Episode 163: The Eyes of the Woods

[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. Forget facts. Forget logic. Forget everything that seems real. Just trust. Believe.

[00:00:58] Hat Man Encounter by Momo Black. This is my first time writing the story out, so bear with me. It's been a while since it happened, and honestly, it's a bit of a doozy. This took place back in 2018 when I was pregnant with my youngest daughter. I lived with my spouse and my oldest daughter at the time. My spouse usually left for work at 6 in the morning.

[00:01:24] That day started as a typical morning. I got up, got my daughter ready for school, and made sure she caught the bus at 6.30. When I got home, I locked the doors and double-checked them, thanks to all the crime podcasts that had me paranoid. Both the front and back doors had security doors, plus the main doors, so I locked all four locks and went back to bed.

[00:01:50] I fell asleep quickly, but I was startled awake by the sound of doors slamming shut. At first, I didn't think much of it, since my spouse and I were the only ones with house keys. I figured maybe he had forgotten something and came back. I heard the heavy thud of boots, his steel-toed boots, walking down the hallway toward our room.

[00:02:15] It was winter, and the house was still pretty dark, with just a hint of sunrise. My bed was against the wall across from the closet, and as I looked toward the closet, I tried to sit up to ask if he needed help finding whatever he forgot. That's when I realized something was wrong. I couldn't move. My eyes were open, but my vision was blurry. I was stuck, unable to even wiggle my fingers.

[00:02:46] Then I saw it. An incredibly dark, black blob sliding into the room. It was so tall it had to duck through the doorway. It moved to the foot of my bed and began to shift, morphing into the shape of a tall human figure wearing a cowboy hat. I froze, freaking out internally. I tried to move, to scream, anything, but I couldn't.

[00:03:15] The shadowy figure crouched down and placed a hand on the bed, as if it was about to crawl onto me. Tears streamed down from my face as I started to pray. Not for myself, but for my baby, my daughter, and my spouse. That's when it laughed. The bed quivered as its laughter filled the room, and then, in a deep, guttural voice, it said, Praying isn't going to help you now.

[00:03:46] It placed its other hand on the bed and started to climb closer. I felt helpless, weak, angry. I hated not being in control of my body, and I told myself, Whatever happens, I need to move. My family needs me. I screamed prayers in my head, over and over, begging God or Jesus or anyone to help me break free from this thing.

[00:04:15] Then this wide, eerie grin stretched across its shadowy face, and for a moment I thought I had lost. But then, with one final push, I snapped free. I sat up, suddenly, gasping for air, and it was gone. My vision was clear, and the room was full of daylight. For a moment I thought maybe it had all been a terrible dream,

[00:04:42] but when I looked down I realized my covers, and my pants, had been pulled down to my ankles. I threw on whatever clothes I could find, grabbed my bag and keys, and left the house. I didn't go back that day. Instead, I stayed at my college campus, picked up my daughter from school, and waited until my spouse got off of work. When I told him what happened, he immediately suggested we see a medicine man.

[00:05:12] I'm Native American, Navajo specifically, and my spouse knew of someone who could help. So that evening we went to see the medicine man. He performed a prayer to keep that thing away from me. I can't share exactly what he said or did, but I can tell you that, since then, I haven't seen that shadowy figure again. I'm not a religious person by any means, but I do believe in a higher power.

[00:05:42] That morning my prayers were answered, and I am beyond grateful that someone or something heard me and protected me that day.

[00:06:15] The Eyes of the Woods by Greg This story involves four of us. Carmen, Umar, myself, and my best friend Sam. We planned this trip to the old gas station deep in the woods. Nobody had been there in years, and the place had a reputation for being haunted. Of course, that only made it more appealing to us. It was just us, a group of four, armed with flashlights and cameras,

[00:06:44] ready to explore the forgotten corners of the forest. We parked at the base of the hill, just as the sun dipped below the tree line, casting long shadows over the dirt road. The gas station itself sat a mile or so ahead, just past the clearing, where the well-known and incredibly old lightning tree stood, a gnarled, blackened thing that had been struck countless times. This will be important for later.

[00:07:12] I remember joking about how, if anything was going to be haunted, it would have to be that tree. We'd barely made it past the tree when I first noticed the eyes. They were far off, north, through the dense thicket, glowing a deep red reflecting the faint light of our flashlights. I thought that it was a trick of the dark. But as we walked closer, they stayed with us, flickering in and out of view, like distant embers.

[00:07:42] Did you see that? I asked, glancing at Sam, who was walking ahead of me. See what? He asked, barely turning his head. The eyes, I said, voice tight. Sam laughed. You're scared already? It's probably just a deer or something. But it wasn't a deer. I felt it wasn't that simple. We kept moving, the gas station now visible up ahead. The once white walls

[00:08:11] were dirty and peeling. The windows had been broken and boarded up. The air smelled of rust and old fuel. The acidic tang sticking to the back of our throats. I kept trying to shake the feeling that something was definitely wrong. But every time I turned, those eyes flickered through the trees, always just out of sight. We stepped inside the gas station's shell. The floor was covered in grime

[00:08:40] and the shattered glass crunched under our boots. I was trying to focus on the pictures we were taking when I saw it again, a flash of red moving just outside the doorway. I wasn't imagining it. There was something out there watching us. Guys, I swear, there's something out there, I said, my voice a little too sharp. Jesus, you're just freaking yourself out, Umar said. But his voice had lost some of its confidence.

[00:09:10] Maybe it's a fox or something, Carmen said, brushing off my fears. But I swore it was not. All of a sudden, the hairs on my neck rose. The instinctive sense of being hunted flooded my veins. I knew that whatever it was out there was circling us, waiting. We decided to leave, though none of us could pinpoint exactly why. There was this unease in the air,

[00:09:39] a heaviness like the atmosphere itself was pressing down on us. We stepped back out into the clearing, the lightning tree looming behind us. And that's when it happened. I was the last to leave the gas station, and as I glanced back over my shoulder, I saw them. Two red eyes, glowing in the trees, just beyond the old gas station's parking lot. I froze. They weren't just reflections anymore,

[00:10:09] they were solid, unmoving, staring straight at me. Guys! I started to shout, but the sound caught in my throat. Something moved in the shadows. Clearly, it wasn't human. This creature was large, its silhouette shifting unnaturally as if it were both there and not there. A shape that seemed to stretch and contort like it wasn't ready to be seen.

[00:10:38] And then, it lunged forward, vanishing from sight in an instant. I spun on my heel and ran. The others didn't need to be told twice. We bolted in different directions. Sam and I sprinted south, toward the road where we had parked the car, adrenaline pushing us faster than we ever thought possible. The eyes stayed with us. No matter how fast we ran, they were always there, just ahead, flashing through the trees like beacons,

[00:11:08] guiding them toward us. North of the lightning tree, west by the thicket. Everywhere we turned, we could see them, glowing red, always too far to confront, yet always too close to escape. I didn't think that we were going to make it, but after we did, the others convinced themselves that it was some kind of wild dog, and that the adrenaline made me see something worse.

[00:11:57] The Hand Under the Stairs by Haley This story happened when I was about 11 or 12 years old. When I was younger, I got sick a lot. I've never had the best immune system. It probably didn't help that we were always moving, never staying in one place for longer than a year. One time, we moved into a strip of apartments that were more like skinny townhouses. The apartments were in one of the less safe neighborhoods

[00:12:27] in my hometown in the Texas panhandle. Not long after moving in, I got sick again, as usual. I ended up having to stay home alone. My three sisters were all at school, and the youngest was with my mom. Actually, I don't even remember exactly where she was, just that she wasn't at home with me. The house was still full of boxes. We hadn't even moved the mattresses upstairs yet. They were just lying on the ground near the stairs.

[00:12:56] I decided to lay down on one of the mattresses, trying to rest and let the medicine do its job. I was half asleep, lying on my back, when through my blurred vision, I saw a large hand suddenly pop up right in front of my face. Before I could even process what was happening, it shoved my head into the pillow. Hard. It felt like someone was deliberately holding me down. down. I fought with everything I had,

[00:13:26] struggling to get free. Finally, I managed to break loose, but there was no one there. I stood there for what felt like five minutes, just staring around the room, completely baffled. Then it hit me. The hand had come from the wall under the stairs. There was no room for anyone to hide there, and I hadn't heard a single sound of anyone entering or leaving the apartment. Shaking, I turned and caught

[00:13:56] my reflection in the mirror leaning against the wall. That's when I saw it, a bright red handprint on my face, like someone had grabbed me as hard as they could. I couldn't explain it, and honestly, I was too scared to even try. Who would believe me? So I grabbed my blanket and my apple juice, and sat on the porch for five hours waiting for someone, anyone, to come home. After that,

[00:14:26] I refused to be alone in that apartment. Experience near Berkeley Hills in California by Depression Fiesta Hey everyone, I wanted to share an experience my wife and I had a

[00:14:56] couple of years ago. We've told our friends and family many times and after some research and reflection, I think it's time to share it here. I want to preface this by saying that we didn't actually see anything. Our encounter was entirely auditory. Neither of us were into Bigfoot at the time. I've always been more fascinated by UFOs, so this experience was hard to interpret at the time to say the least.

[00:15:26] On April 3rd, 2021, between 12 and 1 p.m., my wife and I were hiking the Upper Fire Trail in Berkeley Hills. We used to hike these trails almost every weekend, and on this particular day we planned to visit the botanical gardens. As we came in from the south on the Upper Fire Trail, we stumbled upon a natural opening that presented a less beaten off-road path. It seemed like a potential

[00:15:56] shortcut to the Lower Fire Trail, so we decided to follow it. The path took us on a steep decline into the forest, becoming more overgrown and covered with tree needles. After some time, something strange happened. All of the sound around us completely disappeared. It was like we stepped into a soundproof room. You could physically feel the absence of noise in your eardrums.

[00:16:25] While we didn't consciously acknowledge this with each other in the moment, we both felt it. Shortly after, we started hearing voices. Two distinct voices coming from different directions behind us and at a higher elevation than we were. They were speaking or yelling to each other in what sounded like a language, though completely unintelligible to us. The utterances were advanced and had some sort

[00:16:55] of structure to them, which is why I describe it as a language. Immediately after the experience, I think I described it as an angry-sounding foreign tribal dialect to my wife. We both froze, exchanged confused looks, listened for about ten seconds, and then instinctively decided to get the hell out of there. As we literally started running, the voices became louder

[00:17:25] and more frustrated, as if responding to our departure, which only prompted us to run faster. Fortunately, we very quickly found an opening to the lower fire trail, and the experience ended there. We came down this exit path onto the lower fire trail. When we got home, I started googling things like weird sounds in the forests of California, and I eventually came across the Sierra sounds.

[00:17:56] The recordings were eerily similar to what we heard that day, and we are now both quite sure that's what we heard, or at least some version, of what's called samurai chatter. I'm not sure what happened that day, but looking back, it's still surreal to me how close this occurred to civilization.

[00:18:38] My life as an empath, by essence. I come from a long line of highly sensitive women on my mom's side. We've all had dreams that predicted major events or situations, whether in our own lives or the lives of those around us. Growing up, we lived in a complex of townhouses. I remember overhearing stories about the units being haunted. One unit supposedly has a pentagram etched into the living

[00:19:08] room floor. Some claim the complex itself was built on ancient burial in the spirits were responsible for the strange occurrences. I was about six or seven years old when I had an experience I'll never forget. It was a hot summer night, and as usual, I was sleeping in my mom's bed. My dad wasn't in the picture, so it was just my mom, my four siblings, and me. I had my

[00:19:38] own bedroom, but as the youngest, I often ended up in bed with my mom. That night, we were lying in bed watching TV. When the show ended around midnight, my mom turned off the TV and went to sleep. It was too hot for me to sleep. I just kept tossing and turning. My mom, half asleep, warned me to stop moving or I'd have to go back to my own room. Of course, I kept squirming and eventually got kicked out.

[00:20:08] Grumbling, I went to my bedroom and laid there, wide awake. My older brother, noticing I wasn't in my usual spot with mom, popped his head into my room and asked why I wasn't with her. When I explained, he invited me to watch TV in his room. So we did, and ended up falling asleep at around two or three in the morning. When we woke up, my mom asked me if I had come back into her room during the night. I told her I had fallen asleep in my brother's room.

[00:20:39] She paused. Her expression was uneasy, and she said she had felt her bed shift, as if someone had climbed in beside her. She had even felt the weight of a body next to her. Thinking it was me, she rolled over to ask why I came back, but no one was there. She got up to check on us, and saw that we were both sound asleep. Shaken, she went back to bed.

[00:21:08] But later, she also felt a small nudge on her foot, and heard faint mumbling, as if someone was trying to wake her up. When she looked toward the doorway, she was empty. This wasn't the first or last time strange things happened while we lived there. My mom and siblings had lived in that unit for six years before I was born, and stayed for another ten years after. The occurrences seemed tied to

[00:21:38] us more than the apartment itself. I have another story to share. If you want to experience something dark, strange, or unexplainable, just step into a medical facility. After graduating high school at 18, I got my first job as a CNA at a local nursing home. It was a great fit. I enjoyed the work and the people. I worked second shift, which

[00:22:08] involved assisting residents with dinner, baths, and bedtime routines. Occasionally, residents would call us to turn their TVs down, or ask us to quiet the kids, they'd say. I'd always reassure them, saying there weren't any kids around. But one night, after calming a resident, I walked down the hall and heard a chair alarm go off. These alarms are set off by weight sensors, used for

[00:22:37] residents at risk of falling. If they try to stand, the alarm alerts us. I rushed over, expecting to see someone trying to get up, but the wheelchair was empty. There was no one in the hall, no one nearby. When I told the other staff, they just shrugged. They said it happened all the time, and that the kids were often mentioned by the residents.

[00:23:05] Years later, I became a paramedic and worked at our local hospital, which had a long history and a sprawling layout. Our EMS office was in the basement, right under the emergency department. The sleeping quarters were in the old OR area, a cold, eerie part of the hospital that no one liked being around. The elevators didn't work, the lockers were abandoned, and the halls felt more like a tomb than a hospital wing.

[00:23:36] One night, during late shift, I went to use the restroom closest to the sleeping quarters. I called it the futuristic bathroom, because everything was motion-activated, from the lights to the soap dispensers. I opened the door and waited for the lights to come on, as usual. As I sat there, everything went haywire. The soap dispenser started squirting soap onto the floor, over and over, as if someone

[00:24:05] was pounding the button. Then the paper towel dispenser began unspooling towels. The faucet turned on and off, everything was happening all at once. If I hadn't already been on the toilet, I probably would have soiled myself. I've never moved so fast in my life. I didn't tell anyone, it felt too crazy to explain, but I never used that bathroom again. These are all just

[00:24:35] a few of the strange experiences I've had. I've always been sensitive to the paranormal, and while some of these moments are unsettling, they're also a reminder that there's so much about the world we still don't understand.

[00:25:05] I now think it was something worse than Bigfoot by Northern Lights 103. Back in 2007, when I was 16, my ex, his best friend, his girlfriend, and I decided to go out into the woods that night and make a campfire. The spot that we would go to was always a little way into the woods. Eventually, we'd get to the river and make the fire there.

[00:25:34] I never really knew how to get there on my own. I would just follow my boyfriend and his best friend. This one night, we didn't get very far. We didn't even really get into the trees yet. There's a part where we usually start navigating through the trees, but we only made it down to a wide path before that part. We were walking down the path with the trees on our left and the trees on our right,

[00:26:04] and it was really dark. The only flashlight we had was with my ex's best friend. As we were walking, I got this very bad feeling. Anxiety hit me hard. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to sound like a scaredy cat. I told myself, I just don't go into the woods that often. Everything will be okay. I was quiet, which was strange for me because I'm a very talkative person, but I was too

[00:26:33] busy looking around, feeling anxious. I remember hearing everyone laughing and talking when suddenly I got hit with this awful smell. It filled the air. It was so strong. It honestly smelled like nasty feces. I said, oh my god, what is that awful smell? Everyone said, I don't know. I hate bad smells, so I just

[00:27:03] kept saying, what the hell, this is gross. We kept walking, and while they were still laughing and talking, I kept looking around nervously, and that's when I saw it. Something massive suddenly stood up from a squatting position. In my head, I was thinking, what could that be? It was dark, and all I could see was this massive humanoid outline. I was freaking out, wondering,

[00:27:32] how is no one else seeing this? What do I do? Meanwhile, we kept walking, and getting closer. I knew that I had to say something before we got too close, so I said, guys, in this timid voice, but they didn't hear me and kept talking and laughing. I was now panicking, knowing that we were getting closer with every step. I raised my voice and said sternly, guys, stop talking, there's something over there.

[00:28:02] They asked, where? What is it? I pointed and said, I don't know what it is, but it's huge. It was squatting, and then it stood up. That's how I saw it. I told the best friend to shine his flashlight at it. I didn't want to see it myself, though. I felt that, in my gut, that would be traumatizing. So I covered the right side of my face and kind of got behind my boyfriend. He was 6'2 and pretty heavy.

[00:28:32] The best friend shined the flashlight at the thing, and I saw his face change. He looked disgusted and confused at first. Then his eyes went wide and his pupils dilated. I started freaking out yelling, What is it? When I saw his face and how scared he looked, I knew that something wasn't right. He looked at me, saw that I was panicking and said, It's a bear, run.

[00:29:02] At that point, his girlfriend and my boyfriend, who had been silent the whole time, took off running. I then yelled, Guys, we're not supposed to be running from bears, but they were already gone. Now I was standing there alone with this massive thing. I was mad and scared at the same time, angry that my boyfriend didn't grab my hand and just left without me, especially since his best friend had grabbed his girlfriend's hand.

[00:29:32] The creature didn't move a muscle or make a sound. I could see that it was about eight feet tall with massive wide shoulders. I could hear my friends running further away with every step. I thought to myself, it didn't chase them, so maybe it won't chase me. Plus, maybe I can outrun my boyfriend since he's bigger and heavy. And that a-hole left me here. I turned around and I ran with everything I had.

[00:30:01] I let out the loudest scream for about ten seconds and then pushed myself even harder, passing my boyfriend as I ran. When we got closer to the car, we stopped running and checked if everyone was okay. We all were. That's when I turned to my boyfriend's best friend and asked, what was that thing, really? He looked at me kind of shocked that I asked, then paused and said, it was a bear. I knew that he wasn't

[00:30:31] being honest, but I accepted it. For years, I kind of forgot about it. About three years ago, I remembered the incident and asked him about the bear. He said he remembered it, and I told him, it was a Sasquatch. He laughed, but didn't deny or confirm it, and I didn't push for more information. Late that night, I messaged him again, and I asked him, what was really in the woods? He said he

[00:31:00] honestly didn't know and had never experienced anything like that before or since. I asked him what it looked like, and he said, I don't know, kind of like a man and kind of like a bear. Now I'm wondering if it was some kind of werewolf. I've heard that those things look weird. I was convinced it was a Bigfoot, but now, I'm not so sure.

[00:31:46] It felt like you were going for a themed episode this time around, with your stories at least. Was that all planned? Oh, no, not actually. I just picked the next three stories off of my list. I've been doing that the last few weeks. They just all happen to be wilderness themed. I mean, that's cool. As much as I like my stories, for simplicity's sake, we could have an impromptu themed episode and just talk about yours. Yeah, it works for me, but I don't know. I got to say, I kind of cackled hearing you say squirt and pound

[00:32:15] in the same sentence. Yeah, there's a third time for everything. Well, moving on, squirting on, I like how your stories all kind of touched on the idea that the woods are some transitional space, you know? Yeah, I actually know exactly what you're talking about. Like, this place where normal rules of reality seem to break down, you know, from the red eyes, the humanoid figures, the weird

[00:32:45] eerie chatter. The woods are just acting like this weird veil between our world and whatever is beyond. Maybe I'm just reading too much C.S. Lewis. No, no, I totally get you. I mean, starting with the red eyes, that seems to come up a lot in our stories. They seemed like they were intelligent, almost like they were tracking the group. Well, I guess anything with eyes is going to have some sort of intelligence. Potatoes? Okay, sure, yeah. Needles and hurricanes too? Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:14] I always think about potatoes having eyes because there's a song from They Might Be Giants and it's about Triops, which was, I think it was some kind of ancient crustacean dinosaur type thing that's still alive. It has three eyes and one of the lyrics says, potatoes have a lot of eyes and I never really thought about it. I'd never heard of them referred to as potatoes with eyes, but I guess that's what they're actually called. God bless America, we call them freedom fries.

[00:33:45] But yeah, the eyes, they made me think of like a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Yeah, yeah, I actually thought of Snow White. Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what scene you're talking about. Mm-hmm. So, do you think the lightning tree has anything to do with any of this? Well, trees that are struck by lightning are often seen as symbols of power or even like portals in some folklore, so I wouldn't be surprised at all. Yeah, I mean, Zeus and

[00:34:14] Thor are some obvious ones. Yep. There's also the thunderbirds in Native American folklore. Yep. They create thunder by flapping their wings and lightning by flashing its eyes, I want to say, or something like that. Yeah, yeah, I love it. I've actually heard how lightning can affect an object's energy way after the fact, or even just how their electromagnetic fields open a door to the supernatural, supposedly. Yeah, definitely. I'm thinking if the entity was tied to the tree, it makes sense

[00:34:44] that it could at least act as a kind of marker for its territory, you know? Yeah, and that territorial behavior even carries into Greg's story, you know, there's the smell, the size, and the way that that thing just stood up and watched them. It's like that thing was making its presence known without actively attacking them. Yeah, that reminds me of Bigfoot encounters for sure, but the man-bear description makes me think it could be something more primal, I guess.

[00:35:14] Yeah, man-bear-pig. Or maybe something completely different. The smell is a classic cryptid marker. You know, it's been reported in Bigfoot sightings, skinwalker stories, even some UFO encounters report like strange smells. It's kind of a universal warning sign. Yeah, treading on their domain. You have tread upon my domain and must now suffer. Who are you? You know, I've only seen Hackers once, but I'll always remember that line. Oh, yeah, it's one of

[00:35:44] my all-time favorite movies. That part actually scared me as a kid. It scared you? I was like 12 and barely earning my internet stripes, so I thought that's what hacking was and that someday a random hacker would take over the family computer and like blast me with all these threats. Yeah, no, I get that. The visuals in that movie were super cool. Yeah. I don't really care how silly it was. It was awesome. Yeah, it's a classic. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about Fiesta's story. Oh,

[00:36:13] yeah, yeah, those voices. I like that they did their own research and made the connection with the Sierra sounds. That's a new phenomenon for us. Yeah, yeah, and I found this audio clip from someone named Ron Moorhead. He's been on a lot of different podcasts. He states that he recorded these sounds in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Let's give it a listen.

[00:36:56] I could see why it's called Samurai Shatter. That was my first thought, and I swear that's what I would think of if I hadn't seen the title. Yep, yep, exactly. So that was apparently Ron that you heard in the foreground shouting to imitate one of the sounds that he witnessed up there. I guess he's trying to encourage it to make more sounds. And that was from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization website. Yeah, no, that was really cool. I'll throw that link into the show notes. Whatever they're doing, it seems to be working.

[00:37:26] It's crazy how whatever it is, is communicating or at least responding. It's pretty eerie because it sounds like structured language, even if we can't understand it. Yeah, yeah. And what makes it weirder is how close it was to Berkeley that they heard this. You'd think that something like that would stay really far away from people. But I don't know, maybe that's the point. These entities might not be as isolated as we think. That also makes me wonder how extroverted

[00:37:56] entities manage to pass the time. Because there's no way that just occasionally making their presence known is, I don't know, socially fulfilling enough. I'm sure they talk amongst themselves. Fair point. Yeah, it'd be so easy to be an introverted ghost, though. Yeah, finally being expected to quietly keep to yourself. Sounds like heaven. Literally heaven. Yeah, pun intended. So yeah, in all three of your stories, I noticed

[00:38:26] this idea of boundaries being crossed. I don't know if you picked up on that probably. Yep. Whether it's the gas station, the humanoid watching the campers or the hikers stumbling onto the off-limits area, it feels like these entities are responding to people invading their space. Yeah, yeah, and it makes you wonder are these encounters accidental or are the entities somehow drawing people in? One of the authors was

[00:38:55] joking about the tree being haunted and then there's the red eyes that appeared. Then, in the other story, the hikers are drawn to this off-road path. I don't know, maybe it's less about crossing boundaries and more about being lured past it, which is extra creepy. Yeah, it's always crazy to think about how the woods or just locations in general can be some sort of participant in whatever activity is going on. Definitely some layers there. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, like,

[00:39:25] kind of like with the haunted object stuff, do they selectively expel energy to whoever decides to share its presence or power with, or is it all just psychometry? Oh, yeah, yeah. People who have, you know, the gift of sensing an object's past or energy, that's always been interesting to me. Yeah. It could also be a combination of both. You know, some sort of half-sentient object that knowingly puts out whatever, but only

[00:39:54] psychometrists can pick it up. I like that. Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I feel like two movie quotes per episode should be our limit. If you want to wrap it up and get started on the steaks, just say so. Stop. Yeah. Now you brought it up, I do kind of want to cook them like right now. Well, a silly beast, baby. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Make sure you send your stories to stories at oddtrails.com

[00:40:24] if you want to hear them on the show and sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash oddtrails. for ad-free versions of all of our episodes. And finally, check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Let's Not Meet, Cryptic Encounters, and the Old Time Radiocast at crypticcountypodcasts.com. Everybody stay safe. Peace out.

[00:41:01] Ghosts and the ghouls disturb you, darling.