Rural Iowa Encounters – Ep. 168

[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] I Experienced Two Glitches, Years Apart by HumblyHuman888. When I was around 16 years old, my friends and I had this place that we nicknamed The Spot. It was this huge sand dune on an inlet that overlooked the skyline of our beach town and ocean. It had an incredible view. The closest

[00:01:22] beach access parking was over an hour's walk away. Also, it's illegal to be on the sand dunes due to conservation movements in the state. We were dumb teenagers and have since learned from our actions, though we knew to respect the land enough not to litter or kick sand or anything. Just sit and appreciate it. One night, my best friend and I were making our trek to The Spot, smoking along the

[00:01:50] way. At one point during the walk, I looked over to my right, to the inland side. I took notice of three condos standing solo in the landscape. No other developments. Quite a rare sight to see in Florida, especially in our touristy town. I looked the other way, toward the ocean side, and I saw a heron

[00:02:14] wading in the water on one leg and an airplane gliding in the distance behind him. I took a deep breath of the salty air and thought about how beautiful it was to live there. Well, a few minutes go by, maybe five, ten max, and I noticed that we're approaching three condos again. I look over to the

[00:02:36] water and I see the heron on one leg, and a plane passing by behind it. Okay, this is weird. A few more minutes pass by, and then again. Same three condos, same heron, same plane. I thought that I was going crazy until my best friend broke the silence and said, Dude, I swear we've passed by that bird three times now.

[00:03:02] We're now freaking out a bit. She jokes that we're in some kind of time loop. It becomes less funny as we see it again, two more times. We don't know what to make of it, so we just keep walking. Some more minutes go by and we stop. We turn around and look back, and we see the lights of the three

[00:03:24] condos, way off in the distance, like two miles at least. We just laugh at ourselves, but we're still unsettled. We make it to the spot, smoke our weed, and end the night on a good note. Now, get this. Fast forward about five years later, I experience another glitch. A new restaurant had opened up.

[00:03:51] It was located right behind the restaurant I was working at at the time. We shared a little outside backyard and would take breaks together. I also ate there with my neighbors. It's located on a cute little downtown street called Canal Street, where there are a bunch of shops and restaurants. That morning was a gloomy morning. The street was deserted. I'm now driving down the street with my

[00:04:18] boyfriend, and I get to the end of the street, look to my left, and see the restaurant. I got very confused because it was supposed to be at the front of the street and to the right of me, so I asked my boyfriend why they have two locations on the same street. He doesn't understand what I'm talking about and acts as if it's always been there. I was stopped in the street, looking at it confused, for at least

[00:04:45] 30 seconds. I looped through and went back to the front of the street, and I found the location I remembered. It was exactly where it should have been. I point this out to my boyfriend, and he has no idea what I'm talking about. He just completely forgot the conversation we had in front of the other location. So, I drive down to the end of the street to show him, and it's gone. Completely vanished,

[00:05:11] replaced by the same empty buildings for lease. These are the ones that I knew had always been there. I drove around the street a couple more times to confirm what I saw, but everything was back to normal. Now, here's the kicker. That restaurant is literally named The Spot. Look up The Spot in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and you'll find it. I just think it's crazy that the two most concerning slips

[00:05:41] of reality I've ever experienced both involved places called The Spot.

[00:06:06] The Third Floor by Sam. My spouse and I got our first apartment in August of 2017 in Rexburg, Idaho. We didn't know the place was haunted, but there were signs. Horizontal scratch-like marks on the baseboards and a small handprint on a window that we couldn't wash off. There were also

[00:06:30] these weird locks on the doors, like a lot of extra locks. But we were poor college students at BYU-Idaho and figured it was a steal for only $525 a month. When we moved in, I started having nightmares and night terrors for the first time in my life, screaming and crying for help at the top of my lungs. We also had trouble sleeping because we'd hear footsteps running up and down the hallway all night.

[00:07:00] It was strange because we were the only ones on the third floor. The pipes made weird noises, like rats or something crawling on them repeatedly, sometimes all night long. In the shared laundry room, I asked a neighbor early on if the noises at night were just the pipes. Yeah, the pipes make weird noises. Okay, good. I was starting to think this place was haunted.

[00:07:26] I laughed nervously. Oh, it is, she casually replied. She explained that the laundry room used to be an embalming room back in the 40s when the building was some kind of asylum. I just want to know what kind of mental hospital has to constantly embalm its patients. She said she saw all kinds of ghosts there. One was a child and the other was

[00:07:52] a man. Apparently, the last tenant in our apartment was a man who was heavily involved in all sorts of dark practices, and he lived there for 30 years before taking his own life. I strongly suspect he was the main force behind the haunting, but I'm sure the trauma of that place runs much deeper than just him. We quickly avoided ever being home alone. When my sister-in-law visited, she said her heart hurt

[00:08:21] whenever she was inside. Whatever happened there left behind some intense energy. I started seeing shadowy figures casually standing around in the backyard, watching our third-story window. Whenever I noticed them, they'd run towards the bushes and disappear. It was so weird. We also started having a lot of issues in our marriage. I believe the presence in the apartment

[00:08:48] hated that we were Christian. I don't know for sure, but when we lived there, I felt like this being played heavily on our fears. Arguments fueled only by anxiety became blown way out of proportion. After we moved, those fears never came up as intensely, even during similar arguments. I also started having health issues while living there. The stress of what we were going through,

[00:09:17] I believe, directly contributed to my lupus flaring up. I had been born with it, passed down from my father, but I hadn't shown symptoms until then. I was eventually diagnosed and treated, but both of us struggled with worsening mental health. Our anxiety created fears from nothing and put a constant strain on our relationship. One night, we moved our bed into the living room

[00:09:44] to start sleeping out there. I remember we covered the room with photos of the temple we got married in, pictures of Jesus and other framed images. When we kneeled down to pray, we heard a feminine voice, clear as day, start to sing. We both froze. Neither of us made the sound. It wasn't evil sounding,

[00:10:08] more sing-songy, but the experience itself was scary as hell. Another night out in the living room, every frame fell off the walls at the same time, glass shattering everywhere. Obviously, someone, or something, didn't want us there. My night terrors happened almost every night.

[00:10:32] One time, I felt like I wasn't just dreaming. I was fully aware, like in the movie Insidious, when the guy is astral projecting inside his home. I saw a dark figure outside our living room window, staring at my wife with a look of pure evil. She was awake and saw him too. I started screaming in my sleep, and she ran into the room, screaming to wake me up.

[00:10:59] I woke up instantly, already screaming, barely able to tell the difference between the night terror and reality. At BYU-Idaho, I saw a giant dark figure reflected in the glass doors behind me as I walked down a hallway. But when I turned around, no one was there. In moments like those, I was worried that

[00:11:22] this thing was following me. But somehow, I still felt protected. I don't know why the veil was so thin there, but maybe there was a being of light protecting me. If evil can randomly pop up in your life, why can't good forces too? We had our home blessed and dedicated pretty soon after moving in, but I don't know if it ever made a difference. The building has since been condemned, last I checked.

[00:11:50] We lasted four months there before I took a job in Virginia. Everything stopped as soon as we left. No lingering, malevolent presence followed us. No weird stuff around the house to speak of.

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[00:13:52] A tall shadow person figure by Zinneman. Back in 2020, I was 13 and on vacation. I was staying at my cousin's house, and their backyard was full of mango trees. Not so far from those mango trees,

[00:14:16] there was a private property, more like a grass field, with a lot of tall bushes and a lake. We were playing at the time, riding bicycles, until we reached the private property. We basically trespassed in it because there were no fences or gates, and that place was perfect for playing. When we got there, I suddenly felt uneasy but just brushed it off and continued playing until I saw this

[00:14:45] tall, black shadow figure. It was standing from afar, under the mango tree. My cousin also saw one, not far from the one that I saw. We weren't scared at that time because we wanted them to play with us. When I was young, my parents always said that I had an imaginary friend and that I could talk to spirits and see them. When we got home, we noticed that it followed us,

[00:15:14] but we didn't think much about it since we thought that they were our friends. Days passed, and we still played with them. We even talked to them, and sometimes they would stand beside our bed and watch us sleep. It was just fine. But one night, when I was taking the trash outside, I saw another figure, and this one scared me. It was so creepy and much taller than the previous one

[00:15:43] that I had seen. So I hurriedly went back inside and told my cousin about it. Little did I know that that night would start to turn my world upside down. I noticed that my cousin was acting differently and started persuading me to come with her and attempt to kill ourselves. And yes, we did attempt it that night. We snuck outside and started tying a rope on the mango tree to hang ourselves.

[00:16:12] However, we didn't succeed because the dog almost bit us, and the dog was acting strangely. We then decided to go to the highway and let a truck hit us, but I hesitated because, well, I was scared. From the other side of the road, I saw the creepy tall figure that had scared me before. But before I could say a word to my cousin, she had already pulled me, which resulted in us getting

[00:16:39] hit by a vehicle. Before losing consciousness, I saw the tall figure that we had considered our friend standing in the distance looking at me. When I regained consciousness, I was already in the hospital and waiting for surgery. I was expecting the tall shadow to show up when I woke up, but strangely it did not appear. Even now at 17, I haven't seen it again. I still wonder,

[00:17:06] why did we do that? And what was the connection with this tall shadow figure that I saw? Three Spooky Stories by May

[00:17:34] I've had a few weird paranormal experiences in my life, but these are the ones that have stuck with me the most. The first happened when I was about 12 or 13. My friends and I were having a typical sleepover, playing Spyro the Dragon, practicing our dance moves for the upcoming middle school dance, and of course, scaring the crap out of each other with ghost stories and games like Bloody Mary.

[00:18:00] At some point, one of my friends mentioned a game she'd heard about where you could supposedly contact spirits by chanting in a circle. I don't remember what it was called, and none of us had ever played it before, so obviously we had to try it. The instructions were simple. One person sits in the middle, while the rest of the group holds hands and chants. This is going to work for the person in

[00:18:25] the middle. We were only supposed to break hands if something weird happened. The first girl went in, and after a few minutes, she started yelling nonsense and shaking her head side to side. We broke hands and she immediately stopped. She was known to be a little dramatic, so I assumed she was just playing around.

[00:18:49] The next girl had a similar reaction, crying, pounding her fists on the ground. So again, we let go, and she snapped right out of it. At this point, I was getting annoyed. I figured they were just messing around, so I said, this is stupid, you guys aren't taking this seriously. I'm going next. I sat down in the middle, closed my eyes, and focused on their voices as they chanted.

[00:19:19] At first, nothing happened. Then, one of my friends said, You guys, I think it's working. Another whispered, Let's ask her name and see if she's still with us. Someone asked me to state my full name, so I did. That's when everything changed. As soon as I spoke, I felt something heavy pressing down on me, like I was being pinned to the floor.

[00:19:50] The room suddenly felt hot. Panic kicked in, and out of nowhere, an image flashed in my mind, so clear it was like I was there. I saw a dead body on a gurney. Before I could even process it, the body burst into flames and started convulsing. The heat was overwhelming, like I could actually feel it.

[00:20:16] And the smell, burning flesh, it was so real I almost gagged. Next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor, drenched in sweat, crying uncontrollably. My friends were all around me, hugging me and asking me what happened. I still don't know. Was it some kind of partial possession? A glimpse of something that had happened before? No idea.

[00:20:43] But we decided we were done with that game and went back to watching scary movies we weren't supposed to be watching. My second story happened in 2020, when my mom and I took a trip to New Orleans to visit my sister and brother-in-law. They had just bought a house, and we were excited to meet my new baby nephew. The first day was great. My mom and I shared the spare bedroom, and after settling in, we went out for lunch,

[00:21:11] walked around, and did a self-guided ghost tour. We checked out some old cemeteries, passed by some famous mansion, and stopped inside a few voodoo and occult shops. You know, all the typical New Orleans stuff. That night, I was holding and feeding my nephew when I noticed something weird. He kept staring at something behind me. He wasn't looking around the room or glancing at different things like babies do.

[00:21:40] He was fixated on something. I've always picked up on strange energies, and I'd felt an off vibe since we first arrived. But being in New Orleans, that's not too unusual. The whole city has a heavy energy to it. At around 3 a.m., I woke up thirsty, checked my phone, and chugged some water. When I rolled over, I noticed my mom was out of bed.

[00:22:08] I figured she had gotten up to use the bathroom or grab water herself. But then I saw her. She was standing next to the bed. The room was dark, but the streetlights glowing through the blinds cast just enough light for me to see her outline. She wasn't moving. She wasn't making a sound. She was just standing there, perfectly still.

[00:22:36] I was about to ask her what she was doing when I glanced down at the bed. My mom was still asleep, right next to me. I felt my whole body go hot. I yanked the covers over my head, squeezed my eyes shut, and just willed myself to go back to sleep. I have no clue who or what I saw, but our bedroom door had been locked from the inside before we went to sleep.

[00:23:05] There was no way someone else could have been in there. When I told my family about it at breakfast, they just laughed and said I was imagining things. But I know what I saw. My last story happened when I was about six or seven. My friend had a sleepover for her birthday, and there were about five of us staying the night.

[00:23:27] We had the best time, eating pizza, making ice cream sundaes, and even taking turns riding around the block on her stepdad's motorcycle. He also had a bunch of vintage pinball machines in his basement, so we spent a lot of time messing around with those too. When it was finally time to actually go to sleep, we all went down to the basement. But not before playing a few rounds of light as a feather, stiff as a board.

[00:23:54] At first, we were just goofing around, lifting each other and laughing. But when it was my turn, I told everyone to actually take it seriously, you know? No fake lifting. Just let it happen on its own. I was lying on the floor for what felt like forever, when I started feeling weird. It was like a static charge was spreading across my skin. And then I felt it.

[00:24:22] This strange, weightless sensation. Like I was actually lifting off the ground. I opened my eyes, and right above me, in the dim light, I saw something. It wasn't a shadow. And it wasn't a trick of the light. It was a shape. A dark, shifting mass hovering right over me. I squinted, trying to make out more detail.

[00:24:49] And the best way I can describe it, it looked like Haunter, the Pokemon. That was it. I screamed. We all ran upstairs, freaking out. My friend's parents were not happy that we were up past our bedtime, waking everyone up. But that moment, it scared the hell out of us. I still think about all these experiences from time to time.

[00:25:16] I don't know if they were paranormal, psychological, or just my imagination playing tricks on me. But whatever they were, I'll never forget them.

[00:25:46] Rural Iowa Encounters by Ugar I had some weird stuff happen last night. I took my two dogs for walks. I normally walk Finn towards the park, where I've had these experiences. And I walk Booger, the other direction, towards downtown. On my walk with Finn, about a block away in the direction I was headed, I saw three or four deer calmly walking toward the park.

[00:26:14] Most nights when something weird happens to me, it starts like this. The deer seemed completely unbothered by me as I approached. They kept walking toward the park but stopped every few steps to look back at me, as if they wanted me to follow them. Then, as Finn and I reached where the deer were, I noticed about ten or more other deer waiting as well. They all started walking together, calmly.

[00:26:44] But still looking back at me every few feet. On my way toward the park, I smelled this stench of rotting meat. I know that smell very well, as I used to be a butcher. It was strong like someone plugged my nostrils with rotting ground meat or something. At the same time, when I smelled this stench, I got the chills. Finn's hair stood up, and he got more nervous. I could feel the air around me getting colder.

[00:27:15] As we continued walking, I looked down the alleyway that cuts the block in half. If you were to walk down the dark alley, you'd come out where I eventually walked back home. I was two blocks away from the park. When you reach the park, you can either turn around and walk down the same road, continue into the park, or continue on the road which turns left. Looking down that alleyway, you're looking at the part of the road that continues left,

[00:27:45] the way I take every night on my way back home. What I saw, I tried to convince myself, wasn't real. Or maybe I just saw something else, and my brain tried to make sense of it. It was a large, muscular, pale, hairless creature, moving very fast. So fast that I could barely see it. I saw the motion down the alley about two blocks away.

[00:28:12] The exit of the alley on that side has a streetlight directly above it. It wasn't standing still. It was moving. And it was moving fast. The only reason I'm positive about what I saw not being a deer or something normal was due to something I saw later that night, during my walk with Booger. That solidified for me that what I saw was something that I wasn't supposed to see.

[00:28:40] In the meantime, I convinced myself that I was making stuff up and just being a baby. As we approached the tree line of the park, a large group of deer moved to the side of the street where the neighborhood is, while I was on the side of the street with the tree line. I noticed something in the clearing. A lone deer. A deer, separate from the large group across the street, staring directly at me. I had my flashlight pointed at him.

[00:29:09] I even hung up on my call with my wife to use my phone to take a video of this moment. This lone deer didn't even have micro-movements of breathing. The other deer across the street, they were constantly readjusting. Now you might be thinking to yourself, Oh yeah, deer do that when bright lights are shining on them. Deer in headlights always act like that. But wait.

[00:29:38] Finn started to pull very hard and acted anxious, nearly knocking me over. I then turned to look across the street towards the large group of deer for almost three seconds before quickly turning back to face the lone deer again. In those three seconds, that lone deer was easily 30 feet closer to me, but still not moving. It was still staring directly at me.

[00:30:08] I have this on video. I have pictures. It felt weird. I felt unsafe. I have lived in rural Iowa my whole life. I am and always have been an outdoors person. This didn't feel normal. I was scared. I backed away while shining my light at the deer. Once I got a block or so away, he finally turned around and calmly walked into the tree line.

[00:30:37] The whole way home, I felt like I was being stalked. Not just watched, but like something was following me. Now, I went home and sat for a bit, trying to talk myself into believing that this was all just a coincidence. After about 20 minutes, I started to walk Booger, my smaller Chihuahua mix. The entire walk was nice, actually very enjoyable.

[00:31:03] I had my earbuds in and I was talking to my wife about what I saw in a joking manner. Man, I was such a baby, I really scared myself for no reason, I said. At the end of the walk, I turned to go down our alley, as I always leave from the garage on our walks. I stopped speaking because of what I saw on the opposite end of the alley. My wife heard me stop. Now, I want to preface this by saying,

[00:31:30] I had not had any substances, including alcohol, for weeks up to that point. The most I ever do is have a few beers, or I'll use some weed to ease the anxiety of life, as it's getting hard. I have no mental conditions that would cause me to hallucinate. The most I have is a personality disorder resulting from trauma, which I've been overcoming quickly this last year.

[00:31:59] I saw two large, muscular, pale, hairless creatures walking like apes at the end of the alley. The same thing I thought that I saw with Finn, this time not going fast and much closer. It felt intentional. I saw them walk across the street very slowly, staring directly at me. These were not deer.

[00:32:27] They didn't have faces like deer. They didn't have fur or tails. And they didn't walk like deer. They weren't slender like deer either. My first thought was, honestly, I was looking at two hairless male lions in the middle of Iowa. I stood there paralyzed with fear, well after they had left my sight. Fifteen seconds later,

[00:32:55] I finally got the courage to walk the few feet into the garage. As I took my first step, I saw a third one slowly meandering across the street, staring at me. Booger noticed him too and started growling. I ran to the door and watched the garage shut all the way. The entire night, Finn guarded the bedroom door. He never does that.

[00:33:23] He sat there staring at the door all night. Booger stared out the windows all night. He never does that either. This happened to me last night, and I don't know what to think.

[00:33:53] 3.13am By Rachel I don't talk about this much, but since listening to your show, I figured maybe someone out there has had something similar happen. This was back in 2016, when I lived in a small rental house in Denton, Texas. It wasn't old or anything, just a little single-story house built in the late 90s. Nothing that screamed haunted.

[00:34:20] I had just started grad school at the University of North Texas and was living alone for the first time. The first few months were normal. I was busy with classes and work, and nothing stood out. But around mid-October, small things started happening. I'd hear faint knocking, like someone tapping on the wall, but always from the opposite side of where I was. I thought maybe it was the pipes or the neighbors, but it never really lined up with anything.

[00:34:50] Then, one night, I woke up at exactly 3.13am, to the sound of someone whispering my name. It was so clear I thought someone had broken in. I searched the entire house, even checked the tiny attic access in the hallway. Nothing. I chalked it up to a dream. But it kept happening. Not every night, but enough to make me uneasy. It was always my name,

[00:35:19] always in a whisper, and always at 3.13am. I started setting alarms for 3.10am, just so I could be awake when it happened, and every night, right on cue, I'd hear it. One night in November, my friend Liz stayed over after a study session. I hadn't told anyone about the weirdness because, honestly, I didn't want to sound crazy. At around 2.30am,

[00:35:49] I woke up to her shaking me. She looked terrified and said, I heard someone whispering your name. We stayed up the rest of the night with every light on. A week later, I noticed my cat started acting strange. She'd stare at the corner of my bedroom, the one by the closet, and hiss. Roni was the most chill cat ever, so this freaked me out. I even moved my bed to the other side of the room,

[00:36:19] but she'd still fixate on that corner. One night, I decided to record while I slept. I used my phone and just let the Voice Memos app run. The next morning, I skimmed through it, not expecting much. But at around 3.13, I heard something. Not a voice, but it was this sharp screeching noise, kind of like broken machinery.

[00:36:48] I felt sick. Even though I didn't hear a voice, I knew it couldn't have been just nothing. I didn't know what to do. I considered moving, but breaking my lease was too expensive. The final straw came in late December. I was folding laundry when I heard a loud thud from my bedroom. I rushed in to find all my books from the shelf scattered across the floor.

[00:37:17] I moved out in January, stayed with a different friend for a bit, and never looked back. I don't know what it was or why it targeted me, but to this day, I can't sleep without white noise to drown out any whispers that might still be out there.

[00:37:54] I was thinking about the creepy deer story. The craziest part is that it happened in Roll, Iowa, which isn't exactly known for its monster sightings, at least as far as I know, right? Yeah, and that makes this even more interesting because historically, the Midwest, it has a lot of unexplored folklore. Stuff that is, you know, from before a lot of modern cryptid descriptions. A lot of people think of, like, Bigfoot or the Mothman

[00:38:24] when it comes to cryptids, but this thing sounds like a category of creature that kind of fits into a lesser-known phenomenon. Things like the crawlers or the pale ones. And, you know, I was looking into some reports of these things in isolated regions before, but they don't get as much attention as, you know, Bigfoot because I guess they're just harder to explain. Oh, yeah, I've heard them called pale crawlers. There's this really unconvincing picture

[00:38:53] that I'm sure everybody has seen. Yeah. Some creepy white figure in the dark with these glowing eyes crouched down all low. Yeah. Glaring into, like, what looks like a hunter camera or something like that. Mm-hmm. Obviously a fake picture, but it's still a cool depiction, I think. Doesn't mean that they can't exist. Yeah, yeah. I know exactly what picture you're talking about. Mm-hmm. It's probably the first thing that pops up if you search for these kinds of things. Oh, I'm sure. It's a classic. Yeah. Yeah, they've been reported all over the states. They're usually in deep woods

[00:39:23] or near abandoned places. And, you know, get this. They're described as tall, hairless, unnaturally fast, and seem to have some kind of human-like awareness. Yeah, I mean, that's this guy's sighting to a T. I know, I know, totally. And, you know, sightings became pretty popular in the early 2000s because of the internet, like most cryptids, but crawlers have been spotted and documented for centuries. Oh, thank God for the internet in the early 2000s, right?

[00:39:53] Oh, yeah. Yeah, it both enlightened and tainted my worldview. Yeah, I never knew cheerleaders could get in so much trouble. Have you heard of the pale folk variety from Native American lore? No, not in any great detail. Yeah, there's like a lot of tribal stories that describe almost the exact same thing. So, yeah, it's basically like Bigfoot, Yowie, Sasquatch, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, it could be. Different names,

[00:40:23] same cryptids, or at the very least, same species, different breed. Yeah. You've got the Moon-eyed people who are these pale, big-eyed cave dwellers in Appalachia. That's a Cherokee thing, I think. Yeah. There's also these things called stick Indians that apparently hang out in forests and they try to lure people in by whistling. I gotta ask, this stick Indian thing, is that the proper term? I think so. I hope so. Not sure who coined that one,

[00:40:53] but until indigenous stick person catches on, that's all I've got. Yeah, yeah. I only ask because I've actually read a story about stick Indians. Either it was on the show or something that got sent in that we haven't put on the show yet, but it's definitely under my radar. Pukwajis are my personal favorite, if you can even call it that, a favorite, but they're the little pale tricksters that cause all sorts of chaos out in the woods. I kind of picture them

[00:41:23] as these like humanoid poltergeists of some sort, but that's obviously an oversimplification, so don't crucify me. Okay, we'll try to avoid that. Thanks. So, there's definitely a lot of eerie similarities, probably different breeds, like you were saying. You know, for that Iowa story, though, I'm just wondering what they wanted with him and, you know, why he wasn't attacked or anything. Yeah, they were observing him

[00:41:52] for sure. Yeah, and that kind of plays into another common theme in cryptid lore, at least on our show, that certain entities don't immediately attack. They just like watch you or test you and sometimes trick you, you know, things like that. Similar to Skinwalker encounters and alien abduction reports, even Shadow People stories. Yeah, it's that whole idea that something can deliberately choose who to reveal itself to. It's just still so

[00:42:22] unexplainable and weird to me. Like, why only some of us? Honestly, if I were him, I'd probably start checking like local missing persons reports because if these things are real and they've been around for a while, what do you think the odds are that he's the first person they fixated on? Yeah, what are the odds? I don't know. Very true. I had to. So canned, I love it. But yeah, no, for real, if anybody knows anything more about these things, let us know.

[00:42:52] We definitely want to feature more stories on the show if they're out there. Yeah, definitely. I also like the story about the haunted apartment in Idaho. Oh yeah, from Sam. I actually sourced that one out in the wild. Nice meeting you, dude. Yeah, nice, nice. This isn't the first time you've gotten a story like that though. Do you really just roam around soliciting stories in the public? Yes and no. I don't like advertise the show to strangers unprompted hoping to get

[00:43:21] cool points. Okay, that's what I was thinking. If I overhear a conversation about paranormal stuff, then yeah, I'll swoop in there and ask if anybody has personal stories that they wouldn't mind sharing with my hat in hand, humbly begging. Oh yeah, like that gothic princess bartender at Red Robin when we went to our hometown. Oh, that was so funny. Yeah, she didn't have any stories, but she wanted to create memories. Yeah, that's great. JK. Anyway. I like that though, even with, you know,

[00:43:51] stories that other people might consider underwhelming, the personal touch is nice. Yeah, just having a face-to-face conversation makes it a lot more engaging and interesting to me. Yeah, it feels more authentic. For sure, exactly. I was actually sitting by a fire pit out in the salt flats at this Burning Man type of thing with like 300 people. That doesn't matter, that doesn't matter. I was just spacing out and looking at the fire and I heard somebody say the word haunted and of course my ears

[00:44:20] perked right up. So yeah, I basically just started eavesdropping then asked him if I could share a story on the show and he was obviously nice enough to say yes, but not only that, he took the time to write it up and send it in. So thank you for that, Sam. Yeah, that's really cool. Those are the best kinds of stories. Oh, it just dawned on me, that bartender, the way the conversation started was just like that. She started, we told her that we were going to the Silver Dollar Saloon and she was telling us stories about how it was haunted and all this stuff and then you were like,

[00:44:50] oh, well, we have a paranormal podcast. Oh yeah, usually we're a lot more discreet about that. Yeah. As you know, especially you got like four more years on me after a while, it's just like a thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, the worst is like all the Uber and Lyft trips during my live shows when people are asking me like, hey, what are you doing in town? Oh, I'm just for work. What do you do for work? I can't think of anything fast enough to lie. So you don't want to lie either. Yeah, I don't want to lie. So I just say podcast and then it's like a whole thing and it's like, dude, I selected

[00:45:20] quiet. I selected quiet. I don't want to do this. Yeah, I'm not even all that passionate about my day job. So I just podcasting is basically my default and I don't want to lie and to say, oh, I'm just an audio engineer. So it's just it comes out more than I'd like, but it's OK. People are usually pretty cool about it. Yeah, definitely. But when you get stories, though, that's great. I remember one time I was in a Lyft and the driver asked me about podcast stuff. I told him what I did and he told me a bunch of like crazy nightmare Lyft stories that he's going to send

[00:45:50] me to be on the show. And I was like, oh, that's great. That's perfect. Yeah. And those are the best kinds of stories. I like how you were actually gathered around the campfire, though, with yours. It's a very are you afraid of the dark thing? Yeah, yeah. It could have been more perfect. The whole story was giving me chills when he was telling it. I don't know how he did it. Moving into a place with scratches all over the floor, that'd be kind of weird, but maybe you could write that off. Maybe somebody was pushing a heavy piano around. I don't know. But the weird locks on the

[00:46:19] doors and the handprint that you can't wash off, that's a hard no for me. Yeah, yeah, the handprint reminded me of the handprint on the second story window of my parents' house. Oh, yeah, that one was like formed out of ash or something, right? Yeah, yeah. Hey, there you go. You're not alone. Yeah, it's kind of relief, I guess. Yeah, it's crazy that there was like an embalming room in the asylum. Yeah, that's like the moment you start

[00:46:49] looking for new apartments immediately. Yeah, 500 bucks though, that's hard to beat. Yeah, very true, very true. I want to say the first place I rented on my own without any roommates was around 500 bucks and it was single room studio apartment, you know, no room whatsoever. I'd be about $3,000 richer a month if I could move into something like that. It was amazing. I loved it there. It was great. The only reason I left is because, you know,

[00:47:19] getting married, had to get a new bigger place for two people and, uh, yeah, I don't know where we're going with this. Yeah, no more gentrification for you, buddy. Yeah, okay. Um, back to the story topic. Yes. So the fact that they stuck it out for like four months with all of that going on, night terrors, those creepy figures out in the backyard, and then all of the frames falling off of the walls at once, I'd be gone so fast. Yeah, hearing that

[00:47:49] singing voice was pretty creepy too, I think. Especially at night, right when they started to pray. I'm just saying, I don't think that's in the Book of Mormon. Yeah. Is he Mormon? Uh, used to be. He did the whole BYU thing and turned in his dues card when he was done, I guess. Oh, okay, yeah, I didn't think Mormons would be the type to go to Burning Man. Yeah, if only. Yeah, yeah. It's wild how places with that kind of energy can really affect you. Burning Man or the haunted house, but I guess

[00:48:19] the haunted house, uh, I don't know, so much dark history with the building, the guy who lived there for 30 years and died tragically, or something older, I don't know, maybe it was tied to the asylum days? Whatever it was, it definitely didn't want him there. Yeah, no. I like that thought at the end, if evil can just show up in your life, maybe good can too. Hey, exactly, a little bit of optimism goes a long way. But hey, at least they both got out, even if they might

[00:48:49] not ever get the answers that they're hoping for. He gave me the address though, actually, and the location is completely blurred out on Google Street View. You know how you can do that for like privacy? Somebody blurred that building out. Wow, wow, maybe, maybe like somebody else had a bad experience and tried to erase it as much as they could. That's what I'm thinking. Wow, cool stuff. I'm glad that you eavesdropped. Thanks for writing that up, Sam. Yeah, good times. Appreciate it, dude.

[00:49:19] Yeah, well, everybody else, keep sending in your stories. You can send them to stories at oddtrails.com to hear them on the show. And sign up for our Patreon for ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate at patreon.com forward slash oddtrails. And make sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Let's Not Meet and the Old Time Radio Cast at crypticcountypodcasts.com. Everybody stay safe. Peace out.

[00:50:00] Don't let the ghosts and the ghouls disturb you, guys.