Episode 170: Synthetic Ghost Grandpa

[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] Something in the Woods Tonight by Jive of Turkey I figured I'd post this here to get some thoughts, after I've terrified my wife. I want to preface this by saying that I have hunted and hiked in this region since I was nine years old. I'm very familiar with wildlife and sounds of the forest. I'm not really a believer in any of this sort of thing,

[00:01:24] but I don't really have an explanation for what happened tonight. I hiked about a mile and a half through the forest and swamp, hunting deer today, and I got to the pocket of the woods and field that I wanted to be in. I climbed a tree to hunt out of. By all accounts, this was an uneventful afternoon and evening until sundown. For about 30 straight minutes, I listened to a rabbit being tortured,

[00:01:53] and it just wouldn't die. If you've ever heard a dog or hawk hunting rabbits, you know what I'm talking about. When they're in distress, they scream bloody murder, and this just seemed to continue forever. Naturally, this can put you on edge, but I figured a hawk got it and it wasn't killing it. But then I heard the sound of a twig snapping. Then silence. The rabbit stopped.

[00:02:23] Through the thicket, I could make out a figure, vaguely deer-shaped, moving through the woods about 35 yards away. So I grabbed my bow, but the undergrowth was far too thick for me to pick out much more than a rough outline. I walked behind a tree and disappeared. The sun is now fully set, and I'm in the last 15 minutes of post-sundown light. I then hear a flat,

[00:02:53] emotionless child's voice coming from where that quote-unquote deer appeared. It repeated the word help three times. There was no fluctuation or distress in the voice. It didn't sound like it was asking for help. It sounded like a statement. Help three times in a row. It said it probably 15 times after that. And then the woods went silent.

[00:03:20] There wasn't even a breeze to make a sound. A bit later, there was the cracking of a limb, a tree snapping, and all hell broke loose in the woods. Squirrels, birds, and deer suddenly shot out of the forest like bats out of hell, sounding like an absolute stampede. Then, silence again. To make things worse,

[00:03:47] I lost my light that clipped on my hat on my walk in and had to haul ass a mile and a half through the woods back to my truck in total darkness. My path was only lit by the night's full moon. Well, I went back to the woods this morning. See, last night after getting back to my truck, I called a few friends to let them know what happened and then had a relatively sleepless night. This morning, I couldn't stop thinking about it,

[00:04:16] so I decided I had to return. I grabbed my hunting dog, called up a buddy to come with me, and set out back to those woods. First, I drove around the property. Nobody was parked at any trailhead, so there shouldn't be anyone else around. We took a long way around, heading north to get to the woods a few miles from the parking area, stopping to talk, look for animal signs, and listen as we went.

[00:04:46] We approached the woods from the south, keeping on the outside of it in a tall, grassy, wet field. As we approached within 200 or so yards of where I heard that thing last night, we stopped to talk for a moment and plan how to best go about entering the woods. This isn't some manicured forest that's easy to walk through. The undergrowth is dense and filled with thorny shrubs and buckhorn.

[00:05:14] Whereas yesterday, and in weeks past, this area was teeming with life. Deer, pheasants, hundreds of turkeys, crows, squirrels, and rabbits. Today, the woods and field were completely silent. As we discussed this, I realized that my dog was nowhere to be seen or heard. She normally wears a bell or a metal piece on her collar

[00:05:42] that is sufficient for me to hear where she is. It was silent. She also wears an e-caller that I can press a button on. It will make a beeping noise that I can hear. I pressed the button and there was nothing but silence. I yelled for her. Again, silence. Then, coming from the forest ahead of me, I heard the yelping of my dog, loud and clear, unmistakably my dog.

[00:06:11] I looked at my friend and took off towards the woods, calling and beeping the caller. Silence. Silence. I looked at my buddy and he asked, what are you doing? As if he hadn't heard it. We stopped and waited for a moment on the edge of the woods. I called one more time and finally heard the jingle of her collar coming up to me, completely unharmed. She came from the opposite direction of where I heard her crying. Now,

[00:06:41] confused, we distanced ourselves from the woods again and continued north along the edge. Again, we neither heard nor saw any wildlife. We found a few spots where things had recently been killed, staining the ground with rotted blood, but no signs of anything living. Eventually, we turned back and as we crossed the same spot where I thought I heard my dog, my friend stopped.

[00:07:11] He looked at me in a panic and said, shit, your dog, and then took off running towards the woods. I called after him asking him what he was doing and he said he heard her clearly crying in pain in the woods. He was just as confused when I said I heard nothing. It was the same as when we first walked by and I was the one who heard it. I could see my dog in the opposite direction sniffing around

[00:07:40] totally unharmed. I called to my friend that the dog was fine and over by me, so we rushed out. For those of you that might be asking what else it may be, I've heard my dog yelping before and that was the sound of my dog. It doesn't sound anything like coyotes or wolves. I can say this, I will not be returning to that area again.

[00:08:28] Weird sound and lights in my room by Two Claw What happened was so weird. To start off, I had been up all night the previous night watching a show just in case lack of sleep played a role. I doubt it did since I felt fine and had done all-nighters before without any issue. I had also taken a couple of naps throughout the day and I was asleep when it started.

[00:08:57] Now to give the play-by-play. I was home alone. I had gone to bed early to help offset the all-nighter. I was under about five layers of blankets, including a weighted blanket and I had a standing fan on. I basically hunkered down like a turtle to sleep. I had just finished watching some YouTube videos, plugged my phone in to charge, put my glasses next to my phone, then turned off my lamp

[00:09:26] and rolled over to go to sleep. I had rolled over to face a wall as my bed is in a corner of my room. I was asleep for about half an hour before it started. I was awoken by some weird sound. I don't really know how to describe it. It was kind of a whispery sound, but it was like a whispering, popping sound, or maybe some sort of cracking sound. I'm awake now, but still a bit

[00:09:56] groggy from being asleep. I'm basically just staring at a wall for a few seconds, thinking, what is that sound? Once my brain turned on, I pushed off my blankets and pillows, sat up and turned to get out of bed, looking for whatever was causing the sound. I see this swirling, pale, bluish, green light floating in my room, like two feet in front of my face.

[00:10:25] It wasn't very bright, like a cheap glow stick that's been glowing for a while. I just stared at it for a second, confused as hell. Then I reached out my hand to see if I could touch it. I didn't feel anything, and it didn't react at all. After that, I reached for my glasses so I could get a better look. But as soon as I pulled my hand away, the sound stopped, the light vanished,

[00:10:54] and my standing fan turned off for some reason. My first thought was that it was just a dream, but I was sitting upright, which would have required me to unturtle myself in my sleep to sit up. I've never done anything like that before, so this would be a first. There weren't any other electronics in my room, and none of them produced that color of light, nor in that sort of pattern, and especially not floating

[00:11:23] like it was. Now, as for the fan turning off, it does have a timer function, but I never use it because the timer light is so bright, it feels like a flashlight when the room is dark. I would have noticed it being on. I'm half sharing this to sort out my thoughts on this weirdness, and have to see what other people think.

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[00:13:44] My childhood attachment by B. At the time I attended a small Christian school with fewer than 100 students across 10-year levels. For our annual school camp went to a sport and recreation center for 2 nights. I was excited but nervous. This was 4 hours from home. I had never really been away from my mom without an older relative before. Thankfully, my sister,

[00:14:13] just a year older than me, was also attending. When we arrived and unpacked, I felt an unfamiliar sensation in my chest. After lunch, we socialized with students from other schools. That evening after dinner and night games, we returned to our cabins which were more secluded than the other students' accommodations. All the girls in my cabin talked about how the place felt eerie. When the lights went out,

[00:14:43] I saw a tall shadow in the doorway. Terrified, I moved to another girl's bed in the next section. I eventually fell asleep until I woke up to a woman's voice calling out for Max and Luke, reassuring them it was safe to come home. Well, I barely slept after that. The next night, we left our cabin tidy before heading to the gym for night games.

[00:15:13] When we returned, everything was trashed. Items were thrown around, the lights were on, nothing was as we left it. Suddenly, screams rang out. Demon! It's a demon! This was followed by crying. Teachers rushed in to console us, and nobody slept that night. On the bus ride home, I was filled with fear and curiosity.

[00:15:42] What had we encountered? Even weeks later, I felt uneasy. Then, small things started happening at home. A door rattling with no draft, footsteps when no one was awake. Soon, it escalated. My family, believers and skeptics alike, witnessed unexplainable events. We heard children running up and down the stairs, and twice, a clock jumped off of the wall

[00:16:12] and at my mother. my guitar strummed itself. But the worst part, whatever it was, it was focused on me. My bedroom was downstairs near the front door. I heard tapping on my windows, scratching on my walls, footsteps on the gravel outside. outside. This is where nobody could have been. Banging on the front door would wake me up in the middle of the night, but the sleep paralysis was the worst.

[00:16:42] I woke up between 3 and 4 a.m. every night, unable to move, often feeling a presence sitting on my bed. One morning, I found my door unlocked and wide open, though I hadn't touched it. At 11, we moved. Everything seemed fine at first, but in our new home, strange things continued. My sister's bathroom was connected to my room. I would see one of them enter, but never leave.

[00:17:11] I heard the shower run, but nobody was there. When I asked, they said they hadn't even been in the room. After moving again, it finally stopped. Years later, curiosity led me to research that sports and recreation center. what I found was shocking. It had once been a home for misbehaved boys. They were beaten, some possibly to death, and my cabin had been the punishment room.

[00:17:41] Others who visited reported similar terrifying events. I wonder why I formed an attachment and what it wanted from me, but it explains my lifelong fascination with the paranormal.

[00:18:11] Haunted New Build Home by Freedom Griffin I purchased a new build home about 9-10 months ago with my wife and two kids. Things were great, as it was our first family home and nothing really happened. Or the first six months at least, until my wife and I were in the kitchen tidying late at night, when I suddenly heard a low whisper right in my ear, which I assumed was my wife asking me something.

[00:18:41] But when I asked what she said, she just looked at me confused. So I clarified, I heard her whisper in my ear, which she immediately asked, was it almost a low growl? So low you couldn't hear the words being said? That was spot on. We just kinda ignored it for the rest of the night, and nothing else really happened. Fast forward a month, my eldest son,

[00:19:11] who was five years old, starts telling us how a tall, shadow, evil man often stands in his room and watches him. He still talks about this, which makes my ears prick up, as I'm all about the paranormal, while my wife just tries to pass it off as nothing. She doesn't like that stuff being around her boys, so I start making symbols of power and protection to put around the house, I hung up

[00:19:40] some dream catchers and put lots of crystals around the house, which seems to make my son less scared for the moment. In April, my father passed away, which was devastating. He wasn't very old, but he had been in poor health for a long time. A couple weeks after his passing, I'm laying in bed with my wife, when we suddenly noticed a light come on in our boys' room at 10.22pm.

[00:20:09] I go in and find their projector light has turned on. It's one of those space ones with the green lasers, so it makes this low, whirring noise. I looked around to find the remote for it, thinking one of the boys had turned it on, but I couldn't find it at all, so I just turned it off with the switch and headed back to bed. A couple of nights later, it happened again. The switch was turned back on,

[00:20:39] but this time I was camping in the boys' room. We were having a movie night and I was the only one awake. I saw it turn on at 10.58pm, no remote in sight. This time, I scanned the room for anything, but saw nothing, not even a feeling of what it could be, so I quietly call out to my dad to see if it's him visiting and checking on the boys, but nothing. Then, three nights later,

[00:21:09] at 10.22pm, again, it turns on. This time, I stand in the room with my boys, fast asleep, and ask again if my dad is there. I wasn't getting a bad vibe, but my wife was getting very concerned by now. Still, there wasn't anything, so I just unplugged the projector and decided that I was done with it. All of this was caught in our baby camera as well.

[00:21:40] There have been so many weird feelings and noises in this house, which I think may have to do with our next-door neighbor passing away shortly after we moved in.

[00:22:10] It looked like my mother by Necessary Orange 334. I grew up with a narcissistic mother. I felt neglected, especially during my preteens. I was micromanaged and my father was emotionally absent. As a 27-year-old woman now, I understand my mom because I know how evil and abusive my dad was to her. It was a summer vacation in the mid-2000s.

[00:22:41] I was woken up groggy by my four-year-old brother one afternoon from the longest nap ever. You know, the kind of nap that makes you forget what time and here it is? I was frustrated, but I knew it was time for him to get his milk. My mom had gone to see my grandmother who had just had surgery. My mom usually kept his food prepped. I just had to warm it up and give it to him. After lying in bed for a few more minutes, I headed to the kitchen.

[00:23:10] There she was prepping his food. At first, I felt bad knowing it was supposed to be done by me and that she had come back earlier leaving grandma. But something wasn't right. I noticed that whatever baby formula there was, she was putting everything into one meal. And she was so fast like she was in a hurry. But also, I remembered that the food had already been prepared by her before she left. my brain was still

[00:23:40] restarting from that coma nap, so I was really confused. I called to her. When did you come back? And why didn't you wake me up? She faced me, and her face was so angry. Now, I was used to her anger issues, but this face that was looking at me, it was like it was looking at me for the first time. What was she so angry about? I couldn't exactly pinpoint it, but the shape of her face was unusual. Maybe

[00:24:10] the nose or the jaw or the eye placement, but something was either too big or too small. Let me help you, I said. She didn't respond and instead started stirring the feeder bottle so hard that the milk was splashing everywhere while her body remained still, staring at me without blinking. I looked at her face and saw that it was becoming even more unfamiliar, especially the eye placement.

[00:24:40] After that, all I remember was my heart pounding so hard that I could almost hear it. I just grabbed my brother from the living room and ran. We had a huge front yard where another part of the house was rented by a family. I asked the lady there if we could stay until our mom came back. She was more than happy to let us in. I called my mom from their landline and asked when she was coming back. She came back after two hours and I was in trouble because the kitchen

[00:25:10] was a complete mess. To this day, I don't know if I was just groggy or if I was too traumatized by my mother to realize that my mind was making up scenarios. Maybe it was me who messed up the kitchen. Maybe I was trying to cope so that I wouldn't feel guilty because I was always made to feel guilty at the slightest inconvenience that occurred in our house. A

[00:25:52] bunch of stories by Kayla. This is a collection of odd occurrences throughout my life, from elementary school to my teenage years and into my career as a nurse in my thirties. These events all took place

[00:26:23] at my elementary school we had about five fifth grade classrooms grouped in a circular pod. After lunch we would return to our desks and wait to be dismissed for recess. Some students stayed inside for unfinished homework or bad behavior. One day I stopped at the bathroom on my way back from lunch. When I returned to class only half the seats were filled and none of the kids were my classmates. Looking around I was

[00:26:53] sure this was my class. Assuming my classmates had already gone outside I grabbed my coat and headed to the playground. Minutes later my teacher yelled my name from the classroom window calling me back inside. When I returned she was furious. Why did you just walk out? Class wasn't dismissed yet. I tried to explain what I saw but she insisted the entire class had been seated the whole time.

[00:27:23] I know what I saw that day a half full classroom of strangers. Did I slip into another version of reality? I'll never know. Story two I grew up in a trailer park near a dense tree line that wrapped around our neighborhood. We spent a lot of time in those woods but no matter who I was with, I always felt like we were being watched. I

[00:28:00] just watched as it glided out of sight. For years I had recurring dreams of aliens landing in the nearby field. Sometimes we ran sometimes we hid. Other times it wasn't aliens. It was the chupacabra emerging from the woods. After we moved, those dreams stopped. But I still occasionally dream about that field.

[00:28:30] Except now in my dreams, it's a gateway to hell. Other strange things happened in that house too. One night while watching TV, my grandmother and I saw the kitchen light turn on by itself. No one was in there and the switch was the flat press type, not a flippable one. My grandmother had recently prayed for a sign that her parents were together in heaven. She took this as her answer.

[00:28:59] Another night, she was it something more sinister? Just before I turned 18, I was up late in my room when I heard a long, deliberate scratch on my window screen. I froze. Sometimes my boyfriend would tap on my window, but this was

[00:29:29] different. I sat there, barely breathing, before finally peeking through the morning, I checked outside. No footprints, no marks on the screen, but I avoided looking out that window for a long time afterward. Story 3 In 2016, I was living in a small apartment with my then girlfriend and my two-year-old son.

[00:30:00] One day, the apartment suddenly felt off. Cold spots would appear in random places, and from the living room, you could see part of our bedroom, where it always felt like someone was watching. At night, we'd hear things fall in the kitchen, but when we checked, nothing was out of place. One afternoon, my son ran into his room with toys, but came back out moments later,

[00:30:29] screaming in fear. Another time, while playing on the bed, he leaned over the side and out doo-doo, like he was talking to something unseen. He did it again on the other side. My girlfriend started turning off the baby monitor at night because she heard chanting through it. Eventually, her mom brought us a sage kit. She took my son outside while we cleansed the

[00:30:59] apartment. After that, everything stopped. The cold was a nursing home. Story four. That nursing home became the setting for one of my most unsettling experiences. One night, a resident named Lucy, who was legally blind but

[00:31:29] mostly independent, kept hitting her call light. She insisted that there were strangers in her room, people in old timey clothes who wouldn't move out of her way. Each time I checked, there was no one there, but Lucy grew more frustrated. At one point, she told me a man had come in and laid in bed with her. Near the end of my shift, she rang again and apologized. She said a man in a

[00:31:59] long black and told her he needed to talk to her. Later, I found out a resident on the next unit had passed away that night. I'm convinced Lucy saw the grim reaper. Another evening while serving dinner, a resident named Mary grew agitated, insisting a large black bird was coming. She kept repeating, Whipper will, whipper will,

[00:32:28] five minutes, five minutes. I later looked it up. She likely meant a whip poor will. According to New England folklore, these birds can sense when a soul is departing and capture it as soon as it leaves the body. Even now that gives me chills. And then there was my own sighting. I was standing at my med cart when I saw long skinny legs and black slacks take

[00:32:58] two strides across the hallway and into the room of a resident who was actively dying. No one else was around. It wasn't one of my CNAs. They were in the room in front of me. That resident didn't pass that night, but every time I entered their room after that, I kept my eyes low. I didn't want to see anything else. Story 5 Now to the present day. I'm 33.

[00:33:29] My grandfather passed away last February, and we spent several days clearing out his apartment. For my own peace of mind, I wanted to get it all done at once. Though I'm not religious, I followed my grandmother's example and asked the universe for a sign that my grandparents had reunited in the afterlife. A week or so later, my husband and I were in a fast food drive-thru. I reached into the

[00:33:59] side pocket of my car door and pulled out four small squares. They were the floor protectors under my grandfather's old kitchen table. I asked my husband if he had put them there during the move. He had no idea what they even were. The last time I had seen them was under that table, which we hadn't moved to his apartment. So how did they end up in my car? I took it as my sign. My grandparents had found each

[00:34:29] other again. So what do you think was actually going on with that classroom situation? You

[00:35:02] entitled submission as a bunch of stories. Well, I mean, you're technically not wrong. Yeah. Yeah. And the best kind of not being wrong. Yeah. There were some neat parts, you know, in those stories. If I ever walk into a room and then suddenly half of the people are strangers, I'm turning right back around and pretending that I didn't see anything. Yeah. At that age, I think I would have just assumed I walked into the wrong classroom and quietly backed out. Yeah. But in the fifth grade, it doesn't seem likely. know what's going on

[00:35:32] when you're that age. I knew Columbine was a big deal when that happened. Yeah. That sucked. Yeah. But yeah, Kayla was so sure. That was so unrelated. I know. I watched a documentary lately. Oh, okay, that makes sense. And nobody talks about where you were on Columbine. It's always the other one. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. She was like so sure that she was in her classroom. So, I mean, to the point of grabbing her own coat. Yeah, I was going to say, grabbing her own coat from

[00:36:01] what she knew to be her own classroom, you know, it grounds things. Yeah. Like, unless she did somehow mix up the rooms and stole somebody else's identical coat in the process. Not that there's anything wrong with it. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Yeah, it's like the dry cleaner. You lose some, you win some, or whatever the analogy is. Yeah, I appreciate the double whammy Seinfeld and curb reference, though. Oh, okay, good, good. Yeah. So, I still think she

[00:36:31] walked into the right classroom. I don't know, that's just my gut biome talking to me. The fact that her teacher insisted everyone had been there the whole time, that's what gets me. Yeah, exactly. It's one thing if you, you know, misremember or get turned around. Mm-hmm. But when reality gaslights you like that, what are you even supposed to do? Right, right. And why did she wait until they were outside to say something? Like if the teacher saw her actually get up and walk out,

[00:37:01] why not stop her right then? Kayla, come here now. Something like that, you know, the teacher voice. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Feels like maybe she didn't actually see her leave. Hmm. Like, in just a second, she wasn't even there. Just blinked out of sync with reality or something. That's what makes it such a good glitch in the matrix type of story. It's not some big dramatic event, just something subtle and weird enough that, I don't know, it just shouldn't have happened.

[00:37:32] Yeah, which honestly makes it creepier in some cases. It's just like easier to brush off a big obvious paranormal event. Ironically enough, yeah. Yeah, but little ones, the ones that just sort of leave you unsettled, they tend to stick with you the most. Oh, man. Okay, so this is perfect. It's so, uh, almost a little bit too convenient, a little too rough, but this is 100% true, and I didn't want to mention it to you until we're on the show, but, whoo,

[00:38:01] okay, so a few nights ago, I was in la-la land, deep REM, REM sleep, whatever you want to call it, and I got woken up to the sound, we all remember the three loud bangs, to the sound of a screaming baby baby, of which does not exist in my home. Wow. Yes. Wailing baby. It lasted maybe about five seconds, enough for me to wake up and still hear it and realize I wasn't dreaming, and I have this, like,

[00:38:31] like some vintage 80s, I don't remember what it was, I think I, you know, like those alarm clocks from the 80s with the fake brown paneling, the wood panel on top, and the right, yeah, I just wanted one of those for, like, the aesthetic purposes, so I had it plugged in just to mess around, but I never really set the time for it, I just got it nailed that day, and I looked at the clock, and it was like 6.30, and I knew, okay, it's definitely not 6.30 in the morning right now, so I just took a mental note to do the math later, because I knew what was going on as far as something creepy is going

[00:39:00] on, let me just do the math when I wake up, and my phone was plugged in on the other side of the room, so whatever, and you can kind of probably guess where this is going. Yeah. After I actually woke up, I did the math, that happened at 3 a.m. I was going to say, 3 a.m., huh? Yep. It's, and at this point, all you can do is laugh. That's all I'm doing, and it is what it is. I just kind of chuckle and go about my life, but yeah, that's what happened. That's wild. Yeah. Yeah, I've been having a lot of very vivid dreams

[00:39:29] lately, but never anything that I actually woke up and heard, at least not in a very long time. That's pretty wild, especially at 3 a.m. Yeah, part of me is really curious to like, actually no, I'm not going to even manifest that, so never mind. Okay. So yeah, anyway, I guess whether it's a weird classroom timeline glitch or apparently a crying baby at 3 in the morning, it's never fun to question your own memory or sanity even.

[00:39:59] Like, just to ask yourself if you really heard or saw something, you know what I mean? Or is it just your brain messing with you? It's so unnerving. Yeah, that pretty much sums up every paranormal story ever, including mine on this week's episode. Yeah, fair, fair. Yeah. But let's talk about the woods. This is my favorite topic. Oh yeah, yeah. If you got recurring dreams about aliens landing in your backyard and you see an actual UFO, I'm going to assume those things are connected,

[00:40:28] though admittedly off the top of my head, I don't remember which happened first. I'd say that's kind of important. Right, right. But at the very least, cool dreams, I guess, aside from being a little unnerving. Yeah, you could at least say that. Since the dreams just stopped after she moved, I wonder, was she just having dreams or was it the place? Exactly. The question that never gets tiring, the person or the place or sometimes thing. Yeah. Either way, moving

[00:40:58] away broke whatever connection there obviously was, I would say. What gets me is how the dreams changed after moving. Like, okay, the alien dream stopped, but now we're on to like full-on gateway to hell nightmares. Right. Congrats on avoiding UFO airspace, but now you get to apparently live near the gates of hell. Yeah, yeah, the woods have to have some sort of baggage. Yeah. You know, a family cemetery, random unmarked

[00:41:28] graves. None of that screams pleasant. Yeah, there's definitely some weight to that. Some places just feel different. Why am I? I'm like cluttering really bad. I don't know what's going on. I have those days too. It's just like a genuine, like my tongue. Like, yeah, I can't say my eyes. That was a real thing for me up until I was like six. But anyway, people ask about outtakes sometimes. So, hey, there you go. I won't edit this one out. I think what I was trying to get at is

[00:41:58] that some places just feel different, even if you don't have a tangible reason to think so. It's just some intuitive gut punch that happens out of nowhere, I guess. Yeah, well, there's always the kitchen light turning on by itself. Yeah, I actually kind of like that one because it's so simple and kind of comforting, harmless. Yeah, yeah, I'd like to think that either my dead relative is saying hi or my wiring is cursed. Yeah, yeah. If I were the grandma in that situation, I'd just accept it as my

[00:42:28] sign and not think too hard about it. Right, right. Like if my ghost grandpa wants to turn on a light to let me know that he made it to the afterlife, that's fine. But if he starts moving furniture, we're going to have a problem. Ghost grandpa needs to become a band. Yeah, it's good. We always have these amazing spontaneous band names and it never comes to fruition. Even if we just do some like synthetic some synthy drone and

[00:42:57] just loop it and put on some filters. I like synthetic. That's good. Yeah, synthetic grandpa goes. Oh, man. I like that one. I would say like your ghost grandpa would probably judge you for shopping at Ikea, you know, instead of building it from a tree that you chopped down yourself like he did back in the day. Oh, yeah. I'm sure he'd knock on the particle board to confirm his suspicions. Three times. Yeah, always. Mm hmm. A polite light flicker is at least manageable.

[00:43:27] Full on poltergeist activity, though. No, I think I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of ghosts that are not so polite, I want to talk about the apartment situation. Okay. Yeah. That one gave me some serious something followed me home vibes. Mm hmm. You move into a place and suddenly there are cold spots, objects shifting, weird noises, injured toddlers acting like he sees something that you don't. That's never good. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like that the baby monitor picked up chanting.

[00:43:57] Yeah. The chanting is never a good sign. You can hear footsteps in the kitchen. That's fine. Maybe it's just a harmless I don't know, residual haunting of some sort. A ghost getting a little peckish in the night. Speaking of that, I remember my mom yelling at my not yelling, but like my brother was up at around midnight, like rummaging through the cupboards, just going to town on these snacks. My mom comes out. She's like, what are you doing, honey? And you go to bed. And he got like, he got very sensitive to it. He's like, but mom, I'm just getting a little midnight snack.

[00:44:28] It's so cute. It just legitimizes it. Because if you have a name for it, it's okay. But yeah. Yeah. There's no chanting involved, luckily. She just sent him off to bed. Yeah. I don't care how it happens or what it sounds like. If I hear chanting in my home, I'm definitely moving. Oh, yeah. You could, I don't know, grow some chilies out in New Mexico or something. Yeah. I'm not completely opposed to that idea. That sounds pretty good. Yeah.

[00:44:58] I just realized recently that red chilies are just ripened green chilies. Like the whole red versus green chili debate. Like I thought they were their own thing. I didn't even know that. At least like New Mexican hatch chilies. Yeah. Hey, I learn something every day. Yeah. Well, you can finally replace those sheets that you stained if you do go to New Mexico. The ones that you can only get in Santa Fe. I'll never drink apple juice again after that. Yeah. Thoughts and prayers. Bad boy.

[00:45:27] Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. Talking about, you know, people seeming weird, things seeming weird and off. What did you think about the mother doppelganger story? Oh, man. It was really creepy because she knew something was off immediately, but she couldn't figure out why. I mean, I guess that's how it always goes. Yeah. Yeah. It's that gut feeling again. Something about the face wasn't right. Yeah, it's almost like a nightmare. Yeah. Very uncanny valley. We're like,

[00:45:57] I mean, yeah, we are. We're wired to detect tiny inconsistencies in faces. And when something looks just a little off, it triggers this sort of primal fear, which I can understand why mimes are creepy, but hear me out. Clowns do not deserve the bad rap they get because they're cartoonish enough where she'd be like, oh, okay. You know what I mean? But mimes are like, whoa, whoa, okay. No, that's a little, you need a little bit more going on. Yeah. I can't explain it, but mimes actually creep me out a little bit more. I think the theory

[00:46:26] is that clowns and like the image of the clown and the exaggerated makeup and stuff comes from the idea that they are interdimensional beings that people have seen under the influence of drugs and psychedelics and stuff. Oh, man. That's just something that I've read up on a bit. I don't know all the details, but that's why they tend to be so scary to people. Check this out. Oh, yeah. That's terrifying. For those of you listening, he's showing me this terrifying poster of these two,

[00:46:55] the happy and sad face mask things and this weird tiki clown guy. It's like a DMT demon. I bought it off this really cool dude at a show I went to last night and it just spoke with me. I was walking through and I'm like, I gotta have that. Yeah. That's pretty cool though. I would take a picture of that and put it on our Discord. I will. And Instagram, all that fun stuff. Yeah. But yeah, normally in doppelganger stories, the copy just kind of stands there and tries

[00:47:25] to beckon the author somewhere. In this one, it seemed so pissed off and it wasn't even a clown. Yeah. Stirring the bottle so hard that milk was splashing everywhere. A lot of old stories talk about entities that mimic people, but they can't really hold the illusion perfectly. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's kind of like a recurring theme ever since that story with those two aliens that went inside the coffee shop talking to robotic. Yeah. The illusion of humanity is just

[00:47:55] kind of falling apart or not quite right. Yeah, I was talking with a friend of mine who listens to the show. He's Filipino and he was telling me that they also have a history of folklore about this thing that takes the form of a human, but there's always something off. If you look close enough, you know, it's not just some American PG-13 horror movie trope. It happens everywhere. Yeah, yeah. Well, we definitely know it wasn't her mother because she was out the whole time. Yeah, it would have been impossible.

[00:48:24] But I don't know what's scarier, it being some mimic entity or some kind of psychological break. The latter. I mean, even the author brought this up towards the end questioning what she actually saw. I actually had this discussion last night with somebody and I will stand by, I would rather lose a limb than lose my mind any day. So I would say same. Oh, definitely. Easily. Definitely. But yeah, she clearly had a rough childhood. Yeah, there's actually a psychological disorder where people genuinely believe that someone

[00:48:53] they love has been replaced with an exact copy. Oh, yeah, I've heard of this. That is troubling. Yeah, it's called Cagra. Cagra. It's sometimes caused by trauma or like emotional disconnection, like the author says. But the thing is, this wasn't her mom, so it couldn't be this condition. Like you said, the mom was gone the whole time. I don't think there's a non-paranormal explanation for this.

[00:49:32] Well, thank you for doing that for me and probably many others. Yeah, it's definitely a mystery. Yeah. It plays out just like a bad dream. Totally. Yeah. Well, if anyone has any similar stories or anything that they want to share on the show, just email us at stories at odd trails dot com and make sure to sign up for our Patreon if you want to get access to ad-free versions of all of our episodes at patreon.com forward slash odd trails. And finally, make sure to check out the new episodes of other podcasts

[00:50:01] like Let's Not Meet, the old time radio cast and cryptic encounters at cryptic county podcasts dot com. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll see you next week. Stay safe. Peace out.