A haunted handbag, a Thanksgiving supernatural experience, a UFO in the NJ woods and much more!
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TRANSCRIPT
Jim (00:00:00):
Well, I’ve heard of a lot of haunted things, but a haunted handbag. Yep. We’ll talk about it on this edition of Jim Harold’s Campfire.
Announcer 1 (00:00:22):
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 (00:00:34):
Welcome to the Campfire. I am Jim Harold, and so glad to be with you. And Happy Thanksgiving everyone. If you’re in the States, certainly, and hope you have a great Thanksgiving time. I’m saying that this week because next week a lot of people may hear the actual Thanksgiving episode and there will be a Thanksgiving episode coming out, but they may hear it after the holiday. So I wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and I’m very thankful because Dar has been doing a lot of work around the Spooky Studio. Particularly, she’s been sprucing up my Mausoleum of Merch. And since we’re getting in the holiday mode, we have Krampus gear, Krampus merch, yes, at my Mausoleum of Merch, and that’s at jimharold.com/merch. That’s jimharold.com/MERCH. And just go there and click on the Etsy selection and you will be able to see these new great Krampus designs.
Jim (00:01:37):
They are so cool and exclusive for 2023. So check it out. Your purchases in our Mausoleum of Merch support our shows and our ability to share great stories like this one.
Jay is on the line from Arizona and he deserves some kind of award. He’s been listening since 2009 and we’re so glad that he has, and I’m not going to spoil this, but I will tell you this is one of the most interesting phenomena I know of and I can’t wait to hear Jay’s story. Jay, welcome to the show. Thank you for your longtime listenership in sharing this very personal story.
Jay (00:02:22):
Hey, Jim, thank you so much for having me, and it’s a pleasure to tell it here on your show. So I’m going to get right down to it. So this happened in 2016, Thanksgiving Day, and so just to give you a little bit of background, my daughter and I live here in Arizona. We’re by ourselves. We don’t have any family here, so it’s just her and I. She’s in college now, but in 2016, she thinks she was 17 now, 17 then, so Thanksgiving day, we’re going to thinking about cooking a Turkey. Then I get a text message from my ex-wife asking if my daughter wants to go spend Thanksgiving with her. I asked my daughter, she says,”Yeah, that’ll be cool”, and I can see that she wants to go. We spend all of our time together. So I felt it was okay for her to go and spend time with other women.
Jay (00:03:14):
And so in about 15 minutes they came and got her, and I’m thinking, wow, what am I going to do? It’s Thanksgiving Day. I don’t want to spend that alone, but it is what is. It was then that I got a call from my friend, half friend of mine, and said, “Hey”, he’s also from out of state. He’s from Ohio, I believe, and there’s four other people who share their home. They’re also from out of state, so they’re just going to have a Friendsgiving instead, He says, “Hey, do you want to come over?” I said, “Perfect timing. My daughter’s going to go spend Thanksgiving with my ex-wife. I’ll go. Do you need me to bring anything?” He says,”Yeah, bring whatever you’re going to drink. And a dessert.” Said “Perfect.” Went to the grocery stores, got some pies, got some beer, got to his place about 1:00 PM, walk in.
Jay (00:04:06):
He introduces me to his roommates. We’re talking and my friend Brad is doing the cooking, and we sit down on the dining room table and we’re just getting to know each other, and there is everyone there sitting on at a table. Next to me there’s this girl who is the gentleman’s right next to her, girlfriend who is from Italy visiting him or was visiting here from Italy, and I see other people to my left. And so we’re talking about how here in the US after we eat turkey, we take naps. And the guy from Italy just could not understand what was happening, why? He was just so confused and we were laughing, and it was then that I was at the table, and then I suddenly woke up in this dark room.
Jim (00:05:02):
Oh my gosh.
Jay (00:05:03):
I woke up in this pitch black room, and it’s not the type of darkness where you can still see, it’s sort of like a new room, dark where you can see, this is pitch black. There’s nothing around. In fact, there is no body. I have no body, but yet I feel I’m laying on a flat surface, but you just can’t see anything around me. And this is just a room, a black room. There’s nothing, everything. I can see myself floating, but yet I feel some sort of a flat surface on the, then to my right hand side, I see a light pin drop little circle that I see, and it is actually spinning up and getting brighter and brighter. So this little pin drop, it’s becoming a big circle made out of light, and it is moving to the right upper. And it was then that it kind of forms into a cone where it’s cascading the, so the light, it was projecting, and as the light was cascading down, when it’s raining outside and you can see the raindrops up against the light bulbs, you can see the rain falling when you’re out there watching the rain sometimes at night. So it looks like the light is cascading in that form, in the form of a raindrops. It’s shooting down, forming this cone, and the closer it gets, I feel my body, and mind you, I have no body, but I feel like I’m laying on something flat.
Jim (00:06:44):
So all this happened, you were eating dinner and then all of a sudden just boom, you were in that room and all this happened.
Jay (00:06:49):
Right, we weren’t even eating dinner, but we were just talking at the dinner table. We were talking about taking naps, and that’s when I woke up in this black pitch room. So when this light just keeps getting bigger and bigger and getting closer to me, I feel myself get up out of this flat surface, sit up, and stand up towards facing the light. But at the same time, I have no body and I’m not controlling myself if that makes any type of sense. I have no body. There’s nothing around me, but yet I can feel the sensation. This light is guiding me, picking me up from this flat surface and dragging me towards it. And as I walk towards the light, the cone within itself, there’s a small door inside, and in that door you can see silhouettes of people waving. And the more and more I’m looking, the more and more I can see that it’s my grandpa.
Jim (00:07:47):
Oh wow.
Jay (00:07:48):
And as my body walks towards this light, automatically I feel a hand on my right hand shoulder and I feel it, but again, I have no body. And then when I look to my right, I see this big angel and he is glowing. He’s dressed like he’s going to battle. He’s got a roman armor type of dressing on him, and he’s huge, and he’s got big wings. And he looks at me and he’s sort of glowing. And then he says to me, it’s not time yet, that you’re needed here, but yet not moving. He wasn’t talking with his mouth. He was talking through his mind, if that makes any sense.
Jim (00:08:42):
Yeah, telepathically.
Jay (00:08:43):
Right. And so at that point, when he had his hand on me, I felt this energy that ran towards me. And then at that point, I felt the blow to my chest, a huge blow to my chest when I was up wherever I was.
Jay (00:09:00):
And I woke up on the kitchen floor of my friend’s house and there were paramedics everywhere giving me CPR. So the blow to the chest was CPR, and they were all over in the kitchen floor. When I woke up and I was sweating, and the first reaction I felt was to get up, I felt amazing. I felt almost as if I had this amount of energy I’ve never felt before. And I wanted to get up and they had me lay down and told me, “No, no, no, no, wait, you, you’re not okay.” And everybody’s panicking. Everybody that I just met is panicking there at the house. We ended up driving to the hospital, and my friend, the owner of the house who invited me, goes with me and the ambulance and the girl that was right next to me kept asking “What happened?”
Jay (00:09:51):
The last time I was, I remember we were talking about having turkey, and the girl next to me says, “Well,” she’s like, “We were talking about it. And when we were laughing about it”, the girl next to me said that I fell on her. And she says, “Well, I thought you were playing. I thought you were kidding, because we’re laughing about, ‘I’m going to sleep’, and here you are, you so long. And then you were getting really heavy and your eyes were open. That’s when I noticed you weren’t okay.” And she says, “Let’s go ahead and lay ’em down on the floor.” She’s a nurse, by the way, at the ER, one of the hospitals here. And she’s like, “I know. I’ve seen this before. We laid you down. I checked your pulse. You had none. I tried to give you CPR, I was checking your pulses everywhere. You had none. And that’s when we called 911.”
Jay (00:10:39):
While that was happening, I was having my own experience wherever this was. And after that, even to now, I see the world in a different way. It just looks brighter, the air, it just feels better. Even though there’s a lot of fog here in the city, everything just feels better. I feel excited to be here. I get up in the morning and take a shower. I see myself in the mirror and I see the person who I am, but I feel that I’m not the person that’s inside in that body, if that makes any sense. I feel new, like a toddler. You’re just discovering everything for the first time. So that’s the only way I could see myself, that I recognize myself, it’s in the mirror, but then I don’t recognize the person that was inside. Everything about me is different, and this happened on Thanksgiving Day.
Jay (00:11:35):
So what a better way to be thankful for what really matters.In reality, because most people get distracted with celebrating with material things or barbecues and do all these things, which is, there’s nothing wrong with it, but we sort of lose the true meaning of being thankful for the people who you have around you or for just being alive. I have a daughter, and I know you have kids too. So when you go through something like that, you see life in a different way. And you hear it mentioned everywhere, and you hear people say it everywhere. You hear it everywhere, but you really don’t get it. A lot of people just don’t get it until something like this happens to you and you get a second chance and you think, wow, I’m losing time. I need to do everything I’ve been wanting to do. I don’t really care how it’s going to happen. It’s just going to happen basically. So it’s a new mentality and basically that is my story that has changed who I am to this day basically.
Jim (00:12:36):
Well, we’re going to go over time a little bit on this story because it’s incredible. So let me ask you this. First of all, you’re okay now. You’re doing okay healthwise now? Everything’s good?
Jay (00:12:46):
Yes. In fact, I went through tests I think maybe six months, and they could not find anything at all. I’m very healthy. I work out. And cardiologists, I mean, they could not find anything.
Jim (00:13:00):
And you, look, we’re doing this interview over Zoom and I can see the video of Jay, and he looks great. It looks like he’s in great shape and everything. So that’s why I was really surprised. So did you feel that if you had continued that you would’ve gone to, you mentioned you saw your grandpa. Do you feel you would’ve gone to a heaven or someplace where you would’ve been reunited? Do you think that was your ultimate destination? Had the angel not told you, or did you have any thoughts about what the next step would’ve been?
Jay (00:13:33):
It’s funny you say that. It actually felt like I was going home. I had that feeling that I was going home, and the love I felt was a mother’s love, almost as when you’re little and you get hurt and you run to your mother, your mother hugs you says it’s okay, everything’s going to be alright, and you feel like everything’s going to be okay, and I felt like that unconditional love, I can only compare it to a mother’s love feeling that light, it felt like I was going home. I didn’t think about heaven, I didn’t think about anything. It felt like home. It was home basically where I belong and I wanted to go. I felt like I wanted to go. I felt like that’s where I belonged. That’s where I come from. That’s how I felt.
Jim (00:14:20):
Now, many decades from now, when it is your time to cross over, 5, 6, 7 decades, whatever that time is, right? Do you feel less apprehensive about death?
Jay (00:14:36):
Right. I am not afraid of it at all. You hear things, you hear a lot of things. I’ve heard a lot of it ,hear a lot of your shows or guests. I think the one that I remember the most is Reverend, the guy from Michigan.
Jim (00:14:52):
Yes, Gerald Hunter is…
Jay (00:14:53):
Yeah. Yes. So anyhow, I am not afraid. I know there’s something else there. The fact that I saw my grandpa there, I know that he’s there. Whether I’m going to see him or there or not, I don’t know, but I’m not afraid in the feeling of going home and that happiness. It was like something I’ve never felt before. So in a way, I’m excited to go home because when you’re there, I wasn’t thinking of anything. I wasn’t thinking of my material things or who I’m leaving behind. It’s hard to explain. It’s a different feeling.
Jim (00:15:31):
Wow.
Jay (00:15:32):
It’s a homecoming basically.
Jim (00:15:34):
That is a Campfire classic. And I love your message about what being thankful really means. I think we all need that, including myself. I’m raising my hand. Sometimes you don’t realize all the blessings we truly have every day. Jay, thank you so much for being a part today of the Campfire.
Jay (00:15:54):
Thank you for having me. Stay Spooky.
Jim (00:15:56):
Kaya has been listening for well over a decade, and we’re so appreciative of that, and I love this because not only did she provide us a great story, she provided us a great title. This is the Story of the Haunted Handbag. Ooh, I see a future episode title coming up here, Kaya.
Kaya (00:16:16):
Awesome.
Jim (0016:17):
And you’re calling today from LA. So tell us about the haunted handbag.
Kaya (00:16:22):
Yes. So this did happen a while ago, 2011, and it’s a quick story. It only happened over a couple days. At the time, I’d been living in an apartment on my own, myself and my two cats, and one weekend I was out with some friends and we were just out shopping in a neighboring town, and we went into a Goodwill or a Goodwill type store, and I’m always on the search for the perfect handbag, and I did see one that caught my eye. It wasn’t my usual style that I liked. It was kind of hippie-ish or bohemian. It had different colored patches on it and different fabrics, and it just was really unique and that’s why I liked it. So I bought it. It was small. It was a handbag that you just kind of put over your shoulder.
Kaya (00:17:24):
And so I brought it home, and this was over a weekend, so I think it was the Monday following. I brought it to work, so I had it over my shoulder and just a regular workday I went into work with, I worked with three other people in a small office, and we would chat and here and there, but mostly we were working on our computers, pretty focused on our work with headphones on.
Jim (00:17:58):
Sure.
Kaya (00:17:59):
So I was working away, and I noticed that day I had it, my shoulder was sore, and that was not too unusual because we sit at a desk all day and we get aches and pains, and so I didn’t think anything of it. Then the next day, same thing, brought the handbag to work. I had shoulder pain on and off that day too. Still didn’t think too much of it. And then third day I go to work, still have the shoulder pain kind of on and off on the right shoulder, and I’m working away probably middle of the day, really focused on my work and a firm hand, a firm grasp to my shoulder.
Kaya (00:18:50):
I thought it was my coworker. I turned around thinking my coworker had just wanted to speak with me. I mean, it was a hundred percent I thought it was a person, and I felt that. And I turned around. My coworker’s nowhere near me. He’s behind me, he’s facing his computer, his back to me, his headphones are on, he’s working away. And all the hairs on my, I think body stood up and I got a bad feeling and I felt nauseous.
JIm (00:19:20):
Oh man, oooh.
Kaya (00:19:22):
That was the first time I thought, this, is it the bag? Is this bag, but bad, does it have some bad energy? And I started to connect everything and the shoulder pain. So that day after the workday was done, I went home and I still had the bag on my shoulder, and I walk into my apartment and one of my cats is sitting there just looking at me as I’m walking into the door, and he looks at me and his eyes just get as big as saucers.
Kaya (00:20:03):
And he does that classic kind of Halloween cat pose where his back arches and his tail goes up and all his hair goes. And I’m like, oh, no, I’ve never seen my cat do that. He’s just normally just sitting there. And I thought, okay, this is the bag. And I took the bag off and I sat it down on a, there was this, a table right near me, and my cat hissed at it and ran into the bedroom, and I just thought, this thing’s got to go. It’s got some really, really bad energy on it. And the next day on the way to work, I actually dropped it back off at a Goodwill.
Jim (00:20:48):
You can have it back.
Kaya (00:20:50):
Yes. And I felt a little guilty. I was like, this thing has such bad, powerful energy. Someone else is going to have to deal with it. But I felt really strongly that it can’t be destroyed. It can’t be burned or thrown away. I felt like if I did that, it would curse me or it would come back to me.
Jim (00:21:11):
Right. Likeit would bounce back. Yeah.
Kaya (00:21:13):
Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it had a really, yeah.
Jim (00:21:16):
Anything you saw from the bag that would give any hint to its origin or anything like that?
Kaya (00:21:22):
No. The only thing about it that really that sticks out is that it was very unique. I’d never seen anything like it. It didn’t look old. It didn’t look old enough to have a bunch of history, basically. It looked, maybe it was a modern bag, but it felt like it was attached to somebody that something bad happened to, but I couldn’t find anything on it that was a clue to what had happened.
Jim (00:21:55):
That is so wild. Just, yeah. So I mean, let me ask you this. Have you changed your attitude towards thrifting since this.
Kaya (00:22:08):
A little bit. It’s funny because I love supernatural stuff and paranormal stuff clearly, but I love going to estate sales and secondhand shops. And actually that’s part of it that I like, is that sometimes you can get a feeling about things or I kind of like the thought of, it’s more appealing to me than buying new things because I do think things kind of hold energies. But yes, sometimes I’ve got into an estate sale and I get such a bad vibe. I have to leave, or something’s in there that creeps me out. And I saw a wedding dress once when I walked into an old house. It was being displayed in a corner, and I got the worst vibes from it. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know was the story behind it, but I got out of there. So yeah.
Jim (00:23:04):
Do you feel like maybe you’re more sensitive than most people psychically more sensitive?
Kaya (00:23:09):
A little bit, yeah. Yeah. I feel like more sensitive to certain energies that are on things and people.
Jim (00:23:17):
And for lack of a better phrase, do you think that’s possibly why the haunted handbag decided to pick on Kaya?
Kaya (00:23:25):
Oh God, maybe it was calling out to me. Yes, actually, that thought did cross my mind, I think at one point, and that’s another reason I wanted to get rid of it. It was definitely not a good feeling. It was a bad feeling and it was really strong. So yeah, I just wanted to get that away from me as soon as I could.
Jim (00:23:47):
Well, awesome story. Thank you so much for sharing it. We appreciate it. And thank you for your longtime listenership and sharing your story today on the Campfire.
Kaya (00:23:59):
You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
Jim (00:24:01):
Stay Spooky.
Kaya (00:24:03):
Stay Spooky.
Jim (00:24:04):
Jim Harold’s Campfire is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now, I know you are feeling it right about now because I’m starting to feel it. It’s the stress of the holiday season. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the holidays, but it’s just kind of like, oh my gosh, I got to get this done. I got to get that done. I mean, I have to work double time to be able to take some time off. That’s something I’m feeling pressure. I’m feeling pressure about, oh, I’ve got to get all these gifts for different people. What do I get them? What will they like? Then things looking back and thinking about family and friends who have passed, and that does bring in sadness. So as great as the holiday season can be. It can also be a lot, and it’s natural to feel some sadness, anxiety, or both about it, but adding something new and positive to your life can counteract some of those negative feelings.
Jim (00:24:58):
Therapy, for example, can be a bright spot amid all of the stress and change, something to look forward to make you feel grounded and to give you the tools to manage everything going on. And that’s why I think you should consider BetterHelp if you are looking for some help in way of therapy, because therapy can help you do so much. It can help you learn positive coping skills, how to set boundaries. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself, and it isn’t just for those who’ve experienced major trauma. So if you’re thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It’s entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. And I love the convenience of this. You can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. I think that’s great because different people mesh in different ways. So I love that BetterHelp has that option for you to find the right therapist for you and there’s no penalty for it. Find your bright spot this season with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/jimharold today to get to 10% off your first month. That’s betterhelp.com/jimharold. And we thank BetterHelp for their support of Jim Harold’s Campfire.
Announcer 2 (00:26:25):
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 (00:26:41):
Taylor is on the line from California. She heard about us from Scott and Forest over at Astonishing Legends. They always come through, so be sure to check them out if you’re one of the few people have not done that yet to listen to this show. Please do. They are great. Taylor has speaking of a great story about a very, very special gift or should I say gifts. Taylor, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened.
Taylor (00:27:08):
Hi, thanks, Jim. So a little background, it starts about a little over 20 years ago. I had my first job and I was about 17 and I made a really good friend there. Her name was Renee, and she was probably about 20 years older than me, and she was just a really kind sweet person and everybody loved her. And so a few years after working there, I was about 18 or 19 and I had been dating this guy, and of course we broke up, and when you’re that age, that’s the end of the world. And so I was just kind of mopey and sad for a while. And so she wrote me a very nice note and she gave me a heart shaped, it was a pink rose quartz, which I didn’t know at the time. I guess she told me in the note that some people think that it has healing properties and it helps with heartache.
Taylor (00:27:54):
So I thought, oh, that was sweet. And I kept it for a long time. Fast forward five or six years, I actually met my husband at the same job. We got married, he joined the Air Force, we moved away and I kind of lost touch with Renee. We would talk not frequently. I would maybe see on Facebook a post or she’d comment when we had our daughter. She would make comments about her pictures and stuff, but we never really spoke much anymore. And so speaking of my daughter, so she was probably about three, and I had a jewelry box that I would keep, not jewelry in, but keepsake things, notes from my grandmother, stuff like that. So I had kept that rose quartz in there because it wasn’t something that I really stepped out and looked at, but also isn’t something I want to get rid of.
Taylor (00:28:39):
So she saw it, and of course, being the girly girl that she is, she loves pink, she said, “Mommy, what is this?” And I told her what it was, and I told her where I got it and I said, but if you would like it, you may have it. And so she was very excited and she had a little box that she kept treasures in, so she put the heart in her box. So fast forward, probably, I want to say six months or so later, I see on Facebook that Renee had passed away suddenly and very sudden, I guess I think she had had Covid and then had gotten over it and then got sick with something else, and she never got better. And it was kind of a shock. It was one of those things which I hate to think about, but when you wish that you had spoken to somebody more, now that they’re gone, it’s too late kind of thing.
Jim (00:29:24):
Yeah, that’s something I think all of us has done. I know I’ve done it. There’s things I haven’t said that I wanted to say, and you always kind of have in the back of your mind, and I’ll just share this because I think it’s part of the human condition, and I’ve been guilty of it many, many times. I think you always assume, well, that person will be around so I can tell ’em whatever I need to tell them. If it’s just a thank you for something you did years ago that was really special to you, whatever it is, and I think we’ve all done it. I don’t think it’s just you, so I wouldn’t beat yourself up over that.
Taylor (00:29:58):
Okay, thank you. Yeah, and like I said, it was kind of a shock too, because it wasn’t like she had had a long illness or, she was fairly young, I mean in her fifties, I want to say. So anyway, my husband and I, since we both knew her, and actually he has an aunt that we also worked with, we all knew her. We get ready to go to the funeral the next month, and my daughter asks me where we’re going, and I tell her she’s about, this was 2021, so she’s about four, four or five, almost five. So I tell her, and she’s like, “Oh, that’s sad.” And she’s always been kind of a little bit more, I don’t want to say empathetic, but she’s definitely for her age, she feels her feelings deep, and she’s also very sympathetic to other people. So she was a little sad for us when I explained and I explained to her, I said, this is the person that gave me that heart that you have.
Taylor (00:30:45):
So fast forward to earlier this year, we had been renting a house probably for four or five years, and our landlord told us we had to move. So my husband and I were very stressed out about it. We weren’t real happy about it. We loved our house and it was hard, where we live, it’s hard to find rentals. They go very fast. So we were just kind of stressed out. And at the same time, which I didn’t really correlate this until later when I was thinking about the story, I also had an uncle who became sick pretty quickly with cancer and passed away really fast. We all were shocked by how fast he had passed away. And so it was just like a rough time. It had been a rough few months. So we’re unpacking the house and I’m unpacking my daughter’s room and she has a bookshelf where she keeps little things on it, cute stuff, books and knick knack things, and I find the heart in the box. I think, oh, that was actually, that was nice. Something I needed to see. And so I put it back in her box. I put the box on the shelf. Two days later, I’m downstairs, I’m unpacking something in the kitchen, a box full of random plates, and then I have saucers for plants and stuff. And so I take some out and I unwrap one of the saucers and there’s the pink heart.
Jim (00:31:55):
Huh.
Taylor (00:31:56):
Wait, wait a second. I just saw this two days ago, unpacked in my daughter’s room. So I’m looking at it, I’m like, this is weird. So I go upstairs and sure enough, there’s the pink heart that is still sitting in my daughter’s room, and then I have another one in my other hand. I’m like,
Jim (00:32:11):
So now there was originally one pink heart. Now there are two pink hearts.
Taylor (00:32:15):
Yes. And this is also, I’m definitely what I would call a healthy skeptic. And I know a lot of people believe in crystals and jewels and things that they have powers. That’s never really been something that I’ve subscribed to or believed in. So it wouldn’t be something that I would buy on my own or something that someone would think to give to me besides Renee. This one time, it wasn’t something that I would’ve picked up somewhere else along the way. So I’m like, this is weird. And I just thought, well, maybe God or the universe or somebody thought that I needed an extra healing, I don’t know, was just, and I even asked my daughter, I said, “Did someone give this to you? Did you have a friend?” Because she have a little friend that from back from preschool, and they’ll give each other little gifts, random pictures they draw or rings that they sign. She’s like, “No, mom, you gave it to me.” I’m like, okay.
Jim (00:33:07):
Well, I think it was your friend, I think it was your friend,
Taylor (00:33:10):
Maybe.
Jim (00:33:11):
I think your friend gave you another gift and probably was so touched by you sharing this with your daughter. She said, well, why shouldn’t they both have one?
Taylor (00:33:23):
Yeah, I think that’s what I’m going to go with too. And she was that type of person. She never got to meet my daughter. But we had lived, well, my daughter was born in a different state. My husband was in the Air Force, so we didn’t live here for a while, and she would always see pictures on Facebook and comment on how gorgeous and beautiful she was. And I kind of wish that my daughter, if I got to meet her, because she was a cool person,
Jim (00:33:45):
And I’m just going to throw this out here. I’m no kind of guru or expert or anything, or spiritual guider, spiritual guider, spiritual guidance person or anything like that. But I will say this, it occurs to me if we believe, and I know you said you’re somewhat skeptical, but if one believes that our loved ones, our friends, our family, those we’ve cared for who have passed are still around, if you had something to say to them, to me, it would make sense to just say it out loud. And if they are around and they are listening, they’ll hear you. And maybe that’ll make people feel better too. Just getting that out there and saying whatever it is you have to say. And you know what? Maybe after this podcast, I’ll take myself up on that advice and do that myself and say some things I wanted to say that I didn’t say.
Taylor (00:34:33):
Yeah, that’s actually, that’s a really good idea. That never occurred to me to say it out loud.
Jim (00:34:40):
Yeah, I think that would be a cool kind of thing for all of us. And again, this is, I have no professional accreditation. I have no expertise whatsoever, but it occurs to me, it just makes common sense. If you believe that your loved ones are around and they’re with you, if you have something to say to them, just say it out loud. I know it’s not an original thought, but maybe that’ll help some people out there.
Taylor (00:35:03):
Yeah.
Jim (00:35:04):
Taylor, that just sounds like a lovely gift or gifts from a friend. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Campfire.
Taylor (00:35:11):
Oh yeah. Thank you, Jim. Thanks for having me.
Jim (00:35:13):
Next up is Zachary from Pennsylvania, and he has been listening for about a year and is a Plus Club member. So we appreciate that support. And Zachary is going to take us into a journey in the wilds of New Jersey, the wilderness, the woods, and something very strange that he saw. Zachary, welcome to the show. Tell us what happened.
Zachary (00:35:37):
Thank you so much, Jim. I’m happy to be here. So yeah, so like you said, this took place in New Jersey, May of 2020. So the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, me and my husband were both bored at home. Both of our jobs had kind of took a little lull there for a while. So we were bored at home looking for stuff to do, and we were really into hiking at the time because there really wasn’t much else to do. We were both very big horror movie fans, Blairstown, New Jersey, where they shot the original Friday the 13th.
Zachary (00:36:10):
That’s about a half hour to an hour from here. And so we’re like, let’s hop in the car. We’ll go see the little town where they shot, take some pictures at some of the shooting locations and stuff like that. So we get down there, we’re in the town, we take our photos, we see the stuff, really cool for horror movie fans, if anyone’s ever interested. So then we decide to go out to the camp where they shot more of the movie at. And the camp is a good maybe 15, 20 minutes out of this town, Blairstown, New Jersey. I don’t know if I said that. So we get out to the camp and like I said, COVID-19, so it was closed down, no one was there. We park at the main entrance because there’s a metal arm blocking the dirt road that leads to the main camp.
Zachary (00:37:02):
So we park the car and we start walking this dirt road, and it’s a good, I’d say a good mile or two, a good half hour walk probably to the camp. It was a very long walk. And we get down there and we’re vigilant just because we’re on someone else’s property. We don’t know if there are cameras, we don’t know what’s going on.
JIm (00:37:21):
Sure.
Zachary (00:37:23):
And so we get in there, we’re respectful, we take the photos at the sites we want to see, we go down by the lake and stuff like that. Really cool. And then we’re like, okay, we’ve seen it. We’ve conquered, let’s start walking back to the car. And I should say beautiful day, most perfect day, you could ask for, very sunny, very clear. So we start walking back and we’re on this dirt road trail back to the car. And like I said, it was a bit of a lengthy walk and you’re deep in the woods.
Zachary (00:37:53):
And so we’re walking and my husband is on my right side and the woods are on my left. And so to the right of us is the lake. And my husband’s over on the side looking at the lake and taking photos as we’re walking. And I’m just focused forward and kind of peering off into the woods. And as I’m walking, I notice this shape. The best way I’ve been able to describe it to anyone I tell this story is almost like it looked like the back of a minivan, but with no windows. It was a solid piece of dark gray metallic, I would say it kind of looked like the lead of a pencil if I was to describe the color.
Jim (00:38:38):
Like a graphite.
Zachary (00:38:40):
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And it caught the sun. I could see the sun reflecting off of it, and I stopped to make sure that this wasn’t some kind of, when you’re walking, sometimes it appears other things are moving because you’re moving. So I stopped and I put my arm out to stop my husband, and I’m like, “Do you see that?” And I’m pointing ahead and I’m watching this thing slowly move. It’s slowly gliding. It’s got to be about maybe eye level with me. And it’s in between. It’s in the trees. It’s in between the trees. So it’s moving through the woods, like I said, smoothly, gliding. It couldn’t have been on the terrain because it would’ve been if it was an off-road vehicle. I’m trying to rationalize it in my head. What could this possibly be? If it was an off, off-road vehicle, it would’ve been like bumpy.
Zachary (00:39:30):
If it was an animal, I would’ve been able to tell that something was walking. This was just a solid metallic thing gliding through the woods. And I said to him, I’m like, “Do you see that?” And he’s like, “What?” And he’s looking all around and I’m pointing. I’m like, “Do you see that?” And he didn’t catch it in time. And I watched this thing just disappear into the woods. And I’m explaining to him, I’m like,”Babe, I just saw something go into the woods.” Meanwhile, no noise, no anything like that. And I was just kind of floored. I didn’t know what I had seen. I didn’t know. I just didn’t know what to make of it. And like I said, I’m sitting there trying to rationalize it the entire time, but I couldn’t. And we get up, we continue walking as I’m explaining to him what I just saw, and he was skeptical.
Zachary (00:40:22):
He’s like, “Maybe you saw a bear or maybe this, that and the other thing”. And as we get up parallel to the spot where I kind of saw it disappear into the woods, we heard a very loud, sharp, distinct crack, just a very loud one crack. And I looked at him and he looked at me and he’s like, “Do you want to run?” And I’m like, “I really do.” And we booked it out of there. I’m telling you, Jim, like I said, it was a good mile. We ran to the car so fast and we, yeah, it was very, oh my gosh, I don’t know. It was frightening, but it was also really, really cool. Looking back on it, it’s really, really cool. At the same time, I don’t know what to make of it, and I’ve seen lots of things over the years, but I’ve never seen something so close and so just right in front of me, it was insane.
Jim (00:41:14):
That’s amazing. And the thing is to me is people might say, well, that’s incredible, but you know what you saw and you’re very sincere in what you saw. So what do you think it was,
Zachary (00:41:33):
Jim? I have no idea. I mean, honestly, back then I didn’t even think, oh, that was a UFO. Like I said, you spend your time trying to rationalize it, and just as time went on, I’m like, okay, whatever I saw was not normal. Like I said, I’ve seen lots of stuff over the years. I’ve seen stuff in the sky. I’ve recently got into meditation and the whole CE-5 and make contact meditation, which that alone has brought things into my life that I want to come back on and explain to you. But I’m just, I really believe that we may get glimpses into other dimensions, other realities, maybe these things are here all along and they make themselves, they want you to see them. I feel that’s a very interesting idea is they have the idea that someone’s looking and they want you to see it. I don’t know though. There are so many possibilities.
Jim (00:42:33):
But it does make you think, and I’m sure that has even increased your interest in the subject matter.
Zachary (00:42:39):
A hundred percent. Actually, I just dropped. I’ve been dropping so much money on books and doing research and watching videos and listening to your podcast and several other podcasts. I love hearing people’s stories. And like I said, just over the course of my life I’ve experienced so much and I want to come back on and tell so many stories. It’s crazy. It’s hard to find a community that believes you, but it’s really nice to find one.
Jim (00:43:04):
Well, it only exists because of people like you, Zachary, people who help support what we do and are willing to come on and most importantly, and share their stories. Thank you so much for being a part of the Campfire.
Zachary (00:43:17):
Thank you so much, Jim.
Jim (00:43:19):
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Announcer 2 (00:45:32):
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 (00:45:42):
Next up on the show is Robert from Texas. We’re so glad to speak with him today. And he lives in a home that was built in 1906, and I just think about a home that was built that long ago and all of the history, and evidently it sounds like maybe some of it is showing itself in the form of a haunting. Robert, welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us and tell us what happened.
Robert (00:46:08):
Jim, thank you for having me. I want to give you just a little bit of context before I get into the story. Back in 2018, I was going through a divorce. Have one child who’s in elementary school. So there were a lot of things up in the air for me. And one of the things I needed to do because of the divorce is get my own house. And I was running with a friend through a neighborhood here in town, and there was a sign that said ‘for sale’, there was a lady doing work in the house, historic neighborhood. I walked in and just really fell in love with the house. I ended up winning the bid for the house and moved in August of 2018. The back of my mind, although I had never had any paranormal experiences, you think, I wonder if there’s any weird energies in here.
Robert (00:46:58):
And it was clean, clear, it felt great. So I’m in here for the next several months, again, tumult in my personal life because of the divorce, and it was late October of 2018. It was a Saturday, and actually it was a Sunday morning, and I hear three distinct knocks at my front door. The knocks wake me up. I go to the front door, I open the door, I step out, I look around and no one’s there. I thought, huh, that’s a little bit weird. Maybe some neighborhood kids are playing games, ding, dog, ditch, whatever. I go back to sleep. The next night, again, around three in the morning, I hear three distinct knocks again, but this time it’s inside of my bedroom and it wakes me up and I’m thinking, wow, that’s a little bit weird. I wonder what’s going on here. I didn’t think too much about it, and that those knocks that time were in the front of my bed.
Robert (00:48:07):
Next night I go to sleep, and on the side of my bed again, around 2:45, 3:00 again, three knocks. I then think, wow, there’s something going on here. This is a little bit strange that next evening I had to go out of town and left and obviously didn’t hear anything for the next several nights. When I got back to the house, maybe once or twice, again, three knocks. I remember one time there was a knock in the back of my bed and I got really upset because it woke me up, so I kind of knocked back at the knocks. But then after that, a bunch of strange things started happening that my daughter, who I don’t have full custody, we have shared custody, she has her own bedroom in the house, middle of the night, the light in her room would start going on. TV would go on by itself.
Robert (00:48:58):
She has a doll from Frozen, from Disney, and again, around two, three in the morning, the doll by itself starts singing. It’s one of these dolls that you have to push a button in the back for it to sing.
Jim (00:49:09):
Oh man.
Robert (00:49:10):
A couple of weeks later, she’s in my house. At that time, she was maybe six years old, excuse me, six years old, and she slept with me that night. And we both wake up, and again, two, three in the morning, the doll starts singing again. So I take the doll outside and I throw it away the next morning. The computer sometimes, as I said, would go on by itself. Television lights, and then there’s some strange
Jim (00:49:37):
I do want to ask one thing about the doll, you said it started singing by itself. What was it singing?
Robert (00:49:43):
Whatever the pre-programmed song was from “Let It Go”, or The Frozen, maybe it was “Let It Go.” I don’t remember, but it was a Frozen type of song because it was a frozen doll that would..
Jim (00:49:53):
That would lead me to “let it go”, for sure.
Robert (00:49:55):
Oh, I let it go. After the second time, it got thrown away. Some of the really weird things that happened, again, this is all within, I would say about a year timeframe. Okay. A daughter, one Sunday morning was eating breakfast at the table and at the dining room table. And she told me, she very distinctly heard a voice that said, “ello, how are you?” And she said it was a man’s voice. I tried to play it off because I didn’t want her to get scared, so I said, “Oh, maybe you just heard something outside or whatever.” I didn’t want to make a big deal about it. Some of the weirder things that happened, Jim, now this is going to get really strange. One night I was in bed and I fell asleep with the cell phone on the bed. I felt like an energy come through my body. It woke me up, and then the cell phone, which had obviously been off, because it was on my bed. It popped on. So the energy, whatever energy it was that came through my body popped on the cell phone as well as waking me up. So that was weird.
Robert (00:51:01):
Let me see if there’s anything else. Those were kind of the weird events. Now, there was one final weird one that as you would call a head scratcher. This was in Fall of 2019, and I have my bedroom closet in front of me. You have to open a door to get into the closet, and I hear this rhythmic chanting, beats drums. It’s almost like a Native American kind of what you would think to be a dance or a tribal ceremony or whatever. I picked up my phone to record it, and it stopped right when I picked up my phone, it was on for a couple of seconds, and I just thought, what the hell am I hearing? What is that? It was just extraordinarily strange. A couple of months later, I go with a friend to Cusco in Peru, and we’re going to go visit Machu Picchu.
Robert (00:51:56):
And in Cusco on the town square, there’s an old church. And at that church that evening, they were having some sort of religious ceremony. They were carrying the statue of the Virgin Mary. And I swear to you, I heard the exact same rhythmic beat drum chanting that I heard in my bedroom closet three months earlier. It’s the weirdest experience I have ever had in my life. That summer, I had someone come pray over the house, sage the house, the whole nine yards. And since then, Jim, pretty much nothing happened, with the exception of one thing, which was kind of good. I travel a lot. I’m fortunate enough to be able to travel a lot. So after that summer in the fall, I had gone to Hawaii on vacation and got back on a Sunday night. I had a nine o’clock meeting that Monday morning. And with the jet lag, you’ve got to make sure you set your alarm or you’re not going to wake up.
Robert (00:52:55):
And sure enough, I didn’t set my alarm. But at exactly 8:00 AM and again, remember I had the nine o’clock meeting at exactly 8:00 AM I felt three distinct taps on the bicep of my right arm, and those three distinct taps woke me up. I looked at the clock and it was exactly 8:00 AM. So that’s just kind of a quick synopsis of what I’ve gone through. Again, since 2019, not any activity. I did do some research online, and I found out that this three knocks is a thing around the world that people experience. Some people believe it portends death in the family. There was no death in my family, but it’s something that just happens around the world. And generally at two or three in the morning, which is kind of weird, cuz that’s what happened to me. Final thing is maybe for your listeners, if this ever happens to them.
Robert (00:53:47):
The other thing I realized is, or I learned, is I should not have opened the door. Apparently when you open the door, you’re letting the Poltergeist in. It needs to, for whatever reason, ask for permission. So I didn’t know any of this at the time that I opened the door, but to your listeners, if you hear weird knock, two, three o’clock in the morning, do not open the door. That’s my experience. It’s weird. I can’t explain it. Before this, I had never really had any paranormal experiences. I did have a housekeeper, friends, a lady who was organizing my house. They all felt weirdness. A girlfriend saw two shadows running after each other. I personally never saw anything in the house, but I did feel, hear, et cetera.
Jim (00:54:31):
Now, what do you think was the genesis of this? What do you think was creating this energy?
Robert (00:54:38):
Two hypothesis that I have. One is it’s just random. And I live in an old neighborhood and there’s weird energies out and about. Two, I was in a pretty down point in my life going through the divorce. I didn’t know what the custody situation was like going to be like with my daughter. I spent a lot of money on the divorce, so I was kind of in a weakened emotional state. So that might have attracted a negative energy. I don’t know. But it certainly was not a fun experience to go through. Although it has opened up my eyes to the existence of the paranormal because I have firsthand experience. Oh, one last thing, Jim, about I would say late 2019, I woke up because there were very distinct and strong smells. I had a very sweet smell. One moment I fell back asleep, and then I had a sulfuric rotten egg smell, which I understand is kind of an evil kind of thing. But those are two things that did wake me up. The smells were very distinct, but that’s a synopsis of what took place in my house. I think whatever was here is now gone, which I’m happy for. And the other lesson I learned is don’t be afraid of this. Just learn to deal with it. Cause I also, from my reading on this, the fear that the poltergeist feeds off fear, its it…
Jim (00:55:59):
Yeah, feeds it. Yeah.
Robert (00:56:01):
So try not…
Jim (00:56:01):
Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes sense. And the thing that I would say is that now you’ve got your home back and I’m sure you’re enjoying it. And it’s kind of nice to have a happy ending to something like this. And I, again, I’m not an expert on this thing, I always say that, but I do believe that when there’s high emotions, maybe negative emotions, I mean, everything that I’ve learned, it does ramp up activity. And it can be kind of like a substrate of sorts, I guess, to kind of promote negative activity. And I mean, that’s been held true with many people I’ve spoken to, including experts and people who’ve really researched this in depth.
Robert (00:56:46):
My girlfriend is really into this kind of stuff, and she said from her reading, say you’re at a bar or a restaurant, you can even attract a negative attachment. And then it asks for permission to go in. So I do think you’re right, your emotional state, you’ve got to be really careful. So I always try to stay in a positive enlightened state because if not, these things can try to attach to you.
Jim (00:57:09):
Indeed.
Robert (00:57:10):
But I’m glad I got my house back. I have some friends that say, “Well, why didn’t you move out?” To me? It was always more burdensome or kind of trickster than evil. If evil things had happened, I would be out of here in a split second, but it was more like a tricky annoyance, lights on and off, doll, blah, blah blah. Which yeah, the doll was freaky. Okay. But if I had seen anything or if my daughter had seen anything, I would’ve been out of the house. But I’m glad I got my house back. I love it.
Jim (00:57:41):
Excellent. Well, Robert, thank you for calling in today and sharing your story on the Campfire.
Robert (00:57:47):
Thank you, Jim. You have a great day.
Jim (00:57:49):
Timmy is on the line from the great state of California, and we’re so glad to speak with him today. His friend Alyssa, who’s been on the Campfire telling her own stories, told Timmy about the show and he says he just keeps listening and can’t get enough of the Campfire. That is what I like to hear my friends, and Timmy even better has a story for us. Timmy, welcome and thank you for sharing a story right out of the gate. Tell us what happened.
Timmy (00:58:16):
Okay, so this is maybe about 10 or 12 years ago. I lived down the street from a really good friend. We all lived in a fairly new neighborhood, and so we didn’t really think of much of anything, and him and his wife were telling me one day about how they were experiencing some weird paranormal things. They said they would hear running through the house when no one was upstairs and things would turn off and on and I didn’t think much of it. I was like, oh, maybe it’s just new house is settling in and maybe there’s wiring that’s faulty because everything’s new.
Jim (00:59:03):
Sure.
Timmy (00:59:04):
Well, I was over at their house one day and downstairs talking with my buddy, his name is Dan, and I just hear what sounds like, what could sound like a small child running through the upstairs and I thought it might’ve been their dog.
Timmy (00:59:21):
So I asked him, I was like, “Is your dog just running around upstairs?” And he is all, “No, he is out in the backyard.” I was like, “What was that?” Then he’s all, “That’s what we keep telling you about is we keep hearing that.” His wife is all “Yeah, we hear that and then this is even crazier” and she brings me up to the master bedroom. They had a four-year-old son as well. I’d like to point out who she says would refuse to go into the master bedroom because he says there’s a monster in the master bedroom.
Jim (00:59:48):
Oh man.
Timmy (00:59:50):
Yeah. So she’s like, “He won’t go past the master bedroom door.” And she’s like, “But that’s not even the craziest thing.” She’s, “Well check this out.” So she brings me into the master bedroom. Now the master bedroom has its own bathroom as well, and when you walk into the master bedroom, there’s a giant window, so it lights up the whole bedroom and you think it would light up the bathroom as well, but she’s all, she told me to look in the bathroom and I can’t explain it for the life of me, but there was not one bit of light going into the bathroom. There was the threshold for where the master bedroom in the bathroom was, not one bit of light was going in there. You’d think there’d be some daylight that would shine in there. It was just dark and I could not explain it.
Timmy (01:00:36):
And she’s all, “We’ve seen this, we see this every day, we can’t explain it.” And I told her, I was like,”Have you experienced anything weird?” She’s all, “Other than the lights turning off and on and the running through the house, nothing extremely crazy has happened.” And I was like, “Oh, okay”. So I walked in the bathroom, I took a look around trying to debunk it myself because at this time I was also in ghost hunting stuff myself, so I was like, oh, there’s probably some kind of reason for this. Couldn’t figure it out. At this time also, I was not a big believer of sleep paralysis and stuff like that. So I went home. I went home that day and I think whatever was in that house may have followed me because I woke up later that night to the sound of a gruff voice in my ear saying, “Don’t come back.” And then it just felt like something was pinning me down and had, if it was a person, it felt like they had their knee in my back just pushing into me and I was trying to fight waking up and I couldn’t for anything and I could not explain it after that. And I told my friend about it and after that she said, ”Yeah, it’s been really quiet the last week or so since you’ve been here. And we just couldn’t explain it after that.”
Jim (01:01:54):
So it followed you. That’s what it sounds like.
Timmy (01:01:58):
I am feeling like it may have,
Jim (01:02:02):
I mean, what do you think the genesis of all this is, what caused it to start do you think, in terms of even your friend’s house? Because didn’t you said the houses were newer.
Timmy (01:02:14):
The town that we lived in is an old, is a town that was back from I guess the Old West days and looking up history and stuff. There was an old Indian reservation that used to be not far away from where we lived. And there’s speculation that where our houses were built, there might’ve been some Indian burial grounds, but nothing had ever been confirmed. But it just, oh, go ahead, I’m sorry.
Jim (01:02:50):
No, I was just going to say, I mean we just had a call recently for someone that lived in an apartment and they had cigarette smoke coming in and they couldn’t figure out why it was, but then they found out that there had been a previous house there, an older house, and very likely because of the time and everything, there were cigarette smokers. So I mean, people assume their houses are new that doesn’t mean that the land has not been used previously for something else. But go ahead. I’m sorry, I interrupted you.
Timmy (01:03:19):
Oh no. But yeah, after some research, just the most I could find out about the area was that there, it was land. It was land owned by Native Americans, long time ago. Other than that, there’s really not much I could find to explain anything else.
Jim (01:03:41):
Well, Timmy, and you had never had this sleep paralysis experience before. This was a new thing for you, right?
Timmy (01:03:47):
Yeah, that was absolutely new. It was nothing I’d ever experienced before, but from anything that’s been described to me about sleep paralysis and what happens, I can tell you that’s what it was.
Jim (01:03:59):
Now, did this ever occur again or was it just a one-time thing, this thing, whatever it was bothered you?
Timmy (01:04:06):
It was just a one time thing. Like I said, I heard that voice in my ear and I had enough it woke me up and then I felt this feeling that I was being held down and I don’t know if it was something that followed me and it was threatening me to stay out of there because I was poking around. I could tell you I never went back up in that master bedroom again.
Jim (01:04:32):
Don’t blame you. Don’t blame you one bit. Timmy, thank you for finding the Campfire. Thanks Alyssa, and thank you for sharing your story today and Stay Spooky.
Timmy (01:04:42):
Thank you for having me.
Jim (01:04:43):
Jim Harold’s Campfire is brought to you by Ritual. Now, I recently learned this. There are two types of people in this world. There are those who openly pass gas in front of a partner and those who turn on the TV really loudly to try to cover it up. But luckily now there’s a third option for this awkward gut stuff that we all deal with. It’s called Symbiotic Plus because Ritual created a clinically studied three in one prebiotic, probiotic, and a post biotic to help support a balanced gut microbiome. Now, I love Ritual products because anytime I’ve ever dealt with supplements or anything like that, I stayed away from them because it’s like, well, how do I know who’s making this? But Ritual is different. They have a traceable supply chain, very reputable professionals who create these different formulations. I feel very comfortable taking their products.
Jim (01:05:41):
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Announcer 2 (01:07:25):
You are listening to Jim Harold’s Campfire.
Jim (01:07:28):
Dawn is on the line from Indiana and her boyfriend Vince told her about the shows. He’s been listening since the beginning, has listened to every episode. Really appreciate that Vince, and appreciate that you told Dawn about the show and now she’s listening and sharing her story. And I think this may be one of the first stories we’ve had that talks about a video game being involved. Should be interesting. Dawn, thank you so much for joining us and tell us what happened.
Dawn (01:07:57):
Thank you for having us. And it all started, it’s actually Vince’s story mainly, but about a month or so ago, we went to sleep and he woke up about 3:00 AM and he was awake. He heard the TV, he was aware of everything going on, and he was apparently telling me to let go of him. I felt like something was holding him down. He said it two times and I didn’t hear him. I was actually facing the opposite way. Then finally I heard him say, “Babe, let me go. I need to move.” I was like, “What are you talking about?” I turned over. I’m like, “I wasn’t even touching you.”
Jim (01:08:32):
Oh man.
Dawn (01:08:33):
He’s like, “I couldn’t open my eyes, I couldn’t move.” He’s like, “It just felt like I was being held down.” So after that, everything was fine. Later on that morning, the next day, basically, he’s had a tooth that he’s had a problem with for a long time, but it’s never bothered him, never any issues with it. And with his tongue, he said it felt loose and he stuck his hands around his tooth and he ended up pulling that tooth out with nothing. Just fell out basically. And later that day or the next day, he went to play his video game that has never had any glitches in it before. It was a golf game and we actually posted it to your,
Jim (01:09:15):
Oh yeah, I remember !
Dawn (01:09:16):
Facebook page. Yes. And it literally showed the character and the whole side of its mouth was the skin was gone and it was showing just the teeth. The next morning I woke up and I bit into a chip and my front tooth fell out. Now many people will say, just like you do, too many coincidences. Is it a coincidence? Is it not? Whatever, too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence. We ended up saging the whole area of the house and everything, and some things got better, didn’t have too much going on. And then recently we started having hats falling off the wall that have been in the same place for a while, things falling off the dresser that have been in the same spot, nothing pushing them or moving ’em. The door, we’ll hear the back door open and close, but nobody’s gone in or out of it and stuff like that. So things have seemed to have picked up again a little bit.
Jim (01:10:16):
Do you feel like there’s something in the home that’s causing this? Do you have any suspicions about the home in terms of what might be going on
Dawn (01:10:25):
The home itself? No, we think it’s attached to Vince actually. A long time ago, him and his friends went to the old boys school and Cedar Lake that where a bunch of kids were killed or something, and Halloween, him and some of his friends have gone there and when they were leaving, they were driving his car and there was a hand print on the window. And from that point on, he would go home and he’d button up all his dress shirts and hang them in the closet and the next day they’d be all unbuttoned. Keys would be put in the same spot. They would be moved. So it seemed like it was a kid that was attached to him for a while, but now it’s just starting to seem like it’s getting a little bit, I dunno if you’d say darker, but the whole situation being the sleep paralysis and stuff like that, but hats fallen off the wall, things being moved. It’s all starting back up again.
Jim (01:11:21):
Yeah, that sounds super spooky. Wow. Well, I hope that you get some relief from it. That’s kind of scary, especially when you start losing teeth and different things. That’s kind of frightening. Ouch.
Dawn (01:11:38):
It was both of us, not just one of us. That was the scarier part.
Jim (01:11:40):
If folks don’t know, that image was on our Virtual Campfire group that’s at virtualCampfiregroup.com on Facebook, and that’s where a lot of times you’ll hear us talk about different images. Obviously we’re an audio show, we don’t have a way to show ’em, but that’s a great way that people can share.
Dawn (01:11:56):
We can repost it again.
Jim (01:11:57):
Yeah, please do.
Dawn (01:11:58):
We can repost it again if you want.
Jim (01:11:58):
When Dawn, when we send you the link that this is out, please do that so people can resurface it. That does happen. People put things out and a few days will go by and it’s buried and they’ll say, where is that image? So I’d appreciate that when you get that link. And folks, if you’re not in that group, it’s absolutely free. We’ve got over 25,000 people in that group and it’s great because people share their stories. 24/7, 365, and it’s at virtualCampfiregroup.com. That’ll forward you right to the Facebook group, which again is absolutely free. Dawn, I wish you the best with this. Thank you for sharing your story on the Campfire. Thanks to Vince and both of you, Stay Spooky.
Dawn (01:12:39):
Thank you. Stay Spooky.
Jim (01:12:40):
Well, we must be doing something right by Scotland. We’ve been getting more calls from there, which I think is very neat in such a beautiful area. Somewhere I’ve always wanted to go. I have to get there. I have to put that on my bucket list. Nadia is in Scotland today as she calls us, and her mom, Louisa is a big fan and told Nadia about the show and we are so glad she did because Nadia has, I read this, Nadia, and this just looks like a fascinating, fascinating story. So please tell us what happened.
Nadia (01:13:13):
Perfect. So I’ve always been quite in tune with the paranormal and the supernatural. My family are very open to it from a very early age. They were very open to speaking to me about things. And my family are into Reiki healing and body talk and all kinds of alternative therapies. They don’t like to use medicine where it’s not necessary. They’re very much of about the mindset, which has kind of helped me get very in tune with the supernatural. So from a very early age, I was seeing things like auras. I mean, I didn’t see my grandmother’s face for about three years. I saw this yellow patch of her face.
Jim (01:13:57):
Wow.
Nadia (01:13:58):
Because she was under a lot of stress. She was a teacher, she was a Reiki teacher, and that was a particularly stressful time for her. But I was told that this color meant things and that there was anything wrong with my brain.
Nadia (01:14:13):
It meant that I was seeing things that no one else could see, and I used to experience feelings on my body as if people were touching me or I was holding things that weren’t there and hearing noises. And eventually this kind of got me down a wee bit and I felt very stressed and panicked because I was kind of looking for that “like, oh, can you see that?” must be something wrong with me. And it was preventing me from sleeping. So I had to go for this extensive therapy and they did try my medication, but eventually they just thought, right. So there is nothing wrong with me. It’s to do with these “gifts”. I’m putting that in quotation marks. So I used to go to this therapist in South Africa, which is where I’m originally from, and it’s a therapy called Body Talk, and it’s very similar to Reiki. It’s hypnosis and meditation kind of wound into one.
Nadia (01:15:16):
Sorry, that’s just a bit of background so it makes more sense. So my problems with sleeping and feelings, like seeing the auras and everything gradually went away completely by the time I was about nine years old. And then around that time, my family decided to go on this big summer European holiday through Germany, Italy, Slovenia. And in our time in Italy, we were making our way from Rome to Venice. And we made our way to Siena, which is in the south. And I can honestly say the most vivid memory I have of arriving in Siena is just this cloud just came over me as if it was just the worst place to be on earth. And obviously it’s not the worst place to be on earth because it’s very sunny and it’s beautiful and it’s rolling hills. It’s just gorgeous. But I had this just deep feeling of, oh, I shouldn’t be here.
Nadia (01:16:13):
This is an awful, awful place. But we had this booking to be at a guest house. My family were kind of telling me, “Oh, it’s fine, you’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.” Until we went to the Piazza del Campo, which is in the center of Siena. And my dad, I didn’t know this then, but my dad specifically went there on that day because there was the Palio di Siena. Sorry, I’m reading off a note because I’m not going to remember these names. Palio di Siena, and it’s a race horse thing that they do every year where people dress up in traditional clothing and they go out on their horses and they bang on drums and they have all these medieval swords and they do kind of enactments of things. So I already had this feeling of bread when we arrived in Siena, but it got stronger when we went to the Piazza del Campo.
Nadia (01:17:06):
And that was midday, so around siesta time. So it was deathly quiet, there was absolutely nothing happening. There was no one on the streets. All the shops closed, all the shop doors were closed. And then suddenly in the middle of the Piazza, these massive wooden doors opened up and out came marching these people with these medieval, the medieval gear and the things with the clothes on the horses. And they were banging on these drums. And it felt like I got struck on the back of the head with something blunt. I thought it was what happened. And all I felt in my head was this burning hot sensation on the back almost as if it was bleeding in a way. And my parents kind of dropped and they thought, “What’s going on? What’s going on?” And I said, “We have to go. We have to go.”
Nadia (01:17:59):
And so that was the end of my dad’s experience with the Palio di Siena. So we got in the car, went back to the guest house, this feeling got worse, and it was almost like I couldn’t hear anything that they were saying to me. All I felt was this buzzing in my ears. My eyes were kind of going dark as if I was not there. And this burning sensation in the back of my head was just getting worse. So my parents thought that I was just having a panic attack and the sound and the noise and all that was the trigger for me. But they thought, right, it’ll be fine after a while. So then we did some guided meditation with them. Eventually they took me to the doctor to try and get me some kind of herbal remedies, but there was nothing that was working.
Nadia (01:18:52):
And I was just saying over and over again, “I feel like I’m dying.” This is what it feels like to feel like you’re dying. I didn’t sleep for about four days, obviously that didn’t help the feelings of being so stressed and feeling so panicked. So finally they got a hold of the therapist that I was seeing earlier on when I was having troubles with seeing auras and feeling all these feelings and hearing noises that weren’t there. And they took ages with them to finally reach the man who was my primary therapist, who was also a psychic medium. And so he spoke to me. We did some guided meditation together and usually that would do the trick, but he was kind of noticing that I wasn’t responding as usual to what he was saying and what he was telling me to do. And eventually he put the phone on, he told me to give my further phone to my mom.
Nadia (01:19:53):
And he basically said, this is not unlike a path life regression. This is something that I would imagine would happen to people when they go for a past life when they’re experiencing something that they’ve had happen to them in a past life. And he said, the only thing I can recommend is that you get in the car and you just skip to your next part of your holiday. Don’t stay in Siena any longer. And so she didn’t tell me this, not to worry me, but she said, right, pack up. We’re getting in the car. And we drove through the night, booked a standby ticket into France, got on a flight, went to France. She said, the second that we landed in France, I slept for about three days straight. None of these feelings ever returned. But to me it felt like a dream. I dunno if it was the tiredness or anything like that, but I did feel very much like that part of the holiday didn’t exist.
Nadia (01:20:51):
And then fast forward to when I was 22, I went to a psychic medium just for a little bit of fun. And funny enough, she says, “Right, I can see that you’ve got a couple of past lives.” Random thinking. Right, okay. And she says to me, “Have you ever been to the south of Italy before?” And I’m saying, “Yes, I have. I have.” She says, “Well, that’s interesting because I can see that you are a soldier in the battle of Montaperti and the battle between Florence and Siena in 1260. And you were killed by falling off a horse and concussiing the back of your head.”
Jim (01:21:34):
Oh my.
Nadia (01:21:36):
Yes. And he said it was, psychic medium said, it was very interesting because you’d see a lot of stress because I was a young man when I died in Siena.
Jim (01:21:50):
That’s fascinating. That’s fascinating. I’ve always been interested in the topic of past life memories. So did those memories, how long did those memories persist?
Nadia (01:22:02):
Well, it wasn’t really a memory. It was more like a feeling. It was just a painful feeling. And this dread, I can’t say that I triggered any kind of memory like as if I was there. I didn’t look through the eyes of the soldier that I was. It was more the things that, the fear of being in that place and the pain of just the feeling on the back of my head was just so vivid. I actually thought that I’d been knocked over by something and I mean quite a while ago.
Jim (01:22:33):
Wow. Really interesting. When you got to that place, you would think, oh, it’s beautiful, it’s great. And you just have this great feel of, sounds like apprehension.
Nadia (01:22:43):
Yeah. Yeah. I did lots of research about it because I only, when I had this psychic medium experience more recently, I told my mom about it, and she kind of had to recount the entire Siena holiday to me because it was such a distant memory for me. It wasn’t even like I felt like I was there. So she had a lot more of a clear view of what was happening in the days that came after me having this original kind of panic and stress and everything from being in the Piazza. But it kind of validated the psychic media experience really validated.
Jim (01:23:28):
Very interesting. Well, Nadia, thank you so much for joining us today on the Campfire. And again, thank you Louisa for listening and sharing the show with your daughter. Stay Spooky. Thanks, Nadia.
Nadia (01:23:40):
Thank you, Jim.
Jim (01:23:41):
Next up on the Campfire is Ginny from my hometown Cleveland, Ohio. And in further proof that Cleveland Rocks, Ginny’s only been listening since September, she found out about us from “Stories with Sapphire”, and she’s already calling in to share a story that proves the power of Clevelanders. So Ginny, I know the story goes back to the passing of your grandfathers. Tell us what happened, and thank you for being on the show.
Ginny (01:24:10):
Well, thank you for having me. So both my grandfathers passed away in the summer of 2005, and my brothers and I were lucky enough to grow up very close with my grandparents. So it was a rough summer, but fast forward to 2021, and I was pregnant. I was about 12 or 13 weeks along and I started bleeding. And for anyone who’s pregnant, that can be pretty terrifying. So I called the doctor and they’re like, just keep an eye on things. Let us know if anything gets worse. So everything seemed to settle down. And I went to bed that night and I had this dream and it was all very cheesy. Both my grandfathers were there and everything was white and misty. And they’re just there smiling at me and nodding their heads and giving me a thumbs up. They didn’t say anything. And I am looking at them screaming in my head, what? What? Tell me what, why are you here? What are you telling me? And I get a tug on my shirt sleeve, and it’s a faceless blonde boy. All I can tell is that it’s a blonde little boy. And he says, “Don’t worry about me, mommy. I’m all right.” And after that, I woke up and I was like, okay, that was weird. And I didn’t know I was having a boy yet. I wouldn’t find that out for about another month.
Ginny (01:26:00):
I also found out during my pregnancy that I’m a carrier for a rare genetic disease. So I didn’t find out also that my husband is not a carrier for this rare genetic disease until after Christmas. But I just kept walking around waiting for those test results going, grandpa granddad said it’s okay. They said it’s okay. They said it’s okay. So that was one of my favorite dreams with them. I’ve had a couple different ones and they’ve been kind of odd, a little silly. But,
Jim (01:26:36):
Does it seem, I’ve heard people who say that they have dreams of loved ones, that they seem to be realer than real. Is that your experience? Is that what maps to what happened to you?
Ginny (01:26:48):
It was so real. They looked exactly how I imagine them. And I tell people that are experiencing things that I think that the universe or God presents itself in the way that’s most palatable to us. And I think that when we see our loved ones, we see them as what we remember as their most perfect version. I think that’s what my grandparents, my granddad, and my grandpa came back to show me that they made themselves their perfect version to me so that I could see them and be okay.
Jim (01:27:30):
And your son’s doing well?
Ginny (01:27:32):
Yes, he’s great. He’s 18 months old and he’s a monster.
Jim (01:27:37):
But it’s a good thing. Well, that is great. We’ll have yet another great Clevelander, Ginny, thank you so much for calling and being a part of the Campfire. And please, as I told you before, I need help in my hometown. People in Australia know the show, but not so many here in Cleveland. So I’m counting on you to get the word out.
Ginny (01:27:57):
You got it.
Jim (01:27:58):
Well, we’ve safely landed. It has been another great edition of Campfire thanks to all of our storytellers because as I often say to them, no storytellers equals no show. And by the way, we’ll be reopening those submissions in January. So stay tuned for that coming up in the new year so you can submit your story. Also, a big thank you to our sponsors. We couldn’t possibly do what we do if it were not for them. Also to our great Plus Club members. And you can always check out our Plus Club to get all the Campfires going all the way back to 2009. Check that out at jimharoldplus.com, jimharold plus.com, and click on the banner. And finally, as I said at the beginning, check out our Mausoleum of Merch with all that great new Krampus merch. And that will be over at jimharold.com/merch, JimHarold.com/merch. And for that particular line, for the Krampus stuff, click on the Etsy option. And we thank you so much for tuning in. We will talk to you next week. Have a great one, everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. Be safe. I hope you get to spend some time with the family because it is the most important thing out there. And again, thank you. I’m very thankful for you, for all of your support for the last year and these many years. Stay safe, have a lot of Turkey, and Stay Spooky. Bye-Bye.
Announcer 1 (01:29:29):
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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