
Loading summary
Kayla Moore
Do you love your pets?
Morgan Abshur
Do you love suspense?
Kayla Moore
Do you love it when your pets
Morgan Abshur
keep you in suspense because they ate something mysterious? And who knows what the vet visit will cost if you answered yes twice and then no? You should protect your pet with Lemonade Pet insurance. It can save you up to 90% on vet bills for checkups, emergencies, diagnostics, all the stuff that leaves you financially on the edge of your seat. Get a quick and Easy quote@lemonade.com pet and get your suspense somewhere else. Like from a riveting podcast.
Matt Brown
Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney Plus.
Morgan Abshur
Let's go get ready for a new case.
Kayla Moore
We're the greatest partners of all time.
Morgan Abshur
New friends Gary the Snake and your last name the Snake Dream Team. New habitats Zootopia has a secret reptile population.
Kayla Moore
You can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home. Zootopia 2 now available on Disney Plus.
Morgan Abshur
Rated PG. Right now you can get Disney plus and Hulu for just $4.99 a month for three months with a special limited time offer. Ends March 24. After three months, Plan Auto renews at $12.99 a month. Terms apply. Welcome back to Heart Stars Pounding. I'm your host Kayla Moore. Today I want to turn the microphone back to you guys for Listener Appreciation Month. I wanted to highlight some terrifying stories that you all sent to me. I'm talking about mysterious chanting coming from the backwoods in the Midwest, a church camp that had something demonic lurking in the cabins, and much more. You guys definitely did not disappoint. And speaking of Listener Appreciation Month, I wanted to thank everyone who shared with me where they listened to our show on Instagram. I sent out a bunch of free goodies and I'm still sending out free merch to some of my favorites. So if you want to participate, you can share a photo and tag whereilistenhsp. And I wanted to shout out Rin who listens while doing archival research in a very beautiful library. It's very heart's pounding. Also, I wanted to continue to shout out our small business community. We have so many amazing hardworking community members. I am truly always amazed and and today I wanted to highlight Rescued. Rescued is a resale boutique in Silvis, Illinois, co founded by heartstarts founding listener Aaron Granite. And the really cool thing about Rescued is they are a boutique that benefits pets in need. To date They've donated over $1 million to help pets. So if you're in the silvis area, make sure to check them out. They also have an online merch store that I ordered a T shirt from. You can find out more in the description. But seriously, thanks to Aaron and Rescued for their awesome work. And thank you to all of our amazing listeners. I am very grateful for each and every one of you. I loved doing listener appreciation month. And next month I'm going to be back, just me, with one of the strangest disappearances I've read about. It happened in Washington. You're definitely going to want to listen to that. But for now, let's get into some of your stories with my good friend and the host of two hot takes and clues, Morgan Abshur. Morgan, welcome to the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters.
Kayla Moore
Oh, my gosh. That's what we're calling in here. I love that.
Morgan Abshur
This is. This is the headquarters. What are your first impressions?
Kayla Moore
It's incredible.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, thank you.
Kayla Moore
It's incredible. I'm going to take that saber tooth, tiger skeleton thing home.
Morgan Abshur
I love that thing. Facebook marketplace.
Kayla Moore
I know. I love the marketplace.
Morgan Abshur
I buying, like, weird things on Facebook Marketplace.
Kayla Moore
Your lamp is beautiful. We've got Gordy back there haunting me from afar.
Morgan Abshur
Now we have a lot of stuff, too, from listener small businesses now, like this mug I got from Coco and Ducky, which is a listener small business. That candle in the back. Those two candles actually in the back are from Wicked Wick Candle company, which also listeners.
Kayla Moore
That's amazing. That's really cool.
Morgan Abshur
We wanted to be very intentional about it and be like, what businesses do the listeners have? Oh, that. I think whatever blanket you have behind. Yeah. That you have on you, I'm using it. Listeners. I know.
Kayla Moore
It's amazing.
Morgan Abshur
We have a lot of good stuff in here.
Kayla Moore
You put together a really pretty studio.
Morgan Abshur
I'm so happy with it.
Kayla Moore
I'm jealous. You're, like, making me want to redo mine.
Morgan Abshur
I know. No, it was. It was time for a refresh. I'm so happy that we were able to kind of upgrade some stuff. So thank you for coming over. So today, what I wanted to do, I have a bunch of scary stories that listeners have sent in every couple of months. I feel like I reach out to the community and I'm like, send me your scariest stories. They never disappoint. It's always very bizarre stuff happening to these people. I'm a little worried for them, but I wanted to dive into. I have curated a couple for us today.
Kayla Moore
Okay.
Morgan Abshur
To get into.
Kayla Moore
I'm ready.
Morgan Abshur
So I want to read this first one that came in from a listener. It's called the house of rules. And it goes. Hey, Kaylin, I'M Sneha writing to you from Kerala, India. Before anything else, I just wanted to say this. I've been binging heart starts pounding since the beginning of 2024 and I genuinely haven't been able to stop. That's very nice. Thank you so much. Kerala, for context, is India's southernmost state. As of 2025, it's one of the highest literacy rates in the country, roughly 95.3%. But literacy here has never erased belief. In fact, some of the most educated families I know are also the ones that quietly keep old rules. Don't whistle at night. Don't answer if someone calls your name after dusk. Don't sleep facing the east unless invited. Our folklore isn't loud. It doesn't announce itself with screams or apparitions. It works through obedience, ritual and silence. What I am sharing below is not a commonly told Kerala ghost story. It's something that happened to my great grandparents in 1904, during British rule, when my paternal grandmother was still a toddler. It was never written down, only spoken about once every few years, usually with the instruction don't repeat this outside the family, But I'm choosing to post it now. This is the house that followed the rules. I know I'm already like like goosebumps all over. In 1904, my great parents lived in a region that was thick with rubber trees, narrow canals, and land that never fully dries. The British had already established administrative offices there, and Indian clerks, like my great grandfather, were expected to function in two obedient to colonial authority outside the home and bound by ritual and hierarchy inside of it. Their house was not large, but it was precise. Everything in it followed rules. The front door was only opened after sunrise. Lamps were lit in pairs, never alone. Food was served facing south. Mirrors were covered after dusk. No one asked why. These were not superstitions, just instructions passed down with the house. And the house was old enough to expect compliance. One evening, a British officer arrived unannounced. This was unusual. Officers didn't just visit Indian homes unless there was trouble. He came on horseback. Mud splashed up to his boots, and he asked for water. When my great grandmother brought it, he hesitated before drinking. This house, he said, does it belong to you? And she answered honestly, no, we belong to it. He laughed, but he was a little uncomfortable. That night, something small changed in the house. The oil lamp in the prayer room flickered and then went out. When it was relit, the flame leaned sideways as if it was being pulled by breath. My great grandmother blamed the rain. She always blamed the Rain first. But then the house began correcting them. If someone sat where they shouldn't, they started feeling ill. If food was served in the wrong order, it would spoil by morning. When my great grandfather once slept with his head facing east, something that's strictly forbidden. He woke up unable to move his legs for hours. And then the voice appeared. It didn't speak loudly. It didn't echo. It sounded like a thought, not sound. And it only spoke in instructions. Move the lamp, close the door, not that direction. My great grandmother thought that she was losing her mind. Until my great grandfather repeated the same instructions aloud one evening, finishing her sentence for her. They never spoke about it directly. In those days, you didn't discuss these kinds of things. Especially not under British rule, where anything unexplained was labeled as hysteria or punished. And then my grandmother, barely two years old, began refusing to sleep. She would sit upright, staring at a wall, nodding slightly, as if she was listening. When asked what she was doing, she said very calmly, the house is teaching me. One afternoon, though, my great grandmother broke a rule that she didn't know existed. She swept the inner corridor after sunset. That night, the house made its first demand. The voice spoke clearly now, no longer instructions, but expectations. You missed a corner. The next morning, my great grandfather was summoned by the British Administrative Office. A complaint had been filed anonymously, accusing him of improper conduct. The details were intimate, specific. They were things that no one outside of the house should have known. The officer leaned forward and said, half joking, half serious, your walls are very attentive. That night, the house no longer whispered. It was like it was speaking. Doors were opening and closing on their own. Footsteps moved through the rooms without bodies. My great grandmother saw reflections where no one stood. Not faces, but just postures. As though something was practicing how to be human. Finally, the house issued a final instruction. Leave the child. They fled at dawn. They took nothing but their clothes. At my grandmother, who screamed the entire journey, not in fear, but in rage, she kept repeating the same sentence I didn't finish learning. The house was abandoned soon after, the British officer who had visited died mysteriously within a year. The land was never sold. Even today, locals say the structure is intact, clean, orderly. Like it's waiting. Because some houses don't haunt you. They train you. Thank you for reading this, Kaylin. Writing this felt like breaking a long held silence and heartstarts pounding felt like the only place it belonged. I loved that story when I first read it, I love it because it feels like family folklore. But also the idea of a house having rules I think is something that a lot of cultures practice. Like, there's specific rituals that you have to follow, or else you're kind of breaking the order of things. I loved it.
Kayla Moore
I'm blown away. I find it so interesting, too, that, you know, you have this story coming from India and the don't whistle back or whatever the whistle is, that whistling also pops up in Appalachia. Like, yeah, there's so much where it's like, if you hear a whistle or you hear a name called. And so it's like. Yeah. These stories kind of transcend cultures and geography. It's going so many different ways.
Morgan Abshur
And I always feel like if something shows up. Right. There's like, sleep paralysis demons that show up in every culture all over the world, and they always have the same symptoms. The same type of entity that comes into the room. The same look, the same look.
Kayla Moore
Multiple people describe the same exact figure.
Morgan Abshur
There is a reason for it then. Like, if it keeps showing up places, I just think that there's something to it. So, yeah, the, like, don't. Whistling was really interesting. But then, yeah, there's like, little ones that are also kind of freaky.
Kayla Moore
I know. Well, and it's like, I. The first thought that popped into my head was like, this is like the opposite of the Encanto house. Have you seen Encanto?
Morgan Abshur
I have not.
Kayla Moore
Oh, my gosh.
Morgan Abshur
What's the Encanto house?
Kayla Moore
It's like, just this house that has magical rooms, and everyone gets their gift, and the house then starts freaking out. But the house protects everyone, and the house kind of takes care of the family and their powers. And it was like the opposite, where this house is almost just not feeling as friendly.
Morgan Abshur
And you don't want to mess with this one. This one's not giving you presence. No.
Kayla Moore
And the fact that it still sits empty and I think land has a lot of power, especially when tragic things have happened on that land.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, definitely.
Kayla Moore
I think that energy just sticks. And it's interesting that no matter what is there, what structure, that energy can kind of transform.
Morgan Abshur
Has anything else happened in your house? Any other ghostie sightings?
Kayla Moore
You know, not recently, and. Which is weird.
Morgan Abshur
Cause you're renovating, and that's always the time where stuff pops up.
Kayla Moore
I know. We found out because we. We purchased this other house. And shortly, like, after. Like three days after we closed, the old owner died, and the wife was still present.
Morgan Abshur
Wow.
Kayla Moore
And so they had boards where they marked their children's height. And I wanted to gift them that once we started demoing I could get it out of the wall.
Morgan Abshur
That is so. That's so thoughtful.
Kayla Moore
So we started. Got my contractor to cut the boards out. I reached out to their realtor to be like, hey, can we. Can we make sure she gets this? And she responded back. She passed away within a year, and she was 20 years, some odd years younger than him. And I'm just like, what?
Morgan Abshur
That's so sad.
Kayla Moore
And so. I don't know. It's just like, can you reach out to the children?
Morgan Abshur
And maybe.
Kayla Moore
So we got it to the kids.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, that's great.
Kayla Moore
That's really great. We got it to the kids now. But I'm just like. I took it to the studs. Cause there was a lot of mold. And I definitely think the house has a new vibe. But I still, like. I want to bring in someone who can kind of walk through and, like, I don't know, like, cleanse the house in a. In an appropriate way that's, like, get
Morgan Abshur
a read on it.
Kayla Moore
Yeah. And just, like, make sure that everything's settled. Because I'm, as you know, I'm a believer, so.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. And you don't want to mess with something. No, you don't.
Kayla Moore
No. If I had to cover my mirrors after. After dark.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
Yeah. Just to not see them in it, like, that would. I would have to move.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, yeah.
Kayla Moore
I would have to move.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, we just did a story, too, on another episode that we did last month about this girl who. There was a djinn in her mirror that fell in love with her. And that's a thing in, I guess, like, in cultures where there's djinns is, like, what. Djinn entities can live in your mirrors. And if you, like, look at yourself too long in the mirror and you're. Or if, like, you're too vain, or if you undress in front of a mirror, the djinn can fall in love with you and become obsessed with you and try to pull you into the mirror realm, which.
Kayla Moore
Did you ever do Bloody Mary as a kid? You definitely did.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, I definitely did. Yeah.
Kayla Moore
Knowing you, you definitely did.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. I was always the one at the sleepover, like, hey, guys, wouldn't it be crazy if we, like, all did Bloody Mary?
Kayla Moore
But, like, did you ever see anything in the mirror?
Morgan Abshur
No, I don't think so. It was one of those things where we'd have sleepovers and, like, one of my friends would always be like, I saw her. And, like, you have no idea if she actually did.
Kayla Moore
I. Oh, I'm so excited for your little one to be three and Start to hear all the stories.
Morgan Abshur
I know he's already. I always like, I already feel like he's interacting with some shadow realm because he's always just like looking at something I can't see. So I'm just so curious what it's going to be like when he gets a little older. I know.
Kayla Moore
Truly already giving old soul.
Morgan Abshur
I know.
Kayla Moore
Like very aware.
Morgan Abshur
Yes.
Kayla Moore
Like, and did you see there was a trend for a while where people were posting their babies and like basically being like, my baby was born, like aware. No, we're gonna have to get you on that.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, I feel like I could do that trend too. Cause he already is just so awake and like he only has. He's starting to smile a little bit, which is nice. But he has one facial expression. It's like furrowed brow. Like, what are you doing? Like, that's his only facial expression. That's so cute.
Kayla Moore
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast. Smart move. Being financially savvy. Smart move. Another smart move. Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
Matt Brown
Your little one grew three inches overnight.
Morgan Abshur
Adorable.
Matt Brown
Also expensive. Sell their pint sized pieces on Depop and list them in minutes with no selling fees because somewhere a dad refuses to pay full price for the clothes his kids will outgrow tomorrow and he's ready to buy your son's entire wardrobe right now. Consider your future growth spurt.
Morgan Abshur
Budget secured.
Matt Brown
Start selling on Depop where taste recognizes taste. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details.
Morgan Abshur
All right, do you want to read what I have for you next?
Kayla Moore
Yes. I'm going in blind. I'm so excited to see. Okay, so this one you have labeled predictive dreams. Anna wrote in. Hi Kayn. I'm a longtime listener and fan. What is your take on dreams that predict the future? This happened to me in 2021 while I was working at a chain restaurant that rhymes with Kerger Bing.
Morgan Abshur
I think I can guess what that one was.
Kayla Moore
I worked nights at the time and would usually get off at around 1 to 2am One night I had a dream that I was closing up at work like usual when on the surveillance camera monitor I saw a hooded figure that was trying to break into my coworker's car. I alerted my coworker, who immediately went outside to confront this hooded figure. And the hooded figure ended up pulling out a gun and shooting my coworker, thus killing him. This dream seemed so real to me. I still remember waking up shaking from the nightmare and the big sigh of relief when I realized that it was just a dream. I don't normally have super realistic dreams like that. I mentioned my dream to my coworker the very next day and told him about my dream and how he died. I still remember. After I told him about my dream, he told me that if someone was trying to break into his car, that is exactly what he would do. He would just go out and confront them. My coworker was a hothead who worked out religiously and was not afraid of confrontation. He was a strong guy at the time. We brushed it off as a weird dream. Three days after I had my dream, the exact scenario played out in real life. We were closing up and on the surveillance camera monitor, my manager mentioned to us that there was a hooded figure next to my co worker's car and it looked like he was trying to break into it. Instead of rushing out to confront the man like he did in my dream, my coworker set off the alarm of his car to scare the guy off. It worked, and the guy hid behind some of the bushes at the edge of our parking lot. We could see on the camera exactly where he was at. We figured that eventually he would leave the area, and since no crime was technically committed, none of us felt the need to call the police. Cut to 30 to 45 minutes later and we were done with closing the store and the guy was still behind the bushes. We all walked out as a group and we could see that the man was still hiding behind the bushes and he was looking at us. Normally, after we were done with our shifts, we like to hang out around the parking lot outside and chat for a bit before we all went our separate ways. We still planned on doing that this night, even though there was a stranger watching us from the bushes. We figured that we had enough strength in numbers and that the guy was harmless because he hadn't really done anything dangerous at the time. My manager, on the other hand, did not like the vibes this guy was giving off. She decided to drive by him to see what he was doing and to get a closer look at him. Right after she slowly drove by the guy, she immediately sped up and drove back to us going in a circle. She told us that we all had to leave immediately because she saw that the guy had a gun. He was holding it in his hand when she passed by. After we heard that, we all immediately ran to our cars like chickens with their heads cut off. And when the man saw this, he started to slowly walk towards us. I swear, we all left skid marks in the parking lot. Trying to leave so fast I could see the man walking towards my car in my rearview mirror when I was pulling out. The next day, my co worker confessed to me that when he saw the man messing with his car, trying to break in, his first instinct was to confront the guy. But he remembered the dream that I had told him and he stopped himself. He told me that that was the only reason he did not confront the man was because of my dream. Even though he had brushed it off as a weird dream, something in his gut told him to take it seriously. I haven't had any other dreams like that since then. It still gives me the chills to think about how I had a dream that almost came true three days later. But because I told my coworker about my dream, I possibly saved his life.
Morgan Abshur
Wow. I believe in predictive dreams. Definitely.
Kayla Moore
100%.
Morgan Abshur
100%.
Kayla Moore
I have had a listener reach out, and I think it was on my dad's show when we did like a spooky episode. And she predicts family members deaths. She's very tied in, and her grandma was tied into the psychic realm and like, wow, family history of it. And she can predict people's deaths and she gets like a glimmer but isn't quite sure who it is. She just gets feelings through her dreams or something like that. And so then it's kind of like, well, God, who's it gonna be? And so it's really, really tough for her. That's so scary.
Morgan Abshur
Does she, like, reach out to the people and tell them, hey, I had this dream about you?
Kayla Moore
No. Because I don't think she gets enough. But she knows it's coming and she can get kind of a vibe, like it's a feminine energy on my husband's side, but she doesn't know who, so
Morgan Abshur
she just starts getting the feeling.
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
Morgan Abshur
Okay.
Kayla Moore
Wow.
Morgan Abshur
I mean, it's really dark to think about, but I don't think I would want someone to tell me or I don't know if it was something like this where it's preventable.
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
Morgan Abshur
Like, hey, this is kind of wild, but I had this dream that someone outside of our fast food job, like, shot you. I would want them to tell me. I think.
Kayla Moore
I think so. I think if it's something that you can potentially change your fate. But then some people believe that, like, no, your fate is set. Doesn't matter what knowledge you have. It's not going to help. Yeah, but it helped here.
Morgan Abshur
It did help here.
Kayla Moore
This was remarkable.
Morgan Abshur
Unless it becomes like a final destination kind of thing where you cheated death. And then now it's just going to come collect at some point, which also kind of freaks me out. But that's. Have you ever had a predictive dream?
Kayla Moore
No. I've had a lot of visitation dreams from loved ones after they've passed, but not any predictive dreams that are standing out.
Morgan Abshur
I had both at the same time. Did I tell you about this?
Kayla Moore
No.
Morgan Abshur
So I had a predictive dream from someone who passed away, who came to me in a dream.
Kayla Moore
I just got the chills.
Morgan Abshur
A family member who passed away that told me I was gonna have a boy.
Kayla Moore
Oh, my God.
Morgan Abshur
And it was exactly a year before I did the gender, before I, like, got the envelope and, like, read what the gender was. Yeah, it was like a year to the day, which is really freaky.
Kayla Moore
I remember us talking about this because I remember you saying, I've had a dream from someone and they told me what, you know, gender my baby will be.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
And you weren't even pregnant yet. You weren't like, yes, it was so early on. And you're like, I guess I'll see if it's. If it's true once it happens. And here you are now having what they said.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, boy. Yeah, exactly. And then the night before. So I. Cause I left the envelope in the car and I had the dream a year before. And then we were gonna just do a little gender reveal in our apartment. And the night before we did that, I had a dream that Matt couldn't wait, so he broke into my car to get the envelope out and opened it.
Kayla Moore
Oh, my God.
Morgan Abshur
Confirmed that it was a boy.
Kayla Moore
That is absolutely. That's a remarkable dream to have.
Morgan Abshur
I know. It was really cool. And. Yeah. For it to be. Yeah. A visitation dream and a predictive future dream.
Kayla Moore
That's incredible. It was really insane. Wow.
Morgan Abshur
Really wild. Yeah. I think people are just tapped into stuff. And I think when you dream, you just can kind of plug into something that we don't have access to when we're awake.
Kayla Moore
I feel like we're more accessible for spirits as well.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
There's something about dreaming. We're not awake, we're not dead. Like, it feels like such a limbo state to me where it feels like we're Easier to reach.
Morgan Abshur
Yes.
Kayla Moore
And that's why I think sleep paralysis. I don't. I think it is, like, something.
Morgan Abshur
I know.
Kayla Moore
I think it's a demon.
Morgan Abshur
We talk about sleep paralysis so much. I think I just like talking about it. Have you.
Kayla Moore
Do you have it?
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, I do. I do. I've had it since college. And, like, absolutely. I've. I remember I. I had this one really scary episode of sleep paralysis where I always got, like, a really bad vibe from, like, one of the crawl spaces in our house in Austin when we lived there.
Kayla Moore
Oh, wow.
Morgan Abshur
And one night, Matt had a cold, so I went and I slept up in the guest bed. And I had the most, Truly, most harrowing sleep paralysis that I've ever had. Where I woke up, actually. I woke up and Gordie was in my arms, which he wasn't. Like, he. Gordie's in the other room, but I wake up and, like, Gordy, my stuffed haunted monkey doll, is in my arms, just. And his head slowly turns to me, and then his eyes just melt off of his face.
Kayla Moore
And you still kept him.
Morgan Abshur
And I kept him. Because I don't think. I don't think that was really Gordy. In my heart, I'm like. Like, yes. We've had so much ghosty activity with Gordy, but I. I. In my heart, I believe he's good. Like, look at him.
Kayla Moore
When you actually woke up. Woke up. Was he in your arms?
Morgan Abshur
No, he was still in the other room.
Kayla Moore
Okay, but this is the same house where you thought your dog got out of the crate.
Morgan Abshur
Yes.
Kayla Moore
And you heard stuff running around upstairs. Yes, absolutely. But nothing was up there except Gordie.
Morgan Abshur
Right after I got Gordy, I put him in the studio. And we also got the puppy at the same time. We got young Fitzgerald at the same time. And Fitzgerald is and was a menace. And so we would hear, like, galloping upstairs. And Matt would be like, where's the dog? And so I'd run upstairs and be like, oh, the dog got upstairs. He wasn't supposed to be up there on his own. He was just a puppy. He peed everywhere. So I would, like, run to go get him. And I get up to the studio. Fitzgerald's not there, but Gordie is just looking right at me. So I don't know what is in Gordy.
Kayla Moore
It's either, like, is it tame at your new spot?
Morgan Abshur
So tame.
Kayla Moore
So maybe it was the house possessing Gordie.
Morgan Abshur
I think it was something about the upstairs of that house. The upstairs was also an addition. It was built like, 40 years after the house was built. So there was just something about the upstairs that was off.
Kayla Moore
I know. Gosh, if only walls could speak.
Morgan Abshur
I know. But sometimes you can get a person who can come in and kind of, like, get a sense of the area and tell you what it's trying to say.
Kayla Moore
That's what I need. So if anyone out there has the ability to tune in, please come walk through my new house with me and help me figure out how to bless it.
Morgan Abshur
I haven't even really asked that of the community. Like, I know we have people in the community that are really tapped into stuff, and I've had community members. Like, I posted. So see that doll back there? So I'll put up a picture of it. But my grandma, one year for Christmas, she, like, sent me that doll. She's like, I found this in my basement.
Kayla Moore
Oh, my gosh.
Morgan Abshur
So she sent it to me, and I posted a picture of it. And one. One of. One listener was like, dude, I'm getting really, really, really horrible. Like, I'm really plugged into this stuff. Like, I'm getting a really bad read from that doll. And I was like, yeah. So I. I kind of keep her over there. We have.
Kayla Moore
Not in your house anymore.
Morgan Abshur
But I'm. I'm so curious. I know not in my house. In the studio is fine as long as she doesn't, like, unplug the equipment and stuff. But, yeah, listeners that are plugged into that stuff, hit me up.
Kayla Moore
There's.
Morgan Abshur
Let me know. We can FaceTime. I'll show you, like, certain areas of my house, and you can tell me if it's haunted.
Kayla Moore
Yeah, I would. I would also. Sign me up. Maybe we, you know, two birds, one stone. Yeah, but I. I think dolls are something that are really. They seem easy to haunt. I mean, obviously we have Annabelle from the Conjuring, where that's based on a real story, but I saw a video lately of a woman who, like, got these dolls from a garage sale and, like, felt that they were haunted. And so she was getting them back to the right culture so the culture could take care of the dolls in the way that they want. But it's just. I think dolls are one of those things that are. So if a spirit gets into it, it just. It feels so powerful.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. I think Gordie's culture is, like. Well, hers for sure is, like, ill Victorian children. So I don't know how I would return her. But Gordy's just. I don't know. Texas. Little kids in Texas.
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
Morgan Abshur
That he came from all right, I want to read you this next one that I found from a listener. I'm ready. It also made me stop in my tracks and kind of led me down a rabbit hole that I want to tell you about.
Kayla Moore
Oh gosh.
Morgan Abshur
And I hope I'm curious if I teach this listener anything from like what I what I learned. And just a heads up, this one has a little bit of animal abuse, like animal gore. So this story is titled Hide and Seek and it comes from Valentina and it goes, hi, I'm Valentina. This story comes all the way from Argentina, so I apologize in advance for any typos. English is not my first language. I've always lived in the city. I was born and raised here. But part of my extended family lives deep in the countryside. There are no forests or mountains there, just flat plains with some low hills and endless grass. When I was eight years old, I traveled there for a week during midsummer with my grandparents and other relatives. Their land was divided into three distinct areas. A creek that ran through the property, my family's house, which was surrounded by animal pens and had a massive 7 meter high shed for machinery attached to it. And finally, just a few meters from the main entrance, the original owner's house. It was a four bedroom house with high ceilings, beautifully enclosed by hundreds of tall pine trees. It was very secluded, but not too far from my family's home. On the second to last day of our stay, my family and I went to the creek to cool off because the heat was unbearable. We walked several meters along the bank until we stopped dead in our tracks. A foul horrific stench filled the air. There, under a tree by the water's edge, lay a cow. It was mutilated from its legs up to its back with deep gashes as if it had been hunted by something. The adults claimed that another animal had caused its death, but they didn't sound convinced. I suspected they only said it to us children so that we wouldn't be scared. There were no predators in that area capable of inflicting such large deep wounds. When night fell, we children decided to play hide and seek in the pitch black darkness of the fields, trying to act brave. The rules were simple. One person counted and the others hid. We weren't allowed to go past the fences surrounding the house and we strictly could not go near the big pine trees of the big house as it was too easy to get lost or hurt among the trees in the dark. I had the misfortune of losing around, so I had to count to 100. I didn't realize how dark it was until I finished counting and had to start searching. Moving away from the only porch light was easy at first, but after 15 minutes, I was still missing two people. My cousin, who had already been found, started helping me because I was the youngest and I was struggling. We searched for over a half hour. Eventually, we started shouting that we were bored and if they didn't come out, we would just leave them out there alone. Right then, a loud, heavy thud came from the trees of the big house. We yelled again, reminding them that hiding there was against the rules. But there was no answer, only another thud, just as loud as the first. We slowly approached, terrified, as the moonlight only allowed us to see the dark silhouettes of the pines. Suddenly, from behind us, the two missing kids shouted, we won. You didn't find us. My oldest cousin asked, where were you? And they started laughing, replying, we were under the truck the whole time. Everyone turned around and ran back to the house for dinner. But before following them, I couldn't help but glance at the trees one last time. In the shadows, I vaguely made out a strange figure moving quickly toward the back of the grove. I ran inside and tried to explain what I had seen, but nobody believed me. They told me I was just imagining things because I was scared, and they insisted I eat before my food got cold. I didn't bring it up again. After midnight, we all went to bed. I slept in my cousin's room with the other small children. The window faced the wooded area of the big house, about the distance of five parked trucks away. I fell asleep quickly from exhaustion, but we were soon jolted awake by the youngest child's frantic crying. He was calling for his mother in desperation, staring fixedly at the window. I sat up, terrified, and looked in the same direction. There, at the top of one of the trees, sat someone. It looked like a woman, but her body was distorted, too small for the size of her head, with incredibly long white hair. She was just sitting there, staring in our direction. The only thing moving was her hair in the wind. Her face was unreadable from that distance, but she did not look happy. Less than five seconds later, my aunts and grandparents burst into the room. Alerted by the screaming, they found half of us paralyzed with fear and the other half grumpy from being woken up. I didn't know how to explain what I saw to them so they would believe me. I just started crying and I begged my grandparents to let me sleep with them. Spent the rest of the night squeezed between them, unable to close my eyes, consumed by terror. The next morning, no one asked any questions to the adults. It was just kids being afraid of the dark. We packed our bags and left for home. I haven't returned to that field since I was 8 then, and I'm 21 now. I can still recall the sensation of knowing that woman was there. Even when I couldn't see her, I knew that she was waiting for someone to look at her again.
Kayla Moore
Oh, my gosh.
Morgan Abshur
Ooh.
Kayla Moore
At first I'm like, okay, animals. Like a big cat could have pulled, like, a smaller animal, not a cow, but like a smaller animal into a tree, and it fell for the thud. But the minute I hear woman, gray hair blowing in the wind. No, no, no, no.
Morgan Abshur
So I looked it up because I had heard about. I just wanted to look up, like, cow mutilation. Argentina just kind of, like, figure out what was going on, what's the lore. And what I found was that Argentina has had an issue with very strange, unexplainable cow mutilations for a very long time. So this was an article that I found. This. This one is from June 4th of 2025, but it reads so recent. An Argentine rancher was left scratching his head after one of his cows was mysteriously slain in a manner that bore the hallmarks of the infamous cattle mutilation phenomenon. According to a local media report, the downed animal was found on Monday morning in the community of Centalon. Nelson Biordo recalled how he was alerted to the strange situation by a farmhand who stumbled upon the dead cow and marveled to him that it appeared as if something had tried to, quote, rip its face off. When the rancher went out to investigate, he was shaken and mystified by what he saw. And there was a picture included that I saw. I'm not gonna show it to people because it's pretty intense, but it doesn't look like anything an animal would do.
Kayla Moore
Okay.
Morgan Abshur
But it's like, as if someone took the skin all off here. So you can see the teeth. It's like something ripped off, but it's really clean and, like, surgically precise. Almost as if someone just ripped off the skin from the face. Now, a predator wouldn't necessarily do that. It doesn't look like something was trying to eat the cow.
Kayla Moore
That's the thing. I'm not an animal expert by any means, but, like, you watch things like Planet Earth, little David Attenborough, you know, and if an animal is gonna take down a cow, you think most of it then would be eaten.
Morgan Abshur
Yes.
Kayla Moore
And there's other animals like Sometimes cows will defend or like a donkey or a llama, are really protectors of a herd. That's why they'll often have them mixed in. They're guardian animals. Yeah, but if it's gone, you know, a donkey's gonna then stick with the rest of the herd. And it's. It's so interesting.
Morgan Abshur
Oh yeah, that is interesting.
Kayla Moore
I don't know. I need animal experts to chime in,
Morgan Abshur
but I know I found another article too from 2002 where there were 200 cattle, one horse, and a handful of sheep slain with surgical accuracy. That comes from this article.
Kayla Moore
Was it at the same farm?
Morgan Abshur
It was not. Was in La Pampa and also Buenos Aires. But according to witnesses, mostly local farmers, the mutilated cattle were found lying dead in pastures with only some parts missing. Some witnesses maintain that the animals were found without a trace of blood around them. Authorities investigating the incidents say, however, they did find some blood near the scene of the slayings. And so what's gonna take down a
Kayla Moore
whole cow, but yet not really leave any evidence of it?
Morgan Abshur
People immediately. So this is funny part. The article goes on to say some Argentines believe that the animals were slaughtered by extraterrestrials or those entranced by a passing ufo. Others say that the slangs were the handiwork of Chupacabras, a mythical beast that is half bat and half kangaroo, with razor like claws capable of dissecting the cows with pinpoint precision. Very, very like tons of Chupacabra lore.
Kayla Moore
Wow.
Morgan Abshur
In that part of the world too. And then others think the whole bovine mystery is an attempt by the government to distract Argentines from the country's ongoing economic collapse.
Kayla Moore
You know, conspiracy theories sometimes.
Morgan Abshur
Sometimes there's a thread of truth in
Kayla Moore
there that is fascinating. Yeah.
Morgan Abshur
So I just thought that was interesting that she also, like, who even knows if that's related to this other thing that she saw in the tree. Cause that's really scary. But the fact that she also stumbled upon one of these, like, very mysteriously
Kayla Moore
butchered cows within such a close time span. Yeah, it does. It feels like it would then be connected.
Morgan Abshur
I'm so curious about the, the cow mutilations because I know there was also an issue in Wyoming maybe. I don't know if we have any experts in this in the audience. Like, parts of America too have had these like, really mysterious cow mutilation cases where people are like, is it UFOs, is it aliens? What are they doing? Are they taking samples?
Kayla Moore
The only thing that's like kind of pinging for Me is marine biologists were discovering sharks, that the sharks were missing, like an organ and it was taken out with such precise, surgical, like, technique almost. And they started to put it together that it was actually dolphins doing it.
Morgan Abshur
Dolphins are organ harvesting sharks. Is there like a black market?
Kayla Moore
We should probably Google this. We should, we should google this before I get on, before I lead people astray.
Morgan Abshur
But I'm pretty sure dolphins are low key evil.
Kayla Moore
Though I didn't realize dolphins and like orcas, like killer whales, they will like, mess with little penguins just for sport. I have a hard time watching killer whale videos. I've seen a lot of planet Earth lately.
Morgan Abshur
Okay, I see what happened. Question mark. Scientists solved mystery of 15 foot white. White shark missing its liver. Was it the dolphin? Let's see. DNA evidence has confirmed that killer whales in Australia hunted a white shark for its liver, marking the first recorded case in the region. The carcass discovered in Victoria showed telltale bite wounds, with genetic analysis linking the attack to killer whales.
Kayla Moore
There's something else that I've seen where it's like dolphins are being a little, a little crazy, but killer whales, I'm
Morgan Abshur
telling you, whales just taking the liver, just the liver.
Kayla Moore
And there's something, there was something about it. So I'm like, that's where I'm like, okay, maybe if there's like one common thing in this cow necropsy where I'm like, we can kind of like see, like, oh, it's just the cow's liver, it's just a kidney. I'm like, maybe there's an animal out there that just has a taste for that delicacy.
Morgan Abshur
It does kind of look like it. Like, so the quote, these findings provide compelling evidence of killer whale predation on white sharks in Australian waters with a strong indication of selective liver consumption. Like, it might just be a palate thing for them.
Kayla Moore
But they were so confused. They're like, why wouldn't the whole shark be gone?
Morgan Abshur
Of course, the liver that is blowing my mind. This is a rabbit hole I'm gonna dive into later.
Kayla Moore
Just wait till you learn that killer whales are teaching other killer whales to attack boats.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, I was. Whale culture, like, whale culture's a thing where, like, how humans have culture. Whales are like the only other species species that have culture. So every few years the headline pops up that about the salmon hats. Like, killer whales wearing salmon hats. And like, scientists can't figure out why, but it was like a thing they also did in the 80s and then they started doing it again recently. And it's because killer whales. Again, I'm going to have to fact check all of this, but from what I saw, killer whales, it's usually. It's mostly the grandmas that teach young kids things. So. But like, these whales are so smart that they remember things, so they'll learn how to kill a stingray by flipping it upside down, and then they'll teach the young whales that. But it's only that pot of whales that does it. And that's not similar of any other species on the earth except for humans. But it's so. They're just so smart.
Kayla Moore
That's amazing.
Morgan Abshur
So smart and, like, kind of evil, apparently.
Kayla Moore
Oh, I know.
Morgan Abshur
Maybe a bad combo.
Kayla Moore
No, I'm fascinated by this cow law now, though. I'm like, this is wild cow lore
Morgan Abshur
and killer whale lore, adding it to the episode list because, like, oh, my gosh. But yeah, that one freaked me out. The stuff I don't know. Like the woman sitting in the tree. I don't know. What was it? Sound off in the comments.
Kayla Moore
It's something. It's definitely something. Not sure how to tackle your taxes.
Morgan Abshur
Are you sweating the small print? You may be experiencing FOMO, the fear of messing up the answer using TurboTax
Kayla Moore
on Intuit credit Karma. They help you get your best biggest
Morgan Abshur
refund, and then we help you do more with it with a personalized plan designed to help you hit your money goals. It's time to take your taxes to the max.
Kayla Moore
Start filing today in the Credit Karma app. This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks.
Morgan Abshur
Big news for your kids lunchbox.
Kayla Moore
Welch's Fruit Snacks are now made without any artificial dyes. A snack parents can feel good about
Morgan Abshur
and the same delicious taste kids can't get enough of.
Kayla Moore
All made with no artificial dyes. Try Welch's Fruit Snacks today.
Morgan Abshur
This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9% of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now@palmolive.com all right, do you want to read the next one you have? Yes.
Kayla Moore
Okay. This one is Backwoods Encounter coming from Sage. Hey, Kaylin. Happy New Year and congratulations on the new baby.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, thank you.
Kayla Moore
I also have an early January Birthday.
Morgan Abshur
Okay Capricorn Hey.
Kayla Moore
As a fellow fan of Cryptids, Ghost Stories and how history can haunt the present, I've enjoyed your podcast for a while and finally decided to pass along an experience that happened to me several years ago. Perhaps it can be included in a future episode of Spooky Slash Unknown Encounters from the Woods My mother was born and raised in Michigan, so I've gone there to visit family and friends ever since I was little. In July 2017, my mom took my two younger sisters and I to visit family friends in a new home. They had moved further north in Michigan. Their new house was isolated, no neighbors nearby, unreliable wi fi, and woods stretching as far as you could see. The surroundings were beautiful, but we were truly in the middle of nowhere. For reference, I grew up in and currently live in the heart of a decent sized city. While I love the woods, I don't like being in them once it gets dark. The people we were visiting, a husband and wife who were good friends with my mom, lived in the main house. Also on the property was a smaller building that they had renovated into a guest house. My family and I were the first ones to stay there. It was connected to the main house via a path through the woods, but the trees were so thick that you couldn't see one from the other even at night when the lights were on. My mom and I were staying in one room. My sisters would share another just down the hall. The guest house had large windows around most of the building. None of the windows had curtains. This made all four of us a bit uneasy. In the city, everyone knows to close your curtains before it gets dark here. Once the lights were on at night, it felt like we were on full display to whatever or whoever might be out in the woods. There weren't any locks on the doors beyond a tiny pin lock, which of course wouldn't do much for someone who grew up being taught the importance of locking your doors. This made me even more uneasy. That first night, long after we had all gone to bed, I woke up to a strange sound. I'm a light sleeper, but it took several moments for me to realize I wasn't dreaming. What I heard is hard to describe. A terrible loud cry, half bellow and half chant that didn't sound like a true language. I remember laying there, frozen in fearful confusion and trying to shake off the haze of sleep, listening to something absolutely foreign and utterly inhuman that seemed to be getting louder and nearer every moment, without warning. Beneath the sheets, I felt my mom's hand wrap around mine. She didn't move, and neither did I. But through the darkness she spoke four brief words. I hear it, too. Together we laid there. I remember daring only to move my eyes, convinced that I'd soon see something enormous and feral on the other side of those huge, curtainless windows. What I expected to see, I had no idea, but something was certainly out there. The closest comparison for the sound I can think of is heavy metal music, the guttural, harsh vocals, which to the untrained ear often seem like they aren't actually using a real language. In all honesty, though, I am a huge fan of metal and rock, so I'm no stranger to the crazy, inhuman sounds. What I heard that July night was unlike any band I'd ever played, and it was so loud, time didn't seem to exist as we listened and waited. Eventually the terrible sound started to fade, as if it was moving away. In a burst of bravery, I hopped out of bed and hurried to the front door to make sure the little pinlock was secured. Even then I knew it was such a silly thing to do. If some sort of Bigfoot or other creature was out there, that pinlock wouldn't have done much. The city girl in me was so accustomed to always locking your doors and locking your car that it felt instinctive, like I had a veneer of protection. After scurrying back to bed, I realized my two sisters were still sleeping just a few yards away in another room. Had they heard whatever my mom and I did, they would have come tearing down the hall into our room. The fact that neither had awoken was unsettling, to say the least. I have no idea what time of night it was. As I was just drifting back to sleep, I heard the guttural cries again, much fainter and further away. Thankfully, after that brief recurrence, I slept until morning. I remember being so relieved to see daylight. The woods feel much less intimidating when the sun is out and the sky is blue. My sisters made no mention of hearing anything sinister during the night. My mom and I made a tacit agreement to not bring it up and frighten them. After all, we were staying there. A few more nights. Later we went to the main house for breakfast. I remember discreetly asking the couple who lived there if they had heard anything at all. Neither had. That sound never reappeared during the rest of our visit, but I have never forgotten it. Nor will I ever forget how frightened I was at the sheer magnitude of unfamiliarity of such a roar. I still remember my mom's hand finding mine under the covers that night and how her voice sounded when she said she could hear it, too. For some reason, only she and I were able to hear whatever was out there that night, Even though there were four other people nearby who should have been able to. Several years have passed since then. I've shared that experience With a handful of people, all of whom have been equal parts frightened and puzzled about the sound's source. Back home in the city, I've tried to rationalize what I heard. Still out there in the depths of Michigan's woods, I truly wonder if it could have been a bigfoot or some similar creature. I've been fascinated by cryptids since I was a child. It's one thing to be thrilled and intrigued by such tales from the safety and familiarity of home. It's quite another to be faced with the possibility of something unknown and ominous right outside your door. What do you think it could have been? Has anyone else ever experienced something similar in the wilderness of Michigan?
Morgan Abshur
Whoa. I mean, you're from the midwest. What's out there?
Kayla Moore
Minnesota, man. We're basically neighbors. There's a lot of legends. I had a friend's cabin I went to one night, and he was like, if you ever hear drums outside, make sure you get back. Like, I think drums was a common thing in northern Minnesota.
Morgan Abshur
Interesting. Kind of reminds me of the night marchers in Hawaii. Ooh, yeah. The night marches in Hawaii. Are. We talk about them in an episode. I'll link it in the description. But they're the spirits of old soldiers of the Hawaiian tribes when it was tribal soldiers. And so at night, if you're camping near the beach or just out in the. Near the woods, whatever, you'll see kind of a line of lights, and it's their torches, and you'll start hearing the drums, and then it's like a line of ghost soldiers that'll walk past you, and you cannot.
Kayla Moore
Well, what are the rules?
Morgan Abshur
You, like, can't look at them in the.
Kayla Moore
Can't look. I know.
Morgan Abshur
So you have to, like, close your eyes and look at the ground, which is so scary to me.
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
Morgan Abshur
But just.
Kayla Moore
It's so out of control, where you're just like, okay, let me stand here and not make a sound and look down and close my eyes. It's just. Yeah, you're like, at. Whatever it is is mercy.
Morgan Abshur
Yes.
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
Morgan Abshur
Ooh, I hate it so much. But we. When I was talking about the great lakes for an episode, I was reading about how old the tribes were that lived in the area, like, thousands of years old.
Kayla Moore
I mean, there's so Many people. There's so many different tribes all across. I mean, the United States, but especially, I feel like, the Midwest. Like, there were so many different tribes along the lakes. And northern Minnesota, northern Michigan.
Morgan Abshur
The up used to not be lakes. Right. They were plains. And so that's why there's, like, all these kind of, like, cities underneath the Great Lakes.
Kayla Moore
From those communities, they're now finding, like, the Stonehenge.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
Underwater. Like, I think it was. Was it Lake Michigan? It was somewhere up there.
Morgan Abshur
I believe it was Lake Michigan. It's one of the Great Lakes.
Kayla Moore
I mean, they're finding canoes that are 10,000 years old that they're now getting out. And, I mean, there's some amazing indigenous folklore and stories that maybe would explain this sound.
Morgan Abshur
The chanting.
Kayla Moore
The chanting I'm so curious about. Cause it sounds like metal music.
Morgan Abshur
I know. That was an interesting detail.
Kayla Moore
And why can only they, mom, and our writer hear it versus the other people?
Morgan Abshur
Well, that's the thing with the night marchers, too. I think it's like family lore. And sometimes it's like your ancestors, too, so only specific people can see them.
Kayla Moore
Wow.
Morgan Abshur
So maybe it was something tied to that. But that's really scary, too, that the mom saw.
Kayla Moore
I know. Can you imagine just being there? And, like, I think all of us can feel that, like, heart racing, stomach just falls out from underneath you when you're, like, scared. And all of a sudden you're just trying not to move, trying not to breathe too loudly, and a hand reaches for you, like, oh. And it's like, I do it too. Yeah. And it's like, yeah. You know, your mom's next to you, but still to just, like, have that. Just.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
That physical touch, just kind of be like, oh.
Morgan Abshur
Have you gone out in the woods much?
Kayla Moore
No. Out there in Minnesota.
Morgan Abshur
Minnesota. Spent much time, like, camping or anything.
Kayla Moore
You know, I used to, when I was growing up, we'd go, like, portage, like, where you'd bring all your supplies in a canoe and go stay on an island. And my brother goes up to the boundary waters every year whenever they can get, like, it's like a lottery to go get a pass to go through.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
I didn't realize how intense it is to be able to do it. So he'll go up there with a group of friends, and they, you know, sometimes will take gummies, even. I'm like, that is very brave. But I haven't. I haven't gone up there a lot. I'm genuinely. I'm scared of the dark. Like, I really, you know, Even walking across my property at night, there's not a lot of light. It's pitch black. And so I tend to avoid experiences like that.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
The.
Morgan Abshur
The property where you had your wedding. I know. Even I can't even imagine at night. Like there's so. I would just picture someone in the trees watching me.
Kayla Moore
You do. And it's just, I think the unknown of like this story too, with like the windows and like the minute you have lights on and it's dark outside, like, you know, you're in like a box that's lit up where anyone can see you. And I think a lot of times in the woods, in the dark at night, there's a lot of things that can see you and you would never know they're there.
Morgan Abshur
I know. I would think about that. That was like growing up, we had a room that was all windows and then woods and the Connecticut woods are really scary.
Kayla Moore
Yep. Nope.
Morgan Abshur
There's a lot of spooky stuff going on in Connecticut. But I always just felt like a fish in a barrel. Like, oh, they can see me, but I can't see them. Cause all the lights are on in here and they're just out there staring at me because I'm a nine year old girl and they're just like waiting to come. I always, always, always had that fear.
Kayla Moore
Yeah. And just like I believe in Bigfoot. So I'm like, I don't know, maybe it was Bigfoot blasting some sort of sound to the other Bigfoots. I don't, I really. I don't mess with it.
Morgan Abshur
You know what I read the other day that I was really surprised about? So Bigfoot is mostly associated with like the Pacific north northwest. But guess what state has the number two most Bigfoot sightings? I was shocked when I learned this.
Kayla Moore
Tennessee.
Morgan Abshur
Florida.
Kayla Moore
Oh, the Everglades.
Morgan Abshur
The Everglades. Yep. There's a lot Everglades, man. Something's going on down there.
Kayla Moore
I could see Louisiana also being one that just like really would ping for like. I mean, it's such a spooky paranormal state. There's so much slopes.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I'm prepping a Everglades episode right now, actually. That's going to come out in a few weeks. And the thing I've learned about the Everglades is one, don't go there ever, like under any circumstance. Because you're just gonna see something you don't wanna see because of how many bodies get dumped there. It is the. And I'm saying this cause I trust my audience. But, like, it is literally the perfect place to dump a body.
Kayla Moore
Alligators.
Morgan Abshur
Alligators. The heat, the elements, humidity. The second a body goes into the Everglades, it's gone. There's, like, really no hope that you'll ever find it. It was a total fluke if they find people that have been dumped there and. But it's so sad because people in the area know that too, so, like, they take advantage of it. But really scary.
Kayla Moore
Wow.
Morgan Abshur
Everglades stuff.
Kayla Moore
Wow, wow, wow.
Morgan Abshur
Really freaks me out. Okay, I have one more for you. Okay, this one, the title is Church Camp Curse. So of course I had to throw it in here. This comes from Sarah and it reads. When I was in high school, I was a youth leader at my church where my dad was the youth pastor and we would have spring and fall retreat for confirmation students. Oh, I'm having flashbacks. As a Catholic, I'm having flashbacks. One spring retreat, I decided to go up early with my dad and set up because my best friend at the time, Janine, was one of the weekend leaders and I thought it would be fun to go up early with her. Well, we get there and the small group of teenagers and myself all get assigned to preparing the cabins for the arrival of the confirmation students. Janine and I decided to get preparing our cabin over with so we could put our bags down. We walked up to our cabin door and it was locked. That was weird because we were told by one of the center managers that they'd unlocked all the doors of each cabin before we got there. The others got into their cabins all right, while ours was the only one that was locked. Now, the way that these cabins were set up, there were two sides. Both sides are the exact same. Five to six bunk beds, a communal style bathroom, and a balcony sleeping level for one to two chaperones. Both sides have doors to enter from, so there wasn't any walking through the adults area. So remembering that there was another door, I decided to go around, let myself in through that door, go up to the balcony, and then back down to the other side to let Janine in. I first yelled to Janine that the door on the second side was unlocked, but I felt like I was in a bubble. I realized after the fact now it was weird that Janine couldn't hear me yelling or that I couldn't hear anything around me. Granted, I tend to be soft spoken, but this felt weird. I didn't think much of it. I just decided to go through the cabin and open the door where she was waiting. But when I opened the door with a playful boo. Janine was nowhere to be found. I lugged in our bags that still sat by the door, knowing that she was about to try and scare me like she always did. A few seconds later, I heard slow footsteps on the stairs on the other side and Janine emerged with a serious annoyed look on her face. As she came down the steps, she asked, why didn't you let me in? I asked her what she meant and she told me that she tried opening the door again and it led up. But I kept holding it shut and didn't say anything. Nor did I let her open the door, which is why she went through the other side. I immediately felt chills. I told her I had barely gotten to this side until about 15 to 30 seconds before she came through the other side and when I opened the door, she was the one who wasn't there. She said she was pulling, but someone else was definitely on the other side keeping the door closed. I told her to stop trying to scare me and we both did not relent, chalking it up to the other one taking a joke too far. So we set up the cabin with name tags and such and then we went up over to the second side to do the same while setting up now within each other's sights. We heard the door on the first side open and then shut with a massive slam. Janine and I looked at each other with wide eyes as we heard footsteps on the cement floor, then footsteps on the wood stairs leading up to the balcony, each step sounding with a creak. We watched the balcony where someone would have appeared by this point, but there was nothing. Janine yelled hello. And I felt my heart start pounding as no one answered. We quickly finished the last of our tasks before racing out of the cabin. We checked the other door and it was slightly open. We look inside. No one. Our other friends came out of some of their cabins, so we knew that it wasn't wasn't them. Janine and I tried to shake it off and continued doing our other tasks to prepare for the arrival of the confirmation students. That night we took the students to the cabins and assigned them to each. Everyone got ready for bed and then chose their beds. Janine and I chose the bunk closest to the door and across from the balcony. Janine asked me to take the top bunk and after a bit of protest, I agreed, despite hating the top bunk due to my fear of heights. We turned the lights off and everyone settled in and fell asleep. I fell asleep, no problem. But then at 3:00am on the dot, I woke up in a cold sweat, fear paralyzing every bone in my body. At this time in my life, it was never usually one to wake up multiple times in the night and typically I slept very deeply. Not even loud noises would wake me up. I tried to keep my eyes closed, but they ended up flying open. I looked around in the dark and my eyes finally landed on a very dark corner in the balcony. My eyes were completely still and focused on this corner. I knew if I tried I was able to move and I didn't feel like I couldn't breathe. So I know that this wasn't sleep paralysis, but I felt like I was tied to that position regardless. I felt a level of fear throughout my body that I've never felt before. And as a self proclaimed scaredy cat, it was a truly unsettling fear that had my very being being terrified to the core. Though I couldn't see exactly what was in the balcony corner, I knew one thing. It hated me and it hated everyone in this cabin. It thought that this was its home and it wanted us out. This went on until about 3:30 in the morning. Me stuck staring, hoping and praying that I actually didn't see whatever it was. Finally I forced myself to say a Hail Mary, a Lord's Prayer and a Glory Be, and I felt the heavy feeling lift. I got myself to move and snuck into Janine's bed and she immediately let me into her bed when I told her something was scaring me. The next morning we were talking about it and she told me that she also felt something staring at her. After I gotten into her bed until about 4 in the morning, she said she had vivid weird dreams about the balcony and whatever was there. When she eventually did fall asleep, which a few others sleeping in the cabin said they also had, being teenagers, we started joking about it until a religious chaperone seemed genuinely disturbed. He grabbed another chaperone, Kristen, who was known to be very religious but also in tune with the spiritual paranormal realm. Kristen sat us down and had us tell her what was going on and we started with what happened when we first arrived. After we told her everything, Kristen made us take her to the cabin where she pointed exactly to the spot that I had been stuck staring at for all that time. And she said, he's right there.
Kayla Moore
Oh my gosh.
Morgan Abshur
I felt chills roll down my spine as she continued to explain to me that it was convinced we were there, intruding on its home and it targeted me since I was the first one to cross into its living space. When I went to initially open the door and crossed through the balcony. Kristen decided to do a small exorcism and she pulled out her Bible. It wasn't quite as dramatic as the movies, but weird things did begin to happen. I felt sick to my stomach as the temperature turned ice cold and whispers filled my head. I saw one of my hair ties fly up from the ground and hover midair. I could feel the spirit's anger as she expelled it from the cabin. Kristen went up to the balcony and cleansed the area with holy water. Steam started to rise from where she blessed. The foundation of the floor started shaking. It was terrifying. And I just remember being so thirsty and tired after this whole ordeal. Then, just like that, it was done. I no longer felt terrified just being inside the cabin. And that night I slept peacefully until the morning prayer bell the next morning. I have never spoken about it with Janine since, and it feels like a distant dream at this point. I used to be a huge skeptic about the paranormal and supernatural stuff and I wanted none of the ghost stories to be real as I was very easily scared. Now I'm still a little skeptical, but I've had different paranormal experiences. But thankfully they have all been friendly ones with relatives who have passed away. And that's their story.
Kayla Moore
Oh, my gosh. The whole time I'm like, get the holy water out. Get it out.
Morgan Abshur
I know.
Kayla Moore
Get it out. There's something about, like religious places being haunted that feels so much.
Morgan Abshur
Yes.
Kayla Moore
Like more intense.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah. Like it's a. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's something just hanging out there anyways. Waiting to come in.
Kayla Moore
Yeah. And it's like, what is it about this church camp that would draw this spirit?
Morgan Abshur
Matt worked at a camp in Texas that was a Catholic camp.
Kayla Moore
Okay.
Morgan Abshur
And then became like a non denominational Christian camp. And they always said that there was weird stuff going on and like really supernatural scary stuff. But not even. Not just like, oh, there's a ghost of like the old man that used to work here. Like something demonic at the camp?
Kayla Moore
Yeah. Like, did he see anything or what were the rumors there?
Morgan Abshur
I have to get the specifics from him. I should have talked to him about it before, but I'll get the specifics from him.
Kayla Moore
Phone a friend.
Morgan Abshur
I'll phone a friend. Wait, maybe he'll come in. Matt, I have a question real quick.
Kayla Moore
He's scared.
Morgan Abshur
That camp you worked at in Texas that was Catholic, that was like haunted. What was the deal with it?
Kayla Moore
I'm popping out for our celeb. Your celeb shot.
Morgan Abshur
Wait Come sit.
Kayla Moore
Crazy.
Morgan Abshur
Tell me about the dragon one again.
Matt Brown
The dragon one said there were, like, these adult football coaches in Texas who were there for a retreat. And so one of them was, like, in the shower. It's like, you know, we had, like, showers away from the cabins, like, at night. So one of them's away. He says he sees this, like, dragon, like, sort of spirit figure thing. So he literally runs screaming, like, out of the. Like through the woods, like, with a towel.
Morgan Abshur
A dragon. That feels kind of like demonic, Spooky. Oof.
Matt Brown
Very demonic. Spooky. Weird things would happen. Like, we had a ropes wall, like, ropes course wall, and nobody was climbing it. There was stuff sitting at the top and, like, someone was sitting, like, below it. There's like, no. Somehow, like, this heavy thing falls off the top and, like, hits someone on the head and, like, knocks them unconscious. We had one, like, kid who everyone thought was, like, possessed who, like, tried to drown this, like, girl in the river.
Morgan Abshur
Did they try to do an exorcist? Because was it still a religious camp?
Matt Brown
It was still. Well, it was like. It was weird. So, like, depending on the week you were there. So like, some weeks it was religious, and some weeks it was not. Some weeks it was Catholic, some weeks it was Protestant.
Morgan Abshur
Okay.
Matt Brown
It was quite funny.
Morgan Abshur
Were the Catholic weeks more haunted? I would be curious to do case study.
Matt Brown
A lot of weeks were maybe less haunted. I don't know. Maybe because priests were there, so the demons were in hiding. I don't know.
Morgan Abshur
Fair.
Matt Brown
There was weird. Yeah. There was a kid who, like, scratched everyone. And then, like, whenever the name Jesus was said, he would, like, freak out.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, so actually was maybe possessed.
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Matt Brown
If you ever seen, like, the Passion of the Christ and there's the. Those weird kids who are possessed, like, at the end. It was like, the only time I've ever seen anything like that where there's, like, nothing in the eyes. It's just, like, black.
Kayla Moore
Yeah.
Matt Brown
When they would do, like, a salvation night. And then, like, across the river. We lives in the middle of nowhere, hill country in Texas, actually. Very near where all the floods were that killed, unfortunately, the campers. Same exact area. There were, like, all of a sudden, like, lights would show up, like, in the woods. There's, like, no houses, but there were, like, weird lights, like, across the river. It was very bizarre.
Morgan Abshur
Do you think it was haunted because the camp was religious, or do you think there was, like, something on the land there before?
Matt Brown
I think it was haunted because it was, like, a Catholic camp before.
Morgan Abshur
That's what we Were saying. That's what Morgan and I were saying.
Matt Brown
Yeah.
Morgan Abshur
No. Thank you for your insight.
Matt Brown
So there you go.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Matt Brown
And now Morgan.
Kayla Moore
You guys should have seen my face off camera. My jaw was dropped the whole time. The demon in the shower.
Morgan Abshur
No, that's scary. Especially when it's, like, a football coach running in the street.
Kayla Moore
Clearly, like, you'd think. Not a guy that would probably react lightly, like, it's legit. And the shower, when you're, you know, very vulnerable, just closing your eyes, washing your hair, doing stuff like. No.
Morgan Abshur
Ooh, that's really creepy. Did you ever go to a religious camp?
Kayla Moore
I never went to a religious camp. My mom was, like, very. My parents were very. No camps. Not a lot of sleepovers until we were, like, older. Like 15, 16. I'm just, like, now kind of realizing this. Like, we were very kind of, like, monitored with who we would stay with.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
But the school, I think it was in, like, sixth grade in Minnesota. We went to this camp, Camp Miller. And it was just, like, one night, and I got good vibes there.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
But no. No religious ties at that camp, so.
Morgan Abshur
Right, right, right again. I wonder if it is. Ugh. If anyone's gone to a religious camp, let me know.
Kayla Moore
Well, you almost wonder, like, hearing the stories about these kids that, like, scratch people and just, like, you wonder if the parents send them to these camps in hopes. Maybe a little exorcism that's performed on
Morgan Abshur
Timmy or priest intervention will happen. Yeah. Ooh, I know. That gets into really dangerous territory real fast. Absolutely. Yeah.
Kayla Moore
That's insane.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
I cannot even imagine seeing holy water steam off of a deck. I'm just. I'm gonna sit with these for quite some time.
Morgan Abshur
But that's how you know it's working. That's how you know you're at a good camp, and the people there are, like, actually effectively getting rid of the demons. I would feel better being at that camp with that girl there or that woman there that. The chaperone get rid of the demons. Yeah.
Kayla Moore
Can she come to my house?
Morgan Abshur
I'm gonna email this. Can she. Her back?
Kayla Moore
Sarah, come over. Wow.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, that was spooky. Okay, that's all I have for today. Our listener stories. And once again, if you guys are listening and you have a story that you've always wanted to send me, you can check out Heartstars pounding dot com. We have a form there. And you can send us any paranormal encounter that you've had. Other stories, too. Like, honestly, we've had really interesting stories from listeners on, like, close Encounters with, like, scary people and predictive dreams. Like, anything that you think would be good on the show, please send it to us.
Kayla Moore
I know. I'm so. I love these episodes. I'm just, like, so fascinated by them. We still need to do the psychic dinner. Oh, yeah, the psychic. You, like, go into a room privately with a psychic and each have your own turn. And then after you have due dinner and, like, talk about it, because that. I'll get into haunted house. I gotta. We're gonna need some time for the haunted house we talked about.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, yeah. Wait, which one was that one that we're.
Kayla Moore
That was in Kentucky.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, yeah. We have a lot that we have to do that we have to.
Kayla Moore
Tuberculosis asylum.
Morgan Abshur
Oh, the Waverly Hills. Yeah, we definitely have to do that. It's a big one on my list.
Kayla Moore
It's so crazy because it's like, I wanna do it, but I'm so, so scared. Like, genuinely scared. And I don't just do it scared.
Morgan Abshur
That's what I do. Just be scared. But, like, do it. You know? I think. I think you could. I think if we were there.
Kayla Moore
I don't want anything to attach its. And how do you prevent that?
Morgan Abshur
I don't think it would. Because that, like, Waverly Hills is. It's like tuberculosis patients.
Kayla Moore
Okay.
Morgan Abshur
It's not necessarily anything demonic because. Not even necessarily anything evil or bad.
Kayla Moore
Yeah. Because I've heard in New Orleans, I really want to do a good New Orleans trip and tour and see, like, everything there, but people are like, do not accept anything from someone. If someone offers you something, do not accept it. So I need, like, the. The rules so that if I do.
Morgan Abshur
Yeah.
Kayla Moore
Buck up and have the courage that I do it kosher.
Morgan Abshur
I mean, the nice thing with New Orleans is so many people, there are so knowledgeable. You can get a really good tour guide. Like, just hire someone really knowledgeable of the area to make sure that, like, we're safe.
Kayla Moore
Okay, cool.
Morgan Abshur
But I think we could do it. I think that'd be fun. That'll be our little side quest.
Kayla Moore
There we go.
Morgan Abshur
At some point.
Kayla Moore
Okay, I'm ready.
Morgan Abshur
Okay, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming, for joining me here at the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters.
Kayla Moore
Thank you for having me. I need a shirt with that on it.
Morgan Abshur
I know. Yeah. I have to get you, like, a. We have these really cool notebooks that say Rogue Detecting Society. I'll get you one.
Kayla Moore
Okay.
Morgan Abshur
That's all we have for this week. Join us next week here again for another episode. And I'll see you guys next time. Bye Bye Hearts Arts Pounding is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Heartstarts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Our Associate producer is Juno Hobbs. Sound design and mix by Redrum Creative. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan and the team at wme. Have a Heart Pounding story or a case request? Check out heartsartsfounding com todo ceciente mascaro oyendia poreso esto importa TikTok Shop tienne una norme variedad de productos conofertas que no esperas. Buenos precious. Paralloke usas todos los dias descarga TikTok aura.
Real Scary Stories: A Cursed Church Camp, An Eerie Ranch, and The Deep Woods (Feat. Morgan Absher)
Date: March 26, 2026
Host: Kayla Moore (Heart Starts Pounding)
Guest: Morgan Absher (Host of Two Hot Takes and Clues)
In this Listener Appreciation Month episode, Kayla Moore and guest Morgan Absher dive into a series of listener-submitted, spine-tingling real-life stories. Themes range from intergenerational hauntings and cryptids to unsettling church camp experiences and predictive dreams. The episode explores the universality and personal impact of supernatural encounters, folklore traditions, and the thin line between myth and lived experience.
Timestamps: 02:47–04:13
Timestamps: 04:14–09:41
Summary:
Sneha from Kerala, India shares a generational family legend from 1904 about a house governed by mysterious, rigid rules—whistling at night is forbidden, mirrors must be covered after dusk, and don’t answer your name after dark. After a British officer visits, subtle but escalating phenomena occur: illness, objects moving, food spoiling, and eventually, both adults begin hearing a voice giving instructions. The toddler daughter starts listening to “the house.” After a forgotten rule is broken, a supernatural escalation results in the family fleeing the house, leaving behind a child angry at not “finishing learning.” Local legends say the house remains “waiting,” training rather than haunting.
Discussion & Insights:
Timestamps: 15:44–19:55
Summary:
Anna describes a dream in which she foresees her hotheaded coworker being shot when confronting a thief breaking into his car. The next week, the scenario unfolds almost identically; this time, her coworker acts differently—triggered by her warning—and likely saves his own life.
Discussion & Insights:
Timestamps: 27:24–40:00
Summary:
Valentina recounts a harrowing childhood experience on her family’s rural ranch: mutilated cattle found with wounds no local animal could make, children playing night hide-and-seek amid strict boundaries, and a subsequent sighting of a pale woman with long hair sitting motionless in a tree. The family refuses to discuss it, but years later Valentina still feels its presence.
Discussion & Insights:
Timestamps: 41:40–54:13
Summary:
Sage describes a terrifying night in a remote Michigan guesthouse, where she and her mother wake to hear “a terrible loud cry, half bellow and half chant,” compared to inhuman heavy metal vocals. Despite others being nearby, only they hear the sound—which fades and never returns. The experience leaves them changed and deeply unsettled.
Discussion & Insights:
Timestamps: 54:15–67:36
Summary:
Sarah tells of a chilling incident at a church camp where, while prepping a cabin for new arrivals, she and her friend Janine experience doors locking/unlocking mysteriously, footsteps with no visible source, and an overwhelming sense of a hostile presence. That night, Sarah is paralyzed by fear, staring at a dark balcony corner, convinced something evil is watching. A spiritually attuned chaperone confirms feeling a malevolent entity and performs an exorcism—resulting in physical manifestations: cold, whispers, objects moving, and steam rising from holy water. The sense of dread leaves afterward, but the experience permanently alters Sarah’s skepticism.
Discussion & Insights:
On Folklore’s Cross-Cultural Rules:
Kayla: “Don’t whistle at night…that whistling also pops up in Appalachia. If you hear a whistle or you hear your name called…these stories transcend cultures and geography.” (09:41)
On Predictive Dreams:
Morgan: “I think people are just tapped into stuff... When you dream, you just can kind of plug into something that we don't have access to when we're awake.” (22:59)
On the Eerie Ranch:
Kayla: “If an animal is gonna take down a cow, you think most of it then would be eaten.” (34:19)
Morgan: “It was like someone just ripped the skin off. Not a predator—doesn’t look like feeding at all.” (33:44)
On Church Camp Hauntings:
Host’s chaperone account: “She [the chaperone] pointed exactly to the spot…I had been stuck staring at...and she said, ‘He’s right there.’” (60:28)
Morgan (after the exorcism account): “That’s how you know you’re at a good camp—the people there are effectively getting rid of the demons.” (67:07)
On the Michigan Woods:
Kayla: “…city girl…in the woods, at night…so accustomed to always locking your doors…it felt instinctive, like I had a veneer of protection.” (Post 47:00)
Kayla invites listeners to continue submitting stories (paranormal, mysterious, predictive, or otherwise) and teases future investigations into haunted locations (Waverly Hills, New Orleans).
Final words:
Kayla (to Morgan): “Thank you for joining me at the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters.” (69:32)
For fans of chilling tales, global folklore, and mysterious personal experiences, this episode is a vivid journey between cultures, faith, and the unknown—anchored by the warmth and curiosity of Kayla, Morgan, and their listener community.