Voices in the Canopy – Ep. 167

[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. You just trust. Believe.

[00:00:57] Voices in the Canopy by The Fractal Wizard I grew up in a family of avid hikers. Both my mother, a botanist, and my father, a biologist for the University of Tasmania, would regularly visit the deepest wilderness areas of Tasmania during their field studies.

[00:01:18] These trips were disguised as camping and hiking adventures for the family. I never minded it, as I was just as passionate about the outdoors as they were, even from a young age. Key word being, was. Because after what I went through, even 20 years later, I still refused to return. We lived on a property a short driving distance from Lake St. Clair, a popular tourist destination.

[00:01:48] This was the only place that my parents would allow me to camp and experience the wilderness alone, as long as I brought my German Shepherd with me. He was a former police dog and very well trained. At 12 or 13 years old, I didn't mind it. It felt like my own little slice of freedom, and my own little slice of wilderness, despite being surrounded by people. It was easy to ignore them.

[00:02:13] But as I got older and more brazen, I found myself hounding my parents to let me take my quad bike deeper into the park to camp. I wanted to test my own abilities and prove to them that I was capable of doing so, and that I wasn't a little kid anymore. It was that overconfidence that led me to this situation and caused me so much trauma.

[00:02:39] I was 15 at the time, at the age where I thought I was invincible, knew all there was to know, and was untouchable. After asking my parents what felt like an uncountable number of times, and being told no just as many times, I had enough and decided to just go. I told my parents that a few friends and I were going to the lake to camp and fish over the weekend.

[00:03:05] Instead, I took my tent, my quad, and headed into the reserve. I left just after sunrise to maximize daylight and to make it as far in as I felt comfortable. Once I arrived, I set up camp, had some food, and decided to go exploring. I knew of a spot nearby with a gorgeous rock face where fossils had been found in the past, so I thought I'd try my luck.

[00:03:33] Shortly into the walk, I realized I had been turned around and had no idea where I was anymore. At the time, I didn't see it as a big deal. I had a compass and I knew that if I headed south, it would take me back to the lake and I could walk from there. However, by this time, it was getting late into the afternoon.

[00:03:56] So, stupidly, I decided to try my chances and make it back to my camp and quad bike so that I wouldn't have to walk back to camp from the lake in the dark. Big mistake. It was about 4.30pm and the sun had just dipped below the tree line, casting dark shadows across my walking path. That's when the forest went silent. And when I say silent, I mean silent.

[00:04:25] No wind, no birds, no forest sounds at all, which made my heart rate skyrocket. It was getting dark and the silence was suffocating. I just wanted to get back to camp, light a fire, eat some snacks, and spend some time watching nature's television until I fell asleep. That's when, from every direction, I heard the sound of twigs cracking. And then there was something moving in the canopy above me.

[00:04:56] No big deal, probably just birds or some small animals, I thought. But then, as clear as day, I heard a voice. Hey, come here. At first, I felt relieved. I thought that someone along the trails had seen me, noticed I was a bit disheveled and wanted to help. But looking around, I didn't see anyone. Then it happened again. But it was behind me this time.

[00:05:26] The same voice. But now I noticed that it was coming from up in the trees. I responded. I can't see you. Where are you? I then asked for some help, thinking maybe I just couldn't see the person calling out. Then it happened again. This time, to my left. And that's when I decided to run.

[00:05:51] I took off into the brush and ran for a good two minutes before stopping to catch my breath. I checked my compass to start making my way toward the lake. I was terrified, but I felt I had covered enough distance that I wasn't in immediate danger. But then seconds after checking my compass and starting to walk, I heard it again. Hey, come here. But this time, it was right behind me.

[00:06:20] However, I spun around and saw absolutely nothing. Just a disembodied voice. So I began sprinting again. I did not stop. The last thing I heard before bursting out of the trees onto the lakefront was the most evil, demonic laugh I had ever heard. It sounded like three people laughing at once. I immediately called my parents to come and get me.

[00:06:48] I told them what I did and what happened. But they were more focused on my disobedience than my experience. The moment they picked me up was the first time I felt relief, and I cried the whole drive home. I didn't sleep properly for days. My dad went and picked up my quad and tidied up my camp. Since that day, I haven't stepped one foot away from the lake. If anyone has had an experience like this,

[00:07:19] I'd love to hear it because it took my passion from me. I miss being out and away from society. But I just can't bring myself to do it again.

[00:07:51] Story Submission by Rashawn In my early 20s, I'm 37 now, I started dating a guy named David. Now, David was this very secretive guy who worked in law enforcement and didn't really like his personal details spread around. And me being young, dumb, and impressionable, I thought it was totally normal for this to apply to me as well, his girlfriend.

[00:08:18] So, I had been dating David for six months or so, and I knew virtually nothing about him. I knew he was an army brat, had a sister, a nephew, a mom, and wasn't in contact with his dad. Literally, that was it. Cue the weird stuff. I had a dream one night that seemed super real, that David and I had a daughter together. I woke up completely disoriented

[00:08:46] because, even in my waking mind, I was looking for our daughter. He asked me what was up, and I explained the dream and how it made me feel. He laughed sarcastically and said, Oh yeah? What did we name her? So I threw it right back at him. Some crazy name that you picked out. Mary Sell. I don't even know what kind of name for a... He put his hand up and stopped me, saying,

[00:09:16] What did you just say? With an incredulous laugh, I answered, Yeah, Mary Sell. As if I'd ever named my daughter that. He stared at me in this stunned and slightly angry silence, before finally asking, Where did you hear that name? Shocked, I answered, In the dream. Just now. I don't even know any Mary Sells.

[00:09:45] This interrogation went on for a few minutes, before he finally, angrily said, That's my mom's name. Something of which I had no way of knowing, as he purposely kept me in the dark. To this day, I know I never heard him say his mother's name, and I can't explain how our fictional daughter had such a bizarre name that just so happened to be his mom's. Here's an additional but related story.

[00:10:15] David and I had been broken up for about eight months to a year at this point, but still casual friends through friends. I had just come home 16 hours from the state I had met David in. One night, I was asleep in my grandparents' upstairs loft, and had a dream that someone was throwing rocks at my window. In the dream, I opened it to see David. Obviously confused, I asked him why he was here

[00:10:43] instead of 16 hours away. He answered in a quiet, shaky voice, I need to talk to you. And the dream ended. It bothered me for a couple of days before I finally gave in and texted him. Hey man, I had a crazy dream about you the other night. You good? A day or two went by before he texted me back. No, I'm in Florida, burying my mom.

[00:11:14] She passed away earlier this week. As you could probably guess, she passed away on the same night I had the dream about him needing to talk to me. Life is crazy. That's all I'm saying.

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[00:12:52] with your journey pack. Head to tryfume.com. That's tryfume.com and use code TRAILS to claim this limited time offer today. Story time by Ruck Saxon. My best friend and I had a mission to hike all the nearby trails where we live, slowly working our way deeper and deeper into the woods.

[00:13:21] We would find hidden waterfalls, caves, and some of the best views. This led us to discover a trail at the end of a logging road that looked like it had not been trafficked for quite some time. I looked it up on Onyx and saw that it seemed to lead to a rock quarry on top of a mountain. So we abandoned the trail that we had originally planned on hiking and set off. After a few hours of hiking, the trail opened up

[00:13:50] to another old forest road on this ridge. To our right was the top of the ridge, about 30 feet up. To our left was a beautiful view of the forest that dropped about 1,000 to 2,000 feet down. We found the quarry, looked for cool rocks for a while, and then headed back. On the way back, we heard tree knocking from the valley down below. It sounded like it was coming

[00:14:19] from a few miles away, but it was extremely loud. I joked about it being Bigfoot looking for his friends and that it would be rude not to knock back. So my friend took his empty water bottle and hit it against the tree three times, echoing across the valley. The second that he hit that tree the third time, it was chaos. Rocks and boulders started tumbling down the ridge opposite the valley to our right. It sounded like an elephant was running across

[00:14:49] the top of the ridge at an incredible speed. It was so close that I could have thrown a rock at it. If I could see it. The fear that I felt was equal to the expression on my friend's face. Neither of us said a word, but we both ran as fast as we could down the road into the trail. We didn't stop until we got to the car and that was the last time my friend and I ever went on a hike.

[00:15:34] He's Still Here by Chantel In July of 2023, I watched my stepfather die. In his final palliative days, I witnessed a lifetime of hardship catch up to the man who had helped raise me. The hands that once tied my shoes were now weathered and sallow. And in what seemed like a cruel and sudden twist of fate, he was gone. It broke me.

[00:16:01] The months that followed were incredibly difficult and I found myself missing his guidance more and more as I navigated a new phase in my life. I had just started a new job and my family and I were settling into our new home. I felt lost, drifting through this new, unstable reality every day. It was at my lowest when I started noticing a few bizarre things

[00:16:31] that made me feel like he was still around. Full disclaimer, I've always been a diehard cynic and I'm having a hard time believing this even as I type it out. This may not be one of the more wild stories featured on Odd Trails, but it was such a jarring experience for me, to say the least. First, there were the dreams. I kept dreaming about walking downstairs in the middle of the night, blue moonlight flooding my

[00:17:01] living room, to find my stepdad asleep on the couch without a blanket. I'd repeatedly shake him awake and ask if he was comfortable or if he needed a blanket, to which he replied, I'm fine, I'd just like to hold your son for a bit. I'd go fetch my son, who was an infant in my dreams but in reality was in kindergarten, then the three of us would embrace. these dreams

[00:17:30] were so visceral and felt so real. I'd regularly wake up with a tear-stained pillow and bloodshot eyes. They say smell is our sense most strongly tied to memory. One afternoon, I was stocking up on the toiletries at my local drugstore when I caught a sudden, unmistakable whiff of his aftershave. It hit me out of nowhere, sharp and familiar. I was completely

[00:17:59] alone in the aisle but for a split second, it felt like he was standing there, just a few feet away, as if he'd never left. The logical part of my brain tells me that someone had just opened or spilled a bottle. It's a common scent, but regardless, it made my pulse increase. Why that scent? And why at that exact moment? Then came the Facebook notification

[00:18:29] emails. Every week, like clockwork, I'd receive new friend suggestion at RJ. The thing is, my stepdad and I had been Facebook friends since I first joined the platform. At first, I chalked it up to a glitch, but the frequency of these notifications made me stop and wonder if this could be him. checking in from wherever he was, reminding me that I'm not alone.

[00:19:00] Was it just my grief making me hyper-aware of little things, or was he actually trying to reach out? Either way, I feel like he's still here, lingering in these strange, small moments. And in some odd way, it makes me feel less alone. I know you're still here watching over me, RJ. I love you.

[00:19:44] Where is their son? By exciting word 8645. We are Catholic, so we usually go to church every weekend. Our church is small, and we know most of the people there because we see them every Sunday. We had been going there for the past three years. Anyway, there's this family that attends, a husband, a wife, and their kids. We always see them in the kids' room, where we

[00:20:14] would go with our child every Sunday. For the longest time, I always thought that this family had two sons, two little boys, one around two to four years old and the other around six or nine. I remember the older boy looked a lot like the youngest except that his hair was neatly parted and obviously looked older. I always knew that they had two boys. Sometimes the youngest would play with our child while the other one would

[00:20:44] play in the other room with the dad. The dad hates coming to church, so he usually makes an excuse to go to the play room and be on his phone. He would always be there while the oldest was there and the youngest would stay with his mother sometimes playing with my child. Anyway, the lady had been pregnant for a while, around the same time that I got pregnant. Due to complications, I ended up having to be hospitalized for months and after my recovery took

[00:21:13] so long, I lost my baby at birth. I had a really hard time mentally after that. It's been a year since, and after therapy and a lot of support, I've been able to get my strength back, emotionally and physically. So I decided to go back to church, and I saw the lady with her daughter and one son. Where was the other one? After mass, I went to the car and said to my husband,

[00:21:43] her daughter is beautiful, but where is the other son? My husband responded, what other son? I said, the other one, they had two. No, they only had one. My husband looked at me like I was crazy. I shrugged it off that day, but the next Sunday that came, I didn't see the other son again. Now, for the past few weeks, I've been thinking about the older son and I'm so confused.

[00:22:13] There were two boys. We all got COVID and have been quarantined, so we haven't been back to church again, but I keep thinking about the older son that just doesn't exist anymore. I keep going back in my mind, trying to figure out where I went wrong. Where did the confusion begin? But I swear that I saw them all the time. It couldn't have been somebody else's kid because I would have seen him in church again like we

[00:22:43] usually did. Also, this kid looked exactly like the brother. They were almost identical. I saw them in the same room. I saw them wearing different jackets, and I saw them interact with each other. I have such a clear picture in my head of the older brother. I saw that kid every weekend. How could I forget what he looked like? I'm so confused. I feel crazy. I'm not making this up. There's nothing that I would benefit from

[00:23:13] sharing this here, other than people probably saying that I have a mental issue. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, and I'm so confused. Right now, though, I'd like to respond to some of the questions that I've received about this story. The daughter was not born yet. The daughter was born after I came back from the hospital. That's not the weird part because the lady was pregnant before I left for the hospital. Now, there isn't a way that

[00:23:43] the son would have died without one of us hearing about it. If something like that had happened, we would have had mass for him. When someone's child passes away or when anyone in the church passes away, we all find out about it. We get an email that goes to everyone and we hold mass for them. We are also told just to be cautious and careful. When speaking to the family, some people theorize that maybe he was a ghost,

[00:24:13] which I don't know about. I'll try and ask the woman if she ever had a miscarriage or if her first pregnancy was her son, the younger boy, but others are saying I probably just jumped into a different dimension and died in the hospital. That theory is something that I'm not ready to get into because it's very touchy for me. I almost died in the hospital, which is why I was hospitalized for so long, for months, with my child.

[00:24:43] I had an emergency C-section and the whole experience is still very fresh and traumatic for me. I'm still going through healing. Thanks to everyone who's introduced me to that theory, though, but I'm not ready to dive into it yet. The theory that maybe the boy transitioned into the daughter would only make sense if the daughter was the same age as the boy, but the daughter is a baby. She was born during the time that I was in the hospital. The boy that I saw had been there since I started going to church. He was around

[00:25:12] six, like I said, when we first started attending. Some people have suggested that I ask around and check records since the Catholic Church is very good at keeping baptismal records, but I don't want to do that. I already feel weird asking specific questions and it would feel even weirder to go to the office and start asking about another family's information without a valid reason, except for the fact that I strongly remember her having another son. That would

[00:25:42] probably be seen as stalking or just plain creepy. I don't want to be seen as that crazy lady. Someone else said that maybe they were fostering a child, which could be possible, but I really doubt it. Another theory is that it could have been a niece or nephew. Which is also possible, but I don't have anything to confirm that. I'll be asking the son the next time I go to church. Right now, we are quarantined, but I will update once I ask them.

[00:26:13] I plan to ask if he has a brother or if he has a cousin who came to the church with him. I'm starting to lean towards the idea that maybe it could have been a ghost, because of what somebody told me. They asked if he ever interacted with adults. And thinking back, I never really saw adults interact with that child directly. The father would be in the playroom hanging out with the son, but if that older son never existed,

[00:26:42] why was the father in the playroom? Was he just hanging around by himself? That would be kind of weird. So even though he never directly interacted with the older son, I still find it strange that he would just sit in the playroom alone. Everything is really strange for me, and I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I did ask my son, and my son said no, he doesn't have another brother, or know a kid that looks like him. But anyways, that is my story. Thank you everyone for trying to help me

[00:27:12] out. I appreciate it. Hunted in the Superstition Mountains by Brooke. I have had many paranormal experiences in my life, but this is the only one that ever truly

[00:27:42] scared me or made me feel like I was actually in danger. This happened in late 2020, when my friend Kylan and I were both 18. We decided to do an evening hike in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, a beautiful desert area. Those mountains have so many legends and stories, but that didn't really concern us at the time. We went on a trail we hadn't been to before. It was pretty far down a dirt road.

[00:28:11] There was no one else at the trail when we got there, or when we left either. The hike was pretty ordinary for the first half, and I remember commenting about how loud the birds were. About a mile and a half in, we came across a circular area, where nothing was growing. No plants, just dirt, rocks, and human trash. We decided to check it out. I don't remember everything we found. I think there were some cans,

[00:28:41] but I do remember finding a small glass vial that was burned. It took a few minutes for us to realize the birds had gone silent. It was unsettling, but didn't alarm us too much. The sun was starting to set, so we decided to start hiking back. All while, the uneasy feeling we felt kept growing. It hit the point where we felt like we should run,

[00:29:10] but I had a strange instinct that if we started running, things would get worse. Kyle was still a pretty new friend. I didn't want to freak him out too much. I'm sensitive and familiar with the paranormal, so I didn't voice my concerns initially. I just walked at a brisk pace. I swore I could hear a third set of footprints behind us, but I brushed it off as paranoia and refused to look back.

[00:29:41] Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move at the rocky ridgeline to the left of us. It was pretty far off, so I didn't catch any details, but what I saw didn't make sense. It was a silhouette, backlit by the setting sun. I could tell whatever it was was standing on two legs, and its head was a weird shape. The best description I can give is that it kind

[00:30:10] of looked like a bird head, like the front of the face was elongated to a point. Then it turned towards us and ducked back behind the rocks. Seeing it made my stomach drop. I felt absolute dread. I felt this pure fear that I never felt before or since. I wasn't going to mention what I saw, in hopes of not freaking out Kyle some more. But then he said,

[00:30:41] Wait, did you see that figure on top of the ridge? I confirmed it and told him everything else I was feeling. He agreed and said that he felt it as well. That hike back felt like we were being hunted. We heard the footsteps following at a steady pace behind us the entire time. After what felt like forever, we finally made it back to the car. At that point, it was completely dark. Once the

[00:31:10] car was in view, we ran the short distance to it and sped off. But the feeling that we were being hunted didn't go away. In fact, it still felt like we were being chased. I was in the passenger seat, telling Kyle over and over not to look in the mirrors. I'm not sure why, but I felt like if we looked for it, it would just make things worse. Sort of like that earlier instinct I had to not run. Then,

[00:31:40] something knocked on my window three times, clearly and distinctly, on the left side of the car. I started to cry. I was terrified. I begged Kyle to keep driving. Finally, we pulled onto the main paved road and left the mountains. Once we were on the main road, the feelings completely disappeared. We have both even been back to the trail since,

[00:32:10] and nothing even close to that night has happened. The Superstition Mountains are the center of so many stories. Ghosts, aliens, a legendary gold mine. Something ancient lives there. Something that was there long before the colonizers arrived. I suspect we may have been chased by a skin walker that night. I'm not sure what would have happened if we looked back or started running. But there are enough missing

[00:32:39] people cases out there that I don't want to know. But I would like to know if anyone else has experienced what we did that night, or any ideas as to what it could have been.

[00:33:11] Imagine going to church every weekend, seeing the same family for years, watching their two kids grow up, and then one day you realize that one of them just never even existed. Not that he moved away, not that anyone has any explanation, just gone. Yeah, nope. I'd just be like, I don't believe you. Do the whole Ron Burgundy thing, light up a cigarette. Yeah, there's not much else that you can do. I mean, that'd be like telling

[00:33:41] me that you don't have a sister. And my memory that I have of you two screaming like banshees at my dinner table is all made up. Hey, that pad thai and red curry that has quite the effect on us, what can I say? Yeah. But yeah, for the story you're talking about, it's not just like the author thinks that she remembers that kid. She actually has these specific memories of him, the jackets he wore, the way he played in the kids

[00:34:11] room. He wasn't just some one-off side character who she could have mistaken for somebody else. There's no way I'd let anybody tell me otherwise if I were in her position. Yeah, it's crazy because it happens after she's been in the hospital and had this near-death experience, then suddenly he's gone. It's like a complete reality shift. The idea that after a near-death experience, you might wake up in a slightly different version of reality where something

[00:34:40] has changed, and I don't know, that's kind of scary to me for some reason. Yeah, like, you don't get to start a new life, you just go through a slightly different version of the old one, like you get bumped out of calibration or something. Yeah, yeah. Have you ever heard of, what's it called, quantum immortality? Oh, lots of other quantums, but not that one. It's not really anything new as far as our conversations go. It's basically what's going on here. It's where your

[00:35:10] consciousness jumps timelines when you're close to death. It's all hypothetical, but it would explain why this kid existed in her memory, but not anyone else's. Okay, so like, in her original timeline, the kid was real, but after the hospital incident, she wakes up in a version where this kid was never born. Yeah. Creepy to think about, because then I wonder what else might have changed, and she just hasn't noticed yet. it's kind of like that Treehouse of Horror episode

[00:35:39] where Homer changes things in the past, and then it makes the current timeline all wacky. Yeah. Then in the last one, it's all normal, except that the family have lizard tongues. Yeah, yeah, but there's this moment where he's trying to find out what could be different when, you know, in the last time, and it doesn't, like, he doesn't notice anything at first, and then the tongue thing happens, and it's just genuinely creepy, like, as a jump scare. Yeah, yeah, those old episodes are some of the

[00:36:09] best TV ever. Yeah, it's the best. Anyway, so what about the theory that she brought up about the kid being real, but no one else could see him because he was a ghost? Yeah, the detail about how he never really interacted with adults is interesting. That makes me think of like, the sixth sense, you know, the author sees dead people and the older brother is Bruce Willis. Yeah. It's also weird that

[00:36:39] the dad would just hang out in the playroom by himself apparently, or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought about that. Or, what if the dad wasn't alone in the playroom, but he was unknowingly interacting with something like, he thought that he was just zoning out on his phone, but on some subconscious level, he was just keeping the spirit company without even realizing it. That would explain why the kid was always in there when the dad was there. It almost feels like the ghost

[00:37:09] was attached to the father, not the family. Maybe that's why no one else remembers him, because he was never really there to begin with, just kind of attached to the dad doing whatever it is that he wanted to do with him. But what if the kid was a ghost? There is a chance that someone else could have seen him, you know? You'd think that at least one other person at the church would have mentioned him at some point, but nobody did except her. That's what makes it so tricky, like,

[00:37:39] if it's just a false memory, how does she remember it so vividly and consistently, you know? And if it is just a ghost, why did it only appear to her and not others? Yeah, you would think that maybe the boy would try to tell her something. Like, if he's making his presence known to her, it must have been for a reason. Exactly, yeah, I'd like to think so. Unless the author is just gifted and can see things, but then I wonder what's

[00:38:08] stopping her from seeing all of the things that are out there, you know? Do spirits have to opt in if they want to be seen or can sensitive superhumans kind of barge in through the door whenever they want? I would hope sensitive superhumans would be a little more courteous than that. Hey, anything for a couple of likes these days. Yeah. Oh, man. But if it is like a reality shift, that could mean that there are two versions of this church, one where the kid exists and one where

[00:38:38] he doesn't. Or it could be neither. I mean, what if this is some weird partial crossover between timelines like they were talking about? Like, maybe the kid was never supposed to even exist in this version of reality, but for some reason she was just able to perceive him for a while and now that perception is gone. Yeah, it reminds me of those stories where people remember family members or entire buildings that no longer exist.

[00:39:08] Like, they know they were real, but they can't prove it. It's like reality has a way of correcting itself, and when it does, it becomes easier to calmly accept that we all might be a little crazy, right? Yeah. Because if we're going to believe Morpheus, what is real? Yeah, yeah, and now she's questioning her own sanity, which is the scariest part of the whole thing. It's like she's the only one who remembers this version of the family, and that's gotta be super isolating. Oh yeah, totally. Like,

[00:39:38] the worst form of gaslighting without any motive or antagonist. You're just left feeling kind of crazy for no reason. And now she's back to debating whether to ask the kid directly if he ever had a brother. Can you imagine how weird that conversation would be? Yeah. Hey, so do you remember someone who looks exactly like you that nobody else acknowledges? I don't know how you phrase that to a little kid. Yeah, that's a tough one. Luckily, it's just a kid you'd probably say anything, but what if his face

[00:40:08] lights up and he's just like, you saw him? Where is he? And then the parents usher him away with this horrified look on their faces. Yeah, or he screams at her, stranger danger! Oh yeah, then she gets chased out of the church with torches and pitchforks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, moving on, I did want to talk about the voices in the canopy. Ooh, yeah, that one freaked me out. The second I read about the forest going silent, I knew that something had to be going down.

[00:40:38] Like the birds in the superstition mountain story. Yeah. It's exactly what we talked about last time, how there's always this first sign with these kinds of stories. Nature just shuts up, like the animals know something's out there. Yeah, and then some voice comes out of nowhere, like, hey, come here. And then from above, like someone or something's in the trees, but then nothing's there. Yeah, yeah, it's the classic mimicry. We've seen it a ton of times in these

[00:41:08] stories at this point. Stories from the Appalachian Mountains, encounters with skinwalkers, and even some accounts of Bigfoot. Oh, yeah, the samurai sounds. Yeah, yeah. What is it about the deep woods and their entities that mimic human voices to lure people closer? I don't know. In my mind, though, if you're already out in the middle of the woods on turf that isn't yours and some powerful supernatural entity is

[00:41:38] set on getting you, whatever that may entail, it's gonna get you. It's gonna get you. Like, I don't see why it would need to announce its presence or beckon you a few footsteps closer to do its thing. They probably don't need to. I bet good and bad spirits both just have a sense of humor. Like, they're getting inside our heads, but they have different motives. Oh, and here I thought mind games were the primitive

[00:42:07] tricks of us mere mortals. The mimics in these stories always act so human. Like, they copy your voice or they imitate a friend calling your name, but this one was just a generic hey, come here. Like, it didn't fully understand what it was supposed to be doing. Yeah, yeah. Oh, like the aliens in the coffee shop from last week. Yeah. It just makes me think of, like, the men in black from the book the Mothman prophecies. They always seemed like they were trying to

[00:42:37] imitate a human, but something is always off. Yeah, that's such a good book. I don't know if it's because of how old it is, but it felt pretty compelling and authentic. Yeah. Tons of separate witnesses reporting the same thing and all the other weird stuff that happens around the sightings. I liked his theory about ultra-terrestrials. Yeah, yeah, the ultra-terrestrial thing would explain some of the mind games, as you call them. I remember him saying that they could alter our perceptions, you know,

[00:43:07] like paranormal trolls or something. Yeah, yeah, and then sometimes you just have these weird disembodied forest spirits chasing after you. Tasmanian forests are scary, dude. I was reading up on them. It turns out to have a reputation for frequent missing persons cases, and on top of that, they also have their own urban legends, like everywhere else, things that resemble shadow people, the Tasmanian tiger,

[00:43:36] which allegedly went extinct, but it keeps popping up. Yeah, that wasn't a tiger. And something else to consider, what if this thing wasn't trying to kill him? What if it was just trying to get him lost, like deep into the woods? We always assume that these entities are just monsters trying to attack, but what if its goal was to just separate him from civilization even more? Yeah, and it almost worked. Luckily, whatever it was apparently had boundaries, not like personal boundaries,

[00:44:05] but it wouldn't go or couldn't go past the trees or something. Maybe its abilities can only happen within the confines of the forest. forest. Yeah, yeah, it does seem like forest spirits or entities are bound to their own woods. Yeah, like their bumper cars in the forest is their conductive metal floor. Those old style bumper cars have always scared me. The whole like metal poles that stick into the ceiling. Yeah, I know that voltage is

[00:44:35] probably way too low for it to happen, but I just feel like everyone is on the verge of being electrocuted. They just glow up like cartoon skeletons that you see their bones through their skin. Yeah, like Home Alone 2. Oh, you did it, you did it. Shame, shame. Yeah. I feel that way about carnival rides though. I do like the UFO though. I'll ride the UFO all day because you can hang upside down and it feels pretty low risk. You can't fall from an extreme height at least. I remember

[00:45:04] liking that one, but I doubt I would try it as an adult. Yeah, who's going to go to a carnival as an adult? No offense, carnival lovers. I'm sure that's a thing. We go to Disneyland, so I'm sure there's carnival people. I think the UFO, the worst thing that could happen is it would just spin out of control too fast and explode, so whatever. Yeah, I rode one roller coaster in the last five to seven years when we went to Six Flags and after that first roller coaster I was like, man, I don't remember feeling

[00:45:34] this bad after a thrill ride in a long like ever, ever. I never felt that bad, so I think that thrill rides are just out for me. Yeah, it's kind of like overeating. It sounds fun, but once it's all said and done, it's just like, why did I really do that? Yeah. Yeah. So, Chantel's story, wanted to talk about that real quick because it was special to me. Oh, yeah. She mentioned smelling her stepfather's aftershave when she shouldn't have, and that's happened to me once or twice.

[00:46:05] A few days after my grandpa died, the smell of his Old Spice aftershave hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn't even thinking about him at the time. I think I was just driving home, spacing out, but, yeah, out of nowhere, just boosh, unmistakable. I was like, what the hell? Where is this coming from? And, yeah, that's the only association I have with Old Spice aftershave. Yeah. Yeah, smells are another big one, good or bad. It beats sulfur and rotting meat at least.

[00:46:34] Yeah. Yeah. What do you make of the Facebook notification? I don't know. I don't know. Spirits have a way of half communicating with us. It's weird. Sending an actual message would have been too on the nose, as we sometimes say. So it very well could have been his way of lingering about but not being able to fully communicate. Right, right. Yeah, it's never some cut and dry thing. I do like how she acknowledged the possibility of grief making her hyper-aware.

[00:47:05] That's always at least a possibility to consider with any story. Grief and trauma trying to make sense of things. Yeah, definitely. Seeking some sort of baseline and stability with all this chaos going around you, it makes sense. But then obviously that's not always the case even when somebody is grieving or having gone through some trauma. Like, both things can be true. You may want to write it off as your brain just grieving in weird ways, but what if it isn't? What if you're really going through this? And you are

[00:47:34] too, in your own way, you always are. Yeah, basically circling back to what we were talking about with questioning your sanity. Exactly, exactly. If you feel an experience or witness something on such a deeply personal, tangible level, nothing's going to take that away from you. But when we try to make too much sense, the smallest things can be used to write off the experience entirely. It's just like our brains playing tricks on us or oh, I must have had one too many

[00:48:04] glasses of wine, but it's not always the case. Give yourself some credit. Yeah. It's like having the front door cracked open. It must have caused all the cupboards in the kitchen to fling open at once. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you just gotta let things be weird. Yeah, I agree. Well, anyways, thanks everybody so much for listening. Send your stories in to stories at oddtrails.com if you want to hear them on the show. And be sure to sign up for our Patreon to get ad-free versions of all of our episodes at patreon.com forward slash

[00:48:35] oddtrails. We release those every week along with the regular episodes in the feed. And be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Let's Not Meet, Cryptic Encounters, and the Old Time Radio Cast. We'll see y'all next week. Everybody stay safe. Peace out.

[00:49:11] Ghosts and the ghouls disturb you done.