Glitch in the Matrix Campfire – Ep. 165

[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.

[00:00:57] Welcome to a special episode of Odd Trails. This week we'll be sharing a compilation of some of the strangest glitch in the Matrix stories previously featured on the show. It's the perfect episode to get your friends started on questioning everything, and it's a great intro to the show for new listeners. I'll be back with Brandon after the episode to chat some more. Enjoy the show. So this happened last night while I was watching some funny video game review videos by Zero Punctuation on YouTube before bed.

[00:01:27] I had been watching nothing but Zero Punctuation for a while, and Autoplay kicked in. It would play more Zero Punctuation. It was a couple of episodes deep, and then Autoplay started playing a compilation video of every Zero Punctuation review from 2008 at around 10pm. This was almost a 3 hour long video. I started to doze off an hour later at around 11pm.

[00:01:56] I fell into a pretty light sleep for maybe an hour and a half. Around a quarter to one, I started to wake up because I could hear a very shrill ringing noise. It was cutting in and out of what sounded like TV static. I opened my eyes, and there was a video playing on my laptop. It jolted me awake. Along with the really awful high-pitched ringing and static noise,

[00:02:24] the video showed distorted, dark figures moving around a white background. I vividly remember a distorted face circling around a sort of square box thing. It was kind of glitching and making erratic jumps as it moved, and every time a glitch or a jump happened, it would make a noise like a record skipping or scratching.

[00:02:50] It reminded me a lot of those horror story videos that are popular on YouTube right now. It scared me to death, though. I remember instinctively moving my hand in front of the screen, like when a jump scare happens in a horror movie. I reached out with my other hand and hit the keyboard, and like that, another Zero Punctuation video started to play. My heart was pounding.

[00:03:16] I got up, got some water, walked outside, and calmed down. I went back into my bedroom. Zero Punctuation was still playing, and after another hour of watching that, I fell back to sleep. I've been thinking about it all day. I've been trying to rationalize what I saw. First, I thought maybe one of those analog horror videos started playing. I don't watch them very often, but I have in the past,

[00:03:43] so maybe one started playing in my autoplay recommended videos. But when I checked my browser history, no such video was played between the two Zero Punctuation videos. In fact, nothing at all played in between those videos, according to my browser history. Second, I thought maybe at the end of the last Zero Punctuation video, there was this weird or scary homage to all the horror video games that he likes to play.

[00:04:12] Again, no dice. It was a review of an older Prince of Persia game, and then it ended. Finally, I thought that maybe I had been dreaming. This still seems sort of plausible, and I know this is probably what everyone thinks. Maybe I dreamed up something paranormal, and I mistook it for reality. But it seemed so goddamn real. Like, I distinctly remember every moment from hearing the noise to opening my eyes,

[00:04:41] to shielding my eyes with my hand, and then finally hitting the keyboard. I also have never had any history of sleep paralysis or being unable to distinguish dreams from reality. Who knows though? Maybe after hitting the ripe old age of 31, my mind is starting to falter. I also want to add, real quick, that when I looked at my browser history, I checked the length of the video that I was watching against the next video that started playing.

[00:05:12] The Zero Punctuation video that started right after that creepy video. I wanted to see if there was any unaccounted time missing. The compilation video I fell asleep to started at 9.57pm. The video was 2 hours, 51 seconds, and 16 minutes. That would put the time that it ended at a little over 12.48am. My browser history says the next video started playing at 12.49am.

[00:05:39] That leaves one minute unaccounted for. Now, my browser history in Google Chrome rounds to the nearest minute, so this could easily be explained by rounding errors. If anyone knows how to expand your browser history to show seconds, that would be great. If anyone has ever experienced anything similar to this, I'd love to know. Or if anyone has a better explanation for what could have happened,

[00:06:08] I'd be equally interested. I'm usually a huge skeptic when it comes to this kind of stuff, but this is the first time in my life that I'm really at a loss to account for what happened.

[00:06:41] I live in India, and this story happened in 2019. I was studying for my medical exams at the time, and was living with my friend, Devi, in a dorm managed by our university. There was a 10 o'clock curfew, which was when a warden would come by and count the students. I remember it was a Saturday night. I just got back from shopping, and had bought a pair of shoes for Devi as a birthday gift.

[00:07:11] I went straight to my room, but also noticed that Devi's room was lit, so I assumed she was home. I displayed the shoes on my bed and cleaned up a bit. Then I went out into the living room and called out, Hey Devi, I got you something for your birthday. It's in my room. So I sat on the sofa and scrolled through my phone until she came out.

[00:07:35] I heard her door open, and felt her walk behind me as she walked into my room. She squealed happily, and said she was going to post a picture of the shoes to Instagram. Shortly after hearing her put them on and walk around, I got a notification on my phone. I remember it was 9.55pm. She tagged me in the post, but it was literally just an empty black square.

[00:08:05] I could see her caption though, which read, Thanks to my lovely bitch. I shouted out to her, Hey, something is wrong with your post. It's all black. But she didn't respond. That's when I noticed I couldn't hear any sound from my room anymore. Mind you, from the time I arrived until this minute, I never physically saw Devi.

[00:08:34] I definitely heard her, and for sure felt her presence, but never actually saw her. I got up to check my room to see what she was doing, when suddenly, I heard bangs from the front door. I jumped up and was terrified. I wasn't sure why, but this is when I started to feel incredibly scared. I figured maybe it was a warden coming by to count the students, before curfew.

[00:09:05] I checked my phone, and it was 9.57pm, so I opened the door to account for myself and Devi being home. But a warden wasn't at my door. It was Devi. I was frozen and dumbstruck. She pushed me aside and stormed into the dorm, shouting at me for not answering the door. I was so confused. She told me she had been banging on the door for 10 minutes.

[00:09:36] I instinctively ran into my room to check the shoes. And there they were. Exactly how I left them. Unopened and untouched. I sat on the floor and started sobbing. Devi rushed in to check on me. I calmed down and explained to her everything that just happened. She thought I was joking. To prove it to her, I took out my phone to show her the post. But it wasn't there. I saw the time.

[00:10:06] It was 9.55pm. It has been 4 years and still, no one believes me when I tell this story. I have no history with drugs, alcohol or mental illness. Nothing else has happened to me after that incident, but I can't stop thinking about it. How come I never saw the imposter Devi in my dorm? How come I couldn't hear the real Devi loudly banging on the door until I saw the post?

[00:10:36] And then there's the 2 minute time skip. Was it her doppelganger? Or maybe it was some weird glitch in the matrix. What do you think?

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[00:12:34] I usually reserve that for Christmas or New Year's. Rarely New Year's and only when I get invited to a party. Or a not so often weekend beer or glass of vodka or rum. Heck, I don't even smoke tobacco. I am addicted to Coca-Cola though. I live in a fairly unsafe area two blocks away from where the subway fell in Mexico, if that matters. So when you go out, you get used to looking everywhere and at everyone and running at the

[00:13:04] first sight of trouble. So, with that out of the way, today I had a very strange encounter. I was biking to a corner store to get a Coca-Cola, a mineral water because I'm watering down the coke as I have prediabetes and I need to stop, and some flour tortillas. I didn't want to chain my bike to a post or bench because I was going to three different stores. So I looked around to see if there was anyone suspicious.

[00:13:32] I then walked with my bike to the grocery store to get the tortillas, then walked a bit more to the corner store. I got to the entrance and looked around. Nobody there is suspicious. So, I left the bike and entered. When I went out and looked around again, there was this guy walking around being a bit suspicious. So I took note. He was tall, lanky, pale looking, with jet black hair that was shoulder length.

[00:13:59] He had one of those goth looking fedoras and a long black coat with boots. He was holding a black umbrella. He looked like a goth person, just the exact way a previous co-worker of mine used to look years before. I thought to myself, these people usually look grim on purpose, nothing to see here. And I turned my bike around and prepared to mount it. Then, he came into the corner of my vision.

[00:14:27] I could see the black clothes. And one millisecond later, when he was in my sight, he was no longer himself, but he was two short females around five feet. One had red hair, the other blonde. One had black pants and black glossy school uniform type shoes and a colorful red and yellow striped shirt with a small bag.

[00:14:52] The other had blue jeans, white tennis shoes, a gray shirt and a black umbrella. The same one the guy had. I was dumbfounded. I looked at the store. It was empty. I looked at the restaurant beside it. They were just starting to open. There were only employees there cleaning. Then, there was a bank, closed and chained at this time. I asked one of those employees if a tall man happened to be in the restaurant.

[00:15:21] What tall man? They asked. The place was too small for him not to have been seen, and I actually would have seen him enter. When I turned around to look at the girls now crossing the corner, the red head was looking at me and turned her head away fast when I looked at them. I almost fell down to stop and regain my composure. We live in a weird world, and there is something here with us that we barely even comprehend. That is for sure.

[00:15:50] My wife's name is Annabelle, and she is a very distinct looking person. As long as I've known her, if she is going in public, she goes completely done up.

[00:16:18] She dresses in a style that she calls Gothic Latina, always wearing black lace and frills, even in her more casual outfits. Her eyes are always lined with thick black eyeliner, pointed upwards in a signature cat eye. She has distinct features too. All of this is to say, anyone who knows Annabelle can pick her out of a crowd no problem.

[00:16:45] This is why the multiple doppelganger sightings people have had of her are particularly chilling. Before she lived with me, inside their own home, Annabelle's family had seen her doppelganger at least twice. One day, Annabelle's sister and grandma were sitting in the living room when Annabelle walked through the front door. She didn't speak to anyone, but instead immediately headed towards the back door and out of the sight.

[00:17:16] They eventually went to look for her, but she was nowhere to be found. When she came home through the front door later, they asked her why she didn't say hi and left through the back so soon. Annabelle was confused as she had been at the community college all day and never came home, so it wasn't her they saw. The second spotting in their home was more detailed.

[00:17:43] It was maybe 9 or 10 in the morning, and Annabelle's grandma, sister, and father all saw her come out of her bedroom and down the hallway. Her makeup was done, and she had on her favorite long skirt and corset. They asked where she was going, and in an angry tone she sternly replied, Out. Then she stomped away, leaving through the front door.

[00:18:11] It wasn't until maybe an hour later, the real Annabelle emerged from her room, still in pajamas. No makeup on, and her hair was down. They asked her about earlier, and she said that she'd been sleeping because she had been up so late. There's also no way she could have come back into the house without them noticing. These were told to me as fun, spooky stories.

[00:18:39] We joked about it being an astral projection, a ghost of a relative or just the family being easily confused. But then one day, I saw her doppelganger too. We had been living together for almost three years at this point, and had gotten our dog maybe eight months before this. She is a sweet medium-sized brown dog named Emoji, and at that time I was training her.

[00:19:06] Part of her training was regular visits to the dog park, so she could be socialized and work through any discomfort. On this particular day, Annabelle and I had no classes at the community college, no work to go to. We were stoked that we got to spend some quality time together. Annabelle had an errand to run at the bank, so we decided to all pile in our crappy Crown

[00:19:32] Victoria, and she would drop off Emoji and I at the park, go do her errand, and then pick us up after. Our Crown Victoria was a huge pile of junk we got for $1,000 off of Craigslist. It was in our price range when we really needed it. At some point, it had been a police car, and it still had stickers explaining how to store police equipment inside of it.

[00:20:00] After that it was a taxi, so when we bought it, it had nearly 300,000 miles on it, and we had to scrape the taxi logo off the sides. This left it ugly, so I put a huge cheap pink dragon decal on the side of it. This is important to the story because I promise you, there aren't a lot of Gothic women in pigtails driving around in Crown Victorias with hot pink dragons on the side.

[00:20:30] Annabelle named the car Officer Jenny. Emoji and I walked around the park. We got to the end, and at some point, we looped back around to the parking lot, and I saw that Annabelle was already there. I saw the Crown Victoria, its crusty black bumper, and the window was rolled down. Annabelle's arm was hanging out of it like she was doing a big stretch, which she sometimes does.

[00:20:59] On her wrist was the tan scrunchie she had on earlier that day. After stretching, her hand did a come-hither motion. I assumed she had seen me and was motioning me over. Ready to leave, I reached for the leash, and I don't have it. I realized I must have dropped it while we took a break under a tree, so Emoji and I walked back to retrieve it.

[00:21:27] When we got back to the parking lot, I looked for our car and didn't see it. It wasn't parked where I saw it moments earlier. I looked around for a second, and then I called Annabelle, immediately asking where she moved the car to. Confused, she says, I'm just now leaving the bank. I haven't gotten to the park yet. This scared me, and I explained to her what I saw.

[00:21:56] We were both kind of spooked, but eventually we laughed it off. The doppelganger not only copied Annabelle's appearance and body language, but also our unique and ugly vehicle. It was unmistakably Officer Jenny. However, it wasn't until a bit later I realized I had not actually seen Annabelle's face. Just the beckoning hand.

[00:22:22] It looked like her hand, a hand that was so familiar to me. I didn't question it at all. Maybe I should have. I wonder if the entity used up a lot of energy to create the illusion of the car, and maybe that's why I never saw her face. I'm not sure what these mimics are, but we all naturally get the feeling that they're harmful and should be avoided. That's a natural instinct we should pay attention to.

[00:22:53] I think there must be something else watching out for me, though. My dog and I would have left with whatever that was, if I hadn't somehow dropped the leash. Something made sure I didn't leave that day with the doppelganger, and for that, I am grateful. But I hope I never see Annabelle's doppelganger again.

[00:23:34] This happened in the summer of 2000. The night before I was supposed to have my senior portraits made, so it's still very vivid, because it was the most crazy thing I've ever experienced. I have always had strong premonitions about things. I just chalked it up to being an observant person. Anyway, my mother was away, caring for my aunt with cancer.

[00:23:59] My dad and brother had both worked outside that day and had terrible allergies, so they took Benadryl, and they were out. I had no idea. Nobody to talk to about how I was feeling, so I called my mother. It was around 10pm, but I called anyway. Then she answered. I told her, Mom, I can't go to sleep, because if I go to sleep right now, I won't wake up.

[00:24:27] She asked for clarification, but all I could tell her, for sure, was if I fall asleep in my bed right now, I'm going to die. I can just feel it. She talked it up to being nervous. She told me to stretch out on the sofa and just sleep there. So I made my spot on the sofa. About an hour and a half later, I started feeling silly, so I grabbed my pillow and I went to my bed.

[00:24:57] I barely dozed off when I was woken up by the sound of rushing water, and then my windows bursting in. That's when I saw the smoke and flames. The house next door had caught fire and was fully engulfed, and because the houses were so close, ours caught fire too. I got us out, got the fire department and police there, and I even had an officer get my car out of my parking spot because I pushed the brakes to put it into gear and the brake

[00:25:26] pads melted to the wheels. The only part of our house that caught fire was my bedroom. My dad called my mother to tell her what happened, and she screamed for him to hand me the phone. She asked, How the hell did you know that was going to happen? I just had the strongest feeling that if I went to bed I would never wake up. My bed was against the windows, and the charred ceiling was on what was left of my bed.

[00:25:55] To this day, she says it's the strangest phone call she has ever gotten from me, and still can't explain how I knew that my room wasn't safe that night. I just know that if I had gone to bed I would have been killed in a house fire. But instead we all got out safely, and insurance fixed the damage to my room. In the end, it was a bad try and insurance fraud by the neighbor who lit candles all over his house.

[00:26:21] He let the cats in the room with the candles, and then left the house. So the neighbor was fine. A horrible human, but fine. Was this a glitch, or just a gut feeling? I live in Northern Europe.

[00:26:51] This incident occurred at around 10pm when I was leaving the ER, and my boyfriend was driving us home. I had a spinal headache due to a lumbar puncture I had earlier that week, but it did not affect my judgment in any way. I was turned away at the ER, and told to return in the morning because it was late, and they no longer performed epidural blood patches, which is what I needed at that time.

[00:27:20] We didn't live far from the hospital, just a 7 minute drive away. I walked out of the hospital with a pounding head as my boyfriend arrived in our car, and I hopped in. The drive home went smoothly, until we had to stop at a red light. There was an older lady crossing the road with her dog. I remember looking at her carefully, because she resembled someone I knew.

[00:27:50] She was older, quite short, had light brown hair tied in a ponytail, and had very distinctive facial features. Her dog was a cute grey poodle, and I remember telling my boyfriend that I wanted a dog like that someday. Then, a few seconds later, another lady started crossing the road. My heart dropped when I realized it was the same lady.

[00:28:19] First, I admired that same grey poodle, and then I looked at her face, and realized that every facial feature, the ponytail, and even her clothes matched the previous lady's. My boyfriend saw it too, and we immediately began to discuss it. We asked each other, did you see that? Is this really happening?

[00:28:48] We both turned to look in the direction the ladies had gone. And there they were, walking at a considerable distance from each other, not communicating, and seemingly unaware of their doubles. Later, we tried to reason out what we had seen. We thought maybe the women were identical twins, or related in some other way.

[00:29:14] However, I have seen many people, whether related or not, walking their dogs with someone, and there has always been some sort of communication between them. Even if they aren't talking, there are usually glances or other non-verbal cues. But between these ladies, there was nothing. They walked a few meters apart, showing no signs of communication.

[00:29:41] It was as if they were not even aware of each other's presence, or were completely ignorant of it. We watched them until the light turned green. There they were, the lady and her doppelganger, walking at the same pace in their identical clothing, without any interaction. We drove the rest of the way home in disbelief.

[00:30:07] We tried to come up with a plausible explanation, but we couldn't fathom that the ladies were related, judging by their apparent lack of awareness of each other. The whole situation reminded us of the scene in the Matrix, where the same cat appears twice, in an identical setting.

[00:30:28] Of course, I could be mistaken, and there might be a natural explanation for this, but I have never viewed the world quite the same way since. I have no history of mental illness. I have a stable job, and I lead a rather happy life. Yet, I now entertain the idea that we live in a simulation.

[00:31:14] About a month ago, my boyfriend and I were on the couch at our house, watching a scary movie at around 9pm. He has two phones, a personal and a work phone. Once we finished the movie, I said that I was going to get the shower going and wait for him to join me. He was going to call his daughter to tell her goodnight. He used his personal phone to call her, leaving his work phone on the couch alongside his personal one once he hung up.

[00:31:41] He came to check on me in the shower and told me that he would be in after he grabbed some clothes and a towel. However, after going back, he noticed that his personal phone was missing from the couch. He was only gone for about a minute from the living room to come to the bathroom. He spent another five minutes looking everywhere for it in the house, and even tried calling it from his work phone several times before giving up and getting into the shower with me.

[00:32:11] About 30 minutes pass, and he finally tells me about the incident. We don't think anything of it, since I promised to help him find it after we get out. However, once we got out, we spent another five minutes tearing the house apart. Still nothing. He and I both called his personal phone several times. But we couldn't find it anywhere. We couldn't hear anything.

[00:32:36] I finally have the idea to try and ping it using the shared location services, and that's when it shows up. I was a friend claiming to be in the neighbor's front yard. He thought that I was joking with him until I showed him my screen. Neither of us had left the house. Both the front and back door still remained locked from when we got home earlier that day. I thought he was actually the one pranking me, but he promised he wasn't.

[00:33:05] I stood in the doorway as he got his jacket on and went outside with his work phone, using it as a flashlight. He also called his personal phone with it. He looked around for a while, but then I watched as he bent down, dug into our neighbor's bushes, and retrieved his flashing personal phone that lit up from the incoming call.

[00:33:27] It had been raining, and it was very muddy, yet his phone was completely dry, and seemingly untouched when he retrieved it. As he called it, the phone didn't make any sound. It just buzzed. Yet, when he double-checked that he kept the ringer on, thinking that it got turned off, it was still on, as it should have been playing his ringtone. But it never did that entire time that we looked for it.

[00:33:54] To this day, we cannot explain how it got outside in the span of five minutes, never rang even though the ringer was on, was still dry after sitting in the rain and mud for about 40 minutes total, and how it ended up being buried in the neighbor's bushes. Never since this incident, with the phone, more strange things have happened.

[00:34:17] Things have been knocked over in the middle of the night, I hear footsteps when I'm home alone, and I see things out of the corner of my eyes, and the scariest one yet. We have light fixtures that you click on and off, like flat buttons, not the switches. While he and I were sitting on the couch in the living room, when all of a sudden, the lights in the dining room began to turn on and off. The creepy part was that the buttons were being clicked rapidly, and too loudly.

[00:34:47] I would have chalked it up to faulty wiring, if it were just the lights that were going crazy, but the buttons were physically being pressed and making noise as well, as if somebody were pressing it on and off very quickly. He said that he had never experienced anything like this in this house before. It only started happening after I moved in. I'm beginning to think it's some sort of entity.

[00:35:36] I'm surprised we didn't talk about Becca's doppelganger story when we first aired it. When I listened back, I remember liking it a lot at the time. Yeah, it could have been for any number of reasons. For all we know, I don't know, we took a break and one of us forgot to hit record again when we came back to talk about it. Yeah, that seems like it'd be likely to happen, but I'll give ourselves credit. In the three years that we've been doing this, we've somehow avoided that nightmare entirely. Yeah.

[00:36:06] That nightmare of a scenario has never happened to us. I don't know how. Knock on wood, by the way. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. I mean, don't jinx us or anything. Yeah, yeah. We'll stick to knocking on wood for now. Yeah, make sure it's three times. Yeah, at 3am. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, that's funny though. It's usually either a technical issue or an inconvenient allergy attack holding us back.

[00:36:32] Yeah, forgetting to press record seems like it'd be the most likely thing to happen, but not in our experience. Definitely a top answer though if this were like family feud. Yeah, good answer, good answer, good answer, clap, clap, clap. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that show. Mm-hmm. These occasional breaks to do compilation episodes are still really nice though. Yeah, a quarterly type of thing to give us some sort of room to breathe. Kind of literally.

[00:37:00] Definitely blessed to have the podcast, but I mean, yeah, doing it every single week. It can pile up sometimes. Oh yeah, you start feeling like a machine and you know, it's like having to record music on a time constraint. You can't put your soul into it. Yeah, a little decompression does us both some good. A decompression session, if you will. Catch up on editing the submissions too. Yeah, that's the main thing.

[00:37:25] For anybody listening in late January, now would be the best time to send over whatever you've got. Yeah, yeah, don't ever think or stress anything. We like reading them regardless. Yep, yep. Some people scroll, I read stories. Yeah, same, yeah. Send them to stories at oddtrails.com. That's right though, get your stories heard early in the new year.

[00:37:49] I can't help but laugh at the thought of us only getting a small flood of submissions on Tuesday or something. And that's it. Yeah. We're good for a couple weeks. And that's just it for a while. Like we're good for a few weeks and back to begging people on the streets because we don't want to seem too desperate here. Yeah, we go to so many horror and paranormal conventions. We start getting kicked out by security like notorious card counters in Vegas. Yeah.

[00:38:18] They walk up to us with these Looney Tunes wanted posters of us. Then they just hook their thumbs through our belt loops and gently and politely ask us to leave. Lovingly. Yeah. Assuming we aren't wearing sweats or track pants. Oh, called out. You can't even see my waist. That's a, that's good. But I can, I can see that you're wearing sweats though. So that's okay. We're in this together. Yeah. Um, that's perfect though.

[00:38:46] Whether or not we have belt loops, something that simple can influence how our present timeline would play out in a highly likely scenario like that. Yeah. I was going to say, let's assume security ever became a thing to worry about. We're also assuming or maybe hoping they're immediately grabbing us by the belt loops for some reason. Some subconscious desires seeping out there. Yeah. Secret fantasy. Yeah.

[00:39:17] Yeah. Secure my heart. Yeah. Um, we can't forget how gentle and loving that request was though. It's kind of like the stories that go. But as the seven foot shadowy figure remained quietly looming in the corner of my room, it felt more protective than menacing her. You know what I mean?

[00:39:36] Like these haunting figures are seen as like somewhat, it's kind of like Stockholm syndrome in a way, but that's not to say that is what it is because I definitely think there are plenty of good spirits. But yeah, you know, there could be some Stockholm syndrome going on and maybe, Hey, maybe that's what saves it. You know, like, like playing dead when a bear attacks you. Not a polar bear though. You're, you're screwed either way, but yeah, something along those lines. Yep. Yep. Um, okay.

[00:40:06] Well, a long winded way of getting back around to Becca's story. Yeah, I guess so. I liked how specific the doppelganger got like, it wasn't just Annabelle. It was the car too. Yeah, that, that was creepy to me. The car being a mimicked object. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. The car is what got me. I mean, how many crown Vicks with, you know, a giant pink dragon on the side are out there? You'd be surprised.

[00:40:36] It's just so specific. It's hard to brush off as a coincidence. I have mixed opinions about having a car like that, that would stand out so much from the rest. Like, I really like blending in. I wouldn't want something that's just seen as like the Brando mobile. You know what I mean? Like that makes me feel so weird. Yeah. I won't even put a bumper sticker on my car because I don't want it to be recognizable at all.

[00:40:59] Yeah. I don't even do dealership plates. I do raw dog or just like a plain black frame or something like that, or just a plain frame of some sort. Same. Uh, what else was there that, uh, that come here hand emotion was pretty creepy. Yeah. Very. Yeah. Yeah. Who knows what it could have wanted under the guise of Annabelle, you know? Well, let's state the obvious and mentioned that the name is already very horror associated too. So I'm trying to think that I'm going to be a little bit more.

[00:41:28] Trying not to connect the two. Yeah, no, I have to do the same thing. I'm trying to think of what else. Oh, the leash dropping. Like what we were talking about on here recently, those small events that change everything. Mm hmm. I think you used the example of ducking beneath a cannonball on accident. Yeah. Yeah. Like some Looney Tunes thing.

[00:41:55] Yeah. Yeah. I thought about that. I wish that I could know the closest I've come to death without knowing, you know, that I was, you know what I mean? Yeah. I think about that all the time. Exactly like that, that cannonball thing. Um, it's not quite the same, but I've had a glass bottle drop from a pretty high up balcony straight above my head and land no more than three feet away.

[00:42:20] I usually lean up against a pole or something and that's where it actually dropped just like in line, right where the pole was, right? And normally would be standing. But, um, I may have mentioned that before on here, but either way, I was pretty lucky. I don't know why I wasn't standing at the logical place to stand. Yeah. I think you told me that before. Yeah. One of those near misses. Yeah. Yeah. And as far as near misses, we haven't known about though, that doesn't really leave us with much to talk about for obvious reasons. I hope.

[00:42:51] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You get it. You get it. Yeah. Uh, I agree with you though. The whole butterfly effect concept is so neat, at least, uh, as a concept, especially when you combine it with other theories, like we're in a matrix or a

[00:43:06] carrying out different timelines, but we can simultaneously do this whole butterfly effect thing and affect how these other systems play out. Like it's, it's so like kind of like the complexity of DNA. I think it all, I don't even know what I'm saying. I'm tired. Yeah. Yeah. Two or more things can exist at once though. I get it.

[00:43:28] Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. It would be cool if like say in heaven or life 2.0, we can finally look at a chart of what was legit and what wasn't back here on present day earth. You know what I mean? Yeah. Not at all trying to like blow our chances here, but what if everything we assume or hope is real actually is except for one thing, any sort of afterlife?

[00:43:57] No. So it's all for nothing. Like in a sense, in a sense, you know, like, yeah. Um, I wouldn't really think that, but regardless, yeah, I get what you're saying. Like, yeah, I want to sit up in a walnut tree somewhere, like looking over a, a meadow when we're angels gossiping about everything juicy from back in our day, all this, uh, just the way life works. Um, yeah. Yeah. See what's been debunked and what's been confirmed as truth. And yeah, that'd be really cool. But who knows that, that would be the real zinger right there.

[00:44:27] Yeah. Yeah. So hang on to the faith because let's be honest. So much of what we talk about makes no sense, especially this week. So that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's totally okay. Because doing some quick math, that's, it's been over 900 stories between the two of us. Yeah.

[00:44:46] I just don't think the odds are that every single one of these has some rational explanation tied to it. Um, I mean, we could like theorize, but that doesn't mean that is the explanation. Of course. Um, I just don't think we're all part of some really cool accident, but either way, the, the fact there is likely a paranormal realm coexisting with us. That's, that's so cool to me.

[00:45:11] Yeah. It's like when you really consider the size of the universe and all the other countless galaxies out there doing their own thing, statistically, it's safe to say we're probably not the only intelligent life forms. And we all, I think we all have accepted that. Yeah. Yeah. Fully agree. We're definitely in agreeance there. Um, so we were talking about the leash dropping and me dodging that glass bottle. Yeah. Near misses.

[00:45:39] That's right. That's right. Uh, it's strange to sit and think about them for too long. There, there's just so many little shifts that we can sort of pinpoint when you're like, wait, wait, if I would have done this tiny little thing instead, my one chance at life would have been looking like this instead, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Accidentally getting on the wrong bus in the third grade, but you end up meeting your best friend who could keep in touch with you until you both die in your hundreds.

[00:46:09] That'd be nice of them. Like, Hey, Hey, you want to be friends? I'll keep in touch with you until you die. Yeah. That's a sweet thing to say. Yeah. I mean that, that could very well happen someday, especially with how connected people are and healthy eating has become like super popular, which is really cool. I think, um, it could happen if we all hold on despite certain industries, blah, blah, blah, and their efforts to yada, yada, yada, you know, that whole shit hang, but we don't got to go there.

[00:46:37] Yeah, exactly. We're our own worst enemy until we're not. I like that. Yeah. Something a public defender would have on their business card and you're not sure why, but it makes sense. And it's just kind of alluring. Yeah, definitely. Um, so let's, uh, touch on that last story really quick about the disappearing phone. Yeah.

[00:47:00] Something about the way that it played out makes me feel like it was so deliberate. Like the phone wasn't just misplaced. It was taken. Yeah. For it to end up in the neighbor's bushes in the rain and mud and be completely dry. Come on. Right. And the timing of everything is so suspicious. Like they were in the house the whole time. The doors were locked and the phone vanished for just long enough to cause the chaos. Then it reappears. Yep.

[00:47:30] Yes. Yes. Prankster type behavior. That's all I'm going to say. I got you. I got you. Yep. Last thing, just how the lights started acting up later, you know, clicking on and off like someone was standing there pressing them. Mm-hmm. To me, I think it's obvious but worth suggesting that maybe the phone bandit is also the one smashing those light switches.

[00:47:57] No doubt, I think. That's a childhood dream right there, I got to say. It's like turning invisible and doorbell ditching without having to run away. The light switch dude is just having the time of their life. Just, yeah, going to town on those switches without consequence. Exactly, exactly. Spirits probably do 90% of everything just because. Yeah. And we just sometimes catch wind of their activities.

[00:48:23] Yeah, yeah. Actually, yeah, that would make sense. We just try to make sense of what we do catch wind of, but then they're out of our wavelengths. But being able to observe us like, no, no, that's not what we meant. It all kind of feels like some one-sided glass, you know? Yeah, I know what you mean. It's just, it's weird. Yeah, yeah. Well, shall we leave things on a weird note then?

[00:48:47] Absolutely. This was definitely the oddest trail we've been on in any of these wrap-ups. I don't remember what we talked about, and I hope that we made sense, everyone. You know what it is? We didn't record these stories this week, and we were trying to review old stories, so our brains just, they're not working right, man. Yeah, that's gotta be it.

[00:49:08] But yeah, anyways, thanks everybody so much for listening. All of the credits for the stories are gonna be in the show notes. And make sure you send your stories in to stories at oddtrails.com and sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash oddtrails if you want to get ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate. Finally, make sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Let's Not Meet, Cryptic Encounters, and the Old Time Radiocast at crypticcountypodcasts.com. See you all next week, everyone. Stay safe. Peace out.

[00:49:57] I'm Janie hörens., say, you