Spirit in the Basement – Ep. 119

[00:00:00] Odd Trails is a true paranormal podcast if you have a story to share send it to stories at oddtrails.com enjoy the show

[00:01:00] in the show.

[00:01:02] The house I grew up in, the same one that my parents and one of my brothers live into this day is very active with benevolent spirits.

[00:01:15] I feel like sharing these experiences with non-threatening entities is just as important as all the tales of demons and poltergeists, scary tall figures standing in doorways and negative experiences.

[00:01:30] Now let's dive into some encounters and experiences. For some quick context, I grew up in a house with two female spirits.

[00:01:43] I felt their energy, had encounters and still noticed them lingering around when I visit my parents to this day.

[00:01:53] One of the most intense encounters happened back in 2007. I was 13, my brother was 12 and the twins were 7.

[00:02:04] It was a humid day with thunderstorm warnings and dark skies.

[00:02:09] I remember it being late summer and the whole week prior was thunderstorm after thunderstorm.

[00:02:17] The storms knocked the power out, leaving the house dimly lit by candles and flashlights.

[00:02:24] My parents were in the garage trying to get our generator to start so my mom could at least have a cup of tea by boiling water in the kettle.

[00:02:33] Us kids of course wanted to be able to charge our Nintendo DS's since that was our obsession like many kids growing up in the mid-2000s.

[00:02:45] I was sitting in the basement with my brothers. We were all sitting on the sectional waiting for the power to come back on.

[00:02:53] RDS's were all drained of power and we were unsure of what to do.

[00:02:59] My brother Chad mentioned to me that he wanted to grab something from up in our shared bedroom but didn't want to go up alone.

[00:03:07] I knew he was afraid of the dark so I didn't bother to question him.

[00:03:12] We climbed the stairs from the basement, walked through the tiled hallway that connects to the kitchen and then turned left to face the stairs going to the second floor.

[00:03:23] It was only 10 or so steps, not a very steep or strenuous climb to make.

[00:03:31] There was just pitch black in front of us. A deep foreboding feeling was running through me.

[00:03:38] I've always felt in tune with my intuition and tried my best to listen to it but things suddenly happened before I could do anything else.

[00:03:49] With our flashlight still pointing up the stairs, lightning flashed and illuminated the hallway.

[00:03:57] If you were standing where my brother and I were, you would see a hallway at the top of the stairs, which only went about 12 feet or so forward until you would run into the door of the linen closet.

[00:04:10] Standing in front of that door at the end of the hallway was a woman.

[00:04:16] The brightness of the lightning almost hurt my eyes, yet I could still make out this woman standing upstairs.

[00:04:26] She was wearing a long skirt and had a button up shirt.

[00:04:30] I couldn't place the exact time period of the clothes and still can't to this day.

[00:04:36] I just know it was decades prior to 2007.

[00:04:41] This figure wasn't facing us. She was standing off to the left of the hall towards my other brother's room.

[00:04:50] I can still remember this intense feeling of fear.

[00:04:55] Now, I think that was because we had no idea an apparition of a woman would appear before us, not because we felt this spirit was evil.

[00:05:06] After what felt like a minute, Chattanoi bolted towards the living room, hopping onto the couch.

[00:05:14] We just sat there, wide-eyed and probably staring into nothing, trying to piece together what we just saw.

[00:05:23] Luckily, nothing paranormal or strange happened for the rest of the evening.

[00:05:28] We went back downstairs and played more video games, hoping to forget what we saw.

[00:05:35] But I remember wondering who that apparition was.

[00:05:40] This strange woman made many more appearances throughout my time living there.

[00:05:45] Luckily, she was always friendly.

[00:06:11] I saw my uncle after he died by demonic.

[00:06:16] When I was about four or five years old, I woke up in the middle of the night while sleeping in my parents' room.

[00:06:23] At the foot of the bed, I saw a man whom I did not know.

[00:06:28] They walked into the room and looked around at everyone who was in the room.

[00:06:33] It appeared to be somewhat transparent, yet I could still discern the color of his clothes and even his skin tone.

[00:06:42] After a few seconds of him looking around, he simply turned around and walked into the closet.

[00:06:49] I got up and tried to follow him, but he just vanished.

[00:06:54] A week or so later my family attended a funeral, and only then did I recognize the man.

[00:07:02] I didn't tell any of my family members until years later, and they only sort of believed me because of a recent event involving another uncle.

[00:07:12] Fast forward to last Tuesday.

[00:07:15] I had just finished the closing shift at my job.

[00:07:18] My brother and I, who both share a room with our uncle, we were just chilling for the rest of the night.

[00:07:25] Our uncle had been out for the entire day, so we didn't know when he would come home.

[00:07:30] Finally I saw him walk in from the back patio, closing the sliding door and locking it.

[00:07:37] I knew that it was him because of the tattoos.

[00:07:40] He also wore the same white tank top.

[00:07:44] The rest of the night wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

[00:07:48] My uncle would walk around the room and the house, and I even remember seeing him walk into the kitchen to grab something to eat.

[00:07:56] I was getting ready to go to sleep at around 2.30 am, and I remember looking around the room and seeing my uncle lying in his bed.

[00:08:05] I also remember seeing my brother on his iPad with the brightness at maximum.

[00:08:10] I was thinking to myself, he should really turn that down, or he'll bother my uncle.

[00:08:16] It wasn't until the next morning when I was woken up by a knock at the door that things took a turn.

[00:08:22] It was a group of detectives and my uncle's parole officer.

[00:08:26] They spoke with my grandma and informed her that my uncle was in the hospital.

[00:08:31] I didn't think too much of it because he had gone to the hospital a week prior for stomach issues.

[00:08:37] An hour later, I received a call from my sister who was crying, saying that my uncle had been hit by a car and was brain dead.

[00:08:46] For the rest of the day, I thought that this had to have been sometime after 3 in the morning.

[00:08:52] However, later that night we found out the accident had occurred at around 9.30 pm while I was at work and before I had even gotten home.

[00:09:02] I really don't know what to think of it.

[00:09:05] Every time I replay that night in my head, it's the same thing over and over again.

[00:09:10] I know what I saw, but it's just so weird.

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[00:11:00] Spirits in the basement by Mrs. T.

[00:11:26] This story takes place in 2016 in my former rental house where my husband and I and our four soon to be five children lived for 10 years.

[00:11:38] The house was built in 1937 has three stories and three bedrooms one room on the main floor and two bedrooms upstairs.

[00:11:49] My husband and I along with our youngest daughter shared the room downstairs.

[00:11:55] Our oldest daughters and son had the two rooms upstairs for as long as we lived in that house neither of us experienced anything paranormal which is surprising for how old the house is well up until 2016 that is.

[00:12:14] I still get chills thinking about my experience in that house the first occurrence happened when my youngest daughter who was almost five at the time made a late night bathroom trip.

[00:12:27] She saw a little girl that looked to be about her age sitting on the couch in our living room.

[00:12:34] I'm unsure if she tried to wake me and her dad but she told us about it the next morning.

[00:12:42] We are Native American and believe children can see things that we are able to.

[00:12:48] We lit sage to help cleanse any unwanted energy known in our culture as smudging after we smudge the whole house from top to bottom everything seemingly went back to normal with no reported sightings of the little girl my daughter saw.

[00:13:07] The second occurrence happened maybe two or three weeks later. I was in the creepy basement doing laundry. I really hate basements.

[00:13:17] I'm not sure why but they've always given me a creepy vibe. Anyway, I would usually have one of my children go into the basement with me when I did the laundry but I was feeling particularly brave and went alone.

[00:13:34] I had my back to the entrance of the laundry area, lost in my thoughts as I moved our clothes from the washer to the dryer and started a new load.

[00:13:44] I had the dreaded feeling of being watched so naturally I looked back towards the entrance and when I did I saw a little girl quickly dart around the corner.

[00:13:59] At first I didn't think too much of it. Thinking maybe it was my youngest daughter just being silly and trying to scare me.

[00:14:08] Then it dawned on me in the direction that girl ran was nothing but a bunch of boxes and other odds and dens blocking that area.

[00:14:18] If that was my daughter there was no way for her to run and hide without knocking into all that stuff.

[00:14:27] Immediately I got chills. I tried to act like I didn't see anything, finished what I was doing, grabbed my basket of clean clothes and calmly walked back up the basement stairs.

[00:14:42] I didn't want whatever I saw to know I was scared. It took everything I had to not throw down the clothes and run the hell out of there.

[00:14:52] My whole body trampled as I told my husband what I saw. He suggested that I call my dad and tell him what happened.

[00:15:00] We jokingly call my dad the ghost hunter because he cleanses our relatives' houses when they have experiences.

[00:15:08] My dad lives an hour and a half north of us on the reservation. When I told them about our experiences he came the next day.

[00:15:18] When he got to our house he told us to prop open the front door and had our children sit in the living room as he smudged her whole house while praying.

[00:15:30] When he was done he told the little girl spirit to leave. As soon as he said those words I felt so overwhelmingly sad and fought the urge to break down and cry.

[00:15:44] Everyone else felt the same way too. After everything was said and done my dad told us the little girl spirit was lost and followed our daughter because she felt safe with us which explained the sad feeling we felt.

[00:16:02] As far as I know my older children didn't see or experience anything I dreaded trips to the basement after that day.

[00:16:12] Seeing what I saw stuck with me and it still gives me the chills but I try to think about what my dad said and it helps comfort me a little.

[00:16:23] We didn't experience anything after that day until two months leading up to our move from that home in the summer of 2023.

[00:16:34] We would see the occasional shadowy movement from the corner of our eyes here and there but nothing too extreme.

[00:16:42] I have other experiences from previous years but maybe I'll share another time.

[00:16:49] Thanks and beware of creepy old basements.

[00:17:04] I need help with Beardstown by Justur's Four.

[00:17:10] There's a little town in Illinois called Beardstown. This town is very small, a run-down, sundown or town that feels off.

[00:17:29] I have countless stories about this place but I'm seeking more information from people outside my circles.

[00:17:35] The town's people seem complacent in their existence and exhibit a jaded reaction to any mention of supernatural or just weird happenings in the town.

[00:17:47] If you happen to have any details about Cass County in general, I would greatly appreciate the information.

[00:17:55] Now while I'm at it, I'll share some stories.

[00:17:58] By often visited Beardstown to see my partner during my spring break.

[00:18:03] It was an escape from my life and one of the few times we saw each other before we moved in together.

[00:18:09] He lived with his grandparents off of US 67, heading into town by the Swift Plant.

[00:18:16] On one side of the road were houses on the other fields.

[00:18:21] Closer into town there was a massive cemetery across from the plant which was the main area that we would hang out since it was a bit out of town.

[00:18:31] Out of all of the stories I have, a good starter might be the night that the moon disappeared.

[00:18:38] Many bizarre and not right things happened that night.

[00:18:43] If you on sand, I were headed back from St. Louis on March 22nd, 2019.

[00:18:49] The moon was specifically a waning gibbous and was directly behind us for the drive.

[00:18:56] We were driving through little Indian when I noticed the moon was gone.

[00:19:01] There were no clouds and you could see the stars but no moon.

[00:19:06] We stopped at a conical on the road and got out to look because it felt absolutely wrong.

[00:19:12] It was nowhere in sight but we had to get home. It was 8 p.m.

[00:19:17] We drove towards this creepy church outside of the town called Shiloh Church.

[00:19:22] The road before and after the church is covered in thick trees and has a dip.

[00:19:28] This area would often have thick fog and mist and sometimes you'd see these misty people-shaped figures.

[00:19:36] They would be just there chilling on the road.

[00:19:40] We had the radio on low just because we were a bit freaked out about everything.

[00:19:46] When we hit the dip in the road, our radio jumped up and down in volume.

[00:19:51] My fiance turned the radio off but it immediately turned back on and the lights began flickering.

[00:19:59] The air got heavy and cold and suddenly my fiance slowed down but then sped up, scaring me.

[00:20:07] All that he said was, dear.

[00:20:10] After a bit we started getting closer to Beard's town and I breathed out a sigh.

[00:20:16] He told me what he saw.

[00:20:18] Disclaimer- I will not be saying the name of the creature.

[00:20:21] They are far too taboo to say and I believe in the invoking of the name.

[00:20:28] The most roundabout way I can explain what it was is by describing it.

[00:20:32] It's a creature of Native American folklore associated with cannibalism and loss of humanity which has become very popular recently.

[00:20:41] It starts with the W.

[00:20:43] He saw this creature running through the trees alongside the car.

[00:20:47] When he started to slow down it turned and started to rush at the car.

[00:20:52] Luckily, he sped past and we were okay.

[00:20:57] When we got home after dinner the moon was visible but we were still shaken.

[00:21:01] Now here's what my fiance wrote when asked to tell his story.

[00:21:06] He wrote the following,

[00:21:07] I'll describe the creature as best as I can and the easiest way I can is by stating how I first encountered it.

[00:21:14] Several months before I was taking a coworker home going down this winding road.

[00:21:20] Now the area is full of narrow winding roads surrounded by trees.

[00:21:25] I saw what I initially thought was a large deer walk into the road.

[00:21:31] I hit my brakes so that I wouldn't hit it.

[00:21:34] I thought that it was a deer because it was large and on all fours with thick hindquarters and the long neck.

[00:21:41] The animal stopped in the center of the road and turned its head towards me and that's when I noticed something was wrong.

[00:21:50] The deer's face was flat and gone with large white eyes that caught the light like it cats.

[00:21:56] It didn't have fur and was hunched more like something walking unnaturally on all fours.

[00:22:02] It didn't have hooves but crooked hands.

[00:22:06] It stared at me for what felt like forever while my car filled with the smell of rotting meat

[00:22:12] and then it moved on.

[00:22:14] Months later the story about the moon happened.

[00:22:18] I could smell that same stench and it had the same hunched twisted posture.

[00:22:24] It moved faster than an animal should and its face was a wretched thing out of a nightmare.

[00:22:31] That was not a deer or a dog with mange.

[00:22:36] I have to mention that its common place in Beard's Town to see people for lack of a more sensitive term tweaking.

[00:22:44] You'll find them in crumpled heaps on the road, sometimes nude, sometimes in feet of snow.

[00:22:50] They scatter when they're approached.

[00:22:53] I've seen them myself.

[00:22:55] However, I've also seen people on drugs and I can tell the difference.

[00:23:00] Something is deeply wrong with that place.

[00:23:03] Many way that's what my fiance had to say.

[00:23:06] Here are some more of our accounts.

[00:23:09] For background his grandparents lived there and he would often go there for summers and breaks from school.

[00:23:15] It's unsettling and definitely informal since these are all talked about in a group chat.

[00:23:21] Here's an excerpt from one of those chats.

[00:23:24] There was one night when I was a kid when I couldn't sleep so I was sneaking out of the computer room to play webkins or something silly, kid stuff.

[00:23:33] As I was walking past those big wall-to-floor windows facing the woods leading to the computer room,

[00:23:39] there was something that wasn't quite a person and wasn't quite an animal on the back porch.

[00:23:44] It was crouched, pressing its face against the glass.

[00:23:48] I don't know if you guys have ever seen that video of the rabbit coyote.

[00:23:52] It snarled up against the window or a glass door and it's smacking its muzzle into the glass all violently.

[00:24:00] Well, it was like that.

[00:24:02] The same feeling of danger and wrongness but little kid me was almost hypnotized by it.

[00:24:07] It was just standing there and trying to push through the glass and would sometimes smack whatever kind of mouth that it had against the window like it was trying to bite or break the glass.

[00:24:19] But eventually I snapped out of it and ran back to my room and didn't come out until morning.

[00:24:26] Here's another story from our group chat.

[00:24:30] When we were long distance before 2020 he would call me frequently while I was doing schoolwork.

[00:24:35] It was pretty late and he called me and said there was a massive shriek-like scream that happened down the road from him.

[00:24:42] If anyone is familiar with hearing a guttural scream, you know how unsettling and icing it can be.

[00:24:49] It freaked him out a bit and we heard a crash happen.

[00:24:52] He lived off of a massive highway with crop fields on either side.

[00:24:56] The field had these rain banks that ran between them and the highway that was about 5-6 feet deep.

[00:25:03] A little after the scream we hear a crash, metal on metal, two cars crashing.

[00:25:09] Soon after, sirens flew down the highway and passed the house.

[00:25:14] He has me on a call and decides as any Midwesterner would to see what's going on.

[00:25:21] He gets to the police barricade and they tell him to turn around.

[00:25:24] They say you'll hear about it on the news and that was it.

[00:25:28] He couldn't see very well but there was police activity in the field yards away looking at two different crumbled cars.

[00:25:35] The next morning he goes out and while the wreck is cleared, there's still debris.

[00:25:40] There were no signs of two cars being there deep into the fields like they had been tossed or thrown.

[00:25:46] No real news happened on it at all besides town rumors that a drug deal went wrong.

[00:25:52] That was the only explanation, the date was December 27th, 2019.

[00:25:58] This is an account by a few of us on this note from our document that we all share.

[00:26:05] The airport runway that goes on with no end in sight, the woods and surrounding glass pull you towards it,

[00:26:12] strains shadows in the grass.

[00:26:15] There's this old airship near my partner's home at the time.

[00:26:19] It's one of those small private aircraft runways with a few hangers and no security at all.

[00:26:25] The runway is planted in a field with lots of woods surrounding it.

[00:26:29] I've been to the airship a few times and every time it was not fun.

[00:26:33] It scared me straight out of the gate, it was eerie and too silent to be in the woods.

[00:26:38] We've had a few interesting things happen, but the main one was not being able to walk to the end at night.

[00:26:45] On foot you would be able to walk to the end of the strip in about five to ten minutes during the day and in a car both at night and day.

[00:26:52] On foot we had never been able to reach the end at night.

[00:26:57] We had walked at several times just the two of us or in a group with other friends and every time

[00:27:03] we could walk for what felt like hours with the dim lights of the runway stretching out into the distance,

[00:27:09] never growing closer to the end.

[00:27:11] A few of our friends reported feelings of dizziness or wrongness on these walks.

[00:27:19] My partner told me stories about a junkyard that was also back in those same woods behind his grandparents' house.

[00:27:26] No fence or security. Nobody else ever there.

[00:27:30] But cars, or chunks of cars, ranging back as old as the 70s and various states of disrepair,

[00:27:37] sometimes with trees growing through them, or practically seeming to be sunken into the ground overgrown with bramble and weeds.

[00:27:45] He says the whole place is quite eerie, with no birds or animals around other than the faint smell of rot and dust.

[00:27:54] Sometimes cat urine.

[00:27:57] Okay, one last account. This one was on the night train.

[00:28:01] The last train of the night gave my partner and our friend who also lived in town nightmares.

[00:28:08] Our friend had them more often, but the train would seemingly run way too long, honking for hours.

[00:28:15] My partner mentioned when it came through, it was sound and shake like it was right outside when it was across town from both of them.

[00:28:24] The train noises would distort for me, waning and pitching incorrectly while making my hair stand on end.

[00:28:31] It felt wrong and horrible, causing panic attacks and terrors for my friends and me.

[00:28:38] I know this is a long post with a lot of stories, but I think it's worth it.

[00:28:43] Let me know if you have stories or know anything weird about this little town.

[00:29:03] Three stories by Grayson.

[00:29:08] All of these stories happened in 2016 through 2018.

[00:29:13] This first story is about my aunt.

[00:29:16] It was a late evening in mid-August in Florida, in a small town called Holopah.

[00:29:23] The area was very swampy and filled with large snakes and gators.

[00:29:28] It was around 740.

[00:29:31] I was playing video games for a few hours before I had to go to bed.

[00:29:36] I was about 12 or 13 at the time.

[00:29:39] I went into the kitchen to grab a drink of water and relax on the couch with my aunt.

[00:29:45] I asked her, can I watch some TV?

[00:29:48] Sure, sweetie, I was going to take a nap anyway, she said.

[00:29:53] 10 minutes passed and then I heard mumbling coming from my aunt.

[00:29:59] I ran to my mother telling her what was going on.

[00:30:04] She thought I was messing with her.

[00:30:06] When we walked in though, my aunt was talking louder.

[00:30:11] Me and my mom were sitting on the opposite couch just watching my aunt speak.

[00:30:17] Then she started singing a song that wasn't in any language we knew, but it sounded very depressing.

[00:30:26] Then my aunt's voice dropped so low that my mother and I grabbed each other tightly.

[00:30:33] When my aunt snapped out of it, she couldn't remember any of it.

[00:30:38] A couple of months later we moved into a new trailer.

[00:30:43] Then it happened again but this time outside.

[00:30:47] My mother began reciting Bible verses in motion to large cross on her body.

[00:30:54] The sounds coming from my aunt sounded like a loud groan.

[00:30:59] Then she rose up like the undertaker from WWE and pointed to the sky saying, I know what it means now.

[00:31:11] A couple of days later she died from complications caused by kidney stones and we all miss her very much.

[00:31:21] This second story happened shortly after Hurricane Irma.

[00:31:25] It was around 730 in the evening and I was walking to a friend's house.

[00:31:31] The dirt road had plenty of rocks and sticks.

[00:31:35] On my left was a wooded swampy area and on my right there was a row of houses, but there was one small house on the left.

[00:31:45] It had a long driveway and a large barbed wire fence.

[00:31:51] I felt my senses heightened and out of nowhere I could feel a cold chill running through my body.

[00:31:59] I turned on my flashlight and saw what looked like a naked old man but more closely resembled the creepy pasta figure, the rake.

[00:32:11] As I stood there that thing climbed up a tree while I booked it towards my friend's house.

[00:32:19] In a panic I knocked on his window and he looked at me confused.

[00:32:24] I kept pounding on the window until he opened it to let me in.

[00:32:29] I told him what I saw and he just laughed at me.

[00:32:33] Thankfully the rest of the night was uneventful.

[00:32:38] This last story isn't mine but my brothers.

[00:32:42] We had moved into a new house in upstate New York.

[00:32:46] After a few months of living in the house paranormal things started to happen.

[00:32:52] Stuff like doors slamming, our windows opening and shutting and seeing shadows move about on our security camera.

[00:33:02] My brother once woke up in the middle of the night and saw a large shadow man with a hat and a large coat.

[00:33:11] The figure was somehow darker than black.

[00:33:15] It stood there watching him without moving.

[00:33:20] Then the door slowly shut on its own.

[00:33:24] My brother didn't go back to sleep after that.

[00:33:29] The next morning he told the family and my step-sister said she experienced that when she was a kid too

[00:33:37] and explained to my brother that it was the hat man who visited him.

[00:33:43] Things have calmed down since my brother moved but we still experience light activity.

[00:33:51] A Weird Experience by Davis

[00:34:01] I'm going to try and explain this as best as I can remember.

[00:34:05] It happened when I was in high school probably around 16 or 17 years old.

[00:34:10] I'm 27 now.

[00:34:13] Forgive me if I can't recall every detail.

[00:34:17] At the time I had a girlfriend.

[00:34:19] There was a hip little neighborhood in our city called Kessington.

[00:34:23] This is a place where we would always meet up to spend time together.

[00:34:26] She lived far north in the city and I was pretty far south.

[00:34:30] Kessington was right in the middle and a nice place to hang out.

[00:34:35] We were walking away from the train platform one time, almost a full block away,

[00:34:41] when a man in a suit came running at us with this panic look on his face.

[00:34:46] Frantically he says, can you help me?

[00:34:49] My wife just went into labor and I was supposed to meet my sister at Starbucks in a couple of minutes

[00:34:54] but I need to run to the hospital.

[00:34:57] Can you please bring her this bag?

[00:34:59] He then holds out a plastic shopping bag.

[00:35:02] I believe it was from a makeup store.

[00:35:06] My girlfriend kind of nudges my arm, obviously thinking this is a little sketchy.

[00:35:11] But I say, yeah for sure.

[00:35:14] He tells me her name, Mucal or Sarah, then thanks me and runs straight from the platform.

[00:35:21] Starbucks is a few blocks away and as we walk my girlfriend is saying,

[00:35:26] this is creepy.

[00:35:28] What if we're drug mules?

[00:35:31] I then realize that the bag is strangely light.

[00:35:35] I tell her and she suggests that we look inside.

[00:35:39] I'm conflicted about this but I concede that it's reasonable,

[00:35:43] seeing how odd this whole situation was.

[00:35:46] When we looked in the bag all that was there was a couple of crumpled up receipts

[00:35:52] as well as another crumpled up bag.

[00:35:56] We opened the second bag and there's nothing inside.

[00:36:00] We're now freaked out and considered just turning around and not going to this Starbucks.

[00:36:06] But my curiosity had gotten the best of me at this point.

[00:36:10] We walk the remaining block or two and as I walk into Starbucks,

[00:36:15] I call out the name Sarah.

[00:36:18] A woman stands up and yells very emphatically.

[00:36:21] Thank you so much.

[00:36:23] I have to go to the hospital now to be there for the birth but I appreciate this so much.

[00:36:28] She throws her arms around me in a huge hug and then runs out the door.

[00:36:33] And that's it.

[00:36:35] Now I looked up social experiments and TV shows and every couple of years

[00:36:40] I remember in Google again to see if anybody's experienced anything similar but nothing.

[00:36:46] I've yet to find a reasonable explanation that makes sense to me

[00:36:49] and it's just something that bothers me when I think about it.

[00:36:53] These weren't university aged people.

[00:36:55] These were adults in their late 30s to 40s at least.

[00:36:59] So I don't think that it was a school project or anything.

[00:37:02] Any idea what this could have been about?

[00:37:05] What was the purpose of the whole interaction?

[00:37:25] So when I came across the last story, I wasn't sure if it would work out on the show.

[00:37:36] Right because there's ultimately nothing paranormal about it.

[00:37:40] It's just kind of weird.

[00:37:42] Yeah but it was so weird that I couldn't stop thinking about it

[00:37:45] so I figured I had to just throw it in there.

[00:37:48] Yeah what was really weird to me is that there wasn't really anything important in the bag.

[00:37:53] Also the woman somehow knew that they were coming to Starbucks

[00:37:58] and that the couple was going to the hospital.

[00:38:01] Why not just meet the couple at the hospital and get the bag of nothing at the hospital?

[00:38:06] Yeah why even include these strangers in the plans?

[00:38:09] None of it really lines up to me.

[00:38:11] Yeah and why the hug?

[00:38:13] Yeah this is, it's gonna bother me.

[00:38:15] I want to figure this out.

[00:38:17] I think it was probably just some sort of social experiment or something.

[00:38:22] Even colleges do stuff like this before the days of everybody wanting to be a viral prankster.

[00:38:28] It's like a psychological thing, maybe testing people's honesty or empathy

[00:38:32] or seeing if they check the bag or there's a lot of variables that could be measured.

[00:38:37] Yeah and that's what I was thinking about as well.

[00:38:40] They did say that they were an older couple in their forties

[00:38:43] but I guess there isn't an age limit on college.

[00:38:47] 47 and a half, that's when they usually cut you off.

[00:38:51] Yeah, duh.

[00:38:53] I forgot about that.

[00:38:54] Anyway, I was in Portland, Oregon last weekend and I got to say

[00:38:58] that feels like something that would have happened on that trip.

[00:39:01] Portland was weird in my past visits

[00:39:03] but it's gotten especially weird in the last few years.

[00:39:06] Yeah I think Portlandia really sums it up pretty well.

[00:39:10] I haven't been back in forever.

[00:39:12] It's been a decade since I was even last in the Bay Area.

[00:39:15] How was it out there?

[00:39:17] While it was weird and downtown was a bit unnerving,

[00:39:20] I did have fun catching up with my old friend Tommy

[00:39:23] but I spent most of my life in a dangerous and I guess weird little downtown city

[00:39:29] where every alleyway basically looks like the place where Batman's parents were killed.

[00:39:34] While I wasn't exactly scared of the shady characters

[00:39:38] that were roaming downtown Portland at night,

[00:39:41] my prior street smarts were definitely at work.

[00:39:44] Yeah, I totally get that.

[00:39:46] I told you about the time I met up with my friend

[00:39:48] who I first met on an internet forum when I was 12.

[00:39:52] I don't know if you remember something awful.

[00:39:55] But like a decade later we reunited over my space somehow.

[00:40:00] I think he used like the same handle and I just got curious and found him.

[00:40:04] Yeah.

[00:40:05] But we started talking again

[00:40:07] and it turns out he was going to go in a road-fifty California that same summer.

[00:40:11] So to make a long story short,

[00:40:13] we spent like 24 hours in San Francisco without sleeping

[00:40:17] and ended up in the tenderloin at 3am singing songs

[00:40:22] with a bunch of weirdos outside on the corner of a liquor store.

[00:40:26] Not my smartest moment

[00:40:28] but I somehow didn't feel threatened or anything like that.

[00:40:33] I think the people that lived there were just happy to see new faces

[00:40:36] visiting and not immediately become scared and turn the other way.

[00:40:40] Yeah.

[00:40:41] But either way you need to keep regard up.

[00:40:43] Trust your gut always.

[00:40:45] Ah yes, the innocent days of San Francisco

[00:40:49] when it was a vacation destination where you could both see a Broadway play

[00:40:54] as well as meet up with some weirdos and a drum circle outside.

[00:40:57] A band in theater.

[00:41:00] And you know, only probably get killed.

[00:41:03] I missed that San Francisco.

[00:41:05] Yeah, hippie hill.

[00:41:06] I'm sure that's still a thing where people hang out.

[00:41:08] Yeah.

[00:41:09] I miss back when $2,000 would get you an apartment with only six roommates instead of nine.

[00:41:15] It was my dream to live there.

[00:41:17] I wanted to become a computer programmer for a startup in living San Francisco.

[00:41:21] That was like my life goal when I was in high school.

[00:41:24] Yeah, we all did.

[00:41:25] But it turned out all of the people that work in San Francisco in those startups

[00:41:30] now moved to Sacramento and the surrounding cities.

[00:41:34] Yeah, Austin too.

[00:41:36] And plus you know, nobody wants to be a Yupie now.

[00:41:38] That's not cool.

[00:41:39] It's better to be a podcaster.

[00:41:41] Yeah.

[00:41:42] Anyway back to Portland.

[00:41:43] We mostly spent time at the arcades and in the hotel room playing even more video games.

[00:41:49] But on our way to the arcade ground control on my first night, we were walking past this apartment building.

[00:41:56] And one of the windows was open but it was totally dark inside.

[00:42:01] So as we walked by I swear to you, the voice from this window sounded like a cartoony witch voice

[00:42:08] that you'd probably hear on like a bad Dario Argento dub.

[00:42:13] And it said, I quote,

[00:42:15] you want to see a weeny?

[00:42:20] Well, did you?

[00:42:23] Well, I'll get to that.

[00:42:25] So it sounded verbatim like that.

[00:42:27] What made it even creepier was that it came from seemingly nowhere.

[00:42:30] It was like a disembodied voice.

[00:42:32] There wasn't anybody at the window.

[00:42:34] It is completely dark outside.

[00:42:35] It was just so bizarre coming out from nowhere.

[00:42:38] And we just kind of nervously laughed and continued walking by.

[00:42:42] But when we looked ahead, there was this guy with his back to us and then two other guys on the other side of him

[00:42:48] and they were facing our direction.

[00:42:49] And they were looking down at his crotch like a casting couch situation.

[00:42:54] Yeah.

[00:42:55] Do you have a trench coat on?

[00:42:57] Yeah.

[00:42:59] And the guy who had his back to us, no joke, seemed to be struggling to undo his pants.

[00:43:04] Wow.

[00:43:05] I just hope that was, you know, just the usual case of some chill bros being bros.

[00:43:12] For some laughs and not a let's not meet situation that you just casually passed by.

[00:43:18] Yeah.

[00:43:19] Honestly, I think that these two guys were getting ready for a show.

[00:43:22] But the said star of the show was having trouble with his pants.

[00:43:27] And when we walked by him, one of the onlookers asked for a cigarette.

[00:43:30] And I just laughed and said I didn't have one.

[00:43:32] And we went on with our night.

[00:43:33] Nice.

[00:43:34] When people ask me for a cigarette, I like saying, I did, but I smoked it.

[00:43:41] Like when Buzz tells Kevin that he ate all of this cheese pizza.

[00:43:46] Here we go, full circle right back to home alone.

[00:43:49] Yep.

[00:43:50] I'm still a little salty that the pizza delivery driver didn't even acknowledge me when I'd hold him

[00:43:56] no less than three times.

[00:43:58] First over text message and then twice in person that I was watching home alone too lost in New York.

[00:44:04] I said the full title and everything.

[00:44:07] So I know he heard me just as no chill.

[00:44:10] That's so funny.

[00:44:11] I remember that.

[00:44:13] Some people just either don't get that you're just having fun or just don't know how to respond

[00:44:19] to that kind of personality that we have.

[00:44:21] Yeah, that's how I do all my vibe checks.

[00:44:23] I just throw out something a little random and outlandish with deadpan delivery, of course.

[00:44:29] And depending how they respond determines if we'll ever be friends or not.

[00:44:34] Yeah, definitely.

[00:44:35] I just like to end every interaction with the genuine.

[00:44:38] I love you.

[00:44:39] I love doing stuff like that when we go out to restaurants together, looking confused and asking

[00:44:45] the waiter or waitress what they recommend and then just immediately ordering something else

[00:44:50] with confidence.

[00:44:51] I remember that at that special Mexican restaurant we love to meet up.

[00:44:56] Yeah, that's classic but I had a ton of fun in Portland nonetheless.

[00:44:59] I'll definitely be back because next level pinball that place in Hillsboro is my favorite place

[00:45:06] in the world.

[00:45:07] Oh, yeah, I've heard good things.

[00:45:08] I want to go there and fun spot a new hamster where that Donkey Kong turn that was held.

[00:45:15] Billy Mitchell so scummy.

[00:45:17] Oh, man.

[00:45:18] Yeah, that's a whole different conversation for a whole different episode but that fiasco

[00:45:24] was fascinating and hilarious.

[00:45:27] We'll definitely have to revisit it.

[00:45:29] Yeah.

[00:45:30] You know, the Beardstown story's really creeped me out but I couldn't help but feel I guess

[00:45:36] seen and understood when they talked about having the radio on low in their car because

[00:45:41] they were freaked out.

[00:45:42] Oh, you do that too.

[00:45:44] Yeah, totally.

[00:45:45] Whenever I get nervous while driving or freaked out or I just need to concentrate on parallel

[00:45:51] parking or something, I turn down the radio or I even turn it off.

[00:45:54] I have no idea why I've always done this.

[00:45:56] It just helps with my driving anxiety.

[00:45:58] It makes sense.

[00:45:59] It's one less thing for our senses to tune into when we're trying to focus on something

[00:46:04] else.

[00:46:05] Yeah, I pretty much always have my noise machine going because plain silence makes me feel

[00:46:10] a little on edge.

[00:46:11] Oh, I totally get it.

[00:46:13] Yeah.

[00:46:14] Anyways, I have to go ahead and say it.

[00:46:17] I'm not really scared of evoking the name or spirit by saying it out loud.

[00:46:23] So I'm just going to go ahead and assume that the author was talking about the, I guess

[00:46:28] the baddies from this second episode of Supernatural.

[00:46:31] The wind to go.

[00:46:32] Oh, yeah, that had to be it.

[00:46:34] Yeah, I'm not super familiar with that specific cryptid though.

[00:46:37] Yeah, it doesn't get the notoriety and pop culture that the werewolf and bigfoot get.

[00:46:43] Yeah.

[00:46:44] We need more when to go horror movies.

[00:46:46] Yeah, well, we need more horror movies in general or at least more good ones.

[00:46:51] Yeah, they're so hard to come by.

[00:46:53] I tell myself that I mean, I do love horror movies but because of quality versus quantity,

[00:46:58] I find myself not watching them as much as I would like to.

[00:47:02] Same.

[00:47:03] Every few years we get something like get out or hereditary that creeps into the mainstream.

[00:47:08] But yeah, it's just not like it used to be.

[00:47:11] I don't think we'll ever fully capture the cheesy but good horror from the 70s and 80s.

[00:47:18] Everything is just too self aware and tries to be ironic but I don't want to sound more

[00:47:23] pretentious than I'm sure I already do so we've hit it that.

[00:47:27] Yeah, imagine living in a time when movies like the shining, the exorcist or even Don

[00:47:35] of the dad came out.

[00:47:36] I know that'd be the best.

[00:47:38] At least we got the tail end of the arcades.

[00:47:40] Yeah, I'm sure we have a decent amount of listeners that were hitting up the theaters

[00:47:44] in the 70s.

[00:47:45] My dad used to go to the drive then for stuff like that all the time.

[00:47:48] Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

[00:47:50] I guess I wasn't thinking about it.

[00:47:51] It seems like forever ago.

[00:47:52] It was like the 70s in the 80s.

[00:47:54] For us, that was just like a decade before we were born.

[00:47:58] So they were all truly, truly lucky people.

[00:48:02] I'm jealous.

[00:48:04] Imagine seeing the thing for the first time ever on the big screen.

[00:48:08] Yeah.

[00:48:09] I also really wish I could have seen the actual original theatrical cut for the original

[00:48:13] Star Wars trilogy.

[00:48:15] We'll probably never see them, but I can appreciate the specialized editions.

[00:48:20] Yeah, it was an attempt.

[00:48:23] Yeah.

[00:48:24] But yeah, thanks to gestures for sharing that creepy collection of stories about another

[00:48:29] place we're going to have to visit when we're old, retired ghost hunters.

[00:48:34] I think we just got to make a pact that it's going to be our next career.

[00:48:37] We can just be like travel vloggers.

[00:48:39] Yeah.

[00:48:40] I agree 100%.

[00:48:42] These things wind down for us in life and the kids are off doing their own podcasts.

[00:48:45] Let's make it happen.

[00:48:47] All right, Neil.

[00:48:49] So I liked gracing stories, but I need to acknowledge how much I really enjoyed his

[00:48:54] reference to the Undertaker.

[00:48:57] Not super appropriate, but I laughed.

[00:49:00] The fact that he described that rake creature as a naked old man.

[00:49:06] It was hard not to start busting up laughing.

[00:49:08] Yeah, of course.

[00:49:10] There are apparently a lot of nudist colonies in Florida.

[00:49:14] So maybe that's actually what it was.

[00:49:17] You never know somebody's super athletic grandpa could have just been feeling really good

[00:49:21] after a kill smoothie.

[00:49:22] Yeah, the Batman encounter was brief, but I thought that it was interesting that the door

[00:49:28] to the bedroom shut.

[00:49:30] Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

[00:49:32] I know he didn't reach for the door or anything, but the fact it closed during that same

[00:49:37] encounter tells me that maybe the hat man is able to interact with the environment,

[00:49:42] like poltergeists.

[00:49:44] Exactly.

[00:49:45] Yeah, that would make him more than just some sleepy paralysis hallucination, which let's

[00:49:51] face it is still a really cool and strange shared phenomenon in our brains.

[00:49:55] Yeah, if we're going to assume things like shadow people and the hat man are just hallucinations.

[00:50:01] Yep.

[00:50:02] It's called odd trails, not paranormal tales.

[00:50:05] It's fitting either way I guess.

[00:50:07] I like that.

[00:50:08] Yeah, well, I guess that Grayson's story confirms how wild Florida is.

[00:50:15] Yeah, things definitely pop off there.

[00:50:17] It's nuts.

[00:50:18] It's all because of the open public records thing that we talked about before.

[00:50:22] Yep.

[00:50:23] Which, I mean, this is completely unrelated, but I would highly encourage our listeners to

[00:50:29] opt out of those super scummy websites that store all of your information and they make

[00:50:34] profit off of it, not even like your browsing data and things like that.

[00:50:39] But I can post a guide.

[00:50:41] I'll do it in the show notes.

[00:50:43] It's easier than telling you to Google it.

[00:50:45] Or better just join our discord and we'll talk about it there.

[00:50:49] Yeah, good idea.

[00:50:50] Join the discord if you have any problems.

[00:50:53] I'm more than happy to hold your hand and get your information off the web as best as

[00:50:58] I can.

[00:50:59] Good idea.

[00:51:00] Stay safe.

[00:51:01] Peace out.

[00:51:02] Oops, we did it again.

[00:51:05] Good timing anyways.

[00:51:09] I have to return some videotapes.

[00:51:11] See you at door, see you tonight.

[00:51:13] Yeah, 830.

[00:51:15] Sharp.

[00:51:16] Okay, see you there.

[00:51:17] Thanks so much everybody for listening.

[00:51:19] Make sure you send your stories into stories at oddtrails.com and sign up for a Patreon

[00:51:24] at patreon.com forward slash odd trails.

[00:51:26] You're going to get ad free episodes of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate and

[00:51:30] support the show.

[00:51:32] Finally make sure you check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Let's Not Me

[00:51:36] to True Horror Podcast and the Old Time Radiocast at crypticcountypodcasts.com.

[00:51:41] All of the stories you heard were narrated and produced with the permission of their

[00:51:45] respective authors.

[00:51:46] We'll see you guys next week.

[00:51:48] Everyone stay safe.

[00:51:49] Peace out.

[00:52:00] Don't let the ghosts and the ghouls disturb you.