An encounter with The Hag, more haunted houses and a couple has a terrifying night in the woods with a strange cryptid. This and much more on this edition of Campfire!
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Jim (00:00:00):
An encounter with the old hag, another haunted house, and an encounter with a strange cryptid. That, and much more on this edition of the Campfire.
Announcer 1 (00:00:26):
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 (00:00:37):
Welcome to The Campfire. I am Jim Harold. So glad to be with you once again, and you’re in the right place if you love spooky stories, ghosts, cryptid creatures, UFOs, strange spectres, and my favorite, head scratchers. Welcome to the show today, and thank you for joining us. And before we get to the stories, we’ll be in just a moment. I wanted to tell you about something very special we’re doing with The Campfire on October 6th in Kent, Ohio. So if you’re in driving distance from Kent, Ohio, in northeastern Ohio, in my neck of the woods, I hope you’ll join us. I will be there sharing Campfire stories and maybe getting a few new ones. Also, Greg and Dana Newkirk from Hellier and “The Haunted Objects Podcast” will be there and Lindsey Brisbine from “The Chilling Podcast”, and I would recommend you hurry up and get your tickets.
Jim (00:01:35):
It is going to be Friday, October 6th, Friday, October 6th, the perfect way to spend a fall evening in preparation for the big day, Halloween. So I hope to see you there. Kentstage.org, kentstage.org for “Webcast: A Night with Paranormal Podcasts”, and we have a paranormal podcast here. It’s called Campfire, and it’s really consisted of stories like this one.
Dominic got my attention with this one he’s calling into today from Nevada, and he’s going to tell us a story about The Hag. And Dominic, that got my attention because there’s many stories of The Old Hag is what I’ve always heard it called, and well, they’re chilling. Indeed. Can’t wait to hear this one. Tell us what happened.
Dominic (00:02:30):
Hi Jim. Thank you for having me. I know we’re short on time, but before we get started, I just want to say Congratulations on 18 years of the podcast.
Jim (00:02:38):
Thank you.
Dominic (00:02:39):
It takes a lot of dedication and drive to stick to something for that long, so I just wanted to give you a shout out for that.
Jim (00:02:45):
Thank you.
Dominic (00:02:47):
So yeah, so my story actually officially begins in summer of 2019. I was living in San Jose at the time, and me and a couple of friends of mine went up to Virginia City for a weekend, like a little boys trip. We had heard about Virginia City through various ghost hunting shows, and we knew that there was other stuff to keep us busy up there like restaurants and saloons and slot machines, and we figured it’d just be a good time to get out and hang out. So we went up there and we had a very, the whole weekend left, a very positive impact on us. We met so many genuine people in the paranormal field and made so many friends, got to participate in small investigations at the more notorious buildings like the Washoe Club and the Silver Queen Hotel. And to say the least, I guess the whole weekend opened up a lot of future doorways and opportunities for us that to this day, I consider the best times of my life.
Dominic (00:03:49):
So we went home from that trip and we all went about our regular lives, went back to work, and some of us went back to school and eventually we found ourselves in the Covid Pandemic. And when Covid hit the CEO for the company that I worked for, told us if you want to work from home and never come back to the office ever again, that’s totally cool. And that left a lot of opportunity on my end because as long as I stayed within the same time zone, I could live wherever I wanted to. So I remember I was sitting on my computer and I just woke up one day and decided I’m going to move to Virginia City, go set whenever I want to. And I ended up meeting my friend at the time for coffee, and I told him exactly that. I was like, I’m going to move to Virginia City and I’m going to smoke cigars, play pool, drink bloody marys and ghost hunt whenever I want.
Jim (00:04:):
That sounds pretty good.
Dominic (00:04:48):
I know. He just kind of looked at me like, oh my God, he’s a genius. And so yeah, I ended up moving out there and I found this little house to move into, and a couple of days into moving in, I had a different friend of mine over helping me. Unload boxes and put stuff away. And for those of you who have moved numerous times in your life, you’re very familiar with those Home Depot boxes you got to break down for your trash guy. So I was doing various trips, breaking those down and taking ’em out to the cans at the place I was living at. The house that I was living at, those of you who’ve been to Virginia City, or those of you listening who live up there, was on North D Street kind of by the Silverland Hotel.
Dominic (00:05:35):
All the houses on that district are not on the main boardwalk, so the only source of light at nighttime is maybe one of your neighbors if they have a floodlight in their driveway for whatever random reason. So it’s pretty dark out there at night. So yeah, we’re taking out these boxes. I’m talking to my friend Chad, and we’re having a normal conversation about a video game or something, not even thinking about ghosts. And we see this black thing coming down from the distance on the road and it kind of caught our attention. And at first I was like, oh, someone’s dog got out. And I was like, I saw a German shepherd walking around earlier in the day and I was calling to it like a dog, “come here buddy”. And my friend Chad, who was with me was like, “That’s not a dog, that’s a horse.”
Dominic (00:06:28):
There’s wild Mustang and horses that live up there. And I was like, “Nah, dude, that’s way too small to be a horse.” And he was like, “Nah, it’s a horse”. And then it starts getting closer and closer and I’m starting to make out features. And it wasn’t a dog and it wasn’t a horse, it was actually a woman and she was crawling.
Jim (00:06:53):
Oh man.
Dominic (00:06:54):
And she was, oh God, this is one of those moments in my life that was in slow motion. And she was crawling and she was brownish black in texture, and her texture is vibrated. It’s hard to explain, but she was solid, but every bit of her was, every little molecule was moving and her hair was down covering her face. And as soon as she got closer and closer, she was making this popping, crackling sound. And I remember we just kind of freaked out and scattered. It really caught me off guard. I know that, I mean, I moved there to paranormal investigate. I came for this. But I guess to say the least, when you’re not expecting it or you’re not ready for it, it can catch you off guard.
Jim (00:07:45):
Sure, sure. I think that would catch me off guard to say the least.
Dominic (00:07:49):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So my friend Chad, is a lot taller than me. I mean, I’m 5’8”, he’s six foot, maybe 6’1. I freaked out and I’m climbing on him like a cat. And it was such a wholesome moment because we were going through this horrific experience. It is my first time, and I’ll say the only time in my life I’ve seen a full body apparition that looked like flesh. We were having this horrific experience, but we were also laughing because we were looking at each other and seeing how we were reacting, and being friends, whenever your friend does something stupid sometimes that can be pretty funny. And so we’re freaking out, but at the same time we’re we, were almost having fun in a weird sense. And to this day we still talk about that. And yeah, I really didn’t think I would end up telling this story on your podcast one day.
Jim (00:08:55):
So what do you think it was, The Hag?
Dominic (00:08:59):
So actually I have two leads in regards to what it could have been. The first thing is that before I moved out the house that I was living in Virginia City, I now live in Reno, I had a medium friend come over and she told me that when Virginia City was booming back in the day my house was located in, basically that was where you would go in Virginia City to do bad stuff. So I’m thinking maybe it could have came from that. And then I did some extensive Reddit research, which we know is totally reliable. And I found out that the popping, crackling sound that we were hearing is the sound that demons make when they come into our realm.
Speaker 1 (00:09:47):
Oh man!
Dominic (00:09:49):
Whether or not that’s true. I mean, that’s kind of on the table. But yeah, it was a very horrific experience. But I always look back on it with a smile just because I think about my friends, I think about the paranormal and I think about being on the road in Virginia City. Yeah.
Jim (00:10:09):
Well, Dominic, I’m sure you have more stories. I hope you’ll come back on the show and share them. And thank you for being a part of the Campfire and Stay Spooky,
Dominic (00:10:18):
Stay Spooky and Congratulations for 18 years.
Jim (00:10:21):
Emily is on the line from Michigan. She’s been listening about a year, and she found us from where else, “Astonishing Legends”. Thank you Scott and Forrest, and everybody, make sure to check out “Astonishing Legends” if you have not done so thus far. And Emily has a story about a house she bought with her wife about four years ago, and I’ll just put it this way, strangeness ensued. Emily, can you tell us what happened?
Emily (00:10:48):
Yeah, yeah, happy to be here. So yeah, bought the house about four years ago and the house was built in 1890 and it was a fixer upper, lots of families in and out. It was a college rental. All of the things that a house could go through, this house probably went through. And so for a steal, it was two kind of broke young adults. It was nice to find a house that was cheap. And so we got it and immediately just started renovating it and tearing it apart. And the first couple weeks it just felt a little off. To me it was like, okay, it’s a new house, whatever. And then one night I’m a really light sleeper. I woke up at the typical 2:30, 3:00 kind of creepy hour that you usually wake up and feel kind of weird. And I heard this wet cough coming, at first I thought it was coming from outside because our bedroom window is kind of facing the street.
Emily (00:11:47):
And then, well, it’s the middle of January and it’s 17 degrees outside and there’s not many people who are outside. And so I’m trying to rationalize what I’m hearing and I hear it again, and it sounds like it’s moving and it sounds like it’s right underneath me, which is where our living room is.
Jim (00:12:02 ) :
Oh boy.
Emily (00:12:04):
Yeah. So I started to kind of panic a little bit, and we don’t have alarm system at that time, we hadn’t had anything in place. So I kind of wake up my wife and I’m like, “Hey, hey, there’s something, I can hear a cough”. And she could sleep through a hurricane. So she’s like, “Oh, it’s just someone outside.” So whatever. I put it to the back of my mind, I kind of just get it out of there and go back to sleep. And after that, we started to just feel, certain moments would feel kind of weird where you’d want to look back going down the stairs, you’d want to turn your head and look backwards.
Emily (00:12:35):
There was someone behind you where you held onto the handrail extra tight because it just didn’t feel super steady, just kind of a creepy feeling. So a couple weeks later we’re really knee deep in renovation. I wake up again around the same time, and at that time, my roommate had moved in with us, one of our close friends, and she would come home late from her boyfriend’s house and whatever. So I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and so I thought, oh, that’s just her coming home, whatever. And the footsteps come up and then they come down our hallway, which is right where the bathroom is. So I thought, okay, getting ready for bed, she’s going to take a shower or whatever. And then they stop. I don’t hear the bathroom door close, I don’t hear the water turn on, the light doesn’t turn on under the door.
Emily (00:13:19):
I can’t see anything. So I kind of wait and I’m listening and the door knob starts to jiggle. And I was like, okay, is everything okay? But I’m kind of freaked out at this point. I dunno if it’s her. I dunno if it’s someone who wandered into her house. So I kind of listened for a second and it’s this doorknob here, it’s jiggling. And so I text her and I’m like, “Hey, do you need something or are you okay? I hear you out in the hall.” And she sent back a text about five seconds later that said, “I’m at Jason’s. Whatcha talking about?”
Jim (00:13:51):
Oh man! Oh boy!
Emily (00:13:53):
Yeah, I didn’t answer. I was like, oh my gosh. So I wake up my wife again and I’m like, “Seriously, there’s someone outside our door.” And it stops jiggling. We’re kind of just sitting there. Our eyes are as big as dinner plates and we’re just kind of waiting and it stops. And then she’s much braver than I am. She went and checked downstairs, checked the house, made sure no one was in the house, but that was the big, one of the first bigger things that really kind of freaked us out. So kind of put that out of our head. We started to hear mimicry. And so we’d be in the house and I’d be downstairs doing the dishes, and I would hear my wife go, “Hey!”, like she was behind me. And I’d turn around and she’s either not in the house or she’d be upstairs.
Emily (00:14:38):
So I’d be like, “Hey, do you need something?” I turn around and there’s no one there. She heard our roommate go “mmm-hmm” when she had made a comment about how cold it was outside and ready for it to be spring, as she’s upstairs in that bedroom, she heard, “mmm-hmm” and she went to poke her head in to talk to her, and she’s not home. So we would hear each mimic each other, which was a red flag, really kind of started to scare us. And so the point where we realized we needed to get some intervention was I was sitting on my couch and the mimicry had been happening and footsteps were happening more often, was I was sitting on my couch and I see my roommate come home from work, which I thought was odd. It was like three in the afternoon and she worked till five.
Emily (00:15:21):
And she walks up the driveway onto the porch where I can’t see her anymore, and then she never comes in the house. So I’m waiting. I’m like, okay, is she on the phone? Is she waiting to come in? And I finally text her because it’d been three or four minutes. I’m like, “Hey, did you forget your key? I’m home. I can let you in.” And another couple minutes goes by and she goes, “I’m at work. What do you mean?”
Jim (00:15:43):
Oh man!
Emily (00:15:4):
I was like, “Well, I just saw you walk up onto the porch.” And she’s like, “No, you didn’t, stop! You’re messing with me.” She, we didn’t know, she had been experiencing things and never said anything. And so I said, “Kidding.” And so she said, “Prove it. What am I wearing today?” And so I said, “You’re wearing your black tights with a gray dress, a white scarf, red lipstick on and sunglasses, and your hair’s up in a bun.”
Emily (00:16:06):
And she just sent an expletive. Like what the…, and then an expletive. She’s like, and we were just, it was done. That’s too far. We can take the audio stuff. And so we found through a friend of a friend, a local guy who is Native American, he does professional cleansings and smudgings and came to our house and he didn’t want to go in the basement, which we didn’t ask why. We just left it at that.
Jim (00:16:35):
Okay.
Emily (00:16:38):
Yeah. So he did the blessing. He smudged all of us. He smudged our house, and then he did a prayer song and you could feel the energy kind of shift. It was a really cool moment. We all just stood there in the kitchen, and as he was doing this song, it felt lighter. We all felt it. We had tears in our eyes. It felt really cleansing. And after that, it seemed to get better.
Emily (00:17:02):
But the cool thing is, that night he left and we’re kind of decompressing and having a glass of wine. And I go upstairs and in the hallway there’s this little piece of twine, like grass twine on the floor, brought it downstairs. I’m like, “What is this?” And they’re like, “It’s probably from the guy” from, I don’t want to use his name. So I texted him, I said, “Hey, I found this on the ground. Do you want it back?” And he said, “This is from my grandfather’s eagle feather, and if it fell off in your house, it must have needed to be there. I want you to keep it.” So I thought that was really cool and that he acknowledged that we were meant to have that piece, maybe a protection. And he gave us advice on how to protect our house moving forward, taking ashes and sprinkling around the perimeter and stuff. And so after that night, it got better. Now we hear the occasional bang, something knocked on the garage door one night when I was out there too late working on stuff, like three knocks, like, “Hey, time to shut it down.” But yeah, now we just don’t acknowledge it. And it seems to have gotten better since that night.
Jim (00:18:07):
What do you think it was or is?
Emily (00:18:10):
I’m not sure. We’ve had family members who have stayed in that bedroom where our roommate stayed, who she had said she’d woken up with bruises and she’d heard footsteps, and she just never said anything. She felt crazy, but we think that there’s probably a couple spirits here, and one of them wasn’t good. One of them was probably pretty negative, and it was feeding off of us giving it attention. I do think that there’s probably spirits here. The one who knocked on the garage door, who it didn’t feel threatening. I felt like, okay, you’re telling me to go to bed, it’s time to go to bed. But I felt like that one that was mimicking us was really not great. And that was the one that I think the cleansing helped get rid of. So yeah, that’s the long and short of it, I guess.
Jim (00:18:55):
Wow. Wow. What a story. I mean, you feel good about the place, you’re not planning on moving? You feel like you’re on the right path and you like where you’re at?
Emily (00:19:06):
Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, things still bump around. And we have the occasional, we’re kind of used to it now, and we love the house. It’s our home. We’ve made it comfortable. We brought a lot of good energy in, try and keep things light, not talk about the negative stuff. I’m a little bit nervous talking about it to be honest. I’m like, is it going to bring something up? Because we really try and not talk about it too much. But yeah, no, the vibes are good now. It seems to be much better after that gentleman came. So.
Jim (00:19:35):
Emily, thank you so much for sharing your story. It was a good one. Stay Spooky.
Emily (00:19:40):
Thanks. Appreciate it.
Jim (00:19:42):
Jim Harold’sCampfire is brought to you by First Leaf. They are a new sponsor and we’re so glad to have them on the show. And to say, I am shook by First Leaf. Well, that is an understatement because when it comes to wine, I’ve got pretty straightforward tastes. I like Pinot Grigio and Riesling, but after becoming a member of First Leaf, well, it turns out that I can add Savitiano to my list of favorites. They sent me this Halara 2021 Savitiano from Greece. Delicious. I absolutely loved it. And First Leaf is intelligent. They knew what wines to send me that felt familiar and delicious, but would get me excited about trying new wines. And I think First Leaf is great because they make it easy to get personalized wine delivered on my schedule right to my door. And since I choose the day my shipment comes, I’m never stressing about missing a delivery.
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Announcer 2 (00:22:32):
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 (00:22:48):
Rick is on the line from Salt Lake City, Utah. I’ve been there once. Beautiful city, beautiful city, and Rick has a story about a family encounter with a cryptid. Rick, welcome to the show. And I love when we get these cryptid stories. We don’t get that many of them. Wish we got more, but glad to hear this one. Tell us what happened.
Rick (00:23:10):
Yeah, thanks for having me on, Jim. And this is a wild one. We’ll see if you ever want to go camping again. So this happened to my sister and my brother-in-law, and it’s a story that deserves to be told. I’ve spoken with them. I have all the details and have their blessing to share it. I told ’em about the show, they didn’t want to use their names. So I’ll call my sister Valerie and her husband, my brother-in-law, I’ll call him Jack.
Jim (00:23:38):
Sounds good.
Rick (00:23:40):
They were big into the outdoors, loved to go hiking and camping. We live in Utah with a lot of mountains and trails and things. And so this was about 20 years ago, and all of a sudden, their enthusiasm for camping cooled off. Just they didn’t want to go. And there were family whispers about some kind of encounter with a creature, but they didn’t want to talk about it. So I just stopped asking. But I remember I was a little bugged. We went camping one time and they begrudgingly agreed to go. And my brother-in-law, Jack, said, “Well, Valerie doesn’t sleep in a tent anymore”, so I think she slept in the car. But they eventually started camping again when they got a camping trailer so they wouldn’t have to sleep in a tent. So a couple years ago, we rented an RV. We were camping with them in southern Utah, and we were around the campfire, and I asked them what happened.
Rick (00:24:35):
So they finally told me the story. So it was a Sunday afternoon in the early 2000’s. They were in their early twenties, just married, didn’t have much. Just starting out. They went on a three day camping trip in the Uintas, which is a remote mountain range in eastern Utah. And the UN, it’s like 90 minutes from Salt Lake, maybe a half hour from a small town. But you can get out there, it’s pretty remote. Some people get turned around and they just disappear and you never see ’em again, right? Maybe they find your bleached bones if you’re lucky, like 50 years later. But it’s great. It’s fun to go out there. But they hiked to a lake called Duck Lake a few miles in, and it was the end of the weekend, so everybody was coming out while they were going in, and they got to the lake.
Rick (00:25:28):
The Uintas have these small little lakes along trails and so good camping spots. They set up their small dome tent, and they were the only ones. They had the whole side to themself. There was no one else there. My sister Valerie was out brushing her teeth, and my brother-in-law, Jack was in the tent just arranging the gear, and she heard twigs snapping, and it was getting dark so you couldn’t see much. She heard twigs snapping, something approaching through the brush and the trees. She went running into the tent and they zipped it shut. And she said, something is coming. And they heard these footsteps come out of the woods and approach their tent.
Jim (00:26:13):
Whoa.
Rick (00:26:14):
My brother-in-law got the, I don’t know if it was a look, it was getting pretty dark, but got the impression, You’re the man, you need to do something, right? And so he looks at what he has, and he has this little pocket knife and a little mag light that didn’t give much light. And so he just started to lie. He said, “Hey, buddy.” He yelled out, ”I’ve got a gun and a bullet with your name on it.” And he is like, “That’s right. Just keep coming and open that zipper and it’s all yours.”
Jim (00:26:45):
Whoa.
Rick (00:26:47):
And this person, or whatever it was, they could hear it walking. It stopped about 10 feet from the tent door. They’ve got deranged killers in their mind, right?
Jim (00:26:56):
Yeah, sure. They’re probably not thinking about a cryptid. They’re thinking about a human.
Rick (00:27:01):
Exactly. Exactly. And so my brother-in-law says, “Come on, man. Let’s do this. Just keep coming closer. Touch that zipper and you’re going to get this bullet.” So it was definitely on two legs. It was definitely bipedal. So two or three minutes passed, and then the footsteps started again, heavy, slow, twigs and dirts crunching, and it circled their tent. It circled their tent again, and it would back away, and then it would come closer and continue circling. And it was now totally dark. And this went on for several hours.
Jim (00:27:38):
Oh my God, that had to be terrifying.
Rick (00:27:40):
Oh, yeah. Yeah. They were petrified. So finally, Jack decides he’s going to try and look outside to see if he can catch a glimpse of what it was, and he crouched at the foot of their sleeping bags. He squeezed the zipper of the tent, slowly pinched it and unzipped to muffle the sound. And meanwhile, my sister, Valerie, she hears footsteps just outside the tent now, go around to the head where their heads were, and she says, “Jack, do you see anything?” Meanwhile, Jack had shone his light outside and he didn’t see anything, and he had zipped it up and he had laid back down, but my sister didn’t know. And he says, “I’m right here. I’m not outside the tent.” And so it was right next to their heads between this thin layer of fabric.
Rick (00:28:29):
And so the stranger continued to walk around their tent, but at one point it made an animal-like huffing kind of snorting sound. And so my sister remembered being relieved because she thought, oh, it’s an animal. It’s not a human or a killer, right? But then that begs the question, what kind of animal walks around on two legs? But the intruder finally faded away. They stopped hearing sounds, and this was around 2:00 AM and they started to relax now, and maybe the encounter was over. But a short time later, as they were starting to drift off, they started to hear squirrels chirping in the trees. And then they started chattering and almost screaming like an alarm. And they heard what sounded like now a four-legged creature charge their tent from out of the trees, stop just short of their tent and start circling them again like something else. And this, they figured it was a moose. So this they could tell was four legged.
Jim (00:29:35):
Right.
Rick (00:29:36):
And so they’re just like, what now? Right. We just got over the other thing. And so they were comfortable enough that it was a moose that they began yelling, I think the first creature or whatever it was, person, they were so petrified, they just didn’t know what to do. But here they were banging their pans, they were yelling, and they just had enough, right? It wasn’t morning yet. And they thought, all right, if we can get out, we set up some wood for a fire the next morning, if we can get out and if we can dump some camp gas and stow gas on it and light it, maybe the moose or whatever it is will go away. So they had it all planned out, and they threw open the zipper. They ran out, and my sister, they had these little box of matches. She went to strike the match and it broke. My brother-in-law had dumped the gas and everything, and so he grabs the matchbox and he opens it and it’s upside down, and all the matches fall into the dirt.
Jim (00:30:31):
Oh my gosh.
Rick (00:30:33):
And they’re thinking at any second, some monster, some giant moose is going to get him. But he sifted through. He got the match, he lit it. He didn’t start his hands on fire, and they got the fire going. It even started to rain a little, but they were able to keep it up. And so as soon as it was light enough, and they just sat by the fire the rest of the night, as soon as it was light enough, they packed up their stuff. They were going to camp another night, but they’re just thinking, we’re out of here. Right.
Jim (00:30:58):
Yeah.
Rick (00:31:00):
And so before they left, my brother-in-law wants to heed the call of nature one quick time. And so he goes behind this brush near the campsite, but it was a little ways away. And he calls my sister over, and there were footprints in the mud, and according to my sister, they were like, human footprints only big, only very, very, very large.
Jim (00:31:28):
Whoa. Bigfoot!
Rick (00:31:31):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it was like it wasn’t right in front of their tent. So if someone was messing with them, you think they would’ve done it there, but it was a little bit beyond behind some brush, right?
Jim (00:31:43):
Yeah.
Rick (00:31:44):
And so they took, this was back in the 35 millimeter camera days. He took a picture with kind of his hand there, and in the low light, it didn’t turn out very good. You can see his hand, but then it’s fuzzy, back then you send your film off for weeks. But they hiked out as fast as they could. My sister calls the lake “Sitting Duck Lake” now. But that was it. It definitely changed their behavior. They were afraid, they were spooked for years.
Jim (00:32:21):
I mean, I just could imagine being in that tent for hours and having something on two legs circling it, then something on four legs. It would be like as soon as I could get out of there safely, it’s like I’ll leave the camping to my backyard. Wow. Wow, wow, wow.
Rick (00:32:38):
Exactly. And I don’t know why, they’re positive there were two different creatures, and I don’t know why they were stalked by both, but it was just crazy.
Jim (00:32:51):
What a great story, Rick. Thank you so much, and thanks to your sister and brother-in-law for allowing you to share the story today on The Campfire.
Rick (00:33:00):
Yeah, thanks, Jim.
Jim (00:33:01):
Next up on The Campfire, we have a return caller. Jennifer is on the line from Pennsylvania, and this is a good one. She’s going to tell us about a special visitor. Jenny, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us, and tell us what happened,
Jenny (00:33:17):
Jim, thanks for having me. So the story takes place, or my story takes place. When I lived at my former in-law’s house, they had a great old house in the suburbs of Philadelphia. So aboutt an hour outside of Philadelphia, and I was staying at their house years ago, and my oldest son was a baby, and the original part of the house dates back to 1790.
Jim (00:3345: ):
Whoa.
Jenny (00:33:46 ):
The barn dates back to 1837. So it’s an old place, definitely an old place. It would be a really great place to play hide and seek in, as a child. That’s what I always thought.
Jenny (00:33:58):
So my son, I was feeding him his lunch, and we were sitting in the kitchen and the way the house is set up, there is a formal living room, a formal dining room, and then a family room. It’s 5,000 square feet. It’s huge. So I was feeding him in the kitchen and I was facing what would be the formal dining room. So all of a sudden I see somebody kind of peek their head around the door frame, and I kind of stopped and it was unnerving, but I dunno, I wasn’t scared. I didn’t have a bad feeling at all. So I kind of looked away and I looked back and I was preparing to feed my son another teaspoon full of his food. And then it was a man, he came forward, he leaned up against the wall of the doorway. It was really, really wide thick walls. So he leans up against the doorframe and looked at me and he smiled. Not a creepy smile, just a really nice genuine smile. I could see his glasses, the dark hair. He had a golden shepherd shirt on, buttoned in with jeans, and he leaned up against the wall and just smiled. And I wasn’t scared because he looked really nice. But then I thought to myself, Oh my God, I’m crazy. I’ve lost my mind.
Jenny (00:35:33):
This is nuts. I never told anybody the story ever because I thought I swore I was insane, and I was just going to let it go. So fast forward, I don’t know, 15 years later or 10 years later, we had left the house. We come back to visit. At that time, we had all kinds of crazy paranormal stuff going on in the house that we were living in and so, my husband at the time, we were trading stories. And I said, “Actually, I had this one experience. This isn’t my first. I had this one experience when we lived at your parents’ house in Pennsylvania.” And he said, “What happened?” And I said, “Oh, well, I didn’t tell you at the time because I thought I was insane.” So I’m describing the man that I see or that I saw years ago. He looked at me and he says, “Here, let’s go and come here. I want to look at something.” He breaks out these old pictures and we start looking at these old pictures together, we’re going through them. I pull out this one picture and I say, “That’s the guy. That’s the guy right there, that’s the guy that came to visit. I said, “He was so nice.” And he looked at me and he just turned white. And he said, “There’s no way.” And I said, “No, that’s the guy. He didn’t say anything. He was just kind of checking in.” The guy that I saw, the guy that came forward was a family friend who had passed away tragically before I even met my husband or his family.
Jim (00:37:03):
Huh.
Jenny (00:37:04):
And he was listening to my description and he was like, “That sounds like, that sounds really familiar.” But he didn’t want to say anything. He wanted to see what I was seeing or who I experienced. And I said he wasn’t mean. He was so nice. My sense is that he was just kind of popping in to say hi, to just kind of check in.
Jim (00:37:27):
Yeah.
Jenny (00:37:29):
Again, it was a family friend that had passed away the same year I had met my ex-husband, but way before, I think he passed away in February, and I met him in July or June. But it was the same man. And the personality that I described was exactly his personality.
Jim (00:37:46):
That’s pretty cool. That’s pretty good. He just wanted to say hi.
Jenny (00:37:52):
Yeah. Yeah. So nice. And I’m just such a nice man, and I wish that, it happened so quickly. You’re not thinking, oh, let me get a phone, or back then we didn’t all have our phones like we do now, but it was nice pop in, and it was nice for him to come in and check in.
Jim (00:38:08):
That is a very nice thing. A very nice thing indeed. Well, I really appreciate you calling in with this, and I do believe the spirits are about, and maybe he just wanted to introduce himself to you and your son. That is a very cool story. Jenny, thank you so much for joining us today on the program, and Stay Spooky.
Jenny (00:38:27):
Alright, thanks Jim. Stay Spooky.
Jim (00:38:29):
Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Rocket Money. Are subscriptions draining your wallet? Did you know the average person has around 12 paid subscriptions? And guess what? They might not even remember subscribing to half of them. And if you have no idea just how much you’re spending every month, you need Rocket Money. It’s this great app that tracks all of your expenses so you know exactly where your money is going. And I know that I have had the experience of signing up to stuff for a free trial because I thought I’d like it, and then I totally forgot about it. And then boom, you get charged again. Rocket Money can prevent that because Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills all in one place. Most people think they’re spending about 80 bucks on their subscriptions every month, when in reality the number is closer to 200 bucks.
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Jim (00:40:50):
We’ll get right back to the spooky stories, but I wanted to tell you about something we’re doing for Halloween. It is special Stay Spooky slash Campfire gear merch limited edition for this Halloween season. And so far it’s been very well received. And you can check it out at jimharold.com/merch. jimharold.com/merch. M E R C H. T-shirts, sweats, raglans, totes and more. Check it out, jimharold.com/merch and your purchases help support the shows. Thanks.
Announcer 2 (00:41:32):
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 (00:41:43):
Matt is on the line from New Jersey. We’re so glad to have him on the show. He said it took a lot of thinking and considering and pondering to tell this very personal story, but he felt that the world needed to know it and we appreciate it very much. Matt, welcome to the show and please tell us your story.
Matt (00:42:02):
Alright, thank you for having me, Jim. Some very brief setup. My father was an electrician in the IBEW, Local 3 out of New York City. And when he retired he got something, which is key to the story, but unfortunately my family lost my dad in October of 2009 and it obviously devastated us.
Jim (00:42:33):
Sure, sure. And I’m very sorry.
Matt (00:42:36):
Thank you. And with my background of doing investigations, we thought something was going on and I decided to try and see if it was him. And forgive me if I get emotional here. One year to the day that he passed, I made an arrangement to have my mother’s house, all to myself, and set up some equipment. And I placed my father’s 50th anniversary in the Union gold watch and his favorite pocket knife on top of a dresser
Matt (00:43:27):
And I asked him some general questions and out of, I just said, listen dad, if this truly is you, did you notice that I put something on the dresser across the room and I pointed it out with a flashlight? And I said, I’ve put your gold watch and your pocket knife over there. If you are here, can you please speak into the microphone that is right next to that watch? And I felt the room get cold, like a chill. And then it faded away, but I didn’t hear anything. So about three days later, I’m analyzing the recording and, blew me away, I should say, there’s a little occasional knock noise here and there for other stuff. But when I mentioned the watch and the knife and 10 seconds after I said, please stand by that microphone and let me know that you are here with me. Five or 10 seconds later I hear, “thank you.”
Jim (00:45:02):
Wow.
Matt (00:45:04):
Very faint and it absolutely blew my mind. And so I saved that part of the file and I did a little bit of cleaning up in my audio editing software to clear background noise and such.
Jim (00:45:31):
Sure.
Matt (00:45:32):
And sure enough, it literally sounded exactly like I remember my father’s voice.
Jim (00:45:40):
Wow.
Matt (00:45:45):
Sorry.
Jim (00:45:45):
No, no, it’s okay.
Matt (00:45:46):
So a couple days later, I take that evidence, that recording, I should say, back to my mother’s house and I play it for her. And let me tell you, Jim, to put it mildly, I thought I reacted amazed. She was absolutely awestruck because she had smelled what smelled like the pipe tobacco he used to smoke in pockets around the house, or he had occasionally, she had occasionally heard a voice that she thought could have been him, but that rock solid evidence that I cannot refute, she was absolutely astounded and needless to say she did some crying.
Jim (00:46:52):
Sure, sure. Well, it’s one of those things, I mean, even if you believe somebody lives on, you always question yourself. You always wonder, is it my imagination? Is that wishful thinking? But then you brought that recording and that was a great affirmation. It sounded like you gave him a gift in giving him an opportunity. He said, thank you. Right? Yes. So to me, it works on a couple different levels. Thank you for remembering me. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to communicate. And then he gave you guys a gift by saying, yeah, I’m really still here. So it kind of was a very kind of beautiful thing.
Matt (00:47:33):
Yes, it was. And that’s pretty much that story. Short, sweet, to the point. And I’ve got many other stories, some short, some very long. It’s just I wanted to get one shared first.
Jim (00:47:51):
Absolutely. And I think that’s a great one to start with because I think that’s something that everybody, whether you’re a paranormal investigator or just a human, you can relate to. And Matt, look forward to hearing from you in the future. But thank you for sharing this very, very personal and poignant story on The Campfire.
Matt (00:48:10):
Alright, thank you, Jim, and Stay Spooky.
Speaker 1 (00:48:12):
Ash is on the line from Tennessee and we’re so glad to have her. And she has a story about her mom. Ash, welcome to the show and thank you for joining us today.
Ash (00:48:23):
Thank you for having me. Jim,
Jim (00:48:24):
Tell us what happened.
Ash (00:48:27):
Yeah, so just a little background. So my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer a type called glioblastoma back in 2018. So it had been a really long battle with almost constant radiation, chemo and all that over the last five years.
Jim (00:48:47):
I’m sorry.
Ash (00:48:49):
Thank you. No, it was really amazing how seeing her handle everything and how she went through it, lot was so much grace and just strength through it. So it was tough on the whole family, but it was good that we got to have that time to prepare and everything. So it got be this past December, I bought my first house and it was something that was really important to me and my mom just because we kind of knew that it was coming soon and it was something that I know gave her a lot of peace, sort of knowing that I was settled and stable and that I’d be okay essentially.
Ash (00:49:34):
So she was really involved in the process of buying my house and everything, and it was something really great that we were able to do together. So it got time for the title closing and everything. And she came with me, and at the time she was really, really struggling a lot, but she did get the strength to go with me and be there together for that. And it was just a really, really beautiful experience with us. So while we’re there, she had wanted to help me with a little bit of the closing costs. So she had just written a check for just so many hundred dollars or something and presented that to them. And at the closing it turned out being a little bit more than was necessary. So they cut her return check and we closed on the house. And it was just a really beautiful thing with the two of us.
Ash (00:50:34):
I mean, that might’ve actually been the last time that she was able to go out as she ended up starting hospice very shortly after that. So she ended up passing in March, and it was, as you can imagine, it was incredibly hard on all of us, but we got through it and everything and we’re kind of adjusting to the new reality and whatnot. So this is where the story actually comes in. So I start getting emails around May, and they’re of course from the office and they’re saying, “Hey, we can’t get in touch with Laura” My mom’s name’s Laura. “We can’t get in touch with her. And it looks like she never cashed that check. Do you know what’s going on?” So of course I have to have a really sad conversation explaining that to them. And long story short, they end up being like, “Okay, well, we’re going to reissue it to you, but you do have to come to the office to sign for it because of the situation.”
Ash (00:51:38):
So this is in June, and I drive out to where the office is, and it was very emotional because that was the last place that we were together, the last place that we had a good happy memory and everything, and it was very, very fresh. So I’m kind of tearing up and just getting really, really emotional on the drive. And I get there and I park and I take a minute to kind of collect myself before I go in there just because the last time I was in there was with her. And it was a really beautiful memory. So anyways, I get up and go inside and the way the office is set up. There’s sort of an atrium when you first walk in and then elevators, you take up and outside the elevators, there’s a long hallway to the right, and that’s where all the offices are, the lawyers or insurance offices, whatever is in there.
Ash (00:52:28):
And to the left, there’s just a small sitting area with chairs and tables and everything. So I go and I get on the elevator and I’m riding up the elevator and I start crying just because I’m really remembering the last time I was in that elevator, I was holding her hand and remember her smiling at me. And I start to get really emotional so the elevators open, and the second I step off the elevators, I just hear a woman that I didn’t even know was there. I just hear her say, “Laura”, my mom’s name.
Jim (00:52:03):
Wow.
Ash (00:53:05):
And it turns out this woman had been sitting into those chairs and was just having a completely unrelated conversation. Didn’t even know I was there, was listening and just talking to someone. And it was one of those things, just hearing that at that very moment was just so, so powerful. And I stopped in my tracks. I kind of get it together and I go and I sign for the papers and I’m crying in the office. They’re probably like, this person’s crazy. But then as I’m leaving, I am walking back to the elevator and I’m thinking about it, just feeling like without really heard that really, and I’m second guessing myself when I get back to the elevator and I hit the button and right as they open, the woman’s still on the phone and she just says, “my mom.”
Jim (00:53:56):
Wow. Wow.
Ash (00:53:57):
Yeah. It was one of those things where I feel like a lot of, I’ve heard her friends and stuff say when they see a rainbow or a cardinal or something, they know she’s there. And I was kind of having the feeling of almost being upset with them. Like, well, I see rainbows and I see cardinals and butterflies and I don’t feel her there, but in this moment, it was almost more about just the overwhelming feeling of her being there with me. And it ended up being something really, really beautiful that made that experience a lot easier for me and just really validated that she was there with me. And when I’m thinking of her, I know that she’s still present.
Jim (00:54:53):
Wow. I believe it. I believe it. And it’s obvious that your mom loved you a lot and she obviously wanting to go with you, being in the pain she was in, but to go to that closing because that was an important touchstone in your life.
Ash (00:55:09):
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And it really took a lot out of her to do it, and I could tell, but she just would just smile and she’d say, “I’m fine. I’m just fine. And so happy.”
Jim (00:55:24):
And then to get those signs to you, that’s just incredible.
Ash (00:55:28):
Yeah. Yeah. One of those things. Just too much of a coincidence to be coincidence.
Jim (00:55:34):
Ash, thank you so much for sharing your story with us on The Campfire.
Ash (00:55:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
Jim (00:55:41):
Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Grammarly. And when it comes to writing, Grammarly is there to support you from beginning to end. For over 10 years, Grammarly has been powered by AI technology you can trust and rely on to help you across all the places where you write the most. Even if you’re a good writer, and I consider myself a good writer, you’re sometimes not sure, Hey, did I approach this the right way? Did I get all my grammar points right? Is maybe there a better way to say it? Maybe if you’re having a tough conversation through email or whatever, maybe it’s a little difficult and you want to be conciliatory, still get your point across, well, Grammarly can help you do that. It can help you save time, it can help you enhance creativity and accomplish more. And I can tell you, I use it on a weekly basis with my email newsletter.
Jim (00:56:40):
Sometimes if I have an email that’s a little bit tough, kind of like I described, I’ll have Grammarly take a whack at it and it will come up with something, make me say, Hey, that is a better way to put that. And it’s kind of a back and forth. It’s almost like you have a collaborator. That’s the way I look at it. It’s not doing your work for you. It employs AI, yes, but it’s saying, Hey, maybe this is a better way to say this or maybe incorporate some of this. I think it works great. For example, you could say, improve this email. You could say shorten it. You could say, make it more direct. Or you could say, make it a little more gentle, a little more friendly, and it’ll do it. It is awesome. I absolutely love Grammarly. It can work in so many cases.
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Announcer 2 (00:58:16):
Follow Jim on Twitter and Instagram at TheJimHarold, and join our virtual Campfire Facebook group at virtualcampfiregroup.com. Now back to The Campfire.
Jim (00:58:25):
Joseph is on the line from Quebec. He found out about us from Richard Syrett’s “Strange Planets.” So make sure you tune into Richard’s show, one of my favorite podcasters out there, and a great guy too. Joseph wants to tell us about something that happened a few years back, and it was pretty harrowing to say the least. Joseph, thank you for joining us from up north. And please tell us what happened.
Joseph (00:58:55):
So, yeah, well, it started maybe about a decade ago. I got into meditation and stuff like that, and one day I was doing visualization meditation. And honestly, it was a beautiful, sunny day. I was in a meadow, and then at the bottom of this hill, I see a cottage and I make my way there. And inside the cottage is just this empty room with beautiful hardwood floors, beautiful white walls, one window in the room with a bed in the middle of the room. And on top of the bed was this woman. I did not visualize this. This just happened to be there. Anyways, so throughout the visualization, I made my way and I was on top of the bed and this girl was on top of me in an instant. Her hair parted. If I could give you a visual of what the girl looked like, it was basically the girl from “The Ring”,
Jim (00:59:54):
Oh, okay.
Joseph (00:59:55):
Really, really long black hair, really, really shiny. The dress she was wearing was white, and it was really, really pristine. And in that moment, where she was on top of me, her hair parted and it was this demon face with red eyes, and she scratched my face. And the same moment in the meditation, I don’t know if something hit the wall in my room or something fell or something got thrown, but it was a huge bang. And I jumped out of the meditation. So fast forward, I’d say maybe seven, eight years. I wake up one night and as my eyes adjust, I notice that there’s something in front of me, and it’s this Ring girl, but the complete opposite of what I saw in my meditation. Greasy black hair. Really, really skinny, bony. I could see the veins in her arms bulging, and her fingers were crooked and nails were broken and dirty.
Jim (01:01:00):
Oh man!
Joseph (01:01:01):
She just had her hand over my face, my chest, and right there, I tried to wake up to get my wife to see it, to corroborate it or to witness it. And I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t grunt. I could blink. That’s all I could do. So I told myself, maybe this isn’t happening, maybe it’s not real. So I shut my eyes. I opened my eyes and her hand was at her side now, but she was still standing next to me.
Jim (01:01:27):
Yikes.
Joseph (01:01:28):
So I closed my eyes again, and when I opened my eyes again, she was at the foot of my bed. Anyways, she made her way out of the room, and it was only when she was out of the room that I could actually speak, move. So I started trying to wiggle and wake my wife up, and when I was able to move and speak, all I kept saying was, “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” Yeah. Honestly, I don’t think there’s any person on earth that could scare me as much as that. It was absolutely terrifying, not only from what I saw, but the fact that I couldn’t defend myself or move or anything like that.
Jim (01:02:09):
What do you think it was, or what do you think it represented?
Joseph (01:02:14):
To be honest with you, I think we don’t know what we are doing when we dabble with meditation or crystals or tarot. And I do believe that we open ourselves up to certain things. And I don’t know if it was that, but it’s the connection I could make. I don’t know. I can’t tell you, but it wasn’t the first time because an ex-girlfriend told me maybe three years before this incident or four years before this incident, she said that she saw something hovering over me too, but she didn’t wake up or she didn’t wake me up or anything like that.
Jim (01:02:54):
Yikes. Well, here’s hoping that you don’t see this demon woman again.
Joseph (01:03:00):
Yeah, I hope so too.
Jim (01:03:02):
Yeah, that would be, waking up and seeing something like that, I’d be like, whoa. Yeah, that’s frightening.
Joseph (01:03:07):
Yeah. It’s the fact that I couldn’t move. You want to try and run. You want to try and hit it. You want to try and do something, but the fact that I couldn’t do anything, it was just that this thing was, for lack of a better word, mercy, was the most petrifying thing.
Jim (01:03:25):
Well, but it’s been a while. It’s been a while since the last event, right?
Joseph (01:03:29):
Yeah, it has been.
Jim (01:03:31):
Well, let’s hope it stays that way. Joseph, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today on The Campfire and for sharing your story.
Joseph (01:03:40):
No problem. Thank you very much for having me.
Jim (01:03:42):
Janene is back on the show from Louisiana, and I must say I love the title of this, “Not The Little House on the Prairie.” For those of you who remember that show. I certainly do, and I had said something a couple months back along the line that if anybody else had astral projection stories to share, I’d love to hear him, love to share ’em with you. And Janene has answered the call. Janene, welcome back to the show and tell us what happened.
Janene (01:04:14):
Oh, Jim, thank you so much for having me again. It’s always a pleasure, and thank you for creating such a supportive space for all of us to tell our stories. To give a little background, when you mentioned the astral projection, so I’ve always been able to do that as a child. I just didn’t really understand it. And when I was in fifth grade, I checked out a book from the library and practiced it, and then I had a near-death experience when I was 18. I think that kind of heightened it, but I have visited a lot of places. Too, just really quick, I had a vision of being in a very tropical hot climate, seeing this neighborhood in this one particular house on a corner. And then years later, I actually moved to that neighborhood in Baton Rouge where I had never been to Louisiana before when I was in Ohio.
Janene (01:05:12):
Another projection travel I’ve had, I don’t know how to describe it, that I was in a train station with really strange language and words, and there was a very tall man next to me and these young adults around me. And then a few years later, I happened to be in that very train station in Copenhagen, Denmark with students and my colleague, we had taken students to Denmark to study. So just some background, and I’ve seen people, also, people traveling, we’re all kind of connected with these very wispy, feathery, light tethers. But I get from that, that we’re literally all very connected at many levels. And so once during a reading, a psychic reading, the woman asked me, “Where are you going?” And I said, “What do you mean?” She’s like, “I can see you leave your body.” And I said, “How?” And she’s like, “I just see it.”
Janene (01:06:08):
And then I understood that sensation. Sometimes it feels like when you take off in a plane, that first, that sense of force, that downward force, that feeling of lifting up. And so that’s just a little background story. But the story I do want to get to referring to the title, and I do have to say I was a huge, huge “Little House on the Prairie” fan. I read all the books, watched the TV show religiously. I had my Laura Ingalls Wilder dolls, but I was really obsessed and growing up in suburban, northeast Ohio, I mean there was really nothing like that related.
Jim (01:06:46):
No.
Janene (01:06:48):
But I loved it. I was obsessed with it. So this particular story, it starts in the nineties. I had gone to bed. This was in Cincinnati, Ohio. And then, as I was falling asleep, I had just a sensation of starting to fly.
Janene (01:07:03):
Just that whole sense of that force and just that sense of flying. And then it was dark. And then when I could see, I realized I was at a party, there were all these people around. I heard chatter, I heard glasses clinking. I saw servers. I heard a person play piano. And I looked and this house had these three massive windows that overlooked, it was on a hill, that overlooked a valley. And then I realized, this is LA and this is Hollywood. And I saw these people who looked vaguely familiar, but it was just a really weird sensation of a party. I remember what people were wearing, what they looked like. I remember following one of the servers around, the carpets. It was just a really very odd sensation. It was so clear. And then I asked where I was, and someone said to me, you were at Melissa Gilbert’s house who, as we know, she played Laura Ingalls Wilder, on a “Little House on the Prairie”.
Janene (01:08:10):
And so then I felt the sensation being pulled back, and then I woke up. And so a few days later, a friend of mine who had moved to Phoenix from Ohio, moved to Phoenix, Arizona. We started chatting about his new business idea, which he wanted to have musicians do artwork. He was actually trying to get George Harrison to do some artwork and represent that and have an art show, but it was his next sentence in our conversation that floored me. And he said, I was supposed to go to a party at Melissa Gilbert’s house in LA the other day, but I couldn’t make it happen. And I’m like, what? And I tried to tell him about my experience, and then he went on to say stuff about her being so connected and these bigwigs and big connections, but just really that’s the first time I had that experience kind of validated, if that makes sense, the fact that there was actually this party that had occurred.
Janene (01:09:14):
But interestingly, this story doesn’t end there. This literally a few days ago, well, I guess a few weeks ago, maybe time, after listening to that particular podcast where you mentioned the astral projection, I started thinking about submitting the story, and I told my husband about it, and a few minutes later, his stepsister texted me a picture of something on her arm. And being a health science professor, I kind of recognized what it was, and I said, that looks like cellulitis. And so then she sent me an Instagram picture of Melissa Gilbert who had had cellulitis, was hospitalized for it.
Jim (00:01:09:55):
Oh my.
Janene (01:09:57):
And, I know, my sister-in-law had worked in LA for many years and she had a lot of connections. And I told her, I said, I need to tell you my story about this weird actual projection to Melissa Gilbert’s house late in the nineties. And she said, “Oh yeah, she used to be the president of our union, SAG, S A G”. She lived in the hills and now moved upstate to New York, which surprised me because she was so ingrained in the industry and would have these parties with all these bigwigs.
Janene (01:10:30):
So I don’t know the connection, but it was an odd thing that one of the few times that I can have some validation of what happened, but then to have it come back again so many years later, just after listening to your podcast, it’s amazing.
Jim (01:10:50):
Well, the thing about me is I’m really just fascinated by the whole idea of astral projection. I think it’s just a fascinating topic, and I know people say, ah, that’s out there or whatever. But I think it’s possible. I think it’s possible if you are tuned in properly and you have that ability, I don’t really feel I have that ability. But I do think that some people do have that ability. Even if you look at the government, the government for years experimented with remote viewing and so forth, and I know people want to make a joke of it and the men who stare at goats and all that stuff. But we interviewed years ago, I interviewed Lyn Buchanan who was a participant in the government programs in that area, and he’s a very serious man.
Janene(01:11:36):
That’s very fascinating.
Jim(01:11:37):
So I guess what I’m saying is that I think there really is something to it. And it’s interesting because one of the first depictions that I can think about it in fiction, is literally Christmas Carol with Dickens, and he’s basically transporting now. He’s also transporting not only physically, but in time, but it is just always fascinated me. And I really do think there’s something to it. And Janene, thank you so much for sharing your experience with astral projection with us today on The Campfire.
Janene (01:12:08):
Well, thank you so much. And Jim, you do such good in the world with this podcast. And maybe in other worlds too, right? You might be out there, a few other Multiverses.
Jim (01:12:19):
Maybe somebody’s out there listening. I certainly hope so. Janene, thank you again.
Janene (01:12:24):
I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
Jim (01:12:28):
Marianne is on the line from the Gold Coast of Australia, and we certainly appreciate it. She’s also a Plus member. We appreciate that as well. And she’s going to take us back to her childhood days and a very interesting story. Mary, thank you for joining us and please tell us what happened.
Mary (01:12:50):
Alright, thank you, Jim. When I was about 13, I was out riding my bike and I can’t remember what happened, but I received a terrible concussion. I wasn’t lucid. Also, I remember was somehow ended up in my bedroom in the dark and I was vomiting if I saw a light. My mother being a good old nurse, we never got taken to the hospital if we had a problem, we had to just last it out and try to heal ourselves. Well, after about four days in this dark room of vomiting and no light, my mom popped her head in the door and said, “Oh, we’re just popping out for a minute, Mary Ann. We’ll be right back.” And while they were gone, I actually died and I left my body and I slowly floated up, up and I couldn’t see the roof, but I was up beyond the roof and I was so high up in the sky that my body was just like this little bitty person laying sideways on the bed. And the whole time it’s happening, I’m thinking, I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Please put me back in my body, put me back, put me back. And all at once I was there and I don’t remember anything, but my mom came back, goes, “I’m back. I’m back.” And I said, “You left me alone and I died while you were gone. Don’t ever leave me alone again.” And then she took me to hospital.
Mary (01:14:11):
But since then I’ve had a lot of different things happen to me. For instance, when my father died, it was a sudden death and we’re very traumatic, very distraught about it. And we’re sitting at the wake the day before the funeral and it was an open casket with his body there. And all of the male relatives, my brothers and my nephews were all standing behind the casket looking down at it. And as I sat in the chapel toward the front pews, I saw my father, peeking over his spirit, peeking over all the shoulders down at his body in the casket. And then he got into the casket and he was sitting up straight with his leg, straight ahead, sitting up. He laid down in his body, he was trying it on for size. Then he sat up again about that point because we’re all very distraught and I wasn’t going to say anything. I got up and I moved to the back of the chapel and I turned to my nieces that had new babies. I said, how about I drive you guys home? It was all just too disturbing. But I’ve had a lot of things since then. I never told anyone in my family that happened until after my mother had passed just to not cause any upset.
Jim (01:15:26):
Right, right. Do you think that that experience where you essentially died and came back, saw you were floating, you saw your own body in the bed, do you think that it helped lead to all of this, that it was kind of the spark that ignited your abilities? Or do you think that maybe you had that experience because you had the abilities to begin with?
Mary (01:15:50):
Originally I thought that sparked my abilities. But listening to your podcast, I now, I listen to them every single day. I have a lot of catching up to do because I only joined this year. I realized when I was a really little girl, the first time I got sent to the shops by myself to buy a bottle of oven cleaner. I remember walking home on this big hill, instead of walking on the street like the sensible child, I went up a hill and did all this stuff and I thought, I’m going to fall down this hill and a really nice lady’s going to help me and I’m going to really like the attention. And I would’ve been between five and seven when this happened. And so I’m just dawdling, going home. And actually I did trip. I ended up running down the hill, lost speed, fell badly at the bottom. This is about a hundred meters, pretty steep for a little kid. And I had the oven cleaner burning all my arm and I was crying. And a lady did stop and help me and drove me home. But it didn’t work out the way I was imagining. And for a long time as a child, I thought, don’t ever think of anything bad happening to you cuz it might happen. And I realize now because I do get quite strong premonitions. That was probably the first premonition I remember.
Jim (01:17:08):
Yeah, that’s interesting. Well, I do believe, and I don’t believe that I’m one of these people, but I fully, fully believe that some people just have a talent. Some people have a talent for sports, basketball, whatever, soccer, football, whatever it might be. And I believe that people have psychic talents and some people are just more tuned in. Now from the psychics and things that I’ve spoken with, it is something that you can enhance. But I think that it’s like any other thing. Some people are born with a natural talent to be great golfers, for example. Now I can learn to golf, but I’m never going to be Tiger Woods. And I think in the same way, I think that some people just are kind of born with this ability. Well, Mary, thank you so much for joining us today on The Campfire. I appreciate it. Thank you for your support. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the shows. Thank you again.
Mary (01:18:03):
Thank you very much. It’s good to have a good place to listen and hear stories others have.
Jim (01:18:07):
Sarah is on the line from Virginia. You may remember that she was on the show several months ago and we’re so glad to have her back. It’s a continuation of a story that she told us back then concerning her dad. And then she also has another piece that ties in as well. Sarah, welcome back to the show and thank you for sharing your story.
Sarah (01:18:33):
Thank you so much for having me back. Yeah, as you mentioned, it’s kind of a continuation of a story I told, I think it came out in December of last year. And just a quick recap, I had lost my father to Covid back at the beginning of the pandemic. And my story that I told was about a week after his funeral, I felt compelled to go find this card that I’d saved from 20 years previously where he had written in there, I Love You, Dad. And also something that I related to Covid and to him flew off of the bookshelf in front of my face and landed on the floor for no, absolutely no reason. And so all those happened probably within a few months of his passing. And so the short stories I want to share today are kind of a continuation of some of it I think directly related to him and part of it also,I feel like after losing him, and I’ve had a lot of family members die recently.
Jim (01:19:45):
I’m sorry.
Sarah (01:19:46):
I feel like that has, thank you. I think that’s opened me up to being more open to experiencing things. I never had any experiences before my dad’s death of anything that I would call paranormal. So maybe I’m just looking for them more. I’m not sure. So the first story I want to share is almost exactly a year, almost to the day after my father passed away, one of his best friends was in a serious accident across the street from my house. And she was airlifted to the local trauma center and we were all very concerned about it, didn’t know what was going to happen, but of course we all hoped she would pull through, had confidence in the hospital. So I went to bed that night and I woke up the next morning and right as I was in that place between sleep and waking up, I heard a voice of a woman say in my head, she didn’t make it.
Sarah (01:20:52):
And I woke up to that and I thought, oh, oh my goodness, I hope that’s not true. I hadn’t been dreaming about her. I hadn’t even been thinking a whole lot about it because I had confidence she was going to make it. So I heard that and I thought, well gosh, that is just the strangest thing. Where did that come from? So I went about my day. A few hours later I heard from my sister and she confirmed that overnight they had done emergency surgery and she had died through that. And so I just thought that is just the strangest thing. I don’t know if you call that intuition or…
Jim (01:21:30):
Precognition.
Sarah (01:21:32):
…something like that. But it was a voice that I didn’t, didn’t really recognize. It was a woman’s voice, just kind of matter of factly. She didn’t make it. And I was just like, great, thanks for the heads up.
Sarah (01:21:46):
So yeah, that was traumatic. The other things that have happened since that I think are related to my father, are things that have happened earlier this year. And that’s what prompted me to give you a call in. So two different things have happened. And it’s funny because I’ve been listening back to your old podcasts and I’ve been hearing other people talking about these things happening too. And I thought, oh goodness, it’s not just me. So one day I was in bed and it was kind of again, that time to wake up. I don’t want to wake up, I’m tired, kind of thing. I felt somebody grab my foot and shake it and it woke me up and I was about to be late for getting up and getting the kids to school and work. And it woke me up and I thought, okay, that didn’t happen. There’s nobody in here. Your husband’s still asleep. That was weird. That must be in my head. Go about my day. A few days later it happens again. But that was a different one. It was, I think one time it kind of twisted my toe, grabbed it and twisted. This ended up happening four times across a month.
Sarah (01:23:03):
And every time it was a day when I had been really tired, I’d been working really hard. I was about to oversleep my alarm. And so it was my wake up call. And so by the end of this I told my husband, I said, I think that’s my father coming. It’s kind of that thing that you do to someone that you’re fond of when you walk by and you shake their foot or you grab their toe and twist it. And that’s something that my dad would’ve done. And he was the one when I was growing up. He’s the one my mom sent up to wake me up because I was not a morning person. It was always his job to wake me up. So I really mean, happening one time, I can write it off as not real, but it happened four times in a month and every time was a little different.
Sarah (01:23:55):
It was just very interesting. And I don’t remember that ever having an experience like that before. And it hasn’t happened since. So very odd. And then the third thing that happened, that is a continuation of my dad. So I mentioned that a few months after he died, I had a pair of safety goggles from working in the Covid units at the hospital. They had flown off the shelf in my bedroom and landed on the floor. So about two months ago, I was up early in the morning. I had gotten myself up. I was getting ready to go have my workout. Nobody else was awake in the house. It was dark. Husband, kids asleep. Dog is asleep. Dog does not sleep in our bedroom, so that’s important to note. So I was in the bathroom, door closed. I’vd been in there for probably 10 minutes, getting ready.
Sarah (01:24:48):
All of a sudden I hear this loud thump outside in the bedroom and I was like, what’s that? I thought maybe something fell off a bed. So I just go about getting ready. I walk out and a baseball had fallen off of the same bookshelf and landed on the floor. We have a bunch of baseballs on that bookshelf. Our boys play baseball. It’s their home run balls, MVP balls. They’d been there for years. They hadn’t moved. There was nothing that should have caused one of those to fall off. If something shakes it, they all should have fallen off because they were kind of piled up. Little balls in a pyramid. One goes, they should all go. Yesterday, just testing it out ahead of this, I took the bookshelf and I kind of shake it. Nothing moved.
Sarah (01:25:40):
And that was at a period of time where our whole family was just living nothing but baseball. I’m the little league president. I was running the All Stars Tournament. My husband coaches, my youngest was playing All Stars. Baseball was our lives. My dad loved to come watch baseball. It kind of felt to me like he was saying, “Hey, I’m here watching here. I’m just going to throw the baseball on the ground.” I don’t know for sure, but that’s how I took it. There was nothing to explain why. And that’s the only two times anything has fallen off my bookshelf. We’ve lived there for 10 years. It’s just strange.
Jim(01:26:15):
So I do believe…
Sarah (01:26:16):
I take that as comforting.
Jim (01:26:18):
Yeah, that he’s around. I think the signs are everywhere. I really do. I think they’re there if you’re just open to receiving them. And I think obviously you certainly are. Well, thank you for sharing that because kind of like your experience going back in the archives and listening, I think that people, when they listen to people like you talking about their experiences, it gives comfort whether that’s in 2023 and hopefully we’ll be able to have the ability to keep the archive up for a long time. And maybe somebody will hear this in 2033 and it’ll be helpful for them.
Sarah (01:26:52):
I hope so.
Jim (01:26:53):
Thank you so much, Sarah, for being a part of The Campfire tonight.
Sarah (01:26:55):
Thank you so much.
Jim (01:26:57):
Well, thanks so much for tuning into this week’s Campfire. We thank our storytellers, we thank our sponsors. Please do support them, and we thank you for tuning in. We certainly appreciate it. And our stories are reopened now, submissions. So if you have a Campfire story, we’d love to hear it. You can sign up at jimharold.com/campfire. That’s J I M H A R O L D.com/campfire and hope to speak with you soon. Thank you so much for tuning in. We’ll talk to you next time. Stay safe, and as always, of course, Stay Spooky. Bye-bye.
Announcer 1 (01:27:34):
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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