’m thinking, what are the odds that he says,”Can someone please give us a sign if someone’s here on tv?” And at that exact moment, the rope happens to break. It’s been there for years, and it suddenly breaks at that moment in response.
Jim (01:13:18):
I can’t disagree with you because again, I do believe that, I mean, I don’t know if I came up with that saying or I heard it somewhere, because I’ve been saying it for so long. But I really believe there is something to that, that there are coincidences. There’s no question. There are coincidences.
Jaime (01:13:32):
Yeah, absolutely.
Jim (01:13:33):
There’s also times when things are too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence, and that can go…
Jaime (01:13:39):
I’m wondering if,
Jim (01:13:40):
Yeah, go ahead.
Jaime (01:13:41):
I’m wondering if one of the spirits was like, “Oh, I’m going to play a little joke or something.”
Jim (01:13:48):
I do think there’s a trickster element to it all, and I don’t necessarily think it’s always negative, though it could be. But I think sometimes it’s like, oh, I’m going to have a little bit of fun at your expense. I’m going to… (laughing)
Jaime (01:14:00):
Absolutely.
Jim (01:14:02):
Well, Jamie, thank you so much for joining us. As always. I know you’re a big supporter and out there spreading the word and be like, Jamie! Come on! Tell your stories at jimharold.com/Campfire and tell a friend too. Jamie, thank you so much for being a part of the show today.
Jaime (01:14:18):
Thank you for having me. Stay Spooky.
Jim (01:14:21):
Cindi is a return caller. She’s back from Brisbane, Australia. You remember a while back, she had that interesting story about her mother’s experience in Singapore, and today she’s going to talk to us about JOT, you know those situations where things show up in places that they shouldn’t necessarily be and find those fascinating. Cindi, welcome back. It just seems like we spoke mere moments ago, but nevertheless, nevertheless, we’re back on now. Tell us what happened.
Cindi (01:14:50):
Okay, so there’s a couple of times when weird JOT situation has happened to me. The first time it was, it’s something that, well, okay, my first boyfriend at that time gave me a necklace and it was a very, very pretty little silver chain, and I loved it a lot, and I wore it all the time until one day I just couldn’t find it anywhere. So I just was quite sad about it, and he was all very kind about it. And he was like, “No, no, that’s fine. I can get you another one or something.”
Jim (01:15:28):
RIght, those things happen.
Cindi (01:15:30):
Yeah, exactly. So I just couldn’t find it for several months until one day I came back to my bedroom and I just found it sitting neatly on top of my bed covers. So I was like, “Oh!” I went and I found my boyfriend. I was like, “Oh, thanks for finding it and putting on my bed.” And he’s like, “No, I didn’t find it. I didn’t.” So I asked my flatmates and no one knew what happened. And I thought that was really weird because you get in and out of bed every night.
Jim (01:16:06):
Right.
Cindi (01:16:07):
So if it was just sitting on my bed covers, it would’ve fallen off the bed long time ago. So…
Jim (01:16:14):
Yeah. Yeah, that’s strange. That’s the thing is that they just, I’ve heard stories of people, they scour their house and one story I think I had, whatever the object was, I don’t know if it was a remote control or whatever it was, it just appeared in the middle of the floor of the living room. Things drop into these holes into the universe. Did you have another JOT story?
Cindi (01:16:40):
Yes. The second one is actually far more interesting. So this is also a long time ago when I was a uni student, and I remember one day I was feeling kind of blue and my friend and I was like, oh, we’ll go out for a walk in the park. And I was like, “Yeah, that’s nice.” So we went for a walk and then we sat, I think it was a soccer field. We sat on the edge of it, just having a chat and stuff. And all that time I had my wallet, I guess, in my pocket, and I didn’t realize that it must’ve fallen out at some point, whether we’re sitting there chatting or at some point in the walk. Anyway, so when we left the park, I noticed that was gone, and I was quite upset because it’s got my rent money in it, my bill money in it, and I was like, I really cannot afford to lose my wallet.
(01:17:35):
So we went all through the park, we went back to the soccer field, which I thought was most logically where I would’ve lost it when I was sitting down on the ground and I couldn’t find it, could not find it. And I was really very distraught over it. But I was very lucky that my mom sort of came through and went like, look, I’ll help you out with this and you can pay me back later because I mean these things happen. So then it would’ve been maybe five or six years later, I just got a phone call out of the blue from the police station and they were like, “Oh, is your name Cindi?” And I’m like, “Yes, it is.” And they were like, “Oh, okay. Did you lose a wallet or something?” And I was like, “Not recently, not that I could think of.”
Cindi (01:18:33):
And they were like, “Well, we’ve got a wallet here with your driver’s license and everything in it, and would you like to come and pick it up?” And I was like, “Okay.” So I turned up at the police station and someone has handed it in. And for a wallet that you think was out in the elements for 6, 7, 8 years, it would’ve been really weathered. It wasn’t. It was like brand new. All my money was still in it. Everything was still in it like as if it’s just dropped like that morning or something. So it was very, very strange. I was very, very lucky that all my stuff is still in my wallet.
Jim (01:19:20):
It’s amazing how things turn up. And I also believe that sometimes we have help. For example, my wife, when we got engaged before she was my wife, she lost the diamond in her ring and she lost it at her place of work. And she did speech therapy. And this was a place where there’s carpets and the janitorial staff will come through and vacuum and those kinds of things. And it could have easily just been swept up, but she found it the next day. That’s so lucky. And I think she prayed, she’s Catholic, so she prayed to St. Anthony. But I do believe sometimes we’re even given help with some of these things that we lose. But it is interesting. It is interesting, the topic of JOT. Cindi, thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate it. And thanks for your longtime listenership, and I know you have even more stories. We look forward to hearing those. Thank you for joining us and Stay Spooky.
Cindi (01:20:21):
No worries. You too. Take care.
Jim (01:20:24):
Next up on the Campfire is Michele from California, and Michele always sends me great ideas for guests and ideas for the show, and I certainly appreciate it. And she’s been on the Campfire a couple of times before and this time she is going to share a story about her dad. Michele, welcome back to the show. Thank you for joining us and your loyal listenership and tell us what happened.
Michele (01:20:48):
Alright, well thank you Jim. Thank you for having me on again. So this is a story I’ve told a couple about my dad before, but this one is different because I moved 400 miles from where he passed away. And I was kind of wondering, does he know I’m gone? Is he around? I just wasn’t sure. And I had been watching shows on Netflix about the afterlife, and there was this one segment where a family found after their son had passed away that they were finding coins all over the house with his date of passing on it. And I started to wonder, I wonder if I ever found anything like that, if it would be pertinent. And it was really weird because the next day I got up, I found a quarter on my dresser and it had the date of my father’s passing on it.
Jim (01:21:51):
Wow. Wow.
Michele (01:21:53):
And the thing about this is, Jim, I don’t use coins. We’re all digital now. I use Apple phone for everything. And sure I have some coins in my purse for emergency or whatever. And if I do find any coins around the house, which I don’t ever, I would usually have put them in a little tin boxI have in my dresser. Just for safekeeping or whatever.
Jim (01:22:18):
So in other words, the nightstand would be someplace foreign to a quarter, even being there, it normally would not be there.
Michele (01:22:26):
Yeah, well, it’s my dresser, but yeah, it wouldn’t be there because I am very meticulous about things in my room. I go, okay, I don’t like that there. I’m going to put it where it belongs, and I’m worried about it falling on the floor and getting in a vacuum or something. So I’m always like, oh, that’s very small. I got to throw that away or put that where that belongs. And as I go about my day,
Jim (01:22:49):
Sure.
Michele (01:22:50):
So I would’ve seen it. I go to that dresser every day. I look around and there’s no quarters sitting around.
Jim (01:23:01):
So obviously you feel that was a sign from your dad?
Michele (01:23:04):
I feel it was. I mean, we could put it up to a scenario of JOT perhaps, but like I said, I don’t use coins. I don’t put them around and I don’t put them down around the house because I’m worried about either they get caught in something or just, I don’t know. I just don’t like things, little things sitting around that much.
Jim (01:23:26):
I have a very simple explanation. It was a sign from your dad.
Michele (01:23:32):
Well, that’s what I think too.
Jim (01:23:33):
Occam’s razor.
Michele (01:23:35):
And when I picked it up, I felt such love. I mean, it was just like, it was amazing. I felt just warm all over.
Jim (01:23:47):
And..
Michele (01:23:48):
So it definitely was.
Jim (01:23:50):
I think it’s nice to know that even when we move, they’re still with us. I think that it’s universal and we can move here or 2000 miles away from wherever here is, and they’re still going to know because they’re everywhere. Michele, thank you again for all your support over the years. All your great ideas. Many of the guests you’ve heard on the show have been Michele’s suggestions many times.
Michele(01:24:13):
Oh!
Jim (01:24:13):
And we appreciate it very, very much. Thank you, Michele.
Michele (01:24:18):
You’re so welcome. Thank you, Jim. Have a great day.
Jim (01:24:21):
Well, thank you for tuning into another Campfire, and as I said at the head end of the show, don’t worry, it’s always spooky here between this, The Paranormal Podcast, of course, our Plus shows where our Plus members, there’s always plenty of spooky content to listen to. And I appreciate you tuning in. Antonio tuned in, and he sent me an email and he said, “I don’t have a question, but would love to send a birthday shout out to my wife, Katrina, for her birthday on November 1st. I’d introduced her to your podcast, the Paranormal Podcast years ago. Then Jim Harold’s Campfire followed next. And those spooky podcasts have been on the top of her listening weekly. That would mean a lot if you could possibly add this before her birthday. Thank you so much.” Well, we got that on the 26th, so editing and everything was done for the previous week, so we couldn’t get it in there, but we’re getting it in here.
(01:25:18):
Belated birthday to Katrina. And thank you both for your support of the shows. I hope you have a great birthday, Katrina, and Stay Spooky. And if you’d like to get your own personal video greeting for a loved one, it could be for a birthday, a holiday, just to say hi from Jim, go over to cameo.com/theJimHarold, that is cameo.com/theJimHarold. And very proud to say, thus far we’ve been doing this for, I don’t know, it seems like a couple of years now. I have a perfect five star rating. So people seem to be satisfied and we try to make it very affordable for everyone. A lot cheaper than a lot of those cameos that I see on there. We want to make it where it’s accessible for pretty much everyone. cameo.com/theJimHarold, and I’ll be glad to give you a video greeting. And as with our store purchases from our new Mausoleum of Merch, I mentioned that we’re on Etsy now. You can find everything at jimharold.com/merch. The cameos, when you support our sponsors. All of that helps us produce these shows because this is my full-time job and we rely upon your support to make these shows possible. And we thank you so much and we thank you for tuning in. And again, Halloween rolls on and on and on around the Campfire. We’ll talk to you next time. Have a great week everybody, and Stay Spooky. Bye-Bye.
Announcer 1 (01:26:53):
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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