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S20 Ep34: Crawling creatures, another man in the woods and a child with no eyes (Sn. 20 Ep. 34) - Monsters Among Us | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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S20 Ep34: Crawling creatures, another man in the woods and a child with no eyes (Sn. 20 Ep. 34)

Monsters Among Us

Thu Feb 19 2026

Summary

Monsters Among Us – S20 Ep34: Crawling creatures, another man in the woods and a child with no eyes

Host: Derek Hayes
Date: February 19, 2026
Podcast Description: Real first-hand paranormal stories, told by witnesses, curated by Derek Hayes in a nostalgia-rich, spooky atmosphere.

Episode Overview

This episode continues the tradition of spine-tingling first-person stories of the unexplained, centering on unsettling personal encounters with the paranormal. Highlights include a chilling run-in with a boy with black, eyeless sockets, crawling creatures in the night, mysterious men in the woods, poltergeist-like disturbances, and an eerie airline pilot UFO sighting. Encounters with haunting lights, shadow people, vibrating beds, and more round out an episode heavy on the unexplainable and atmospheric. Derek maintains a warm, open tone, and often provides folklore context and insight after each caller’s story.

Key Stories and Discussions

1. The Eyeless Boy – Jackie, Parts Unknown

[03:27-08:24]

Story: Jackie describes picking up her daughter from middle school in daylight and seeing a boy in black walking home. When they pass him, he turns and looks at both with black, formless eyes—no whites, only a vacant, black void. Both mother and daughter feel a "gravitational pull" toward him, a terror mixed with inexplicable attraction, like falling into an abyss.
Jackie initially rationalizes the sighting as blackout contact lenses but later doubts this after makeup professionals point out the practical impossibility of full-sclera blackout lenses for everyday use.
Years later, when revisiting the memory, her daughter independently recalls the same details including the eye contact and unsettling pull, validating Jackie's experience.
Notable Quote:
- Jackie [04:38]: “He made eye contact with us, except he had no eyes...it was just blackness. There was no eye white...But when I made eye contact with him, it was like he became closer to me...The whole world had fallen away and I had this gravitational pull.”
Host Commentary: Derek notes blackout contacts do exist ([08:24]) but wonders if this could be an encounter with “Black Eyed Kids” lore due to the strong, supernatural vibe.

2. Poltergeist-like Bang – Ally, Maine

[12:14-14:54]

Story: Alone at home, Ally hears a massive bang from directly above her—a sound so heavy and sharp she likens it to a 300-pound person jumping off a bed. She rushes outside, finding nothing, and the event remains unexplained. She’s lived in old houses before, but insists this was different than typical settling noises.
Notable Quote:
- Ally [12:53]: “It sounded as if [my 300 lb husband] was standing on our bed and then just jumped as hard as he could onto the floor above me...I can’t explain to you how weird it was to me…It just didn't seem like a natural occurring kind of sound.”
Host Commentary: Derek offers rational suggestions (house settling, a large bird) but acknowledges the feeling of acute fear escalates the mystery.

3. The Sharp-Dressed Stranger and His Dog – Ray, Pennsylvania

[17:10-23:02]

Story: Ray and his girlfriend encounter a sharply-dressed elderly man in a suit and his eerily still, massive German Shepherd while walking in Stroud’s Nature Preserve. The man peppers them with personal questions. Later, as dusk falls, he seems to follow them out of the woods, getting closer each time they turn around, eliciting a “Michael Myers effect.” They bolt to their car, which is parked next to the stranger’s Rolls Royce, and flee. Years later, Ray’s wife reminds him the man called himself "Vladimir," fueling speculation he was a vampire or similarly odd being.
Notable Quote:
- Ray [21:06]: “Every time we turned around, him and the dog were like closer to us. He wasn’t running, but he was walking. It was like the Michael Myers effect...I don’t know if it was a vampire...or if we walked through some kind of time dimension and met some dude from the past. He was just so sharp dressed.”
Host Commentary: Derek draws parallels to “Men in Black” stories ([23:02]), referencing Reddit threads about mysteriously dressed men in woods, and shares similar experiences from other users, amplifying the uncanny vibe.

4. Blue Floating Dots – Cassidy, Pennsylvania

[27:56-32:21]

Story: Cassidy recounts growing up in a house built on a Native American burial ground in Towanda, PA. As a child, she sees glowing blue dots in her room that respond to her thoughts, sometimes multiplying or forming images. The experience ends when her mother sees the same blue light and is terrified. Cassidy now sees similar patterns during deep meditation.
Notable Quote:
- Cassidy [28:59]: “I would see two blue dots appear...I could play with these dots...I could make blue skies and white clouds and trees...it would follow what I wanted it to do, but make them better.”
Host Commentary: Derek connects Cassidy’s story to similar phenomena in old, burial-ground towns and references a news clip about ancient remains in Augusta, Kentucky.

5. Vibrating Bed Mystery – Megan, Virginia

[35:04-36:27]

Story: Megan and her husband experience their bed vibrating at night, even after moving to a new house. The sensation is subtle, like a small earthquake, and persists regardless of location or bed.
Notable Quote:
- Megan [35:31]: “A lot of the times our bed will vibrate to the point where I’ll ask him, are you moving? And he’ll ask me the same, and both of us will be like, no, we’re completely still…”
Host Commentary: Derek suggests possible explanations: a shared psychological effect, a physical bed issue, or even (humorously) a “useless secret superpower.”

6. The Ghost Horse (or Mammoth?) – Ben, Oklahoma

[37:22-39:01]

Story: Ben, a military veteran, and his girlfriend both see a massive, spectral horse—"the size of an elephant"—by the river on different occasions. Each sighting involves the animal vanishing suddenly, leaving them spooked.
Notable Quote:
- Ben [37:38]: “It looked like a broad horse by the side of the elephant, maybe...It walked behind a big chunk of grass, not nearly big enough to hide this thing, and disappeared.”
Host Commentary: Derek muses whether the specter could be a “ghost mammoth,” and drops a trivia tidbit about Oklahoma’s famous horses.

7. Paralysis, Robed Shadow, and Cat Steps – Chris, Michigan (Event in California)

[40:32-43:14]

Story: Chris, as a teen, feels watched in his room at night; sees a faceless, robed shadow. He hides under covers, feels the sensation of a cat walking up the bed and sitting on his chest, but nothing’s there—a sequence reminiscent of sleep paralysis. The feeling abates only after switching rooms.
Notable Quote:
- Chris [41:13]: “At the foot of my bed...a silhouette of like a robe or something just floating there...I pulled the blanket over my head. Suddenly I felt pressure at the foot of my bed, like a cat walking up, and it sat on my chest.”
Host Commentary: Derek connects the description to the “Alp” from German folklore: a shape-shifting, cloaked night creature that causes nightmares.

8. Haunted Scottish Castle Confirmed – Psychic Medium Caller

[47:10-48:36]

Story: A psychic medium corroborates a previous episode’s report about sensing a "room full of nonliving people” in Holyrood Castle, Scotland. She walks into the portrait room and feels it buzzing with spirit-party energy.
Notable Quote:
- Caller [47:44]: “I said, oh my gosh, this room is full of people—and none of them are alive. It truly was just so much energy...felt like there was a party going on.”
Host Commentary: Derek wonders what it’s like to visit haunted locations as a psychic.

9. Shadow Man with a Burning Hot Floor – Jason, Tennessee

[49:24-53:47]

Story: Jason stays overnight in a friend’s home haunted by her deceased husband. He wakes up paralyzed, sees a tall shadow man in a hat and coat (“neighborhood watch cartoon”-like) in the corner, and finds the floor beside the bed inexplicably “hot as the top of a stove.” The friend corroborates: she, too, experienced a visitation the same night.
Notable Quote:
- Jason [51:51]: “...I see a man in the corner...much taller than me, probably seven and a half, eight feet tall...He kind of looked like the neighborhood watch cartoon...So I...put my bare feet on the floor, and the floor was as hot as the top of a stove...Like, this shadow person did not want me getting out of the bed.”

10. Pilot UFO Sighting – T, International Airline Pilot

[55:04-57:49]

Story: In the 1990s, “T” (airline pilot) sees an object at extreme altitude leaving a contrail, crossing much of Colorado in 25 seconds—calculating an estimated speed of Mach 24 (~18,000 mph). He speculates it was the mythical “Aurora Project” spy plane.
Notable Quote:
- T [56:20]: “I watched this object zip across the sky leaving a contrail...I measured the distance...and I calculated about Mach 24. That’s about what I’ve heard rumored the Aurora Project clips along.”
Host Commentary: Derek gives background on the Aurora project, plays a European news segment, and muses if the sighting was secret military tech or something “from out of this world.”

Notable Quotes & Moments

Jackie [Eyeless Boy, 04:38]: “He made eye contact with us, except he had no eyes... There was no eye white.”
Ray [Woodsman, 21:06]: “Every time we turned around, him and the dog were closer to us. It was like the Michael Myers effect.”
Cassidy [Blue Dots, 28:59]: “I could make blue skies and white clouds and trees.”
Jason [Shadow Man, 51:51]: “…the floor was as hot as the top of a stove. Like, this shadow person did not want me getting out of the bed.”
T [Pilot, 56:20]: “…I calculated about Mach 24. That’s about what I’ve heard rumored the Aurora Project clips along.”

Timestamps for Key Segments

Jackie – Eyeless child: 03:27–08:24
Ally – Giant bang in house: 12:14–14:54
Ray – Man, Dog, Woods: 17:10–23:02
Cassidy – Blue lights, haunted house: 27:56–32:21
Megan – Vibrating bed: 35:04–36:27
Ben – Spectral horse: 37:22–39:01
Chris – Shadow man, cat steps: 40:32–43:14
Psychic medium (Holyrood): 47:10–48:36
Jason – Shadow person, hot floor: 49:24–53:47
T (pilot) – Mach 24 UFO: 55:04–57:49

Episode Tone & Final Thoughts

Derek’s tone is both warm and skeptical, providing a steady hand of reason or folklore reference after each eerie call. The stories are delivered in the first person, making them intimate and unsettling, yet the host cultivates a sense of camaraderie and fascination rather than fear—inviting listeners to keep an open mind and “keep it spooky.” The episode is heavy on creepiness—haunted children, spectral creatures, and menacing strangers—but is also full of curiosity and wonder.

For Further Listening

Show Notes and Links: Additional Reddit threads, news clips, and folklore references are provided for the curious at monstersamonguspodcast.com (see the Show Notes tab).

Summary prepared for those wanting a full walkthrough of monsters, mysteries, and memories featured – without facing the dark alone.

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Transcript

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Derek Hayes (1:13)

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Caller/Guest (1:24)

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Derek Hayes (1:25)

Ultra strong trash bags with fabuloso. Good evening and welcome to Monsters Among Us. I am your guide, Derek Hayes. Welcome everyone. I don't know what it's like where you are, but here the snow is really coming down. The weatherman is calling for nearly three feet for our area. Our first snowstorm of the season. And of course, just down the mountain they're getting washed out by inches of rain. All that to say it's nasty out there folks. The perfect kind of night to light up the fireplace or fire up a space heater and tune in to some spooky stories. And if that's your goal here tonight, you are in luck because I have an amazing episode chock full of the spookiest of stories and the most spine tingling of tales. Beginning with this one from Jackie and parts unknown.

Jackie (3:27)

Hi Derek, My name is Jackie and I just recently started listening to your podcast. I love, love love it. About seven years ago I was picking up my daughter from middle school. As I did every day. It was very normal. This would be about 3 o' clock in the afternoon, broad daylight, normal time, everything's good. I always picked her up so early that we would always beat the walkers, the kids that walked home from school. And this day was no different. So I picked her up. We were driving in our neighborhood. We're about halfway into the neighborhood, and that is where our neighborhood gets real curvy. The roads get really curvy and you can't totally see who's right around the corner. So you have to stay on your side of the road. There was a boy, about a middle school age boy walking in front of me. He was wearing all black. He had black shoes on, black pants. He was wearing a gray hoodie that was maybe zipped up. And then he was wearing the hood over his head and he had a black backpack on. As he was walking, he was looking at his feet. At this point, we've been behind him for maybe 20 to 30 seconds. I'm starting to get to the point in the road where I can see the oncoming traffic and I can get around him. So as we drive around him, I make a little snarky joke to my kiddo and I said, oh, he must have left before the bell rang. And she laughed and we're just being silly. And as soon as I said it, and right when she laughed, and right when I was on the left side of the road getting around him, he flipped around and he just stared at us. So he, like looked over his shoulder and he made eye contact with us, except he had no eyes. He had no eyes. It was just blackness. There was no eye white. It looked like he could have had his eyes painted as well. Meaning like black eyeshadow and definitely some eyeliner on the bottom. He looked like an emo or goth stuff type of style. And so later I would dismiss it as he was wearing blackout contacts. And that's really what I thought it was for a very long time. But the reason that this memory stays with me is because when I made eye contact with him, I wish I could figure out how to describe it, but it was like he became closer to me. He was probably about 10ft away. It was like it was just him and me and the whole world had fallen away and I had this gravitational pull. I don't know, I just wanted to almost go to him the best way I could describe it. And it sounds weird, but I almost wanted to go into the abyss of his eyes. I just was drawn toward it. The other thing was that I had this feeling of terror. I was so afraid. But he didn't come at us. He leaned toward us a little, but he didn't do anything aggressive. And we were safe in her car. It's unreasonable for me to be that afraid of a 13 year old boy with blackout contacts. When I got around the boy, I looked in the rearview mirror and he was already looking down at the street again. Just walking as he was. He looked normal. And I look at my kiddo and I go, that was weird. And she goes, yeah. And I said, did you notice his eyes? And she goes, yeah. And I said, have you? Who is that? Do you know him? No, she'd never seen him before. She said she's never ever seen him. So then I also, a few years later, I'm a photographer and I was working with a whole entire group and we were trying to create like a cosplay look for a campaign in this look. I had to have a meeting with her and go over how I wanted the head makeup artist to build the look in makeup. So we had talked about doing blackout contacts for the full thing. And she was showing me all the different blackout contacts she had. And I said, do you not have access to the kind that cover your entire eye? And she looked at me like I was crazy and then explained to me how they used to make them long time ago for movie purposes, but they ended up causing too much damage. Companies won't make them. And anyway, I don't know how true. I haven't ever researched that, but I just remember her saying that. And I was like, there's got to be a way because I've seen them. I've seen the blackout contacts that cover the entire eye. It never occurred to me that the reality of the situation was that maybe he just legit didn't have eyes. So I asked my daughter if she remembered it because we've never spoken of it since then. And I said, hey, do you remember when we were driving home from middle school so many years ago and we saw that boy? And she goes, the one that had no eyes? And I said, yes. And she describes her version of the events, which are exactly the same as mine, including she felt like he had made direct eye contact with her. She had that feeling of dread and she had that gravitational pull. Like she almost wanted to like get out of the car and go to him. So I don't know what that was. I don't know what I saw. So have a lovely day. Bye.

Caller/Guest (12:14)

Hey, Derek. My name is Ally. I experienced this a couple years ago. I live in Maine now, but I used to to live in a town basically on the border between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. And I was working from home at the time. I had a job where I had to be hooked up to the phones all day. I really couldn't step away from my desk. So I remember it was just like any other normal day, springtime around then, gorgeous sunny day, midday. I'm sitting at my desk. My house that I used to live in at the time was just shy of 1,000 square feet. I mean, it was. It was pretty small. No one else was home at the time. It was just me, my dog. I heard the loudest sound from directly above me. So from my second floor. It was so loud, I can't even. The best way I can describe it is my fiance at the time, my husband. He £300. He was an offensive tackle. It sounded like he was directly above me, even though I know he wasn't there. It sounded as if he was standing on our bed and then just jumped as hard as he could off the bed onto the floor above me. That's what it sounded like. I was so scared. I didn't even run upstairs to check what it could have been. It was just so startling. I immediately grabbed my car keys and my dog went outside and I didn't even know what to do. I got up from my desk. I just wasn't even thinking. It was so scary. I circled around the house, you know, no branches, nothing at all on the roof. There's nothing out of the ordinary. And eventually I worked up my courage to go back inside. I checked the second floor, nothing out of place. I chalked it up for a while to just being an old house. I mean, it was built in the early 1900s, so it definitely could have been just the wood shifting or something like that. But I've been in old homes my whole life. I've heard beams shifting. This was so, so loud. And it was such an odd quick bang. I just have no idea what it was. And to this day, I have no idea. I have never heard anything like it since. Certainly had never heard anything like it before. Again, I'm sure people will just say, oh, that was just a really old house. It was just the wood shifting. I can't explain to you how weird it was to me because it just didn't seem like a natural occurring kind of sound. So hopefully, if you have any ideas, please let me know. I absolutely would love to hear. Love the podcast so much. Keep it up. Thanks.

Caller/Guest (17:10)

Hey Derek, my name is Ray from Westchester, Pennsylvania. I was kind of reminded of like the only spooky paranormal occurrence that ever happened to me. It was the year 2011 or 2012, the day before my now wife girlfriend at the time's birthday. So it was October 6th. It was the afternoon, not too close to dusk or nighttime, but I took her on a date. Kind of like a preemptive romantic, like let's go to this nature preserve and like walk around and just like spend time together. It's this nature preserve, it's called Stroud's Nature Preserve. It's just like an old mansion that they preserve the land around it. And there's like kind of a farm area part, and then there's like, woods, and it's like a gravel path that you follow, and there are some trails. It was a pretty normal day. Everything's normal. I was walking with her. We were going down the gravel path for a while, and when we got to the woods, the canopy, like, blocks. The sun is very shady. So we're walking through there. And just as a quick note, there were people at the park. We saw a couple joggers. I mean, there were other people. There were cars there when we got there. But when we got in the woods, walking in the path for a while, there was this old man there. He was, like, really sharp dressed, and he had this dog with him. Like the biggest cop dog I ever seen. I guess, like a German shepherd. We don't normally just start talking to strangers, but, like, I think he addressed us and he was talking to us, and we were just talking to him. And we just seemed like we were, like, stuck talking to him. He was asking us, like, a lot of personal questions. At the time, we weren't unnerved. The dog was, like, just sitting there, not on a leash, and it wasn't, like, panning or, like, moving its head or like, anything. Like, it didn't even come up to, like, sniff my hand or, like, sniff my wife's hand. This dog was, I guess, super trained. And this guy was just kind of peppering us with, like, personal questions. Like, somehow we started talking about, I guess my wife's turning like, 20 tomorrow or 21 or whatever. And I don't know. At a certain point, we just kind of like started to get weirded out. I mean, I don't know if it's because the dog was so big and it wasn't moving or if it was just because we're kind of like knucklehead kids. And I don't know. At a certain point, we broke off from this dude and we walked the other direction and he walked the way he was going. So we walk out of the woods, and when we get out of the woods, it's like dusk and it's dark out. We're walking out of the woods and, like, this guy is following us. And at first he's like, pretty far away. And we don't know how he is following us because he should have went out the other side of the woods and back towards where you go out. We're walking and he's following us. And we got really nervous and scared and we started like walking really fast. We weren't running, but we were like really moving. And this guy, every time we turned around, him and the dog were like closer to us. He wasn't running, but he was walking. It was like the Michael Myers effect. Like he was closer and closer and closer. And at a certain point me and my wife started running because we were so scared. There's like this bridge over the water, like right before you get to the parking lot. And when we saw that bridge, we started running and it was like my beat up car and this guy's car was parked right next to us. We were the last two cars in the parking lot. And I guess his car like turns on and we got even more scared because I'd never seen like remote start or whatever. And this guy had like a Rolls Royce, like a super nice silver car, like super nice. But we were just hauling ass. We got in the car, we got out of there and I guess when I went to talk to my wife recently, after I started listening to your podcast, I said, do you remember the time that we met the vampire in the woods? And she was like, yes. She's like, do you remember his name? And I was like, no, I don't remember his name. And he said his name was Vladimir. And I was just like, no way. And she's like, yeah. And she doesn't make anything up. Just a very honest person. She's not like a jokester. So I don't know if it was a vampire. I don't know if it was like a mysterious stranger. I don't know if we walk through some kind of time dimension and we met some dude from like the past because he was so like sharp dressed. He basically was wearing like a pleated suit, like in the woods with this dog. He could have just been an old serial killer and we were his targets. But basically I just wanted to call and tell my story because I'm very curious to know if anybody has ever met a character like that. This isn't like a desolate nature preserve or a state park. Like this is a place that's frequented by a lot of people. So I just thought it was so odd that when we went in to the woods it was like daytime. When we got out of the woods, it was nighttime. And I don't remember the conversation pretty much at all. But all I remember is just being stuck talking to him and me and my wife just being like, okay, we don't want to talk to this guy, but we're talking to him and we're answering these questions and it was just so bizarre and it's never happened to us since. And I just wanted to tell my story. I'm loving your podcast. Thank you very much.

Derek Hayes (23:02)

Thank you, Ray. Now you know, if I'm being honest, I was picking up MIB or Men in Black vibes from this hombre. But out of curiosity, we took to the Internet to see what we could find. And lo and behold, like most things on this planet, there's a Reddit thread for that. In the High Strangeness subreddit, there's a post from someone asking if anyone else had heard of strange men in nice suits walking in the forest. Apparently his brother's property is plagued with these sharply dressed mystery men. And wouldn't you know, there were a few responses like this entry from puzzled package 476 who says this reminds me of one of my oldest memories. I was lost in a state park when I was six or seven years old. There were rescue planes and helicopters searching everywhere, but the two men who found me were in business suits and one had a long black leather overcoat. It was getting dark and I laid down to rest and almost fell asleep when they stumbled upon me. I was looking for any sign of people for hours, but when they found me, my instinct was to hide. They offered me some generic Halloween candy, specifically those strange orange wrapped peanut butter bites. When we got to the parking lot, they handed me over to my parents, they hopped in their car and they left. It always stood out to me as weird that they would be hiking in suits especially, so close to dark. And then I found this comment by Cartoon Motion I was biking last autumn and passed two guys in nice suits, dress shoes, hats and dress coats in town near the storefronts. One was an older white man, late 50s or 60s, and the other was younger, perhaps 40s with an Asian appearance. I rode to the nearby recreation trail, went down the trail, turned around and came back and these men were now walking in their nice outfits on the trail, away from parts of town where nicely dressed people usually hang out. I sped up and rode past and said hello to the older one who said hello back to me. He had been looking into the trees which go up a steep hill to the road. Maybe he was bird watching, I don't know. It was just so uncanny that I was so creeped out by the whole thing. Now there were other reports posted to the thread as well, so you should hit up the show notes and read through if you have Time monsters among us podcast.com and click the Show Notes tab. It's certainly interesting that there are so many similar encounters out there. I'll be sure to keep my ears open for more, but until then, thanks again Ray for sharing the entry.

Caller/Guest (27:56)

Hi Derek. My name is Cassidy. I'm a huge fan of your show. I'm from a small rural town in northeastern Pennsylvania. The town is called Towanda. Towanda is a Seneca Native American name, which means where we bury the dead. Basically, the town that I grew up on was a Native American burial ground. I have tons of stories. My grandmother, when she was a little girl, when they would build houses and dig up the ground to start laying foundation, they would find groups of 12 people, mothers holding children. The skeletons. They'd always have to exhume the bones and they would call in somebody from a university to remove them. So it's a very haunted town. Whether it's haunted supernaturally or just haunted with history. Right? And it's set along the Susquehanna River. About 3,000 people total live there. Now, this story happens when I was very young, about three and a half, four. It's some of my earliest memories. I grew up in a house in the center of town. It was an old apartment building. It was two different apartments. My family had bought it. It was sort of an extended family that lived there. My mother, my grandmother, my aunt and my uncle all lived in the same house. So it was this big sort of nuclear family. Right next to that house was the old jail. It wasn't a jail anymore. It was built in the 1880s up to the 1980s. There was a jail literally 15ft from our house. And they used to execute people in the courtyard there. My grandmother was actually a corrections officer there. Now, my mother and I shared the same room. We were relatively low income family, and my mother was sort of trying to get on her feet. And so we shared the same room, but we each had separate beds. And I remember always waiting when my mom would turn off the lights to try and stay awake, because if she fell asleep first. I used to stare at the closet. And from the closet I would see two blue dots appear that I thought were the blue eyes of a little child. These blue lights would float towards me and hover sort of over my face. The only way I could describe the eyes is they looked like, remember night bright. The little tiny colored pegs that you would put into a board that would light up. That's what it looked like, a very soft blue. And with my mind, I could play with these dots. I could think that I wanted them to double. And all of a sudden there'd be four or they'd be eight or 16, and they would be floating in the air. And with my mind I could change their colors. And we would interact and I would paint pictures. I could make blue skies and white clouds and trees. And it would follow what I wanted it to do, but then make them better. Better than my ability as like a two and a half, three year old child to make these pictures. And I played with them until at least I was five. And it was like a secret that I kept. For some reason, I just knew not to tell anyone about them until we ended up getting bunk beds in our shared room. And one night my mother said that she saw a blue light float out from the closet and hover over her face. She was in the bottom bunk. And then rapidly it flew up through the top bunk, which is where I was sleeping. It frightened her so much she grabbed me. And I remember it waking me up. My Mother was frightened and she told me what had happened and she told me about the glowing dots. And there was so much fear in her voice and in her face that it frightened me. And from that day on, I never saw those glowing dots again. But to this day, I like to be meditate. I've been meditating for about four years. And if I get in a really deep state of meditation, I see glowing green spirals, very, very tiny that are bordered by purple and black checkers that sort of go around them and I'll see hundreds of them floating around. So I like to imagine there's still some sort of remnant of childhood. I know, elves, fairies, spirits, specters, something like that.

Caller/Guest (40:32)

Hi, Derek, this is Chris in Michigan. I wanted to share a ghost encounter I had when I was 16. This time I lived in California, but I remember one night waking up at like 2 in the morning with this crazy feeling I was being watched. I shared a room with my brother, and the only light in the room at the time was kind of a street light, but we had like darkening curtains, so it wasn't super bright, but you could still kind of see silhouettes. I remember looking at my brother's bed to see if he was sitting up or anything, but it looked like he was still sleeping from where I was. So I just continued laying there and then still had that feeling I was being watched. And I opened my eyes and at the foot of my bed, kind of to the left of it, seeing what looked like a silhouette of like a robe or something just floating there. Didn't see any face, didn't see any legs or arms, just the robe. So in my head I was thinking, you know, maybe there's something hanging up on the closet door that I don't remember being there. And I tried going back to sleep. Feeling didn't go away. And then as I was laying there, I was thinking, wait a minute, the closet's not even right there. So it would be right there. Opened my eyes again. Silhouette's still there, still the feeling of being looked at. So I did what I guess any kid would do. Pulled the blanket over my head, continued laying there. Then I suddenly felt pressure at the foot of my bed and what felt kind of like a cat walking up. Starting from my feet all the way up to my chest. Like the pressure transferred with it with each step. And then when it was sitting on my chest, like my heart was racing. I don't know why I didn't yell, try to wake up my brother. Probably didn't want to look like an idiot or something. But at the same time, I felt like if I moved the blanket, something would be staring at me right in my face. But I just laid there and eventually, I guess panicked and passed out and then woke up terrified the next morning. And as soon as my mom woke up, I begged her to let me change rooms, like switch with someone else. And she kind of laughed at first and was like, oh, I'll just sage the room and you'll be fine. She saged the room and everything that day. Feeling didn't go away. I didn't see anything else, but I just hated being in that room. When she finally did let me switch rooms that weekend, I felt 100% better. No bad feelings at all. But since it was further down the hallway and my older brother that moved into that room. He always slept with the door open for some reason. And whenever I'd have to get up for school, I would always do that weird power walk run thing past the door to get to the bathroom and turn the light on. But when I talked to my brother years later, he never had any bad memories from that. Guess it was just me. I don't think I was dreaming. I felt pretty awake. But love the show. Keep up the great work.

Jason (49:24)

Hey Derek. Hey MAU crew. This is Jason from Knoxville, Tennessee, and this is my first submission to you guys. Shadow people have kind of been around my life, most of my life, since I was 10 or 11. But the one that I really wanted to share with you that stands out is about 10 or 15 years ago, a friend of mine that had recently moved into the area from out of state had shared with us that her husband had passed away in their home. He had went to bed and when he was watching the game, he passed away while she was asleep. And it was very sad to story and very traumatic for her. And so she picked up her life and relocated. And so she became friends with all of our friends. And through this, one of my friends decided that he would move into her condo and help her with her rent and help her with her expenses. So many times we started cleaning the room that she had put all of his belongings in. He was a big golfer, so he had a golf ball collection and a golf tee collection. And so. So we essentially took his room down, so to speak, the guest room. So through the course of that, things were always happening. Golf balls would all fall off the wall. We'd have to pick them back up or the box of them in the closet would fall off the shelf. Finally got those things relocated out of that room. My friend moves in, everything's good. One night I had went out to the bar and I had too much to drink. I call my friend and I go, hey, I know you're not in town. Can I just go sleep in your room tonight? Yes, of course, that's fine. I uber over. I go to sleep about 4:35 o'clock in the morning. I wake up in a cold sweat and I'm in the bed and I just have this weird feeling that I'm not by myself and I'm lying on my back, which I never do sleep on my back, which was always an odd thing for me. And I just happen to look out of the corner of my eyes and I see a man in the corner that fits the description that most of us listeners have described. Much taller than me, probably seven and a half, eight feet tall. And as contrite as this may sound, he kind of looked like the neighborhood watch cartoon. He had dark material, you could see beady eyes, etc. Looked like he even had a hat on of some sort, a tall, brimmed hat. And I just was paralyzed. I couldn't get up. I didn't know if it was an intruder or if it was a actual spirit. So I said to myself, let's just lay here and close your eyes and pretend that he will leave. I wasn't a big religious person, so I didn't think praying was going to help. I just thought if I show him that I mean him no harm, he will leave me alone. So I close my eyes and I say, okay, let's just wait for a sign. So I get the feeling he's gone. I open my eyes and I turn around and I look and he's gone. I then decide I need to get the hell out of this room and go wake up my other friend and tell her what's going on. So I proceed to roll out of the bed, and I put my bare feet on the floor, and the floor was as hot as the top of a stove, like, so hot. I had to jump back in the bed. Like, this shadow person did not want me getting out of the bed. So I just start screaming for her, and she comes running in the room and she turns the light on and I'm like, don't step in here. I tell her what's going on, and she goes, oh, my God, did you see him too? He came to her room too, that night. So ever since then, I check all my corners before I go to bed. Love the podcast. Thanks so much. Have a great day. Bye bye.

Caller/Guest (55:04)

Hi Derek, I'll just go by T. I'm an airline pilot, I fly international, fly heavies. But at this time this story was in the fall of 1994. I was flying a small airplane. It was a Cessna 210 Turbo with the passenger off board that left an airport south Wyoming, I'm not going to say exactly where and was heading down to dia and when we took off it was still dark. It was maybe 5:30 when we took off. The sun wasn't coming up yet but it also wasn't nighttime still. So the light in the atmosphere was coming up but on the ground level it was still dark. I'm about 8,000ft above ground passenger and I pick up an hour object at my 10 o' clock or so, 10:30 and it's way up there in altitude about 60,000ft or so. I estimate clear sky and if it was any darker when I picked it up it would have looked like a satellite zipping across the sky which we see all the time when we were born. But it's not a satellite because I could see there's a contrail behind it and it's moving. When you see something moving that fast you immediately know it's nothing. But I have ever flown or seen. So to see there's special military aircraft. My personal opinion was it was the Aurora project trying to get back to base before the sun came up. But when I saw it I estimated it over about the southeast tip of Colorado and I reached out to my watch without even having to look at it and I hacked my stopwatch. So I watched this object zip across the sky leaving the cocktail. And if it was any lighter outside I probably would not have seen it really. It would have been very faint. But there it was and I watched the flight and what I thought was about the western border of Colorado I turned the 210 to watch it go and I hacked my watch again and that distance that I estimated, it covered it did it in 25 seconds. So when I got to the FBO down there in Denver I went to the chart on the wall and measured that distance and once again it was just a guesstimation and pulled out my Liz wheel calculation. I figured how far that would be in 25 seconds. What would your speed after view I calculated about 24 and that's about what I've rumored here that Aurora Project clips along sky at but it was fascinating. I even wrote it my logbook that I saw it that day because I thought it was pretty cool. But love the podcast really enjoy getting my hair standing up on my arms when I'm listening to it. Keep it up.