Jake / Dakota (4:56)

Terrified.

Jake / Steven / Christian (4:56)

I'm absolutely terrified. And that's when the dream ends. That's the whole thing. So, you know, fast forward. I'm 10 years old now. My mom and dad are separating, they're divorcing. And I come to find out that my dad is seeing someone new as a girlfriend. I go to see him in his new little apartment one time and I meet a lady. It's the witch. It's the witch from my dreams. You know, no black robe, but the long, curly fire, red hair. She was a hairdresser. The big nose, the height, the facial features, everything. The same laugh, the same, like witchy cackle. And I wanted to see my dad, but I never wanted to go back. He passed about eight years ago. And I finally told my mom about the dream and she said, that time in your life when you were six years old, we were living there, your father was in jail. I found out later that he was seeing her, you know, behind the back, having an affair. So you can understand why this is so deeply personal for me. But yeah, some sort of ESP maybe. The women in my family, my mom and her mom, they have all had prophetic dreams like this. And so whether it's something that runs in the family or what. Anyways, the show is amazing. I love it so much. Thank you for doing what you're doing.

Derek Hayes (6:48)

Thank you. Jake. Incredible stuff. Somehow you made a psychic connection of some sort. Maybe it was part of that self preservation instinct that I recently spoke about. And I wonder if the woman ever had any real ties to witchcraft of any kind. Or was it just your mind's way of conveying that she was potentially dangerous or at the very least untrustworthy. Which turns out was true. Like I said, it's incredible. And we thank you for having the bravery to share it here with us. Jake, thank you for making the call.

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Rena (7:33)

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Steven / Podcast Narrator (7:34)

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Derek Hayes (8:32)

Welcome back, Monster Squad. I feel like it's been ages since we last talked, but don't worry, I have some stories selected tonight that are sure to make up for my little absence. Jake's story here is a perfect example, as is Christian's entry out of the Buckeye State of Ohio.

Christian (8:57)

Hi, this is Christian. I'm from Ohio. This was going to be a short one. It is not my story. It's more of my little brother's story. This probably took place in the early 90s. I would say probably between 93 to 96 somewhere in there. And it would have been most likely in Northeast Ohio around the Akron Canton area. Well, I reached out to him and this is a text that he sent me to kind of clarify what was going on. He said that we had been on some kind of trip and dad had been carrying him to the car and

Jake / Steven / Christian (9:37)

out of a motel.

Christian (9:39)

And he remembered seeing something floating or flying in circles above the car. Not real high, just like maybe 20ft. And he was calling them angels because they were bright and seemed to be transparent. I guess my mom saw them. I don't know what I was doing, but I definitely do not remember this. But my mom brought it up to my attention. She's like, do you remember when that happened? I'm like, absolutely not. I don't. She's like, oh yeah. And it was in the newspaper and a bunch of people had seen it. I again don't remember any other details, but I was listening to season three episode 20 and the guy was talking about having lights right over top of his car. And that just kind of reminded me of the story that my mom and little brother used to help. Alright, and that's it. Thank you. Bye.

Derek Hayes (10:33)

Thanks Christian. Now, I don't suppose anyone out there can locate the newspaper article that Christian is referring to. I'm not sure she dropped enough hints to find it, but if anyone can do It. It's one of you guys now. It's wild. What we can manage to forget. I once fell down the steps at my grandparents house when I was about 4 and I knocked all my front teeth out. I don't remember a single second of it. But it's a good thing that your mom was there to remind you, Christian. Otherwise a story like this might simply slip through the cracks. Thank you again for taking the time to ring in. Now folks, before I push on, don't forget that you have access to the secret shop. Just visit the website and click on the VIP shop tab. Once you do, enter password and you'll have instant access to the elusive and exclusive phone booth design by artist Jordan Hershberger. And remember, you can use coupon code to save 10% off of the regular shop. Trust me when I say you don't want to forget either. Now our next entry takes us back to the Beaver state. Please welcome Rena to the show.

Rena (12:03)

Hello. My name is Rena. I've lived in Oregon most of my life. And when I was in third grade, I moved onto a farm that has belonged to my grandma and grandpa for probably over 100 years. But in their yards, I did have a sensory farm sign. So it was documented in the 90s as a, you know, having been there for 100 years. And we lived one road over in a farmhouse probably that was built in like the 20s or 30s, I would guess, but it could have been older. On our land we had all types of outbuildings and we had a big old barn that in the olden days would have been filled with hay, but it just wasn't operating, it was empty. We were encouraged to go play outside. I was a city kid that had never experienced such things. So I was six years older than my little brother. And I remember getting the courage to go out to this barn and we had been, like I said, encouraged to play out there. We had a little hay fort. My stepdad and his brother came with my cousins and built this really cool hay fort at one end. So yeah, it was, you know, it was the area just totally made for us. You'd climb up this ladder, which was a hole in the middle of the floor, so you had to be very careful. And when we had first moved in, my stepdad came back to the house and he was a little rattled. He said, there's a big barn owl that lives up there, so don't let it spook you or you fall off the ladder. Be careful because it is big. But it didn't like Shenanigans. And it would leave when it saw you. And it was really, really cool. And if, you know an old barn, they have that good sized window at one end. And a lot of times there'll be a beam. And I'm pretty sure it's called a cantilever beam. So that's how you load the hay and whatnot. And it would have kind of equipment on it. Somebody back in the day had put a massively thick rope tied up there, and that's what we used for a swing. And it had a big knot and a loop at our end, you know, towards the ground. But it was very, very, very high. So I didn't have a great home life. And this barn became complete respite for me. I loved, and I would bring friends over, and I went to a catholic school, saw these uppity kids, so they'd take them in there and they'd go, oh, Rena, your barn is spooky. So in this barn, I'd be personally offended when people would tell me it was creepy, because I just loved it. And in the barn, there was only one way to get up, and it was from that ladder. There was two large windows on one side of it. One side was to, like, another building, and then the other large window was to just outside. So where you would use, you know, different farm equipment to kind of shoot this hay. Like a little elevator for hay to get it up there back when it had been in use. So when people would call my barn freaky, I would say, you know, just climb the ladder. There's ropes, swing up there. It's really fun. And I was always kind of trying to get people into it. As we got older, we got a trampoline. And it wasn't the trampoline that they have today. This was back in the 90s. We just, after some point, trashed the ring that protected the springs. And it didn't come with a net. It was just this trampoline. We pulled that thing all over the place. We had a long hung roof on the house. And so we jump off that. And that wasn't enough drill. So then we started putting it underneath the hole to this barn. So it was a second story hole, and we would jump out of that window onto this trampoline. Also, when I would get older, I was in eighth grade, I had older people that would hang out with me, my friend, and we would, you know, have fun on the trampoline at night and pull it all over and jump

Steven / Podcast Narrator (15:46)

out this, that, and the other.

Rena (15:47)

But people Just didn't like that barn. So we always would end up just not in the barn. One night, my best friend, her name was Emily, and her boyfriend had went up to the barn, and they're necking, you know, as teenagers do. And they kept just running down, super afraid, and they were just panicked, like, rena, what were you doing up there? And I said, well, I wasn't up there. I was, like, out here with everybody else. And, you know, everybody said, like, rena did not leave. And she said, no. Somebody was swinging on that rope swing. I said, no, like, literally nobody's up there. I said, you would have seen me come up through that hole in the floor. She's like, well, I figured there was another way to get in. And, like, looking at her like, we've played in this barn for years. But she was really rattled. The rope swing, there was a staircase. You had to kind of step up to get a good swing. And you could take a little tiny swing, but if you got a really good swing, you would just whoosh through this barn. And it was just exhilarating. And that cantilever beam would do a really satisfying. And then come back. That's what they had heard. And they said they looked over and somebody was on that swing, but it was darkish, you know, so they couldn't make out who it was. And I just said, look, there's nobody out there. Like, after that, we really didn't hang out. Like, it was sucks because I was, again, really irritated with my barn and, you know, creeping people out. So after that, I had a party when I was in, I think, my sophomore year of high school, and nobody went up in that barn. You know, it just amazes me. We had a big bonfire, and we had that trampoline, and, you know, there had to be 40 people there. My parents were gone for the weekend. Obviously, nobody went up in that barn. It was just super weird. So during the day, the barn was really still, for me, a super fun place. But we were. I would say we were 16 and Emily, the same friend, my best friend. I was like, hey, let's go jump out of the barn on the trampoline. And during the day, you know, she could kind of go do that. She was okay with that. So she had just jumped out. And I was standing in this window, and I would guesstimate 10 to 12ft distance from the ground. And just because of physics, you had to have this trampoline pulled out away from that wall, probably four or five feet, because you can't jump directly out Straight down. If there's a burning building and you're trying to get people to jump out, you don't have that trampoline right up next to that building. You have out. People can jump. So same exact premise. Anyways, the window that I'm talking about was huge. You could stand up in it. It was large enough so that a full grown man could stand there and unload and load hay. And it was large beams that trimmed out this window. So then she had just jumped out and she was on the trampoline and I was standing up in the window, kind of just messing around with her, having fun. And I got pushed. I got pushed on my upper body. It was like my shoulder blades, I want to say. And it pushed me so hard. There was no grabbing nothing. There was no way I could have, you know, saved myself at that point. So I went head first, head first going down. And I remember looking down and seeing this pavement coming towards me. And my foot caught on that window, which is just not, you know, physically possible. I don't feel like. But then my foot, it like was grabbed in this same thing. A force pushed me out. So I ended up doing kind of a flip and I ended up landing on my knees and we hit the trampoline. My friend was already standing on the trampoline. She had given me room. She was so worried about me because we were, you know, best friends. So I hit the trampoline and as I was jumping up, she was holding me and I was holding her. And we were 16 or 17 and we went running to the house crying like we were so freaking scared. And just the look of her face, the look on her face scared me more than anything. Now back to the fall. I had done this a hundred thousand times, jumped out of that window. I did not slip. Even that type of feeling where you get that feeling of falling. I didn't even have time to do that. It was unreal. You know, I would have not made it if I had just fallen straight down, which is what I would have done, you know, because you had to really jump out onto that trampoline. So whatever had pushed me, you know, didn't want to kill me, but it

Kelsey (20:26)

just didn't want me.

Rena (20:28)

Didn't want my friend being like little teenagers up there messing around is what I got the feeling of. And it terrified me. I was fine. I ended up being completely traumatized from that, but fine. And I don't think I went up in the barn much after that without anybody for sure. I didn't go alone when we got to the house, my mom, I remember she was kind of standing outside, she was like shaking her. She's like, what is wrong to see these basically grown girls in high school sobbing? And we told her and she's like, just don't go out there anymore, you know, Cuz by this point, so many weird things that happened, she's just like over it. But yeah, that's that. I wish my friend could call in and, you know, kind of tell her experience. It traumatized her. She would literally not go potty without me being with her inside my house. She didn't like it at all after that. So, yeah, that was it. Thank you for everything. Bye.

Derek Hayes (21:25)

Thank you, Rena. I wonder why we don't hear more about haunted barns now. Not to say that we never hear about them, but we certainly don't hear about them all that often. It might be that they simply aren't prone to hauntings for whatever reason. Or maybe there just aren't enough people visiting these barns to experience said phenomena. Or maybe it's that most of the people spending any kind of real time in these barns are simple farmers, no nonsense. People that aren't keen on sharing feelings with strangers. And I think that goes double for paranormal experiences. So perhaps one of those is the reason. Or maybe it's happening and we just aren't hearing about it. Either way. Thank you again, Rena, for sharing the entry. That sounds like a real fun place to hang out. Now, folks, how about we cover a call about psychic abilities? I think it's been a while after all. So let's welcome Dakota to tonight's show.

Jake / Dakota (22:40)

Hello, Derek. My name is Dakota, from Indiana. So when I was younger, I used to get sleep paralysis. I don't get it anymore because I started smoking. And whenever I started smoking, it just went away. But when I was younger, I would get frozen when I was in a relaxed state, maybe watching TV or something. You would just freeze up when you were trying to sleep and it was very uncomfortable. It wasn't like sleeping. It was like you were conscious and you could see but you couldn't move. You can't make noises. All I could do was lay there until it would go away and I would wake back up. But I didn't like that. It was really starting to get on my nerves. It would happen all the time. It didn't happen maybe after I was 18 because I picked up substances and stuff like that. Not to say this has anything to do with substances. When I was young, I was clean. Anyway, I didn't do anything right. So when I went to jail, I picked it back up again because I was clean and sober. Not taking any medications, anything like that. Whenever you're in this type of sleep paralysis, there's possible remote viewing. But I believe your soul has to be pure. So your heart has to be in the right place. Your mind has to be in the right place. No drugs involved, nothing like that. And you can take your soul out

Jake / Steven / Christian (24:15)

of your body, I believe.

Jake / Dakota (24:16)

So if you're laying down and you're in a relaxed state. I guess you would call it a state of enlightenment. You lay there, and when you become paralyzed, you can pull yourself up. You have to use full force, as if you were trying to get up out of bed. Once you're like that, your vision strobes. But it's not like the color takes over. It's kind of like a hue, maybe purple hue. Well, it would flash through different colors, cycles of colors, like that. But I didn't like it. It was scary for me. If it was to happen to me today, maybe I would be braver. But when I was young, I wasn't maybe as brave. I didn't know what would happen if I ventured too far away. So I never went far. I just maybe explored in my bedroom. You could get up and walk around.

Jake / Steven / Christian (25:16)

It wasn't walking.

Jake / Dakota (25:17)

It was more like a floating. Like if I was a gas. Now, you could still see things. Like across the street, somebody could write something down on a piece of paper. And I would be able to go over there and read it, but without using my body. Just my soul. Your vision still there? Somehow I think when that does happen, I would be scared. So I felt like maybe there was a demon that was making that happen. Sometimes I wouldn't even look in other directions because I was scared. Maybe there was a demon over in that corner, so I didn't look. Sometimes I would just hyperventilate myself or pray to wake up. Hyperventilating works very well. You just wake right back up. But that's always how I got out of it. If I didn't want to deal with it. I don't know if that's how you can become possessed. If a demon can take over your body during this state. I don't know. I don't know if you can fly and go into the clouds. I've never tried that. I know you can go through windows and doors and stuff. I don't know if you can manipulate the environment, but you might be able to do that as well. Anyways, thanks, Derek. I Appreciate you. Love your podcast. Bye.

Derek Hayes (26:38)

Thank you Dakota. I've always been fascinated by this sort of thing. Remote viewing, out of body experiences and any psychic ability really. I recently read the book Third Eye Spies by Russell Targ and I have Penetration by Ingo Swan in the two read pile. And of course I have a deck of Zenner cards here at my desk. But beyond that I only know what we've seen on tv, but that's been enough to pique my interest. So thank you for the perspective here Dakota, and thanks for the tips as well. If anyone listening ends up trying these methods and they work, you better let me know about it. But until then, thank you again Dakota for calling in. And folks, that brings us to tonight's final entry. Please welcome the following anonymous Buckeye

Miranda (27:41)

I'm calling from Ohio.

Miranda's Husband (27:43)

The story that I'm about to share took place in Illinois, late 80s through the early 90s.

Miranda (27:49)

I'm currently listening to season 14 episode

Miranda's Husband (27:51)

12 and I have beefms right now because of the story talking about Mr. Spooky in the top hat her and her Irish twin brother had seen when they were children.

Miranda (28:03)

I have not thought about this in many, many years.

Miranda's Husband (28:08)

I also saw an elder gentleman in a top hat when I was a child living in an old colonial house. He would always stand by my bedroom window, close to my closet and about three feet from my door, kitty corner from my bed. And I was terrified of this man. I used to tell my grandma who raised me and my uncle who was there frequently all the time about Mr. Top Hat. Very creative name, I know, but that's what I called him, Mr. Top Hat. His clothes, I remember them so very loosely. His clothes were very old, I would say probably 1820s if I had to guess. I don't believe that they were black like the twins. The coloring was more of slate gray, bluish color. Very dressy, very beautiful. He was gaunt, very pale skin, dark eyes, long nose, very strong jawline. He had a walking cane with a ball on the top where his hand would go and he would stand with it in front of him, both hands resting on the top, his head slightly tilted down, and he would just watch and it would happen at the most random moment. I remember one time I was sitting on my floor and I was playing with my Barbies in my little Barbie house and he just appeared next to me, inches away from me, and I didn't say anything, I didn't scream. I just froze for a moment and then went and hid on my bed and covered my head with blankets. This went on for about five years. I saw this man when we moved away from that house and moved to a town called Chemung. I no longer saw him in that same house. In the basement, in the back, behind the stairs, there was a small door. It almost was made to look like an old shelf, but it was a door. And behind that door was a very deep horizontally, not vertically, but it went into the earth beyond the edge of where our house would have stopped. So I never went in there. I never dared. Oh my gosh, it was terrifying. But from what I remember my uncle telling me when I was a little bit older and asked him about it, as he reported, apparently went to a house on the other side of the block, caddy corner from our house. I don't know if our house was part of the underground railroad. I don't know if there was some other pass throughs that exist. I don't know. But the feeling that I got when I was around that door, my, my playroom was also in the basement kind of adjacent with the same feeling that I got from Mr. Top Hat. Very menacing, very unsettling. Dark. Yeah, those are the words that I can think of to describe it. Anyways, thank you for listening. I love your show and take care.

Derek Hayes (31:11)

Thank you caller. Mr. Toppat sounds so much creepier than it probably should. The moniker paints a perfect picture, not someone you want to meet in the shadows. Now it's always spookier when a ghost or entity gets a name, especially a name like Mr. Top Hat. Creepy. Just the way we like it. So thank you again caller for sharing the tale.

Steven / Podcast Narrator (31:46)

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Steven / Podcast Narrator (32:38)

Trying to be that utility guy that

Derek Hayes (32:41)

I grew up being. And before we hit up the second Beyond Unlock here this evening, a quick reminder that if you have a story you would like to share here on the program, give our hotline a call at 888-608-night. That's 888-608-NIG HT. Or you can record a voice memo and email it to me at monsters among us podcast gmail.com. now for the second half of tonight's bonus episode from season 19, episode 48. Please enjoy the beyond portion of that episode so you have nothing to lose. Join us in the beyond today, where you can hear thrillers like Randy's from here in California.

N (33:37)

Hi, Derek. Randy again. So about a month ago, I was sitting here at work on night shift, and my buddy, who works in another lab, got off of the PM shift, and he texts me around midnight asking if I'm too busy or if I'm available to take a call. I'm like, yeah, sure, call me. I'm fine. He calls me, and his voice is just trembling on the phone. I'm like, dude, what's going on? He says, well, I was taking my dog out for a walk. His dog's Puka, little black short Labrador mix. She's very, very cute. Completely deaf, but her nose works well and she loves her walks. He was taking her out for a walk around 11:30 at night, and she was sniffing around the storm drains like she always does because she likes to smell the raccoons and possums and different things. And she starts pulling really hard towards one of the storm drains, and she just gets enamored by it. She's just sniffing, sniffing, sniffing. She's acting in a way that my buddy has never seen her act before. She's just, like, enthralled with whatever smell is coming out of the storm drain. So he's standing there just letting her be for a minute, and all of a sudden, he starts hearing this loud huffing sound coming from the storm drain. He's like, what the heck is that? That sounds too big to be a raccoon. So he has his headlamp on, and he crouches down. He looks in the storm drain, and he doesn't see anything down there. And he has this white light on. And he sits there, and every once in a while, you can just hear kind of a. Like a big huffing noise. And he keeps trying to figure out what's going on. And he's told me he sat there for about over five minutes just staring down the storm drain with his headlamp, trying to see if whatever was down there making the huffing noise would come out. And the whole time, his dog is just fascinated. So after about five minutes or so, he's finally tired of crouching by a storm drain at almost midnight outside of his house. So he decides that he's gonna drag her away and get going. And at the last second, he decides, oh, I wonder what would happen if I put on my red light. So he switches his headlamp to red light while he's crouched down, and he says, within a matter of seconds, a huge head pokes out from the back of the storm drain and, like, scream, snarls at him. And it's a cougar. There's a freaking cougar inside the storm drain. He about himself and gets the heck out of there with his dog. That's what he was calling to tell me about. Now, we live in Northern California. There's mountain lions around, so it's not unusual for there to be mountain lions around. They're not a cryptid for us. They're not an unacknowledged species in California, but you would never expect to see one in the storm drain. Best we can figure out, about a quarter mile from his house by the river that we both live along, there's a huge exit for the storm drain that drains into the American River. And sometimes that big thing is open, sometimes it's closed. But when it's open, it's big enough that I can walk into it. I've done it before, only like 10, 15ft because I didn't have a light with me. But you can walk into it. I'm six foot one. And so I wonder if the big grate was down and it wandered in there. We hope it's not trapped. So we went and we checked a couple days later when I was off of work. And even though it was open, we did thankfully notice that even if it had been closed, the horizontal bars that go across the barrier that blocks up the storm drain, they get wider and wider as you go up. And so the ones at the very top of the storm drain, if it were to be closed, are definitely wide enough for a cougar to get through. So thankfully, the poor kitty's not trapped down there. But it's just a spookiest story, like, who expects to see a cougar scream at you from inside a storm drain? When he was telling me, I was expecting some sort of, like, hadel or something like that or some sort of spooky clown, a red balloon, who knows? I wasn't expecting mountain lion to be in a storm drain. So, yeah, he had the fright of his life. Have a good night. Bye.

Derek Hayes (37:28)

Yikes. Great stuff, Randy. It reminds me of a call I received from a good friend of mine who lives near me here. On the mountain when he was a kid. He claims he saw a dogman in a storm drain. A full grown werewolf like creature. So I guess what I'm saying here Randy, is that it certainly could have been worse and it could have been worse in another direction had that cat decided to fight. But thankfully for all parties involved, it didn't come to any of that. Now lastly Randy, I appreciate, appreciate the fact that you went back to make sure it wasn't stuck in the pipe. Not only for others safety but for the lions as well. So a big thank you Randy for calling in. What a fun story. Not so much paranormal, but in many ways much scarier. Hello squad. It's great to have you all with us here tonight. I have some good ones lined up for you and I'm gonna stay on track here by pushing play on yet another story. So Kelsey out of Montana, welcome to the program.

Kelsey (38:46)

Hi Derek, my name is Kelsey and I am calling from Anaconda, Montana. I just want to share a kind of spooky experience I had this morning. About 7am I was in my son's room, he is almost 2 and he was standing up in his crib talking to me while I changed my fence diaper on the changing table. And he said my name. So I turned and looked at him and I said what? And he points at the doorway that I'm standing next to and said, who's that? Now we have a really small house so I can see the bathroom, the only other bedroom, the living room. I can see most of the house from where I'm standing and there is no one there. And I look back at him and I said, who's who? And still pointing at the doorway he just starts to repeat ghost over and over and over again, which is unnerving. So I quickly finished my infant, put her on the ground, picked him up and I walked over to her other bedroom and I actually woke my husband up. And I'm like, your son is scaring me. And as I'm telling him the story he goes, does he even know what a ghost is? And my son points at that bedroom door which leads to the exact same hallway because the doors are kind of perpendicular to each other. And he goes, ghost right there. And my husband and I are just staring at each other and I put my son down and he runs down into that area of the hallway screaming

Rena (40:14)

no, no, no, no, no.

Kelsey (40:16)

And my husband was tired, he works night shifts. So I was like, okay, bye. He's also not a believer. So I was like, there's Nothing he can do. So I shut the door, followed my son out. We're playing quietly, and a few minutes later he looks at me and goes, mommy, where'd ghost go? So that was kind of unnerving.

Rena (40:35)

Hopefully he was really just thinking about

Kelsey (40:37)

ghost spider from Spidey Man. He's in love with Spidey man, but I don't think he'd ask, who's that? He'd say, mommy, ghost spider. So who knows? Just figured I'd share it. It was unnerving. So that's fun. I don't think it's the first time we've had a spirit visit. Okay, thank you.

Rena (40:58)

Bye.

Derek Hayes (41:00)

Thank you, Kelsey. I appreciate you calling in. Now, before I give my opinions here, Kelsey called back a few weeks after making her initial phone call with a bit of an update. So please welcome her back to the program.

Kelsey (41:19)

Hi, Derek, this is Kelsey from Montana. I called about two or three weeks ago, so I thought I'd call and give an update. He hadn't mentioned the ghost at all in that entire time, and I didn't mention the ghost to him. And my husband is a non believer, so he didn't mention the ghost. And about two nights ago, after dinner, we were playing in his room. He has a ball pit and he threw all of the balls out of it. I was helping him pick them up and he pointed out a bunch of them that were under his crib. So I laid down and I was looking at him and I was like, oh, man, buddy, these are going to be hard to get. Two of them came flying out in front of my face as if they were shoved. And I know the rational thought is a vent, but there's only one vent in that entire room, and it is completely across the room. And I was also lying there watching at the time, and there was no breeze. And I was like, oh, I don't like this. Well, like an hour later, we were trying to get him ready for bed. I'm trying to read him his bedtime story, and he keeps pointing to that same doorway and saying ghost again.

Rena (42:31)

And, well, a lot of people had

Kelsey (42:32)

told me to ask him to describe the ghost. So I was like, buddy, what did it look like? I mean, he's a very limited vocabulary. And he goes, ghost. I was like, okay, I'm not gonna get anything there. So I asked him, I said, well, can you ask the ghost its name? And he turned and he looked at that corner and he stared very, very seriously at it and then looked back at me and was like, mommy, it's Ghost. Like it was a super obvious thing. I was like, well, that's helpful. Well, we lay him down for bed and we go on into the living room. And my husband is a big non believer and he goes, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kept thinking when I was changing his diaper that I saw movement in the doorway and nobody was there. And I was like, it's the ghost. Well, the next morning, which would have been yesterday morning, I'm getting him ready to go to daycare so I can go to work. And as we're walking out the door, he waves to our dining room, which is not where this whole thing has been taking place. And he goes, goodbye, Nana ghost. All of his nanas are alive, but my nana is not. And I actually called back a long time ago and told a story that I don't think has been played on the air about a rocking chair in my delivery room and thinking it was my nana. So maybe Nana's visiting, maybe not. But I will let you know if there's any updates.

Derek Hayes (44:01)

And you know, she did let us know because Kelsey actually called back a few weeks later for a third time.

Kelsey (44:10)

I'm Derek, this is the mom from Montana calling back for the third time. And without a doubt, probably the spookiest time. My whole family, my husband, myself are now 2 year old and our infant were out of the house tonight. The house was fully locked up. We got home, the house was still locked up. We got inside and our son pointed at his room and said, ghost. And my husband was being kind of really goofy about it and was like, oh, where's the ghost? Is the ghost in your bedroom? Because my husband's not a believer and my son is like looking really freaked out and is just pointed and goes, ghost, ghost, ghost. And I was like, do you want me to tell the ghost to leave? And he goes, yeah. I was like, okay, ghost, you have to get out of our house. And my husband's just being kind of silly with it. But then my husband turns on the light in my son's nursery and goes, oh my God, what happened? And I'm like, what do you mean what happened? And I walk over and our son has a pop up fire truck that's like kind of like a tent that's shaped like a fire truck, but it's contained and there's like one door to get in. And then the front half, the floor is like your real floor, but the back half, it's like a tent floor. And we use that back half of it as a ball pit, and it is flipped on its side and there's not a single ball left in this ball pit. And I've talked about these balls before, how they come flying out from under his crib, but they are all over the room. And he looks at me and I fully believe my husband. And he goes, I didn't do this. It wasn't like this when I left. And I go, it wasn't like this when I left. And my son is standing in the middle of this mess, hyperventilating, going, ghost, ghost, ghost, full on meltdown, panic. So I take him out of the room. I'm trying to calm him down. And my husband searches our entire house because, I mean, the first logical thought is intruder. But there's no one in our house and who would just mess with a kid's ball pit. What I am telling myself is, is we do have a fairly large dog. She's a very mellow, calm person. This is very unlike her. But my best thought is she went into the door, which isn't very big, to kind of check it out because this is a relatively new toy. They used to have an open ball pit. Now it's this. And maybe she went in to check it out, couldn't figure out how to get out and panicked. But I mean, if that's the case, I wish I was here to have seen it because that would have had to been epic to get all of those balls out of there because the area they're in, there's no way to get them out. Like, they'd have to be moved to the other half of the tent. And I mean, it would have been an epic show. So that's what we're telling ourselves. But even my husband, who's a fairly adamant non believer, keeps randomly going, do you really think there was a ghost? Like, she would have really had to been freaking out. Like, do you think there was a ghost? So there's a chance a ghost ransacked my son's ball pet tonight about an hour ago, which is kind of freaky, especially now that I'm home alone with the kids. So that's it. Keep up the good work. Hopefully I had no more updates for you. Have a good night.

Rena (47:50)

Bye.

Derek Hayes (47:52)

Incredible and quite the saga. Thank you, Kelsey, for those phone calls. And I wonder where the little boy first picked up the word. I can't help but wonder if the entity itself didn't teach it to him. I have a little nephew back in Ohio. He's about a year and a half now, and he's just starting to pick up words. And one of his very first words was actually ghost, on account of the dancing ghost lawn ornaments his parents have out outside the living room window. When those animatronic ghosts come to life, so does he. And in the case of your son here, Kelsey, it would be easy to dismiss all of this as an imaginary friend or something. That is, if it weren't for your own experiences. Things flying out from under the bed, the ball pit tent thing getting knocked over, the that's not exactly how imaginary friends work. And the last thing I'll touch on here is that it seemed like between calls two and three, things got really quiet. There was no mention of ghost. But when the family came home that night, Kelsey's son instantly seemed to pick up on the fact that the ghost was back. And this was seemingly before the adults even found the chaos in the child's room. So, long story short, I can see why you're concerned, Kelsey, and my suggestion here is to keep a record of all of this weird activity. Over time, you'll tend to forget a bunch of it, but if you keep a journal or a video diary or something, that'll give you information to compare against future events. Now, of course, should this activity reach, return, or continue, we would love to hear more. But until then, good luck to you, Kelsey, and thank you again for calling in.

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Derek Hayes (51:03)

I thought maybe there's something that comes up that we don't know, but I think that. All right folks, this next story has been hanging around my call bank for a long while. Like that little puppy passed over at the pound. But I noticed it this week and I thought to myself, tonight is the night that we share that weird pool Robot story from Stephen in the state of Georgia.

Steven / Podcast Narrator (51:36)

Hey Derek, my name is Steven. I am from Georgia. So about a year ago last fall, I was preparing to close our pool up for the winter. And it's, you know, becoming fall. So a lot of leaves fall into the pool that time of year. You know, it's so much easier if you just go ahead and scoop the leaves out while they're still floating on

Jake / Steven / Christian (51:58)

top of the water.

Steven / Podcast Narrator (51:59)

Otherwise they get waterlogged after a few days and they sink and, and then, you know, the algae starts to accumulate quicker and it could just run away from you. So you know, I try to be real good about going out there and you know, just getting all the new fallen leaves off just to make it

Jake / Steven / Christian (52:13)

easier to close up.

Steven / Podcast Narrator (52:14)

And so I was doing that one day I went out there, skimmed the leaves off the top of the pool and we have a little robot cleaner. And anybody with a pool or an in ground pool might know exactly what I'm talking about. But it's just a little robotic pressure powered know cleaner that you plug into the side of the wall of the pool, kick on the pump and it just basically gets everything off the bottom of the pool for you. Saves a lot of time. When they work, they work great. So anyway, I go out there, get the leaves off, turn on this little Polaris robot cleaner thing and notice pretty quickly that it's starting to do circles, you know, which is a common thing that they can do. You know, if they develop any sort of issue, they're pretty fragile in that regard. So I pull it up by the rope and I notice one of the wheels, the drive wheel has fallen off, which is weird in itself because they use self tightening screws and nuts to sort of hold on so that they don't come off. And so I was like, crap. So I'm in a predicament where not only has the wheel fallen off, but also the hardware. So the screws, the bolts and the nuts and washers, maybe four or five pieces total that hold this wheel on. So now I'm in the situation where I need this cleaner to clean the bottom of the pool. But one of the wheels and the hardware to hold that wheel is at the bottom of the pool. And I cannot see down there. So you know, that sucks. These little robots are kind of expensive and I don't have the money to just buy one to get the job done. And the parts for it are surprisingly expensive too. Like just a set of screws and hardware to attach the wheel back to the assembly is 50 bucks. So obviously, I don't want to spend that. So I get the brush and try to get all the components at the bottom of the pool. I spent about 30, 45 minutes doing this, and I actually get the wheel, the plastic rubber wheel that goes to it. So that's good. Worst case scenario, I'll just have to bite the bullet and buy these new screws, you know, get the wheel back on. So before I did that, you know, I went in for the day. I told my wife the situation looked was about to order know the hardware the next day. But instead of doing that, I decided I'm going to go out, you know, one more time, dredge sort of the bottom with the pool brush and hope that I can pull up the bits of hardware. So I walk out there, I go to the pool equipment to turn the pool pump off so that I can, you know, start doing this. I don't want it to suck any of the components, you know, into the pump, But I had to keep the pump going so the water wouldn't just instantly turn green on me. And so anyway, I do this, and before I even get to the pool pump, I notice on the ground on the pool deck, right in front of me, three feet, you know, as I'm walking up on it, it's literally between me and the pool equipment. Remember, keep in mind it's fall, and leaves have been falling constantly. I mean, it's what I've been cleaning

Jake / Steven / Christian (54:54)

out of the pool.

Steven / Podcast Narrator (54:55)

So the pool deck, the cement, is covered in leaves, but there's this one spot that is maybe 16 inches wide by maybe 8 inches on the ground. It looked like someone had wiped the leads away. So the entire pool deck is covered with leaves, pine needles, everything that falls in the fall except this one patch. And laid out right in the center of that spot were the four or five pieces of hardware that attached the wheel that I had the day before, you know, dredged up with the pool brush. And keep in mind, nobody touches this pool. Hardly anybody swims in this pool. When we bought this house that came with the pool, we thought it was cool, but we didn't buy it because of the pool. Nobody maintains that pool.

Jake / Dakota (55:38)

It's at me.

Steven / Podcast Narrator (55:39)

We don't have a pool company, pool guy, no neighbors. We have a privacy fence around our entire yard. So at first I didn't realize what it was. I was like, oh, weird. I, you know, dropped the screw, and then I saw that it was the exact pieces of hardware, you know, and this is 10ft from the pool. So I was thinking maybe robot, the last time it was on, ran up the wall, somehow the wheel clipped something and flew out. And the hardware, the screw, whatever, landed perfectly. But man, how realistic is that? Remember, the wheel was on the bottom of the pool. I pulled it up and so presumably this hardware should have also been, you know, in the pool, but somehow it is laid on the ground in a spot free of leaves. As if someone right before I came outside cleared out this spot and laid before screws and things that I needed just right there for me to find. It was weird. And I immediately gathered up the screws, ran inside, told my wife she wasn't as, you know, juiced up about it as I was, but I put the robot back together, got the pool cleaned and nothing weird ever happened again. But how strange. Anyway, that's my story. Love the show and we'll keep listening. So thanks, Derek.

Derek Hayes (56:46)

Thank you, Steven. On Tuesday, we shared a similar story from Cindy in Illinois, who had her key ring explode, scattering many of her keys amongst the sidewalk and under random cars. But the main key that she needed to leave the area, her car's ignition key, was seemingly gone. That is until it magically showed back up in an entirely obvious location. You'll have to tune in to episode 47 to hear how that one ends, but I guess that just goes to show you, Steven, weird stuff like that happens all the time. Now. How or why? Well, your guess is as good as mine. But thank you again Steven for making the phone call. I remember our first year going in.

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Steven / Podcast Narrator (58:46)

It's going to be awesome to be able to see those new guys come

Jake / Dakota (58:49)

out that's why I read all the great stories, you know.

Derek Hayes (58:54)

Well, folks, this takes us down to tonight's final entry, for real this time. So put your claws together for Miranda. She's calling in from parts unknown.

Miranda (59:10)

Hi, my name is Miranda. I'm originally from Minnesota, but the incidents tend to happen in a couple different states, as I will go through. So I grew up in Minnesota, and that's when it first started. So my childhood room had a closet that above it was access to the attic. And it started probably when I was 8 or 9 years old. Every single night, I would close that closet door because it always scared me. And every single morning it would be open. First thought was that I was sleepwalking or, you know, I had a lot of siblings, they were just playing pranks on me. So we put a lock on there, kind of the one you have to be, like, completely awake to use, like a lat to cook kind of lock. It's not just a simple lock. So we put that on there. And, you know, all my siblings were, like, sworn that they weren't going to do anything, et cetera, et cetera. So then we go about life as normal. We're sleeping, I'm sleeping, and it still begins to happen. So every morning, the closet door would open, the latch would be unhooked, and then after that, a couple times, not only would the latch be unhooked and the door would be open, but the attic would also be open.

Christian (60:29)

It's one of those ones where you

Miranda (60:30)

pull down and it's stairs that come out. So that became a little creepier. I thought maybe someone was in the attic or something was in the attic. So we had that checked out. It passed check, it was clear. Nothing suspicious up there. We didn't keep much up there, so it was pretty empty. So again, we just went about life is normal. And it happened a couple more times. And this time, not only was it unlocked open and the attic open, but the light was also on in the closet. So I kept adding one more step each time, which was a little weird. So my mom had the house blessed, but that didn't seem to really help anything. She had some metals that she blessed with holy water and put on the windowsills and all the entrances, but it still began to happen. So as I grew up, I kind of just got used to it. Little things would move around and I would feel weird, but I just never, you know, paid any attention to it because I was like, whatever. Nothing's going to change anyways. And then when I went to College. I shared a dorm room with three other girls. It was in a completely different state. It was in Missouri. And I was also the only one to ever experience any incidences in college. It would be things like the door locking on me when no one else is in there. And like I'm in there, so I'm on. The inside of the door was locked, so I had to unlock it to open it. Or things being misplaced, like something that was on my side of the room be on the other side of the room. There was a door across the hallway from us that was locked and nailed shut. But a few times when I was in the dorm room alone, it would creak open. And again, none of the other three girls there ever experienced anything or believed me when I talked about it. Then after that I got married to my husband and we moved to Arkansas and we moved into our first house together. The first thing that we noticed there is when we were moving in, every room was empty. Nothing was on the walls. We took a picture together and a greenish orb thing popped up in the back. That can't be explained because there's nothing behind us where we were taking that picture. Another thing that happened is we had one room in the house that was kind of like my office area solely for me. And our cat at the time refused to enter. It would never enter. He would just stand outside the door and just meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, but would never enter specifically. And then the craziest thing that ever happened in that house was my husband was up one night playing video games and we had this like, stuffed cat that was on top of the cat tower. The cat was with me in the locked room getting ready for bed. And Buck was nowhere near it. He was in his kennel and that stuffed cat just flew across the room. There was no windows open for air or wind. The AC wasn't blowing that hard. We didn't have a fan on, nothing like that. So nothing could really explain it. Just weird things like that kept happening. I'll skip ahead to the most recent incident here. We moved to a different house, still in Arkansas. K. Paul from running errands. Our dog was in the kennel. And our cat does not have the power to do this. But there was a pillow that's normally on our couch that was standing completely straight up in the middle of the living room kitchen area with nothing touching, wasn't like leaning on anything. It was completely straight again when placed there purposefully. Neither of us would have done that or remember even attempting to do that and don't know how it stayed there so perfectly without falling over because there's a simple throw pillow. So we thought that was interesting. But what I'm trying to get to with all these incidences is that throughout all these years it's always followed me specifically, and then my husband started experiencing

Miranda's Husband (64:09)

things too when we got married.

Miranda (64:11)

Also, it's never been anything evil or like anything that's trying to harm us or damage us in any way. So I just think it's weird that this entity, or spirit, whatever you want to call it, following us, but doesn't want to cause any harm. Any ideas?

Miranda's Husband (64:26)

Thank you.

Derek Hayes (64:29)

Thank you, Miranda. You know, maybe it's trying to communicate something to you, a message perhaps, maybe a request or possibly even a warning. So maybe you should try communicating with it, talk to it out loud, ask it questions, tell it things, see if you can get a response. And I'm reluctant to suggest too much more because I'm not an expert, really. I don't think that anyone is in this field. But also these entities all seem to react differently than one another. Advice that will work on one might not work on the other others. But I get your concern here, Miranda, and I can see why you would feel that it's following you. And as eerie is all that is, at least you seem to have a good attitude about it. So thank you again, Miranda for sharing your story. We appreciate you calling in and folks that's gonna do it for this episode. Monsters Among Us podcast is written and produced by me, Derek Hayes, copyright Red Grow Media. Additional support is provided by Sarah Carter Hayes, Delaney Bowers and Connor Ryan. All media used in this production is done so under the protection of fair use. Give us a like and follow on our social media accounts, join our Discord server and leave us a rate and review wherever you can do such a thing. And don't forget, you can catch the show every Saturday evening evening at 10pm Eastern on the Unex digital network. Just visit on xnetwork.com to tune in and tonight's score was provided by Iron Cthulhu, Apocalypse Co AG Music and Carl Casey at Whitebad Audio. Thank you so much for tuning in. Be sure to join us on Thursday. I'll be doing a another best of episode, an episode that might make you question your your best friend. But until then you keep it spooky and have a good night.

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Kelsey (67:17)

Are you really buying a car online on Autotrader right now?

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Derek Hayes (67:24)

You can really, really have it delivered

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or pick it up.

Kelsey (67:27)

Kid is walking up the slide.

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Really?

Kelsey (67:29)

Autotrader? Buy your car online? Really?

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