Episode 181: The Beer Ghost

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[00:00:27] is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. 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.

[00:00:52] The Beer Ghost by Kate. To preface, I'm one of those people that apparently has inherited

[00:01:36] a sort of gift of being extra sensitive to energy, and have had a fair share of paranormal experiences in my 43 years. I wouldn't call myself a medium by any means, but several women on both sides of my family have abilities in the realm of the Four Claires. Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Clairsentience, and Claircognizance. My experiences tend to lie in the latter two.

[00:02:05] I can pick up on energies in a little deeper way than a traditional empath, and sometimes I just know things and I don't know how or why I know them. I once touched my brother's car door handle to get in, and my mind very confidently said, this car is going to be in a wreck soon, and the next day he totaled his car. I've accurately known when births and deaths were going to happen. I've even known

[00:02:33] the names of future babies without ever talking to the parents about it. I also sometimes know how to do rather complex skills without ever having done them before. Crocheting is one that comes to mind. I suppose I could explore it more to make it more useful, but right now it's more of my own entertaining party trick. However, there have definitely been times where it's taken a turn into the

[00:02:57] bizarre. In my late 20s, I moved into a little 800-square-foot 1950s shoebox of a house in Nashville. It was nice, but not super updated. It had a certain feel to it that made me feel a little uneasy. Not bad, but like it was just harboring energy from all its past tenants, as if it had years of smoke

[00:03:22] embedded into each new layer of paint. I would wake up to find things like the cabinets open, but things really started getting weird one night in particular. I came home at like 2 or 3 in the morning after a night of drinking. I passed out in my bed, then what seemed like just a few minutes later, I woke up and saw a human-shaped shadow standing across the room.

[00:03:49] Except, it was positioned as if it had gotten caught sneaking in and just froze. I don't know why or how I knew, but it was a 12-year-old girl. That's where my clear cognizance comes in, I guess. I somehow just knew that. I kind of laughed it off as my full consciousness faded in and told myself I shouldn't drink so much, then fell back asleep.

[00:04:17] When it all happened again a week or two later, under similar circumstances, I told my friends about it. At that point, we just started calling her the beer ghost. It started happening more often after that, and not just when I had been drinking. One particular sober night, I don't know why I awoke, but I saw her shadow form notice that I was awake. And she kind of jumped, and tried to back up behind the big lamp on my nightstand,

[00:04:47] trying to hide herself. She would dissipate once my consciousness fully turned on. Some other random things. I began noticing my cats staring into and batting at a particular corner, all wide-eyed and excited. On two separate occasions, all of the kitchen drawers were opened exactly the same way. We also had a curtain war of some sort going on.

[00:05:14] I liked keeping the curtains of a certain window closed, and the beer ghost apparently disagreed. It got to the point where I was kind of annoyed that I wasn't living alone. There wasn't anything sinister, and maybe I should have tried to gather some information, but I was tired of all the little jump scares and confusion. So I finally just yelled into my house, I know you're here, I appreciate you trying to get my attention, but please stop.

[00:05:44] Thankfully, she did exactly that. I didn't see her again, and the only drawers and cabinets open in the morning were pretty obviously for my own doing, from being lazy the night before. I could sense her energy still, but it was like she had moved behind a curtain where she could respect my boundaries. I sometimes wish I had done more research on the home, or had been more compassionate to the entity that may have just been lonely,

[00:06:12] but it was a weird time in my life. I guess I just didn't want one more thing on my plate. I've lived in multiple other cities and states since then, all with their own odd memories. But I still think about my little beer ghost, and send out messages of peace, in hopes it lands in the right place.

[00:06:55] I live in a haunted house by the spoon licker. When my mother was pregnant with me, she and my father bought a house in very rural East Germany. My father was disabled, so he couldn't work anymore, and my mother worked in a psychiatric hospital about an hour away. So my father was always left alone in the house, and he hated it. He told my mother that he would hear voices and footsteps, things that would move,

[00:07:24] the TV would change channels, and so on. My mother always thought it was because of his medications, heart problems, diabetes, and very strong pain medications. Her go-to was always, no, you're just stressed and tired, since that was the same thing she told herself. And she continues to say this to herself, to this day. When I was born, my father was terrified to let me sleep in the attic, where my room was planned to be.

[00:07:54] He made me stay in his room until his excuses no longer worked. He always said that I'd have night terrors and so on, since my mother always did night shifts, and therefore couldn't prove him wrong. He also put me in kindergarten at nine months old, because the house creeped him out too much. The first memories I have of this house aren't any different. I heard the voices of men. I heard coughing. I heard footsteps.

[00:08:25] But I didn't have such a problem with it as my father did. I didn't think they were scary for some reason. At some point, my mother didn't have as many night shifts as she did back then, so I was moved to the room in the attic. It was way louder up there. I had the same experience as my father. My DV would switch channels, my VCR would act up, which wasn't that weird as I was used to it, and thought that they just did that. But my DVD player did the same thing.

[00:08:55] I had drapes in front of my bed that would move every night, right next to the armchair that my mother put there. One plushie kept falling off of the shelf. And I had weird dreams. Always of grown men, too. A Russian soldier. Two men that I could never put into a category. These men in my dreams, they would always just be normal to me. Not threatening. Just there.

[00:09:23] I was so young that I didn't know, this was a whole village for the Russian military in the GDR. And once the GDR was gone, the Russian soldiers left, and the Germans would buy those houses. I called them by the names they told me, which were Sasha, Henrik, and Max. Sasha and Max would always tell me never to go into the woods without my neighbors. I didn't question it. Why would I? I was four,

[00:09:53] and my neighbors always watched me when my father was in the hospital, and my mother was at work, when the kindergarten was closed. The three would also always say never to talk to certain neighbors, which were basically all except those who watched me regularly. Once again, why would I question them? I was four years old. At one point, my mother believed that I experienced the same thing that my father did, so she questioned my father and me separately.

[00:10:23] I described them, gave names, and told her how they talked and what they said. She brushed it off until we went to the beach, and I said, I know a shortcut. We had this hidden beach that you can't even see on Google Maps to this day, since it belongs to the military base next to our house. She didn't know this. My dad didn't know this. The neighbors didn't know this. No one really did, but I somehow led her to it through the forest.

[00:10:52] I also knew where we could and couldn't step. I knew it all. What could possibly be in a forest and an area that was full of war next to a military base of Russians? Well, landmines. We never hit any, and we never saw any explode until I was 12, but we did find a lot of landmines that had been stepped on. My mom asked me how I knew, and I told her, Sasha told me. Now, at that point,

[00:11:21] she did get suspicious and did some research. Sasha was the first officer who lived there and had a heart attack. Max and Henrik were normal people who moved there but died. Henrik was very old, and for Max, my mother had to do more digging because she got the house from the bank. The guy who lived there before us hung himself. His name was Max. I saw and heard them for years, and then it stopped

[00:11:50] when I moved into my father's room after he died. I always felt watched in that room from the corner where his bed was. When I turned nine, I just figured it's probably paranoia. There's nothing there. And those footsteps, those aren't his. No, it's the house settling. It's a wooden house after all. Voices at 2 a.m., just my mind playing tricks on me. Things moving. It has to be my ADHD. After all,

[00:12:20] I regularly forget my own age and search for the remote that's in my hands. Well, fast forward a few more years. I have a friend over, and we both decide to stay in the attic to watch Harry Potter because my old TV had a DVD player. The TV turned off. Must have been the bad wiring. The light turned off. Maybe the switch wasn't fully flicked on. TV turns on again, but now the VCR is running.

[00:12:49] That thing was spooky when I was a toddler, so nothing new. So I just tried to fix it when my friend suddenly got quiet and called my name while staring in the direction of the door. There was a mirror on the chimney that I had covered. I spray-painted it when I was a kid because mirrors were just creepy to me. What is it? I asked. I swear there's someone standing there, they responded. You're seeing things. No, I'm not.

[00:13:19] It's a Russian. Very funny. I literally thought that she was kidding because she always called me Russian as a nickname. I was the only Russian kid in our elementary school, so I just immediately thought of that. Look, he's staring right at us, she said. Now I got creeped out. I turned around and saw nothing. You see someone? Yeah. Well, how do you know he's Russian?

[00:13:48] Because of the uniform. You have to see him. Uniform? How the hell could she see my imaginary friends? At least, I thought they were my imaginary friends. Sasha, go away. I said as a joke. And then, she turned to me and straight up took her things and ran down the stairs. She told me that the Russian just nodded and left. She refused to go anywhere

[00:14:18] near my attic ever again and spent that night in a tent in the backyard. How could she see him? I was a toddler when I first saw him. At some point, my mother asked about this and after a long, long talk, my friend told her what she saw. So, after we dropped my friend off the next day, my mother parked her car and told me that those were not imaginary friends. That she thought they were but was now

[00:14:47] convinced otherwise because she saw my father in the hallway staring at her years after he died. she told me that she yelled at him to go away and he left and went back to his room which was where he passed away. Obviously, that room became mine. I still don't know what the hell is up with that house but let's just say that once I inherit it, it goes straight back to the bank because those

[00:15:16] were really ghosts. I mean, what do those guys in the attic at my friend? Why did she see Sasha and I didn't? Every time I go up into that attic, I feel watched. Every time I'm in my room, I feel watched. I still hear footsteps and voices in the attic. Maybe those footsteps in my father's room were his stomping

[00:15:46] to get the blood flowing because his leg would often go to sleep but I don't want to know. I don't want to see him. I'd probably have the same reaction my mother had when she saw him. But I won't be keeping this house. Something has always gone wrong with this house anyway. It's expensive to upkeep. And, if the ghosts are real, no thank you.

[00:16:33] My Family Might Attract Ghosts by Savannah I don't really know how to start this other than by saying every single woman in my family has had some kind of experience. I don't think we're psychic or anything. We just tend to notice weird things. And I'm pretty sure it's us, not the houses we've lived in since my sisters and mom have had things happen in different homes. I won't go through all of it, just the ones that stand out the most.

[00:17:03] We'll start with my mom. She grew up in South Jersey. One day, she and her friends were hanging out in the basement when she noticed something weird. Their shadows were on the wall and then there was an extra one. There wasn't anyone else down there with them. When she pointed it out, they all freaked out and bolted. She laughs now about slamming the door on her friends, but she says she was terrified. My oldest sister

[00:17:33] remembers the first house we lived in in Virginia. She would see a tall man standing in the doorways all the time. She was just a toddler, but she could describe everything about him, his clothes and the way he stood. She was scared of him in this little room under the stairs, but now thinks he might have been protective. As an adult, glasses randomly shattered near her a couple of times. The house I live in now is where

[00:18:02] the most has happened. We've all lived here our whole lives. We've all heard the disembodied music and voices that sound muffled no matter where you go. We've all had our names called in each other's voices and we constantly hear thumps and bangs like something fell, but nothing ever has. My middle sister had something weird happen while she was home alone. She was rinsing out the water bowls for our cats when she heard my voice ask,

[00:18:31] what are you doing? Right behind her. She said it sounded like I was trying to imitate someone else. She turned around ready to respond, but no one was there. She and I also had the same weird experience with a fairy. One summer, I was outside when she came walking past me to the edge of the woods. I followed her and we both saw this bright yellow leaf just spinning in place

[00:19:01] midair. She tried to knock it down with a stick, but it wouldn't fall. It just stayed like that through wind, rain, everything. It came back the next year in the same spot, then disappeared a few years later. It still gives me a weird feeling. Everyone in the house has seen or felt the ghost cat. No idea why it's here. It's this gray, wispy little thing you'll usually catch in the corner

[00:19:31] of your eye or sometimes see walking through a room. If you're in bed, it'll hop up and walk next to you. I felt its whiskers on my hand under the blanket. We've even heard it meow. Then there's the corner in the front room. Every toddler and every pet reacts to it. They all stare up at the same spot on the ceiling. Some won't even go near it. My oldest niece used to wave at it timidly over the baby gate

[00:20:00] when she was just learning to say hi. My mom and I have both had nightmares about a shadow in that corner, something that doesn't want you looking at it. One time, I was slapped awake by something I couldn't see. It was Easter and I thought my aunt told me to get up. I mumbled five more minutes then rolled over and felt fingers dig into the back of my head and slap me. I shot up, pissed, but the room

[00:20:30] was empty. My stomach dropped. I screamed and my mom came running in. She checked the house and no one was there. The last story I'll share is a recent one. I was in the living room on my phone. My mom was asleep on the couch. Through my headphones, I heard a loud metal clink, like something hit the floor. It woke my mom too. When I turned on the light,

[00:21:00] I saw a nail on the floor. I looked at the ceiling, expecting a hole or something, but saw nothing. When I picked up the nail, it was covered in ceiling paint. There wasn't any damage up there, and no way it just dropped. There's some other small stuff, but that's the main bit of it.

[00:21:38] When My Grandfather Met a Demon by Loud Bonus 6731 My mom has always been telling me and my siblings this story for years now, and every time she tells the story, it always gives me chills. My mom was extremely young at the time, considering this was sometime in the 80s. She was probably around 7 or 10. She was living in Harris County, Texas at the time, and her father, my grandpa,

[00:22:08] was retired Special Forces. They were living in a neighborhood next to this house, and my mom would play in the front yard with her brother, my uncle, and she would always see this man sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch. He would just do that every day. So my grandpa decides to go over one day and talk to the man, try to get to know him. He leaves the house and goes over to the man's porch, introduces himself, and then sits down. They start chatting,

[00:22:37] and the man tells my grandpa that he wants to show him something. My grandpa is a bit hesitant, but accepts. They walk into the man's house and into the basement, but my grandfather noticed how the house looked. It was abandoned and run down. He didn't really mind it, so they continued down to the basement. In the middle of the room, there was a table with a plate in the center. It had chicken legs

[00:23:06] on it. The man tells him to sit, and they both start eating. After a few minutes, when they're done, they put the bones of the legs back on the table. Then the man says, Do you want to see something? My grandfather is hesitant, but again he accepts. The man begins to put his hand over the plate and starts waving it around. The bones begin to levitate

[00:23:36] and almost dance in front of my grandfather. The man then said, Would you like to sell your soul to the devil for this type of power? As soon as my grandfather heard that, he ran out of there as fast as he could and back to the house. After that day, the man just disappeared. So my grandfather decided to investigate. He went back to that basement, but the house

[00:24:05] was completely abandoned. He asked the neighbors if anyone had lived there, but they all said that nobody was living there and that it had been abandoned for years. After that, my grandfather never stepped foot in that house again.

[00:24:39] My Grandmother's Visit and a Lost Soul by Teddy I have two stories to share. This first one is about being visited by my late maternal grandmother, Alice. I was pretty close with her. She was a wonderful, patient woman who taught me how to crochet and would teach me a new trick every time I would spend time with her. When she passed away mere days after her 90th birthday, I wasn't surprised

[00:25:09] given the state she was in. But of course, I was devastated. After she passed, we were going through her things to decide who gets what, and I had always liked this musical jewelry box she had, which was given to me by my aunt and mother. The box was fantastic. It had good storage, but best of all, when I opened the drawers, I could smell my grandmother again. One day, I was in the main bathroom of my house

[00:25:39] doing some organizing and putting things in the jewelry box. All of a sudden, the room filled with the scent of my grandma Alice, and I could just feel her presence. She came back to visit me. I was so moved, I started crying. It only lasted a couple of minutes, but I could tell she was there. I think of her every time I crochet, and every time I look at that beautiful jewelry box.

[00:26:07] I miss you, grandma. This second story is about what I believe to involve a lost soul. One night, I was awoken by seemingly nothing at around 2.30 or 3 in the morning. My bed faces a window, and the drapes I have are sort of see-through. With the moonlight coming in, I could see a woman in my room, silhouetted by the light of the moon, just standing there.

[00:26:37] I stared at her in confusion. I could tell it wasn't a flesh-and-blood person. She was sort of see-through. She didn't say anything, and neither did I. I closed my eyes for a few moments just to make sure this was real. When I opened them, her face was very close to mine, but strangely, I wasn't scared. She didn't seem menacing at all. I closed my eyes again,

[00:27:07] and when I opened them, she was gone. My hypothesis is that she was someone who recently passed, and was lost on her way to wherever we go when we die. I'm an empath and mildly sensitive to spiritual presence, so I think maybe she saw me as a beacon to help her find her way. I just wish I could have been more helpful, but I think she got to where she was going.

[00:27:34] I Met My Parallel Self in a Dream by Abel Jabbar Last Friday in the early morning, I had a dream that didn't feel like a dream. It felt very real,

[00:28:04] like I actually visited another world, a different dimension. In the dream, I found myself in a place that looked like Earth. The land was open and wide, like a golf course without any holes. The sky was bright, soft, and light blue, but something was very strange. There was no sun. The whole place was lit up, but there was no source of light. It felt calm and beautiful, but not like anything I had seen before.

[00:28:35] I was there with people from my world, but we were all standing behind metal bars, like a gate or a boundary. It felt like we were being held back, like we weren't supposed to be there. What's strange is that we couldn't see each other. We were in darkness. I couldn't see myself and I couldn't see what anyone was wearing or what they looked like. We were just there, but somehow unseen. On the other side of the bars,

[00:29:04] I saw six or seven people from their world. They were all fully visible, and they were all wearing plain white t-shirts. They stood calmly watching us, almost like they were observing or waiting. And then I saw one of them who looked exactly like me. He was wearing a white t-shirt as well. He was my parallel self. And even though we didn't speak in English or any language that I know, we somehow

[00:29:34] understood each other perfectly. It felt natural, like our thoughts were connecting directly. I asked him, where are we? What is this place? He answered, and at the same time I saw a vision in my mind, like my imagination kicked in and showed me what he was saying. I saw a planet in space. It looked like Earth, but it was all blue, with white clouds floating around it. It felt peaceful,

[00:30:04] silent, and distant. He told me the planet's name. It was something like Plantum. I then asked him what year it was. He understood me, but said that they don't use that type of language. They use a different term that I really can't remember how to pronounce, but he said the first timing system they used was called Hiro. He explained they have three timing systems, Hiro, Hyria, and Plantum.

[00:30:33] I asked about Earth, and he said they had never heard of it. At one point, I felt like he was trying to tell me something important. Maybe it was a warning or a message, but I couldn't understand it. My brain couldn't process it. It felt like trying to run Mac OS on a very old microprocessor, just too advanced for me to handle. I knew that it mattered, but I just couldn't keep up. When I awoke, I remembered everything.

[00:31:02] The sky, the people, the bars, the names, and that strange calm feeling. But after I went back to sleep, most of it faded. I still remember the important parts, though. The light without the sun, the bars, the other version of me, this blue planet called Plantum, and that feeling that maybe they're still watching and waiting, still connected to me.

[00:31:48] So we've talked about how children have sensitivity to seeing spirits or different types of beings and stuff, and it's a pretty common thing that comes up in our stories that we get. This one was interesting because there has to be a point at which the child grows out of that phase, you know, where they sort of mature and they stop believing in those things and they stop seeing those things.

[00:32:17] And I think we actually saw it happen in this story because the author was, you know, seeing these ghosts ghosts with very specific names, Sasha, Heinrich, and Max, and they got to know them and it turns out that everybody in the house had seen them. But at some point, he couldn't see Sasha, but his friend that he had over could. It's almost like he aged out of seeing the ghost, but his friend was still young enough

[00:32:46] to believe and see it. I wonder what that cutoff is or what happens that cuts us off from the supernatural when we're kids. Yeah, that's interesting because, yeah, like the fact that his other friend could see it, but he couldn't anymore after that point. I wonder if it's something that involves either the author themselves or maybe the ghosts or the spirits want to contact certain people for certain reasons and the author just reached a point in their life where their presence was no longer necessary. They outwore their welcome.

[00:33:16] Yeah, I could see that. And, you know, they may have been protective spirits and they did their job and they moved on. But I guess I'm more so referring to just the general sense of connection to the other side that children seem to have. They always seem to stop seeing things at some point in their life when they're growing up and I'm wondering what triggers that in so many children, but then there are people that never get cut off from that part

[00:33:45] of existence and they can still have contact with other beings and have supernatural experiences like some of the other stories that we've had on the podcast. You know what? I got it. I got a theory. It's part of puberty. When you hit puberty, you're supposed to phase out of your supernatural abilities, but for some people, they just don't undevelop those abilities. That's all I can think of. Yeah, they must have left that out of my biology books because I don't remember that part of puberty. It's on WikiLeaks.

[00:34:14] They spill it all on there. All I remember is just a face full of acne for some of the worst years of my life and then I went on Accutane and it went away and then it came back as adult acne later on. Then you ate sauerkraut and you're good now, right? Yeah. Maybe I'll get the adult acne version of seeing ghosts eventually and it'll come back. Wouldn't that be nice? We can hope. We can hope. But you are right though about them being protective. The whole look out for the landmines thing, that's always good

[00:34:44] and guiding them away from any sort of danger from any strangers or weirdos. Yeah, yeah. And they were definitely some type of Cold War ghosts. There's no other explanation to it. It makes total sense, especially with the landmines and stuff. I don't know a lot about the Cold War. That was something that was just, for some reason, never came up in school for me. We never talked about the Cold War. No. Nobody cared. They briefly touched on World War I, then it was all about World War II, and then we knew that Vietnam existed.

[00:35:13] That was about it. This makes me want to look into the Cold War more. I'm sure there's some cool history channel documentaries and stuff that I could watch to learn the fun way. There really is, especially when it comes to the space race and all that. It gets really interesting. Yeah, I don't know why it wasn't covered so much back in our day growing up, but it is really interesting. You can do a double feature and watch some Rocky or whichever one has the Russian in it. Yeah. Was that Rocky IV? I think so. It's been so long.

[00:35:43] The last time I watched Rocky was after I had surgery when I was a teenager and I was just out of it. It was like the coolest movie I ever saw. Rocky Recovery. Yeah, Rocky Recovery. But I don't remember any of it. I do remember liking those movies, though. So the author did say that they still feel watched. And honestly, to me, that's a bit scarier than actually seeing the ghosts. You know, the feeling of being watched. Yeah, the silence after the whole activity happens. It's like either ominous or peaceful,

[00:36:12] but obviously this is a bit more ominous. Yeah, yeah. It must be some kind of emotional imprint from the Cold War era that keeps their presence there even if, you know, the author can't see them anymore. I don't know if I could ever sleep comfortably in that house. What about you? No, that's one of those things where I think it'd be okay to sell it. I can't really blame the author for that. I understand that it's like sentimental to some degree, but at some point, you know, if it outlived its purpose,

[00:36:42] kind of like the ghost did, then move on. However that might look for you. Yeah, I agree. I think they are planning to sell the house. They're 21 now. I did get that from them. So perfect. Sell the house. Bank that money. Yeah, sell that house, you 21-year-old son of a gun. Good for you. Yeah, you lucky dog. Yeah, but I'd rather have a beer ghost, to be honest. Or a ghost with a beer, which, wait, yeah, whatever. It's been a week.

[00:37:12] Cool story, though. I think we have some helpful ghosts. We got like a little theme going on here. I think like the beer ghost may have been some sort of companion to Kate, maybe. Respectful of her boundaries, at least. You can't always say that about these things. That was always nice to see. Did this thing show when he signed that it was malevolent to begin with, in your opinion? I don't think so. And it just stopped when they asked. It wasn't like, you know, we talked about like invoking the name of Jesus or something

[00:37:41] in the last episode. They didn't have to do anything. They just had to ask. What a polite, awesome ghost. It's like when the play director yells at Chief Wiggum and tells him to shut up and the chief just goes, sorry. He just stopped. He just said sorry. I know we've talked about that one, that one little clip so many times. I don't know why that's my favorite single or two lines in The Simpsons, but that always gets me. There's something about the chief of police apologizing so modestly,

[00:38:10] so humbly to a play director. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So what's the deal with the shadow figures trying to hide? I don't know. It was, it was kind of childlike though. Yeah. It was kind of cool, I guess. Shows some character. Yeah, ducking behind the lamp. Yeah, I like that. Have we heard any other stories like this where I guess the ghosts act kind of coy or playful? I don't think so. Like a shame to exist. It's so funny and cute. I love this ghost. I wish all hauntings were like this. It was.

[00:38:40] I won't make that Fantasia reference I wanted to, but there's something like that. There's a little string that kind of dangles down and it's very bashful and scared. You might remember that. I know you haven't seen that movie too many times, but anyway. I don't know if I've watched it all the way through is what it is, just in segments. Yeah, it's so good. So what was that author's ability? Claircognizance? Claircognizance. That's what it was. Claircognizance. That's a new one for me. Yeah, it's an interesting one. It's basically like having like your intuition kind of telling you

[00:39:09] what's going to happen. It just kind of pops up on the spot and you can't really explain it. Can't put your finger on it, but you just intuitively know. It's just like a seventh sense. Wait, no. Six. I really thought there were six. You know what? There is a sixth sense. So you know what? It's called that one a seventh sense. What is the sixth sense? I mean, that's the whole thing. That's what the whole show's about. You know, we don't really know. I guess so. Yeah. Just that intuitive drive. I do really like the sixth sense. I have to say, I rewatched it recently. It's a really great movie. Oh, it is. It's really good.

[00:39:39] I remember thinking like, I don't want to watch this. It's PG-13. How good could it really be? I thought it was just like a movie that some parents would let their kids watch who weren't allowed to watch R-rated movies. So I thought it was like not as good of a movie. But then I watched it and yeah, I liked it. Yeah, I liked it a lot. That was like the era of really good PG-13 horror movies. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So let me ask you, if you had like a haunted house or if you felt your house was haunted, would you leave it alone or would you do any sort of digging

[00:40:08] or would you just kind of blissfully coexist and just pretend it's the pipe settling? I keep doing that in my house. It's not that old. It was built in the 80s but I keep doing that because I hear noises and stuff in my house all the time and more than like creaking noises. I've talked about the noises in my closet a million times. Something is in there shuffling around through my stuff all the time but I've just, I don't know, I ignore it. I think that's what I would do if it even progressed and got worse

[00:40:37] and I started seeing things. I would just ignore it. You know, let that side be. Yeah. Yeah. I would say once you accept that there is something there that's when it becomes real. You create it in your mind and it, yeah, like we've said a million times it's going to manifest in some way if you believe that there's something crawling behind you so ignore it. It's not there. It'll go away on its own. Yeah. I wonder if that entity was lonely and that's all it was. More than likely I would say so. Yeah. Yeah. Aren't we all though to some degree?

[00:41:07] I'm always lonely. I spend 80% of my time alone at my house while my wife's at work.

[00:41:41] Wow. the hangouts and the parties which I don't do often or if I go to shows or something it helps. If you're trying to stop drinking beer if beer is your choice of poison and if you want to stop you know, stop drinking switch over to non-alcoholic it really helps. It tricks your brain into thinking you know, that you're getting something and you don't really get I wouldn't say you get like a placebo drunk but you get a little bit of an elated feeling and it really helps. Yeah,

[00:42:11] switching to non-alcoholic beer has been quite the blessing and this isn't some preachy thing saying don't drink do whatever you want. My wife drinks yeah, no problem. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, enjoy yourself. I wish I could. I had to stop because of blood pressure. Yeah, I just don't like it because I feel hungover before I even go to sleep after like two beers. Oh yeah. I feel just I just don't like it. Yeah, I'm over it. Yeah. Anyway, let's go back to Texas in the 1980s. Picture it. Yeah. You're strolling down the sidewalk

[00:42:40] with your high-rise wranglers and your boot cuts before Justin's were a thing and you see some strange man rocking on his chair across the street on his porch. What do you do? Let's talk about that. You walk up to him and say howdy howdy I'm Special Forces nice to meet you. Special Agent Grandpa, raise your hands. Yeah. Let me see some ID. Yeah. So, what struck me first of all is this was a unique story because very few houses

[00:43:09] in Texas have basements so right there automatically that's a red flag like that's creepy. It reminded me of that scene in Zodiac. Very few houses in California have basements. That scene is the best. Yeah. Yeah. That always upset me but I think it has something to do with the soil. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it is. It's something to do with the frost line or something. I don't know. I'm probably making that word up but dancing chicken bones first of all. That was the I'm sorry I was cracking up. I know it's supposed

[00:43:39] to be a scary story but it just made me think of something that would be out of like the princess and the frog or something. Oh, yeah, some like voodoo trick or something. exactly. Yeah, I like that. I wonder if it was some sort of like demonic encounter or just some sort of illusion some occult illusion. It really made me think of those stories that we would get from Mexico about them seeing somebody in the bar. They're very mysterious and then they look down and they see that they have like goat legs

[00:44:08] or something. It kind of reminds, for some reason it gave me that that feeling. It struck me the same way as like this character just appeared and then disappeared. It was just like an apparition I don't want to say an apparition but kind of like a tulpa in a way. Yeah, I mean because none of the neighbors saw it. He clearly saw it and we're going to assume because the grandpa was special forces he has a strong head on his shoulders still. We can hope. Thank you for your service.

[00:44:38] Yeah, thank you for your service. Not ironically, I know that's some tough shit to deal with but yeah, I really hope that it's not a case of just like losing your mind after going through some horrible experiences. Yeah, I think the selling the soul part was kind of what sealed it for me with the connection to the goat leg demon devil guy. Yeah. Yeah, you don't ask those questions. It's not asked. It's kind of rude. Yeah, it's crazy that the demon, I'm going to call it a demon, would go through

[00:45:08] the motions of hospitality before making the offer like trying to butter up the deal. Oh yeah, like a good cop, bad cop type of thing. Yeah, yeah, it is cool that, you know, they have this story but it's weird that none of the neighbors saw or acknowledged the man in the rocking chair. It really was just a personal experience which is cool. Exactly, and I would imagine that, you know, like he knows what he saw that's so elaborate to completely make up inside your head is just some dream

[00:45:38] that you're so certain that happened. So I do believe that it experienced the way that the grandpa feels that it did. Yeah, it has this very liminal space atmosphere to it, you know, spirits kind of tied to a place but slipping in and out of view and I have to say thank God for the word liminal making its way to the zeitgeist because it's something that I've, it's like a term that I never really knew until liminal spaces

[00:46:07] became popular, you know, in popular culture but it was a word that I really could have used growing up to describe certain types of horror like David Lynch or stuff like that, you know. I like that, yeah, or like uncanny is another big one that I wish I knew existed earlier in life. I love uncanny, that's great, the uncanny liminal. Yeah, I like that, I like that a lot, a lot. So do people with military backgrounds like special forces experience the paranormal differently? I don't know,

[00:46:36] I'm trying to come up with theories here, I don't know, this is just a weird story. Maybe it's in their special training, I don't know. Maybe in week eight when they're like up in the Himalayans meditating naked, they receive some transmission on how to do all that, I really don't know, couldn't tell you. Smoking blue flowers and shit. Yeah, exactly, chugging some like kava or something. Yeah, yeah, well it was a cool story nonetheless, I loved it. It felt like, like I said, I was reading some old tale from a bar in Mexico

[00:47:05] with a goat-legged stranger. Cool stuff. Absolutely. We should go to Mexico someday. Anyway, my grandmother's visit and a lost soul. Yes, by Teddy, these two stories, really, really good stuff. Yes, yeah. Really emotional, I can see why you felt comforted by your grandmother's presence. I think we have all, or most of us, can attest to feeling some sort of presence or some sort of comfort after the fact

[00:47:35] when our loved ones pass. I'm glad that you got to see your grandpa though. Mine isn't doing too well, so hopefully he visits me too, like, in a few months or whatever. I don't want to jinx him or speed up the process. You know, my grandpa had a very distinct smell to him. You know, the older people get that older people smell, but it was very strong with him, more so than with most other people. I don't know why, but he had the most older person smell ever. Let me ask you and cut you off real quick. Was it at all like kind of

[00:48:04] nutty or vanilla-y? Yeah, but not pleasant. Not pleasant, right? Not pleasant. Yeah, no, not pleasant. So old people. Yeah, it was like if you took the nutty vanilla scents and made them not so pleasant, that's exactly what it was. Yeah, okay, good. But it's such a specific smell. If that came up, I would know it as my grandpa immediately. Yes. Immediately, and I'd be like, that's my grandpa. He's here. It's his ghost. So I really liked this story. And like we know, smell is like

[00:48:35] so triggering to our memories and everything. I think it bypasses some part of the brain or whatever. I don't know what I'm trying to say. You get it though. Yeah, definitely. When you smell like, man, there's a very specific smell. The smell of those old igloo personal coolers like that you would take your lunch to work in, the little tiny ones. I recall a trip that I made in kindergarten to a museum and my mom packed me a lunch in one of those and opening up that cooler and the smell

[00:49:04] of that plastic, it's probably benzene, you know, infecting my body. Oh yeah. The plasticky smell with the cold like ice pack in there with my sandwich and another plastic baggie giving me microplastics along with the benzene just poisoning myself, my little Andy self. That smell is so visceral for me whenever I smell it. It just sends me back. There's nothing more intoxicating than that smell for me for some reason. I love that. Yeah. On the same lines of that, like you said around kindergarten, right?

[00:49:34] Yeah, yeah. That's perfect. Kindergarten, I specifically remember the smell of acrylic paints but mixed with like the nasty like mildewy dirty unfiltered water. I know exactly what you're talking about. I love that. Oh man. On a rainy morning. Oh yeah, rainy morning with some mildew paints from kindergarten with all that nasty 90s toxicity. Oof, love it. Carcinogens, whatever. Natalia paints with acrylics a lot

[00:50:03] and man, I love that smell. I know exactly what you're talking about. It's a good one. Yeah. Oh, it's nice. It's nice. I like the smell of gasoline too, whatever. Yeah, I do too. I wish it didn't poison us. Yeah. But yeah, I think that spirits using the form of communication being sent, I think that's probably a great idea because it is such a strong, it has such a strong effect on us. It's so undeniable too because anything else like, hey, what was that? Did I feel that? Must be my imagination. But if you smell

[00:50:32] something and you're just sitting there sniffing and sniffing away and it's still there, that's not just inside of your head. Yeah, definitely. Well, anyways, I got to wrap things up, man. I got to get to practice and I got to feed my dogs. So we'll cut this one a bit, a bit shorter than last week, but not too short. It's about 20 minutes. We're good. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, thanks so much everyone for listening. If you want to submit your story and hear it on the show, make sure you email us at stories at odd trails dot com and sign up for a patron to get ad free versions of

[00:51:02] all of our episodes at patreon dot com forward slash odd trails. Finally, make sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts. Let's not meet cryptic encounters in the old time radio cast. We'll see you all next week. Everyone stay safe. Peace out.

[00:51:15] The ghosts and the ghouls disturb you done.